(Operation Game Collection) Dungeons and Dragons: Original Edition and Friends!

  Ah.  The original RPG.  The game whose inception can almost be credited with creating the "Adventure" Games market as we know it today.  (I call it Hobby Gaming but the other term works fine.)

  See back in the late 60s to early 70s a bunch of miniature wargames nerds in the midwest were making their tiny niche products and sharing and evolving them as best as they could with the technology and networking available for the time as opposed to our modern and more interconnected methods where an idea from Russia can be translated into English in hours and spread all over the place to be morphed into something else in Japanese ow what have you.

  Well some guys got together, smooshed miniature wargames together with a more freeform style of play and RPGs were born!  Dungeons and Dragons is (sadly) the Alpha and the Omega of it all, largely being the main RPG of the English speaking world for about as long as I have been alive.  (Almost 41 years now.  OH GOD I AM SO OLD WHY HAVE I WASTED MY LIFE ON DUMB NERD CRAP?!)

 (No Pathfinder's short run as king doesn't count because it is basically DnD 3.5 with a couple of tweaks.  Which is the only reason anyone cared about it.  DnD players seem to have issues playing anything other than DnD ruleset RPG Fantasy genre games.  Only a massive departure like 4th edition, the previous publisher (TSR) being shut down for a year, or Games Workshop levels of customer abuse seem to make the game take any form of noticeable hit in popularity, most of which is short lived.)

So, let's see what old books full of rusting staples I have for the first RPG as we know it?

(As is my wont, feel free to click most images for a larger one.)

 It took me many moons to get my "White Box" reprint set from the late 70s-whenever they stopped printing them in the 80s for a sub 100 dollar price but I eventually got it for like 50 bucks shipped.  It merely looks like the box got ran over multiple times.

 And what you got inside of the box!  Three softback stapled books and a set of reference sheets.  So even as early as 1974 we were getting cool box sets full of goodies and books in conveniently digestible booklets as opposed to these terrible monster coffee table books we have now.  

(To be fair the Iron Kingdoms core rulebooks could probably knock someone the hell out if swung hard enough...)

 And this is what the books looked like inside.  As we generally know, the rules don't make a whole lot of sense and all but require house ruling, made worse given how few examples there are in the booklets.  Not ugly in general though.

 Well ok, the art is mostly AWFUL inside these things.  But keep that last statement next to the swordy man.  We shall see it again in this post.

 If you want a retro laugh, here is the price TSR had for things in the mid-late 70s.  Given that no ADnD books are listed this is a 1976-early 77 price list.  For inflation fun purposes as of this writing One 1977 dollar is worth 3.85.  While I do not completely agree with inflation dealies like this, it gives one a ROUGH idea of things.  So a 10 dollar set then is worth 38 bucks or so now.  Which is kind of close I guess?  But a comic book at that timeframe was about 40 cents then, or worth 1.55 now.  As opposed to how much most comic books cost now which is FOUR DOLLARS.  Yeah.  Inflation is kind of a troublesome thing.  You can't just say WELL IT WAS  X DOLLARS THEN AND SHOULD STAY THE SAME NOW but you can't go the other way either.

 The sheets have lots of the charts you would want in a suite of loose sheets inside.  

 But unlike today where expansion products are designed to be bought for your game whether tabletop or electronic from the start and nigh unusable without them, back then they were merely cool options and add ons.  Much of what would become standard core elements of DnD long term first appeared in these books, more Greyhawk than Blackmoor.  

And yet even the Thief in Greyhawk is whined about by some idiot purists as being where DnD went off the rails.  I will talk about that later in the post..

 One of the first published adventures for DnD was in Blackmoor!  The legendary Temple of the Frog which is closer to what many JRPGs on consoles do (as well as oldschool Ultima) where both Sci Fi and Fantasy were combined and worked together as opposed to the more stringent division so many nerds seem to insist on nowadays.

Because nerds are dumb.

 And the next two supplements!  Eldritch Wizardry is a collection of more epic stuff for the game.  I have the little censor thing there because while you don't actually see any nipples on this picture THAT WAS DRAWN BY A WOMAN BY ALL REPORTS some people now as back then were rather puritan and OMG TEH CHILDRENS about it all.  To be fair I don't much see the point of the image being there but nerds gonna nerd I guess.  

Swords & Spells was basically a replacement for Chainmail which was the set of miniatures wargame rules Mr. Gygax and Perrin had made that was one of the initial default combat rulesets for DnD now that they discovered not too many people were using Chainmail for their DnD games or miniatures period!

(I also do not have the fourth supplement to Original DnD as it tends to go for much more than I want to spend for a mere historical artifact I have no real desire to actually PLAY GAMES WITH.  And a semi recent deluxe ODnD rerelease WOTC did?  Yeah I wasn't paying that when I am merely missing one book, awesome box or not!)

(I would also be remiss as to say I am missing an Avalon Hill boardgame that honestly serves no real purpose other than being a map board DMs could use to run overland campaigns on.  Which is a cheap thing to buy but.. I am not sure I really WANT it, you know?)

 Eldritch Wizardry added in some now legendary magical artifacts.

 Swords & Wizardry is merely only worth getting for the really cute art in it, with the images basically being miniature models on their bases getting up to adorably amusing shenanigans.

But as the game spread throughout the English speaking world the mixture of semi amateur level writing and the sheer oddness of this new game would cause it to not just be people teaching it to others and sticking more or less to the styles of play the creators intended.  People who simply weren't into Adventure Gaming would start picking it up and trying to self teach it to themselves and then their friends.  And like the Telephone Game things would be "Lost in Translation".  So an educator named Holmes would convince TSR to let him make a set of starter rules to ease folks in.  (Again something that would basically become a fixture in the market.)

 The very first Basic Set!  This rulebook, dice, and tutorial adventure would help to introduce unconnected and antisocial nerds of the mid-late 70s how to play this weird new game!

 The hobby and industry was in fact so new that TSR couldn't even source enough of the funny dice people would need back then so they made chits you cut out and drew out of a cup to get you by!

 And even Gary Gygax got into the tutorial scheme with The Keep on the Borderlands which is a now legendary adventure module.

 The main book looks VERY similar to the design of the then in development ADnD and in fact is some weird hybrid of Original and Advanced, kind of ending up as it's own thing.

 Obviously things are evolving and the company is becoming more and more professional.

 You can see in this edition of the module it is full of things of use and help for a beginning RPG player, even including some explanations of odd terminology most people wouldn't know back then or now!  And plenty of reference material and advice through the book to help you understand how to do this game stuff.

 LOOK AT THAT FAT WIDDLE STIRGEY-WIRGEY!!  WHOSE DA FATTEST BWOOD SUCKA?  IS IT YOU?  YES IT IS!!  :3   Anyhow, you can tell this is the Holmes edit version by the stat lines you can see as in entry 64.  This module will show up again when BX/BECMI DnD would be born in the early 80s.  But that is a tale for another time..

Now we must get into a hot topic.  THE OSR which stands for Old School Renaissance/Revival.  With 3rd edition and later 4th changing much of what the Original through 2nd edition DnD rulesets had as sacred cows, these aging people who refused to move on now had access to each other through the Internet.  Add in the Open Game License which gave people the ability (with limits) to basically redo and rebuild early DnD and modern advances in desktop publishing and we had a storm of people both reviving, adding to, and enhancing the editions they preferred as they formed communities dedicated to it.

 This has lead to things like fans making free fanzines and enhancements like this small one designed to expand the Holmes Basic set into a fuller featured RPG that doesn't really require anything else for those who have decided HOLMES EDIT IS MY GAME AND THE ONE TRUE D UND DEE and want to just run it and not really go beyond.

You see, this is one thing with the OSR.  Many of them sadly have their heads shoved firmly up their own asses, insisting whatever version of DnD they grew up with is the only good one.  This has lead to such inane things as the dismissal of even the Greyhawk supplement for Original DnD, or anger over the BECMI DnD over the BX one even if they are 95% exactly the same in rules and charts.

It gets even more absurd with AD&D and 2nd edition.  This is why people keep getting into smaller and smaller niches of Internet Echo Chambers where they just encourage more "partisan" forms of thought.  And I REALLY need to cover this sort of partisan thinking on consumer products in a post all to itself.  So let's just say people like to get a bit too invested in a memory that is probably not even entirely real.

But for our purposes, ODnD got it's own rather well regarded rewrite called Swords & Wizardry.  Being three formats with varying levels of adherence to the ODnD rulebooks and expansions, it makes the original books both unnecessary but even allows people to play for FREE.  And thanks to Print on Demand services like Lulu you can have reasonably priced physical copies!

 I have more properly covered Ruins & Ronin a few years ago here: http://wargamedork.blogspot.com/2010/01/review-corner-rpg-review-of-ruins-ronin.html and a bit more about Swords & Wizardry here:  http://wargamedork.blogspot.com/2009/04/retroclones-primer-and-swords-and.html  .

Sadly I never did get the game beyond that one play session and the RPGsite became such a miserable and hateful place I have left it far behind.

For a free or inexpensively purchased physical product, Swords & Wizardry looks quite good.  I actually printed out the entire rulebook.  Of course as these ongoing projects tend to do, things have been updated and improved which almost makes buying a physical version or wasting ink and paper printing them out kind of pointless.  Luckily modern portable phones and tablets are fantastic for holding PDFs to read and use on the go.  (And laptops of course.)

 There are even a lot of great fanzines you can either download for free or buy such as this one, Knockspell!

 Knockspell is more or less for ODnD primarily, while the other big paid fanzine

 Fight On! (Told you that would come back!) is more ADnD focused but still heavily supporting the original.  Fight On! has far more issues out than Knockspell and even will release massive collated editions like the first four issues combined into that one massive book to the left.  

 Again, our modern technology makes these fan driven projects look better than even the pro ones they were inspired by.

Yet the best thing is not merely when fans remake the old rules as an excuse to shove in their house rules or make them as a way to rationalize releasing new adventures and support material for sale.

(Some claim it is because the older books are difficult or expensive to find which is honestly incorrect.  Between RPGNow/DrivethruRPG, Ebay, and WOTC's own reprints only the ODnD we are covering here is expensive to acquire in some legitimate form.)

Some folks take the OGL and make all new games, like one of my favorites:

 X-Plorers is basically retro DnD but Sci Fi oriented and with some modern touches to make it FUN.  Sadly it never seemed to take off and just got spread from publisher to publisher and mostly just farted out.

 See?  All one really needs for a quick and fun Sci Fi RPG!  It works so well I made some posts allowing you to use it instead of more complicated and boring RPGs like Mechwarrior or Prime Directive or Gurps.

If you want to see more about it and some of what I came up with:  http://wargamedork.blogspot.com/2010/01/review-corner-review-of-rpg-x-plorers.html

 http://wargamedork.blogspot.com/2010/01/x-plorers-rules-by-me-for-you.html

This ought to give you something to go on.  (I had quite a few early 2010 X Plorers posts but I think those two links are enough to start you on your path!)

  So there we go!  My Original 1974 White Box/LBB DnD collection!  Eventually I will get those two final products I mentioned above and more of those fanzines but I am mostly set!  I have the Dragon Magazine Archive CDs somewhere around here which is full of support material for early DnD and the RPG download site I mentioned above sells some of the third party support material as well such as that from Judges' Guild.

  But....  ODnD really isn't my jam.  I like it for being fast, light, and flexible but it is too confused and scattershot, plus it not being the system of my rose tinted nostalgia goggles.

  Whenever I move on to the next DnD Game Collection post I might cover it eh?

Endless Wars: A Retrofuture RPG Setting for X-Plorers

Ok kids, here is the deal.  I have been desperately searching for some sort of game to run.  Many people on  the IRC channel I frequent ( #tinypewtermen on irc.synirc.net ) have lamented not being able to get into some sort of game.

Well I figured why think about it and just DO IT?  I made an offer to run a game, and gave a basic idea of a campaign using a freely available rules light ruleset.  As my reviews have mentioned I quite like X-Plorers, which is basically Swords and Wizardry meets Tunnels & Trolls in a Sci Fi setting.

And this lead to my ideas of a campaign using one of the settings in my head getting suggested.  Almost everyone liked the idea of it, and lots of really good questions were asked, filling in some holes this setting never had filled.

So this blogpost will be an evolving setting background document since it does take place on an alternate history Earth where World War 2 ran for almost another 30 years.

Yes I could postcount ++ this with ever new posts, but it will be much easier if I use one singular posting for the general world setting and background.  Other posts may cover house rules and the required background rules for the specific adventure I have in mind.

If there are historical inaccuracies feel free to tell me so I can fix it, or just apologize for the error.


An Age of Endless War

It was World War 2.  One of the bloodiest conflicts known to man.  Plans were afoot to bring an end to what was approaching a decade of war for some nations.

These plans were stopped.  In Europe the German army took far longer to be pushed out of Russia, Stalingrad becoming a nearly yearlong fight.  D-Day wasn't half as successful as planned, with Rommel himself being in active and direct command.  The Allies gained a beachead but it was a bloody and horrific one, almost not worth the cost.

On the Pacific front, Japan's miniature submarines launched sneak attacks on the west coast, even inflicting bioweapons on major cities.  These attacks were merely cover for deep insertion teams to disable US nuclear research.  The Atom bomb was prevented from being birthed, but the teams never made it out alive.

It wouldn't be until 1947 that Germany would fall, as a Zhukov lead coalition in the USSR finally tired of Stalin's madness against even his own people and soldiers, putting him to hang for his crimes, and a more idealistic form of Communism taking its place.  The now renewed in spirit Russian armies pushed hard in the east, and this gave the western Allies the break they needed to finally break out of France and fight their way to end the Third Reich.

Yet the victory only lead to Germany becoming a wasteland.  The western and eastern allies could not agree on what to do there, and by Spring 1948 the newly formed Collectivist Bloc declared official war against the western allies yet still fought against Japan in the east, sometimes leading to battles where the United States, the Collectivist Bloc, and the Imperial Japanese were all fighting for the same land, a whirlwind of madness in the name of "liberating" nations.

To hold shattered nations together against the Bloc, the western European nations combined into one singular country, the previous counties becoming member states to fight as one united force.

Over the nearly 3 decades the nearly endless war exhausted both economies and the people, with most teenagers forgoing a high school education for a military one, the average age of most combatants being 18 by the mid 1960s.

Anyone attempting to pursue nuclear technology found their efforts stymied by both enemy nations, and another mysterious group.

This group, the "Children of the New Age" would be formed from the disgust with endless war and suffering.  While many nations and their war weary citizens wanted the war to end, bitter hatreds and never healed wounds for entire generations  just wouldn't let anyone make the first gestures, even if each new battle slowly strangled each country to death.

These Children were founded by a secretive wealthy foundation made up of the best scientific and philosophical minds the world had to offer, not caring about what nationality they came from.  Enlisting idealistic soldiers from many countries, this group engaged in both combat and other means to finally bring the war to an end.

In 1975, World War 2 officially came to the end, with the 4 major political warring powers (The North American Alliance, the Western European Republic, the Collectivist Bloc, and the Imperial Asian Prosperity Sphere) signing peace treaties.

But 3 generations fighting war just don't end things overnight.  Politicians still have power to gain from old hates.  Entire generations even though they were socially still decades behind where they might have been otherwise had memories that couldn't just be erased.  Scientists still continue to develop weapons of war, and research the constantly derailed nuclear option.

It is 1982.  The world economy is slowly coming back on track, civilian technologies are coming into play.  But the world is on a razor's edge, easily capable of sliding back into war.

(Coming soon: The nations of the world)

X-VertorFormBots: Sentient Transforming Robots in X-Plorers

If we look at my existing rules, I am pretty much 90% there to use X-Plorers to run your favorite transforming robot series.

We just need to add a few more rules.  (You will need to refer to the previous 4 rule additions I did.)

Character Generation:
Do your normal 3d6/4d6 take 3 highest rolls as usual.  Then generate a Mecha of the size you choose, with Medium size being default.  For our purposes your character IS the Mecha so do not roll for HP.  Just add 1 HP to the Mecha, plus any bonus/penalty for Physique.

All sentient Mecha characters are considered to be permanently part of their machines and as such are considered to have the "Cybernetic Interface" mentioned in the first part of my house rules.

Super Light PCs are considered to be Armor and thus a Transformation Gear only costs 2 System Points.

Level Advancement: At each level your character gains 1 HP, plus any Physique bonuses/penalties.  Every odd level (1, 3, 5, 7, and 9) your character gains 1 extra System or Weapon point.

Being a multiple mode conversion Mecha simply costs 1/2 the cost of a Transformation Gear for every new form chosen.

Some advice on transformation: No matter what your Mecha turns into, your statline is based on your Mecha form, though certain attributes will change temporarily in your new form as follows, ignoring any boosts/reductions in your original form's creation, but modified by System Point upgrades:

Physique: Stays as Mecha form.
Agility: Goes to default Vehicle.
HP: Stays as Mecha form.
AC: Goes to default Vehicle.
Speed: Goes to default Vehicle.
System Points: Ignored.  You already spent the things!
Weapon Points: Weapons stay the same as on Mecha, but have new locations.  (Option: Extra WP can be earned in the new form via weapon placements and such so that a weapon in Mecha form that only does 2d6 damage may be hull mounted in Vehicle form and gain extra damage or range or whatnot.  It would explain why in Transformers: The Movie, Galvatron turned into his Gun Tank mode before shooting Starscream.  He did more damage as the weapon was hull mounted!)

If turning into things like Helicopters, Jets, Large Angry Dinosaurs the correct System Point options will have to be spent for those forms as well as taking the Transformation Gear.

Options to actually encourage people to play Light and Superlights:  They have a 10% xp gain bonus given their small size means they are risking more than their larger buddies.  Also, Heavies and Superheavies have a 10% xp gain penalty as they aren't risking as much, and it takes more effort to maintain the fuel costs of such large machines.

Combining:  A Combination Gear is a 2 System Point upgrade (1 for Light and Superlights) that allows any number of machines (prebuild this unless you are doing some anime campaign where new things are introduced to constantly up the ante...) can combine into one larger robot.  It takes 2 Vehicle Scale turns to combine, and units should be within their Speed range of at least one member of their team.

A Presence saving roll is needed to initiate combination with all components (if sentient. Something like GaoGaiGar which is one robot and 3 AI machines that are just slave units just needs the sentient machines.) to combine.

Damage to the combined unit is divvied roughly equally between components when hit. When a component has taken 25%, 50%, and 75% damage another Presence roll is required to keep it together.  If one unit fails, the whole machine falls apart.

Combined unit's AC is 2nd highest AC of the components, +1 for every additional component. 

Physique is the same as AC, as is Agility, but AGI goes DOWN as it just keeps getting too darn big to be nimble.

Intelligence  and Presence requires another group Presence roll, and if everyone passes use the highest INT of the components, if even one fails, use the LOWEST for each category.


Speed is the same as a default Superheavy Mecha.  

Count the size points of the combined unit. (With Superlight being 1 point, and Superheavy 5.) If the points are 9 or higher the combined unit is counted as a Starship scale machine while combined. (Which means its getting serious bonuses against the Vehicle and Personal Scale units.)  However it's Speed and weapons ranges are still in Vehicle scale, though it does move and act in Space scale.

How does that sound so far?

If this looks good all I need is to add in rules for super weapons for combined units, a "Slave AI 1-3" thing for AI controlled components and we have ourselves a rules light giant sentient robots/anime mecha game to go along with the existing rules I have done to tech up X-P!


(Rest of combining rules go here soon!)

As we can see most of our favorite robots can now be created, though some really won't come into their own until they level up enough to have the System Points to do everything they want.

Take that classic combining robot made out of 6 construction vehicles.  They are medium to heavy machines which means they need 6 System Points just to have a Vehicle mode and their Combined mode.  This is leaving out any personal upgrades they might want or any high powered weapon systems.

But the risks could be worth it.  From 6 guys to one giant beast considered to be a Space scale machine with +5 to its AC, +5 PHY,  and the potential for spare WP/SP to be used for absolutely MASSIVE weapons only such a fearsome machine can carry!

X-Plorers Mecha and Vehicle Rules Construction Example 1

Well, let's put my work into action!

Remember this vehicle of mine, a siege tank for a very popular GRIMDARK sci fi combat game?




(Its the one on the right!)


I think we can get it really close, which using my rules is the whole point. To get something "close enough" as opposed to tons of detail and all.


I first need to figure out the size. If we are using your usual 25-32mm scale minis the tank looks like a Heavy Vehicle with the following statline:


Unit Size            Physique    Agility     HP      AC     Speed   System Points   Weapon P.
Heavy                         16                 12           25        18         14                      5                         5


Well if we remember our game fluff, the tank has a short range (roughly 48 meter) big blast anti tank/anti fortification cannon with options for a pintle mounted anti infantry gun of the same range, and the big bulldozer on the front.


Its a pretty simple machine, rugged but not super rugged.  I spend 3 System Points to give it 3 point "Improved Construction Systems" which gives it +5 HP per point spent, or 15 extra HP.


I spend 2 more for "Improved Defensive Systems" for +1 AC per point, or +2 AC.  


I am pretty happy with the core statline otherwise so I don't mess with lowering anything to gain more points for anything.  The tank is a normal speed machine.


Our current statline is now:


Unit Size            Physique    Agility     HP      AC     Speed   System Points   Weapon P.
Heavy                         16                 12           40        20         14                      5                         5


Now its time for the main cannon, and hopefully some points for the Bulldozer Blade and the pintle mounted anti infantry gun.


To remind us, here is the main stats of a "Direct Fire" weapon, what our main gun is:


 Damage      Accuracy(To Hit Bonus)    Range(In Meters)     Ammunition   
 1d6 / 1d6                      0 / + -1                                 200 / 50                        25 /  5


That's 1 Weapon Point.  I decide to get the range close to the original game its from, but 50 meters is kind of too small so I only drop it to a 100 meter range weapon, giving us 2 points of WP.  I decide to use 3 of my 5 total WP for the main gun, so I have 4 WPs on this one weapon left to play with as it always costs at least 1 WP regardless of downgrades.    I spend all 4 on Damage upgrades to bring the weapon to a nasty 5d6 damage.  But this cannon is supposed to be REALLY tough, so I drop the Ammunition down to 20 shots which gives me another WP and I raise Damage another point to 6d6.


The weapon does a big blast so I sigh and drop Ammunition 2 more points bringing it down to 10 shots, but it now has a 2 point "Blast" attribute.


Since the gun is hull mounted and not on a turret as you can see, I make it front mounted and gain 2 more WP.  I raise the damage 2 more points to a BRUTAL 8d6.


So our big gun now looks like this:


Damage      Accuracy(To Hit Bonus)    Range(In Meters)   Ammunition     Special   
     8d6                               0                                          100                                 10             Large Blast
                                                                                                                                               45 Front arc


  On average each hit will do 28 HP in damage to tanks, or a massive 70 to poor infantry.  That's pretty devastating and pretty close to how it works in its parent game.


I use 1 more WP for a pair of anti infantry guns with a 360 fire arc.  I choose a pair of Automatic Rifles from the X-Plorers rulebook.  (Yeah I could use good or bad X-P personnel weapons, but other than in game money, it doesn't much matter.  This a GM system and GMs can approve or disapprove of any design for whatever reason they want.  In this case the Automatic Rifle is pretty close to the source material so I go with it.)


My final WP is spent to give the tank a front mounted shield, improving its AC to 21, which is pretty good.


So our final machine looks like this:


Unit Size            Physique    Agility     HP      AC     Speed  
Heavy                         16                 12           40        21         14              


Weapons: Bulldozer Shield on the front, 360 mount twin linked Automatic Rifle, 
Siege Cannon:        

Damage      Accuracy(To Hit Bonus)    Range(In Meters)   Ammunition     Special   
     8d6                               0                                          100                                 10             Large Blast

                                                                                                                                               45 Front arc

Now that we have made this tank, next time I will create a Mecha.

x-Plorers Mecha and Vehicle Rules Part 3 of 3

Well, let's finish this thing!

(New stuff update on Feb 10.  I forgot shields!  Another update on 11 Feb to fix something I missed.)

I will be going back to add in more nifty stuff to our Special Equipment list, this is the last core bit that needs to be done and you too can have some nice rules light generic sci fi mecha and tank rules.

As previously mentioned, Vehicles and Mecha have Weapon Points.  These WPs are generic and not really meant to get into massive detail.  We really don't care much about exactly how many guns or missiles get fired.

The basic setup for a WP weapon is this:  A WP is the cost assumed for an arm & torso (mecha) or turret/sponson mounted weapon that has access to an internal ammunition supply which can run out.  Reducing or improving factors such as Accuracy, Damage, Range, Ammunition, Special Effects (see the first part of my house rules!), and fire arcs can make the weapon cost more or less, but NEVER lower than 1.

With this system you can have high damage but short range siege cannons, hand carried type close combat weapons a mecha can throw down to get into fisticuffs if needed, or anything else.

Like much of my house rules, some GM fiat and a bit of imagination is required to make it all go down smoothly.  This isn't megadetail.  If you want that I recommend GURPS Vehicles.  (Bring a graphing calculator.)

For our purposes there are three weapon types to choose from.
Direct Fire:  Your rifles, cannons, laser beams and other point and shoot type weapons.
Missile:  Rocket propelled death in handy single or multiple missile fun.
Close Combat:  Mainly on Mecha, these are usually low to no ammunition expenditure weapons allowing you to rip things up in a more "civilized" way.  If you mean stabbing a tank with a 1 ton blade is civilized.  I suppose the lack of collateral damage is nice though...

Here is the handy core chart showing what the 1 Weapon Point version of each system costs, plus the costs/bonuses of up and downgrades:
(The #/# tells us what the default is, and the second number is the 1 WP cost/bonus level for downgrading or upgrading. The second number also shows the minimum this can be brought down to outside of Accuracy which can go as low as you want.)

                              Direct Fire Costs
 Damage      Accuracy(To Hit Bonus)    Range(In Meters)     Ammunition   
1d6 / 1d6                      0 / + -1                            200 / 50                  25 /  5

                               Missile Fire Costs
Damage      Accuracy(To Hit Bonus)    Range(In Meters)     Ammunition   
3d3 / 1d3                      0 / + -1                            300 / 50                  10 /  3

                            Close Combat Costs
Damage      Accuracy(To Hit Bonus)    Range(In Meters)     Ammunition   
1d6 / 1d3                     0 / +1-1                              4 / 1                    Unlimited

Special WP Costs:
Mecha Weapons:  A Mecha Direct or Missile Fire weapon made "Hand Held" can be picked up and dropped in exchange for 1 WP.  However it ONLY holds half the ammunition listed (round DOWN).

Vehicle Weapons: A Vehicle Direct or Missile Fire weapon made "Side Sponson" loses its 360 fire arc to a 180 and gains 1 WP.  Or it can only have a 45 arc in whatever direction the weapon is considered to be mounted in as a "Hull Mounted" weapon for 2.

Special Weapon Abilities: The list seen in the original set of X-Plorers house rules by me: X-Plorers Rules By Me For You! each cost a WP to add, except for Neo-Beam, and Anti-Ship which all cost 2 WP instead.  Ordnance costs a point per size.  (1 for Small, 2 for Medium, 3 for Large) Twin Linked costs 1 for the system and not per gun.

Close Combat Weapons: Close Combat Weapons use the Pilot's modified Physique attribute as a base to hit & damage as it is a Close Combat attack.  The Range effect counts for the size and reach of the weapon.  For Mecha the CCW can be made "Hand Held" for a 1 WP bonus, though it becomes a 1d3 Damage base weapon instead.  HOWEVER, if the "Hand Held" weapon is held in BOTH hands (meaning you aren't spending WP on the second hand at all!) it becomes a 2D3+1 Damage weapon.

Now to give an example of making a weapon:  We are making weapons for a Medium Tank.  Its got 4 Weapon Points.  Now I would like to make the guns for my Warhammer 40,000 "Predator" tank.  The model I have has 2 side sponson Laser Cannons, and 2 more turret mounted ones.  At base, we know that the 2 turret mounted guns would give us 2 extra WPs to spend, but the 2 turret mounted ones would cost a WP to be Twin Linked.  In the game it comes from, Laser Cannons are super heavy anti tank weapons with a very long range.  (Though in 40K's game case, its a measly 48", or 96 meters.)

1d6 damage isn't gonna cut it!  I decide to drop each gun's range by 50 meters, making them still longer range then what it has in its home game.  To my knowledge they never listed ammo requirements for the guns, but I decide they will also have 5 less ammo.  I decide not to do any more tinkering, but do choose to upgrade each gun now.

Let's look at what this does to the 2 sponson guns first.  Each gun costs 1 WP.  Dropping to a 180 side sponson makes it 0 WP (which is illegal to BUILD the gun, but its not finished yet!).  Dropping Range and Ammunition by 1 each makes it -2.  I take the 3 points I got and raise the gun's damage to a nasty 4d6.  So a 4d6 Damage gun with no Accuracy bonus and a 150 Meter Range (a nice 75" tabletop range for model based fighting), with 20 shots of ammo costs 1 WP of the 4 my tank has available.

So the 2 sponson guns are done, but now our turret mounted guns have a problem.  As it stands we will have to either make the 2 guns lesser in damage, or give them less ammunition.  I choose the latter, so the turret guns only have 15 shots each.  Now if I want to keep that sweet Twin Linked action I am going to have to go back to my currently designed tank and drop something so I can get an extra Weapons Point.

Shields:   Something many Mecha can carry are shields.  Some are made of metal, others are an electronic form, but either way they give machines a bit of a defensive edge against the more heavily armed tanks they are designed to take out.

Shields can be purchased with either System and/or Weapon points.  Depending on the points spent, the shield may or may not effect any other weapons in the arm(s) equipped.

For each SP or WP spent (up to 5 maximum), the unit gains +1 AC.  1-2 AC shields do not affect a Mecha's ability to use arm or hand weapons with the shield.  3 AC shields penalize weapons in that arm with a -1 To Hit, 4 AC a -2, and 5 AC shields do not allow the arm to use any weapon whatsoever.

Option:  Vehicles may choose to mount a shield on a facing of the tank as well with the same penalties as above.  (Its considered to be things like Bulldozer blades and reinforced armor as opposed to an actual shield.)

And that's it!  Now we have ourselves a nice generic system to make big smashy tanks and robots!

I hope everyone has enjoyed it and can put it into play!

I would like to recommend that any and all designs made using my rules are done by the GM for the campaign he or she is running, or if you allow players to make their own rides and the guns they carry, that you approve them.

Like any point based system, there is always some way one can make an unfairly broken bit of equipment.

X-Plorers Mecha and Vehicle Rules Part 2 of 3

As promised its time for those Mecha and Vehicle rules.  (Though I may not do Psionics now that the game's creators have made their own official ones.  Or it may be in an "Anime" style X Plorers house ruleset from me at a later date.

(UPDATED 3 FEB)

The foundations of both Vehicles and Mecha is this:  There are 5 sizes of each that roughly correspond with each other, using the vehicles in parenthesis as a rough guide to size.
Super Light (Motorcycles)
Light (Automobiles)
Medium (Armored Personnel Carriers)
Heavy (Light Tanks)
Super Heavy (Main Battle Tanks)

It is my thoughts that if there ever are actual combat mecha they won't be of the massive size we see in cartoons and most current mecha hobby games.  They will largely be closer to powered armor, capable of going where tanks can't go, and being more agile.  If your campaign wants BIG ROBOTS, just change the scale of what each is.

Both Vehicles and Mecha have a number of attributes, their own Physique and Agility scores which in Mecha's case are ADDED to that of the pilot's, their Hit (or Hull) Points, their Armor Class which is modified by their Agility score, their Speed which is how fast they move in their Vehicle scale movement phase, their System Points for special equipment, and Weapon Points for how many weapons they can carry.

Look at the chart and meet me at the bottom of it in 5:
(The 2 numbers correspond to Vehicle then Mecha)
(For Physique and Agility scores mentioned for Mecha, a Cybernetic Port increases PHY by 1 and reduces AGI penalties by 1.)
(Mecha Weapon Points list anywhere and arm mounted ones which are either held or replace a normal manipulator arm.)
Unit Size            Physique    Agility     HP      AC     Speed   System Points   Weapon Points
Super Light           12/+3         18/-2      10/5    12/16     20/8                2                    2/0 2 Arm
Light                     14/+5         16/-3      15/9    14/18     18/7                3                    3/1 2 Arm
Medium                15/+7         14/-4     20/13   16/20     16/6                4                    4/2 2 Arm
Heavy                   16/+9         12/-5     25/17   18/22     14/5                5                    5/3 2 Arm
Super Heavy         17/+11       10/-6    30/21    20/24     13/4               6                    6/4  2 Arm

Optional: If a unit wants more System Points or Weapon Points it may DOWNGRADE to a lower level PHY, HP, AC, System, or Weapon Points.   Per level dropped the unit gains 1 additional System/Weapon Point.  No more than 3 downgrades may be done, and a unit can reduce its ratings in these categories down to Super Light if they wish.  Speed may be lowered to the next level as well but only upwards. (Like a Medium tank may wish to be just a really big infantry carrier.  Its already using 3 of its System Points but wants to carry a 9 man squad.  So its designer drops its Physique by 2, and its Weapon Points by 1, making it a Super Light for Physique, and a Light for Weapon Points.  This gives it the 3 System Points it needs to take a 4 point Passenger Compartment.)  (For speed a Super Light may want more WP so it could give itself Medium Vehicle speed (16 instead of 20 for a Super Light) and gain 2 Weapon or System Points.

Explaining the categories:

Physique:  This does not affect the unit's HP in any way, but is used for purposes of close combat damage, usually by ramming in a Vehicle's case.  For Mecha, it is added to the pilot's for the same purposes, but its total PHY score determines its Vehicle scale damage in close combat.  (A burly guy is more manly and thus his awesomeness affects how he can punch through a tank.)

Agility:  This does not affect the unit's AC in any way, but is a rough indicator of its maneuverability and such.  However for Mecha it DOES affect the overall AC.

HP:  The unit's Hit (or Hull) points needed to wreck the vehicle.  For Mecha the machine is still active, but the pilot is then exposed and can be killed.  (Pilot HP is still considered Personal Scale.)  A Vehicle or Mecha may be repaired unless it takes double its total HP when it is then destroyed with no chance of repair.

AC: The unit's armor class.  This takes in account the size and construction of the machine, though remember a Mecha may be penalized if its pilot's effective AGI is low enough.

Option: The AC for the sides of a Vehicle may be considered to be 2 lower, and 4 lower on the rear, and
Mecha may deal with whatever facing AC penalties the group uses in normal X Plorers combat.

Speed: The unit's normal movement rate during a Vehicle scale movement action.  Vehicles and Mecha CAN go flat out and move double speed like a Personal scale "run" type double move.

System Points:  As previously mentioned, System Points let you equip a unit with various upgrades to
improve its performance.

Weapon Points:  Similar to System Points, but is the number of weapon systems a unit can carry. 1 WP is equal to a 1D6 Super Light Weapon System (More detail in the final part!) or 2 Twin Linked Personal Scale weapons.  For Mecha, you may have Arm Mounted weapons that are either carried or replace a normal humanoid hand arm.  Hand carried weapons must have their own ammunition source unless they are a close combat weapon.

Other than this, Vehicles and Mecha fight out just like a normal X Plorers unit, though in this case they are in the Vehicle Scale as opposed to X Plorers' Personal.

Some readers may wonder why the HP is so low for the machines, yet a Super Heavy Tank can carry a 5d6 gun.  Well, have you read many war reports, or watched many Sci Fi shows?  Most of the time machines are killed with 1 or 2 hits from an equivalent sized gun.  Even the M1 Abrams could be taken out by a man carried LAW with a little luck from the firing team.  If a game group wants more Battletech or Palladium styled units double or triple the HP (and remember to do so to any System Point upgrades too!) and you will have more durable drawn out fights with machines.

I also am considering most Vehicles to only require 1 or 2 crew to control, and all mecha to be single pilot controlled.  GMs and their game groups may choose to put more detail in.

Well, all we have left to do is a nice weapons construction chart and my Mecha and Vehicle ruleset is done!

X-Plorers Mecha and Vehicle Rules Part 1 of 3

Ok folks!  I gave y'all the foundations of my X-Plorers mechanical stuff in a previous posting: http://wargamedork.blogspot.com/2010/01/x-plorers-rules-by-me-for-you.html which gave you the skinny on the new weapon attributes, combat scaling, and how such things work together.

(UPDATED FEB 10 WITH NEW GEAR!)

For a quick refresher I will list some of it here.
We now have 3 scales of combat.  Personal, Vehicle, and Starship.  All scales have an action that takes place together, though the smaller scale gets 2 actions for every 1 of the higher, or 2 Personal to every 1 Vehicle, and 2 Vehicle (or 4 Personal) to every 1 Starship.  Units shooting at a smaller scale unit ignore 4 points of physical Armor class and do triple their normal damage, maximum possible rolled on a 20.  Likewise shooting at a target on a higher scale gives the target +4 AC, and damage is a measly 1 point unless a 20 is rolled to hit which then means you roll for damage as normal.

This is presuming that bigger targets really aren't aiming DIRECTLY at the smaller ones but more in their general direction, and that smaller ones can hit exposed components or luck out and get that super effective shot that otherwise wouldn't affect the bigger thing much at all.

Yes this does mean enough guys with baseball bats can possibly take out a tank.  Its just not really likely.  Mostly because our tank has bigger guns and is much harder to even hurt.

Take the Fighter on page 25 of X-Plorers.  It only has 5 HP and an AC of 10, and does a measly D6 damage.  Against a ground target its got AC 14 not counting things like range and speed, and is doing 3d6.  Most attacks back are only doing 1 point of damage.

Now there is the AV/AS weapon systems.  These allow for smaller scale units to get weapons that are designed to handle the next higher scale, but also have the same firing rate and the inability to move when firing, outside of Close Combat AV/AS which can be used on the move and every round of the lower scale, but lose the to hit benefits of hitting the smaller scale targets.

Ok, now that we have done a quick recap, its on to 2 new armor suits and some Vehicles!

Powered Armor:  A staple of Sci Fi, Powered Armor is the first step in mechanical combat before actual AFVs. (Armored Fighting Vehicles)  Powered Armor costs 2400 credits, and provides the wearer not only an AC 18, but 5 extra HPs.  Powered Armor provides a normal wearer +1 Physique and Agility (Ignore any HP bonus from this), and for characters with cybernetic ports, +2 instead.  HP damage from the armor is taken first, and even if taken to 0 does not effect the armor's use, though it may reduce its environmental protection effects at the GM's discretion.

These suits are  mostly sealed from the environment and provide a +2 to any sort of Saving Throw that full environmental protection could be used for.  Flash grenades, poison gas, flamethrowers, the vacuum of space, ect.  These suits also have 1 System Point for equipment.  (See below.)

Examples of Powered Armor include the armored suits from the Starship Troopers and Forever War novels, the Marine armors in Warhammer 40,000, and the bio armor in Guyver.


Overlord Armor:  Overlord Armor is sometimes considered to be a Super Light Mecha due to its capabilities and effects on the battlefield.  From being the front line of starship boarding actions to being a tank hunter this suit is more like a micro tank than armor!  Overlord Armor costs 10,000 credits (if even buyable!), and is AC 16 with 5 HPs.  Except it is considered a VEHICLE scale unit, and is thus considered to be AC 20 when Personal scale units fire at it.  It has 2 System Points for equipment, and may either mount 2 AV weapons (1 per arm), or 2 Twin Linked Personal scale weapons (1 per arm) or any combination of the same.  Overlord Armor provides a normal wearer +3 Physique and  -2 Agility (Ignore any HP bonus from this), and for characters with cybernetic ports, +4 Physique and -1 Agility instead.  Overlord Armor moves as a normal person though half movement in each Personal scale round or as normal movement but only in each Vehicle scale round.  (Your campaign's choice.)

Overlord suits are completely environmentally sealed and thus provide a +5 bonus to Saving Throws against such effects as listed in the Power Armor entry.

Examples of Overlord Armor would be the Sol Tekkaman suits in Tekkaman Blade, the Tactical Dreadnought suits of Warhammer 40,000, the "Ape" suits in Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles, the Mospeada Ride Armors of Genesis Climber Mospeada (The Invid Invasion segment of Robotech), the Kolossus suits of AT-43, or the Hardsuits of Bubblegum Crisis.


System Points:  System Points are the main feature of Vehicle Scale units which includes the Powered and Overlord armors, Vehicles of any sort, and Mecha.   System Points are what make your machine suited for whatever combat role it was designed for.  Some System Point equipment may ONLY be taken by one type of machine (Armor, Vehicle, Mecha).

System                    Points            Restrictions             Effects
Speed Booster             1                      None                   The Speed Booster allows the unit to move its
                                                                                        normal movement in the next smaller scale round
                                                                                        along with its regular scale move.

Jump Booster              1                      None                   Allows the unit to move up to half its normal
                                                                                        move horizontally, but up to 10 meters vertically,
                                                                                        or 20 meters straight up.

Hover System             1                     Vehicle                 Allows the unit to hover, ignoring normal
                                                                                       ground terrain including water.  However the unit
                                                                                       has a -3 penalty on any sort of maneuver rolls.

Aquatic System          2                      None                   Unit gains the ability to move on the surface or
                                                                                       subsurface of water and other such liquids with
                                                                                       normal movements allowed.

Flight Booster             2                Mecha, Armor           Allows the unit to take its movement as if it were
                                                                                        flying, ignoring all terrain.

Targeting Systems      1                      None                    Unit has +4 to all To Hit rolls.

Advanced Sensors      1                      None                    Unit has sensors for Infared, Geologic,
                                                                                        Biologic, Audio, and so on for half a kilometer.

Stealth Coating           1                      None                    Unit has a mixture of audiovisual and spectro-
                                                                                        graphic dampeners making it harder to spot and
                                                                                        target.  (Advanced Sensors only spot passively
                                                                                        within 100 meters, 250 with an INT S. Throw.
                                                                                        Target also gains +2 AC.

Beam Coating             1                     None                     Laser and Plasma weapons do half damage
                                                                                        rounded up against this target.

Heat Coating               1                    None                      Gains major heat resistances and any heat based
                                                                                         weapons do half damage rounded up against it.

Agility Booster            2                Mecha, Armor          Unit gains +2 AGI.

Might Booster             2                Mecha, Armor           Unit gains +2 PHY for non HP gain purposes.

Repair Systems           3                     None                     Unit repairs d3 HP per scale combat round if it
                                                                                        makes a PHY Saving Throw.  If a 1 is rolled the
                                                                                        Repair Systems have shut down and must be
                                                                                        fixed outside of combat.  (Time to do so is GM
                                                                                        choice.)

Improved Defensive
Systems                      1-4                  None                     Unit gains +1 AC per system point spent.

Improved Construction
Systems                        1-3                None                     Unit gains +5 HP per system point spent, 4 for
                                                                                        mecha.

Teleporter                    3                    None                     Unit instead of moving may teleport up to 20
                                                                                        meters away by making an INT S. Throw.  For
                                                                                        every point missed the location deviates by 2
                                                                                        meters as if it was a scattered grenade in G.T. 1.
Passenger
Compartment             1-4                   Armor                  Each point spent gives a space for 1 human sized
                                                                                       person per size class of the vehicle to be carried
                                                                                       comfortably with their own exit to the side/rear.
                                                                                       (So a Medium tank with 3 points spent could
                                                                                        carry 9 passengers.  A Light would have 6.)

Transformation Gear  2/4                   None                    A Transformation Gear (2 points for Armor)
                                                                                        allows the unit to transform into a humanoid or
                                                                                        machine form from its normal mode.  It keeps its
                                                                                        normal systems from mode to mode though gets
                                                                                        arms and legs if its main mode is a vehicle.  One
                                                                                        vehicle type must be selected and if it is a form
                                                                                        capable of flight, it must also have a Flight
                                                                                        Booster.  Unit's vehicle characteristics other than
                                                                                        HP and system are counted as the new vehicle
                                                                                        type of the same size.  (So an Overlord Armor
                                                                                        would turn into a Superlight class vehicle, while
                                                                                        a Heavy Mecha could turn into a Heavy Tank or
                                                                                        Scout Starship.)
                                                                                                            
Animal Form                1                  None                      Unit is no longer a boxy vehicle or a humanoid
                                                                                        form but is now some form of animal, losing
                                                                                        access to hands if a Mecha type.  Unit gains a
                                                                                        bite/horn ram type attack that does D6+x where
                                                                                        x is a point per size level of the unit.  Close
                                                                                        combat weapons may be selected at GM's
                                                                                        discretion.  Unit may move through all sorts of
                                                                                        terrain freely based on the animal form chosen,
                                                                                        though an aquatic or aerial type would require an
                                                                                        Aquatic or Flight system as well.
    
Well, there we go!  2 new armor types and some nifty new equipment for the BIG GUNS with the next installment.  Now we have toys, we just need the machines to put them on!