Traveller or ....

Is it just me or is Traveller suddenly being discussed more on the blogs and on G+?  I seem to be seeing more posts and such about it.

Which is fine by me.  Between all the posts and showing my oldest son Firefly for the first time, I am really in the mood for some Traveller.  I got Traveller back in '82 I think.  (That picture.  Not my copy.  My books have rusty staples from a stint in storage and have the occasional grease stain from food.  The box top is flat and the box bottom is held together by yellowing masking tape.)  To be truthful, I didn't get to play it with a group that often but I got a lot of entertainment out of it nonetheless.  I spent hours rolling up characters (and watching some of them die [that's die as in death, not die as in dice]), creating subsectors and running a Free Trader between them solo, etc.

So, I reached for Traveller thinking it would be a good match for Firefly.  After all, I read that Jos Whedon had based Firefly on his Traveller campaign.  I fooled around with it a bit and started making a subsector intending to create a setting not connected to Traveller's official Imperial setting.

However, I've also been rereading and pondering Mini Six for the purpose of tweaking it for a sword & sorcery focused game.  (More on that in a later post.)  And what is tucked away in the back of Mini-Six?  A setting called "Perdition".  Firefly with the serial numbers badly filed off.

So, my conundrum is this:  Traveller or Mini-Six?  I think they would both do a fine job with a Firefly game but which should I choose?

I await your words of wisdom....

Sword and Sorcery Gaming Resource

I purchased the PDF of Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea awhile back when it was on sale for a good price.  I've only skimmed its 488 pages.  (What a behemoth!  But it claims its a type of S&S so what could I do?  I'm a sucker for S&S.)

Well, as usual when I get a new game, I poked around the publishers website a little.  I found a nifty Random Sword & Sorcery Adventure Generator on their Resources page.  The generator and a little ingenuity will get you an adventure on short notice.  It even helps with the title.  Best of all is that it is not system specific.  I believe I will be testing this with BoL.

You can find it on the North Winds Adventures website here.

Had to Laugh

Saw this on the interwebs somewhere and I had to laugh...

Spring has Sprung

And I realized I haven't posted in a loooong time.

A couple of quick things:

1.  There is going to be another what I guess you could call a retroclone coming out that I'm kinda excited about.  Why would I be excited about another retroclone?  Well this is being put together by Mr. Brandon (aka Fenway5).  I seem to have similar tastes as him and like both Heroes & Other Worlds and Rogue Space.  To make it better, Mr. Brandon's wife will be illustrating it and I like all of her artwork that I've seen.  He is calling it Peril and you can see the projected cover and get more info at his Sword & Shield blog.

2.  Speaking of Heroes & Other Worlds, Mr. Brandon suggested putting together a saltbox setting.  That's like a sandbox but based on islands.  I thought was a cool idea so I submitted something.  Unfortunately the project fell through.  However, it seems he will put my island in the next edition of Cauldron, his periodical dedicated to HOW.  Read about it here.

3.  I think this is a cool picture.

Egyptian Inspiration

Some random images from around the interwebs to inspire a Egyptians sword & sorcery game.

I inserted two photos that my wife took.  Can you tell which are hers?

And, finally, one of the reasons warriors fight.

Champions of Lemuria.

There is a new discussion board for Barbarians of Lemuria, necessitated by Lords of Lemuria being overrun by spam.  It is called Champions of Lemuria and you can find it here.

A Cool Surprise

I have a 16 year old niece who hangs out at our house.  (O.k.  She's my favorite niece.  Don't tell my other nieces.)  She's a few years older than my oldest son but likes to play video games with them and comes to my wife for motherly advice and conversation.  My wife told me other day that my niece had started hanging out at a game store near her place.  (Not knowing about it, I checked it out.  Unfortunately for me it is geared toward Magic and other collectible card games.)  Well, when I came home this evening from work, she's here.  She comes up to me and says, "Uncle!  Can we play D&D?"

Stunned silence and then I reply, "Of course we can!"

So I pull out the Basic D&D rules, borrow a 1st level character from my son and away we go.  I make up a scenario on the spot.  A creature has taken a little girl from a village and dragged her into the woods.  The villagers asked our hero to get the girl back.  She tracked the creature through the forest to a burial mound that had been broken into.  The chamber in the mound smelled horrible but she cautiously went in.  The room was a shambles with broken furniture scattered all over the place, trash strewn about and, apparently, one corner being used as a toilet.  She found the little girl whimpering in a pile of rags.  She grabs the girl and heads for the entrance.  She notices a door in the wall near the rags while she is heading out.  Then, a figure looms in the doorway, growls and attacks.  Our hero sets the girl down and meets the creature with bared blade.  It's an orc!  (She loves the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings so I had to throw one in.)  They battled back and forth and after taking a wound she finally put the brute down.

After returning the child to her parents she went back to the mound to examine the door.  She managed to pick the lock and enter the room beyond.  (The character's a thief.)  In contrast with the first room this one was untouched.  Dust coated the floor.  The tapestries, though rotten, still hung from the walls.  In the middle of the floor was a stone throne with a skeleton sitting on it, sword grasped in its desiccated fingers, gold band encircling its skull.  Of course, as soon a she touched the sword (cautiously, with her sword) the skeleton came to life.  Our hero reacted quickly, swinging her sword savagely and beheading the skeleton with one blow.  Thus, she collected a long sword and a gold head band.  She then heads back to the village to a heroes welcome and needed recovery time.

The whole session took about 45 minutes and she said she had great fun.  I'm a happy man at the moment.

This story also illustrates one of the reasons I love Basic.  I can make up adventures on the spot and have the session be successful.  There is only one other game I can do this with and that is BoL.