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• May 12, 2017

  GURPS X-COM: DARK JUDAS Analysis

  

  As promised in the last post, this one will contain the spoilers and fight analysis for Operation DARK JUDAS. For the rest of the Actual Play, take a look at its project page.

  The first encounter on Part 1 didn’t show any new enemies, but did introduce players to the fact that the trees drop puppets when threatened. This time they were quite a bit better at staying out of melee range, and the puppets were undone by their own overconfidence despite being able to do some damage.

  There’s no shocking revelations in the “Puppet Theater” fight in Part 2 either, aside from the fact that puppet theater is a thing. As I said in that part, I messed up by not having additional battle-ready puppets show up when the PCs grenaded the tree.

  Things get a lot more interesting when we get into the firefight on Part 3. There was a lot of new stuff packed into it! The players didn’t manage to figure out much before they left, but I’m laying it all out here.

  The downed alien craft was a small vimana, which is why it looked like a house. It was originally piloted by the alien the PCs rescued, who had defected from the Ebon Masters (the alien faction using the forest as a weapon). Despite their exotic looks, these magic-powered vimanas have more or less the same capabilities as the UFOs in the original games.

  The two factions having a firefight over the vimana and its pilot had found the crash site just like X-COM did and were converging on it with the goal of taking everything they could. The people occupying the vimana itself were indeed humans, something the PCs would have noticed if they had managed to approach them a bit more. That doesn’t mean they were friendly! This was the first on-screen appearance of X-ALT. They likely wouldn’t have fired at the PCs right away, but would take their help and backstab them later.

  The group firing at them from the ruined building were Elite Puppets in direct service to the Ebon Masters. This explains the white masks. Elite Puppets in the original rules have somewhere between 5 and 7 hit dice as opposed to the 3 of the rank-and-file, and these were similarly improved over their GURPS counterparts, making them better in a fight than all but the most badass human action heroes. On top of that, they had some pretty beefy TL 9 gear, including armor that made them basically immune to assault rifle fire from the PCs.

  The PC’s biggest mistake here was sticking too close to that black tree by the container, since its emissions allowed the puppets to spot them. Puppets can see through cover, particularly when they have the trees spotting for them, so once they noticed the players they only took distance penalties to attack. Retreating was a wise decision!

  It would have been nice to play out the extended fight/chase scene as the PCs retreated through the woods back to where they had stashed the puppet RPG, but I didn’t think there would be a fun way to do it over a forum, so I abstracted it out with a contest of Tactics and simply narrated the outcome. The PCs won by a small margin, so they managed to get the puppets in place for Choi’s shot (which I did roll as an attack). That was the only real way to harm the enemies they had left, as they had already spent all their frag grenades on earlier encounters and those wouldn’t guarantee a kill either.

  All in all, the PCs did about as well here as could be expected. I really wish we could have played out the White Mask encounter in more detail, but such is the way of play-by-forum games.

• May 10, 2017

  Let's Read Hell's Rebels: In Hell's Bright Shadow, Part 1

  

  In my last post, I went over the Player’s Guide and provided some GURPS conversion notes. Today we’ll look at the actual scenes of the first adventure in the Path, In Hell’s Bright Shadow. Seriously, what does that name even mean?

  Part 1: Fledglings of Silver

  The goal of this part is to get the PCs on track to restoring the Silver Ravens. It begins with a protest!

  The Aria Park Protest

  As the story begins, the PCs find themselves in Aria Park, so named because it’s right next to the Kintargo Opera House. Paracount Thrune is catching a show inside the Opera House while a huge crowd protests outside, watched by his guards. Thrune has been in power for a couple of weeks, and in that time he’s issued seven odd proclamations that generally make city life inconvenient.

  The player’s guide to Hell’s Rebels describes many possible reasons for why the PCs would be here. Two of the most interesting ones are looking for a famous performer who recently disappeared and looking for a contact who has information about the Silver Ravens secret society, which was rumored to defend Kintargo from outside threats in the past. They could also simply be here to participate in the protest, people-watch, or simply tag along a friend with a stronger reason to be there.

  Of our four Iconic PCs, I imagine Lem would be the one most interested in getting in contact with a resistance movement and looking for info on the legendary Silver Ravens. Kyra might be concerned about the fate of Shensen, a half-elf singer who was very outspoken both about her faith in Sarenrae and against the evil of House Thrune. She is currently missing. Merisiel would definitely be here to riot and pickpocket people, and aimless Valeros would just tag along, likely to keep Merisiel out of trouble. The rules in the Player’s Guide actually give out skill bonuses for each different motive and further bonuses depending on different background traits chosen by the PCs. In GURPS, I feel none of that is necessary, since the system already has a good skill system. The GM should instead guide the players to buy some social and subterfuge-related skills with their points, as they would be important throughout the campaign.

  This is a big, chaotic gathering: you have quite a few people protesting against Thrune for several different reasons, some loyalists protesting for him, and a handful of yahoos who just want the riot to start already. There’s several actions the PCs can take here, which include looking for that mysterious contact, suppressing one or more factions, organizing the protest, or simply picking people’s pockets. Suppressing the loyalists or yahoos will bring benefits later on. The PCs also get XP for performing successful actions - this seems to be a common thing here, as the adventure path is very particular about getting them to the appropriate levels for each scene.

  The Eighth Proclamation

  After a few hours of this, The Barzilai makes an appearance, and makes his eighth proclamation. The previous seven were things like banning mint and embroidered clothing, or bounties for live dogs. This one forbids all ship captains not born on Kintargo from leaving their ships and setting foot on the city under pain of torture. The stated reason for it is that Barzilai has the best brain and noticed his subjects have been angry about out-of-towners nosing in on their business. So he’s going to solve the problem, bigly, with a ban.

  This absurd proclamation starts a riot, which is what Thrune actually wants. Why? He simply feels like watching his guards and loyalists beat up some protesters.

  As soon as the riot starts, someone throws a handful of manure at Barzilai, and while that missile misses its mark it causes him to spill some wine on his fancy robes. This sends him into a rage, and he orders his main bodyguard Nox and the dottari under her command to move in and start killing people. At the same time, the off-brand Brown Shirts of the Chelish Citizen’s Group that were infiltrated in the crowd draw their clubs and begin attacking the protesters as well.

  The players must fight a gang of four CCG thugs to start with, and they get to witness Nox’s powers of regeneration as she shrugs off a dagger to the throat in a “cutscene”. I guess the idea here is that the party should get away as soon as possible. The thugs are basically shclubs with clubs who shouldn’t pose too much of a problem, but sticking around for too long attracts a pair of the stronger and better-armed dottari. Finally Nox comes in with a pet hellhound and a squad of 12 dottari guards. That last bit would be a clear sign that the four 1st-level characters must run away - the crowd certainly does! If they still stick around, the hellhound focuses on them.

  GURPS Conversion Notes

  There’s two ways to go about this here. GMs who want to be true to the fiction could give the Chelish Citizen’s Group thugs average stats, clubs, and a couple of points in Shortsword, while using the 62-point Guard template from GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 15 with decent gear for the dottari.

  Those who want to make things more challenging for their delvers should go with the Guard template for the thugs, perhaps upgrading them to light armor and small maces. The guards would be built using the 125-point Squire or Brute templates. This is also closer to what the Pathfinder version does with the stats for these people.

  Nox should be built at least on a 250-point Knight template with special powers added on, and the Hell Hound can be built using the guidelines on this post from the Dragon’s Dogma bestiary.

  In either case, a party of four 250-point delvers would have far less trouble dealing with the riff-raff than the 1st-level Pathfinder PCs. If they’re smart and lucky they could even beat the final pack of 12 guards plus Nox and her hellhound right here! Kyra does know Resist Fire…

  The GM might want to increase the number of dottari to a realistic level, since 12-14 of them wouldn’t be able to contain a riot of thousands anyway. Or they could keep the numbers as they are and deal with the changes an complete victory here would bring to the story.

  A New Friend In Need

  In any case, after the party leaves the site of the riot, they hear sounds of fighting from a nearby alley. There, five CCG thugs are in the process of beating a man to death. Since this man happens to be the contact one of the PCs is looking for, it’s in their interest to crush the thugs and save the man. Unlike the thugs in the riot, these ones fight to the death, but they should still be manageable. There’s an extra XP reward for succeeding in helping Rexus, too.

  Their victim is Rexus Victocora, the young scion of the nicest noble family in Kintargo, who of course was disappeared and had their house burned down in the Night of Ashes. He survived because he was out of the house at the time. Rexus has either taken an interest in the PCs during the protest or was the one who called them here in the first place with promises of information on the Silver Ravens. After going somewhere private, he tells them the story above, and how he plans to fight back against Thrune’s takeover but needs help.

  Our hypotethical party would readily accept the request, and yours should too. I mean, they’ve been telling you to make that sort of character since the Player’s Guide.

  Anyway, once the PCs are on board, Rexus reveals his parents left him a letter in which they confessed to be members of the Sacred Order of Archivists, a secret society dedicating to uncovering and preserving the true history of Kintargo, as opposed to the heavily redacted official version. The letter also tells of how they feel the Silver Ravens must fly again if the city is to stand any chance against this new oppression, and says that the Fair Fortune Livery is rumored to be one of their ancient safehouses. Rexus needs help investigating the place because he’s not exactly adventurer material. By way of compensation, he offers most of the rest of the stuff his parents left him, which include some money and valuables, a silver dagger, and a set of bracers of armor +1. He keeps the letter and a mythril key, which will be important later.

  The Fair Fortune Livery

  Thus begins the first official “dungeon delve” of this adventure! This place used to be a slaughterhouse-turned-stable and conceal a minor Silver Raven safehouse, but has been abandoned for quite a while. Rexus wants to come along and help investigate despite not being a combatant, but will accept it if the PCs tell him to sit this one out instead. Bringing him along turns this into something of an escort quest, and is worth a little bit of extra XP at the end.

  The delve begins in the livery’s the ground level. It’s mostly empty and in ruins. Some locked doors and a small pack of feral dogs are the main obstacles here. Once the dogs are dealth with the grimples (small, annoying, evil fey beings) from the basement come up and begin to play poltergeist. In any case, it shouldn’t be hard for the PCs to find the trapdoor going down.

  Next comes the basement, which was mostly used when the livery was a slaughterhouse. What 1st-level adventure is complete without a basement full of rats? Also here is the grimple nest, where the PCs finally have a chance to get rid of the pests and pillage their treasure (which includes a cloak of resistance +1).

  The hideout proper is situated in some old city ruins accessible from the basement. The main problem with them is that the ancient Silver Ravens unwittingly brought a devil’s contract here when they plundered a cache of government documents, and the imp bound to it has been trying to find a way to leave the place for 80 years. One of those attempts summoned two lemure devils who now spend their time mindlessly wallowing in a polluted cistern. It’s a good thing the PCs have that silver dagger with them, because lemures are resistant to everything else. They are otherwise not terribly dangerous, but serve as a warning that things down here are Not Right.

  There’s three boxes in here full of loot: the first has some interesting armor and weapons including a silver morningstar, which means this delve is an example of that annoying trope where the weapon to kill a monster is in a box behind the monster. The second box is locked and contains a bunch of spell scrolls and the hundreds of pages of documents that are the actual goal of the quest. And the third has six figurines of wondrous power in the shape of silver ravens. They’re useful for secure communication and are in fact the origin of the group’s name. The party could also sell them off for a fat load of cash, something the adventure begs the GM to prevent.

  The afore-mentioned imp, named Blosodriette, is also here - her contract is somewhere inside the second box. She limits herself to watching invisibly and hoping someone takes the box away so she can go along. It’s possible a canny party might spot and confront her here - if they don’t she’ll cause trouble later on.

  GURPS Conversion Notes

  Rats and dogs already have stats for GURPS! Grimples are SM -3 or -4 fairies with minor telekinetic abilities and the ability to cast the Grease spell, which should make a fight against them look more like a bad comedy movie than actual combat. Lemures aren’t exactly fearsome combatants, but they should have plenty of DR against non-silver weapons. Even so, this will be a walk in the park for 250-point delvers.

  The Long Roads Coffee House

  After the party retrieves the documents, Rexus takes then to the Long Roads Coffee House to meet Laria Longroad, the proprietor. This halfling is a member of the Bellflower Network, which is Kintargo’s equivalent of the Underground Railroad.

  Laria is quite happy to support the PCs in their rebellious efforts, not the least because her extensive network of contacts and informants is mostly gone now (Thrune hates abolitionists). In fact while she would be glad to let them crash in the secret hideout underneath the coffee house, she doesn’t even have control of that. A smuggler buddy of hers went in there to stash a cargo of contraband silks and never came out. It’s been days. If the PCs want a temporary home base, they’ll need to do some cleaning.

  The hideout occupies the coffee house’s basement and those of the two abandoned houses to either side of it. It has bunk rooms, a large storeroom, and a dock leading into an underground river. There’s an albino alligator chilling in the river, but it’s not the main source of trouble here.

  You see, Mr. Smuggler Buddy didn’t just bring a shipment of cloth here, he also brought a group of tengu sisters on the run from the law back in Varisia. The plan was to hand them off to another smuggler who would take them the rest of the way to their destination, but the Night of Ashes put an end to that. When the guy told the sisters they were on their own, they beat him unconscious, and then one of them got a little too enthusiastic and killed him. Now they’re holed up down here, in the dark, despairing about what to do.

  Pathfinder tengu are basically raven-people. The sisters aren’t automatically hostile, but getting in their good graces will take some doing. There’s four of them, plus Chough, the “enthusiastic” sister, who is actually an adopted dire corby and basically responsible for all the trouble the rest have gone through. Dire corbies look kinda like tengu, but are a lot stronger and less psychologically stable. The lead sister, Korva, has recently decided Chough needs to be put down. It’s actually quite possible the party will run into a murderous Chough before they meet Korva, so that’s one thing taken care of, I guess.

  Particularly diplomatic parties can convince the sisters to stick around and join the Silver Ravens, becoming a “special unit” under the rebellion management rules in the Player’s Guide. If they can’t manage that, they can still let them leave without a fight as long as they don’t try to pin Mr. Smuggler’s death on them. PCs get XP for dealing with them whether there’s combat or not, and a little bonus for telling Laria about her buddy’s fate.

  Once the sisters are dealt with one way or the other, the party gains the use of this hideout as a temporary base while they set out to rebuild the Silver Ravens. We’ll take a look at how that goes in the next installment.

  GURPS Conversion Notes

  Korva should be a 250-point stabby Thief not too different from Merisiel. Her sisters are 125-point Cutpurses, with Chough probably being a monstrous Barbarian who fights with Talons and a Sharp Beak and has serious Berserk and Bloodlust issues. Give her some natural DR, extra HP and perhaps one or two levels of Extra Attack if you want her to stand up to the whole party by herself.

• May 8, 2017

  Dragon's Dogma Bestiary: Gryphons and Cockatrices

  

  This is an entry in the Dragon’s Dogma bestiary. The remaining entries along with the full adaptation can be found here.

  Gryphons are considered a symbol of strength and victory in Gransys, much like in the real world. These creatures used to be considered mythical, but the coming of the Dragon has proved otherwise. One such beast has taken roost in the ancient ruins of Bluemoon Tower, and ranges as far as Gran Soren in its search for prey, devastating herds of cattle and attacking unwary caravans. There might be others.

  The Basic Set actually has stats for a gryphon in page B461, but those would only suit a smaller than average individual in this setting. The gryphon of Bluemoon Tower is much larger, and able to carry a grown person away with ease. It’s also clever enough to fly away if it thinks itself overmatched, so hunting it has proven particularly difficult. Ending its threat would mean undertaking an expedition to Bluemoon Tower and facing the many dangers therein.

  ST 25; DX 14; IQ 5; HT 13

  Dodge 11; DR 3 (Tough Skin); SM +3

  Will 14; Per 14; HP 24; FP 20

  Speed 7.5; Move 7 (ground); 14 (air).

  • Beak (15): 2d+2 pi+. Reach C, 1. Parried as a weapon.
  • Talons x2 (15): 2d+1 cutting. Reach C-2. May grapple at skill-15. Parried as a weapon.
  • Flyby Attack (-): The Gryphon can perform a Move and Attack maneuver to swoop down, strike with its talons, and fly back up, covering a distance equal to its Air Move in total. The attacks are made at no penalty. The talon attack can be a grapple instead, which if successful means the gryphon carries the victim with it.

  Traits: Acute Vision 5; Combat Reflexes; Extra Attack 2 (claw/claw/beak); Flight (Winged); Penetrating Voice; Quadruped; Restricted Diet (Fresh Meat);

  Skills: Brawling-15; Stealth-15; Wrestling-15;

  Class: Hybrid.

  Notes: Can retreat up in combat for a +4 to Dodge.

  Gryphon Variants

  Cockatrice

  Unlike the small variant presented in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 3, the Gransys cockatrice is a huge creature that looks like a gryphon from far away. Upon closer inspection, one can see its avian half resembles more a turkey or buzzard than an eagle, with black feathers and fur.

  In addition to possessing the same natural weapons as a gryphon, the cockatrice can spew a cloud of noxious gas that turns any who breathe it to stone! And unlike the gryphon, it will never run from a fight.

  Use the same stats as for a gryphon, but add the following attack:

  • Petrifying Breath (16 vs. HT): Covers an area 5m in diameter in front of the cockatrice. Any who fail the listed resistance roll are turned to stone as per the Flesh to Stone spell. Can be used once every 10 seconds.
• May 4, 2017

  GURPS X-COM: Operation DARK JUDAS, Part 3

  

  Welcome to another mission report for GURPS X-COM: Noises in the Dark! Our characters for this mission are:

  • Kendall Fairbarn: A paranoid hacker from the UK. Was completely convinced human society had been heavily infiltrated by shape-changing aliens… and it turned out he wasn’t entirely wrong.
  • Minette Duvall: A bomb-disposal expert from Southern France, Minette is also quite handy with a rifle. She’s devoutly Catholic and swears a lot when faced with danger, which is all the time. Currently wounded and minding the Skyranger as an NPC.
  • Niu Yulan (AKA Julia Yulan): A former hostage negotiator from China, built without a template but approaching a shootier Face. Her innate kindness and empathy came in handy in several of the missions! Currently controlled by Minette’s player.
  • Jack Choi: A former police detective from Hong Kong, and a staunch adherent of the “kick down the door” school of policing despite his light frame.
  • Sam McCall: A brave and burly former US Army Ranger, run by a new player.

  White Masks

  In our last post, Strike One approached a crashed UFO and found itself witnessing a large firefight between unknown factions. They were too far away to positively ID either of them, and so after a brief discussion on what to do decided to sneak closer to get a better look.

  Heading east while keeping to the cover of native vegetation, the squad approached the former Samarco building currently occupied by the grey-clad people they saw from afar. On the way they sneak past a couple of rusted, empty containers which have been abandoned close to the edge of the woods. Turning a corner on one of the containers, they almost bump into a Tree of Woe growing flush against its wall! Taking care not to touch the tree, they observe the building, now only 30m away.

  

  The squad recognizes its occupants as Puppets of Ruin from the way they move, but their equipment is different from what they’ve seen so far. The grey outfits are some sort of futuristic armor covering their whole bodies, with a white faceless helmet or mask covering their faces and skulls.

  

  Some of the puppets have painted ghastly smiles on their masks, but other than that they’re completely featureless. Their weapons are rifles capable of automatic fire, with underbarrel semi-automatic grenade launchers. As for the other side, they’re still about as far away as they were before, so the PCs can’t ID them.

  It takes about a minute for the squad to observe all of this, which is when they notice one of the white-masked puppets stop shooting at the other party and raise a hand to where its ear would be in a gesture not unlike that of an Agent from The Matrix. It then looks directly at the party, despite there being no way it would be able to spot them from its current position!

  As that puppet begins to raise its weapon in the direction of the party, they hear wet slapping sounds behind them, and turn to see that tree near the container dropping another three-puppet fireteam! The newcomers are close enough to attack with their swords, and they do just that.

  Strike One is able to shoot them dead in short order, but the time it took for them to do that was enough for the masked puppet to aim and fire its grenade launcher, greatly damaging their cover and stripping the surrounding foliage bare.

  The squad elects to begin a fighting withdrawal through the woods back to the north. Julia and Sam fire away at the “White Mask” as the others retreat, and though they’re pretty sure they managed to hit its center of mass several times, it doesn’t seem to react at all. The return fire sounds more like tearing silk than gunfire. Several of the bullets hit Julia and chew through her trauma plate, with at least one getting through and wounding her.

  Blue Mask

  The PCs retreat behind one of the steel containers, and manage not to get shot again even as White Masks’ buddies join in on the fun. The shooting stops momentarily when a titanic explosion erupts from somewhere to the south, and as its roar subsides they can hear a faint whimper from within the neighboring container. Choi and Kendall throw some smoke grenades to give them some concealment, and then Choi and Julia move to investigate the other container.

  Inside, they find an alien! They almost shoot it out of reflex, but stop when they notice this one doesn’t seem to be a combatant. Unlike the puppets, this individual is 1.5m tall at most, wearing a skin-tight dark grey outfit and with a skin or carapace of a very dark purple, two legs and four arms. Its face is vaguely human, but it’s a bright royal blue and has a prodigious nose reminiscent of a crane’s beak.

  

  The alien is huddled in close to the container’s north end from where Julia and Choi comes in, and as soon as it spots them it raises its two top arms and shouts “Sparing us!”. Julia lowers her weapon and manages to talk to the creature, who becomes quite relieved when it sees the squad is friendly and that they bear the X-COM insignia on their uniforms. It’s apparently been looking for them! It’s obvious to the PCs that escorting this real live alien back to base is now their top priority.

  There isn’t much time to talk, however, as three White Masks are quickly making their way to the squad’s position. Kendall pops more smoke in an attempt to delay them, but the alien warns in its peculiar dialect that it doesn’t work. The squad begins retreating to the Skyranger with their new charge in a tense game of cat and mouse with their three pursuers, which not only are better equipped than the “newborn” puppets they’ve been facing but are also much more tactically savvy. Their armor also seems to make them largely immune to even the PC’s assault rifles!

  Choi then remembers the alien RPG they stashed a ways away, and runs ahead to fetch it and lie in wait. Though they experience a couple of scary close calls, the rest of the squad manages to lead the puppets to the trap and clear out before Choi fires the surprisingly light alien launcher and obliterates the three puppets.

  With that done, there’s no further obstacle between them and the Skyranger. They strap themselves and the alien in, and take off, concluding the operation.

  The spoilers and fight analysis for this operation deserve their own post, since they would make this one run too long. And after that, we’ll see what consequences this operation had on the campaign’s strategic layer.

• May 2, 2017

  State of the Octopus: April 2017

  I did a Year in Review post back in January, but haven’t looked at the large picture since then. Today I decided to take a look at my Google Analytics stats from April to see how I was doing. How many people read the blog, where do they come from, and what do they access the most?

  April saw 379 sessions from 244 unique visitors to Octopus Carnival. That’s slightly less than I had in March. Brazil and the US are tied in first place for the single largest source of sessions, at 120 each. Most of the others come from the UK and Canada, with the remainder split between several European and Southeast Asian countries, each of which contributes a handful of sessions.

  The single largest source of referrals to Octopus Carnival is Facebook, with 94 of them if you combine desktop and mobile domains. Google searches are only slightly behind that, with the SJ Games forums taking third place. What’s interest about Facebook’s popularity is that I only announce new posts there on a couple of Portuguese-language groups. I confess I didn’t expect to be that popular with my fellow countrymen, though I guess you could say that I’m not very popular at all since I didn’t even manage to hit four figures in a whole month.

  The most accessed page by far was the blog’s homepage, which I think means most readers go there to read the latest article. Second and third place go to Part 1 of the Operation DARK JUDAS report and the introduction to Let’s Read Hell’s Rebels, which is kind of amazing because they were posted close to the end of the month. I guess people really like those topics!

  If I want to increase my readership (purely for ego-boosting purposes, as this blog is strictly non-commercial), then it seems the next logical step would be to post announcements to an English-language GURPS group on Facebook. I’m not sure how effective that will be, since it seems the English-speaking GURPS community tends to congregate on the SJ Games forums and on G+, and I already post there. But we’ll see! A generic roleplaying group might be a useful place to post as well.

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