Stream

GM confidence: 4.5/5. Finally. I felt okay about this session beforehand, and I thought it turned out pretty well overall. There were some missteps, but they didn’t break anything—though they certainly could have.

Not Easter Eggs

There are quite a few references in this session that are worth pointing out. I think, to qualify as an “Easter Egg,” they have to be somehow hidden, so I don’t think they meet that requirement. You can decide for yourself, I guess. 😛

• The guys in the station wagon at the collapsed bridge were taken from the movie, How it Ends, with a little modification. Events from the movie mostly happened as-is up to this point, minus the addition of the Alien Menace. Although the movie itself is a bit “dry,” it’s actually a really interesting treatment of what has been theorized to be a “gamma ray burst”—as discussed in this video. But you ask, “Why did the gamma radiation only affect certain people?” That would be telling… 😉
• The prepper bunker in Jackson is from 10 Cloverfield Lane. I can’t get too deep into this one since the situation is still ongoing, in-game. I will say that I have had to modify the timeline and specific background details to make it fit, of course. The PCs will be interrupting the movie events before the midpoint or thereabouts. But an interesting consequence of the PCs’ involvement, should they rescue Michelle, is that her character development as depicted in the movie won’t actually occur, so she could remain as she began the story—too scared to help others.
• Like the Sk’ran (see previous post), the Taareh race goes all the way back to the precursors to the Daniverse. They have always been an offshoot-human species with a proto-Egyptian culture. Their name has morphed many times over the decades; in fact, all their details other than the most basic have been a bit slow to materialize. They have appeared in previous campaigns, specifically in the first and third installments of the S³M campaign. But their most recent incarnation is in Rigil Kent’s spinoff MGT2-powered campaign, The Verge, where we co-developed many of the details that currently exist (such as the format of their personal names, their communal child-rearing practices, and physiology). This session required me to actually vocalize some of their modified ancient Egyptian language, for the first time, I think. Being Rigil’s PC, the idea to make Heinlein an “alien hybrid” was originally his off-the-cuff remark that I decided to use.
• Regarding the “personal names” above: According to what I was able to find, the ancient Egyptian word for “agent” (and also, in this case, “bystander,” which I shamelessly stole) is wpwty—I am as unsure of the pronunciation as any Egyptologist, I suspect, but I gave it my best internet-educated guess. That was the second part of Grandfather’s name, the occupation. The final part of the name, the “assignment,” is an Egyptianized pronunciation of the word “Earth”
• “Project Genesis”/“Gen-Hisis” also owes its origins to the pre-Daniverse works. This one has been a persistent crossover element throughout the Daniverse all along, and was to be a plot feature for at least three campaigns that have not yet seen production, and one that has (Dreamland). Obviously, I can’t go into too much detail here, for spoiler reasons.
• The alien “beasts” that appeared in this (and previous) session have also been encountered in a previous campaign, specifically Dreamland. I’m getting around to updating the visuals for them, now that I have need of it, while reconsidering some of their basic physiological features. One of my design decisions in that campaign included each of the various species having some sort of “utility feature,” of which the current PCs have discovered one (the “jaw”) and put it to good use.
• The “incident at Area 51” is a reference to the Dreamland campaign’s intended ending.

Other Stuff

• The session began with a lot of exposition, which is normally a no-no. Realistically, I would have had Grandfather explain a lot more in the video recording, but I elected to keep it short, and abstract the rest, rather than force everyone to listen to me read off a script for an hour or two.
• I got a little more focused than I should have on the PCs going to Jackson next. I got a little concerned when they started talking about going a different way so soon. I’m not sure how I could possibly prepare for that, but I suspect we would have somehow managed. I was fortunate to not have to.
• I finally got to work in a proper Skill Challenge. I like the way it turned out. The time-based penalty for rolling over into the new round was that the bug would appear mid-operation, which did occur. The Challenge very nearly failed—might have been interesting to see—but I guess that means the difficulty level was “appropriate.”
• I honestly had not thought of a PC recovering the bug “jaw,” much less using it to cut through the bunker door. I’ll surely be more mindful of that in the future. Now I have to figure out how long before it decays too much to use.
• Chandler’s player had never defined his Objective and I didn’t expect him to bring it up…but now he has. Now I have to scramble to figure out what it actually is, or it’s gonna get weird.

Session Recap; Stream

GM confidence: 4/5. Even with an extra week to prep for this session, I still didn’t feel remotely ready. I wonder if I ever will? But it turned out fine, and honestly, I can’t think of anything that went horribly wrong.

Improvisations

• I expected the PCs to stop somewhere, but I did not expect them to stop at the Monster Lake Ranch on the way South—I probably should have. I had to scramble for some basic details, like screen grabs of the map, and I had no idea what might be available there. I think it went okay anyway, and the players (mostly CommJunkee) were helpful in digging up relevant info.
• The “Terror Pod” was a planned event, but I did not have a specific location in mind, and as such, I did not have a map or establishing graphics—there’s really no excuse for that. That whole expedition to the house was on-the-fly, as I stupidly didn’t consider the PCs tracking them down. Fortunately I did actually have some 4e stats for the creatures already. I was also concerned the event would either take up too much time or not enough, close as it was to my intended end of the session. Again, I think it turned out well enough, and brought across the necessary story elements. But this was a “first contact” with a new campaign element, and it really deserved more polish.

Other Issues

• I had to verbally describe the aliens’ external physiology, as well as the state of Grandfather’s corpse, and my attempts felt really clumsy to me; I really should have written that stuff out beforehand—this stuff is important
• I was reasonably happy with my handling of the party NPCs. But I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to have James try to talk Robert into coming along with the PCs after Meeteetse, without really considering their motivations; now that it’s done, I’ll have to figure that out after-the-fact—not ideal.
• I was aware of the Wind River Canyon but I didn’t realize where it was located until someone pointed out that it was on their route; it is notable enough to deserve an establishing-shot graphic, at the very least—missed opportunity
• I really wanted to end the session with the bunker-reveal cliffhanger—I was happy with the results; but next week will begin with a bunch of exposition as a result, which can be awkward to handle
• I keep forgetting that James is supposed to be a Will Robinson-style trouble magnet; I need to step up his danger level in the future

BTS: The Sk’ran (AKA the Alien Menace)

Since I don’t have all that much to say about the session itself, I’ll take the opportunity to talk a bit about where the campaign antagonist came from.

The origin of the Sk’ran goes back to 1991 or so, from a collaborative comic-book project, featuring myself and Rigil Kent (Phil), and a few others. But it actually predates even that period, as a continuation of an older project that predated my inclusion. I believe the name carried over from that earlier project, as did the basic “anthropomorphic insectoid” appearance. This early concept included the basic “soldier” type, and a few others. When I joined the project, I redesigned the appearance, though I was never really satisfied with it.

The comic-book project is now long defunct, but the race, as well as the “Earthfall” invasion event, lives on in the Daniverse in multiple campaigns, some of which have seen production, and some of which haven’t (yet?). The most prominent of them is the Dreamland campaign, where I merged in elements from the original X-Com, and Half-Life, expanding the bestiary considerably. I also credit Half-Life with inspiring the “utility creatures” seen throughout. Many creature types were statted for GURPS 3rd Edition as a result. I also redesigned the appearance (again) for the existing creatures, with Half-Life integration in mind.

These days, I am still unsatisfied with the rather on-the-nose design of the basic soldier, but I haven’t had the time or energy to devote to a serious redesign effort. But this campaign is forcing me to produce some new visuals anyway, as the sketches I have are very old and…sketchy. These days, I would also add the movie-version of Stephen King’s The Mist to the list of creature design influences. I have been updating the old 3e stats to 4e as needed, but also rethinking the basic assumptions about their physiology. A part of me is glad I’m now forced to update these things, and who knows when I’ll be able to make use of them in the future?

Session Recap; Stream

GM confidence: 4/5. I was definitely feeling unready, again, but I started to get more comfortable by the end of the week, and I think it turned out reasonably well in the end. I’m sure I’ll probably start feeling confident just in time to end the run 😛

Search & Rescue

Obviously, I didn’t want a TPK the way the previous session ended—you really need to earn that as GM. If you kill the entire party, they should be slow-clapping afterward, not scowling and cursing.

The first half of the session was a new thing for me, and I had to invent a few things to make it work in a gameable way. I used “This Old House” from After the End 2 as a basis for what happens when you get buried by explosion debris. I was a little concerned that the damage would be too much, but I had already declared “no pulled punches” so I kinda had to risk it. I started to go with a “Skill Challenge” from D&D 4e, but it didn’t quite feel right—not a cooperative enough situation—so I borrowed the “Task Chain” concept from MGT2 instead—very similar. I would have liked to have had a few more “flavor” elements to throw in there, but I think I successfully imparted a proper sense of urgency.

I was pretty happy with how the “search and rescue” part went. It was a little like a Skill Challenge, but I felt like separating the results would work better, for no reason I can articulate. I wanted it to feel like I wasn’t cherry-picking the NPCs’ fates, but I did employ a bit of smoke-and-mirrors via a dummy “status” table with only “KIA” results, so I could force the parents’ deaths—for dramatic purposes. That would have worked better if the Fantasy Grounds tables functionality included an “elimination” ability, to remove already-rolled results, the lack of which caused me to have to jump some hoops at the end. Fortunately, it all worked out. I wish it had occurred to me to check Disasters: Hurricane for the use of the dog during SAR beforehand. Oh, well…

First Real Combat

This combat wasn’t arbitrary. It was intended to give the players a better idea what they’re dealing with. But when it came time for the fight, the tactical situation suggested the PCs would wipe them out with little fanfare, so I added a couple more bad guys. Then when the PCs started missing, initially, I became concerned the inverse would be true. But again: “no pulled punches,” so I pressed forward. Although the fight functioned as intended, I do think, in the end, it was a little too “static,” and made the enemy seem “tactically careless.” Afterward, I do regret having not been a little more aggressive, and some of the sloppy behind-the-scenes management. But at least now I know what the PCs can handle.

Miscellaneous

• The escape ended with fewer tag-along NPCs than I expected, but more vehicles. I have to make sure Robert’s inevitable end, down the road, is properly memorable 😛
• I’m feeling good about the cliffhanger on this one.
• Next session is going to settle the question of the PCs’ next destination. Given the difficulties the players had in understanding what I wanted from the Objectives, I feel pretty safe in guessing where that will be.
• Working on the campaign, I’ve been playing catch-up the entire time, due to RL work issues. Fortunately I’ll have an extra week to potentially get ahead, for once.

Session Recap; Stream

GM confidence: 3.75/5. I did not feel any more ready for this session than its predecessor. Despite that, I had just enough going to make it work, though it could certainly have done with a bit more polish, in my opinion. But the twist, and the ACS test made it better.

Rope-a-dope

For the first half-or-so of the session, I asked the players questions about their PCs’ future plans, going back to work, etc., to get them thinking about settling in at Cody for the long-term. This was an intentional deception. Then I yanked the rug out from under them with the invasion, and started blowing up the city. It should be pretty obvious to them now that this will not be their “home.” I think that got the reaction I wanted.

Action Challenge System™ (Alpha test)

This was the first real test of the Action Challenge System (ACS), a concept I’ve been working on for some time now. It was, for me, the centerpiece of the session.

There are a lot of Action™ situations that I feel are inadequately covered by GURPS rules-as-written. I’ve found the Chase rules in Action 2 to be the most satisfying, so my intention has been to modify that concept to fit other situations, like mass combat, disaster survival, etc. We did something like this before in ConsOps when we used the Chase rules to do a “running gunfight”—with some lessons learned. Briefly, here are some ways the4 current iteration of ACS differs from Action 2 Chases:

• Chase pursuit/flight contest is expanded to include tactical and survival contests
• Chase maneuvers are expanded to include tactical or survival effects, depending on context, with consideration for multiple types in the same round (FREX “Move and Attack” is both movement and tactical)
• Makes use of a proper map divided into “zones”—not always hexes—with (loosely) defined movement rates between zones
• Passing into or out of a “threat” zone results in an “attack,” either martial or environmental (crumbling buildings, flowing lava, screaming bystanders, etc.); threat level determines the opposing Contest roll (I used the Frequency levels as a guideline)
• Contest results can give a tactical advantage/disadvantage, allow/halt transit (by getting pinned down under fire, held up by a crowd, cut off by debris, etc.), instead of or in addition to closing/opening pursuit distance
• I moved the skill/attack phase to the end of the round—it just works better there
• Attacks are from/against an “aggregate” enemy rather than individuals, as the situation requires; damage is applied to the whole, and individuals are lost as enough damage is taken

The system needs a lot of work still, but I think it delivered the “look and feel” I was going for. I will discuss it at length in its own post sometime when it’s more fully-formed. Even though I know I missed a lot of little things in the process, I definitely consider it a successful test. We will see this again.

Miscellaneous

• Introducing: the Alien Menace™—these guys have a long history in the background of the Daniverse. I really tried to get that War of the Worlds Tripod-intro feel.
• I did have to do a lot of improvising in this one, as the PCs kept making choices I hadn’t anticipated. People survived that weren’t meant to as a result. It may make things more difficult in the future. But that’s just the GM-life.
• I randomly determined the order and placement of the explosions/sinkholes in town well before the game started—the fact that the PCs kept running into them was entirely coincidental—really, it was.
• Related to the above: The explosion at the ranch was “on a timer” and the PCs didn’t get clear in time—so now I have to improvise a way out 😛
• I realize afterward that, of the PCs’ written Objectives, only one of them is actually “actionable” right now, which entirely defeats the purpose of having them in the first place (that being: having multiple choices, rather than one obvious choice for what to do next). Good news: that means I have a pretty good idea where they’ll go next, even though that isn’t what I wanted.

Session Recap; Stream

GM confidence: 3.5/5. I did not feel quite ready to run as I would like, from the start, but I felt it went pretty well. I can’t identify anything that went truly wrong, but I had a nagging, possibly-irrational sense that it could, somehow, have been better. But nevermind that…

The Characters

I’m pretty happy with the PC lineup—not Sea Dogs good, but good. They go well with the campaign theme, I think. Plus, there is a little more potential for inter-party conflict than usual, which could be fun down the road.

The Manhunt Narrative

I led it off with something a little different (for me), that being a mostly player-led narrative sequence. I asked a few leading questions, in turn, and let them narrate the events that would lead up to the “actual” start. I would say it went pretty well—I expected it to—though it did result in a couple of unplanned elements. One: I intended the deputy to be accompanied by a partner (that I intended to kill off), and wasn’t wholly prepared for him to charge off on his own without him. Two: I had not even considered the addition of the EMT’s otherwise-inevitable partner. I “should have known better” in both cases. I briefly considered offing the EMT-partner, but decided against it—wouldn’t have been the same.

The Wakeup

The “wake-up” scene garnered exactly the reaction I intended, by all accounts. The players did everything right, here, including playing up the suspicion that Heinlein might actually have killed the other deputy. There was a bit of a downside, though, in that they seemed to dawdle a bit trying to understand, and I had to nudge them forward. It’s no surprise to me that I kinda forgot about the EMT-partner, “Turk,” and he kept lagging behind my attention—there will undoubtedly be more surprise party-members that I need to keep relevant, so that’s something I need to try to improve.

The Long Road

I opted to keep the travel bits simplified here, as it isn’t the real focus of this part of the story. I wanted to keep it moving along. Aside from making people point fingers-of-suspicion at other PCs, I intended the dead deputy as a travel problem to overcome. It was at this point, as the PCs officially got under way, that the players started mucking up my not-so-careful plans and making me think on my feet:

• In the previous version of this campaign, which I ran for the face-to-face group, everyone followed along on Google Earth on the big screen, and could see what was ahead as it was encountered. In this case, the players were keeping track off-screen without being so directed, and, annoyingly, finding things I didn’t notice (like the “ranch”).
• I didn’t really consider how the campers might be equipped—things like bicycles.
• I didn’t look over the PCs’ gear as thoroughly as I had thought (or intended), and therefore didn’t notice the ATV—though, afterward, I think it would have been less of a problem than I thought at the time.
• I expected them to ask about horses. The “tractor” was definitely a surprise, though.
• After the overnight at Meeteetse, now with the tractor, I did not actually expect them to go back to the campground. I was afraid it would be a problem with the timing of things, but the tractor actually made up for that delay. A little too well, actually—they got to Cody a little earlier than I intended. (Afterward, I realize I could easily have thrown in some maintenance on the tractor to burn some daylight.)

The Arrival

I wasn’t happy with the stuff after the PCs’ arrival in Cody. It just felt muddy, rambling, to me. I made several admittedly-minor “story” mistakes. I struggled to figure out how to bring the other sheriff’s people into the scene. I made a huge rookie mistake—calling for a Physician roll without consideration for what happens if it fails. (Logically, that character should probably not have been treating the patient at the time, in the first place.) Finally, we were in an awkward spot for a proper cliffhanger, which forced me to jury-rig something at the last second. It probably turned out better than it felt to me at the time, but I will definitely focus on how to handle all that better in the future.

I wasn’t expecting to be running again so soon after the end of Sea Dogs. But the Olympus (Saturday) group found itself between GMs, and when the dust settled, I ended up next on the schedule again. Earthfall is, effectively, a “spiritual successor” to the previous After the End campaign I ran for the Core Group (Friday)—same overall concept, in a new apocalyptic setting. I should start running a couple of weeks from now—early August—barring any unexpected delays.

Introduction

I originally pitched this campaign to Olympus in May of 2019, but retracted it in favor of Sea Dogs when one of the others started talking about a possible Post-Apocalypse run. Back then, I had done the usual Q&A barrage to sort out the particulars, all of which I kept for this run, pretty much as-is. One of the players wasn’t a fan of the former eschatological premise, so that was replaced. I’m keeping the nature of that replacement close-to-the-vest for the moment, but it’ll become apparent very early on.

This isn’t the first time I’ve attempted this current campaign in some form—I pitched it to the Core Group, in 2011, and a similar storyline was featured in a couple of sequel-concepts to Dreamland and Temporal Solutions (which tended to overlap a lot anyway). As an official “alternate timeline” of the Daniverse, all the usual background elements exist (even if they don’t actually appear). Plus, anyone familiar with the official Daniverse timeline will likely recognize the term “Earthfall,” and have a pretty good idea what it’s about as a result—though that could be a trick. 😉

The Player-Characters

The initial pregame Q&A resulted in a basic plan for the PC group: they would be “first-responders,” in a less-populated part of the country, on a manhunt in the forest when SHTF. We opted for a low-level start: 150 point, non-cinematic nobodys. Inspired by my Outlanders campaign, they would use names from classic sci-fi writers—though I can’t think of a catchy reference like the “Gun Show” at the moment, sadly. I decided on a town near Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. The “first-responder” thing morphed a bit in the working process: we ended up with one of the PCs as the kidnapper being brought in by a deputy-sheriff and some other manhunt participants, volunteer or otherwise.

I ripped off the Sea Dogs “Treasure Maps” concept here, as well. Each PC has an “Objective”—some thing he needs to do, place he needs to reach, person he needs to find, etc. It serves the same purpose as its inspiration, that is, to establish differing personal goals, to get and keep the PCs moving actively forward.

The Plan

Other than the new setting, my plan is basically the same as the previous After the End campaign. It will be a no-pulled-punches pure-sandbox making heavy use of Google Earth, tarot card draws, and random encounters. Unlike its predecessor, which predated the release of GURPS After the End, this one will feature material from that series as well. There is one potential issue with this run, though, which is that Google Earth isn’t accessible through the Fantasy Grounds VTT software—we can still use it, externally, of course, but it won’t be a part of the live-stream or recording for YouTube. This probably means I’m going to have to use a lot of screenshots, some of which may need to be created on the fly. I’m going to plan on doing a standard 12-week run, but that may change as we get under way.

Closing (Or Rather, Opening)

I feel pretty confident running this campaign. I’ve done it before, and I know what works and doesn’t. Given it’s a sandbox, though, I have no idea how/where it’s going to end up. Should be an interesting gauge of how I’ve improved (or not) as a GM.