Following on from my last post (in March!), I have been reading Traveller. Reading through the content of the last post, it dawned on me that a serious game of PARANOIA might be run with the Traveller rules. I’m not sure why that makes sense to me; but, I do know that it does for whatever reason. Perhaps it has something to do with the presence of a rulebook. If I turn up with the PARANOIA rules, then I will be playing that game. If I turn up with the Traveller rules, then I will be playing Traveller – even if the adventures I run with those rules have a striking resemblance to PARANOIA missions. With reference back to the previous post, it would be like playing Warhammer with War Machine rules and tri-fold paper miniatures. I may be using the background and battle setups of the Warhammer world, but because I’m using different rules and different figures it might be perceived that I’m not actually playing Warhammer.

It would be interesting to have a go at dressing up PARANOIA in new clothes and giving it a go. I might not necessarily attempt it with Traveller, but using some other system will certainly draw players off the scent; and if I muddy the waters then they may never realise they have been led up the garden path (to seriously mix up a metaphor).

So, instead, I opted for writing something completely new. My making that decision presented a new issue, because I had only a fortnight to write and prepare that adventure. I could write something from scratch or see if I had something lying around the house already. My mind settled on my incomplete Avignon supplement for PARANOIA. I had the skeleton of an adventure written for that. Admittedly, the adventure – and campaign – set events in 1397, and the standard Maelstrom game happens in the middle of the 16th century, but this would be a one-off con adventure, so it didn’t matter.

I wrote several pages of notes, sketched out a bunch of maps, and created characters of a non-combative nature to keep the game entertaining without resorting to a sword to solve everything. The character’s would be pilgrims visiting Avignon seeking forgiveness for their sins. A cardinal would offer then forgiveness if they simply completed a single night of babysitting for the 6 year old son of a high ranking noble. I imagined medieval ‘Home Alone‘.

I knew I wanted to add some intrigue, so taking a PARANOIA leaf out of the book, I created secret missions for everyone and secret equipment, too. To simplify communication of the secret stuff, I wrote everything on stickers and put them on the front of ordinary playing cards. I could give each players a hand of cards that they could reference throughout the game and I could, maybe, reuse later on.

The adventure worked out well. I don’t think anyone zoned out or lost interest. I tried to keep my focus moving around the table and opted for a less serious stance to keep the energy flowing. I didn’t try to simulate accents and claimed the characters had enough grasp of the basics of French not to need to struggle with language. The 6-year old proved to be an irritating pain in the butt. I’m reasonably certain kids in the Medieval times did act this way, though kids of nobles might have done. I’m sure spoilt and demanding translates through the ages. In the end, two characters almost achieved their objective and another did, but suffering serious personal injury in the process – almost losing his right arm to a lucky sword swing. I spent a lot of time screeching as the 6-year old and being a right little shit. I suspect the adventure went well without necessarily promoting the actual nature of the game – though, Maelstrom promotes simplicity of mechanics and I definitely displayed that by hardly touching the dice at all. I also identified a definite gap in the market for a Maelstrom gaming screen.

So, I now face the question – should I take all the work I did for the Avignon supplement and rework it for Maelstrom?

Well, one very frequent error relates to an old PARANOIA XP wallpaper:

My confusion led to some investigation. First, I had to actually work out that this was the image they wanted. I had a reference to their target, but not the target itself. So, I went over to the Wayback Machine on the Internet Archive. I didn’t expect to find a single specific image this way, but the archive had it. I typed in the exact address and image name – en voila! (or something like that). Anyway, I present it above for your viewing and downloading pleasure if you should feel inclined.

However, I couldn’t figure why anyone would be trying to access this image so vigorously (indeed, the vigour means I may well reduce the file size of this wallpaper image to minimise the impact on my bandwidth). I went to the site and having restored my own image, found it half way down the page. Scrolling up a couple of posts, on this French forum, I found the likely reason for all the hits on my image (which got loaded more as a matter of coincidence than interest!) – a World Cup-related image of two ladies with a football (probably NSFW), wearing little more than some artistically applied body paint representing a few patriotic flags.

Vive le foot féminin, indeed!

And, for the time being, www.traitorrecycling.com is pointing at this time. It hasn’t exactly been busy over there of late.

Last time I was there, they had the new edition of Talisman (before Games Workshop gave it up to Fantasy Flight), my kids played Magic (and I even managed a quick draft), and I pottered around a spot. Played a game of Cthulhu Munchkin with Phil Masters (a very pleasant veteran of the RPG industry who is always very unassuming considering the incredible amount of stuff he has written over the years).

Hoping to see some new board games, check out who is down there representing Mongoose (to pump them for details on the new PARANOIA, maybe), and see what the 2nd hand dealers have to offer. Maybe a demo or two with the likes of Esdevium to pass the time?

Oh… and if you’re there yourself, I’ll be wearing a bright green hand-painted Cthulhu t-shirt – Fhtagn!

I noticeded that your domain “omegacomplex.com” expires in a few weeks, which means that it is going to be publicly available soon. I’d like to buy this domain name before it expires.

I assume that you are not interested in keeping it for yourself.

Hmm… Does this person know something that I don’t? Very strange mail indeed, especially as they only offered me $60 for the domain name. Really not sure what anyone would want with Omega Complex…

I mean, except for all sorts of medicinal and health concerns, drug firms… Just those few dozen individuals, firms or multi-national consortiums.

Anyway… I have no plans of giving the domain name up. Well, not unless someone plans on making that dollar value more exciting.

Delays getting into London meant I missed the first round of scheduled games, and needing to leave by 5pm at the latest made it impossible for me to join the second wave of games. Annoying. So, instead I wandered around the various trade stands and took a look at what they had to offer. I had a look at Cold City and Hot War from the guys at Contested Ground on the Collective Endeavour stand, and got my copy of ‘Trail of Cthulhu’ signed by Ken Hite and Robin Law. I purchased a Security Clearance range of gem dice from Chessex and purchased an Explorer’s Edition of ‘Savage Worlds’ from Triple Ace Games.

I also had a chat with Matthew Sprange on the Mongoose stand. I glanced over the PARANOIA range available – including the brand new ‘Big Book of Bots‘ and noticed a lack of ‘The Underplex‘. I asked Matthew about it – and was relieved to find that it hadn’t been forgotten… they’d just sold out. I stood over a copy of the new ‘Dragon Warriors’ for a very long time, angonising over whether to pick up a copy… but, in the end I decided my original six book of the game would suffice for the time being! They’re hard to come by these days.

My final find for the day was picking up a game from the Bring and Buy stand. I found a copy of ‘Metamorphosis Alpha‘ – the hardback 4th edition – signed by James Ward and going for a very reasonable price. I had seen a copy at Game 2008, and the book got my attention because Jim Holloway had done all the interior art and the colour cover. I’m a sucker for Jim’s stuff. However, the parallels with PARANOIA don’t end at the artist. A ship in the depths of space runs into a cloaked asteroid filled with alien pirates essentially. The collision fills the ship with lethal radiation, killing the crew outside of stasis and sending a lot of the systems and robots haywire. When the Starship Warden starts to recover from the accident, first robots, then androids, and finally human crew emerge. The ship has been invaded and the effects of the radiation have caused mutations. You can’t tell whether the androids or robots have been effected by the disaster until they turn on you. The systems on the ship have security related to different coloured rings or individual working roles, so the players characters can’t necessarily get to where they need to go without a lot of potential danger. Danger, excitement, radiation, mad robots, infilitration by the enemy, hidden mutations… oh, and did I mention the core AI systems that should be in control of everything, but don’t work quite right anymore…

I’m looking forward to playing this game real soon!

In 1446, Wales perched on the precipice, faced with the prospect of a new rebellion by restless natives. Complacent English nobles, entrusted with expansive domains, stretch themselves all too thin, leaving stewards to run much of their lands and properties. In many instances, these stewards come from the local population, swayed by misplaced loyalties and the corrupting influence of power.

In the midst of this, a simple merchant requests the assistance of travellers in Swansea to drive, and provide escort, to a cartload of goods, bound for Pembroke. It seems a simple enough task, providing payment and transport for a couple of days on the road. However, how often do games present simple tasks that stay simple. Mixing legendary stones, agents of the Crown, bandits and stray sheep, ‘The Sward and The Stone’ is a new adventure for the classic ‘Maelstrom‘ role playing system.

You can download The Sward and the Stone now from Drive Thru Stuff and RPGNow. A 27-page adventure plus two maps, the booklet provides background, NPCs and a gazateer of the character’s route through the craggy, troubled landscape of south Wales in the mid-15th Century.