Archive for April, 2009

Ad Astra: The SpaceCorp Corporate State

5
April 17, 2009
by Stargazer in , , ,

As promised I will now share some information on the only corporate state in the Omega Centaury cluster:

The SpaceCorp Corporate State (Quick Facts)

Main World: Kobe, 4th planet of the Kansai System
Government: Corporate State
Head of State: CEO Moriann Sakata
Official Language: Japanese
Official Currency: Yen
Military: Professional Army/Navy
Major Religions: Buddhist 62%, Atheist 28%, Other 10%
Major Worlds: Kobe, Toshima, Nerima, Shinjuku, Arakawa, Kanto, Chiba, Kyoto

“Contrary to the vulgar belief that men are motivated primarily by materialistic considerations, we now see the capitalist system being discredited and destroyed all over the world, even though this system has given men the greatest material comforts” – Ayn Rand 20th century writer

One of the corporations that took part in the colonization efforts in the 22nd century was the Japanese SpaceCorp Corporation. SpaceCorp not only supplied a lot of the space ships but also sent thousands of highly trained and qualified workers, engineers and managers to the new world beyond the wormhole.

The mainly Japanese employees of SpaceCorp clinged to their langauge, tradition and work ethic even after the wormhole collapsed. The Gaian branch of SpaceCorp survived all hardships and as the first Gaian space ships travelled to the stars they were built by SpaceCorp engineers.

In 387 NR the newly elected CEO of SpaceCorp Ken Watanabe convinced the Gaian government to grant extraterritoriality to his corporation. A few decades after that SpaceCorp bought the Kobe colony from the Gaian Republic for an undisclosed sum. Until today the SpaceCorp Corporate State is the largest supplier of space ships and heavy machinery.

As a corporate state, SpaceCorp is not governed but managed. Minor rules and regulations are set by corporate bureaucrats at all levels. The major day-to-day operation is handled by the CEO. The board of directors, which advises and directs the CEO is directly elected by the stockholders.

The standard of living in SpaceCorp is very high, especially in higher branches of the management.

SpaceCorp is the faction of the Ad Astra campaign setting that changed the most from my initial ideas. In the beginning it was just another corporation. And it was still American. In a later version I made it a Japanese-Americam corporation with extraterritorial rights (much like the megacorps in Shadowrun). When I was leafing through GURPS Space for inspiration I reread the section about corporate states and decided to remodel SpaceCorp into a fully-fledged corporate state. While doing so I made it Japanese to give it a more unique flavor. But there are still a few details I have to work out. But since my campaigns focus will probably be on the Gaian Republic and the Tovenaar Empire, this can still wait a few more weeks.

SpaceCorp tries to stay neutral in all conflicts but has several trade agreements with the Gaian Republic.

Tidewater Minion

Minions in D&D 4th Edition: Hit or Miss?

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April 16, 2009
by Stargazer in , ,

Goblin MinionGenerally I like the new rules for minions in D&D 4th Edition. They are several reasons why minions are fun: you can throw dozens of enemies at the players without killing them off instantly or being nothing more than a nuisance, there are no hitpoints for the DM to track. But there’s one rule that really bothers me: Minions never die when missed.

Huh? Some of you may now think “What’s the big deal?”. You know, there are quite a few powers in D&D 4th Edition that deal damage to enemies even when you rolled a miss. That’s especially handy when area effect powers are concerned. The problem is now that some of these powers are powerful enough to do some serious damage against normal monsters even when they miss but minions are completely unharmed. And in some cases this makes no frakking sense.

I had some discussion with my D&D 4th Edition DM about this and we agreed that the idea behind the rule was to make sure that you can’t kill all minions with a simple area effect spell, but I have to admit this rule really messes with immersion. It just feels wrong. But that’s a general problem I am having with 4th Edition combat: it works well as a game but most rules are totally detached from game reality. And don’t get me started on the daily sneak attack…

As I said before: all in all I like a lot about 4th Edition but the longer I play it I notice more and more rules that just don’t feel right. So, what are your thoughts on this?

Star Wars – MacGyver-Style

2
April 16, 2009
by Stargazer in , ,

This video is too awesome not to share:

Enjoy!

Via: GeeksAreSexy

Dungeonslayers DM shield

Dungeonslayers: GM shield

0
April 16, 2009
by Stargazer in , , , ,

There’s now an official Dungeonslayers gamemaster screen called a GM shield (I think there are not enough rules for a proper screen). Here’s the blurb from the official site:

Dungeonslayers DM shieldBehold the Dungeonslayers gamemaster shield, the solution for all troubled gamemasters who are constantly fighting with those long and extremely complicated rules!

The gamemaster shield (no, we didn’t have enough material for a real gamemaster screen) lists all important rules and tables for your convenience and can be used to separate the gamemaster’s territory from the players’ part of the table!

You can get the gamemaster shield in our download section.

The Dungeonslayers gamemaster shield makes running DS even easier then before, so what are you waiting for? Put on some chainmail, draw your sword, ready some spells and let’s explore some dungeons!

OGT will finally go retail!

0
April 15, 2009
by Stargazer in , ,

Good news, everyone! Jonathan Jacobs officially announced today that he entered a contract with Studio 2 Publishing:

Open Game Table logoI am very pleased to announce that as of today, I have entered into a contract with Studio 2 Publishing for the exclusive retail distribution of Open Game Table: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs (Vol. 1). S2P currently publishes and distributes games such as Savage Worlds, Deadlands, The Edge of Mignight, and many many more. It’s very likely you already have many games they distribute on your game shelf. [...]

That’s really great news! The Open Game Table will finally be available at retail stores all over the US (and hopefully sometimes even in the rest of the world)!

By the way, it will probably take a few more months until you can get a copy of the OGT at your local shop, so why don’t you order a copy from Amazon.com or Lulu in the meantime?

Ad Astra: The Tovenaar Empire

1
April 15, 2009
by Stargazer in , , ,

Any good SF or Space Opera setting features an evil empire. The scourge of the Star Ocean is definitely the Tovenaar Empire, a expansionistic, militaristic and faschistic nation ruled by the iron fist of Arbach Tovenaar, heir to the throne of General-Emperor.

The Tovenaar Empire (Quick Facts)

Main World: Tovenaar Prime, 1st planet of the Tovenaar system
Government: Military Dictatorship
Head of State: General-Emperor Arbach Tovenaar
Official Language: English
Official Currency: Tovenaari Denar
Military: Universal Conscription
Economy: Free Market Economy
Major Religions: Atheist 90%, Neochristianity 6%, Other 4%
Major Worlds: Tovenaar Prime, Ayasi Secundus, Bethalor, Turondro, Outback, Serpentus V

“Not everyone was happy with how things worked in the Gaian society. One of these people was Alexander Tovenaar, a young and brash Gaian career soldier. He believed democracy to weak, to slow to solve the problems the Gaian Republic faced at that time. In 317 NR Tovenaar and his followers tried to overthrow the Gaian government. The coup failed and they were forced to flee.” – From a Gaian history textbook

After their flight from Gaian space, forces loyal to Tovenaar conquered a colony world on the rim. They called the planet Tovenaar Prime and made it the capital of their fledling empire. Today the Tovenaar Empire is one of the superpowers of the Star Ocean.

The Tovenaari Empire is ruled by the General Emperor and the Tovenaari Senate who has only advisory functions. All members of the Senate are drawn from the higher echelons of the military. In fact the whole Tovenaari society is highly militaristic.

The Tovenaari industry is totally focussed on war production, shortages of non-military products are common and the standard of living of civilians is pretty low. Only members of the military and industrialist enjoy a higher standard and have a lot more freedoms than the ordinary citizen.

The Tovenaari government has almost total control over the lives of its subjects. The second most important person in the Tovenaari Empire is the propaganda secretary. The indoctrination of young Tovenaari begins in early childhood making sure they don’t fall out of alignment.

The Tovenaari maintain the largest military of the Star Ocean. In the last centuries they invaded their neighbours repeatedly. Currently most of the imperial forces are trying to quell an uprising on several imperial frontier worlds.
Relations with its neighbours are tense to say the least.

That concludes another installment of my “Ad Astra” series. Stay tuned for the next episode when I will reveal some details on the corporate state of the Star Ocean: SpaceCorp! As always I am interested in your comments, so don’t hesitate to post your thoughts.

The Nine Gates

Solo Game with Fudge and Horror

1
April 15, 2009
by Stargazer in , , ,

The Nine GatesSome time ago I have told you about my plans to try out a solo game with my girlfriend. We pondered over the several types of game we could try and finally settled on a modern horror game.

I am currently working on some ideas for a nice background but it will probably heavily influenced by Call of Cthulhu without being a Mythos game per se. Another source that will have some influence on what I am planning is definitely Roman Polanski’s film “The Ninth Gate”. Like the protagonist of this movie, my girlfriend’s character will probably be a pretty normal person confronted with some supernatural mystery.

So, what system could be suitable for such a campaign? My first idea was using BRP or Call of Cthulhu (which uses a version of the BRP rules), but then I settled on FUDGE? Why FUDGE and not the currently more popular FATE? Although FATE has some very interesting aspects (haha, no pun intended), I prefer the somewhat more classical approach of FUDGE.

I am still in an early planning phase, so your thoughts are welcome. Have you ever tried running a horror/mystery campaign using FUDGE? As always I am looking forward to your comments.

By the way, while researching FUDGE I stumbled upon a couple useful articles, that I just have to share with you:

I won’t probably make use of all these resources but perhaps you find something that interests or inspires you.

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