Fallout 3 - The art of doing it wrong

As may have been gathered, AWB has a little bit of time for the Fallout universe and has recently been playing a bit of Fallout 3.
Now as we know, Fallout 3 does have a storyline. A deep and involved quest to, well, go and do boring stuff in search of your character's dad and save the world. Or something. And yes we all know just how much we want to do that constantly when there are other things we can do in the game.
First up, we need to remind you that the Fallout universe is a dangerous place. Take for example some of the animals you can find...

Take for example this friendly looking creature. On the plus side your character is currently safely hidden, which is probably a good thing as, based on the size of the rifle you are holding, that puppy is HUGE. Let's just hope all he really wants is to chase the stick.
Not to fear, the Wasteland isn't all scary animals. There are actually some nice friendly people and a touch of romance. Take this young lady...

This is Angela and she is clearly very happy as she is currently getting married. Yes, that man in the sharp knitted vest is a priest and the guy in the right foreground her hubby to be.
Just ignore the honking great big knife in her right hand, okay. There is probably a perfectly rational reason with nothing at all to do with her landing her hubby by using ant queen pheromones for a bit of casual date rape.
Nope, this is Fallout 3 after all. Fallout 3 is a nice universe. After all what other game version would take such a strong view on harming children?
Cannibalism on the other hand...

Well thank you Old Man Harris, we are glad you cleared that up.
Still, Fallout 3, unlike earlier games, prevents you from actually harming any character under the age of 16, which is probably the only reason this charming little fella isn't currently a red smear across the pavement...

Remind us again why we are helping you, you ungrateful little brat?
Still, the one advantage with Bryan, for that is his name, is that near the start of the quest involving giant fire breathing ants that he begs you to help him with, he chooses to hide inside a shelter for safety.
One of these in fact...

Cosy looking aren't they?
And the big advantage of him decided to go hide in one, is that unless you decided to formally speak to him again and close the quest, the lovable little scamp gets to remain in there.
Not that it really effects the game, but walking past him from time to time to hear his slightly distressed cries does have a strange satisfaction.
As does other actions within the game. Fallout is a universe that contains teddy bears, and let's face it, what game universe would be complete without them. In fact there are large numerous amounts of teddy bears located within the game, and if you are careful enough with your searching, you can have a small picnic with a few them...

Don't worry. You can still fit on the bed. It is all completely safe.
Also completely safe in Fallout is starting a small fire from time to time...

Here is one we started earlier. Nothing to worry about. All perfectly under control. What could possibly go wrong...

Quite.

Super Mutant Masacre - Fallout in 15mm

After having the grand idea to play some Fallout as a miniature game, AWB FINALLY managed to live the dream last Friday by putting on a small game in 15mm for the Butchers of the Bell Curve gaming group.

System was Tomorrow's War, which was the reason AWB purchased these rules in the first place, and figures from GZG. The game had a raiding party of nine Super Mutants vs a Science type team from one of the Vaults numbering in at eleven. Inspiration was mainly from Fallout:3 for, as fans of the game probably know, West and East Coast Super Mutants are slightly different.

For those playing along at home, the Super Mutants were classed as D8 quality and morale with one Super Mutant Brute as leader which was morale D10. The Brute was classed as 'Hard to Kill' as per the Tomorrow's War rules and the rank and file were given 'Tricky to Kill', a variation to this rule where a D4 is rolled as the saving dice instead of the normal D6. There was a two mutant weapons team with a minigun (+1D support weapon) that was also classed as Intimidating, all others had stand weapons and none had armour.

The humans had a two man 'Science Team' armed with pistols, a 'Security' team of four figures in armour (1D), a 'hero' (D10 quality/morale and armour, Designated Marksman skill) and a four figure squad of 'Hangers On' armed with SMG/Shotguns. All except the 'hero' were D8 quality/morale and the side's Confidence was rated as Poor based on the rational ground that their mission was rather risky for little 'real' reward.

The humans were tasked with retrieving as much 'science' (read VP) as they could from a small shack they had found in the middle of the wasteland without getting killed and the Super Mutants had the more straight forward task of wiping out the PUNY HUMANS!!!! Hence the humans got no VP for killing Super Mutants, while our favourite big yellow skinned idiots had no interest in the 'science'. Both sides therefore could obtain victory here...

Although (spoilers), the Super Mutants ended up getting butchered.

The humans were gone for all money at one stage. The 'Security' team was being forced back, the 'hero' had been last seen collapsing under a hail of minigun fire and what's more, a Molerat had just popped up randomly to be annoying.

Then, having also randomly found enough loot to increase the 'Security' teams supply level for the rest of the game (which under the rules gives that team a very useful +1 dice to roll when firing), the luck swung back, the Super Mutants were falling like Bloatflies and by turn seven the humans were casually finishing off the wounded.

All good fun really and completely justified all the time the last two years spent, on and off, painting figures for this project. Neither of the two players were experienced with the source game and probably missed some of the deliberate references (as well as referring to the Super Mutants as 'Ninja Turtles' for most of the game) which was a mild pity. There was also a few of the 'house rules' that probably need a little more Beta testing. The vault dwellers all had PIPBoys for example, which as players of Fallout:3 and Fallout New Vegas will know, allow use of the VATS system. Sliding VATS into Tomorrow's War without making it a game breaker is still a work in progress. Current version/theory has PIPBoy equipped teams being able to reroll failed reaction tests with the chance to take a VATS shot coming up via the set of home made Fog of War cards. These random event cards also include such 'Fallout' type events as the Mysterious Stranger and the appearance of various non friendly animals.

So, still a bit of tweaking to do with the house rules for this project (as well as a LOT of painting still to finish) but overall a very entertaining Friday night using a reasonable straight forward game engine that provided an amusing dialogue to the night's events.

Good fun, with the only real failure of the night being the complete failure to remember to take any photos.

Projects - More Fallout game planning

In an attempt to push forward the dream of playing Fallout in 15mm, or maybe just as an excuse to avoid painting, AWB has been making some more cards to use within this project.
This current batch (no photos this time as once you have seen one homemade card printed onto 90gsm you have seen them all), are 'Stuff Cards'. This is an AWB idea that is not from the Tomorrow's War rules and an attempt to add a bit more Fallout type flavour. There are 18 cards (as that is what fits nicely onto a single A4 sheet more then anything else) and the theory is that each player will draw between 1 and 3 at the start of the game based on their sides Supply Level.
Most are things such as Chems that can be used as desired to give temporary bonuses to units while 1 in 6 are dud cards such as Teddy Bear and Mystery Meat (don't eat it, please) that serve no in game purpose. These cards will hopefully reflect on the sort of amounts of semi useful junk the average Fallout universe type character might be found carrying about.

Projects - Fallout as Miniatures - Fog of War cards

As hinted at in an earlier post, AWB has been attempting for months to get around to playing some tabletop 15mm wargaming in the Fallout universe, most probably using the Tomorrow's War game system.
Just to prove that AWB doesn't spend their entire day updating blog posts, here is a cheap and nasty photo to tease and excite you...

... which strangely also refuses to rotate the correct way. Oh well.
So what you can see is some work in progress Vault Dweller types converted with a dab of green stuff for the PipBoy from GZG figures and some home made Fog of War cards.
Tomorrow's War using these cards for random events during their games to add more colour and confusion to the game. Unfortunately the supplied cards are aimed at more your traditional future war experience (ie fire support, nano tech, communications nets) and don't really fit into the Fallout flavour.
Hence, with a little help from CorelDraw and some 45x65mm card sleeves, AWB has created some new ones. Only 18 so far and probably could do with being printed on some thicker paper but a reasonably pleasing effort so far. All that needs to be done now is to actually finish painting and ask the Overseer nicely if we can open the Vault...

TV - Defiance = Fallout Lite?

AWB has been watching a bit of Defiance lately.
For those not in the know, Defiance is a SciFi tv show as shown on the cable channel Syfy and developed by Rockne S. O'Bannon, a man who lists the wonderful FarScape on his CV.
The premise is simple.
Alien arc fleet arrives and is embarrassed to discover Earth actually has a population.
Oops.
Tensions rise.
War breaks out.
Terraforming engines run out of control.
Peace stumbles along.
Cats and Dogs living together.
As you do.
The other gimmick is that the TV show is apparently linked in with the MMORPG of the same name where apparently actions in the game can effect story lines in the TV show. Ooooo!
AWB must confess to a LARGE amount of cynicism about this claim and seriously doubts a multi million dollar TV show will ever let itself be dictated in any way shape or form by a bunch of suicide gankers running around teabagging Noobs.
(Although, as a post modern piece of metafiction, a TV show deliberately set inside a MMORPG world may be amusing, especially if they make a few of the characters Korean based Gold Miners who are just in it for real world cash...)
So, AWB has watched a few episodes and to be honest, isn't really all that impressed. The feel here is that the show wants to be Fallout. Both have societies rebuilding between bouts of tribal factional fighting with mixtures of homemade, pre war and bleeding edge advantaged tech. The Bioman the show's lead hero fights in the pilot was so similar visually to a Super Mutant Nightkin, right down to the self mutilation scarring/serial number across it's chest that AWB was actually majorly disappointed when it didn't start arguing with itself and fire up a Stealth Boy.
Unfortunately that is about as far as it goes and there are not blue/yellow numbered jumpsuits or two headed battle cattle. There are also no aliens.
Okay there 'technically' are aliens, but they are either dialog less background dressing or latex headed humans with different hair. The major one are effectively what you would get if you ever decided to dip a goth in a hell of a lot of really strong bleach, and the others are rangas with latex nose bridges and funky contact lenses. There is also a semi cyborg race doctor character who you half expect to suddenly come out and rant "Dammit Jim, I'm an Alien, not a Caricature!" which frankly would make the character a lot more original and interesting.
Visuals aside, they are all humans, even down to the sweet little romantic sub plot between the son of the lead NegaGoth and daughter of the human mine boss.
Let's step back for a moment and muse on just how 'strange' that is. If, in the non sci fi 'real world', one was to hook up say with a sheep... well... we think we all know where that joke is going. However, at least it could be said that both humans and sheep are at least both mammals from the SAME planet. Love may conquer all, but most Xenobiologists agree that it does very little to ensure you and your new life partner from another planet have interconnecting dangly bits or even that you blood isn't mutually toxic.
On the plus side to this issue, at least the show is Syfy and not HBO or not only would we be seeing a lot of alien love, but a screenful of Alien Space Boobies each week as well.
In summary this show has clearly aimed high, and credit for trying that as the investment to set up a complete alien based SciFi show cannot be cheap. It is also a show that wants to be taken seriously. This is perhaps the biggest disappointment as to AWB at least the show has failed to make orbit. It is filled with humans with funny hair and voices instead of real aliens and mildly predicable plots (so far at least) that could be lifted and transferred in and out of just about any other TV show. Strangely, or maybe most disappointingly, O'Bannon's previous show, FarScape, a show that almost listed batshitcrazy as it's mission statement (as well as a ship, a living ship...) managed to provide us with aliens that we believed were aliens. FarScape gave us a plant as a main character FFS!
Defiance, however, just really comes across as a bit bland.

Pip-Boy Light's On - Musing on Fallout Projects

AWB of course has several projects on the boil at any one time and two of them currently revolve around the Fallout franchise of computer roleplaying games. First is playing Fallout as a miniature tabletop game using Ambush Alley Games 'Tomorrow's War' and the second a traditional pen and paper roleplaying using the 'Heavy Gear' rules published by Dream Pod 9.
Most of the ideas to make these projects work are relatively straight forward. Tomorrow's War is already a flexible open set of rules designed to be used in any setting, the main stumbling problem being the well know slow pace AWB takes to paint figures. Playing Fallout as a roleplaying game takes a slight more bit of ground work. All equipment and beasties that might be used in the campaign need to be converted from computer stats into the roleplaying system. Not really that big a deal; guns are guns, humans are humans and there is no magic system to worry about. After all, roleplaying is a group activity and as long as everyone has a reasonable idea how an object works then most groups can run with it.
Which brings us to the Pip-Boy.
Now for those readers who are not familiar with the Fallout Universe, and seriously, AWB is currently frowning at you in a concerned and angry manner, the Pip-Boy is the wrist mounted portable computer the main character wears that doubles as the game's main player interface. Think of it as a large smart phone with rubbish graphics and a few health monitoring aps. There is some implication that they are bonded for life to their user, or at least cannot be removed without the owner's permission (ref the Fallout 3 add on Operation Anchorage) although it is probably safe to assume they can be removed or none of our heroes would ever get in and out of those skin tight suits of stealth armour.
The problem is V.A.T.S.
Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System is a game mechanic that allows Fallout 3/Fallout New Vegas players (where the game is 1st person shooter for the most part) to conduct limited points based targeting in the same way that Fallout 1 and 2 (which were action point based 3rd person isometric style games) allowed the player. With a handy press of a key the game player could pause the action, carefully assess the tactical situation and target enemies for violent destruction. While never stated as such, perks such as 'Maths Wrath' within the game strongly imply that V.A.T.S. is controlled by the Pip-Boy, but how?
Clearly if V.A.T.S. and Pip-Boys really existed they would not be able to physically freeze time. If they could then, well, those powers would no doubt be used for evvvvvvillllllll(tm) and not improving your next shot with that 10mm pistol you are carrying. Within the game, the down side to V.A.T.S. is that weapons degrade faster. How this is meant to work AWB honestly has no idea. Let's just all assume the increased weapon wear is simply a play balance tool and move on. What is probably the best guess as to how the system works is that the Pip-Boys uses a combination of it's built in sensors and some motion prediction aps to track the immediate targets, calculate existing weaknesses based on detectable injuries and then offer up predicted travel paths and offset aiming points. Or something. It strikes AWB as to be similar to the predictor gunsights that started to come into service late in WW2. In theory they offered up a lot of useful targeting aids, but only after the user had entered in a reasonable amount of data first. In practise they seemed to make an average shot better, while the good shots who already knew how to judge deflection ignored them completely.
So, getting back to putting V.A.T.S. into other gaming projects.
The great danger is to make it a super weapon. In Tomorrow's War the scope is not the hero character but the movement of squads and fireteams. Tomorrow's War uses a buckets of dice type system where the higher the roll the better, and better troops get to roll bigger dice. Elites for example may roll D12s, while scum play with D6. Middle ranks get D8s or D10s. Since the system involves opposed dice rolls where one side must beat the actual number rolled on the dice, the difference in dice size can be very powerful.
So making V.A.T.S. increase dice size, which was AWB first idea on the subject, is probably not the way to go, especially since in universe the only people with Pip-Boys are Vault types and, player character excepted, most of them are pretty rubbish fighters.
The feel at the moment therefore is that V.A.T.S. gives reaction bonuses. Tomorrow's War has a reaction test mechanic where the side must test to see if they successfully 'react' to oppositions moves. In this a natural '1' is 'Bad' and the (non play tested) feel is to allow units with Pip-Boys to re-roll any 1s.
Which may work. Like we said, it is non play tested and a work in progress.
Our second project in the Fallout Universe is the old school pencil and paper Roleplaying game. Here the problem is both trickier and easier. First we can just solve the problem by ensuring all players never get to wear a Pip-Boy in the first place. If that fails, or we decided we do want to have our PCs wear the blue and yellow jumpsuits, the size of the problem will probably depend on how flexible the players are and if they are around your table to role play or roll play. A good role player could just state 'I am going into V.A.T.S.' and the skilled game master inform them, 'stuff happens'. A roll player would probably want to know the dice roll modifiers. Here we have some options - bonus to hit, bonus to crit chance, bonus to initiative or maybe just bonus intelligence about the target to be given to the players.
Personally AWB is thinking that 'if' the Fallout RPG campaign ever gets off the ground it might just be the easy escape with 'Plan A', but should the campaign start and RobCo's most famous wrist watch gets an outing, then AWB will keep you posted.

Painting Projects from the Bottom of the Figure Pile (1)

In what no doubt made perfect sense at the time, AWB seems to have at one stage purchased some 15mm Nuns from Peter Pig. They are classic pengiun style, have some figures armed with nasty looking sticks and are all rather angry looking.
Why AWB decided to own these is anyone's guess. What AWB is going to do with said figures is alway open to speculation. While they may have been purchased as part of the incedibly slow moving Tomorrow's War 'Fallout' project - in which case they probably should be based up as individual figures - AWB struggles to see a need for a crack squad of Nuns fighting their way across a 15mm Capital Wasteland and hence the current plan is to base them up as a small unit of Fields of Glory horde.