Looting the Corpse - Cyberpunk Style

My earnest attempt to make up for February's lack of posts continues.  I was looking around for something to do when some inspiration came my way.  As some of my long time readers may know I'm a member of the Cyberpunk 2020 group on Google+, recently one of the members Jon Smejkal posted an old write up of his.  Specifically he detailed a deck of cards that he used whenever his players used to loot dead mooks in Cyberpunk 2020. Go show him some love over on his blog, he's a fan of Paul D. Gallagher famous for writing Augmented Reality.  (Click here for the PDF and here for the Dead Tree Version if you don't know what Augmented Reality is).  So he can't be all bad. I very much enjoyed some of the ideas John put forward for what you could find in someone's pockets.  I made a comment on his post in the Community about how I might use the cards with some modifications for my campaigns.  That's when he replied, that he'd love to see me post those modifications once I made them.  To be honest when I first said that it was mostly meant to be polite. Since I haven't been running a lot of Cyberpunk lately.  But then he got me thinking why not make those modifications now?  I mean with my single player busy with schoolwork it's not like I'm doing much in terms of gaming.  I've got a lot of free time on my hands, I might as well.  So here's my attempt at making a custom Loot Deck for my Cyberpunk 2020 Campaigns.

Logical place to start this kind list really.

• 1 EB*
• 16 EB*
• 25 EB*
• 64 EB* 
• 81 EB* 
• 144 EB* 
• 169 EB*
• 254 EB*
• 289 EB*
• 400 EB*

*I used EB because it's in the official Rulebook, but this could easily be Credits, NuYen or GURPS Dollars whatever your favourite Cyberpunk system uses.  I personally use Credits.  If the numbers seems kind of random, don't worry they're supposed to be that way.  I wanted to simulate how people never seem to have a logical amount of money on them except when leaving the bank.  If you want to simulate this even more remove on EB from the amount given and roll 1d100.  This can be in Credstick or Cash form, your choice.

• Car keys.  (Vehicle may be the dead group of mooks getaway vehicle or maybe off-site your choice). 
• Pack of Non-Cancerous Cigarettes (1d20 left, let's face it Smoking's cool dying of cancer isn't.  So in my setting most Tobacco companies have removed the carcinogenic elements from their products.  Extra points if you take a page from Gibson's book and have them be Chinese.
• 1d6+2 Doses of Street Drug (If you use Ocelot's Drug Lab like I do your typical Drug addict needs at least four doses to make it through the day). 
• Deck of Cards or Pair of Dice roll 1d6 to decide which. (Even in the age of phone games there's nothing like shooting the shit before a job over a game of dice or cards). 
• Key to Housing (May get you into a shitty cube in the Combat Zone or maybe into a Corporate Dormitory.  Maybe you could burglarize it for more stuff, use it as a temporary warehouse or just sell the key on the black market so some other guy can burglarize it.  If only you knew where the guy lived).
• Cellphone (1d100 percent Battery Power, most likely a Prepaid Burner). 
• Business Cards (May be plot-relevant, may just be for the local strip-club or escort service). 
• Cigarette Lighter (1d100 percent fluid left) 
• Matchbook (1d10 matches left, I put two methods of lighting your smokes in hopes that the poor sap will have kind of light).  
• Lottery Ticket (In Night City this would be LateNite BodyLotto, in my setting this might be an official lottery or the local Numbers Game.  Roll 1d1000 twice if the same number comes up twice you've got a winner.  Good luck trying to collect though.
• Skillsoft Chip +3 (1-4 chance on d6 that it's for the predominant language of the local area, 5-6 it's an incredibly detailed Tourist Map, giving a bonus to Area Knowledge).
• Pen (even in the Cyberpunk Future People need to write stuff down)
• Phone Number hastily scrawled on a scrap of paper.
• Swiss Army Knife or Multi-Tool 
• 3D Printed Vending Machine Pistol (Probably a .22 or .25 caliber, useful for point-blank assassinations and last minute self-defence against unarmored targets and not much else). 
• Small Notebook (40% chance it contains notes about the plan of attack against the PCs, otherwise it's something personal.  Grocery list, love poem, etc.  Let your imagination run wild a little if they really seize upon it).
• Sunglasses (Following Cyberpunk Tradition they are probably mirror-shades).
• Small Piece of Cheap Jewelry (Chains, Earrings, maybe a Wedding Band if you want to make the players feel bad). 
• Absolutely nothing! (To quote Scott Pilgrim "Wow what a jerk.")
• Wireless Earbud Headphones (If the corpse has a phone on it, there's probably music on the phone.  It seems that every corpse the PCs loot has lousy taste in Music).  
• Package of Snack Food (10% chance it's full, otherwise the porker ate it all.  Future equivalent of Skittles or a bag of peanuts). 
• Snack Bar (%90 chance it's just an empty wrapper, otherwise you've got yourself the equivalent of a Snickers or a Granola Bar). 
• Pocket Sized Photograph (Sentimental or perhaps it's a mugshot of a target.  The PC or an NPC Macguffin they're in charge of would do nicely). 
• Hip Flask (10% it's been drained dry, might explain why the guy's now dead.  Otherwise you just scored yourself some free liquor). 
• Slightly Pornographic Magazine (He's just reading it for the articles, honest.  50% chance the centrefold's been torn out). 
• Braindance or VR Chip (Never something complex, essentially the equivalent of a Dating Sim for a Handheld Console.  At least in terms of complexity).
• Miniature Cybertech Toolkit (Used for personal maintenance). 
• Small Book of Crossword Puzzles (roll 1d100 to determine percentage of completion). 
• Small Box of Unopened Condoms (He's not gonna need them anymore). 
• Bottle of Medicine (Pills might be for allergies, insomnia or a host of other mundane medical problems.  Could probably get you high, about enough for one dose). 

There you have it my attempt at making a deck of cards for when the players loot the body in Cyberpunk.  What I have here amounts to about a deck of Forty which is about what Jon had for his.  I figured I'd restrict myself to the same limit, it falls just short of your standard deck of cards.  There's plenty of things here that might add some colour to when your characters loot corpses after a gunfight.  When they loot, just draw 6 cards and that's what they get.  Some of it they might find a use for, other stuff has no real use other than when fenced.  (I actually quite like the food entries myself, it's something you could describe your character munching on the deadman's snack.  Hey killing people's hungry work).  I might construct a deck of cards with these entries on Roll20 for use in my own games.  I hope you had as much fun reading this as I did while writing it.  Hopefully it's of some use to you, it kind of took a Film Noir bent to it in hindsight.  I probably shouldn't be surprised since for me part of the appeal of Cyberpunk is it being Film Noir in a Dark Future.  If you liked this be sure to +1, re-share and follow this blog for more, posts like this.  As always have a nice day and may you roll many crits, I'll see you later.

Gaming Classic Literature: Long John Silver for Poison'd

The system I will be using.

One of my favourite characters in all of literature is Long John Silver.  The grand-daddy of all fictional pirates.  If Robert Louis Stevenson hadn't written Treasure Island without Silver as the villain.  I doubt that pirates like Jack Sparrow would ever have been put to screen.  So much of what we think of when we think of pirates is owed to Long John.  So to honour him I decided to stat him up in Vincent Baker's Poison'd.  Now this game by the creator of Apocalypse World and Dogs in the Vineyard has an air of controversy around it.  Largely due to an unfortunate incident, (the specifics of which you can find in this 1d4chan article about the game).  Despite that I like Poison'd, I find it to be the perfect mix of story-telling with brutal Pirate action.  Which I think works great for creating the villain of Treasure Island.  So without further ado, let's jump right into it.

1. Choosing Silver's Position

The book tells us that Silver served aboard the ship Walrus with the infamous Captain Flint.  Where Silver was Flint's quartermaster, meaning he was pretty much in charge of the ship's day to day running of the ship.  When it wasn't in combat.  Which makes sense since Silver is shown to be incredibly intelligent and forward-thinking, compared to his fellow pirates.  While most of Flint's old crew seems to have wasted all of their money on rum and women.  Reducing themselves to beggars, forcing them to take part in Silver's plan to go in search of Flint's treasure.  Silver has set himself up quite a nice for himself, running a Tavern known as the Spyglass and having saved his plunder in a bank in Bristol.  Making him a perfect candidate for the position.  The only reason I didn't make Silver a Cook is because in Poison'd the assumption is that the ship's cook poisoned the captain of the ship.  Forcing the characters to deal with the aftermath.  

2. Choosing Silver's Sins

Poison'd requires that the player choose a number of Sins that the character has committed.  Now the list isn't exactly in line with the actions of the characters in Stevenson's book.  Since it was written in the Victorian era of 1883, when what you could publish on paper was a lot more restricted in terms of content.  While Poison'd is written more for a modern adult audience.  It took some thinking but I was eventually able to come up with a list of Sins that fit Silver.  Murder and robbery were a must given his profession, I took both twice.  Since he appears to be incredibly unrepentant about the whole thing.  Since he plans the Mutiny aboard the Hispaniola, something tells me that this isn't his first rodeo.  The only other Sins that were fit with Silver's character Adultery and Blasphemy.  Didn't seem to fit, given that he is shown to be something of a pious man.  Admonishing his fellow pirates when they cut out a page of the Bible to make a Blackspot for him.  When they decide that he's no longer fit to be Captain.  Adultery didn't seem to fit either since Long John is married.  (A fact that is often left out of film adaptations of the book).  To an ex-slave by the name of Rebecca Silver, he trusts to close his bank account and sell his tavern.  After he leaves Bristol in search of Flint's treasure.  This leaves us with a total of Devil 5 and Soul 3.  This tells us that Silver is incredibly brave in the face of danger.  Yet can't stand to endure punishment or torture.  Which I believe is in keeping with his character in the book.  

3. What has Silver Suffered?

My primary reference for constructing his character
based on how he's described in the book.

Very little is known about Silver's past.  All we know is that he is a man of some education (when compared to his fellows) and that he's served with famous pirates such as Edward England and Captain Flint.  Chances are before he was a quartermaster he rose through the ranks as an ordinary seaman.  His going to sea might not have been of his own free will.  Many sailors of the era, including those that served aboard Navy, merchant and Pirate ships, were impressed.  Kidnapped from the streets of a local port and forced into service by a pressgang.  Under any of these commands he would have suffered beatings and lashings as punishment.  He has also suffered mutilation in the form of his missing left leg.  Which he claims to have lost in a broadside in service to the Royal Navy.  While I imagine the him losing it in service of King and Country is a load of BS, I do believe the part about losing it in a broadside.  If your going to lie about something you might as well include some true-ish details.  Finally Silver has suffered damnation at the hands of one Tom.  A crew member who told Silver he would go to the devil, after Silver's compatriots murdered Tom's friend Allan.  All this while Long John was trying to convince Tom to join in the mutiny against Captain Smollett.  This brings Silver's Brutality score up to 5, he's suffered quite a bit in his lifetime.  One could make the argument for adding Imprisonment to the list bringing Silver's Brutality up to 6.  That is if you counted being Marooned as being the same as being Imprisoned.  Since being Marooned is not an option for something your character could have suffered in the past.  Silver claimed to have served with the Pirate Captain Edward England, who was later mutinied against and marooned along with a few men who stood by his side.  Supposedly there was a one-legged maroonee who in one theory served as inspiration to the character of Silver.

4. Choosing Silver's Ambitions

Choosing Long John's ambitions is a simple matter, he's nothing if not ambitious.  The problem is that most of his ambitions aren't covered by the Poison'd rule system.  This presented something of a problem, because Ambition is the stat that covers deception and cunning.  Something that Silver has in spades, since he's able to make himself well-liked among the officers of the Hispaniola.  Despite the fact that he's planning to lead a mutiny against them upon reaching the island.  I did however manage to finagle a list of ambitions that resembles his ambitions.  First off he wants to be Captain, he's spent his life following the orders of various Captains and obviously wants to be one himself.  Otherwise why go to the trouble of leading the mutiny on the Hispaniola.  He also wishes to own land, the closest thing to owning a tavern I could find in the ruleset.  He wants to spit in the eye of the devil, to never have to pay for his lifetime of wicked deeds.  Finally Silver wants to be regarded highly by society.  That's why he goes after Flint's treasure to set himself up as a wealthy man.  It's his defining characteristic, everything he does in the book is in pursuit of being thought of highly by others.  Even the way he refers to himself as a "gentleman of fortune" is an obvious attempt to add an air of legitimacy, to what he does for a living.  Altogether it brings his Ambition up to 4, not as high as some of his others.  But a respectable score nonetheless.   

5. Choosing Silver's Armaments

Every pirate created under Poison'd comes equipped with a wicked long knife, a cutlass and a flintlock pistol.  So it's safe to assume that Long John Silver will be equipped with these as well.  The rules instruct the player to pick at most two more weapons.  While they can choose to not take anymore.  I don't think I've ever met a role-player that'd ever turn down extra weaponry though.  Silver is described as a tall man.  Israel "Another Step Mr. Hands and I'll blow your brains out" Hands says of him "A lion's nothing alongside of Long John!  I seen him grapple four and knock their heads together - him unarmed." he's obviously a capable unarmed fighter.  So combining that and his height, I decided to give him "Not a weapon, but your pirate's a great hulking brute with with fists like big stones."  I also decided to give him a brace of pistols since in some versions of the story he kills Tom with a pair of pistols.  Rather than throwing his crutch, breaking Tom's back and then slitting his throat with a knife.  This is also where I marked down that he was missing most of his left leg.  Altogether this brings his Profile stat up to 3.  It's not the maximum, but he could certainly hold his own in a fight.

My preferred screen portrayal of Silver, by Charlton Heston.
In the made-for-TV movie Treasure Island.  To his left is
Jim Hawkins as played by a young Christian Bale.

Long John "Barbecue" Silver, quartermaster
Sins: Murder x2, mutiny, robbery x2
Devil: 5
Soul: 3
Suffered: Beating, damnation, impressment, lashing, mutilation
Brutality: 5
Ambitions: to be captain, to own land, to spit in the eye of the devil, to be regarded highly by society.
Ambition: 4
Brinksmanship: 5
I go armed with knife, cutlass, a brace of pistols and I'm a hulking brute with fists like stones.  I am missing a leg, lost in a broadside.
Profile: 3

So there you have Silver's full stats.  Overall I'm quite happy with how he turned out.  It was a little harder to work with the Poison'd ruleset than I had initially thought it would be.  Long John Silver is pretty tame for a pirate as far as the rules are concerned.  I doubt he'd last long among the type of pirates you can create in Poison'd.  Which kind of works since near the end of the story his band of mutinous treasure-hunters in turn mutiny against him.  It might not be long before he'd end up on the wrong end of a sword or pistol.  If he didn't end up getting hung by some magistrate.  As always be sure to let me know what you think in the comments below.  +1, reshare and follow for more from me.  As always have a good day and may the dice be ever in your favour.      

All Fun and Games until... - An Editorial and an Apology

So some of my regular readers might be wondering.  Where's the next actual-play report from your Cyberpunk game, you bastard?!  Let me start off by saying that we played the fourth session of the game.  So it would just be a matter of typing up the post.  The problem is that would I feel right about writing it?

I guess I'll have to start from how I came to this way of thinking.  As I said we ran the fourth session Wednesday September 20th same as always, we had a great time and the evening ended on high note.  About a day or two after the fact, I get a text from the game's single-player.  Talking about how she didn't know how she felt about playing Aki (her character in the game) anymore.  For those of you who don't remember or don't know Aki has a habit of cheating on her girlfriend/common-law wife of six years Rinchen.  She was a character that both I and the player were excited to explore the story of when we first created her.  That is until the player was contacted by her mother, telling her that she and the player's step-father were getting a divorce.  That the step-father had been cheating on her mother for years now.

This had come after a session where the character, Aki had taken revenge on a vicious pimp (who she had once slept with), rescued her kidnapped girlfriend and then lied through her teeth to the aforementioned girlfriend.  About her relationship with the now deceased pimp.  At the time we had celebrated it as an incredibly good session, with a lot of good roleplaying on the player's part.  Then not that long after the player received the news.  She texted me soon after and we had a discussion about the implications of this on the game.  (One of the few ways we're able keep our friendship alive while the player is away at college).  The player made it clear to me that she didn't want to play Aki anymore.  That she didn't want to be put in position where she'd have to tell a well-constructed lie like the one her character told Rinchen.

I of course supported her in her decision.  As much as I love Roleplaying (I write about it extensively on this blog and plan to open a store dedicated to the sale of such games when I save enough money) I recognize that it is a game.  Games are supposed to be fun and if a player feels uncomfortable about the subject matter of a game.  Then that player isn't having fun.  Also I have a known this person since the 10th grade and they are one of the few friends I am still in contact with.  I would never put my own amusement or sense of achievement ahead of a friend's feelings.  The player is aware that I write actual-plays about our campaign.  When I asked if she wished for me not to write up the fourth session she said I should feel free to write it.  She also encouraged me to explain the situation in as much detail as was necessary.  Short of revealing her name of course.

Ultimately I decided against writing up the actual-play, because I didn't feel morally right about it.  I did however feel obligated to my readers to explain why there would be no more actual-plays, featuring Aki.  The player and I plan to continue playing Cyberpunk 2020, but the campaign with the Aki character has officially come to an end.  We plan to roll up a new character next Wednesday.  I'm sorry for any disappointment I may have caused.  

Arms Race: The Ridiculous Weapons of D&D

This post is going to be a little shorter than my usual ones.  I felt obligated to make a post after so long, but was having trouble coming up with a topic.  So I decided to say "To hell with it" and right a little mini-rant.  Without further ado here we go.

Am I the only one who noticed that D&D 3.5 (and to a certain extent Pathfinder) has some of the most ridiculous weapons out of any RPG?  Today I was reading a couple of Equipment Books from the aforementioned Game/Edition.  The Arms & Equipment Guide by Wizards of the Coast and the Ultimate Equipment Guide Volume 1 (published by Mongoose Games under the OGL).  Mostly this was brought on by boredom more than anything.  (I am happy to report that it wasn't entirely in vain, I managed to find two little gems in the Ultimate Equipment Guide.  A Hauberk which would have been more historically appropriate to my Forest of Dean Campaign, than a plain chain-shirt.  As well as weapon stats for a Pitchfork, other than somebody yelling at me to just use a trident.  There are significant differences between the two, damn it!  I also found stats for a slingshot, in case I ever want to stat Kid Link from Ocarina of Time).  Other than the aforementioned eye-catchers, the two books were nothing particularly remarkable.  Unless you really want to add some stuff to the equipment list of your game, they're both kind of a pass.  The only thing remarkable about them is the amount of ridiculous looking/sounding weapons they have within their pages.  (Seriously they could give Manji from Blade of the Immortal's collection a run for its money).

The aforementioned collection of weird weapons, reproduced here as a line of toys. 

There was all manner of bizarre and impractical weaponry.  The obligatory smattering of double weapons, including the double scimitar, mace and the crown jewel of this house of oddities, the Elven Double Bow.  According to the description it possesses two bowstrings for the express purpose of loosing two arrows at once.  (Face it, if you're going for a that level of realism.  Just do what Prince of Thieves and every other self-respecting Robin Hood movie did, use a normal longbow).  Others of note were the Claw Bracer (for those of you who want play Medieval Wolverine) and the whip dagger (a whip in a competent user's hands can cut through skin to the bone, what's the point of having a dagger on the end).  There was also the Dwarven Armour Blades which were essentially armour spikes that did more damage.  (I've always wondered how Dwarves and other warriors walked around with all those spikes over their armour, without injuring themselves.  If anyone has an answer to this mystery, please tell me because I'm dying to know).  

The most ridiculous weapon I've seen in all my years of playing
tabletop RPGs and being a medieval warfare geek.

Last but not least, I've saved the dumbest one for the end.  I even went so far as to do a screen capture and edit it, for this weapon alone.  Ladies and Gentlemen allow me to introduce you to the Gyrspike.  "A what?" you ask, that was my exact reaction when I first saw this weapon.  Apparently this is a double weapon (I know I already covered them but hear me out) that combines a longsword with a flail (that's why I didn't include it with the other double weapons, which usually have double of the same weapon).  There are so many things wrong with this weapon I don't even know where to begin. Let's start with the obvious.  How in the Nine Hells are you supposed to swing the sword around without clonking yourself with the flail end.  It's already difficult enough not to hit yourself with a flail as is.  The weapon description says that the flail end can be used to disarm or entangle an opponent's weapon.  Wrong, the chain's too damn short in length to entangle jack-all.  Also can you imagine how awkward and unbalanced that thing must be.  You've got to carry around a five pound longsword and then add a length of chain and steel ball at the other end.  Who designed this?  It looks like something a thirteen year old version of me would come up with (I was a pretty dumb kid).  

Anyway that was my little rant to kickoff September.  What do you think?  What's the most ridiculous weapon you've ever seen in a Roleplaying game?  Leave it down below in the comments.  Be sure to +1 and re-share.  May you roll many crits and until next time have a great day.    

My Newfound Fear of Dragons: A Treatise on the Horrific Implications of Dragons in Medieval Warfare (May Contain Spoilers to Game of Thrones)

Now like many people nowadays, I am a fan of HBO's Game of Thrones.  I've been on a bit of a hiatus, in terms of watching the show.  (I've not seen anything past Season 5 and have read the Books up to A Dance with Dragons).  I'm also not one of those people that minds spoilers.  In fact I've been known to spoil shows for myself at my own leisure.  So when a scene from the newest episode of Season came up in my Youtube Recommendations.  I decided to give it a watch, and that is how I came to have an irrational fear of flying, fire-breathing lizards, that inhabit the typical Fantasy World.

Honestly the most scary thing I've seen on screen in recent memory.

I've never really thought of Dragons in fantasy as a serious threat.  What with the typical fantasy novel having the characters either befriending or slaying them.  The above screenshot and a few other choice moments from the scene I watched, shattered that perception.  Now that I think about it, dragons are probably the most deadly and terrifying creatures on the face of the earth.  In A Song of Ice and Fire's Westeros setting they serve as a huge part of the lore.  Mirroring the use of knights by William the Conqueror when he conquered England in 1066 in our own timeline.  Dragons in Westeros are the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, they can disintegrate armies in a fiery blaze.

Hell I don't even think there is weapon in our modern arsenals that could match a Dragon.  It combines the fear-inspiring attack of a flamethrower.  With better ground-attack capability than any helicopter (that I know of) in existence.  In the case of Drogon from Game of Thrones, he can cremate fully-armoured men in a matter of seconds.  A feat that takes an incinerator burning at 1000 degrees celsius two hours.  This is all before you add in the spells, intellect and other goodies that a typical D&D dragon possesses.  Any army trying to engage such a beast with Medieval-level weaponry is doomed to failure.

   Let's take for example a lone soldier that tries to fight a Dragon with a Light Ballista (or Scorpion).  We'll be using a Great Wyrm Red Dragon to fill the role of Drogon (who is at least Colossal size, equal to a Blue Whale) in this situation.  (Found on page 96 of the Pathfinder Bestiary).  While we'll be using a Foot Soldier to represent our would-be Dragon-slayer.  (Found on page 286 of the Pathfinder Game Mastery Guide).  Let's assume for the sake of argument that the Foot Soldier makes their Will save (a Natural 20 perhaps?) against the Dragon's Frightful Presence.  Let's also assume (again for the sake of argument) that the Foot Soldier already has the Ballista loaded.  Under ideal conditions the Foot Soldier would be trained to used the Ballista.  Unfortunately his Stat Block doesn't allow for it, without some customization on the GM's part.  So he's rolling with an Attack modifier of -2 (from his lack of Proficiency in Ballistas), unless he rolls another Nat 20, it's pretty much impossible to hit the Dragon with it's AC of 50 (no joke, do the math!)  Even if our intrepid (or stupid) Foot Soldier were to hit on a Nat 20.  All that would do is piss the Dragon off!  (It's got a few hundred hit points!)  Either way he's getting incinerated, with 24d10 fire damage and a Fortitude Save (which he can't hit) for the faint glimmer of hope he might be resurrected.  Not to mention if this was a Cone (rather than a straight line) his Ballista with it's 50 HP is probably going to be joining him.

So there you have it.  My way of coping with the trauma of witnessing an army slaughtered by a mythical, fire-breathing, flying lizard.  (That sounds a lot more childish when written out, than it did in my head).  It honestly makes me wonder if GMs should rethink, how they portray Dragon slaying quests in their games.  Or even the roles that Dragon's play in their roles.  When you are an intelligent being with this kind of fire-power (pun intended) at your disposal.  What's to stop you from setting yourself up as Overlord of a nation!  There'd really be nothing stopping you, and you could have all the sacrifices you want.  You wouldn't have to collect your own hoard anymore!  You could just have your tax-collectors (read: people that don't want to be cooked alive) bring you all the riches you could ever want.

This was a fun post to write.  Until next time be sure to +1, follow, re-share.  Have a nice day and may you roll many crits.