Thalen

Thalen Reads Little Fuzzy

October 4, 2015 by Thalen

Because if the Fuzzies are sapient beings, the Company's charter is automatically void. - Gerd Van Riebeek

This week we're having a look at a science fiction classic from 1962, H. Beam Piper's Hugo nominated novel Little Fuzzy. Far from the high tech starship filled fare that some fans seem to think science fiction used to entirely consist of, Little Fuzzy is a story of corporate overreach, legal maneuvering, and the question of just what defines sapience.

The story of Little Fuzzy takes place on the planet Zarathustra, a Class III uninhabited planet wholly owned for some years now by the Zarathustra Company, a corporation which has profited greatly from the riches of the frontier planet. Prospector Jack Holloway returns home from a days work to find a small furry humanoid creature has wandered into his hut. Befriending it, Jack takes to calling it 'Little Fuzzy' and adopts it as a sort of pet. It quickly becomes apparent, however, that Little Fuzzy is much more intelligent than a dog or cat. He and his family show many signs of being sapient, and the question of their sapience is central to the story.

If Fuzzies are sapient, that means that Zarathustra is not a Class III uninhabited planet at all, but a Class IV inhabited planet. This would make the Zarathustra Company's charter null and void. Unsurprisingly, the higher-ups in the Zarathustra Company are horrified by this thought and decide to do their utmost to suppress and discredit any evidence of Fuzzy sapience.

Little Fuzzy is a book with hardly any physical conflict whatsoever; apart from one extremely important moment, all of the fighting over the fate of the Fuzzies and of the Company's charter takes place through legal maneuvering and sneakiness. At times I thought the Company was being overly sloppy, but when you consider the degree of effective omnipotence they've enjoyed in Zarathustra it becomes more believable that they would underestimate the abilities of a septuagenarian prospector and his friends.

Although the concept of space colonization is integral to the story, advanced technology is hardly in evidence at all. Apart from the veridicator, a high-tech lie detector, future tech is mentioned in passing if at all. Jack's rifle, for instance is not described as any more advanced than a typical real-life hunting rifle. Character interaction is what matters here, not fancy imaginary thingamajigs.

I can't recommend Little Fuzzy enough; this was a great book with enjoyable characters, a couple of clever twists, and some fascinating philosophical questions at its heart. You should absolutely read it, especially as it's in the public domain. See for yourself the fate of the Fuzzies, and the planet Zarathustra.

Giant Robots and Elder Things

September 30, 2015 by Thalen

Yesterday I was made aware of not one, but two Kickstarters that are entirely relevant to my interests. They're already both funded, but since stretch goals are a thing and in one case a stretch goal is the thing I really want, I'm sharing them with you. Do with this information as you will.

Do you want to drive an Atlas?

First up is BattleTech. The guys who made Shadowrun Returns want to make a turn-based BattleTech game for the PC. Do I really need to say more? BattleTech is the granddaddy of tabletop giant mech warfare, and it's an IP that's been missing from video games for years. We get some Mechwarrior stuff sometimes, but BattleTech is about the mechs, not the pilots. This one's a little weird as the base goal is just to create a skirmish game. A single-player storyline is unlocked as a stretch goal at $1,000,000 and PvP is the $2,500,000 stretch goal. The Kickstarter is only about $20,000 short of that first goal as I write this, so I think it's safe to assume it'll be reached. As for PvP, meh, I don't need it to be happy. $25 gets you super awesome mech combat from a team who have shown that they can do amazing things with classic gaming IPs.

Do you want to lose your mind?

Second, we have Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game. If you already know Call of Cthulhu there's a good chance that you know what Delta Green is, but for those not in the know Delta Green is a tabletop RPG that basically lets you do Majestic 12 for the Mythos. Where Call of Cthulhu investigators tend to be a rag tag bunch working on their own a Delta Green group will consist of federal agents, government backed scientists and the like. We're not just talking FBI, CIA and the like either. My first (and favorite) Delta Green character was a US Fish and Wildlife agent who encountered some really weird wildlife.

Delta Green originated as a Call of Cthulhu setting; this Kickstarter is to publish a stand alone Delta Green rulebook. $20 gets you an electronic version; $50 gets you the hardcover. I feel pretty safe kicking in to this one since it's the original creators of Delta Green running it, and they have plenty of experience with crowdfunding.

These are the sorts of Kickstarters that make me happiest; proven teams resurrecting games and gaming systems from years past. Now I just need Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford to get on that Star Control Kickstarter I've been desperately hoping for. That would be amazing.

Final Thoughts on Tron 2.0

September 29, 2015 by Thalen

The most recent episode of Aggrochat was our discussion of Tron 2.0, which I had picked as our Game Club game for September. As it turned out, only Kodra and I finished the game, but everybody at least played far enough to form reasoned opinions and we had a good discussion about the game and about the evolution of the FPS genre over the past decade.

Overall I feel like my memories of Tron 2.0 weren't terribly inaccurate. There was a definitely a bit of nostalgia coloring them, but the annoyances I ran into were mostly things that I remembered from playing it when it was new. I do feel like playing Tron 2.0 and Wolfenstein: The New Order back to back highlighted a number of the changes that have taken place over the years in the genre.

Programs can get bored and fidgety too.

There were little things like using the scroll wheel for weapon zoom instead of the right mouse button, but also things that were still common in FPSs a decade ago that no longer are, such as jumping puzzles. There really weren't that many of them, but it's telling that jumping puzzles where what ended up making a couple of the others call it quits. Jumping accurately when you can't see your feet isn't easy. There's a reason you don't see it come up as much in modern games (Portal being the main exception that comes to mind).

I still think the mechanic of memory for your subroutines (weapons, armor, and general power ups) which changes when you enter a new system is pretty clever, especially combined with the ability to upgrade subroutines to both make them more powerful and make them take up less memory space. It's a little disappointing though that you don't get access to some subroutines until it's too late to reasonably upgrade them and use them properly.

Overall, I feel like Tron 2.0 remains a game worth playing both because it's fun and has an entertaining story, and for a look back at the kinds of experimentation that were being done in the FPS genre 12 years ago. I only wish it had a gotten a sequel that could have really polished the systems and made them all fit together just right.

Mystara Monday: Module B5 – Horror on the Hill

November 10, 2015September 28, 2015 by Thalen

This week we're taking a look at Dungeons & Dragons adventure module B5: Horror on the Hill, written by Douglas Niles and published in 1983.

Mystara Monday: Module B5 - Horror on the Hill

Douglas Niles is probably best known as a novelist who has written quite a number of books set in the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms campaign worlds. Early in his career with TSR he also wrote a few adventure modules for the Basic ruleset, one of which we have here. Horror on the Hill seems transitional in a number of ways. Most obviously it's the first of the B modules that uses the updated trade dress that I grew up with. It's a minor thing, but this is the design that immediately screams 'Basic D&D' to me.

This is also a module that attempts to be more logical in it's progression and throws a twist in midway that the players might not expect. We're still looking at a situation where the party's reason for going on the adventure is mostly 'there's loot in there', but the DM could easily have a minor lord or the like send the party to investigate rumors of a massing hobgoblin army and deal with the problem.

The adventure claims to be for 5-10 characters of level 1-3. In all honesty, I wouldn't run this adventure for level 1 characters. Entirely apart from the logistics of having 10 players at the table, an encounter that challenges 5 level 3 characters might be defeatable by 10 at level 1, but some of them will almost certainly die. One encounter fairly early in the adventure is with a pair of ogres. Ogres! It'll likely take a party a couple of rounds minimum to take them down, and one hit from an ogre can kill any level 1 character with a good roll. I may speak from experience on this point.

The adventure has the party hiking up 'The Hill' to find the ruins of an abandoned monastery which has been taken over by a band of humanoids led by a hogoblin king. After defeating the king, the party is intended to fall victim to a trap door which drops them a few hundred feet (via a chute, so no falling damage) into caverns beneath the monastery where they have to find their way out. The only escape ultimately leads through a red dragon's lair.

The Hill is an overgrown wilderness with a few caves inhabited by various creatures (giant bats, ogres, Neanderthals) and some outdoor encounters with killer bees, giant ants and the like. There are also a pair of old women living in a little shack that is much larger on the inside than outside.

We're just innocent old grandmothers, dearies.

The players might expect evil witches, and the women are in fact level 6 spellcasters, but they're only interested in making bargains. If you have players who like to rob or kill non-hostiles, this may be the end of the party right here, these old women don't mess around. Trying to cheat them after a deal is made will also have them chasing the party wherever they go to get what's owed them. As long as the party deals square though, they can be a good source of intelligence and resources.

The monastery is a good adventuring location with an aboveground area and a dungeon below where the hobgoblin king resides. There are enough goblin, bugbear, and hobgoblin forces throughout that clever play or multiple sorties will probably be needed for the party to make their way through. Once the party starts to make their way out, they fall through a trap triggered by the king's empty throne. Or at least they're meant to; this seems like the sort of thing that requires a DM caveat to make everybody fall victim, and could result in cranky players since they didn't have a chance to avoid the trap.

The caves below the monastery are a fairly typical cave type dungeon, with the more random sorts of monsters that those tend to have. The adventure does make note of the fact that creatures here are mostly ones that have become trapped there over time and that they are all in a state of crazed hunger, having survived mostly on rats. No options for diplomacy here.

At the end, the party has to make their way through the lair of a young red dragon to escape. This encounter would absolutely murder a level 1 party; I just don't see any way around it. Even a higher level party would have trouble. There's no option as written to avoid combat either. The dragon is willing to talk for a while, but will attack if the party tries to leave or when he gets bored with them. If the players remember the dragon subdual rules though, and manage to do so they'll have a dragon to take with them. And those old ladies they met would sure love to have their own pet dragon...

On the whole, Horror on the Hill is a pretty good module as long as the DM is either okay with some character death or can tweak things a bit to be a little more fair. It's a step in the evolution towards more logical adventures where things fit together in a sensible way. We still haven't reached the truly story-driven adventures of later years, but we're getting there.

Next week we'll be having a look at a truly different adventure module, B6: The Veiled Society. Not only is this the first city adventure we've seen, it's a city adventure set entirely in Specularum, capital of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos. Political intrigue and secret societies await!