OSR Wasteland Weirdness Encounter - Old Friends - Actual Play Event With Commentary

In tonight's adventure the PC's found the wizard's laboratory and began to search it and that's when things got really weird. After getting taunted by an invisible telepathic presence the PC's found a Crystal Egg and an undead sorcerer under the influence and control of some evil strange psychic essence. They were able to free the sorcerer from the evil influence but the party was continue to be taunted from beyond. They discovered a magic ring was the control for the sorcerer, one of the mutant adventurers decided to destroy the ring and almost destroyed himself in the process. He barely escaped as the ring exploded in a fiery burst of deadly weird radioactive  energy.



A search of the lab in the ruins revealed lots of low level  weird radiation energy crystals, jeweler's vices, archaic weird science devices, alchemy equipment, and several weird seemingly alive red weed like plants under glass. I read the players a quick excerpt from the Crystal Egg by HG Wells;
"It occurred to Mr. Cave that this was not in accordance with the laws of optics as he had known them in his younger days. He could understand the rays being refracted by the crystal and coming to a focus in its interior, but this diffusion jarred with his physical conceptions. He approached the crystal nearly, peering into it and round it, with a transient revival of the scientific curiosity that in his youth had determined his choice of a calling. He was surprised to find the light not steady, but writhing within the substance of the egg, as though that object was a hollow sphere of some luminous vapour."


Orcs from Otherwordly Miniatures


They decided to dump the egg into the moat of lava just outside the ruinous dungeon after throwing a table cloth over it. The party managed to toss the thing into the lava just before a small cell of oak warriors showed up dragging a sack with someone in it behind them. They were armed with primitive laser weapons. And that's when the walkers and tripods showed up across in the tree line from the ruined fortress. The party got into it hot and heavy with the orcs and ultimately it was an over lorded energy cell in a laser rifle that turned the tide in the party's favor. But they've faced Marsvaders before and retreated back inside the ruins after the energy cell exploded like a grenade. What weird secrets do the Martian Tripods hold in store for our heroes? Only time will tell. Tune in next week for more old school fun.

1d20 Random Marsvaders War of The Worlds Finds Table

1. 1d6 Martian energy cells that will power a weapon or heat ray gun for 1d20 shots. Worth about 50 gold pieces. 
2. A piece of alien ground glass that can refract laser or energy weapon fire. Worth 70 gold pieces or more to the right collector. 
3. A black smoke grenade that causes targets within a 30 foot radius to save vs poison or start choking and coughing for 1d20 round. Exposure for more then four rounds causes 1d4 points of minor flesh dissolving damage. 
4. A broken tripod tendril that can be used as a the basis for a make shift cybernetic limb. Worth 300 gold pieces to the right collector or wizard. 
5. A Crystal Egg with a minor stand 
6. Martian blood draining equipment minor worth 100 gold pieces to the right collector 
7. Martian surgical instruments and alien medical kit worth 200 to 400 gold pieces to the right collector 
8. Weird Martian probe unit with multi phasic and dark vision unit built within its cyclopedia eye  set up. It floats four feet off of the ground and will be in telepathic rapture with certain wizards or psychic PC's a successful wisdom roll is needed to telepathically contact the thing.
9. A mini heat ray weapon with 1d10 charges in it capable of doing 2d6 points of damage to certain flesh types and metals within a 40 foot radius. Worth 300 gold pieces to the right collector 
10. A pack of 1d10 Martian energy cells worth 500 gold but sell them fast for they're highly unstable. They'll do 1d8 points of damage when they go off creating a minor radioactive hazard in addition to the damage. 
11. A giant artificially created ruby lens capable of taking a special charge from a Martian weapon. Worth 600 gold pieces. 
12. Minor tool set capable of being used by humans but more suitable for the tendrils of a Martian worth about 500 gold pieces for a scientist or wasteland technician that wants to work on Martian technology. 
13. A Martian Ether radio set up perfect for those wanting to follow and eavesdrop on Martian warrior army movements. Worth 1000 gold pieces to the right collector. 
14. A set of phasic lens that can be adapted to the human eye to see into the dark vision range of the Martian eye. Worth about 2000 gold pieces to the right collector. 
15. A set of telepathic helms capable of blocking the psychic weapons of the Martians. Worth 500 gold pieces if the receiver units are removed. Used by the Martians for herding certain prized slaves around. 
16. A minor Martian diamond blade +1 capable of slicing through bone and tendons with ease. Worth 700 gold pieces to the right collector. 
17. Slave collar with all of the circuits and guts removed perfect for a human spy or tech thief to move among certain levels of Martian society undetected. 
18. Light like device which is capable of showing the hidden symbols and writing of the aliens. Worth 800 gold pieces especially to wizards and the like. 
19. A telepathic device capable of reading Martian medical instruments and science storage units. Priceless to mad scientists and wasteland wizards. 
20. A Martian bio computer unit made from human brain and animal tissue.Capable of telepathically broad casting the totality of the alien omni mind. A save vs death is needed to avoid being put into a 1d20 day coma from the sheer volume of information. 

The players are unaware of the dangerous adventure location that is half buried in the nearby woodlands. A ship from the inter system war has been secretly buried there for centuries but a recent earthquake uncovered it. The Martians would love to get their tendrils on it.

Glynn from Monkey Blood Design did a map of the Iron Pigeon that's perfect for this adventure location coming up. Well this design and artwork from the  pen of +MonkeyBlood Design 
is going to be perfect and I can't wait to use it. 
http://osrtoday.com/2016/04/04/map-monday-iron-pigeon/

OSR Wasteland Weirdness Encounter - Actual Play Event With Commentary

The PC's in last night's post apocalyptic game adventure ran into some old friends in wasteland ruins. Here's how things went down.

OSR Set, Retro Clone Round Up, &
Execution
 

Well, sewing machine repair work has been giving me a run for my money but last night I was able to slip in some time to get together with my players. I started slipping in some science fantasy space opera ideas into the background of my regular DYI post apocalyptic OSR game. The players started finding several post apocalyptic artifacts with heavy space opera overtones. Many of these came from the Bandits & Battle Cruisers rpg book mixed in with a health dose of the free OSR resource  Terminal Space. All of this is getting the PC's in several games ready for the Summer campaign rounds of my Warlords of the Outer Worlds setting. So why Bandits and Battle Cruisers? Well, its Bandits and Battlecruisers is one of those great niche products that caters to a niche within a genre.By this I mean that it's not a complete system but a gaming supplement that easily attaches to an existing system to help bring the  rules set to a more Sci-Fantasy Space Opera as I've seen described. Just so we're on the same page here Bandits and Battlecruisers isn't a complete system its an add on or adjutant OSR gaming book Here's what it brings to the table: On its 140 pages you will find:

• Detailed character creation rules;
• Monster creation aids (plus 18 monsters - not the well-known monsters from the Original Game);
• Complete rules for creating star sectors, star systems, planets, moons and space stations;
• Five 100-keyword tables, helpful in designing monsters, robots, civilizations and planets;
• 100 random space encounters and 100 random space stations;
• Tools helpful in creating treasure hoards and artifacts (plus 16 sample artifacts);
• Over thirty random tables;
• Chapter with a detailed starship creation sequence and starship combat rules (plus over twenty sample spaceships).

So what I did was combined Hulks and Horrors and a bit of Warriors of The Red Planet With Labyrinth Lord and Mutant Future with a bit of public domain Charlton comics Space Western action. They go back even further however all the way back to my Nazi on Carcosa campaign.

The PC's in last night's game were doing a bit of generic dungeon and ruin crawling when they ran smack into some 'old friends'.

Melee With The Space Nazi
Last year I ran a game in which my players ran afoul of some space going Nazi with space colony on Mars. They ran into a gang of undead mutant Ju Ju zombies in last night's game. The players were not happy at all when these bastards appeared in the dungeon hall ways. So I pulled out my 15 MM Nazi zombie figures from Rebel Minis and it was on.

It took a good rest of the night last night to mop up these bastards and deal with the fall out of finding a Nazi laboratory in the dungeon but that's going to be cleaned up in next week's game. The PC's also ran across a Nazi skeleton wizard in the laboratory. The players are not happy with this latest development.

Reconsidering The Bandits And Battlecruiser rpg System as White Star rpg Retro clone Resource Book.

With everyone making cross compatible content for the White Star Rpg system, I thought I'd take a little stroll down the sci fi isle to remind folks that there is another option on the OSR market that might fill in several niches for the White Star campaign. There are several reasons for this.

Bandits and Battlecruisers is one of those great niche products that catters to a niche within a genre. In this case OD&D and its retroclones with pulptastic options. Its available through Drivethrurpg right over HERE or as a print option from  Lulu right over Here . B&B isn't strictly space opera at all in point of fact the rules set is more  Sci-Fantasy Space Opera as I've seen described. And this is not a complete game but more of a tool kit for games such  LL, S&W and the like and need more adjusting for OSRIC. And that is one of the strengths of this product. Bandits and Battle cruisers offers : 

On its 140 pages you will find:

• Detailed character creation rules;
• Monster creation aids (plus 18 monsters - not the well-known monsters from the Original Game);
• Complete rules for creating star sectors, star systems, planets, moons and space stations;
• Five 100-keyword tables, helpful in designing monsters, robots, civilizations and planets;
• 100 random space encounters and 100 random space stations;
• Tools helpful in creating treasure hoards and artifacts (plus 16 sample artifacts);
• Over thirty random tables;
• Chapter with a detailed starship creation sequence and starship combat rules (plus over twenty sample spaceships).
  
  Which all of this translates into lots and lots of random tables for everything from ruin creation to equipment as well as the mutation tables. With a bit of a whirl the mutation tables could be used to generate even more options for quick and dirty NPC races in the White Star system because it uses an over arching archtype system to generate its alien races.  Another point in B&B's favor are the adventure location generation tables these cover a far more pulptastic range of material for a party to get into the deep end of things. There are several things about Bandit’s and Battlecruisers that mark it as a framework for the do-it-yourself DM  to build on and not a truly complete game.  There is no stated setting though one is strongly implied from the artwork and language.  No beginning adventure or adventure seeds are included.  Here's where the White Star rpg system can be used to fill in the gaps and to turn out a solid background setting for the game. The Xeno beasts section are easily converted over to either Swords and Wizardry or White Star.  This makes the B&B something to pull out and generate a number of White Star adventure locations quickly,easily, and with little problem. The issue is really the lack of stats in B&B for such places, monsters,etc. That's really where the White Star game system comes into play. Use the B&B book to generate your pulp space fantasy locations and add in setting and systems details as needed.
  
  
    Interestingly enough the White Star rpg system is just the sort of a sandbox that Bandits and Battlecruisers was designed to be used with. Both games share a comic book and pulp sensibility but do different things within the sci fi fantasy subsets of campaigns while on the surface are seemingly the same.
  White Star emulates lots of space opera aspects of a galaxy far,far, away. All of the usual tropes for this style of space fantasy are present within the game. They remain incredibly popular. Bandits and Battlecruisers emulates an entire different subset of the pulp genre. This being the post colonial interstellar empire of science fiction. Bandits and Battlecruisers fits squarely into a post interstellar exploration period, where star spanning empires are firmly established and galactic exploration is right around the corner.  And that's fine because this is what B&B is suited for.

Which brings me to my next point with White Star, the system works because its so flexible within its very,very popular niche. Another game that is ideally suited for a far more star ship military style crew bringing peace and understanding to the galaxy  might be either Star Ships and Spacemen second edition or Bandits and Battlecruisers with Swords and Wizardry. The choices here are very clear, there has never been a better time to get in on exploring the depths of space in old school science fictional style. The choices are really yours and very clearly unlimited.
Oh and be sure to check out the author's blog for even more old school goodness Here