Out of the Frying Pan - Adapting Mutant Epoch rpg's Outland Arts's One Day Digs 7:: The Ascent To The Cepheus Engine Hostile rpg As a Oneshot Adventure - Session Report Part I

 

So I'm literally getting home right now & we've just gotten done running Outland Arts's One Day Digs 7:: The Ascent for the Mutant Epoch rpg with Zozer Games Hostile.  And this is going to sorta pick up right from here on the blog  The events on the space station activated a transmission to an explorer's ship in the Livitus system. The USS Crowe & Reynolds is a deep space explorer ship and her crew is awakened out of hypersleep when they crash land on a planet. 
"You've survived the crash. Now what?

"What horrors face a team of lunar cadets who crash land amid the ruins of the old ones? Can they work together to ascend the mega tower and call for evac, or will they perish in the attempt?"

In this unique one day dig, written by Timothy Berriault and illustrated by William McAusland.

"Players take on the roles of trainees who are forced to cope in the toxic, mutant infested and treacherous world of The Mutant Epoch. Will their training and advanced technology be enough to see them safely home, or will the perils, opportunistic predators and wily inhabitants of the old city bring about their doom?"

The cadet explorers woke up & immediately had to fight for thier lives to get out from thier starship before it sank beneath the waves.  They have no idea where they are or how they got there only that this is a failed colony and from the literature they found it was a post Recession II failed colony. The party found itself in the middle of a ruined city. 

Then they had to fight thier way through the ruined city before we even began this adventure. The encounters in "The Ascent" are balanced and were not that hard to convert over to Stellagamma's Cepheus Atom with a twist of first edition Barbaric.  So we winged it when it came to the players dealing with some of the local inhabitants. 

The players managed to save Captain Darius & thier equipmet bundles from the remains of the ship. And then it was quickly moving after getting a pep talk from the captain before he passed out; " I’m not going to lie to you, this is grim, and worse than you know. The denizens of the earth aren’t the stupid and ineffectual beasts the governments been telling you about for years. They’re mutants, freaks, and weapons from a bygone age who live in brutal harmony with this twisted rock, and we are smack dab in the middle of a likely war zone. Our ship is valuable plunder to them, and they won’t hesitate to kill all the men and violate the women before stripping every scrap from our vessel. You need to get to higher ground and contact a rescue ship. Trust nobody, kill anything that approaches you, and keep moving." Each PC cadet explorer had the following: 

1 Suit of tactical armor per player character cadet 1 Laser pistol, full power cell, per player character cadet 1 Dagger per cadet 1x 20m synthetic steel core rope 10x self anchoring pitons 4x Palm lamps 10x 5 day ration cubes 10x Cyanide tablets (Take 1 to kill a PC, type M, endurance based hazard check) 1x Medical kit (Bandages, tourniquets, bindings, antiseptic solution and 2d6 anti-toxin injectors.) 1x Damaged Long range communicator

We converted all of the stats from Independence Games G.E.A.R. book and kept going. The player's PC's made it five miles away from thier present location to get to a high sky scraper ruin to transmit for a pick up from a mothership vessel. 

The party camped for the night and here's where we ended tonight. There's a few things going on here. First of all it's not hard to use & convert the Mutant Epoch rpg material over to almost any Cepheus Engine or old school 2d6 based Science Fiction system. 

The real challenge was moving over the player's expectations from the usual Cepheus Engine rpg over to this straight up post apocalytic Hellscape that is this failed colony world. Fortunately there's a ton of resources that  I recently downloaded thanks to the Keith Frye Memorial Bundle [BUNDLE]

Now all the party has to do is get across town, set up on the high end of the ruins, transmit to the mother ship and get picked up!?! 

Canopus Blues In Orbit - Our Hostile & Cosmos 68 Campaign's Session Report

We're just getting back from our session which is going to pick right up from here on the blog. 

So I'm just getting back from our continuing Hostile/Kosmos68 campaign which I've been introducing and playing Gamma World elements. Since the last time we played. Paul Elliot of Zozer games has gotten back from vacation in Australia. Again I'm not stalking the poor guy but instead he's put out some wonderful Cepheus Engine rpg handouts.  And recent events aboard The Potemikin led the party into some real trouble. You see our resident hacker extracted a bunch of senstive Soviet documents. And those documents were Cepheus Engine rpg handouts

 And this includes  documents about a wrecked space station in orbit around the Soviet Terra colony. Of course the players wanted to investigate this wrecked space station! We really played up them landing on the station, getting the power up, etc. 

And it's through these handouts I've gotten the party in trouble in today's lunch time session report! You've probably been reading about our group of DM's & players who have been incorporating various old school Gamma World rpg resources into our game. As the PC's came upon the wreckage of the space station they received docking transmissions. What they didn't know was the fact that they were actually playing Paul Richie III's 8 page mini-module "The Albuquerque Starport." Among the autopsy reports showed that the  station had been 'taken' over by something. The player's PC's began exploring the station & came face to face with Pre Recession II  era robots, and other Soviet style technologies. I really played up the Pre Recession II era artifacts & relics. And played on the power & atmosphere being stable. Thier hacker downloaded everything she could and we really played out the unreliablity of the technology of the station. And that's when she came face to face with one of the station's shamblers. They were so busy exploring that  several of them almost got infected by the poor victims of the  the dreaded Canpous plague! Victims upon whom the virus has been feeding upon and too  for the last ten years! Suddenly the victims seemed to be everywhere?! 

And the players freaked! They were expecting alien life forms or the Zhuki. But an alien virus that turns you into a walking mush pit?! Hell no! Maybe it's Covid indused nightmares! The player's grabbed the artifacts and they were outta of that station! 
They secured everything they had gotten from the station into decomamination.
Oh boy do they want to destroy that station but they dare not because of the valuable fuel core aboard the station! They don't want that raining down on the Terra colony. Now of course they have details on the route to the lost Pre Recession II Canpous colony!! 
They do however have two Pre Recession II robots & serveral artifacts. There's also the matter of the fact that the PC's know there's a Soviet ship there. Now thier heading back to the The Potemikin to get checked out and make sure they didn't pick up the plague even though they were wearing space suits! Yes thier that paranoid. Our resident cyborg hacker wants to start checking out the Soviet robots. And the party also had the Ben Franklin scanned twice for shamblers?! 
Anyhow I did notice that the players have been using Independence Games G.E.A.R. and really going to town on the customization of thier weapons, equipment, etc. even using Hostile rpg catalog of equipment. 

Original Dungeons & Dragons Blackmoor, Gamma World First Edition & the Temple of the Frog

Yesterday was an extremely busy day but there was time enough to look deeper into 1975's Blackmoor supplement. While product designation TSR 2004 is usually known for temple of the Frog. Actually original Dungeons & Dragon Blackmoor actually has several other uses. 
Deep within Blackmoor according to the wiki entry is an entire section on underwater adventures;"The supplement introduced rules for underwater adventures, such as rules and guidelines for swimming, equipment weight restrictions when fighting underwater, and the effects of underwater combat on weapons and spells. Blackmoor also includes numerous new water-dwelling monsters and equipment useful for underwater adventures. A number of these underwater monsters and magic items were the creations of Steve Marsh" 
And while this does complement Blackmoor's Temple of the Frog it also comes in incredibly handy for those who want to run first edition Gamma World's GW1 Legion of Gold's underwater adventure section on the Legion itself. 

Blackmoor also hits the high notes for Gamma World first edition by providing the rules framework for further underworld adventures. This is a fact that has not been lost upon me. 

Speaking with my players yesterday there was talk about the fact that Temple of the Frog itself could be switched over to Gamma Terra & no one would be the wiser. The Froggies, the advanced technologies, and more are all reflective of the dangers present within the radioactive wasteslands of Gamma World. And what about an NPC assassin straight out of the bowels of Blackmoor that could well be a Red Death operative or agent. Stepthen The Rock could easily be slipped into Gamma Terra and few if anyone would be the wiser that the Temple of the Frog fits easily into the wastelands of Gamma World. 

OSR Commentary On The Gamma zine Kickstarter For Gamma World 1st edition By Throwi Games

So anyone who knows me knows that I'm a post apocalyptic guy.  I've known Thom Wilson of Thowi Games has been quietly plugging in away locally for years on OSR. His stuff is some of the best kept secrets in the gaming community. Now he's diving in deep into the vaults & bunkers of the post apocalyptic OSR fanzine scene with his latest Kickstarter. 


With adventures like A Dish That Serves No One for Gamma World first edition that they've been testing out at various Cons. I've been quietly keeping an eye on Thom & co for years now. But he's just thrown his hat into the ring with a post apocalyptic fanzine called Gamma zine. Because this is for Gamma World first edition I'm really pumped to see this kickstarter follow through. 

With the release of Gamma World 1st edition by Wizards of The Coast through Drivethrurpg  the time is ripe for Gamma Zine to come into its own. The advantage of first edition Gamma World is that its perfectly suited for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition.



It also means that adapting classic modules such as 'Famine in Fargo' & 'Legion of Gold' are once again on the table. And it also means that the classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition Monster Manual & Fiend Folio are perfectly suited to introduce the horrors of AD&D to your version of Gamma Terra. 




While this isn't new information on the OSR scene, a fanzine to help to support the Gamma World first edition would be a welcome add on to the post apocalyptic market. The venerable Gamma World game is a classic for a reason  this helps to add yet a bit new life to our hobby in my humble opinion. So do I think that Gamma Zine is going to be something for the Gamma World fans to take a look at & support? In an irradiated word, yes!