Free Release: The Discarded Giant's Boot

 I made another one-page-dungeon: The Discarded Giant's Boot.

It's a the adventure I played on a long car ride with my son, as written down in this post. It was meant to be played with Arnold K.'s Copper GLOG but can probably be easily adapted an dumped into any sufficiently weird/magical play world. Wherever a twenty-kilometer-tall giant may have existed somewhere in the very distant past.

Have fun!

Airships!

 I love Zeppelins. Not blimps. Airships. Rigid structure, an aerodynamic hull around a series of gas chambers. That sort of thing. Now for the past year or so my older son and I have sometimes dabbled in One Page Rules Grimdark Future FTL Warfleets. The rules are simple enough (two pages, not one, but one may argue that you can print double-sided). But it takes place in space. My son loves it. I like it too. But I feel one could do an airship mod.

Working on it. Of course.

Now airships _were_ used as weapons of war for a couple of years that included World War I. Afterwards there were some attempts to have them in a military role by the victorious powers. The USA built the USS Akon, which was a flying aircraft carrier – although more of a scouting vessel than made for direct sorties against hostile targets. I think the British and French also built them. Germany wasn't allowed the big toys anymore after the Treaty of Versailles so the greatest fans of the technology only built civilian airships.

A little aside on those: The Graf Zeppelin was the vessel which I personally would want to travel on if I ever got my hands on a time machine. Global readers will associate the term Zeppelin with the Hindenburg, however. It was known for two things: Having swastikas on its tailfins and spectacularly (and on camera!) going up in flames. Two things to save the honor of that airship: The Nazis didn't like Zeppelins because by that time airplanes were faster, more reliable and had more range than before and they thought the Zeppelin technology to be of no use for the military. The swastikas on the tailfins were not supposed to show how nazi the ship was but simply the national flag at the time. As for the fireball: The Hindenburg was designed to be run with (nonflammable) helium gas. But pre-war sanctions against Germany meant that the one big producer of helium at the time, the USA, didn't deliver that gas so they had to go with hydrogen, which has somewhat (8%) greater lift and far greater risk.

Alright, aside's over, let's talk about these hypothetical war Zeppelins. An airship is mostly gas-bags and the structure supporting them. The gondolas, both for command/control and with motors, are tiny attachments to that. Yet, an airship cannot carry all that much additional cargo/ammunition/personell. One cubic meter of helium only lifts something like 1.1 Kilogramms. That is not much and the reason, airships were so large.

So if we're gonna make a tabletop game out of this, we'd have to assume helium as lift-gas and ignore fire and loss of lift due to damage entirely. I dislike my games to be bogged down by to many detailed rules. Ships in Grimdark Future have between two (light) and four (heavy) ship systems. I'd go one lower for my airship mod because installing a cannon on such a craft is a big deal. Also, ships in the original game have turrets that become more powerful for the bigger craft. Airships will have a set of machine gun emplacements around their hull which means they all have the same base "turret" weaponry.

What weapons could one sensibly attach to an airship? Bombs (the most common weapon for such craft historically) are, of course, irrelevant in air-to-air battles. But there are other options:

Machine Gun Battery: If you expect to encounter lots of enemy planes trying to swarm you, this would be a sensible option. It simply means that there are _more_ machine guns on your ships - with the respective crews to fire them.

Anti Air Howitzer: I suppose an airship can carry a heavy infantry howitzer like mountain troops used to lug around. 150mm caliber, airburst-ammunition – this would be the king of weapons in the skies.

PomPom Battery: Heavier than machine guns, heavier than even heavy machine guns. The PomPom was a maxim machine gun upscaled to a 1-inch-caliber and did indeed see use as an anti-aircraft-weapon in WWI.

Dumbfire Rocket Rack: Just a bunch of rockets to saturate a distant area of the sky with explosions and shrapnell. The original game already has something like this which barely needs any modifications to work.

Wire Guided Missile System: This is the sniping weapon of the game, I guess. It could be made even though it is more of a WWII-kind of technology. We are doing Dieselpunk here so I guess it'll be alright.

3"-AA-Battery: This is the broadside-weapon in this system. Imagine like two cannons per side of the airship, firing smallish howitzer-rounds.

With weaponry out of the way, what ship systems would seem somewhat plausible?

Reinforced Structure: Your typical armour-upgrade. HP instead of anything actively useful.

Crew Parachutes: Good for morale if you play with such a thing.

Extra Motor Gondola: More speed!

Weapon Swivel-Mount: Choose one of your weapons. It can now turn 360 degrees. I imagine it's hanging below the ship.

Advanced Fire Control: Hit better.

Airplane Support Bays: Helps the swarms of fighters around you somehow.

Turret-Upgrade: Replaces the generic MGs with PomPoms?

Harpoon-Cannons: Entangle an enemy ship. This makes sense if you are smaller and want to hinder a larger craft from participating in the fight more.

This is missing rules for boarding, which I bemoan. I once met a nice oder lady at a lecture on airships who was not only leader of a club of Zeppelin-enthusiasts but also the granddaughter of Germanys only air corsair (the man had, in WWI, actually captured a Norwegian seagoing vessel with his airship). I believe that boarding may be unrealistic but is cool enough that it should be an option (in the base game as well - send over those space marines with boarding pods!). Have to think about it but I fear it would complicate things too much.

A theory on dungeonness

 What exactly makes a dungeon a dungeon? I've previously thought about the minimum size of one but the very nature is something else entirely. I've been working on a series of novellas lately (expect a link to the release of the first one in October – but it'll be in German) and started wondering, what of the adventures my hero has actually constitutes a dungeon.

I believe that there are three hard factors and a checklist of soft factors that make a location into a dungeon. Of course, your personal definition may vary but this one is mine:

A dungeon must be an enclosed location. Open air maze? No dungeon.
A dungoen must have some sort of treasure in it. That treasure can be abstract, like an information, knowledge etc.

Now it also needs to confirm with my minimum dungeon size (see link above) so:

A dungeon must not be completely visible from the entrance. If it's just a single, unobstructed room, that's no dungeon.

Let's talk about soft factors. The dungeon should have at least two of these (and it can be multiples in the same category):

A dungeon should have an obstacle.
A dungeon should have a riddle.
A dungeon should have a trap.
A dungeon should have an enemy.

These make up the dungeon-score. Let's put the thing to the test using Indiana Jones (because I'm writing pulp adventure and don't want to spoil my own stories.

The temple in the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark:

-Is an enclosed location.
-Has a very obvious treasure.
-Is pretty damn big and cannot be overseen from anywhere.

So check for the hard factors. Soft factors?
-Has an obstacle (pit that Indy and his lackey swing across).
-Has a riddle (the trap trigger underneath the golden idol).
-Has (at least) three traps (spikes, arrow-launchers, stone-ball self destruct mechanism)
-Whether or not it has an enemy is arguable but let's say it doesn't.

So it comes out with a dungeon score of five. Pretty good.

The excavation site in Egypt in Raiders of the Lost Ark:

-Is an enclosed location.
-Has treasure in the form of information: Where is the Ark?
-Has nooks and corners.

Check for thard factors. Let's go to the soft factors:
-Has an arguable obstacle: Indy needs to climb into the place, after all.
-Has a really cool riddle with that staff and the light and all.

This one comes out with a dungeon score of just two but that's enough to qualify (if not much more than that).

The well of souls in Egypt in Raiders of the Lost Ark:

-Is an enclosed location.
-Has arguably the most valuable treasure in the world.
-Has nooks, corners, and even hidden rooms full of mummies.

Hard factors are check. Soft factors?
-Has the same arguable obstacle of needing to climb into it.
-Has another obstacle in the shape of a wall Indy must tear down.
-Has what is either a trap or an enemy in the form of swarms of snakes.

So it has a dungeon score of three. I have this as a Lego set sitting next to me (my kids gave it to me as a birthday gift). Love it.

Godzilla Minus One - some thoughts on an aircraft safety feature

 If you haven't watched Godzilla Minus One, do so. This text will contain spoilers and the movie is (very) good. Don't believe me, believe Kevin Smith. Or even my wife who said that the film was alright - that's very high praise for a kaiju-movie coming from her. So, spoilers ahead.

Play report: Copper GLOG Session 1

On a longish car ride (your definition of what constitutes a long car ride may greatly vary), my older son and I played a session of Copper GLOG, as invented by my favourite ttrpg-blogger of all times, Arnold K. For our randomizer we used even/uneven licence plate end numbers (foreign ones didn't count even if they did end in a number) of cars we passed or that passed us, depending on what came first.

My son chose a ratling warrior as his character class – Fighter level 1, good skill sneaking, special equipment: Bow and arrow. He was sent by his clan to rescue the princess of his clan, the forest ratlings. She had been kidnapped by goblins, presumably for some higher-up ruler, and dragged to the Discarded Giant's Boot, a one-index-card-dungeon I had made up sometime last year. The nameless ratling hero started before the gaping maw of the enormous boot (the entrance into it is about half a kilometer wide), a mountain cave made out of leather of an ancient beast of titanic proportions.

The ratling managed to sneak into the boot's shaft, which contained the hovels of a goblin village. Listening to two of the greenskins converse in one of the huts he found out that the princess had been brought into the boot's tip. He left the goblin village, going deeper into the boot. There was little light coming from holes rotted into the thick leather roof, otherwise it was a detritus-strewn dark cave. A random encounter got our hero his first fight: A giant flea (Level 1) attacked. The ratling managed to fend it off but got hurt in the fight, losing one of his two HP.

He decided to take lunch and move on, triggering another random encounter, this time with a herd of fleas herded by goblin herdsmen, who were driving their disgusting flock towards the village. A successful stealth check meant that the ratling was undiscovered but listening to the goblins only revealed dirty songs the goblin herdsmen were singing.

Delving deeper into the boot, the hero found himself with the choice of going left towards the boot's tip or into a hole gnawed into the heel, where the goblins presumably were mining leather. He decided to explore the leather mine first, went inside and found himself in a hollowed-out area with a big mushroom surrounded by slime on the floor, out of which half-finished goblins were growing. This was their mothershroom, the place where the goblins of the village spawned. On the far end, he could make out cages.

He decided to investigate, sneaking around the half-grown goblins and reaching the caves. One contained five of the fleas, one contained a desiccated skeleton, one a live ratling who begged to be released. The hero freed the prisoner and gave him his bow and arrow, making a Friend for the rest of the adventure. The two of them, however, failed to sneak out – and had to fight their way through four half-grown goblins (Level 0). They succeeded after a long and somewhat tedious battle, losing no HP in the process.

Despite the freed prisoner's fear of the deeper areas of the boot, they pressed onwards towards the tip. They managed to sneak past a giant earwig (Level 2) and saw the lit entrance of a wooden house at the end of the cavernous boot-cave. The house was larger than human-sized (enormous for two ratlings, who stand about a meter tall in our world) and guarded by two goblins. One of them was asleep, the other was picking his nose – the Friend killed both with well-placed arrows.

The two ratlings had to stand on top of each other in order to reach the doorknob. They did and went into the house. On the ground floor, the first door lead into a room full of cages. Six of them contained princesses: The ratling princess, an orc princess, a human princess, an aelph princess, a beetle princess and a kobold princess. The princesses told the two ratlings that the keys to their prison were in the posession of the Orgre (Level 3, two attacks) whose house this was. He was planning to make a Princess Stew, the recipe of which demanded for eight different types of princess.

The two ratlings snuk up the stairs to confront the monster. The orgre had been lying on his bed but smelled the two newcomers enter his bedroom. Grabbing two huge butcher-knives from the nightstand, he got up and a healthbar grew on the bottom of the screen and boss-music started. The two Level-1-ratlings had a difficult time with this boss monster but in the end were successful. The nameless hero slew the ogre with one HP left and the resusciated his Friend who was at 0 HP. He'd have to stay in the back, shooting arrows, from now on.

The two heroes freed all six princesses from their cages – and then armed them with oversized kitchen utensils. They princesses counted as a Swarm of Princesses (Level 6, fights as level 0 single creature but has Lvl HP). The group left the house and went back towards the heel of the boot.

On the way a random encounter delivered an agressive giant earwig their way. The ratling hero attacked in close combat, the princesses did too and the Friend fired arrows. In the end, the hero had to be patched up after the battle (0 HP) but the group succeeded. This marked the occasion of the hero leveling up (10x current level in XP; Defeating monsters results in Monster-Lvl XP). Now level 2 he'd be a better fighter still but do not gain an additional HP yet.

At the leather mine into the heel, the ratlings decided that a large-scale distraction was needed if the group was to get through the goblin village and leave the boot. They snuk past the mothershroom and freed the captive giant fleas which fled into the larger cave, spooking the herds of fleas the goblins were keeping and causing widespread chaos, pandemonium and destruction.

A failed stealth-roll led to the princesses each having to do a roll on their survival. Luckily, only two of them didn't make it out: The human princess and the beetle princess died upon trying to get through the chaos of the goblin village. Five rescued prisoners brought our hero another five XP. He had also accomplished the mission (rescue the ratling princess) and made some valuable new allies. With the ogre dead, the goblins would soon be subject to a new ruler and we decided it would make sense for the orc princess to return with a retinue of her warriors to now become ruling queen of the discarded giant's boot.

The whole thing took about three hours of play time, which we spent with some interruptions, whenever I had to concentrate on more complicated parts of the road. The simple resolution system makes for an easy way of playing hands-free and the minimal bookkeeping helps as well. You can only use a simple dungeon if you want to keep it all in your head – I did cheat in that by placing one dungeon (the ogre's house) inside another dungeon (the giant's boot). But keep it simple and this works just fine. Thanks,Arnold!

2023 Recap

 What did I watch/read/play? No particular order. And just what comes to mind by being exceptionally memorable, which can be a good or a bad thing. Let's go!

TV shows

Sanctuary was awesome. It's on Netflix, find it, watch it. I never knew much about Sumo but the show is amazing and has a dry sense of humor I really enjoyed. Also it's one of the very few times where forming a team takes the time it should and actually feels earned and hard-won in the end. Cool show, nice acting, interesting setting.

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance filled the last quarter of the year for my older son and me. It's been out for a couple of years but I wasn't that much into it, having no nostalgic memories of the movie (watched it first time in my early 20s, I think) and lacking someone who could watch it with me. Now my first-born is old enough and we both got really into it, not just on the in-world-level but also as content creators ourselves, appreciating the puppetry and the set-building that went into that show. It's amazing what they did - but at the same time I understand that something that cost 10 million dollars per episode won't get a second season. Which is sad but also I don't really want to see all the gelflings die so I guess it's fine in the end.

Books

I did do a lot of reading this year, some in my native German (Das Paradies am Rand der Stadt by Volker Strübing should be mentioned - nice sci-fi-story where the AI apocalypse is actually not that horrible, all things considered) and in English. For the sake of my readers I will talk (briefly) about three English-language books that stuck to my memory (all of them can be found for free on the net!):

Move Under Ground by Nick Mamatas is a very cool, almost too hip, entry into both beat-literature and Lovecraft lore. Written in the first person as one of the beat-literature heroes (a genre I had no knowledge of beforehands and that feels very much up its own ass but who am I to judge 1950s counter culture?), the book vaguely tells the story of a Cthulhu-apocalypse. It's vivid, it's confusing, it's at time actually horrifying - I liked it.

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allen Poe. Don't judge me for reading it in my late 30s - how many of the 'great classics' of another culture have you read? Nah, let's talk about the book and its seventh-continent-narrative. Parts of it were very readable, the mutiny-adventure on the high seas, the exploration of unexplored lands - but it felt like the author wanted to also write a textbook on sailing and the nature and wildlife of the subarctic and needlessly sprinkled that into his adventure-novel. The first half of the 19th century was weird, man.

The Brick Moon by Edward Everett Hale. Speaking of the weirdness of the 19th century. In this early scifi-book, they build a satellite (a sphere made of bricks, intended to be a visible navigational aid for those on the ground). It's made out of bricks in order to survive the heat-friction of launch. The launch accidentally comes too early (they have a huge machine for that, somewhat like a ball-shooter on a tennis court) and there are people inside it. The book mixes visionary ideas well ahead of their time (navigation by means of multiple artificial moons) with the quaintness of American life in the 19th century (the narrator is appalled whten the people on the brick moon don't care about a split in their specific branch of christian sect back home) and some very hard misunderstandings on scientific matters of the time (because of Darwin's theory of evolution, the inhabitants of the brick moon are able to quickly breed all matter of earth-plants from the lichen that was aboard. Orbital mechanics are very wonky). It's interesting to read as a piece of history.

Video Games

There was the usual comfort-food (Streets of Rogue, FTL, Into the Breach) and then there were games I played with my kids (Lego City Undercover, which is Lego GTA; Mario Maker 2; Unravel Two, which is beautiful and makes me yearn for another holiday in Sweden).

I also got back into Trancendence and finally bought the full version of the game. Still a great game, I admire what George Moromisato did by building this entire paracosm and giving us as players a way to experience it. Still have to go further into the 'new' aspects of the game but I like what I see.

Board Games

I played a lot of stuff I made myself this year. Also chess. Not much to report, thus.

Crafting

I made Chrome Dungeon which is a board game for up to four players that I really enjoy. Will make a post about it some time in the future.

Podcasts

My long-time heard favourite German podcast Brennerpass finally made its last episode. I had a sort of love-hate-relationship with the main host so it's alright, I guess. It does leave a gap in my life though. Corey Doctorow's podcast is sometimes very good, sometimes trivial, sometimes annoying, but the man has a manic energy and seems to always work in ways that require days to have at least 40 hours. 99 percent invisible is recommended to any human being interested in the world at all, I love it still. Role Playing Public Radio is a bit too newfangled for me but the Delta Green series is very well made and entertaining. Bad Books for Bad People is probably my favourite podcast this year. Go listen to it.

Music

2023 will be the year I discovered Ümmet Özcan. The man makes music that touches my soul and brings vibes from the central Asian steppes that I really enjoy. Check out his collab with Otyken and you get the soundtrack to my very first role playing campaign. Or do shrooms and then watch the video to Kalimba (which is a piece of art that would probably have been some animator's life work in the pre-AI era that ended a year ago).

The Rest

Didn't really watch an movie that stuck to memory last year. A late-contender could be Rebel Moon, which I watched in the first days of 2024. I find it surprisingly good. I mean it's supposed to be Zack Snyder's Star Wars. And comparing it to that franchise I must say that it's a passable entry. Better than Episodes 1, 2, 3 and 8. Didn't watch Episode 9 or the Han Solo movie though. Because I heard they sucked and I had given up on Star Wars at that point. So, new franchise, new luck.

I also finished writing my first book. Here's to finding a publisher (in German) who is willing to publish retro-pulp adventure that is basically Indiana Jones with more historical accuracy (besides supernatural elements) and explicit sex scenes. We shall see how it fares.

So that was 2023. We'll see what 2024 brings. See ya'll!

Play Report: OPR Grimdark Future FTL – with my kids

 So, we started playing One Page Rules: Grimdark Future – FTL Fleets in our home. And it was quite cool. Let me tell you how it went down between me and my two sons (almost 9 and almost 4).

The Combatants

While I only had one of my projected three gamepunk-fleets finished, my older son had not been idle and had (inspired by what I was doing) made spaceships himself. His own fleet was the Blaze Fleet, consisting of four ships created from scrap parts that we had lying around the workshop. He does have an elaborate back story for his people (beaver-like aliens seeking Earth which they know from received transmissions) but let's not get too deep into the details. The fleet consisted of three heavy ships and one medium ship according to the OPR rules.

My younger son had watched me play Sword of the Stars and liked the ships of the Zuul. He asked his brother to make him some and the result was another fleet of three large and one medium ship cobbled together from stuff lying around (and lots of hot glue). The specialty of this fleet was ramming – every ship had the Reinforced Ram upgrade, which would definetly come in handy.

My own fleet was cardboard-printed. The ships were mantis ships from FTL. As I was trying to gauge, what works in the game and what doesn't (for when I need to battle real enemies, not my kids) and went for a somewhat rounded fleet composition with lots of smaller craft: One medium ship as a flagship, three light ships armed with rocket pods (which would rule against squadrons but my enemies had none ...), two light ships designed for ramming (love those!) and four squadrons of gunships (to be ready for anything).

The Battle

Our dinner table was the battlefield. In the center we placed a round container lid as a central planet. A large D20 was the moon. Some boxes and stones were an asteroid swarm. Four red D10 were objectives placed in orbit. In addition to these standard objectives according to the rules of OPR FTL, each fleet had their own-set goals for an extra victory point: The Blaze Fleet had to keep its flagship alive, the Zuul had to fire on the planet each turn, the mantis had to destroy at least one capital enemy ship.

Turn 1

As my ships were smaller than both enemies, it didn't matter to me that my older son won iniative and my younger son came in last. I split my force: The five small ships went to intercept the Blaze Fleet, firing a first volley of rockets and doing one point of damage to one of the capital ships. The gunship squadrons went ahead and charged into the smallest ship of the Zuul fleet and started harrying it with their light weaponry. My flagship made a beeline towards one of the objectives and fired its plasma cannon, the mightiest weapon in my fleet, at the Zuul formation. To no effect.

The other two fleets also split up: The Blaze Fleet sent two ships towards my formation of light ships, opening fire. Their other two ships went towards the Zuul fleet and the objectives.

The Zuul fleet attacked in two directions as well, sending one ship towards the Blaze Fleet and three ships towards my mantis fleet.

Turn 2

The two ramming ships were in ramming position! So they did their thing and dealt tremendous damage to the front ship of the Blaze Fleet coming towards them (a medium ship, the smallest of that fleet), ramming it into the ship that was following. The missile ships meanwhile swerved hard to the right in order to follow and hopefully support the embattled flag ship of the fleet that was all alone in the vicinity of a victory point.

The Blaze Fleet fired upon my ships and even sent a rocket barrage to my own rocket ships, dealing damage to one caught in the blast despite it being in cover behind an asteroid. The Blaze Fleet also engaged the foward ship of the Zuul, firing all they had. Their flagship collected a victory point

The Zuul gathered a victory point as well and fired on my flagship once again, dealing heavy damage.

Turn 3

Things were getting serious. My two ramming ships did their thing again, driving back the much larger enemy craft. My flagship broke apart when it was rammed by the slow but deadly Zuul ship that was coming towards it. The Zuul medium ship, still followed by my gunships, stopped to turn in order to get back into the fight. The clash of two of the Blaze Fleet's ships and one of the Zuul ships ended with said Zuul ship being destroyed and dropping an objective it had gathered before. My rocket ships got into the fray, hoping to regain the victory point that my destroyed flagship had lost and perhaps even conquer one from the enemy.

Turn 4

The last turn was deadly. My two ramming ships sacrificed themselves, killing their opposing ship and badly damaging the capital ship that was following. The other side of the Blaze Fleet killed off their Zuul opponent and collected its victory point, upping their score to two. Two of my rocket-armed ships kamikaze'd into the badly damaged Zuul heavy ship they were facing off against, destroying it and themselves. My gunships failed to destroy the badly damaged medium ship they were engaging though – my last rocket armed light ship could not risk gathering up the two floating objectives infront of itself because it would have been rammed apart by that ship. Thus, the Zuul flagship could slowly swoop in and gather up these two victory points.

The aftermath

The Blaze Fleet lost one medium ship and won. They collected two objectives and fulfilled their secondary objective of having the flagship survive. The Zuul fleet came in second, with two victory points from objectives. They lost two heavy ships. My mantis fleet came in last with one victory point from a secondary objective. Three squadrons and one light ship were the only survivors.

What I learned

Ramming is fun and very effective. If I had played for victory, my fleet composition would have been dramatically wrong: Had I taken bombers instead of gunships for swarms and had I not taken missile volleys but more punchy weaponry on my three light cannon ships, I would have dealt a lot more damage. Positioning is something you always have to keep up with: As ships have to move half their movement before pivoting, you have to be careful not bump into your own crafts.

The game was great fun. We will do this again. Probably soon. So I'll have to get the other two fleets ready...