High Tech Gaming

On Friday, I had the opportunity to participate in an online game over a Google+ Hangout. Mmmm, classic Traveller.

Unfortunately, I had difficulties. My Mac Mini in my gaming cave at home was the culprit. It was like watching a single frame of a movie every second or two. The sound was good, but the computer just couldn't keep up with the video. So, at one point I brought up the hangout on my Android. (I also needed to walk to another room, because the gamer's cave is in the basement and gets lousy cell reception.) The video was much better, actually looking like a video conference, and not a series of stills. So, I shut off my camera, and walked upstairs. I placed the phone into a tripod designed to hold an iPad for shooting long videos. That worked until the thunderstorm rolled through, making cell reception even worse than the basement.

At this point, I gave up. I apologized for the techno difficulties and took my leave.

But there was a bigger issue. I don't like video chat for gaming. Watching the constantly changing speaker's image in the main window, with the six little video screens below, was very distracting, as was the cutting in and out of the voices, since only one speaker is broadcast at a time. I just found the total experience to be disruptive to game play.

My last excursion into high-tech gaming was ten years ago, when I played a play-by-email/play-by-gamebox game of The Fantasy Trip's Grail Quest solo adventure with a GM. Now that was an amazingly sublime experience. First, the Grail Quest adventure is outstanding, one of the best written solos I've ever played. The game play was good, and I didn't feel railroaded. My GM is grand, and it was a blast.

I guess I just need to play FTF, or perhaps I should try text-chat/IM play.

Experience and treasure

It's been a long time since I've played with the D&D ruleset. We are using Swords and Wizardry, as I've mentioned before.

We've been delving into a smallish ruin/dungeon for a few sessions now, one of the party died from zombie attacks, and we've finally found some treasure and killed some zombies. We went back to town to recover and such.

So experience points and treasure were divvied up. We didn't get much, but we had a little cash to spend. Then the GM told us about the experience point bonuses that you get if you spend your money in class-appropriate ways or by carousing. Fighters get a bonus if they hire followers. Clerics get extra EP if they spend in accordance to their deity's precepts (feeding the hungry for altruistic deities). Magic users earn more if they spend on magical research and such. This was new to me.

So our mage had found a book on herbal magic in the dungeon, so went into the woods to gather herbs for experiments, then made some potions. Then she had a big party and invited some townfolk. Her experiments went awry and all twelve villagers began exhibiting atavistic animal characteristics. The village elders asked her to leave until she could fix the damage she'd done, so she took up residence in an abandoned hut outside the village.

One of our fighters caroused and got beat up, but earned mucho EP. I decided to hire one of the poor guinea pigs, er, 'Island of Doctor Moreau' villagers, who seemed to show fighting promise, as a squire. The mage also hired a couple of simple villagers who had taken on Bull-aspects. The cleric almost got thrown into jail for something that he did while carousing (which no one will talk about), but was released when promised to perform a mission for the deity.

I really like this rule. It encourages players to spend their money on things other than bigger weapons, better armor, or more magical items, thus slowing the arms race between players and GM. It also provides for interesting stuff to happen outside the dungeon, though I've never had trouble getting into trouble in town.

I don't ever remember playing D&D this way, oh these many decades ago.

Developments

Well, due to technical difficulties, I missed the first night of the Traveller game. I couldn't remember my Mac admin password, and therefore couldn't install Google video plug-in to Safari. I also couldn't get sound working on my laptop. Now I have Google video installed. The game is alternating between Thursdays, which I can't attend due to a standing date with my Dad and son, and Fridays that I can usually show up for. The GM has arranged things so that shuffling characters in and out is pretty easy on a game by game basis.

In other news, our Swords and Wizardry game has restarted. The last session we killed three of the zombies that spanked our asses last time and killed one of our party. And we got some booty!

I'm also putting together a couple of games for a local con, Con of the North. This will be my first time attending for Steve Jacksons Games' con support team The Men in Black for about five years. I ran countless games at a few cons over the years prior to that, and then took a hiatus for personal reasons. Since it's for SJGames, I'll be running two GURPS adaptations.

The first game will be a GURPS Tekumel game. I wrote the rules almost 20 years ago for Pyramid magazine, and I've since expanded them. So, I need to update them to GURPS 4th Edition, before February. I'll also go through my old adventures and pick a good one to run.

The second game will be GURPS Traveller. I think the official GURPS Traveller rules are an excellent adaptation of the original Traveller rules. In the adventure, a group of twenty-somethings will participate in a 3D-vid reality show called Space Lanes, where they get the use of a retired free trader, and have to complete various missions. At the end of the season of the show, if they complete all the missions, they'll get the title of the free trader.

So, I've got some work to do.

Old School Sci-Fi!

So I joined up with an online Traveller game using just the LBBs and Citizens of the Imperium. I love original Traveller, better than any of its descendants, except for GURPS Traveller.

Here is my character:

Commander Jack Traj, ret.

Retired Navy Commander, 57A9BA, Age 38, 5 terms, CR 70K, Pension - 4K
Navigation-4, Pilot-2, Engineering-2, Computer-2, Sword-1
Low passage

I'm psyched to play.

Almost but not quite

Almost played classic Traveller tonight, but the GM's Intarwebz went down and technician threw in the towel till later in the weekend.

I really liked generating a character, a retired Navy Commander/Pilot. I think Traveller has the most compact character sheet. My entire character is:

Commander Jack Traj, retired.

57A9BA, Age 3, CR 70K, Pension - 4K
Navy-5, Rank-4, Navigation-4, Pilot-2, Engineering-2, Computer-2
Sword, Low Passage.

Looking forward to some old school gaming in the near future.