Paleo Pulp Space Diet Two

 Another attempt at Paleo Pulp

Lt Badger has a simple mission.  Go out and bag one of the giant arachnids for the scientists.  They even gave him some special tranq rounds that "should" work.  He sets out in a crawler with a small crew.

Lt Badger  SMG

Cpl Robbs, SMG

PVT Burr, SMG

CPL Aguayo, Rifle (rifle can switch mags between tranqs and regular rounds as a free action).

As they approached the nearest arachnid, they discovered their track kept scaring all the beasts (use reaction table if within 2x Long).  So they parked it.  Leaving Robbs to guard the vehicle, the rest of the team move out to give Aguayo a shot. 

Turn 1:  They all easily move fast, covering a lot of ground before slowing down as they approach the beast.  

Turn 2:  Aguayo can see the beast.  It's at the limit of his range, but an aimed shot might work.  He's nervous, and barely makes his activation.  

But he makes up for it with his shot!  The tranq sinks deep into the spider's furry side.  It reacts and moves away.

The LT decides to move closer for another shot.  But slowly, now...

Turn 3:

Aguayo has to catch up.  The others sneak forward.  

turn 4:  

Another aimed shot from Aguayo.  It misses!  But the noise startles a group of flying predators.  They smell the spider and move to investigate.  

The LT decides to flank around the spider, but stumbles and falls.  The killer bees move in.  Sensing something is wrong with the spider, they savagely attack it!  Ridiculous dice rolls!  The spider is stung to death right in front of the team.  Well, shit.  

With his 1 action, the LT suggests they try for a giant ant instead. 

Aguayo sneaks up and takes a shot. 

And misses.

And they run away as fast as they can.  

The LT calls it a bust and orders a return to base.  Next time, he'll bring somebody who can shoot better.

Paleo Pulp Space Diet

A quick solo game I played using Paleo Diet and the supplement "Pulp" from Wiley Games.  Conclusions at the end.

 Private Robbs claimed he knew how to drive the APC, but the sideslope got him.  With the track disabled, the team has to move to a nearby comm station to call for help.  No problem, just a quick jaunt across the hostile desert.

The team:

(From right to left)  Lieutenant Hussy with his battle droid (hound minus the "base instinct" trait)  SMG.

Droid carries the team supplies and has its own SMG.  Slaved to follow the LT, but prone to malfunctions on the surface.

Privates Robbs and Burr with SMGs.

Cpl Hodge with a flamer.

The local fauna:  

2 packs of "raptors" (giant ants).

1 pack of flying raptors (giant hornets) +1 to their attack roll, and they ignore terrain.

1 King Carnivore (Really giant spider).

The objective, just a short jaunt away:

Turn one:

Lt Hussy decides to move out at a cautious pace, wanting to see what the bugs will do.  He rolls his 2 "safe" dice.

-Double 1!

He stumbles and nervously triggers a single round into the sand in front of him, narrowly missing his foot.  The closest creatures react to the sudden noise.  The giant spider wanders away.  The closest pack of ants appear startled and move away a bit further.  

Battle droid activates next.  The weird electro-magnetic fields interfere with his programming, and he wanders over to his boss.  A swift kick puts him back in order, and he is sent ahead.

Everybody else makes their rolls and moves forward.  Where's the L-T?

Turn 2:

LT decides he has to catch up, so rolls all 3 dice.  It's a risk, but he can't fall too far behind.

I can already see he's going to be an all-or-nothing guy.  He runs ahead of the team, then cautiously advances into the wash.

Battle droid malfunctions again, then recovers once close to his boss.  He gets sent around the flank of the giant spider.  

Everybody else moves up in line.

Turn 3:  

Hodge goes first.  Turns out that giant flying hornets scare him.  He creeps up and lets loose at the closest one with his flamer!  The hornet is dead, but everything within 1 long reacts.  The other hornets back away.  The nearest crowd of ants back away.  The giant spider backs away.  That seemed to be a pretty effective shot.

But now everybody has to move around the fire.  The LT motions the team to the right, closer to the ants.  

All goes smooth until the droid activates.  3 fails!  The crew forgot to reprogram the droid from shipboard mode, and it goes into full fire suppression mode.  It sets off a screaming klaxon (howls) that triggers the nearby giant spider.  It moves forward and attacks the droid.  The supplies!  The droid is wounded.

Fire:  This being desert, the fire goes out.  

Turn 4:

Well, supplies are important, but calling for help comes first.  The crew continues towards the towers. Everybody makes it to the base of the hill.  

Turn 5:

Hodge fails 1 die.  The hornets move forward, but seem more interested in munching on their fallen companion.  

Burr fails 1 die.  More munching.

Robbs and the LT make it up the cliff without incident.  But the droid short-circuits again and triggers its alarm!  

This time the hornets have had enough, and dash forward to kill the screaming-thing.  They destroy the droid, parts flying across the desert.

Turn 6:  

Our water!  

LT activates and sends the signal.

Hodge flames the hornets again.  One goes down, one backs away.  

Burr tries to shoot the hornet, gets 1 fail.  The hornet backs away, leaving nothing to shoot at.  

Will they survive without their supplies until the relief comes?  Tune in next time.   

My thoughts:

Paleo Diet is designed where you run a group of hunters trying to track down prey.  I was trying to use it for a different scenario.  Even though I picked the toughest "prey" I could, they were not aggressive enough.  (Paleo Diet does have a mode where you play the predators instead, but I wanted to run the squad.)  To make this tougher, I could give each group random movement at the end of each turn, and increase their reactions on their tables, making them more prone to violence.  And also increase their reaction range.  One group of "raptors" never moved because nothing triggered them.  

I did like the random "errors" of the droid.  And I could make the terrain more difficult to cross, making them slow down while in the wash.  Or make them go back for more supplies...

This same group with a simple "seek and destroy" mission against this amount of prey on the board would be a completely different game.  Something attacked the towers!  Kill them all!

Paleo Diet and a host of other great games can be found Here

Galactic Night Train Heroes

So my old friend John Goff wrote a module for a major RPG system called "Night Train".  It's gained a bit of a cult following as a pretty dramatic total-party-kill game.  I've done my best to re-create Night Train in as many genres as possible.

This time it was the Firefly 'verse

Wife and Daughter wanted a zombie game.  So I obliged.

Sara played Zoe and her bunch, Helen played Mal and his bunch, and Miles played the Reavers.

The initial setup (some buildings were moved after the first couple shots).  Mal and his entire crew are engaged in crime.  They start as 2 groups in buildings close to the left edge.  Each group has a heavy crate they have to move off the right edge of the board.  They win if they get the crates off.

But it never goes smooth, right?  Just as they are starting their moves, the maglev train pulls in to town.  But it's full of Reavers!  6 Reavers start on the platform.  Some are melee only, some have guns. 

Cards are dealt, and the action starts.  Mal kicks the door open from his building and hits a Reaver on the platform.  Pretty good for a pistol shot.  One of the melee Reavers sprints towards the other building containing the other half of the crew.

River is in that building.  She opens the door and melee's with the Reaver. 

River being the melee goddess she is, downs the Reaver with an out-of-action in the first round.  This looks like it's going to be easy.

But what is this?  (Sorry, action got busy for a bit and some pictures were missed)  The Reaver popped back up to life next turn!  That's right, these are Zombie Reavers!  They have a 50/50 chance of re-animating after a kill, unless a hero spends an extra action making sure they are dead-dead.

  

The Reaver wins a second round of close combat with River and she goes down.  And guess what?  On a roll of 8+, heroes downed in close combat can come back as Reavers!  River rolls an 8.  Now Miles has new fodder.  Suddenly the Wife and Daughter were more worried.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group ran out the other door and hid behind the next building.  Shepherd popped out and pegged a Reaver, but another one raced in to melee with him.  In this group, Kaylee was hauling the crate and just made a beeline for the other edge (slowly).

Meanwhile, on the other side of the board, Wash has grabbed the crate and legged it.  Jayne follows, but pauses to take a shot with Vera.  

A Reaver opened the door to the building and wounded Mal.  He got back up and shot back.

Wash and Kaylee are now halfway across the board, with all the Reavers far behind.  This looks like an easy win.

But No!  Evil Dad has another surprise in store.  As if Zombie Reavers weren't enough, as if Heroes being re-animated as Reavers wasn't enough, guess what?  Yes!  Dad's not just the GM, he's running another batch of Reavers!  They appear in a group on the opposite edge of the board.  

(Hey, it's supposed to be a TPK, right?)

  

The Reaver outside Mal's building gets killed, and fails his re-animation roll.  Mal has a wound.  Simon has Medic skill.  Simon has a 7 card (re-roll).  Simon rolls a 3, fails his medic roll.  He re-rolls, and gets a 1.  Yes, Simon just caused a 2nd wound to Mal.  Helen is not pleased.  She almost wanted to quit at this point.

The battle with Shepherd has turned into a full brawl.  Shepherd and Zoe face off against 2 Reavers and the new River-Reaver.  

Over across the board, Jayne has a perfect shot at the one Reaver between Wash and freedom.  Jayne rolls a 1.  

Not trusting the Doctor, Mal limps out of the building and tries to catch up.  A Reaver downs him.  (Since he was down by shooting, we didn't roll yet to see if he came back as a Reaver.)  

Back in the brawl, Shepherd Book has been taken out of action.  (He didn't turn).  It's now just Zoe against 3 crazed Reavers.  River attacks:

And gets smacked back into oblivion by Zoe.  She's down again.  

A fourth Reaver joined the party, only to get smacked down by Zoe.  But all good things come to an end, and Zoe goes down with a wound.  One more attack, and Zoe is gone.  She didn't come back.

River did come back, and the Reaver pack started heading across the board (slowly).  Why didn't they go after Kaylee?

Well, 2 of Dad's Reavers cornered Kaylee and destroyed her.  

That was it for Mom's crew, so she left the game for Facebooking.  And again, a lot of action happened without pictures.  

Wash tried an end-run along the edge of the board.  Doc and Jayne followed.  Wash got melee'd multiple times, survived a surprising amount, then fell.  And then re-animated as a Reaver for Dad!  Meanwhile, 3 of Miles' Reavers dogpiled Jayne, finally wounding him.

Here we pick up the action.  Doc is down with 1 wound caused by Wash (just out of frame to the right).  Jayne is down with 3 of Miles' Reavers.  But here comes 1 of Dad's Reavers (the one with the Z) to attack.

It all came down to the cards.  Miles got shitty hands 3 times in a row.  So bad that we declared a re-deal, shuffled and let him pick which set he got.  He still got a lousy hand.

And the result?  Dad's Reaver got the kill on Jayne.  It's now tied at 4 each, with 1 Hero left.  

But Miles, always the role-player, decided that since his group of Reavers couldn't catch the last Hero, they would instead destroy that evil person that stole their kill!  Yes, Miles turned his party of Reavers against Dad's, and it was a bloodbath.  D12 against D12 in close combat is ugly!

 During the Reaver mosh-pit, Simon quietly played a Queen of Hearts, picked up the chest of loot, and ran off the board.  

Result:

Sara:  Loss

Miles / Tom:  Tie for 2nd

Helen:  Win!  

And not a total party-kill!

So this was mostly Galactic Heroes with some bits of Tales of Horror thrown in, 

all by the great Wiley Games