Books in March 2026

 

I've been (re)reading a lot of my roleplaying games of late, especially the solo ones, deciding which I'm going to play and which I'm not, as I grow ever more aware that my remaining playing time is limited.

I'm already playing Coriolis: The Great Dark in Dom's Flowers of Algorab campaign; I love the background, but the Year Zero Engine isn't going to displace any of my existing favourites. As mentioned recently, I'm also using FASER and the Italian version of Cepheus Engine offscreen; the former is an Italian equivalent of Mythic GM Emulator 2nd Edition and very nice, the latter is a straight translation of what is basically Mongoose Traveller 1st Edition with the serial numbers filed off.

Scarlet Heroes, Interstellar Overthruster and A Star for Queen Zoe shall go to the ball; the jury's still out on Four Against Darkness; and Cairn is going to find itself in a shallow grave in its own woods.

I also read some 'proper' books...

How Bad Are Bananas? by Mike Berners-Lee. This estimates the carbon-equivalent footprint (that's to say, including methane and other greenhouse gases) of everyday products and activities, allowing one to make informed choices. Quite a lot of it was not as I expected, for example bananas are actually pretty good compared to other foodstuffs, but key points are: eat seasonal local food, don't fly if you can help it, and make any manufactured product last as long as you can. I like the idea of the "five tonne lifestyle", in effect a personal carbon budget; I might work out what my footprint currently is.

Last Act in Palmyra by Lindsey Davis. This month's Falco, number 6 in the series, sees our hero and his long-suffering girlfriend Helena on an espionage mission which fails; they escape by joining a travelling theatre which is short-handed due to a recent murder, one they feel compelled to solve. The plot felt a little contrived in places, but the characters were well-drawn as usual, and the historical detail was delightful. I'd worked out the missing person subplot and the motive for the murder by about halfway through the book, but the identity of the murderer eluded me until the penultimate chapter.

Otherlands by Thomas Halliday. The palaeontology of the last half billion years, in reverse chronological order; I thought that was a strange choice at first, but it does allow the author to shift us gradually from more familiar lifeforms to ones less so. It's interesting how different the Earth has been in the past, and how that affected the niches available for life.

Scratch Monkey by Charles Stross. In the far future, all human star systems are connected by the Dreamtime, an AI-controlled "internet" exchanging messages at lightspeed. Interstellar travel is accomplished by sending consciousness as a large, complex message to be reincarnated in a cloned body. Everyone is routinely backed up into the Dreamtime, so death is merely an inconvenience. Sometimes worlds drop out of the Dreamtime for various reasons, and then teams of covert specialists are sent to find out why, and fix it. Our heroine is one such specialist, and gradually learns that all is not rosy in the garden. The book considers how such a society might work, what AI needs and the lengths it might go to to get it, and how AI might evolve, because evolution doesn't just stop at some arbitrary pinnacle. If you're upset by body horror or child abuse, you might want to give this one a miss.

I may need to stop reading non-fiction soon, though, for the same reason I gave up watching the news; it's just too depressing.

Fringe Space: Three Months In

“The question for you to ask yourself is whether what you think you want to pursue will actually get you the happiness you think it will get you.” – Tony Hsieh

From the beginning, I intended to review this campaign after three months of play - a dozen episodes - to answer the questions I posed initially and some new ones that came up along the way, and decide what to do next.

Depending on the answers, my plan was to keep going, drop SWADE and revert to 5150, or abandon the game entirely and move on.

Here are my conclusions; YMMV.

Questions and Answers

Does "5150 for Savage Worlds" work well enough for long-term solo play?

Yes. It needed some tweaking, but I've always found that when I mash games up like this, I have to experiment to find what works and what doesn't; that's one of the main reasons I run solo games. The setting, NPCs and missions work well enough, and I think I have a good grasp of everything else I need. I'm happy I can run this indefinitely without any more significant tweaks or rulings.

One thing which is definitely faster and easier in 5150 is combat, but as you've seen I'm experimenting with various options from the SWADE Adventure Toolkit to come up with something that looks and feels similarly simple and straightforward. The Savage Goose recently suggested using the Fear rules for morale checks, triggered the first time an enemy is taken out or when the foes lose half their number (Extras) or half their Wounds (Wild Cards). I wish I'd thought of that; next time, Gadget, next time.

I'm tempted to introduce some edition of Traveller for starmaps, world statistics, and ships, but I'm reluctant to add another product set. In particular, one of the beauties of the 5150 universe is that - like many wargames - it doesn't need a starmap. Perhaps I should unbend far enough to bring back Interstellar Rebels; maybe I've let my loathing for the movies it emulates (Star Wars Episodes 7-9) blind me to the elements worth using.

Does it work well enough for group play?

I'm less certain about this. My usual players don't get on with on-the-fly emergent play; I could perhaps get around that by working up adventures in advance, much like the ones in the various 5150 No Limits products, or by recruiting new players. I'd have to try it out to be sure, and I already have the next two campaigns sketched out, which at least gives me time to prepare.

Should I adopt more of the SWADE SF Companion?

No. I simply don't need it for this campaign. I did try rebuilding Simon Makavan to avoid using the SFC Captain Edge, but it didn't feel like him anymore after that, and I like him as he is; the same applies to rebuilding him for 5150, it's possible but the resulting PC doesn't feel right. This is interesting as Arion, my previous solo SF character, was rebuilt in a new game engine every few months and always felt like the same guy.

Apart from that one Edge, I'm using the commlink (which could easily be replaced with a cellphone, that's all it is really). I spent many unhappy and unproductive hours trying to design the standard 5150 ships in SWADE, but failed every time; the two chief reasons for this are that Mods are different sizes depending on both the size of the ship's hull frame and the component you're installing, and that Superstructures are enormous, which is a shame as they are the obvious way to deal with 5150 ships' ability to reconfigure passenger cabins as cargo holds on the fly. I could have homebrewed some smaller version of superstructures I suppose, but in the end I gave up and reverted to the SWADE Adventure Toolkit for ship combat, so that I don't need to design ships at all.

Meanwhile, in my group game - the Aslan Route - one player eventually took an Edge from the SFC; the group also took a liking to the stun weapons and automatic shotguns, so the Companion is seeing some use.

Is it worth switching from Roll20 to Fantasy Grounds?

I experimented with this for about a month off-camera, and my conclusion is that for what I do, it's more effort than it's worth. Fantasy Grounds is more powerful, and includes some things that are paid extras in Roll20; but it has a steeper learning curve, especially for the GM, and works by shifting the GM's effort from the session itself into prep time - I'm going the other way.

Like my parallel experiments with AI, also off-camera, I discovered that it automates things I don't do anyway, so until I come up with a more relevant use case, there's no point.

Questions Arising During Play

Is the tail wagging the dog?

That's to say, have I become more invested in blogging than in actually playing the game? No, I don't think so; since 2008, blogging about my solo games has been at least as important to me as actually playing, and has added greatly to my enjoyment; that hasn't changed. If I stopped blogging about solo play, I think I'd probably stop playing shortly afterwards, and that's okay - it's a solo game, so I am uniquely qualified to say which elements matter to me, and how much.

How should I organise my game notes?

I experimented with Obsidian, but it takes up a lot of space for something that organises Markdown files; I don't have a gigabyte to spare on my travel laptop. I wound up with a word processor file containing the character (including planned advances), worlds, NPCs split by location, setting information, and house rules; at this point that's about six pages long. After experimenting with full-fat NPCs I restricted them to name, race, Rep, profession, weapon, and some notes; I'm now ignoring skills and attributes, which are not necessary for my purposes.

I have whole-heartedly adopted the Lonelog standard notation, though, as I find it genuinely helpful and it improves my enjoyment of the game. I did not see that coming, but there it is.

Is it time to move on from 5150?

Maybe; there are days I'm excited to roll more dice and push the story forward, and days when I just can't be bothered with it, but then that's true of most things.

My last few SF games have all faltered somewhat, regardless of rules, setting or characters, so maybe I should give them a rest for a while.

What Next?

I'm not sure whether I want to carry on with Simon and a 5150/SWADE mashup or not; I'll park them for the moment rather than taking any rash decisions I might need to roll back later. (This is not uncommon for me; I am easily bored, and tend to lose interest in something once I have fully understood it.)

The last few solo SF games have not delivered what I was looking for, and I'm still feeling burned out on my normal alternative, the zombie apocalypse; so let's take a short break to pause and reflect.

Esperimento 10: I giovedì dei GDRS

"In sostanza, l'emulatore di game master aiuta i giocatori a gestire e guidare la fiction quando giocano in solitario o quando non hanno un master umano per condurre la partita." - Roberto Bisceglie, FASER

Recently I've come across a number of polyglots who recommend journaling in the language you're trying to learn; those who are especially gung-ho about this recommend reading it back to yourself aloud, marking up errors, and so on.

Now, I've tried journaling before and it doesn't work for me, but I do like solo roleplaying. So, I thought, what if I did that in Italian? If nothing else, it should give me some entertaining vocabulary. Maybe if I git gud I can join an Italian game online?

Once this idea struck I took stock and did a quick search of the net. I'm not ready to spend any serious money on this until I'm sure it'll work long-term, but I found I already had Italian rulebooks for Labyrinth Lord, Outgunned and SWADE. Itch.io has a range of free Italian products, including the GM emulator FASER (yoink!), and the Italian Translation Alliance works on translating games from English, including Cepheus Engine and White Box D&D (double yoink!).

I'm now playing a very slow-moving, pencil-and-paper SWADE/Cepheus Engine/FASER hybrid off-screen, and enjoying the linguistic challenge and the lack of pressure.

Currently, I don't intend to share my Italian solo play on the blog - for one thing, my lack of mastery of the subjunctive makes me sound embarrassingly uneducated in Italian - but I did want to share the idea in case it helps anyone else who's studying a language. The Italian resources are likely only useful for that language, but there's probably something similar for whatever interests you; I've seen original RPGs and translations in Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, and Spanish, and I haven't really been looking.

GDRS? Giochi Di Ruolo Solitario, o in inglese "Solo RPGs".

In bocca al lupo, ragazzi!

Aslan Route 38: Herzenslust

Previously, on the Aslan Route... The Macavity is headed for Herzenslust to recover backup copies of the lost data cores from the Perfect Stranger.

Sturgeon’s Law, 1109 Week 22

Sturgeon’s Law is closed for business; both ships are refused landing permission and warned off on pain of being shot down. No reasons are given. Consequently, they need to refuel at the gas giant; normally this is uncomfortable but not especially dangerous, however during the first skimming run they get an alert for a sensor lock-on, shortly followed by a two-missile strike. Vila dodges the missiles by the skin of his teeth, then backtracks them to a launch position which Kharrash and Rex obliterate with the lasers of both ships. Reasoning that any resources must be spread thinly to cover a whole gas giant, the two vessels rapidly conduct wilderness refuelling and jump out again, heading to Herzenslust via Elysee.

Herzenslust, 1109 Week 26

Upon arriving at Herzenslust, sensor scans show a force of gunships defending the world, operating out of a space station built from a decommissioned freighter.

The economic and industrial heart of Herzenslust is its capital city, which enjoys greater technological and social sophistication than the rest of the world. The capital has its own Class C starport but this is off-limits to all vessels other than those coming from New Colchis. Everyone else, including the Macavity and the Perfect Stranger, must make do with a rudimentary port over a hundred kilometres away.

The bonded warehouse is part of a starship graveyard at the main port, which turns out to be a fenced compound owned and operated by a company called WrekYard. WrekYard charges a Cr 10 fee to enter the yard, mainly to deter gawkers and idiots who want to climb around the starships, and has a make-an-offer policy on components extracted from the wrecks.

A bored-looking WrekYard employee checks the team's (forged) papers, points out a few details they got wrong, and lets them into the bonded warehouse anyway after they slip him a few Credits to 'correct their papers'. The warehouse appears to have a storage system based on stuffing things in as they arrive with no attempt to sort them and a hashing algorithm of gravity, so it takes some time to find the data cores and extricate them from under a pile of more recently-delivered detritus. They are in fairly good shape, considering.

The employee wanders off to the warehouse office, apparently so that he won’t get roped into helping load up the data cores. While Dr Matauranga, the designated bureaucrat, goes up with him to sort out the paperwork, and Vila stands watch with his stun pistol at the ready, Rex and Mazun get the cores loaded and tied down. Just as they’re finishing this, Vila points out a bunch of local thugs approaching, and the captain and the vargr go out to reason with them.

Mazun explains that the team are a hardened trader crew, the thugs are not really a threat but they could be a nuisance, and he is prepared to buy them off if the price is reasonable. The thugs’ leader says they have been promised money to beat the crew up and kidnap a couple of them, but cash in hand beats promises that could be reneged upon. A price is agreed, and Mazun proposes that they escort him and Rex to the handover – if they play their cards right, they could get paid twice. So it is that he and Rex are led to a sleazy motel on the outskirts of town and handed over to a pair of armed offworlders, while Dr Mataurange and Vila follow in the air/raft.

The thugs are paid off and disappear; Mazun and Rex are dragged into a motel room; and Vila stealthily sneaks up to lurk outside the room in case the two inside need help.

“Who are you people?” one wants to know. “And what the hell are you up to?”

Mazun trots out the usual story, he is repossessing the Perfect Stranger for non-payment of mortgage and has no knowledge of what it might have been doing beforehand, or why.

“This is above our pay grade,” the other offworlder says. “Let’s hand them off to head office.”

Before that goes any further, Rex pops his surgically-implanted forearm claws and lays about him. Those watching on his bodycam from outside see nothing but fountains of blood; it’s over in seconds, one captor down and bleeding out, the other sliced and diced beyond repair even by Dr Matauranga.

While Mazun shoves Rex into the shower cubicle to hose off the worst of the gore, Dr Matauranga stabilises one of the offworlders and he and Vila bundle the man into the air/raft. The other two emerge dripping wet, but at least not bright red, and everyone makes their way back to the ships and lifts off as soon as practical.

Fast Travel, 1109 Weeks 27-51

The two ships return to Zuflucht via Elysee and the Serendip Belt. The captive is unable to hold out against Dr Matauranga’s wide range of illegal drugs, and reveals that his boss told him to impede the Perfect Stranger’s new crew and if possible capture them for interrogation. He thinks he is working for Neubayern intelligence, but Mazun theorises that whoever recruited him would have told him he was working for whoever he most sympathised with, so that doesn’t necessarily make it true.

Considering all the clues the team has to hand, however, the most likely explanation is that Neubayern noticed the Perfect Stranger nosing around, assumed it was working for one of the other factions in the Cluster, and put a stop to it.

The team return to a heroes’ welcome at Zuflucht, and are paid the agreed amount and carried as cargo aboard an outbound Imperial ship back to the Imperium at Cerebin, from where it is only a couple of jumps back to the Aslan Route. Vila’s friend comes with them as far as Cerebin – the whole team are Persons Of Interest to Neubayern intelligence now, which could cause trouble for anyone who stays – then leaves the company. Dr Matauranga busies himself during the trip conducting the kind of experiments on his captive that led to so many disagreements with the Ethics Committee in his former career.

Tyokh, 1109 Week 52

The Macavity arrives at the Clan Iuwoi landhold on Tyokh to find it in turmoil. The clan are all delighted to see the ship and crew back safely, but the head of the clan is at death’s door and Prince Hteleitoirl has taken up with a new female who looks set to become his second wife; while polygamy is the norm among aslan, Elehasei is not impressed with her proposed co-wife and asks to meet with the legally female crew members, Dr Matauranga and Vila, while the males pay their respects to the Prince and his father.

To be continued...

GM Notes

Thus ends Great Rift Adventure 1: Islands in the Rift. I could probably have got another couple of sessions out of it, but this is a group that prefers to avoid interstellar trade and combat - the PCs are deeply involved in trading, but that doesn't mean the players have to be. Traveller is a slice-of-life game where you immerse yourself in the detail of the PCs' lives, but we are not a group that plays that way, and consequently skip through scenarios at a brisk pace.

Rex's player loves fights, and thus has invested the thick end of 20 Advances in becoming the ultimate melee combatant; paradoxically, this means that if he ever does get into a fight, it ends in one or two combat rounds, so the better Rex gets at melee, the less session time we spend on it.

This session brings us to the PCs' fourth Legendary Advance, and it feels like the campaign will wrap up in the next one or two sessions.

Fringe Space: Makavan 012 - Questioning and Arrest

They pulled us out of the car by the side of the road,
They questioned us one at a time
- Saxon, The Strong Arm of the Law

New Hope City, Early August '01

"So," the arresting officer said across the table in the interview room. "Simon Makavan, freelance trader captain, except you don't seem to have done any trading in months."

"Technically, I'm an owner/operator," Makavan said. "What can I tell you, business is slow."

"What you have done," the officer went on, "is shoot a hishen mugger in the spaceport, nose around the warehouse where Crezzi was found gunned down, get involved in a gunfight on the streets in the Pub & Rec district, shoot a basic mugger near the spaceport, and threaten one of our more upstanding citizens in the street, aided and abetted by a razor. Would you care to explain all that?"

"If I understand correctly, officer, three of those incidents were self-defence against unprovoked attacks, one of them is being in the area where a crime allegedly took place on the same evening it happened, and I'm sure the upstanding citizen concerned has neither identified me nor pressed charges, or I'd be sitting here in handcuffs. With a razor in the next interview room." The detective made a face to acknowledge both those points, and the bad taste they left in his mouth.

"There are also outstanding extradition papers against you issued by House Cardenas," he tried.

"That is true, and as you must know I am fighting those in court. It is, I think, rather public-spirited of me not to go anywhere until that issue is resolved, especially with berthing fees being as high as they are."

"You also carry a knife and a laser pistol at all times."

"NHC has open carry laws for those items, and looking at how often I get assaulted in your fair city, I don't plan on giving them up."

The detective sighed, and slid back his chair, realising he had nothing on Makavan, and his interviewee wasn't going to crack under simple questioning.

"All right," he admitted. "You're free to go. But we're watching you, Makavan."

The question of whether that would stop people trying to mug him rose to Makavan's lips, but his House no longer protected him from being rude to public servants, and anyway the man was just doing his job. Makavan decided to quit while he was ahead, and settled for a polite "thank you" and "goodbye".

New Hope City, Late August '01

With funds running low again, Makavan returned to the Snakebite Inn. He nodded to Adrasaia, sitting at one of the corner tables with two other razors.

A grath sat alone at another table, joylessly consuming the soup of the day; Makavan supposed that having no sense of taste was an advantage for some of the stuff they ate, but it prevented them enjoying anything that tasted good. Not that there was much risk of that happening at the Snakebite Inn.

A pair of xeogs sat down across from him and asked if he'd be interested in finding someone for them for three IRD.

"We'd do it ourselves," one explained, "But we stand out, being bright blue and all, and that makes it harder to get close to the target."

"No thanks," Makavan said. One leaned closely and whispered seductively.

"We can't go higher than three," she said, "But we could compensate you in kind."

"Very kind," the other agreed, with a wink.

"Oh, I'm sure you could," Makavan said. "But the cops are watching me, so I need to keep a low profile for a while. Just until they lose interest."

"Your loss," and the pair stood up to leave.

"Yeah, probably."

GM Notes

Lonelog notation for this session...

S1. Involuntary: Questioning and Arrest

d: Investigating officer is Rep 4. No aggravating circumstances.

(note: SWADE treats this kind of event as a three-round Social Conflict)

@ Defend self against accusations.

d: d8w=17 vs d8=7 -> SR => 2 tokens.

d: d8w=3 [PC: Makavan | Benny -1=2] = 5 vs 4 -> +1 token=3.

d: d8w=7 vs d8=6 -> S +1 token=4 => arbiter reasonably convinced

S2. Voluntary: Chillin'

d: 1d4+1=4 PEFs.

d: 3 Razor Exotics Reps 445 -> Adrasaia + 2; A-3, P-1, P-1.

d: 1 Grath Criminal Rep 4 unarmed.

d: 2 Xeog Criminal Rep 44 unarmed.

@ Swap one PEF for job offer.

d: Criminal element Find someone for 3 IRD.

@ decline offer

[PC:Makavan | Wealth +0-1 -> d6]

I said I'd run this for three months and then pause to review, so that's what I'll do.

Next up: That review, and a decision on what to do next.

Experiment 9: Metal Badges

Sometimes, I wonder what the cool kids are playing. (Yes, alright, D&D 5E, but what else?)

It's never been easy to get hard numbers on that; in the past I have tried to approximate based on sales figures or seats in convention games, but for this experiment, let's take a look at DriveThruRPG's metal badges, awarded for high sales.

Caveats

First, just because you buy something doesn't mean you actually play it. Second, the site doesn't count free copies, or those not sold there; so things like Ironsworn (free) or Shadowdark (core rules not available on the site) can't get a badge, and in these cases I have assumed that a game has a badge as good as its best-selling accessory. Third, games that have been on the site longer have had more time to sell, so newer games are probably under-emphasised, and the rankings likely change over time. Fourth, I'm not sure what happens to badges when products are taken down then reinstated, as happened to D&D items, or when they are transferred to a new publisher, as happened with some Two Hour Wargames products.

Finally, there are well over 100,000 products on DriveThruRPG; about 80% of them don't have a metal badge, so having one at all marks you as standing out from the crowd; only a few dozen products have reached Adamantine, so in sales terms those are the creme de la creme, the top 0.1% or so.

That said, let's take a look at the items that pique my interest in one way or another. Alphabetical order within each category, as I can't see actual sales data.

Adamantine (minimum 5,000 copies sold)

Anything that gets this high up is worth thinking about, but for comparison, to get onto the New York Times Bestseller list, you have to sell this many copies in a single week, and the bestselling novels of all time are in the 100-200 million copies range. We're not ending world hunger with our elfgames, however important they are to us.

• Daggerheart (this is the only RPG except D&D 5E with sessions advertised in my home town)
• Dragonbane
• D&D (any edition from 1981 onwards, take your pick, I got bored of writing them all down)
• Ironsworn (estimated), Ironsworn: Starforged.
• Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition
• Mythic GM Emulator, 1st Edition (my personal favourite) or 2nd Edition
• Savage Worlds Adventure Edition or Deluxe Edition (they both hit Adamantine)
• Scarlet Heroes
• Stars Without Number Revised Edition

Mithral (2,000 copies)

IIRC, back when I was writing RPG stuff for money the minimum viable print run for a game was somewhere between Mithral and Adamantine. In the 1980s, if a company didn't think they could sell this many copies - and they were guessing, because there was nothing like Kickstarter - it didn't get printed.

• Barebones Fantasy (surprised to find this one doing so well, although it's a cracking game)
• Classic Traveller (1981 facsimile edition; considering it's 45 years old, it's not doing badly)
• Mongoose Traveller 1st Edition
• Old School Essentials
• One-Page Mythic GM Emulator
• Original D&D (White Box facsimile, over 50 years old and still going strong)
• Savage Worlds Fantasy Companion (fantasy always outsells every other RPG genre)
• WFRP 1st Edition or 2nd Edition (my personal favourite). WFRP3 was taken down some years ago when the publisher lost the license.

Platinum (1,000 copies)

• Axebane's Deck of Many Dungeons
• Four Against Darkness
• Pathfinder for Savage Worlds Core Rules and Bestiary
• Ruins of the Undercity (another surprise)
• Savage Worlds SF, Super Powers, and Horror Companions
• Shadowdark (estimated)
• Solo 2nd Edition (Traveller solo play supplement)
• Spears of the Dawn
• Sundered Isles (Age of Sail pirate expansion for Ironsworn: Starforged)
• Swords & Wizardry Complete Revised
• Tales of Argosa (one to watch, it hasn't been out long)
• The Pirates of Drinax
• Traveller5 Core Rules

Gold (500 copies)

• 2300AD (the GDW version)
• MegaTraveller Player's and Referee's Manuals
• Nuts! (the highest-ranking Two Hour Wargames product I found)
• The Dracula Dossier
• T4: Marc Miller's Traveller
• Traveller: The New Era

Electrum (250 copies)

• 5150 New Beginnings 2023 Edition
• Classic Traveller (1983 Starter Edition)
• Gold & Glory: Seven Deadly Dungeons (Old School dungeon crawling for SWADE)
• Traveller: 2300 (1st Edition 2300AD)

Silver (100 copies)

• All Things Zombie: End of Days
• Interstellar Overthruster
• No GM's Sky.

Copper (50 copies)

• 5150 Fringe Space
• All Things Zombie: Evolution
• WFRP 4th Edition (surprised how low this was; and this is the VTT bundle, the PDF has no badge at all)

No Badge Awarded

• A Star for Queen Zoe (campaign seed for Interstellar Overthruster)
• Talomir Tales: Distant Shores.

Coda

Is any of this going to change what I play? Nah.

But am I curious? Yes, yes I am.

Fringe Space: Makavan 011 - Intimidation

"If you want to control someone, all you have to do is to make them feel afraid." - Paulo Coelho

No group game last weekend, so how about some more Fringe Space? Don't mind if I do...

New Hope City, Early July '01

The Green at the west end of Pub & Rec was slowing taking over from the Snakebite Inn as Makavan's favourite haunt. If you'd told him last year he'd be having dinner with a razor, he'd have laughed at you, but there he was. His patron was leaving; he could see her outside hailing a taxi.

"Do you think I look dangerous?" he asked. Adrasaia cocked her head on one side and considered this for a moment, appraising him frankly.

"No," she said. "Not in the slightest."

"You do, though."

"That's because I am," she told him. Today, her usual crop top and skinny jeans were covered by a long duster, but he could see a laser SMG on a shoulder strap under it when she moved. If anyone else saw it, they'd decided discretion was the better part of not being perforated.

"How about joining me on a job, then? Shouldn't take more than a couple of hours."

"What is it, and what's in it for me?"

"That lady just getting into the taxi is being squeezed, and she wants me to put the frighteners on the squeezer. I think we'd be more convincing as a pair. I'm getting paid four IRD for the job; I'll split it 50-50 with you."

"You amuse me, Makavan," Adrasaia smiled, showing disturbingly pronounced canines. "Very well. I'm in."

New Hope City, Late July '01

That night, it was Makavan's turn to step out of the shadows near his target. She was out walking arm in arm with a blue-skinned xeog. That could mean anything, and anyway it was none of his business.

"Good evening, ladies," he said, polite as ever. They stepped back, startled, and he noticed the xeog stepped between him and the basic woman, who started edging away from the scene.

That was okay, it meant she was getting closer to Adrasaia.

"What do you want?" the xeog asked, in a silky contralto tone that pushed all the wrong buttons.

"My employer is getting anxious about the demands your friend is making," he said.

"And who would that be?" the xeog said.

"Never mind," the woman laughed. "I know who he means. Tell her to go suck a neutron star, she'll have to do better than you."

"Yeah, we thought of that," Makavan said. Calling a little louder then: "Show her."

Adrasaia grabbed the woman, bent her spine uncomfortably over one knee, and pushed her nose out of joint with the barrel of a laser SMG.

"Stop making demands," the razor hissed. "You won't like what happens if you don't."

"How do you do that without falling over?" asked Makavan, genuinely interested.

"Practice," the razor replied absently. "You, woman; are you clear what you have to do?" There was a terrified nod. The razor twisted, and suddenly she was upright and their target was sprawled awkwardly on the ground.

"We found you once," Makavan commented as he and Adrasaia retreated. "We can do it again."

Later, after he'd paid Adrasaia her share - that was one person he didn't want angry at him - he sat in the comforting ambiance of Egregore's bridge, musing. Not daring to speak aloud or write, because who knew who was watching, or how?

Makavan was uncomfortable with how his personal code of honour was eroding under the constant pressures of New Hope City, which seemed almost deliberately designed to do that. Was he still one of the good guys, he wondered? How could he square the need to keep eating with the demands of his conscience?

To distract himself he tried to find a pattern in the last few months' events.

Xeogs kept cropping up in connection with New Hope's high society circles. Why? Whatever the reason, he had to assume Ribeiro was involved somehow, and that meant Guzman might be, too, so there was a limit to how much trust he could place in Mikal. Pity.

Someone had sent an assassin - or bounty hunter, or something - after him. Who, and why? Most likely House Cardenas was getting bored with waiting for him to be extradited. But why had House Cardenas fallen out with House Makavan anyway?

Were these strands connected at all? If so, how?

GM Notes

My goals for this session were further trials of both the Mass Battle tweak for single combat, and the Lonelog notation. Again, I've used my custom SWADE notation extensions and collapsed multiple dice rolls onto one line when generating encounters.

S1. Involuntary Encounter

d: 1d6=4 -> Chillin' with a Friend. 1d3=1 -> 2 PEFs

@ Swap PEF1 for a Job Offer.

(note: I always assumed I could buy as many Job Offers as I liked, but that's not what 5150NLMV page 32 actually says)

d: 1d6+5=9 -> Shaker. 1d6=2 -> Confrontation, 4 IRD + ship upkeep. 2d6=4 -> Rep 4. 1d6=4 -> unarmed. 1d8=8 -> trophy wife. 1d6=2 -> female. 1d6=3 -> no kids.

(note: pay a visit to another Shaker who is trying to squeeze the patron; this will be the next voluntary encounter)

@ interact with PEF2

(note: PEFs always begin friendly in a Chillin' encounter)

d: 2d6+1d6=6+4 -> Exotic Razor. 1d6=3 packing A-3. 1d6=5 -> Rep 5

(note: The Law of Conservation of NPCs dictates this must be Adrasaia, who has exactly those stats.)

d: 2d6=7 -> reaction Neutral. Persuasion 1d8w=7 -> S => reaction becomes Cooperative.

S2. Voluntary Encounter: Confrontation

@ Choose to engage at night.

d: No. of NPCs is 2 (us) + 1d3=3 - 1d3=3, so 2.

d: Variuous tables => Unarmed Rep 4 Female Basic Shaker with Unarmed Rep 5 Xeog Shaker accomplice. (note: Xeogs again. Interesting.)

@ Try to intimidate targets. Adrasaia 1d10=19 vs Xeog 1d10=8 => SR

(note: target intimidated, mission successful)

[PC:Makavan | Wealth +0-1 = d8]

The notation continues to go well, I think I shall adopt it permanently. The intimidation was successful, so I didn't get to test the combat mod again, but I'm sure Simon is fine with that. However, since splitting the fee with Adrasaia means he only gets 2 IRD (plus ship upkeep), no Wealth die type increase for him this month, and the automatic decay drops him back towards his default d6. Replacing Rep Dice that way is also working well.

I think it will be interesting if the recurring characters have persistent reaction levels; Adrasaia has now shifted from Neutral to Cooperative, so she will start the next meeting at Cooperative. If Simon can get her to Helpful and then shift her reaction more positive after that, she will join him as a party member. She's not strictly a member of the band yet, but I could have had her join for one mission in 5150 by succeeding at a suitable Challenge, so why not.