CAPTAIN’S LOG
STARDATE 7621.4
Having been pulled through some sort of rift, we find ourselves
trapped in some sort of pocket universe. We’ve recovered a number of
personnel from USS Hood. Hood herself remains fused to the alien craft
and salvage is impossible. My engineer has scavenged the hulks and jury
rigged most systems online – we are in dire need of dilithium though
and our best bet seems to be a nearby rogue planet. Engines are
operating at 23% and we should arrive within the hour.
Episode: 102
Location: Bill & Walt’s Hobby Shop – 245 4th Ave, Pittsburgh
Time/Date: 6pm, 4th August 2011
20110730
20110721
Ghosts of Conscience
STARDATE 7620.1
UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS
STAR FLEET COMMAND
U.S.S. Oberon is directed to proceed with all possible haste to stellar coordinates -017.8 +072.8 +012.1. The commanding officer is entrusted with sealed orders to be opened on arrival at the specified coordinates, not before. This operation is classified and of the highest priority.
Commodore José I. Mendez
Commanding officer
Starbase 11
Episode: 101
Location: Bill & Walt’s Hobby Shop – 245 4th Ave, Pittsburgh
Time/Date: 6pm, 20th July 2011
UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS
STAR FLEET COMMAND
U.S.S. Oberon is directed to proceed with all possible haste to stellar coordinates -017.8 +072.8 +012.1. The commanding officer is entrusted with sealed orders to be opened on arrival at the specified coordinates, not before. This operation is classified and of the highest priority.
Commodore José I. Mendez
Commanding officer
Starbase 11
Episode: 101
Location: Bill & Walt’s Hobby Shop – 245 4th Ave, Pittsburgh
Time/Date: 6pm, 20th July 2011
20110718
Systems online.
U.S.S. OBERON
MIRANDA-CLASS – STARFLEET REGISTRY NCC-1880
COMMISSIONED STARDATE 6612.3
FIRST STARSHIP TO BEAR THE NAME
UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS
“And henceforth Goliath, you
and your clan shall be immune to my arts and shall become the Honor
Guard of Avalon from this day onward.”
Announcing a new Star Trek campaign using the Savage Worlds rules system.
Character generation and first adventure, “Ghosts of Conscience.”
When: Wednesday 20 July 2011 at 18:00
Where: Bill & Walt’s Hobby Shop
20110715
Class I Frigate - Miranda-class
And they shall have a starship...
USS Oberon NCC-1880, Miranda-class. Here is the technical order for the class - in the style of Fran Joseph's Star Fleet Technical Manual, based on Ghostrunner's Callisto miniature, kitbashed with parts from Vance's Toolkits.
Some of the work of the late Franz Joseph (Schaubelt)
Ghostrunner's Callisto-class research ship at Shapeways
Vance's Toolkits for original series and movie era ships
USS Oberon NCC-1880, Miranda-class. Here is the technical order for the class - in the style of Fran Joseph's Star Fleet Technical Manual, based on Ghostrunner's Callisto miniature, kitbashed with parts from Vance's Toolkits.
Some of the work of the late Franz Joseph (Schaubelt)
Ghostrunner's Callisto-class research ship at Shapeways
Vance's Toolkits for original series and movie era ships
20110714
And a campaign shall be born....
Obviously, this is the character sheet for my Star Trek campaign using Savage Worlds as the rules system. More soon...
20110511
My RPGs, Right-wing or Wrong
Last week I posted an account of our first game of The Price of Freedom
(played in Oct ’10), I had intended to present some of the vehicles and
minis I’ve amassed in a sort of Victory Day Parade homage, but the last
few days have been rather hectic. I have a new son – arrived one month
early but healthy and cute. Additionally my wife, daughter and I all
have a strange flu-like cold, making any activity, beyond sleeping and
watching Top Gear, rather strenuous. Instead of the show of
military force… I present a few thoughts about the ridiculous
conservative crap my group found in The Price of Freedom.
To start with, in the game books are little asides, text boxes topped with Federal eagles. In one is the quote:
There is the small fact that the quote is taken completely out of
context. I know, shocking, right? For the record – here is the complete
quote:
It is not surprising that conservatives have taken the wise words of a liberal and completely twisted them to suit their base purposes. This is what keeps Jon Stewart in business.
My gaming group is a bunch of commie, pinko, tree-hugging, liberal fags. Several of us are militant, commie, pinko, tree-hugging. liberal, fags – that’s why we love action movies like Red Dawn, and war-based RPGs. That said, The Price of Freedom contains probably the most ridiculous setup for WWIII put to print. That includes John “I ain’t calling him ‘sir’” Hackett’s The Third World War.
I read a lot of WWIII fiction. The Third World War, The Third World War: The Untold Story, Red Storm Rising, Team Yankee, Cold War Hot, First Clash, Kibun wa mou Sensou manga, Bomb Comic’s World War III manga, and Red Army. Of all of these Red Army is my favorite. All WWIII fiction tends toward “Carter was a pussy / Reagan was a badass.” Hackett’s work is particularly critical of Carter, presenting a second Carter administration as the death knell for freedom. Yet in these stories – despite the liberals’ treasonous cuts to military spending and research – we kick the USSR’s ass. Red Army is different. The Soviets win. Now that is a lesson – “fear the USSR, because they can kick our ass unless we are prepared.”
TPoF reads like it was a pamphlet from the John Birch Society. Those are the guys who said: “Could Eisenhower really be simply a smart politician, entirely without principles and hungry for glory, who is only the tool of the Communists? The answer is yes.” I checked the box and the title pages of the game but I didn’t see their logo.
Still In just passing out the characters, the intensely right-wing
setting/writing furrowed eyebrows and caused eyes to roll. Jordo’s
near-fascist personality combined with being a blonde, blue-eyed
German-American was noted upon as being particularly tasteless.
Interestingly the drawing of Jordo looks nothing like his description –
much more like Ozzie Davis.
I read through the suggested campaign time-line with my players – where the American government (insinuated to be Democrat controlled) is lulled into signing START II, thereby allowing a belligerent USSR to achieve nuclear supremacy by developing a ballistic missile shield. Murphy the (most likely Democrat – how many Irish Republicans are outside of the PIRA?) president surrenders and Soviet forces arrive to occupy the US. Without wasting your time – it makes Red Dawn seem like a Noam Chomsky / Howard Zinn collaboration. Oddly it is months after the occupation starts before the Second Amendment is abolished. I’m a panty-waist liberal and I know I’d shoot me some Russians if they came marching down my street.
Ironic how START I and START II ended up being signed by a Republican
president. And that Carter did a better job of keeping NASA funded vs.
inflation than H.W. Bush did. Indeed several of the [mis]steps in the
time line are things that did come to pass under Republican
administrations – without precipitating a Soviet invasion. Huh… funny
how that works out. Historically it was Reagan’s anti-communist
rhetoric that scared the Soviets and kept the Kremlin in the hands of
the old guard. This nearly had disastrous consequences in 1983 when the
Able Archer exercises nearly resulted in a nuclear exchange. The world was not saved by Reagan – it was saved by Podpolkovnik Stanislav Petrov
who disobeyed orders to initiate a retaliatory strike. Gorbachev is
the architect of the downfall of the Soviet state, Reagan may have
extended its life. I recommend the BBC Documentary 1983: Brink of the Apocalypse and the ZDF film Der Dritte Weltkrieg, a counter-factual documentary highlighting the importance of Gorbachev.
The last page of the Player Book has an appeal entitled “A Note to Liberal Readers.” As I said above, it suggests that the game is a parody of a Right-wing nightmare. That is probably true – the various character profiles include socialists and liberals and athiests as the good guys. Greg Costikyan’s website doesn’t read like that of a wing-nut… his Facebook page lists Andrew Coumo as a like and he does have a penchant for extremely off-color parody (Violence: The RPG of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed). It seems clear that The Price of Freedom was written as a parody of the ridiculous fear-mongering and posturing of the conservatives in the 1970s and 1980s. The problem is that with the rise of douche-nozzles like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Dinesh D’Souza, Jerome Corsi, Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin et al, what was once a ridiculous joke, now reads like a lead off story at Fox News. The broad strokes of the plot are reasonable (for an RPG), the detail is crushingly paleoconservative – and like the Colbert Report proves, the Right-wing nuts don’t get parody. They revel in the message – oblivious to the sardonic undertones. Given the daily barrage of crap from real-life conservatives – my group and I don’t want it in our escapism. Christ, the symbol of the resistance in TPoF is the Gadsden Flag – forever tainted by its appropriation by the Teabagger Party.
Anyway – the setting detail may be (a parody of) ignorant, wing-nut,
bigoted, cracker crap, but the game mechanics are great! Perhaps I just
need to tweak it… change the timeline… add tough freedom fighter NPCs
who are a married, biracial gay couple. Things like that. I am more
tempted to use the Freedom Fighters video game setting, with everything going alternate because the Republicans kept us isolationist during WW2.
To start with, in the game books are little asides, text boxes topped with Federal eagles. In one is the quote:
“My Country, Right or Wrong.”
A long-time favorite bumper sticker of arch-conservatives, such as these douchebags: |
| What was wrong, Alex. |
I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves … too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: ‘Our country, right or wrong!’ They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: ‘Our country—when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.’
Carl Schurz, “The Policy of Imperialism,” Speeches,
Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz,
vol. 6, pp. 119–20 (1913)
Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz,
vol. 6, pp. 119–20 (1913)
It is not surprising that conservatives have taken the wise words of a liberal and completely twisted them to suit their base purposes. This is what keeps Jon Stewart in business.
My gaming group is a bunch of commie, pinko, tree-hugging, liberal fags. Several of us are militant, commie, pinko, tree-hugging. liberal, fags – that’s why we love action movies like Red Dawn, and war-based RPGs. That said, The Price of Freedom contains probably the most ridiculous setup for WWIII put to print. That includes John “I ain’t calling him ‘sir’” Hackett’s The Third World War.
I read a lot of WWIII fiction. The Third World War, The Third World War: The Untold Story, Red Storm Rising, Team Yankee, Cold War Hot, First Clash, Kibun wa mou Sensou manga, Bomb Comic’s World War III manga, and Red Army. Of all of these Red Army is my favorite. All WWIII fiction tends toward “Carter was a pussy / Reagan was a badass.” Hackett’s work is particularly critical of Carter, presenting a second Carter administration as the death knell for freedom. Yet in these stories – despite the liberals’ treasonous cuts to military spending and research – we kick the USSR’s ass. Red Army is different. The Soviets win. Now that is a lesson – “fear the USSR, because they can kick our ass unless we are prepared.”
TPoF reads like it was a pamphlet from the John Birch Society. Those are the guys who said: “Could Eisenhower really be simply a smart politician, entirely without principles and hungry for glory, who is only the tool of the Communists? The answer is yes.” I checked the box and the title pages of the game but I didn’t see their logo.
 |
| “Lets go kill some Russkies!” |
I read through the suggested campaign time-line with my players – where the American government (insinuated to be Democrat controlled) is lulled into signing START II, thereby allowing a belligerent USSR to achieve nuclear supremacy by developing a ballistic missile shield. Murphy the (most likely Democrat – how many Irish Republicans are outside of the PIRA?) president surrenders and Soviet forces arrive to occupy the US. Without wasting your time – it makes Red Dawn seem like a Noam Chomsky / Howard Zinn collaboration. Oddly it is months after the occupation starts before the Second Amendment is abolished. I’m a panty-waist liberal and I know I’d shoot me some Russians if they came marching down my street.
 |
| Um… nearly exterminate the human race. |
The last page of the Player Book has an appeal entitled “A Note to Liberal Readers.” As I said above, it suggests that the game is a parody of a Right-wing nightmare. That is probably true – the various character profiles include socialists and liberals and athiests as the good guys. Greg Costikyan’s website doesn’t read like that of a wing-nut… his Facebook page lists Andrew Coumo as a like and he does have a penchant for extremely off-color parody (Violence: The RPG of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed). It seems clear that The Price of Freedom was written as a parody of the ridiculous fear-mongering and posturing of the conservatives in the 1970s and 1980s. The problem is that with the rise of douche-nozzles like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Dinesh D’Souza, Jerome Corsi, Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin et al, what was once a ridiculous joke, now reads like a lead off story at Fox News. The broad strokes of the plot are reasonable (for an RPG), the detail is crushingly paleoconservative – and like the Colbert Report proves, the Right-wing nuts don’t get parody. They revel in the message – oblivious to the sardonic undertones. Given the daily barrage of crap from real-life conservatives – my group and I don’t want it in our escapism. Christ, the symbol of the resistance in TPoF is the Gadsden Flag – forever tainted by its appropriation by the Tea
 |
| An image forever tainted |
20110507
The PATH to Freedom
Back in October I had my first game of The Price of Freedom
(TPoF) with my group. Present were Eric, Ryan, Geis and myself. We
decided to use the pre-generated characters and play the adventure as
written (in NYC), putting off the avatar campaign until we are
comfortable with the rules. Actually we ended up playing a number of Savage Worlds powered games in the months that followed.
Anyway this is what happened back in October 2010:
Characters were chosen as follows:
Eric – Moishe Cohen
Ryan – Billy Bartsow
Geis – Jordan “Jordo” Miller
The initial adventure, “The Path of Freedom,” began with three PCs meeting in the apartment of Moische Cohen – 72 year-old former Polish freedom-fighter. They discussed the imminent arrival of the Soviet occupation forces and quickly decided to get the hell out of the city. On the way out they heard sobs from the next door apartment. Moishe expressed sympathy for the widow within – a fine lady who had also escaped from behind the Iron Curtain – but he did not stop to comfort her. As they piled into Billy’s pick-up, Moishe asked if they wouldn’t mind stopping by the 14th Street Armory to see if his friend, Westtree, was there, and if he would join them. With the agreement of the others they started south on 7th Avenue, amid the looters in a city in panic.
South of 19th they came across a makeshift roadblock. Four street gang members had blocked the road with burned out cars and other debris. The gangers stopped beating the kid they had jumped and pulled firearms on the truck. From behind, a gang-painted Cadillac blocked the avenue of retreat and gun muzzles protruded from its windows. Boxed in, Billy decided to ram the weakest looking part of the barricade, while Moishe and Jordo fired on the gangers. Between Jordo’s Uzi and Moishe’s pistol, two gangers were killed and another wounded. The gangers shot the truck up pretty good – blowing out both tires on the passenger’s side – before scattering to find less dangerous prey. Moishe grabbed the gangers victim and pushed him in the truck. Then the vehicle moved slowly, on bare rims, toward the Armory.
Outside of the Armory was a military roadblock, errected by the
loyalist National Guard soldiers. The sergeant (a reversely-racist
Hispanic NCO with stereotypically poor grammar) manning the barricade
refused to recognize Jordo’s credentials or admit him. Miller (as
played by Geis) was much less of an ass than written to be so, when
faced with Sgt. Morales and his insubordination, he called over the next
highest ranking soldier and calmly relieved the sergeant of duty.
Inside the Armory the trio met Colonel Samadi, the unit’s commanding officer. Rather than lay down arms, the Colonel has decided to shanghai weapons and light vehicles through the Port Authority Trans-Hudson tunnel beneath the Armory out to New Jersey. From there, the men will disperse throughout rural PA and NY to attack the Soviets, guerrilla-style. Our trio volunteers to help and is given a pair of CUCVs to repaint and load with weapons. Stolen civilian plates are screwed on the bumpers and the vehicles are made ready.
The convoy rolls down a makeshift ramp, through passages dynamited by the engineers, into the subway and then the PATH tunnel. The trip is slow and dark as they move under the river and under Jersey City. Then a collision up front brings the column to a halt. As the passage is cleared, word comes back that one of the NG saboteur teams failed to blow the “Communipaw Bridge” (aka Lincoln Highway Bridge), between Jersey City and Newark. Miller, who has demolitions experience from his days in Vietam, is tapped to take out the bridge. Doing so will hamper the movement of Soviet forces and buy time for the NG teams to escape and disperse.
The trio of men commandeer a vehicle from the front of the column and load it with the required supplies. They then move out of the tunnel and through bumper-to-bumper traffic toward the Communipaw Bridge. Once there they quickly set the charges and take up positions in a factory warehouse on the Jersey City side of the river. The bridge is jammed with civilian traffic as panicked people try to escape the city. Unwilling to harm the civilians the team decides to wait for the arrival of the first Soviet troops. It is hoped that they will clear the bridge for their own uses, and once that is done – the destruction of the bridge will include a squad or two of Soviet forces.
The Soviets arrive in commandeered vehicles and begin sweeping the
bridge. However they begin to examine the bridge before it is
completely free of civilian traffic. In order to divert attention from
demolition charges and expedite the evacuation of the civilians, Barstow
snipes at the Soviet officer on the Newark side of the bridge. He hits
and wounds the man. Most of the Soviets panic and are pinned, while
their comrades search for the source of the fire. In this way Barstow
is able to loose a few more shots before taking any fire. As the Soviet
soldiers move to the edge of the bridge over the outlet, Jordo sprays
them with AR fire, wounding several. Barstow kills another before
taking a wound that could have been very serious (hero point used to
reduce wound to light). As the last of the civilians clear the bridge –
increasingly intense fire hits the factory building. Moishe pushes the
detonator and the bridge and 15 Soviet troops go into the water.
With the objective achieved the trio hightail it back to the Path tunnel, retrieve their vehicles, snag a few more goodies from a grateful Colonel, and disperse to continue the fight against the Soviets.
In all a great game. Combat works well, with a believable level of lethality, and a smooth game mechanic. The only thing we disliked was the widespread panic of the opposition. Soviets must roll for nerve every round, which makes them a bunch of pussies. The Soviet Union was a highly militarized society, with all children receiving weapons training. While conscription was for two years, it was based on this preformed military knowledge. Indeed the photos of back-flipping shovel throwing soldiers doesn’t jibe with the Keystone Cop feeling engendered by the panic rules. They will have to be adjusted.
In all, we want to play the game as we envisioned it – a Red Dawn RPG. The background provided in the game books is patently ridiculous, and sometimes offensive. Soviet invasion of the US is a pretty far stretch to begin with, but I believe Red Dawn‘s chain of events is eminently more believable – or my own idea of a Soviet move to decapitate and secure America’s nuclear arsenal before it can be used against Russia (a preemptive defensive invasion ala Iraq 2003) – or the setup presented in the Freedom Fighters video game (it even allows for cool modern Russian toys!). We intended to play a few more games with the pregen characters, in order to get comfortable with the rules before starting an Avatar campaign in one of those two settings – but real life and other games took over.
Anyway this is what happened back in October 2010:
Characters were chosen as follows:
Eric – Moishe Cohen
Ryan – Billy Bartsow
Geis – Jordan “Jordo” Miller
The initial adventure, “The Path of Freedom,” began with three PCs meeting in the apartment of Moische Cohen – 72 year-old former Polish freedom-fighter. They discussed the imminent arrival of the Soviet occupation forces and quickly decided to get the hell out of the city. On the way out they heard sobs from the next door apartment. Moishe expressed sympathy for the widow within – a fine lady who had also escaped from behind the Iron Curtain – but he did not stop to comfort her. As they piled into Billy’s pick-up, Moishe asked if they wouldn’t mind stopping by the 14th Street Armory to see if his friend, Westtree, was there, and if he would join them. With the agreement of the others they started south on 7th Avenue, amid the looters in a city in panic.
South of 19th they came across a makeshift roadblock. Four street gang members had blocked the road with burned out cars and other debris. The gangers stopped beating the kid they had jumped and pulled firearms on the truck. From behind, a gang-painted Cadillac blocked the avenue of retreat and gun muzzles protruded from its windows. Boxed in, Billy decided to ram the weakest looking part of the barricade, while Moishe and Jordo fired on the gangers. Between Jordo’s Uzi and Moishe’s pistol, two gangers were killed and another wounded. The gangers shot the truck up pretty good – blowing out both tires on the passenger’s side – before scattering to find less dangerous prey. Moishe grabbed the gangers victim and pushed him in the truck. Then the vehicle moved slowly, on bare rims, toward the Armory.
 |
| 14th Street Armory |
Inside the Armory the trio met Colonel Samadi, the unit’s commanding officer. Rather than lay down arms, the Colonel has decided to shanghai weapons and light vehicles through the Port Authority Trans-Hudson tunnel beneath the Armory out to New Jersey. From there, the men will disperse throughout rural PA and NY to attack the Soviets, guerrilla-style. Our trio volunteers to help and is given a pair of CUCVs to repaint and load with weapons. Stolen civilian plates are screwed on the bumpers and the vehicles are made ready.
The convoy rolls down a makeshift ramp, through passages dynamited by the engineers, into the subway and then the PATH tunnel. The trip is slow and dark as they move under the river and under Jersey City. Then a collision up front brings the column to a halt. As the passage is cleared, word comes back that one of the NG saboteur teams failed to blow the “Communipaw Bridge” (aka Lincoln Highway Bridge), between Jersey City and Newark. Miller, who has demolitions experience from his days in Vietam, is tapped to take out the bridge. Doing so will hamper the movement of Soviet forces and buy time for the NG teams to escape and disperse.
The trio of men commandeer a vehicle from the front of the column and load it with the required supplies. They then move out of the tunnel and through bumper-to-bumper traffic toward the Communipaw Bridge. Once there they quickly set the charges and take up positions in a factory warehouse on the Jersey City side of the river. The bridge is jammed with civilian traffic as panicked people try to escape the city. Unwilling to harm the civilians the team decides to wait for the arrival of the first Soviet troops. It is hoped that they will clear the bridge for their own uses, and once that is done – the destruction of the bridge will include a squad or two of Soviet forces.
 |
| “Communipaw” aka Lincoln Highway Bridge |
With the objective achieved the trio hightail it back to the Path tunnel, retrieve their vehicles, snag a few more goodies from a grateful Colonel, and disperse to continue the fight against the Soviets.
In all a great game. Combat works well, with a believable level of lethality, and a smooth game mechanic. The only thing we disliked was the widespread panic of the opposition. Soviets must roll for nerve every round, which makes them a bunch of pussies. The Soviet Union was a highly militarized society, with all children receiving weapons training. While conscription was for two years, it was based on this preformed military knowledge. Indeed the photos of back-flipping shovel throwing soldiers doesn’t jibe with the Keystone Cop feeling engendered by the panic rules. They will have to be adjusted.
In all, we want to play the game as we envisioned it – a Red Dawn RPG. The background provided in the game books is patently ridiculous, and sometimes offensive. Soviet invasion of the US is a pretty far stretch to begin with, but I believe Red Dawn‘s chain of events is eminently more believable – or my own idea of a Soviet move to decapitate and secure America’s nuclear arsenal before it can be used against Russia (a preemptive defensive invasion ala Iraq 2003) – or the setup presented in the Freedom Fighters video game (it even allows for cool modern Russian toys!). We intended to play a few more games with the pregen characters, in order to get comfortable with the rules before starting an Avatar campaign in one of those two settings – but real life and other games took over.
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