Laser Cannons & Dragons, or what does your Mutant Future look like?

Of course,  I never ran that Mutant Future game two years ago.

But, I have the bug again, here we go!

When is your Mutant Future? 

= 2124 + 1d100 + 2d20 + 3d6

Where does your Mutant Future take place? 

Roll 1d6

1. New York / New Jersey 

2. Florida 

3. Great Lakes region

4. Mid West Farmland 

5. Southwest / Southern Border 

6. California or PNW

Because I have to pigeon hole everything, and for balance, I propose these player classes for Mutant Future.

Fighter: a specialist in combat, armed and unarmed, receives +1 to combat attacks and feats of strength.

Mystic or Cultist: a character with psychic or a mental mutation. Also, maybe a character practicing mystical or magical arts, receives +1 when attempting to use these skills. 

Nerd: a character knowledgeable of science and technology, receives +1 when using science based skills. 

Rogue: +1 to negotiation and sneaky stuff. 

What's your Mutant Future social network like?

* Government or Corporations *

These two groups remain the most organized and resourceful, with most capability to help or harm the remaining society. They control the best raw materials, vehicles, roads, building and laboratories. Characters may gain access to these resources through recruitment into Gov. or a corporate program or project. (Or theft.)

While the Government may have the best intentions too reorganize society, one overly ambitious military commander could seriously disrupt any well intended plan. 

* Mechanics *

Racers, Greases or Bikers, call them what you like. This group will have access to the best, and worst transportation available, the fastest hot rod, the toughest war wagon, possibly a flying machine. They'll be able to provide a personal transport at a price you can afford.

* Scientist, Techies, Nerds * 

Individual groups dedicated to the discovery, rediscovery and preservation of science and technology can be found dotted about the Mutant Future. They can be advantageous to player characters by assisting with medical needs, providing general or specific science info and repairing radios and other tech devices.

*Blacksmiths* 

This term refers to craftsmen who repair all forms of weapons. They repair, maintain, craft and collect combat weapons and armor, including hand weapons, firearms and explosives.

--- Next post, more details, less generalization. ---

Laser Cannons & Dragons: or, the return to true scientific realism.

Five years, five flippin' years! That would have been when I went to work for my current employer. Let's hope I've settled in now and can set aside a little creative time.

I have plans to introduce another group of noobs to tabletop rpgs later this month.  And here's my thought process. Your crazy uncle (me) asks you if you want to play Dungeons and Dragons. You say sure because your uncle is a fun guy and you haven't spent much time with him in the past few years. But, what's your character motivation? I have a chart for that! 

Twelve reasons to visit Tidy Island Bay: or rpg local of your choice.

1. The Fabled Market of Fables (shopping) 

2. Seeking employment on the off world colonies. 

3. Seeking knowledge they would not teach you off in college. 

4. To consult the Ishtar Collective.

5. To visit the used droid market of the Javas.

6. 75th Annual Independence Day Cook off and Aquatic Turtle Rat fishing championship. 

7. In search of you Uncle Jake. 

8. Gambling at the Amazonian owned casino.

9. Explore the wreck of the  Kobayashi Maru. 

10. To visit the Vulcan commune and organic farm.on Tidy Island. 

11. Seeking passage off world. 

12. That band you liked in college got back together.

 

Motivated now and do I need another pop culture reference? I'll be using the Mutant Future rules in my Tidy Island Bay location, created for Encounter Critical with elements from the Destiny video game franchise. Stay tuned!

Lastly, I've been reading How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove. I'm certain I'm behind the curve, but if you like History, Alternative History, Speculative Fiction, Modern Fiction and humanity, I recommend this book for ya. If you don't like any of these things, why are you reading this!?

 

The impracticality of the Seven Gods

1st: "The Sleeper" sounds more like the title of a Wood Allen movie than the name of a potential world builder. Sleepy's name will be changed to Luna, 'cause that'll cover it.

2nd: The impracticality: As written, none of these guys have any god-like qualities. The Seven (Dwarf) Gods,  are more of an extended family than a team of  titans. There's one responsible adult, one grumpy old man and five children. Which, now that I think about it, resembles the Greek pantheon. 

3rd: Luckily, I have just uncovered some old notes for a group of five nature gods. They are:

A u t u m n,   T h e   M o t h e r   i s   t h e   s e a s o n a l   g o d d e s s   o f   h a r v e s t   a n d   w i n d .

W i n t o n,  T h e  F a t h e r  i s  t h e  s e a s o n a l  g o d  o f  w i n t e r.  H e  i s  a s s o c i a t ed  w i t h

c o l d  w e a t h e r ,  s n o w  a n d   i c e .  E x a m p l e s  o f  W i n t o n' s  a n i m a l  a n d  p l a n t

a s s o c i a t e s   a r e   w o l v e s, bears  a n d   e v e r g r e e n   t r e e s .

G a l e,   s e a s o n a l   g o d d e s s   o f   s p r i n g,  a s s o c i a t e d  w i t h  y o u t h  a n d  f e r t i l i t y. 

H e r   p l a n t   a n d   a n i m a l   a s s o c i a t e s   i n c l u d e   f l o w e r i n g  t r e e s,  robins and sparrows.    

W e i l d e n,   s e a s o n a l   g o d   o f   s u m m e r,  a s s o c i a t e d   w i t h   y o u n g   

m a n h o o d   a n d   t h e  f r e e d o m  a n d  r e c k l e s s n e s s  o f   y o u t h .  H i s  p l a n t  

a n d  a n i m a l  associates  include  b l a c k b e r r i e s   a n d   b e e s .  

O r g  the unwise   o r   T h e   D e c e i v e r   i s   t r a d i t i o n a l l y   t h o u g h t   o f   a s   m a l e. 

Org  i s  t h e  r e p r e s e n t a t i o n  o f   f e a r,  violence,  injustice  and  war.  

4th: "Org," that's a stupid name. Regardless, now we have The Seven, The Five and the Twelve Gods. Let's hope they don't become angry gods!

"By the Seven!"

I have just finished reading Lin Carter's Thongor and the Wizard of Lumeria in which Thongor continually swears "By the Nineteen!" But,   other than Father Grom, none of the gods of Lumeria are ever mentioned. So, I was thinking I would research the nineteen gods of Lumeria. I know they are all documented out here on the entree-net and in the various Lumeria frpg books.

However, before I got very far with the research, I got another idea. I'll just barrow a well known group of seven fair tale characters and make them members of my pantheon. Everyone knows this group. I'll just change the names and circumstances too fit their new status as immortals and world builders. Below I have listed The Seven by their fair tale names and their new godly labels.

Bashful -- The Youth: God of adolescence, young brides and Spring.
Doc       -- The Healer: God of nature, birth, healing, health and harvest.
Dopey   --  The Dullard: God of children, addicts and the simple minded.
Grumpy -- The Elder: God of Time, change, disappointment, anger and old age.
Happy    -- Happiness: God of pleasure, celebration and Summer.
Sleepy    -- The Sleeper:  God of Winter, night, dreams, laziness and death.
Sneezy   -- The Plague: God of illness, Fall, etc.

Without their fantasy names, the origin of the Seven may remain a mystery for a while. Unless, of course, you read it on the Polyhedral Dice Bag.

Caverns of Yaw

Here's a simple little dungeon crawl I designed a few years ago. It was written for two guys who hadn't played an rpg in a while and three guys who had never played an rpg before.

This was when I was in my "Encounter Critical phase" however, Caverns of Yaw was written for Labyrinth Lord. All the monsters in the Caverns are from the Opponent Opuscule which is the Encounter Critical "compendium of creatures" written by Christian Conkle. My conversions of the opponents is simple, the overall design of Caverns of Yaw is definitely Beer and Pretzels style.

Those of you who don't have a copy of Opponent Opuscule should be able to find it at the Encounter Critical Yahoo Group. I imagine it is also available on Google Drive too (somewhere). Opponent Opuscule is full of gonzo frpg goodness and each creature has an illustration by Mr. Conkle too. The O.O. certainly expands the possibilities of Encounter Critical. As demonstrated here, the O.O. can expand the possibilities of any frpg or rpg of your choice.

I have uploaded Caverns of Yaw to my Scribd account, have at it.

The ol' blog has come out of hiding in preparation for a Labyrinth Lord game I hope to begin soon.

Now just in time for Fall: Female Character Name Generator!

I had so much fun with the RPG Character Name Generator that I made a second name generator for female player characters. We want gender equality in our RPGs as in everything else. At least, I do.

Most of the names on this generator are Celtic. I found these via the good ol' entree-net. I have posted the PDF at Scribd, of course, because it's easier for me than Google Drive.

A player character by any other name would slay as sweet.

Or, further proof that d12 is not useless.

After producing the Alternative RPG Survey, I got the idea to create this RPG Character Name Generator. I have finally finished it and stored it at Scribd for our convince. It is a series of charts to produce a first, middle and last name for characters in tabletop role playing games.

Most of the names are vaguely Nordic, Roman or Anglo Saxon with a few Spanish, modern and fantastic names too. The names are also all masculine. No offence intended, the group I designed the chart for is all male.

There is an additional chart for descriptive names, if you want your character to have a name like Able the Irritable. The last chart is just a quick d12 roll too provide catchy names like Alpa or Covfefe.

You should be able to access the chart here: RPG Character Name Generator

Lastly, I have been reading Nietzshe, off and on, for a few months. It is torture and not something I should be undertaking unless for a philosophy class. My school days have been completed for a while but I can be very heard headed about my choices of reading material.  I will just add, I am pretty sure that Lovecraft's body of work was inspired  by exposure to Thus Spoke Zarathustra. 

How do you say "Hello" to a grizzly bear?

Do you quietly say hello, and anticipate his response? Do you quietly say hello and run screaming?    Well, how do ya and "How do you do?"   Hello to you grizzly bears of tabletop rpg die hards!

The rpg urge has been sneaking forward in my consciousness due to a younger generation of Gamers. I had noted that they are a bit too tied to the rule books, not a problem we often had when playing old school rpgs. So, I devised the following survey to give them some ideas about flexibility within their role-playing game settings.

While this survey may seem vague or sophomoric at first glance, I should point out that these young Gamers which I designed it for are preteens. I hope to patch together an adventure using Risus or a diceless rpg as our base mechanic.

I'll attempt to attache a link for a Google Doc, the text format of the survey is as follows.

An RPG which I would like to play other than fantasy.

Choose one option from the following lists or combine choices within the categories.

1.      The game setting would be:

Pre-Historic --  Horror --  Mystery --  Sci Fi --   Comedy  -- 1920s  Gangsters  -- The Wild West

Pirates --  Lost World Adventure (like King Kong) --  Super Heroes – Time Travel

Wizarding world of Harry what's-his-name

Combine two of the above or add your own suggestion:

2.      My character race would be:

Human – Wookie – Frankenstein – Vampire – Zombie --  Werewolf  --  Grey Alien --- Giant

Half-dragon --  Puppy, kitty or bunny --  Centaur – Klingon -- Robot or Android -- Caveman

Primate or ape -- Dinosaur  -- Godzilla -- The Hulk -- Mutant (like Ninja Turtles) -- Alien

Pokémon --  Other Fantasy --  Other Horror  --- Other?

 My character class would be:

Warrior -- Wizard  -- Thief or rogue -- Monk (Asian or European) – Gunslinger --  Gangsters 

Space Pirate  -- Detective – Con Man --- Scientist --- Jedi  --- Bard or Musician –

Star  Fleet Commander ---    Pioneer or Adventurer  --- Caveman – Other?

My weapon would be:

Sticks and stones ---  a sling and a club ---  a magic wand --- a gun --- a laser  gun --- magic beans

a broken bottle --- a magic lamp --- a laptop --- Fire or other element --- spider senses (mutant ability)

a musical instrument --- a magic harp --- The force --- a light saber --- other?

My vehicle would be:

A water buffalo -- a little red wagon -- Model T Ford -- a space ship -- time machine -- flying carpet --- a dragon --- a robot or android --- a unicorn ---  Mystery Machine or A Team van --- a pirate  ship ---- Other?

My companion or spirit animal would be:

Sticks and stones --- a dragon --- a robot or android --- a Wookie --- A hologram or spirit --- a pixie fairy --- a Smurf --- a pet rock ---- a parrot ---- a talking dog ---- a laptop --- Other?

Upon Reading Chapman's Homer

Or, rather, some things I have learned from George R. R. Martin's A Storm of Swords.

1. How to name nonplayer charters or, names for the average Joes of medieval fantasy:

Alyn of Winterfell, Josh Quick-Bow, Little Matt, Anvil Ryn, Ser Ormomd, Ser Dudley, Pate of Mory, Pate of Lancewood, Old Pate, Pate of Shermer's Grove, Blind Wyl the Whittler, Goodwife Maerie, Maerie the Whore, Becca the Backer, Ser Raymond Darry, Lord Darry, Young Lord Darry, the Bastard of Bracken, Fletcher Will, Harsley, Goodwife Nolla....

This list is from page 465. Those who have read he book may recall it as a list of folks murdered by Sador Clegane, "The Dog."

2. How many plot seeds can one location contain?

"The Nightfort had figured in some of Old Nan's scariest stories. It was here that Night's King had reigned, before his name was wiped from the memory of man. This was where the Rat King had served the Andal king his prince-and-bacon pie, where brave young Danny Flint had been raped and murdered. This was the castle where King Sherrit had called down his curse on the Andals of old, where the 'prentice boys had faced the thing that came in the night, where Blind Symeon Star-Eyes had seen  the hellhounds fighting.  Mad Axe had once walked these yards and climbed these towers, butchering his brothers in the dark." (p. 756)

3. No surprise, G. R. R. Martin fashions a very authentic medieval folk song.

"My featherbed is deep and soft,

and there I'll lay you down.

I'll dress you in yellow silk,

and on your head a crown.

For you shall be my lady love, 

and I shall be your lord.

I'll always keep you warm and safe,

and guard you with my sword."

"And she smiled and how she laughed,

the maiden of the tree.

She spun away and said to him,

no featherbed for me.

I'll wear a gown of golden leaves,

and bind my hear with grass.

But you can be my forest love,

and I your forest lass." (p. 309)

I read this book over a year ago and it has been lying around while I've intended to post these comments. Now  off to Paperback Swap with you.

Another Encounter Critical Community Project!

No gaming activity, or blogging, for me since I moved to Alabama and returend to school back in Dec. The term is over at school so I discovered this Encounter Critical commuinty project over at No Signal. I'm having fun with it, come join us, if you will.

Gygaxian Democracy -  Planet of Tombs !

Polyhedral 2013 Premier

First, I confess, I whiled most of my Holiday vacation time away, creating a Tumblr account and other such useless activities. I did complete a new Encounter Critical adventure. But, I can't tell you about it, in case we find ourselves in an E.C. game using the G+Hangout in the future. It is not a totally new adventure, it is loosely based on a previously published piece for a prominent rpg franchise. I'm intrenched in the old grindstone now and my free time will be limited until July or August, there probably will not be any Hangin' Out in my near future.

I also did a little work on an OSR community project; The Young Green Dragon over the Next Hill. This was lots of fun and I am very happy with my contribution. Now I am itching to run a Labyrinth Lord game. When the weather's a bit warmer I may commandeer a table on the patio at my favorite pub for just this purpose.

Heck yeah, Classic Sci-Fi! Actually, I ended up with two pages on Tumblr. Heck Yeah, Classic Sci-Fi  is the newest and is, obviously, dedicated to images of and related to Classic Science Fiction and Pulp Sci-Fi. I was posting a lot of Sci-Fi book covers to the other page, Fanatical Recycling Inc, and HYCSF evolved out of this practice. Fanatical Recycling Inc. started as a dump for images that would inspire environmental elements in rpg adventures. Then I started putting images of nature on there and the content became a bit ambiguous. Darn nature and all it's beauty! Hopefully I will manage to keep these the two pages distinct.

Ah yeah, how could I forget to share this?  Thanks to Billiam of Adventures in Shopping 
I learned of Dyson's Delves.  I don't buy many new RPG products, as few as one or two a year, but this tome looks both useful and fun. I'll be watching the e-mail and snail-mail boxes for this anticipated arrival.
(Those minis in Bill's article look great too.)

I'm gonna go draw a map for you all now, if you can find a copy of Marvel Apes for $4, I suggest you purchase it. It was a fun read and even has zombies.

Let's talk about mechanics.

No, not game mechanics, robot mechanics in Encounter Critical or the weird science/fantasy game of your choice. I think every adventure that I have designed for E.C. has had a robot combatant in it. If all the robots in an rpg were exactly alike it would become predictable and boring so I came up with some quirks for my latest robot design.

Imagine, your players unwittingly stumble into a robot workshop. A super, fighter 'bot is being repaired here but it still has a programing issue or two. The helpless human technicians need the broken 'bot too defend them against the player characters. Will their attempt at mechanized self defense work?

Roll d100 once per round to determine movement  of any robot in ill repair:

01 – 25  The 'bot is malfunctioning and moving slowly; no attack.

26 – 50  'Bot is able to manage one clumsy attack this round.

51 – 75  'Bot musters two erratic but very fast attacks this round.

76 -- 00  Programming works fluidly for two consecutive rounds producing fluid attacks.

I have some other ideas but I believe this enough information for now.

Maliszewski Meme and Martin

And you guys thought you were late to the party...
Mr. Maliszewski started the meme of photos of our current RPG reference material. So, here's what I use the most; Labyrinth Lord and Encounter Critical. I keep telling myself that I'm going to use the AD&D DMG but it doesn't get referenced very often. My use of the Encounter Critical rulebook hasn't been up to par this year. Dang real life getting in the way of Role Playing Games!

I did leave one book out of the photo, the Holmes Basic rulebook which I look at more often then the DMG. Of course, Labyrinth Lord is the Basic D&D retroclone which prevents frequent references to the Holmes book.

Who's Martin you ask, George R. R. Martin of course. I've read 700 pages of A Storm of Swords and would like to think Mr. Martin is having some influence on my game and plot design but I can't be certain. Martin's approach to literary plot would seem a bit nontraditional, his use of the protagonist is disposable, literally. His writing is beautiful and flawless but don't become attached to any of the characters or factions in the Song of Fire and Ice series. I still have 300 pages to read in this novel and I am starting to wonder what characters will survive as material for the subsequent books in this series.

Now, back to the ol' drawing board. I promise to provide some gaming material in the next post since I have posted photos of books for the past two days.

What passes for quality reading around here...

Here are two of the latest acquisitions for my library. I discovered 100 Fantasy Short Short Stories through Paperback Swap. Yeah, these are some short, short stories and I question if, at least one of them, qualifies as a story at all. Barry N. Malzberg's The Second Shortest Short Fantasy Ever Ever Published is less than a page long and the last paragraph is:

"The bullet bullet lodged deep deep in his brain he pulled pulled the trigger the bullet lodged lodged deep in his brain brain he he pulled pulled the trigger trigger the bullet"

So this story ends, with no punctuation. That's not what passes as quality reading around here but it was a challenge to type. However, I'm sure I will get lots of enjoyment when I settle down with the rest of the short, short stories.

At the suggestion of James Maliszewski I purchased Patrick Wetmore's Anomalous Subsurface Environment or ASE-1. I looked through the first twenty pages and I love this book! I shared it with the Adventure Capitalist last night and the all seemed to appreciate it too. I told the A.C. guys, "This guy wrote it just like I would and I'm sure I missed some of his inside jokes." If  you like swords & laser guns or mutants & magic you should definitely get a copy of Anomalous Subsurface Environment Vol. 1. 

Krull-bots, an new kind of stormtrooper.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I reviewed the 1983 Science/Fantasy film Krull this past Sunday. I remember that movie from my youth, I am sure I watched it with my brothers on the good ol' VHS player. At the time, we probably thought that Krull would make a great plot for our D&D games. A plot which we never pursued as I recall.

Thirty years later, I found the movie nearly unwatchable. (I think I was typing something at the time.) There were a few elements which I can see putting into an rpg, be it D&D, Mutant Future or Encounter Critical. Today I'll create some Encounter Critical stats for what I call the Krull-bots.

Krull-bots or KR'83

Robodroid Warriors - Armor: 49% - Damage: by Laser Rifle 1 - 8 - Hit Points: 1 - 12

The KR'83 model 'droid warriors are the standard econo-line pawns of Evil Overlords throughout the Medieval Rim and the known, and unknown galactic systems. Gold can't buy these robot protectors but a days labor of the smallest copper mine can purchase a legion or mindless, electric servo protection  (500 units per legion.) This model is affective against unarmed peasants but is of little use against more experienced warriors or adventurers as one well placed hit renders the KR'83 into a heap of whining servos and frayed electronic circuits. No upgrades are available for this model at this time.

Phasic 5!

Yeah, yeah, I finally finished editing issue 5 of phasic, the Encounter Critical fanzine. This issue actually had five contributors, many thanks to these guys. There are a few scraps remaining, which I forgot to include, that I could use to start issue 6. That may be a project for next year? I've got an unfinished adventure design, or two, I want to work on before I start another issue of phasic.  Of course, if someone else would like to take up the editorially banner and produce a subsequent issue that would dandy too.

I posted the file, a pdf, on Google Drive and left it open for public viewing. It's here: phasic # 5

Dungeons & Dirigibles

 I know this has been done, but leave it to my DIY nature to reinvent the wheel, I think that's much the nature of the OSR, is reinventing the RPG wheel. While reading Frankenstein I began imagining what D&D, I mean original D&D, would be if Appendix N where composed of Shelley's Frankenstein, Stoker's Dracula, the Jules Verne catalogue and 1001 Arabian Nights.

First, the list of classes would be slightly different. There would be the traditional Fighters but they might be renamed Soldiers and magic users would be heavily focused on alchemy . All clerics would be Christian, Masonic, Muslim or Egyptian. (Gotta throw in the Masonic and Egyptology hooks.) Since Frankenstein is based on a scientist that recreates life, there would have to be a class called Professor, Surgeon or Scientist. (I like Surgeon.) There would have to be a rouge, scoundrel or beggar class and a specialist class that all classes could adopt, we'll call it Adventurer. The Adventurer subclass would allow characters to focus on weapon specialization, fine tuning their profession and/or exploration.

The weapons list would be different too, focusing mainly on cutlasses, rapiers, flint lock firearms, torches and pitchforks.

 Since Frankenstein was the source of these ideas I'll focus a bit more on the Surgeon class. In Shelley's tale, Frankenstein's creation was the central problem or obstacle of the plot. Within the scope of an RPG, the nature or personality of the creation, or Flesh Golems, could be variable.  V. Frankenstein struggled with the moral nature and responsibility of his creation and this wouldn't be the case with all, if any, player characters. The player character surgeons could, possibly, create any number of socially functioning Flesh Golems.

Now I'm thinking that this idea, which I'll call Dangers & Dirigibles, is most likely to become a set of rules for Encounter Critical. Which brings me to the obvious point that I'm way past any reasonable deadline for producing Phasic issue 5.  To be continued...

Aquatic Trutle Rat stat block

Here's your stat block for the Aquatic Turtle Rat. I followed the Labyrinth Lord stat format:

Size: medium
No. Enc. 1d8
Align. Chaotic
Move. 120’
AC. 5
HD. 2
Att. 1 or 2 (claw, bite)
Damage: 1d6, 1d6
Save. F4
Morale. 8
HC. V or VI

Aquatic Turtle Rats

I have been neglecting some other duties and contributing to the community project over at Rended Press. This has been a relaxing and productive distraction for me and I intend to continue to participate until the project is complete.

The process was made a bit easier with this creature creation drop table, also a product of MWSheemer, Mr. Rended Press himself. I randomized the Aquatic Turtle Rat, here's an edit of the description I wrote for the community project;

"These aquatic turtle rodents have a head much like a rabbit with a long neck leading into their turtle like shells. Their powerful webbed forelimbs resemble a wolves, including claws. [1d6 damage] Their webbed hind limbs are more reminiscent of a rat with the shell and tail of a turtle. The shells of adult Turtle Rats average four feet from head to tail.

Turtle-rats are quick carnivorous scavengers, usually encountered in schools of 1d8 members. They will attack by springing forward with their powerful front legs and attempt to bite and, or claw their intended prey. [Two attacks per round possible.] The waters near their homes usually contain the remains of their past prey, including any valuables owned by these previous victims. These remains and treasure may be found at the bottom of the Turtle Rats watery abode."

So, the Aquatic Turtle Rat is classified as a medium sized creature but I haven't created a "stat block" for them. I'm certain your all capable of adapting the A.T.R. to your own needs if  you so desire. 

Now I have to solicit some illustrations for the Aquatic Turtle Rats.

I am A.D.D.

You will never hear me say the previous phrase. I have never been diagnosed with A.D.D. but I do have many interests. Our 21st Century life style creates situations which resemble A.D.D. We have to; go to work, get the kids, cook dinner, do the laundry and we call this multitasking. That's my evidence that I do not have A.D.D., I have limited time to dedicate to my personal interests.

I should be working on issue five of Phasic but can't quit thinking about running an E.C. campaign, there are so many unexplored areas in E.C. The whole array of rules and the game mechanics are uncharted territory for gaming.

 For example:

The Warlock: There is no traditional, sprawling list of spells in E.C. and spells are not level specific.

Weapons of Power: With the hit bonuses provided in E.C. there's going to have to be an array of power weapons and armor to fight the increasingly powerful player characters.

My intention is to attempt to play E.C. as written. We all acknowledge that no one played AD&D "by the book." We were all playing Basic D&D with the AD&D elements plugged in where we liked. I am afraid I will bring the same approach to playing multiple secessions of E.C. I already have some preconceived ideas about how the game mechanics will progress. Combat saves will slow down progress but will provide a chance that n.p.c.s will survive the combat bonus happy player characters. I also can't agree with, "Attacks go in the same order, melee first, then missile." (p. 22) That ain't gonna happen, it's just illogical.

So, here's an updated list of elements I intend to use in Assignment: Outpost 6986:
1. Encounter Critical, Second Corrected Edition rule book
2. Time Echo by Lionel Fanthrope (very pulp Sci-Fi)
3. Epic Illustrated magazine
4. Adventure Time, season 1
5. A Trio of New Encounter Critical Races

As for the content from Time Echo, the antagonist in Time Echo is named Rajak the Magnificent. He's an evil dictator, like Darth Viraxis, I'll be using this name for the Warlock boss in the campaign plot.

So, enough of this nonsense for now. It has been suggested that I'm O.C.D. and I think that might be a bit more on the mark.