The Heart of the Army Ants RPG

I've made no secret that all of my fantasy RPG work is an effort to recreate the vibe of B/X, while my supers work is always trying to evoke FASERIP. Army Ants comes from a different place, and is very much rooted in the WEG Star Wars game. I specifically loved how the core rules presented the foundation of the game world, but how each supplement fleshed out a specific era or facet. There was the Rebel Alliance sourcebook, the Empire sourcebook, one for each of the movies... it was a pretty cool way to go about building on the core game. I've always envisioned the Army Ants game in the same way; I still have a draft of the 'Ant Forces Sourcebook' and the 'Empire of the Wasps Sourcebook' on my hard drive somewhere, that I started thirty years ago. In a perfect world, I would have been publishing Army Ants supplements for the last thirty years, a la GURPS.

At present, I'm envisioning the latest Army Ants core rules being in the same format as Hack'D and Slash'D. I LOVE that little booklet - it's 48 pages, but the complete rules you need to play. Lulu helps a lot with this; I love the little saddle-stitched format, but they only print those up to 48 pages; it becomes a design challenge to get the core rules down to 48 pages, but I have always liked design challenges. However, it also means that I know a deeper Ant Forces sourcebook and a deeper Wasp Empire book (at the least) are on deck. I mean, I'll probably never get around to actually publishing these, and nobody would buy them if I did, but they're still in my imagination somewhere.

That's the funny thing about Army Ants; I literally have no reason to ever go back to it. It is, far and away, my least successful creative project of all time. I mean, people know me for it, but few people really like it very much. When I release game material for Army Ants, it always sells less than fantasy or supers work. In fact, I kind of know the trends at this point; I will sell 100+ books of a supers system (I've released a few), maybe 50 of a fantasy system, and will struggle to get to 20 copies sold of Army Ants.

But I'm also at the point in my creative process (and in life) where I don't really care how many books I sell. That used to be my primary (if not only) measure of success. Now, my primary (if not only) measure of success is how I feel about it when I'm done. I guess that makes it a vanity project, but I'm okay with that.

MTDAA AP Session 1

Mary and I did session one for my newest iteration of the MTDAA rules (that you can see here), and it went well. After their helicopter crash landed, the Ladybug Covert Operative Daisy and the Ant Ranger Nomad snuck into the Gnat Compound, took the two towers, and proceeded to machine gun the eighteen gnats and one cockroach that were stationed here. They took some significant damage (both down to fewer than 3 hits by the end), but were victorious. They managed to capture the plans for the new rifle the cockroaches were going to get, and they destroyed the facility where they had created a set of prototypes. Now they are 20 meters from the Hill, and have to find a way to get back home...

The rules are the same rules (basically) for Stalwart '85, so I was familiar with them (duh) and already knew a lot of what worked. This did, however, give me the first opportunity to play test the new rules for actions (everyone takes their first action, then everyone takes their second, then everyone takes their third)... this worked really well. I like it better than how I had it before, so this is going to be something I formalize for S85 in some way in relative soon-ness. The enemies were appropriately-scaled; the gnats they usually could one shot, but the cockroach was really, really tough to kill (because, you know, cockroaches).

I was CLOSE to getting these rules right ten year ago when I did the MTDAA Kickstarter. A lot of the numbers are the same, and character stat blocks ultimately end up being quite similar to those stat blocks, but the math to get there and the way that things work in play are significantly cleaner, simpler, and more intuitive. This is ending up being the game that I wanted MTDAA: Legacy to be. It's really a second edition of that game.

Stalwart '85 Character Advancement

I just posted about how I had to get some clutter out of the way, and suddenly I'm thinking of Stalwart '85 and character advancement... I was thinking that in the comics, characters do grow over time, but it tends to be very slow, with gradual increases in character effectiveness and power, and (once in a great while) bumps in character growth. I was thinking of something like this to tinker with for S85 and character progression...

OPTION ONE 

After every adventure, you have a cumulative 1 in 20 chance of advancing (so after the first adventure, you would have a 1 in 20 chance... after the second a 2 in 20 chance... after the third a 3 in 20 chance)... once you are successful, this resets. If after your third adventure, you roll a 2, you'd get to advance in some way, but the chances of increasing again would be reset to 1 after your next adventure. When you advance, you'd roll 1D6 to see how you advance...

1. Shift Body +1 Die

2. Shift Mind +1 Die

3. Shift Power +1 Die

4. Shift Reflex +1 Die

5. Gain one new Gift.

6. Increase Tier/Level +1.

On average, you would advance once every ten adventures, and you'd advance your tier/level once every 60 adventures. The GM would (of course) set caps on such advancement (or not. Think of Jean Grey becoming the Phoenix as an example of a character who got a pretty significant upgrade).

OPTION TWO

This is a more traditional XP progression. You earn experience points (an average adventure grants 5 xp... you earn 2 xp for an adventure that you do poorly on, but can earn up to 8 xp for a very successful adventure). You bank XP and then spend them to increase traits or tier, or to purchase new gifts.

Traits are 10x the dice value you are moving to... to shift from Might D10 to D12 costs 120 xp.

Tier are 20x the dice value you are moving to... to shift from level 4 (D8) to level 5 (D10) costs 200 xp.

New gifts have a default cost of 100 xp.

My Fickle Muse

First of all, a brief health update: I had my second round of nuclear medicine treatments on October 1, and I'm feeling remarkably well for someone who was given less than 12 months to live 10 months ago. I'm looking forward to crossing that barrier (which is December 10, for those keeping track). I keep setting new objectives for myself: as of now, I want to live long enough to watch my daughter graduate high school in June. Once I accomplish that, I'll set another goal. 

On to gaming stuff. I've been feeling well enough the last week or two to work on gaming-related stuff, and I keep trying to sit down and work on Doc Stalwart. I still have a few miscellaneous things to finish from the Kickstarter before it is 'complete'. While the primary items (the game itself and the adventure; all of the stat blocks for the public domain characters, all of the original character drawings) are done, and I've finished the core items and some stretch goals, I have a few stretch goals yet to achieve. I don't have a dedicated web site (okay, I had a domain but didn't do anything much with it), I have yet to finish the 8-page comic story, and I still have to figure out some VTT support. So, stretch goals remain incomplete, and I'm aware of that. However, I have released several other things (a bonus adventure and some Stalwart Philes with stat blocks, a database of Doc's comic adventures), so I don't feel TOO bad about it - however, these items are still on my to-do list.

The things is, each time I have sat down to work on any of Doc's stuff, I struggle to focus, and the material I've been able to knock out is not up to my standard. I'm having trouble locking in on Doc Stalwart stuff at the moment.

However, my muse REALLY wanted to work on some Army Ants stuff (because that's how she rolls), so I ended up starting a draft of a new Army Ants RPG that is a hybrid of MTDAA Legacy and Stalwart '85. I have come to think that the basic engine for S85 is really, really malleable, and could be used for any sort of setting. You have a basic action ('attack') die based on your character's level, and you have four traits. Three traits are basically the same across games (might/body, reflex, and mind). However, there is always a fourth trait that is unique to that game. In Stalwart '85, it's Power for your superhuman powers. In the Army Ants game I'm tinkering with it's your Spirit (intuition and connection to the natural world). In a fantasy RPG, it would be magic (your ability to wield arcane or faith-based powers). In a Sci-Fi game, it would be whatever stand-in I'm using for the Force. The cool thing is, I can just set thresholds for 'activating' it, and then it's tiered already. For example, it would be easy in a fantasy RPG to say that at Magic D4, you can read magical scrolls, but you don't have any ability to use magic on your own. At D6, you can cast rudimentary spells, but by D20 you're throwing huge fireballs and raising the dead. The force would work similarly; you don't unlock "Jedi" type powers until maybe D8; D6 might be 'sensitive', allowing you to maybe sense things or have a greater connection to the Force than others, but at D8 you get to start minimal telekinesis, while by D20 you're lifting battle cruisers and surviving for short periods in space.

It's a very adaptable basic game engine.

That said, the newest iteration of Army Ants, MTDAA Final Frontier, uses a version of this system. I've got the playtest document that you're welcome to tinker with (as I am doing), and we'll see where this goes. I will get back to Doc stuff soon enough, and maybe I just have to get this out of my system. I often talked with my students about journaling helping writers because you get the clutter out of your mind and onto the page, and then you can do more focused writing. It might be that this is some clutter I need to clear before the next phase of Doc stuff hits me. Thanks, as always, for your support of and kindness towards me. It is truly appreciated.

Passing Me By...

I received an email advert for the new D+D adventure, and figured I'd clicky click and see what the new game was all about. I immediately met this picture on the other side of my teleportation across the Internet...

I assume that someone (or rather lots of someones) somewhere look at this and say 'heck yeah - that is the game I want to PLAY'. I look at this and go 'oh. So that's what D+D is now. Ugh'...

Because if my character gets married to a blue fay creature, I guess that would be okay. But I don't want that to be the, you know, POINT of the adventure. And, I mean, I guess the dragon is kind of cute and all, but I don't want to PET a dragon. I kinda want to fight one and take its stuff. And, like, there is nothing inherently wrong with being in a wheelchair, but if I'm in a wheelchair in the real world, I don't think I'd want to be in one in my fantasy world, too. As someone who has struggled with cancer for over a decade, the LAST thing I'm EVER doing is giving my character a terminal illness on purpose - I role play that enough.

I mean, getting married and petting a cute animal and being in a wheelchair are, I don't know, things I can sort of do in the real world. I don't need to do these in a fantasy game. I have always been under the strange delusion that I play a fantasy game to do something I CAN'T do in the real world. 

I was almost considering dropping $15 just to see what the new game was about, but (for the first time in my experience), the art actually sold me OFF of a product purchase - not because it's bad art, but because it depicts a world I have no interest in playing in. If the Keep on the Borderlands has handicapped parking spots and non-binary bathrooms, I have no interest in adventuring there. It should have cramped over-priced rooms at the top of rickety stairs with a bucket you can piss in next to a mattress crawling with vermin.

I wish the newest iteration of D+D the best of luck, I won't be along for the ride.

A Huge Sigh of Relief

This might sound a little crazy, but I have been afraid to sit down and draw anything for several months... the last time I did a drawing was in the beginning of April, and in the time since, I have seen a significant detioration in my penmanship. I often find it hard to hold a pen steady enough to write legibly, and my hands shake a bit. My father had this condition (not sure the scientific term, and I decided not to look it up)... and I watched him in the last decade or two of his life struggle to write anything neatly. Towards the end of his life, he could barely hold a pen. I was deeply concerned that I too had lost the ability to draw altogether, and I was very hesitant to even attempt a drawing for fear of what my stylus would emit...

This afternoon, I finally decided to give it a go, attempting to re-create one of the more iconic Superman images with Doc. And, while I can see there are places where I have lost a little bit of control of some of the finer points, the overall drawing is still (to my mind) up to a standard I can live with. I also presume that this drawing carries more than a little rust, because again it's been about four months since I even tried to draw. We're going to chalk today up as a win, and it has also inspired me to start actual playing Doc's adventures starting with issue one, and just going in order. It gives me something to do... and I already have an idea for how the first issue plays out (heavily inspired by the first ten minutes of The Incredibles), so I'm looking forward to giving that a go.   

Superhero Team Concepts

In the middle of the night, I was thinking about superhero teams, and how to build them with archetypes that fit roles. I started to think about re-framing this; instead of thinking about 'roles' (mentalist, tank, damage dealer, speedster...), I would think about building a team from a storytelling perspective, in terms of origins. I realized that part of the reason the New Teen Titans work so well is because they frame things from an origins perspective, and it provides so many more storytelling opportunities. I haven't thought about this too deeply yet, but here are some examples:

• Technology (Cyborg). Bring in stories about technology and the impact of new technologies. 
• Supernatural (Raven). Stories focused on magic, other realms of existence, and supernatural powers.
• Mythology (Donna Troy). Ancient gods and monsters.
• Cosmic (Starfire). Other planets and alien races.
• The Sea (Aqualad). Stories set in underwater environments.
• Villainous Past (Beast Boy... kind of). The former allies now enemies hold a grudge.
• Under the Shadow (Robin). You were a sidekick, and are trying to establish your own identity, but a lot of the villains that your mentor has still hold a grudge against you.  

Having such a wide range of origins gives the GM a variety of hooks that personalize adventures to the characters while giving a grand scope to the game. If all of the characters are teenagers who were transformed in the same lab, you immediately have fewer options for built-in ways to progress the story. Conversely, if each character has a unique origin and also has three pieces of 'unfinished business' in their origin, all the better. For example, my technology character could have a rival inventor whose tech ended up in my cybernetics, a bug in my software that could be exploited (and which I'm trying to have fixed), and a previous participant who 'failed' to adjust to the cybernetics, and who went mad. Instant adventure seeds that are personalized to the characters.

This comes up because I have really wanted to start a solo campaign, and while I feel like it should be focused on Doc, I'm just as intrigued by starting a "New Teen Titans" or "New X-Men" sort of game. I also kind of want to go a little more Doom Patrol with weirdness and a little less prototypical heroes like Doc or a Justice League. I could see New Stalwart Press witnessing the success of the X-Men and Teen Titans in the early 80s and deciding to start a comparable series... something to ponder. I also like the idea of the whole team being 'under the shadow', as this team would replace a team from the previous generation who had disappeared. Rooting the campaign in an unresolved mystery gives an instant hook ("Whatever happened to the Force of Five?") and matches the vibe of both New Teen Titans and New X-Men, since both replaced earlier teams with the same moniker.