Numenera, Short Order Heroes and 2d10

Numenera,

d20 Hate
Well if you follow this blog, you know that I HATE the d20 linear probability. Looking at the rules for Numenera I think I can easily drop the d20 for my favored 2d10. The easy target number 3 with a d20 is a 10% chance of failure(not that easy)...Easy Target number 3 with 2d10 equals a 99% chance of success...a true easy skill check...

Short Order Heroes and Numenera
As Numenera uses 3 stats and Short Order Heroes uses 3 personality cards there's a real easy way to utilize SHO cards in Numenera. 1 card per stat.

Choose your Class
Draw your cards and add the numbers to your stats. Pull three cards, the three cards will have stats from 0 to 7. But only 1 card of 108 is a 0, so most are going to be between 1 and 6.

For Example:
Gullible 1
Enthusiastic 4
Well-armed 4



Add them to your Jack in the order you want
Might 10 + 4 Well-Armed
Speed 10 + 4 Enthusiastic
Intellect 10 + 1 Gullible

Or
Expendable 2
Cute 5
Glum 4

Add them to your Glaive in the order you want
Might 11 + 5 = 16 Cute
Speed 10 + 4 = 14 Glum
Intellect 7 + 2 = 9  Expendable

Now you have a set of traits for your personality. Pretty cool. Of course this gets away from the standard point buy, but if you really want to utilize the point buy, then just use the SHO cards for personalities.

Edit: After thinking about it for a little bit at lunch, I think I would drop all the starting scores by 1 or 2, remove the 0 and the 7 cards from the deck. This will give an average of 2-3 added to the stats, which would be closer to the intended stats.

Add them to your Glaive in the order you want
Might 10 + 5 = 15 Cute
Speed 9 + 4 = 13 Glum
Intellect 6 + 2 = 8  Expendable

Con Report - Gateway 2013 Saturday (Ron)

The boys will be having their own con reports from Gateway 2013, the last of the Strategicon 2013 events. This is my personal experience.

Not being able to go to the Con on Friday really locks out the most popular RPG events. Even though we made it to the con at 8:30, got our badges (Strategicon is the best badge for media I've come across so far, took all of 2 minutes!! NICE.), and headed up, only to find out that nearly every game we REALLY wanted to play in were already full. So we signed up for alt spots, but weirdly enough, people showed up for those games anyway.

I was really looking forward to playing in Chris Czerniak's Doctor Who Time War game, but since it was full, I headed down to play some miniature games.

   I had Seen SAGA being played at At Ease, so when I saw Octave Vilare (sorry if that's misspelled Octave), doing demos for it, I had to give it a try. He had Welsh and Anglo-Danes as the two options, me being Welsh in descent it was a no-brainer, Welsh it was. Welsh in saga are very good at throwing pointy sticks...as in they all have javelins. The system used in Saga is VERY interesting, no tracking wounds, and you need to plan out your attacks using the battle board, and the Saga dice (sold separately, and quite expensive, though you can use normal d6...1-3, 4-5, 6 equalling the standard rolls.). The game was no going in my favor at first, I lost 2 elite hearth guard units, and his warlord ended up attacking me, however he lost and I ended up driving him back from me. Where during my third turn I used 8 warriors t launch a fusillade of javelins at him with "deadly precision" ending up in 4 hits, he immediately absorbed on of those hits, sacrificed the last warrior with him, and promptly failed both armor rolls resulting in a pincushioned Warlord, which Octave said was the first time he'd seen a Warlord die to a ranged attack...very nice.

   I had gotten Rezolution by Aberrant, last year at Kingdom Con, with the premade battlebox. I have this issue with reading and comprehension, unless I've seen it in action, sometimes, I get confused, so I decided to give the Rezolution demo a try with none other than Tony Knealy himself. . It was a 2 turn game, turn 1 I lost initiative, and so Tony went first. He moved up his troopers, I moved my psyker, and tornadoed his troops, killing two and severely injuring the other 2...this was my downfall, I didn't get him close enough for cover.But yes, normal troopers, have a hit track...making this game quite interesting for the less casual wargamer. It is skirmish based but incorporates some RPG style feats into the game, giving it more depth. Tony moved his hero up, missed my hero, but when initiative came up for the 2nd round, he didn't miss...he killed my hero, and EVERY SINGLE one of my other units Failed their Command roll, and fled the battle. I definitely need to play this some more.

  While I was playing the Rezolution demo; Sean and Ian came back down...Ian REALLY wanted to play Warlands, so he and I faced off in a car+buggy on car+buggy match that resulted in a 4 car pile up, where my buggy ACTUALLY bumped both of Ian's cars twice (each!!!) since he was pretty much pinned in there....hilarious...until my car cruised out of there, and whipped a Bootlegger reverse, and shattered both of Ian's vehicles, the buggy exploding and crashing backwards a full 6 inches. As always, a fun fun game.

  We went and cruised the dealer hall for 30 or so minutes before we went up and did the Short Order Heroes RPG demo...let's just say "Gonzo" was the order of the day. So with the GM free-forming, we decided on a Post-apocalyptic Steampunk game...Ok..My character was dealt Complicated, Nosy and Sneaky, so I instantly formulated a plan, I was on the train incognito as an agent, So I started out as the lady Josie James, but in reality I was REX HANDCANNON (it's complicated...), the nosy Pinkerton agent, and master of disguise. We were on the train with a merchant protecting a priceless piece of Romantic art, which I promptly steered the game toward calling it the "Velvet Elvis", hilarity ensued as the entire party started maneuvering to their own agendas...probably the most Gonzo hilarious game this side of Paranoia....I'll let Sean and Ian describe their experience with "SOH"

Anyway, to bed with me...more on this later.

Review - Short Order Heroes (Kickstarter promo)

What is Short Order Heroes? Well it's easiest to explain by pulling from the Kickstarter information page.

Short Order Heroes

Short Order Heroes is a rules light game designed for easy role-playing. It is a deck of 54 cards that can also be used for spontaneous NPC generation in any RPG. All card art by Eleanor Ferron.

How it Works 
In a word: fast. Each card has a picture, an adjective, and a number. 
To create a new character, draw some cards from the deck, depending on how fleshed-out you want the character to be -- we recommend 3 for PCs, down to 1 for throw-away NPCs. The adjectives describe what makes your character unusual. Fill in the details and off you go. 
To resolve a conflict, first set a target number or draw one randomly from the deck -- higher is harder. Then draw a card. The number on the card tells you whether the action succeeded, the adjective gives some color to how, and the picture provides added inspiration. 
To enhance other games, the cards can quickly add personality to otherwise bland encounters -- "Thug #2" is now "The unnerving thug", the barmaid is complicated, and more. Great for tavern trawling or adding a bit of local color.

With Short Order Heroes, you spend less time fiddling with the rules and more time telling the story. Character creation and conflict resolution take seconds, and instantly fill your game world with color and flair. Short Order Heroes is an entire role-playing game in a pack of cards. It's perfect for one-shot adventures where you don't want to spend all night making characters and miss playing the game.

I was sent a 54 card promo deck, and let me tell you, I'm fairly impressed with it, and how useful it could be.
Now I doubt I would use it as a low-rules system, but I know for a fact, I will be using it for the italicized use. Nothing is easier for fleshing out an NPC than throwing a card down to determine what their personality is. If they're a random NPC, no reason to have to figure out how they think when you toss a card and bam, instant imagery and play style.

The deck was nice for a promo deck, and if the quality is as good or better than this you'll be getting a deck that will last for quite a while.Since I run a lot of games at conventions, I know I will most likely get lots of play out of this promo deck.

Also, since the kickstarter is already over $4k, the deck is going to be 90 cards, and if it hits over $6k. There will be a 36 card expansion on top of that. So if this sounds like something you want to jump in on, well jump on in.