QuoteThe CharGen

We had approximately four hours to try this game.

Character creation was tedious.  It tested the players' mettle.  After the first hour I almost regretted my decision of having everyone make their PCs from scratch.  But at the 90 minute mark, it was finished.  Luckily, one of my players had his tablet or ipad or whatever there with the Encounter Critical PDF available to share.  That sped things along.  Of course, it didn't help that the reporter had never played a RPG before in his life.  Not that I'm complaining.  I love running games for the uninitiated.  I pride myself on being an easy going, noob friendly GM.


The Party

There was a Robodroid that looked like a lobster.  Its name was Lobstertron 300, naturally.  He was a warrior with a ton of hit points, his Robot Nature ability score was a 20, Strength 19, Intellect 16, Dexterity 5, and everything else in the middle.  We had an Amazon warlock who could phase through walls, blast people with some kind of energy or fire magic missile.  She had mutations like detachable limbs and super speed in short bursts.  A Lizardman bounty hunter (criminal) with an atrophied psi-lobe, death prone, and a 4 Intellect seemed so handicapped that he couldn't help but awesome-up proceedings.  A Klengon warlock constantly enslaving dudes with some kind of transport and an Elf pioneer who explored the crap out of underground caverns rounded out the party.

I couldn't help but create a few random tables for such things as prior professions, known and secret affiliations, personality traits, and god worshiped.  A little bit of Paranoia RPG influenced the selections, as well as, the idea of secret societies and the like.  Adding another layer or two only helps the game, in my opinion.  After all, those things can always be ignored if they don't move the story along or aid roleplaying.  For instance, the reporter rolled "depraved" for his PC.  This allowed him (gave him "social permission", if you will) to act like a complete bastard, taking his characterization to places most people sitting around a table full of strangers wouldn't go.



The Story

Rather than going with the short introductory adventure included in the manual, I decided to create my own planet, history, and plot.  Using Vanth (included in EC) as a guide, both visually and when it came to thinking up intriguing places, such as Ambush Alley, Cold One Tombs, Tribalistic Gibbering, and the City of Crimson Hawk.  I hand drew the map in under 20 minutes so that it could pass for something scribbled during study hall.

I borrowed stuff from Thundarr the Barbarian, Zardoz, Logan's Run, Star Wars, Star Trek, The Terminator, Krull, Dune, Otherworld, Flash Gordon, Ice Pirates, Alien, Blake's 7, and Battlestar Galactica!  Somehow, I just kept piling more references on, squeezing characters and equipment and god knows what into a glorious rip-off of epic proportions.

Basically, earth was ravaged by a runaway comet, the United Federation of Planets had invaded the planet (renamed Thaavn), and Emperor Ming created The Protected Zone.  The PCs were each given a message to meet at a strip club in Nova City, inside The Protected Zone.  A bounty hunter messenger clone offered them a mercenary mission of recovering pirated ice from a space cruiser crashed in the Southern Jungles.  Shortly after that, Emperor Ming asked them to collect a secret cache of the spice melange from the same crash landed cruiser.


The Highlights

Wizard merchants traveling by caravan traded the PC's newly acquired AT-AT (enslave spell) for a bunch of cool stuff including a lightsaber, protocol droid, and a green skinned slave girl.  A glaive laid at the bottom of a molten lava stream.  Cryogenic chambers were disturbed, releasing silver robed humanoids with overly large brains and psionic powers.  A war-band of mutants destroyed.  Mutant and magical powers were used, as were skills.

As random as the skill names were, I found them strangely user-friendly and intuitive:  logic, happenstance, clue, saving throw, melee attack, machine friend, see the future, and psi resist.  Those and a few others came into play at one point or another.  Less time was taken up debating if skill x, y, or z was more appropriate for the situation than I've seen in a lot of RPGs.

There were no fatalities, though a warlock who rolled few hit points almost died.

Quote from: VengerSatanis;728825My experience with Encounter Critical:  http://vengersatanis.blogspot.com/2014/02/encounter-critical-review-and-actual.html

Here's most of the text.  Though, I really hope you click the link and read it on my old school gaming blog.  There are pictures!

Quote from: Simon W;732896That sounds positively epic!

Quote from: VengerSatanis;732958It was.  Of course, that depends on one's definition of "epic".  Looking back, the experience could be duplicated with the right RPG, attitude, and group.  I think it's worth replicating.

Thanks for the reply, Simon.

VS

Quote from: Simon W;732969Makes me want to give it a go - I put it to my group last year as an option alongside flashing blades and they plumped for flashing blades. I won't give 'em the choice next time!