Welcome to my humble abode on the 'net. Let me introduce myself. My name is Dan Eveland. I now live with my beautiful wife in a wonderful house in a semi-rural little area where the streets are not paved and the sounds are few. I work at home much of the time looking out my office window into the wonderful huge trees all around. Life is good if you make it that way. Those who have failed in life did not really try.
I love to game. It all started in grade school, when a friend of mine, Michael Osinoski bought the boxed set of Dungeons & Dragons. I could not figure out how it went. I mean, how could your character do "anything" without a set of rules the size of an encyclopedia? Then, after a few tries (Mike has endless patience), it hit me - you use your imagination! Wow! I gobbled up all the modules and books my allowance would handle. I then moved on to Traveller. Traveller is still the all-time greatest science fiction roleplaying game. If you have never played the game with just the three books (no Mercenary or High Guard), try it. It's such a complete game in that way. Very little room for fuzziness in situational resolution using the rules.
My high-point in the game was when we played with books 1-5, Scouts and Assassins and Merchants and Merchandise from Paranoia Press.
I always played scouts with shotguns. I almost always ended up getting wasted by another player character because I wanted to communicate with the primitives, not take them for slaves, kill them or otherwise hose them badly. I once stole a FGMP-15 from the marine and blew up the group's ship. That was quite a turn. I finally "won"!
Traveller, Space Opera, Other Suns, Aftermath, Morrow Project, Wild West and Call Of Chuthulu were the best games then. None of this fairy and dwarf crap, running around getting experience points and battling against the GMs whim (translated as Magic). In modern (19th century and later) games you had a root in reality. You as a player and the GM can concentrate on developing characters personality, not constantly trying to create characters in a wholly unfamiliar world (medieval, fantasy, etc.) where it takes years of playing time to get familiar with the terms and specifics of a world. Those were the good old days.
With the destruction of Traveller by Megatraveller, and the end of Fantasy Games Unlimited, I had been playing GURPS almost exclusively, when I just got tired of it. I have an entire bookshelf of GURPS material, all the Pyramid magazines, and a complete set of AOTA, the GURPS amateur press publication. It just got to the point where the rules began to contradict one another. Some areas were too detailed to be even remotely useful as a GM (Vehicles, for example), and some were glossed over too briefly, or were clumsily handled (skill resolution, in my opinion).
So I found Heavy Gear.
This game has an excellent point-based character generation system that, even though it could have easily been, is not biased toward military careers, like other games are. The skill resolution uses difficulties of task, and you get your experience, and raw talent applied to the skill separately, but in a single skill roll. Very elegant.
Combat is handled very well, and wounds are not tracked in "hits", but each would in treated separately for mechanical game effects in combat and task resolution, and for healing rules. Very refreshing.
So, before I ramble on too much, here are some interesting tidbits you might like. First, here is a table I use for inspiration in the creation of scenarios for Heavy Gear roleplaying. Second, are the scenario descriptions I have submitted for running Heavy Gear at GenCon 1996. Here is some stuff you might want to steal -- I mean "use as resource material" in you're own games. Below are two items I have created for Heavy Gear, the best mecha roleplaying game. I started playing Heavy Gear after trying it out at GenCon 1995 while wandering the dealers room looking for something to blow my cash on.
These tables and charts are meant to provide inspiration for role-playing scenario design. I have found that if I am given a few combination ideas that I may not have come up with myself, I can glue them together with a plot, and have an unexpectedly fresh and unique adventure. My scenarios generally take place in the Badlands, so that is where the tables apply. I will then be revising the tables to take into account the entire planet eventually, but Shadis just released a set of really nice tables in this issue.
By the way, all my GenCon scenarios were created this way. It does provide inspiration.
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | Characters are part of the military (+2 on all tables) |
| 2 | Characters are part of a corporation (+1 on all tables) |
| 3-4 | Characters are self-employed |
| 5 | Characters are unemployed (-1 on all tables) |
| 6 | Characters are fugitives/unemployable (-2 on all tables) |
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| 0- | Only the clothes on their back. |
| 1-2 | Only the clothes on their back and number of items equal to the MoS of a moderate Streetwise action test. Cash is 10 Marks/Dinar times the MoS. |
| 3-4 | Each character has 1d x 250 Marks/Dinar plus a personal weapon and ammunition. |
| 5 | Each character has 1d x 500 Marks/Dinar plus a personal weapon and ammunition. |
| 6 | Characters/employer/government provides transportation, base camp and 1d x 1000 Marks/Dinars plus personal weapons and ammunition for each character. |
| 7+ | Employer/government provides anything asked for (Gears, etc.). |
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| -1 | Terrorist organization. |
| 0 | Criminal organization. |
| 1 | Wealthy individual. |
| 2 | Political Organization. |
| 3 | Religious organization. |
| 4 | Corporation. |
| 5 | Individual in need. |
| 6 | Famous Inventor/Scientist. |
| 7 | Retired corporate/military official with connections. |
| 8 | Military Organization. |
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| -1 | Released from prison. |
| 0 | Attempted murder of party. |
| 1 | Characters shanghaied. |
| 2 | Transportation breakdown. |
| 3 | Barroom brawn. |
| 4 | Call for help. |
| 5 | Released from hospital. |
| 6 | Lost in tempest. |
| 7 | Briefing. |
| 8 | Dropped into combat zone. |
| Roll | Result |
|---|---|
| -1 | Evade capture. |
| 0 | Clear character's name. |
| 1 | Vendetta. |
| 2 | Get/destroy evidence. |
| 3 | Survey. |
| 4 | Recover item. |
| 5 | Pay ransom. |
| 6 | Find missing person. |
| 7 | Investigate conspiracy. |
| 8 | Seek and destroy. |
Below is a listing of my scenarios for GenCon 96. I am very happy to be running games for Dream Pod 9 at this years biggest gaming convention. The descriptions had to fit into this strict little grid they provided. I am just glad I could do it on a computer. I have presented them below in mono-spaced type just as they will be seen in the convention booklet (although they use real type, just forced line breaks).
Be sure to sign up for my game early, they'll be filling up fast (I hope).
Late Edition
The Network News Corps is profiling life
in the Badlands. Is it as dangerous as
portrayed? A veteran NNC news team has
been sent into the desert to find out.
This Won't Hurt A Bit...
Rude nurses and huge needles are not the
worst thing happening now. A bad case of
food poisoning becomes a fight for life.
That wasn't so bad, now was it?
Born-Again
The Church of Redemption recruits new
members from prisons in the Badlands.
The sheriff of Haven Sands has decided
your group is the kind who can be saved.
Big Top
One tradition that is going on strong is
the traveling circus. Instead of real
creatures, modified Gears perform today.
Who, or what, is vandalizing the show?
Legacy
A voice from your past brings you grim
news. The dying wish of an old friend
reunites your group again, this time at
a mining town deep in the Badlands.
Desert Recon
The Badlands and its corrosive white
sands is a terrible place to ditch your
valuable cargo from orbit! Hyperion
Werks will pay big Marks to get it back.
Search & Rescue
A garbled data transmission is the last
thing heard from Dr. Hanz Gryphin. Is
there a clue in his last message to lead
you to him before it's too late?
The Arena
Some Duelists in the Badlands fight not
for their regiment, but for profit. Now
the need for Gear pilots is more than
the supply, so new ones must be found.
If you like these things, or have any feedback, please don't hesitate to email me about it. My address is develand@hotmail.com.