DCCRPG - Crawling Under a Broken Moon - Mall Maul

Old Man Legolas's headless goat armed with sharpened crayons

A Crawling Tradition

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG is becoming a bit of a tradition with the Norwin Game Knights, especially with our younger players.  It all started back in April when I ran a Star Wars - Stormtroopers themed DCC adventure set on Tatooine for International Tabletop Day.  A few months later in July I ran Portal Under the Stars for some of the same players.  In August I showed up with Purple Sorcerer Games' Perils of the Sunken City, continuing our quest in our September event, along with an attempt at Grimtooth's Museum of Death.  

I feel ashamed to say that for our October NGK event I was thinking of just sitting back and playing Last Night on Earth.  It wasn't that I was tired of playing DCC, or any role-playing games for that matter, but I've been really busy outside of gaming and the idea of zoning out with some board games was a little tempting…

… and then word got out amongst our kiddo players that there wasn't going to be an RPG!

The revolt began on Skype.  My eldest daughter Carrie, who plays DCC in our monthly NGK typically with two to four of her friends from school, let the cat out of the bag online that there wasn't going to be any RPG'ing.  There was much sadness and despair, and as soon as I got home from work my wife approached me when I got out of the car.  

"Do you have any RPG stuff that you can throw together quickly?" she asked me.  Jen knew that I wasn't prepared to run a game.  

"I'll come up with something," I said.  

That "something" ended up being +Reid San Filippo's Crawling Under a Broken Moon… leading to an event that will become legendary in the Norwin Game Knights.

Crawling Under a Broken Moon

I've been in the mood for a little post-apocalyptic role-playing lately, so choosing my stack of CUABM 'zines as inspiration for Friday's game was an easy choice.  Now that I can drive through the Pittsburgh area shiny and chrome in my new car, I day dream about becoming one of Immortan Joe's War Boys.

Witness me, brothers!  

That said, I've never quite found the right post-apocalyptic RPG for me.  I've played a few one-shots using TSR's Alternity system, and ran a mini-campaign with D20 Modern back in the mid-2000's.  Paranoia was a lot of fun, and I used to have some of the 1st Edition books before selling them off about four years ago.  Most of the time I get to scratch a lot of my "post-apocalyptic" itches with Numenera, but every once in a while I want to try something zany, outlandish, and over the top.  

Imagine my delight when I discovered Crawling Under a Broken Moon!  

There are so many amazing DCCRPG adventures, but if you ask any hardcore DCC fan about unique and interesting campaign settings they will most likely point you towards their favorite fan 'zines.  In just a few months I've discovered Crawljammer, Black Powder Black Magic, Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad, and of course Crawling Under a Broken Moon, just to name a few.  As well as being terrific setting resources, all of these products offer DCC Judges new rules, patrons, classes, and adventures for DCCRPG.  

Crawling Under a Broken Moon is, by far, your DCC-based response to players looking to emulate Mad Max, Fallout, or Borderlands with a dash of He-Man.  

As +Reid San Filippo wrote in Issue #1:  

"… I grew up obsessed with Thundarr the Barbarian, robots, aliens, mutants, and other such wonderful nonsense.  When I first read through the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG it immediately struck me that I found the perfect system to relive the adventures under a broken moon."

Reid couldn't be more right!

I've read through all of the Crawling Under a Broken Moon 'zines, and I knew that a tight time-frame wasn't going to stop me from running a great game for my young players.  Crawling Under a Broken Moon Issue #3 features complete rules for creating 0-level wastelanders, and the perfect 0-level funnel adventure: Mall Maul.  

In Mall Maul, the player characters are residents of a poor wasteland village.  Local raiders have demanded tribute and the players must survive the horrors of the forsaken mall and scavenge whatever lost wonders and artifacts they can to appease the warlords.  Mall Maul takes dungeon crawling and mashes it together with themes from HG Wells' "The Time Machine", and your typical Sunday afternoon at Sears.  

In the adventure the party must put together their "tribute" to the local raiders in a salvaged "Tribute Truck."  Every good that the party pulls from the forsaken mall is measured in "TT's", or Tribute Truck points.  To help the players figure out how much they had collected during their quest I used poker chips.  Every chip was assigned a value, and as the players gathered gear I tossed them chips.  It was a terrific way to track the players' progress!  Since the goal in the adventure was to get to 200 TT's, each small scavenged tidbit brought them one step closer to victory, and the chips were a great visualization.  

Prepping the adventure was easy.  Purple Sorcerer Games remains your one-stop "shop" for DCCRPG character sheets.  You can even use the 0-level character generator to create customized Crawling Under a Broken Moon characters!

As always, I'm excited to see what kind of characters the players end up with, as well as the crazy names they choose… 

Carrie and Dylan ready for action

Characters

When I passed out the post-apocalyptic character sheets the entire table started to giggle with excitement.  Scavengers, gangers, mechanics, pharmacists, the profession options in Crawling Under a Broken Moon certainly fit the setting.  As a Judge for younger players, its always a lot of fun to see what kind of crazy character names everyone comes up with before the game.  Often the players are trying to outdo each other, as you will probably notice.  

• Jeremy 
• Lithium Shield, Halfling Armorer
• Electro Outlet, Mutant Electrician
• Mech Tech, Human Mechanic
• Matthew
• Wool Smith, Mutant Historian
• Joe Tetti, Human Soldier
• Mr. Luck-Who-Has-No-Life, Elf Peddler 
• Carrie
• Crypten, Mutant Soldier
• Rayzor, Mutant Armorer
• Lisa, Dwarf Ganger
• Dylan
• Sparkles, Dwarf Mechanic
• Porkchop, Halfling Cook
• Scrooge McDuck, Robot Pharmacist 
• Ben
• Toby Tire-Iron, Elf Mechanic
• Milo Abernathy, Dwarf Accountant
• Bucketzz, Robot Janitor
• Braden
• Druggs McPills, Halfling Pharmacist
• Mr. Handy, Robot Handyman
• Winne Andy Cooler, Mutant Brewer
• Evan
• Bear Grylls, Human Scavenger
• Docta, Human Medic
• Old Man Legolas, Elf Livestock Rancher
• Zachary
• Doug, Mutant Scavenger
• Mr. Bicycle, Halfling Peddler
• Ryan
• Bob, Robot Carpenter

Our Mall Maul map

Mall Maul

After a rousing Neuqua Village assembly organized by Mayor Glumpton, along with a motivational speech by the local Priest of Kizz, the party of wicked wastelanders were ready for action.  The annual tribute truck to be supplied to local raiders was still empty, and unless Neuqua filled the truck, their entire village would be sacked.  Neuqua's only hope would be to send their best and bravest into the terrible, dreaded, forsaken lost-domain of former commerce…

… the Mall.

The team rode to the Mall in an old big-rig tractor trailer, driven by the legendary Phil.  Although he was far more mighty and powerful than any of the other wastelanders, Phil's time as a warrior was past.  Now he was in retirement, and simply came along to help gather the team's trailer tribute.  

Before entering the Mall's parking lot the team tried to think of creative ways to help fill the trailer.  To get a head start on their tribute, they reviewed their gear and equipment to see if anything they were carrying would "count."  Phil took some minor gear as well as one of Old Man Legolas' headless goats to "prime the pump" on the tribute gathering.  

Between the parked trailer and the ancient Mall entrance was a vast plain of cracked concrete.  The people of the past would've called this place a "parking lot."  Several wheeled metal baskets were parked in good working condition throughout the parking to, and Druggs McPills decided that he wanted to go for a shopping cart ride.  But when the Halfling Pharmacist approached one of the carts, a vicious spider/amphibian hybrid (a trapdoor toadspider) rose up from a manhole cover and grabbed Druggs with its long tongue.  The halfling was devoured in a single gulp.  

Mech Tech the mechanic thought that perhaps he could talk to one of the toadspiders, but suffered the same fate.  Even with Joe Tetti offering some protection with a bolt action rifle, the toadspider was just too fast.  Joe did notice that every pristine shopping cart just happened to be parked next to a manhole cover, and that several dead bodies were strewn about the center of the parking lot.  

On second thought, perhaps it would just be best to leave the shopping carts alone.  

Rather than enter though the front door, the team chose to climb up into the truck delivery bay.  Some of the shelves were full of camping gear, still wrapped in plastic.  Rather than open the gear and use it during their quest, the wastelanders handed off the camping gear to Phil so that it could be considered part of the Tribute.  The only other point of interest in the delivery bay was a single large trash compactor.  Porkchop tried climbing up onto the edge of the compactor, only to find a massive, oozing, single-celled organism filling the metal container.  The slime slapped Porkchop, knocking him off of the compactor.  The Docta hoped to heal poor Porkchop but ended up using his scalpel rather than his first aid kit.  

Porkchop was not amused   

The team opened a nearby door leading into the access hallways of the forsaken Mall.  The area was completely dark, with very little light remaining from the open truck delivery bay doorway.  Electro Outlet exclaimed that he could easily create an electric lamp, but would need a few things.  First, he would need some wire, which he had.  Then, some fuel, which he was able to scavenge from the group.  Finally he would need a robot volunteer.  Scrooge McDuck happily bounded forward…

… that's when Electro Outlet removed Scrooge's head, yanked out his CPU, and turned the robot-noggin into a lamp.

Poor Scrooge McDuck!

Using the Scrooge Lamp, Electro followed Doug into the back hallways of the Mall.  There were quite a few doorways, and so much good loot for the party to bring back to the tribute truck!  More camping gear, cardboard boxes, rope, and some protein bars were among some of the best finds.  

Lisa the Dwarf Ganger entered a strange watch store that was distorted by a temporal anomaly.  While searching the store she aged a full ten years!  When Porkchop realized that his teammate left empty handed he went into the watch store himself and was gone quite a while.  He dragged himself out of the room, his body wracked by over a hundred years of additional time, clutching an ancient Casio watch.  

Then Porkchop died.  

Hoping to head further into the Mall, the party started down a hallway to the north only to hear something terrible!  A most terrible trap was on the ground, blaring out awful saxophone music…

… it was Kenny G!  

Doug dropped to the ground and rolled away but Electro Outlet couldn't stop the music.  The sound forced Electro's brain to pull itself free from his head and drag itself across the floor into a crack in the wall.  Luckily, Doug ran over and threw the boom box against the wall, causing the song to shut off.  

So Electro's brain returned and climbed back into his skull.

Music would again be the enemy when the party entered a sporting goods store.  A lone, dead halfling was impaled on a long spear in the center of the sporting goods store, with strange music playing from his pocket… it was Smash Mouth for sure.  But when the team took the futuristic iPod from the dead halfling's pocket, the music became louder and a creature was summoned… a Pigtipede!  One hundred legs of porcine death, the long creature entered the room looking for sentient food.  It only took a single shot to drop the creature, and then Bear Grylls carved it up for some Tribute Truck ham!  

With the Tribute Truck almost filled to the brim, the party finally entered an abandoned shoe store.  Bear Grylls started assembling shoes, realizing that most of the right-footed shoes were missing.  About fourteen complete pairs were gathered, and Bear triumphantly held them up in the air for everyone to see just before he died.

Apparently the laces were covered in poison, and after contacting the powdery substance, poor Bear gagged and choked and collapsed in a heap.  The rest of the party was careful in handing those shoes off to Phil.  

But all of that choking and coughing must have caught the attention of some of the Mall's most dreaded inhabitants… the Malllocks!  Fifteen of the bestial creatures arrived, their pale and pasty hands clutching clubs, cudgels, and assorted shelving units.  They were ready for battle…

… a battle that Wool Smith was committed to avert!  

The pacifistic Mutant Historian stepped forward and started assembling all of the left handed shoes in a strange tower.  Wool claimed that the tower was a "peace offering" and it was his hope that the magnificence of the tower would convince the Malllocks to stand down.  

[Seriously… this was happening.]

Despite Wool's efforts, Lisa, Crypten, and Razor believed that battle was inevitable… so they gathered together and started to hug very tightly.  So tight, in fact, that they became one creature… a new hyper-mutant named Lisrayten…

… and then Lisrayten started helping Wool build the tower.

One by one, each member of the team aided in building the peace offering.  By the time the Malllocks were ready to charge, they were too enamored by these Neuquan intruders to do anything.  Only one of the Malllocks remained committed for blood.  The creepy near-human stepped forward and offered a compromise.  If Wool Smith came with the Malllocks, the rest of the party could leave with their tribute.  Wool agreed, and he was carried away.

Wool's last words were that he hoped to become the "crowned king of the Malllocks."  Wool was close.  His body was turned into a "crown" for the Malllock king.  

The remaining characters quickly left the Mall and headed back to the trailer.  With all the value left behind, they figured that perhaps next tribute they would return to the Mall again.

Matthew and Carrie stare in wonder at the peace offering mock-up

Quotes

I didn't make much of an effort to write down quotes during this adventure, probably because I was trying to keep nine players (8 under the age of 14) under control.  But I had to note two specific quotes that leave me slightly afraid for the next generation of gamers.

"We're building them a gift of peace.  Someone will love us!" - Matthew

Jim - "You haven't made it out yet!"

Evan - "We don't care, our village is safe!"

Back in my day neither of these comments would have occurred!  What is happening to the youth of Umerica?!?

Carrie's combined mutant character

Cypher System Fantasy - Ardeyn - Session 4

It's been over a month since our last Cypher Fantasy game… too long, I know.  Even so, we almost missed this week's game since I was sick on Tuesday and had to push the game to Thursday.  Unfortunately this meant that two of our players, Craig and Andreas, couldn't make it… but at least we played.

It's been kind of crazy over the last few weeks here in Jim Land, so this game summary is a bit different from my last few.  I'll be blending my "behind the scenes" notes into a brief adventure summary.  

You've been warned.

Living 4 Crits Presents

A Cypher System Fantasy Campaign

Ardeyn: Land of the Curse

Cast

• Sister Sariety, a Charming Speaker who Works Miracles, played by Frank
• Zamani, a Spiritual (Ugallu*) Explorer (Magic) who Masters Foot and Fist**, played by Andy
• Shenuesh, a Graceful Adept (Combat) who Wields Two Weapons at Once, played by Jeremy
• Verren, a Spectral*** Adept who Casts Spells, played by Marc

* Ugallu is a race option from Broken Immersion by Ryan Chaddock Games

** Masters Foot and Fist is from Worlds Numberless and Strange by Monte Cook Games
*** Spectral is a new and original focus written by Marc Plourde and featured on his blog, Inspiration Strikes

Our Story So Far… 

• Episode 1:  Dream Patrol
• Episode 2:  Ribs
• Episode 3:  Skull

Episode 4: Glitch

It only took a few days for the adventuring party to complete their dream patrol, and the last hours of the mission were certainly much quieter than their first.  No more creepy children, no fleshy demons, and certainly no more necromancers…

… at this point the three they were dealing with were more than enough!

Figuring that it was time to collect their 300 crowns from the Citadel Hazurrium, but knowing that they planned to return to Trazzoek for some additional dark and dangerous work, the party agreed to split up.  Milja and Yaren would travel back to the Citadel to collect the cash while Sister Sariety, Zamani, Shenuesh, and Verren the undead mage would seek out Trazzoek.  

[It's pretty obvious that I needed a reason to explain Craig and Andreas' absence during this gaming session.  I could've had their characters float into the background, but I hate doing that.  This made more sense.]

Finding Trazzoek was easier than expected, in fact he showed up just a few mile down the party's path.  The strange, and dark necromancer greeted the group, with a distinct interest in Verren.  Trazzoek toyed with the Spectral Adept, and danced around his knowledge of Verren's origin.  

"There's something about you that is very… familiar," Trazzoek stated, a wry smile on his face.

Trazzoek insisted that the party take part in their next "journey", a mission to clear Catacomb 1000 of a Dream Patrol by another band of mercenaries.  Verren questioned Trazzoek as to why he wanted the additional rune-carved skulls, and what he would be doing, but the necromancer was cryptic and just plain weird.  

[Cryptic... get it?]

Trazzoek seemed more interested in making tea and coffee by a fire than communicating clearly with the adept.  Trazzoek spoke of his plans, and his goal to save the soul of "Ralli", one of his apprentices who lost half her "life" to an entity on the other side of the living.  Verren couldn't figure out how the skulls could possibly assist in this kind of ritual, but when he noticed that Memnosh, Trazzoek's other apprentice, seemed displeased with his master, the information was conveyed to the rest of the group.  

Despite appearing insincere, Zamani was able to convince Memnosh to accompany them on the next leg of their adventure.  Trazzoek was fine with this arrangement.

[At this point in the adventure I realized that we hadn't really had a significant GM Intrusion.  Come to think of it, I don't think there were 'any' GMI's yet.  Although the Cypher System Rulebook has a bunch of examples for GMI's I tend to come up with them on the fly.  Usually when a player announces an action, I try to think of something I can twist.  In this last scene, Andy missed his roll to convince Memnosh, and I offered the GMI.  When Andy took it, I decided to alter Memnosh's personality and make it very,  very annoying.  I turned him into a raging-emo, Napoleon Dynamite emulating NPC... gosh!]

During the walk to Catacomb 1000, where Trazzoek had alluded that a team of lizard-humanoid mercenaries were on patrol, the  party pressed Memnosh for information.  After several very painful hours of conversation with the depressing and mopey teenage-necromancer-in-training, the party was able to uncover the following pieces of information:

• Memnosh was lured into his apprenticeship by Trazzoek on the promise that they would save the teen's enslaved siblings.
• After two years of service, Trazzoek had never fulfilled his promise, but continued to say that the day would come.
• Memnosh fell in love with Trazzoek's other apprentice, Ralli, during their training.

Convinced that Trazzoek's plans for the rune carved skulls, including his own, would be devastating to the entrapped souls, Verren  wanted nothing to do with aiding the necromancer's plan.  Rather than proceed to Catacomb 1000, the party asked Memnosh to take them to Ralli instead, so that they could examine the half-dead girl.  Zamani promised Memnosh that they would help save his siblings from bondage in return.  

Memnosh agreed, and took the team of adventurers to a quiet cabin in the woods to the south.

When the party opened the door they found, standing in the middle of the sparsely furnished room, the half-dead necromancer's apprentice, Ralli.  The girl stood there, head down, radiating some kind of strange aura that Zamani believed to be a defensive ward.  Hoping that he would have some kind of connection to this undead, Verren approached.  From the look and appearance of the girl, and the strange "necromagicks" emanating from her form, Verren could tell that there was something on the "other side" of life and death clinging to Ralli.  Nothing that Trazzoek did could aid in bringing her back, rather, it could only push her further to unlife... or worse, bring something terrible into the world of Ardeyn.    

Verren called out to Ralli, only to see a terrible face appear... the face of his long dead associate Krad.

"Brother, I've missed you," Ralli said in Krad's deep voice.  

Pressured to talk with Ralli, Memnosh was dragged forward.  This time, the face of his sister appeared... Ana.  Clearly Ralli had become a conduit to the land of the dead, and so that meant...

... Memnosh freaked out!  

Hoping that her healing touch could help, Sister Sariety stepped forward.  Carefully, the woman laid her hands on Ralli, and the girl immediately started to appear and reappear, first above the floor, and then halfway into the floor with her legs sticking out somewhere else in the room.  Back and forth, back and forth as the sister pressed her hands into the acolyte's cold flesh.

[Please refer to the title of this session.]

At the end of the ritual Sister Sariety was exhausted, but her energies had freed the girl from whatever was holding her on the other side.

"Behold the miracle!" Sister Sariety declared.

The party asked Ralli what she remembered, and it was very little.  She was camping around a glowing blue crystal near Shalmarn, along with Trazzoek and Memnosh.  The three would soon be entering a very dangerous crypt.  That was it.  

Memnosh took this opportunity to tell his "love" how he felt.  "You don't need Trazzoek... all you need is me."

Ralli's face scrunched.  "Eww," she groaned.

That's when the party heard the slow clap.  

It was Trazzoek!  The necromancer arrived flanked by a pair of zombie ogres.  

[I used The Strange Bestiary for the Necromancer stats (level 5) and then upgraded the zombies out of the Cypher System Rulebook from level 3 to level 4.]

"This is bullshit!" Trazzoek screamed, just before Verren blasted him with a spell.

The battle with Trazzoek and his minions was fairly defensive.  The party had a very hard time hitting the necromancer with their attacks, and they focused on the zombies before going after Trazoek.  Memnosh was prompted to try controlling one of the zombies, which he did, albeit briefly.  Shennuesh kept Trazzoek out of action with a rage gas cypher, causing him to go after one of the zombies while the party attacked from a distance.  Sister Sariety focused on encouragement.   

[The only one rolling well during the fight, at least at first, was Andy.  For the first few rounds Zamani was the only character connecting any attacks.  I don't remember if Verren even hit at all, to be honest.  Shennuesh jumped into action later in the fight as well.]

When he realized he couldn't win, Trazzoek started to beg and plead for his life, but the party wouldn't have it.  Zamani landed the killing blow and that was that.  The team offered to take Ralli back to the Citadel Hazurrium and made no plans for raiding any other rune-carved skulls from the catacomb.  

[I had plotted out two "paths" for this adventure: one that would lead to the Catacombs and the other that would go to the cabin in the woods.  If the party had approached Catacomb 1000, they would've come across a very affable group of lizardfolk mercenaries just doing their job and enjoying some fine folk music.  Dispatching the lizardfolk would've been cruel, but in hindsight I could see Shennuesh tearing them up.  After dealing with the lizardfolk, either peacefully or with violence, the encounter with Trazzoek would've occurred outside the wall Catacomb, but before he had the rune-carved skulls.]

Quotes

"He's from PETS.  People for the Ethical Treatment of Skulls." - Jeremy

"This is a lengthy on the job interview." - Marc describing the party's weird relationship with Trazzoek.

"I don't know if you've heard… but I'm the wizard of the party." - Andy gave up and just became the wizard of the party.

"It's not your skull its MY skull!" - Marc's words were quite true.

"So it's like 'Bachelor' for skulls." - Jeremy

Frank - "You have necromancy knowledge?"
Andy - "Yes."
Frank - "And you're confused about why we think you are a wizard?"

"I don't think I can deal with an emo necromancer?" - Marc

"Does Jeremy really need to be more aggressive?" - Marc, although the rest of the party was thinking the same thing.

So Shiny, So Chrome - Buying my New Ride

So I have arrived in Valhalla... shiny and chrome!  

Okay, this is not my typical gaming post.  Sorry!

I spent a year as an accountant (and weekend hot dog/hamburger cook for customers) at Premium Motor Cars on Route 8 in Allison Park, PA between 2000-2001 while I was in college.  I love spending time at car dealerships and test driving cars...

... LOVE!

So if you aren't interested in reading a long, and drawn out car post, best to stop here.  Otherwise, if you are as fascinated in the car buying process as me (and I'm obsessed) keep reading!  

Immortan Joe would be pleased

After five weeks of car researching, test drives, and lots of discussions and I ended up getting a 2015 Honda Civic from Valley Honda in Monroeville.  I've been high on cars and low on cars, but this ended up being the best deal, and I got just about everything I wanted in a car.

My car search had come down to the Mazda 3, Honda Fit, Toyota Corolla, and Honda Civic.  There were certain creature comforts I really wanted in a car: heated seats, moon roof, 8 way driver seat, and fog lamps because I HATE the look of those fake "holes" in the front.  I also wanted something that would be great on gas and really fun and nimble to drive around.  

By Monday I had driven all of these cars except for the Honda Fit.  I really like the Mazda 3, but the higher price point of the grand touring model (the quote I got was around $23,500, MSRP around $26,000 for the "i" model) compared to the rest of the cars on my list gave me pause.  I called the Mazda dealership to confirm their "best deal", and the price ended up being $24,700.  So... it went up.  Weird.  The salesman just said that one of the incentives went away.  I told him that we were way far apart now on where I wanted to be, and that I was going to pass unless they could come down, and come down quickly.  

Never heard back from them.  Not from the salesman, not from the sales manager... nothing.  Very surprised by that.  

In the meantime, on Wednesday I went out to drive the Fit and the Civic Sedan at Valley Honda.  I drove the Civic Coupe with Jen a few weeks ago at another dealership and while I liked the driving characteristics, Jen didn't like the back seat.  I also didn't care for the salesman or dealership, and figured I wouldn't be buying from them.  The Fit was big and spacious for being the size of a teacup, but the drive was harsh and I could hear every bit of road noise.  Also, they didn't have any wiggle room on the price since they were all 2016 models on the lot.  The cheapest one was around $21K MSRP.

Jen and I loved the Civic Sedan.  Personally, I like driving small cars, but the back seat was really comfortable, and it had a really nice leather interior.  The leather in a Civic is much more "cushy" than what was in the Mazda.  There was only one feature I wanted that the Mazda 3 had that was lacking in the Honda Civic: the hatchback.  But when we finally finished working with the price, the cost difference wasn't worth paying more.  

I need to give a very sincere thanks to my best and oldest friend Chris​ for some of his comments and advice, as well as some of the posts he throws up from Mr. Money Mustache.  Sure, I was going to buy new, which is not very "Mustachian", but I tried to look at everything as objectively as possible and how I could save the most money in the long run.  And Chris put the bug in my ear to stay focused on reliability and the longevity of the car's lifespan.  From everything I've read and witnessed, Honda beats out Mazda.

So how did I make out on pricing?  I think I did very, very well, and I went about this car shopping experience a bit different than in past purchases... that's the whole reason for this post.

Once I had finished my research (I think I read every online review, and watched quite a few videos on YouTube), I went to Edmunds.com and used the PricePromise to get a quote from Valley Honda on the 2015 Honda Civic EX-L.  The sticker price was $23,750 after all options.  I submitted a request for an instant quote and the price came back at around $22,100.  Already that was over $2K less than the Mazda 3.  I called and set my appointment to drive the car, but in the meantime I got an email from the internet sales manager at Valley Honda dropping the price to $20,400 at a 1.9% interest rate.  The 2016 Civic is going to be a complete redesign, so I'm sure this being the last year for the model had something to do with the pricing.  After the test drive we sat down to talk price.  The $20,400 was pretty much set in stone, but I asked about the interest rate, since the deal at Honda.com on all '15 Civics was 0.9% for 60 months (I'll pay in 48 or less, but it's nice having that monthly buffer.)  It was no issue getting the 0.9%.

I definitely felt like a winner!  Maybe some harder hagglers could've done better, but I'm quite happy with how things turned out.  The price difference between the Civic and Mazda 3 ended up being over $4,000 for just about every feature, and all I missed out on was the hatchback and 12 horsepower.  I can live with that.  

Gotta also give a big shout out to our salesman Edan.  The dude was incredible, and probably one of the best salespeople I've ever dealt with.  Not pushy, and very willing to work with us and spend a lot of time in each car.  He made the entire experience FUN.  The test drive course he picked was long and detailed.  With the first dealership it was far too short and boring.  Maybe its because I've spent some time working at a car dealership when I was in college, but I really enjoy working with great salespeople, and would always prefer to buy something from someone who took care of me.  The F&I department was a breeze as well, and didn't give me any grief for not taking any additional options (all I added was all weather floor mats).  

So there you go!  I hope to be driving this machine for the next decade.  Heck, it'll probably be the car both Evie and Carrie learn to drive with.  

That's scary!

Two quick links:

My favorite car research site, Edmunds.com, is where I started my price negotiations.

I'm also a fan of US News & World Report's Best Cars rankings.  

I love to plug great service, so definitely check out Valley Honda in Monroeville if you are in the market for a car and live in Western Pennsylvania.  Although I'm sure there are a lot of nice folks who work there, I dealt with Edan Alexander and would most certainly do so again.  Jen was checking out the Pilot when we left but her '09 Traverse is paid off with a lot of life left!  

Disney World: Strange or Weird

Disney Con 2014

It's almost time for our family's return to Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida.  My kids are counting the days, and making lists of all the rides they want to seek out first.  My wife (a travel agent, and Disney pro) has our dinner reservations and Fast Passes all lined up.  My dog has no idea that he has to spend a week in the kennel.  

Poor Ridley!

Not surprisingly (especially since I'm tossing it on this blog), my preparation has been focused on gaming.  During our last excursion to Disney World I brought along my Numenera PDF, some character sheets, and dice.  We ran two game of our Disenchanted Tales Numenera adventures, one in our hotel room at the Art of Animation Resort and the other out in public.  We called it "Disney Con 2014" and it was a great experience! 

I ran both of these during the early days of Living 4 Crits, so you can actually go back and review our sessions:

• Disenchanted Tales: Session 3
• Disenchanted Tales: Session 4

Disney Con 2015?

So new year, new vacation, new game.  

We'll be staying at a great resort, with access to a kitchen table in our suite and of course tables out in the common areas.  Who knows, maybe we'll even smuggle our game into one of the parks!  

But I'm not quite sure what I'm going to run… at least not yet.

At Disney Con 2014 I ran Numenera and the players were Disney characters in the Ninth World.  Anna, Elsa, Merida, and Mary Poppins… typical characters for weird adventuring!  I'd really like to continue with a Disney theme, especially since we will be at Disney World, but with a different twist.  Since Disenchanted Tales, I've run many games with Disney characters in RPG campaign settings, branching out into both Savage Worlds - The Last Parsec and Dungeon Crawl Classics.  I've even seen other gamers explore the Ninth World of Numenera with Disney characters!  

On to something new, and maybe different (but not)…

Rather than have the characters be a part of the Disney Mythology, I want them to be rooted in the original setting.  The adventure, on the other hand, would take place in the Disney universe.  

One idea I'm kicking around is having a band of Numenera hunters uncover the remnants of one of the Disney parks, one billion years in the future.  I used the whole "inside the head of a Latos" idea once already this year, why not use it again?  Or perhaps there is some kind of space station "Into the Night" where one of the parks was kept safe?  

On the Strange side of things, perhaps the players are agents of the Estate who are investigating a strange happening in one of the Disney World rides.  Maybe Captain Jack Sparrow breaks out of his recursion, or possibly the "Small World after all" is much more terrifying when one translates there from Earth?  I can't lie, the idea came from the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon, so not 100% original.  But Carrie has been asking about returning to our Dingo and the Cosmos characters, so this could be her chance.  

*     *     *

So that's where I'm at.  If you have any ideas feel free to toss them my way.  I've got some time left before we leave, but I'd like to start preparing soon.  

Mastodon - A GM-2-GM Review for The Strange

Witness me Cypher System fans!

2 Weeks of Online Demos 

First, I need to apologize for the lack of activity here on Living 4 Crits in the last couple weeks.  It's been quite busy in the "real world" for me, and certainly challenging to find the time to post some decent words.  Of course this doesn't mean that I haven't been gaming!  With my Cypher System Fantasy game on a three-week break due to scheduling issues, I've been running demos of other Cypher games on G+ Hangouts.  Last week I ran Shadewalker, an MCG Asset Team adventure for Numenera, and this week it was Mastodon, the Gen Con 2015 adventure for The Strange.  

Shadewalker is still an Asset Team exclusive, so I've gotta keep the details to that adventure quiet, so let's chat a bit about Mastodon by Bruce Cordell!

Let's go to Ruk (quick player friendly overview)

If there is any possibility that you would be a player in Mastodon, you can read this next section.  I promise not to give away any major spoilers.

Mastodon is an introductory adventure for The Strange that brings together a group of ex-military recursors (recursion-jumpers) on a mission to discover who (or what) is hunting down and murdering their old teammates.    The adventure begins on Earth, and as the cover shows, leads to some interesting action on the biomechanical recursion of Ruk.  The adventure itself itself is about twenty pages long, but the PDF is twice that length… because it's chock full of pre-gen characters.  Anyone looking to give The Strange a try with a group of newcomers to the Cypher System can hit the ground running with just this adventure and The Strange Corebook.

Although this was a Gen Con adventure distributed to MCG volunteers, you can now purchase the PDF for this adventure here for only $2.99!

I really enjoyed running this adventure at Gen Con.  Much like Eschatology Code, last year's Gen Con adventure, Mastodon opens up with an awesome action sequence that hooks the players.  As the game progresses, the adventure opens up and becomes more of a sandbox, allowing for investigation and discovery.  Of course there is also that opportunity to travel to Ruk, which is always awesome!

I'm a crappy reviewer, and an obvious MCG fanboy, so I'll just leave my two thumbs up, five stars, and A+ right here.  If you are a player, and especially if you haven't played The Strange, go get your GM to run this for you.  

Okay, players, please stop reading now…

… seriously, this is your last chance before I reveal a few spoilers…

… seriously.

Just One GM to Another

I don't think I do a very good job at "formal" and "official" game reviews, so I thought I'd do this one a bit different.  I'm always interested in seeing how one GM runs a published adventure compared to another, so I thought I'd share some of my notes for running Mastodon.  Feel free to use some of these ideas and intrusions yourself, or maybe share with me your own ideas.  

Timing

Make sure you run this adventure with adequate time.  When I ran at Gen Con we had a great four hour time slot and the adventure was very smooth.  The opening action sequence lasted the first hour, but then the group had the chance to methodically solve the mystery.  We wrapped up in about 3.25 - 3.5 hours.  This led me to the idea that I could trim this adventure down to a three hour window and possibly run it as a week night G+ Hangout demo.

I was wrong.

When I ran the game this week I had to hack way too much out of the adventure to fit it into the three hours.  The "sandbox" investigation on Ruk disappeared and the adventure felt very railroad-ish.  Obviously this is not the writer's fault, but my own as a hasty GM.  Mastodon is an adventure that allows players to fully explore the weird and mysterious world of Ruk… don't rob your players of this opportunity.

Velociraptor Fun

My favorite part of this adventure is the opening encounter with the raptors.  The idea of players encountering dinosaurs in a hotel conference center is just downright fun!  Since both sessions that I ran included newcomers to The Strange I wanted to make use of some creative GM intrusions:

• Too Shaken to Talk:  A short GMI, the first player to open the door quickly closes it and must then make a level 3 difficulty Intellect roll against fear to tell the rest of the players what they saw.  
• Girl Scouts:  The first time I ran Mastodon I had a Girl Scout convention going on at the same time.  During the firefight with the dinosaurs a bunch of the children entered the room, and became potential fodder.  The players had to save the girl scouts as well as the rest of the hotel staff.
• Bridal Shower Guest Selfies:  The second time I ran Mastodon I had a bridal shower going on in the room next door, and when one of the players went to act (before entering the room), two guests forcibly tried to have their pictures taken.  

Come On Down

Another place for a great GM Intrusion is in the final fight with Amla-Shoon.  During both games I had one of the experiment subjects grab a player character and pull them to the ground.  I got the idea from a scene from The Stand when a sick scientist grabs Gary Sinise:

Watch Gary Sinise get sick scientist groped here 

I think for the first session (Gen Con) I actually had the experiment subject say those exact words.  Both times I described the experiment subject as being in terrible physical condition.  Missing skin, tendons, and misshapen.  It was pretty gross.  That player then had to deal with the subject before they could reenter the fray.  

Making Amla-Shoon's Case

By the end of the adventures the players discover that Amla-Shoon is the "final boss", crazy mad scientist trying to uncover the secrets of the True Code through experimentation on un-quickened humans.  Although I ultimately failed, I really tried in both sessions to play up Amla-Shoon as someone who only experimented on "bad people", like child predators, murderers, and people who talk trash on the Fast and the Furious…

… seriously, everything Vin Diesel touches is gold.

I'd love to have my player characters really struggle with choosing whether or not to battle Amla-Shoon, perhaps even agreeing to join their side.  I really enjoy foes who are neither good nor evil, and after reading through the adventure again, I'd probably take out her "insanity" and perhaps lay some breadcrumbs early on that she may have a point.  The adventure does give a brief paragraph called "Joining Amla-Shoon" that covers this possibility.  

Mastodomination!

If you've already GM'd or played Mastodon I'd love to hear your own stories.  What kinds of GM intrusions did you run?  If you were a player, what were your favorite moments?