Nothing quite like a campaign to get me fired up

[Rob Lang]

So, I'm running a new Icar campaign. My last campaign (playing my free RPG The Wall) sadly fizzled over Christmas and a change in job made it hard for me to have any head space for working on a campaign setting.

Last Tuesday, while sitting chatting to roleplaying chums about Life (The Universe and Everything), I made the bold statement to just stop faffing about and run the still-fledgling Trooper Setting.

What I did then
Panic.

What I did after that
I took stock of what I had. Got all the notes organised and started putting them into . Organising timelines and events with Icar's sandbox principles is really easy in trello.

Made a list of what I needed
What was needed for the first 2 sessions? I made a complete list. Everything! Getting my dice bag sorted out, a new bag to carry all this rubbish in, printing off character sheets, new equipment sheets and so on.

Hit problems
I need a new sector map for Typhon. I have an old-style one that I could use but I wanted a nicely printed one in A3. It needed to be able to fit against the Remmar map in v4. But the process to create that was not repeatable. Rats. I need to recreate them all (which is easy now I have the computing power). Which means updating the v4 document.

Do I really need all that?
The Typhon map is going to be important but I won't need it for the first session. I can get away with just a local planet map. I only need it when it goes a little more sandboxy. That can wait.

Prioritise
With the remaining assets, I finished off the nearly-done ones so that it was easier to see what was left. Bionics sheet done, TAFAC sheet half done, Stone (dropship), have model - need stats, cheat sheets and pre-made Skill lists (Trooper characters don't get to choose skills).

Am I ready?
No. But do I need to be completely ready before next Tuesday? Probably not!

[Rob Lang]

Am I ready now? Mostly! I've sent off a list of things to print to a volunteer player (thanks Byrn!) as my printer setup is knackered and the local copy shop is longer than a lunch-time walk.

I am still missing some stuff I wanted in the way of cheat sheets but I can live without them because they are pretty well described in my fledgling setting document.

[edit] Here's a link to a couple of new pictures...
https://plus.google.com/101167212141043 ... hnZouDHZQT

[DOC_Agren]

So Rob, how comes the new Fleet setting?

[Rob Lang]

It's great that you ask, keeps me all frothing at the creative keyboard.

Well, rather well. We playtested Space Combat week-ago-last-week and there were some niggles to iron out but the concept is sound. I'm currently working on updating the rules and the space craft to rebalance a lot of that.

I have been metaphorically vomiting out content for it. I am going to rebalancing a few things on the TAFAC (powered armour) side and reducing the power of the Rapier cannon - 10k damage at a BF of 100 is a bit much!

I have stat'd most of the Droids now and have used a bunch of them against the players. I've been working on a list of "horrid things a Droid can do your players won't expect", which as 20 items now. Brilliant for plot hooks.

Best of all, I think the campaign itself is pretty solid in concept. The players haven't found an easy way to solve their problem and shooting their way out of everything simply isn't an option when your ammo is limited. I am enjoying people being 'racist' toward them (not quite the right word but certainly the right form of ignorant vehemence). I was nervous that giving supreme powers wasn't interesting but then it becomes difficult to choose when to use them.

So, yes, well! I am going to keep hacking away at it. I should really blog about this.

[Onix]

Sounds awesome Rob. I want to see!