Adapting Van Buren (Workshop - Complete on Page 30)

[Atomic Postman]

Ooh, that sounds really interesting

From what I remember, it's been about 3 years since I was a player in stars and my GM was doing it, you basically have pie charts with the amount of slices dependant on how prolonged you want the activity to be.

For say, a battle, you'd have two opposing pie charts with the completion of their respective pie chart meaning victory. You make opposed dice rolls, the roll can mean the chart stays static, you fill in the next slice, or if it's high enough you fill in multiple slices.

To represent advantages or disadvantages, you simply add dice. So in a battle where the numbers are 2:1, the first army would have two dice and the latter only one.

If you really wanted to you could simulate entire wars between sessions using these "clocks" to simulate major battles/struggles and then have the updated situation for next session, which was what my Stars GM did.

It can also be used for other things, such as crafting or whatever. Basically a way to represent progress involving dice.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

Any idea when we'll be able to see the first progress from the map makers?

 

[Atomic Postman]

Any idea when we'll be able to see the first progress from the map makers?

I just sent them an email this afternoon. Should get a rough first draft shortly. My emails with them prior were very in depth. They basically said they could handle it two ways, the cheaper method being satellite-map relief based with Fallout flourishes, or the "manual" (more expensive) method that was them digitally drawing from scratch to recreate the look of the Fallout world maps accurately.

I went with the latter.

They've since asked me for specific details to add. So I told them stuff like the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon being distinct, Glow-esque land between Los Alamos and Denver, huge blast crater over Cheyenne Mountain and smaller ones pocketing SLC and Denver. Also fantasy road esque trails for all the major highways.

 

[Dayglow Drifter]

A problem that's occured to me now that the campaign is more story-arc than sandbox : player character death.

With the Prison Boys, this seems like a very precarious situation. I'm not entirely sure how to handle it.

You could also frame new PCs as "companions" who are not linked to the prison facility at all but, for their own reasons, would not want to see it's terrors released upon the wasteland. This is something that could be handled relatively quickly through a quick talk with the Player during the generation of the new character, basically just explaining that it's important their PC has some motivation that ties into and advances the plot.

 

[Atomic Postman]

You could also frame new PCs as "companions" who are not linked to the prison facility at all but, for their own reasons, would not want to see it's terrors released upon the wasteland. This is something that could be handled relatively quickly through a quick talk with the Player during the generation of the new character, basically just explaining that it's important their PC has some motivation that ties into and advances the plot.

Yeah that's also a move I considered but it's hard to sell characters tagging along for such a quest. But, it's possible to crack that out I suppose. The worry is then when the party becomes a ship of Theseus, but I'm worrying too much about it. They might all survive the entire campaign anyway, who knows. I have two "modes" for my rulebook, classic which runs on basically the same health values as classic FO and "Hardcore" which reduces that and means without good armor, a high roll on a shotgun blast or a spear stab could kill a PC at first level instantly. I want to run the latter but my brain tells me not to if I want to run the Prisoners storyline.

Main reason I want to run the latter is because I was a player in a Stars campaign where starting health is somewhere between 2-10 and a basic combat rifle does 1d8 damage. The raw tension and actual investment in combat in those early level sessions was unparalleled.

The hardcore reduction is only a matter of 10 HP but it really makes a difference.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

I just sent them an email this afternoon. Should get a rough first draft shortly. My emails with them prior were very in depth. They basically said they could handle it two ways, the cheaper method being satellite-map relief based with Fallout flourishes, or the "manual" (more expensive) method that was them digitally drawing from scratch to recreate the look of the Fallout world maps accurately.

I went with the latter.

They've since asked me for specific details to add. So I told them stuff like the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon being distinct, Glow-esque land between Los Alamos and Denver, huge blast crater over Cheyenne Mountain and smaller ones pocketing SLC and Denver. Also fantasy road esque trails for all the major highways.

Here's one - have the area around Burham Springs look noticeably dark and twisted and smouldering, sort of like the area around the Glow but without all the craters.

 

[Dayglow Drifter]

Yeah that's also a move I considered but it's hard to sell characters tagging along for such a quest. But, it's possible to crack that out I suppose.

Yeah your best bet would just be pulling the Player aside and explaining that there's certain ramifications they need to keep in mind while making their new PC.

And I totally understand the appeal of running a Hardcore campaign as a DM but from what I've found most players don't find the concept as entertaining. The only way to really know for sure how it would go is to sit down with your players and explaining mechanically exactly how punishing the game would be.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Yeah your best bet would just be pulling the Player aside and explaining that there's certain ramifications they need to keep in mind while making their new PC.

And I totally understand the appeal of running a Hardcore campaign as a DM but from what I've found most players don't find the concept as entertaining. The only way to really know for sure how it would go is to sit down with your players and explaining mechanically exactly how punishing the game would be.

Well put it this way as a hypothetical, in classic an average character doing the Grand Junction quest fighting some raiders in a cave at Level 2 (they will level and pick first perk at end of session 1) will have 34 HP and either Tribal Armor or Lightweight Armor with 2 DT, going up against raiders with spears which deal 1d10+6 (Melee NPCs rule of thumb have 3 Melee Damage). At minimum that's doing 8 damage, reduced to 6 by armor. Leaving them with 28 HP - tis but a scratch. Combat will take a while. At maximum they're left with 20 HP - not too bad, again, and combat is going to take a while. Spears have 4AP so the badguy is likely to take a second swing however.

Same situation but in hardcore and that's leaving the PC with 18 HP - still not world ending but being struck by a spear is not something they're going to withstand in a leather jacket for very long. Now, alternatively at max damage roll it leaves them with 10 HP - a serious wound, and a successful second attack will almost certainly put them down.

I'm not sure why I did that really but just runs through the example.

 

[Atomic Postman]

@Hardboiled Android

Here's the first draft base map they're using before they start the work just to map out the terrain types. They asked me a few additional detail questions before they get started with the painting which I provided answers.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

@Hardboiled Android

Here's the first draft base map they're using before they start the work just to map out the terrain types. They asked me a few additional detail questions before they get started with the painting which I provided answers.

Obviously early, but a promising start.

I will say, I find the charring placements somewhat odd - why for example is there so much char around the intersection of I-15 and I-70? So far as I know there's nothing there. Same goes for the Medicine Bow National Forest. And I know you specifically requested char down from Denver to Los Alamos, but going further then Pueblo along the Sangre de Christos is odd, basically no one loves there, though maybe you could reason it's from dust storms. Where there should be a fuck ton of char but isn't is the interesection of I-25 and I-80 around Cheyenne due north of Boulder - there's an insane amount of nuclear missile silos there, it should make the terrain around the Glow look like Zion.

Also I think that the map should probably extend a hex or two further south, so we can see the bend of the Mogollon Ridge.

But nevertheless it's looking good, and since it's a rouygh draft I may be being too harsh.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Obviously early, but a promising start.

I will say, I find the charring placements somewhat odd - why for example is there so much char around the intersection of I-15 and I-70? So far as I know there's nothing there. Same goes for the Medicine Bow National Forest. And I know you specifically requested char down from Denver to Los Alamos, but going further then Pueblo along the Sangre de Christos is odd, basically no one loves there, though maybe you could reason it's from dust storms. Where there should be a fuck ton of char but isn't is the interesection of I-25 and I-80 around Cheyenne due north of Boulder - there's an insane amount of nuclear missile silos there, it should make the terrain around the Glow look like Zion.

Also I think that the map should probably extend a hex or two further south, so we can see the bend of the Mogollon Ridge.

But nevertheless it's looking good, and since it's a rouygh draft I may be being too harsh.

The char around I-70 and I-15 is odd. I will get them to remove that. However for Colorado I think it makes sense - the area is meant to be fucked. It nearly broke the Legion because of how population and resource sparse it was - and that's in comparison to arid wastelands of Arizona and New Mexico. To break the supply lines of the Legion having lands of truly barren Wasteland where they can't set up trapping/hunting camps or draw anything at all - just forced marches across charred soil to a destroyed, sandswept city.

Implicitly with the reference to recent nuclear detonation in the Brotherhood post - the Tactics BoS detonated a large warhead at Cheyenne Mountain to add further insult to injury.

I will get them to move the charring to Cheyenne area.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

The char around I-70 and I-15 is odd. I will get them to remove that. However for Colorado I think it makes sense - the area is meant to be fucked. It nearly broke the Legion because of how population and resource sparse it was - and that's in comparison to arid wastelands of Arizona and New Mexico. To break the supply lines of the Legion having lands of truly barren Wasteland where they can't set up trapping/hunting camps or draw anything at all - just forced marches across charred soil to a destroyed, sandswept city.

Implicitly with the reference to recent nuclear detonation in the Brotherhood post - the Tactics BoS detonated a large warhead at Cheyenne Mountain to add further insult to injury.

I will get them to move the charring to Cheyenne area.

I get it for Colorado, I'm more referring to where it goes down into New Mexico

 

[Atomic Postman]

I get it for Colorado, I'm more referring to where it goes down into New Mexico

It's a similar principle to how The Glow affected it's surrounding region. The one two of heavy bombing on Los Alamos and Cheyenne Mountain led to fallout poisoning the region. I've asked them to colour grade it so the black descends into a more greyish lighter colour.

 

[Atomic Postman]

PC will be ready Thursday morning so I'll wap up v.1 of the world book Thursday afternoon.

Any suggestions on alterations, additions or parts of the world that I should flesh out in the book? Obviously I will be incorporating changes we agreed on later as a matter of practice. Like Tartarus to Colossus etc

 

[Hardboiled Android]

Probably a lot, but I'll have to go back to find them.

The most obvious one is Bloomfield could use a write up, even though it seems like it will be basically the same as Van Buren. Which reminds me of an idea I had for a little Great Wastes synergy - have one of the Flagstaff Centurions request be a Super Mutant, and you can make Bear do it. You could force him with the slave collar of course, but I think it would be neat if you could just talk him into it fairly easily.

Maybe Painted Rocks, though I'm not sure if you've shitcanned them.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Probably a lot, but I'll have to go back to find them.

The most obvious one is Bloomfield could use a write up, even though it seems like it will be basically the same as Van Buren. Which reminds me of an idea I had for a little Great Wastes synergy - have one of the Flagstaff Centurions request be a Super Mutant, and you can make Bear do it. You could force him with the slave collar of course, but I think it would be neat if you could just talk him into it fairly easily.

Maybe Painted Rocks, though I'm not sure if you've shitcanned them.

Painted Rocks and Bloomfield are on the table for sure. Bloomfield varies from Van Buren in that the gang from VB are ancestors of what are now are more "tribal" group with families. Much like the Khans, a raider gang that lived long enough to become a tribe.

Painted Rocks will probably be fairly light on detail, they're a Rez descended tribe with decent manpower. A lot of stuff I originally planned for them I shifted to the Hangdogs.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

Taking those cazador musings out of my profile post so it stops messing with everyone's alerts -

I did look up Tarantula Hawks, and it seems like most of them don't make paper mache nests at all, they dig burrows, and they don't live together. So maybe the nest building behavior and the social behavior is from the DNA of other vespids that got spliced in, and they've held onto it even though they lack other trappings of colonial living (IE eusocial reproduction) and it's probably a disadvantage - they're very big predators, so if they all set up shop around the same area it seems like they'd exhaust prey pretty quickly, leading to them either starving or moving out for greener pastures.

Maybe this phenomenon, perpetual 'colony' (though really it's more like a condo) collapse, is part of why they've expanded so quickly, from the Mojave all the way to Zion.

Which also raises the point... since the cazadores all dispersed from a single point at an indeterminate time, it's possible that by the time of the Van Buren setting they haven't reached large swathes of the map, and are just showing up in others, making them a very new, very scary threat to locals. Just a thought.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Taking those cazador musings out of my profile post so it stops messing with everyone's alerts -

I did look up Tarantula Hawks, and it seems like most of them don't make paper mache nests at all, they dig burrows, and they don't live together. So maybe the nest building behavior and the social behavior is from the DNA of other vespids that got spliced in, and they've held onto it even though they lack other trappings of colonial living (IE eusocial reproduction) and it's probably a disadvantage - they're very big predators, so if they all set up shop around the same area it seems like they'd exhaust prey pretty quickly, leading to them either starving or moving out for greener pastures.

Maybe this phenomenon, perpetual 'colony' (though really it's more like a condo) collapse, is part of why they've expanded so quickly, from the Mojave all the way to Zion.

Which also raises the point... since the cazadores all dispersed from a single point at an indeterminate time, it's possible that by the time of the Van Buren setting they haven't reached large swathes of the map, and are just showing up in others, making them a very new, very scary threat to locals. Just a thought.

We don't really know when they were created by the Think Tank since Mobius's horror show has been looping for a very very long time. I have them as high level monsters in Arizona, and Hecate's top warriors imbue their weapons with Cazadore venom which in my system means you best have good poison resist or antidote on hand or it's lights out for you.

I may be misremembering but Ulysses talks about the "Crimson Trail" and how vital anti-venoms were in their survival - I always assumed Cazadores so the Legion has historic precedent.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

We don't really know when they were created by the Think Tank since Mobius's horror show has been looping for a very very long time. I have them as high level monsters in Arizona, and Hecate's top warriors imbue their weapons with Cazadore venom which in my system means you best have good poison resist or antidote on hand or it's lights out for you.

I may be misremembering but Ulysses talks about the "Crimson Trail" and how vital anti-venoms were in their survival - I always assumed Cazadores so the Legion has historic precedent.

Yeah they've probably been in Arizona for a long time - but maybe they're just making their first appearance in northern Utah and eastern New Mexico, making them extremely rare, and in Colorado virtually non-existent.

I think having this dynamic makes the world feel alive - cazadores aren't just some fantasy monster that's in every desert in America, they're a species that disperses over time like any real species des, nd you can see their advance in real-time.

What about this for a side-quest: in New Canaan, you hear of a disappearance in the wood-cutting camps. There are rumors of a monster. If you pursue these rumors, you find a lone low-level cazadore. None of the New Canaanites have seen anything like this before, though a few have heard of things like these. The players defeat the cazadore and find the corpse of the woodcutter, clearly used for egg laying by the cazadore... but the eggs are hatched. The process of colonization has begun, the spread of the cazadores to this part of the world is inevitable.

Another potential example is that Judah Black, hearing about cazadores from the Legion, could convince you to smear pheromones he's acquired around New Canaan to attract either the cazadore or the juvenile offspring (which otherwise cannot be found) to attack the city to make way for his own attack - "And I will send the Hornet before you to drive out the Canaanites before thee."

The second is a bit more of a stretch (and mainly just wanted to work in that quote because the Biblical references to 'the Hornet' are interesting and ambiguous') but I think the inital part, a boss fight against a low-level cazadore, is a neat idea that carries a lot of thematic weight.

EDIT: Apparently the Crimson Trail was in Logan, Utah, though I remember it being part of the Denver Campaign. Its a slightly interesting detail since Logan, Utah is the furthest north the Tarantula Hawk has been found. Regardless, if the Crimson Trail is indeed in Logan that would imply its a part of the New Canaan campaign, in which case if we see the first evidence of Cazadore colonization in northern Utah by 2253, that seems to provide ample time for them to fully infgest the region.

 

[Atomic Postman]

So, changes in the upcoming PDF:

• Tartarus renamed Colossus
• Iron Rivers golden spike quest and Big Rock Candy Mountain as folk mythos debated between each clan
• New Canaan and related using NCR Dollars instead of bottle caps
• New Canaan quest to establish trade with Burham Springs
• Emphasis on Ghouls in New Canaan - a glowing one has gone from radioactive to the touch to outwardly glowing and is isolated in his home.
• Detail on Syracuse Water Plant including a travelling Cipher of the West
• Detail on the Eagle Rock Tribe
• Detail on the Tar Walkers
• Tar Walker path for Burham Springs with the catch that it means it becomes a Mormon Mission and they're converts
• Detail on the 2253 White Legs
• Bounty hunting quest from Jericho inspired by Tom Dooley and Unforgiven, leading the party to Heartbreak Hotel
• Quest line regarding the party building a dune buggy - requires the help of the 80s as they are the only ones with a functioning stocked garage at Motown (which can act as a hub for maintenance and upgrades). Only doable if they're trusted Bubbas. If the party find a way to build it without them and cross the 80s, they will be periodically hunted by pairs of motorbike riding 80s trying to jack their ride. Same if the party somehow repair Buck's Truck and hijack it. They'll want to steal it just cause
• If Motown is besieged, the 80s torch the garage.
• Slave caravan questline from Heartbreak Hotel to Magnum Chasma
• Alexandra at Magnum Chasma and her decision to bring in the priestess or take her to the Rangers
• Copperheads are "Silvers" (Legion use silver coins)
• Twisted Hairs vendor and subplot at Magnum Chasma
• Detail on Painted Rock - much like the Dead Horses they're Navajo mixed with local tourists, but lean heavier on actual Navajo customs
• Detail on Bloomfield and the Rusty Hooks
• Detail on the Scorpions Bite and Glyphers
• Detail on the non-tribal communities of New Mexico

That's all that comes to mind now but more will flow as I type the document