A LIFE less ordinary

Whilst surfing around the blog-o-sphere yesterday I stumbled across some chaps discussing their roleplaying groups and whether some were too chatty / social and not getting enough actual gaming in.

Interesting, as it was Star Wars again last night and I felt the need to raise the point that we'd been back to it for 6 months now and did the group feel that it was time for a change?

The chatter moved onto to the fact that it didn't feel like we'd got much actual adventuring done, almost two longer missions. General opinion was that start times had slipped a bit, mission planning often involved plenty of discussion (still roleplaying!) which could be done in between sessions via e-mail and generally ballsing things up on a regular basis.

No great problem for anyone but we'll finish this mission and then review. More than likely we'll return to D&D or maybe find a bit of filler with something else, mini-campaigns / board games etc.

I often Google up some images for these posts, being a very visual type, and "Roleplaying" brought up some interesting results including various Basket Ball references that were a long way beyond me.

With my my interest piqued, especially with Aaron's recent tropes offering, I did a quick wiki-search through a wry smile: RESULT

I've had a go at everything on that page in the last 20 years and had great fun doing it but with reference to the top image it's possible that I've gained a cumulative +/- 1 bonus every few years. Now there's a can of worms!!

I've also played rather a lot of Magic / Tragic prior to getting into wargaming though as previously alluded to here I've recently found myself more and more drawn to the recent slew of miniature based boardgames.

Meanwhile, last night the chaps finally cleared the cold, airless, zero-G cargo pod that they recently blundered there way into and started to get on with actually locating the crates that they'd been sent after.

With Star Wars all enemies come rated by Challenge Level (CL). Six level 4 players gives me a total CL of 36 to play with. So far I've gone for an even spread as with some of the big-bads I loose track of all their skills / abilities too quickly. This time its CL 1 and 2 battle-droids plus one CL 8 bad-ass based on a Bounty Hunter profile.

At the relevant point, droid goons dispatched and the lights still off, Big-Bad struck, randomly going after one of the more isolated chaps. Once again, Mr C came up trumps and was soon sucking deck having dropped down the Condition Track a couple of steps.

I was actually remembering rules, feats and abilities and deploying them effectively. Next came a Stun Grenade welcoming Aaron and Ian to unconsciousness whilst they attempted to shutdown the droid server. TACTICS!!! Eyebrows were raised by all, the group were tightening sphincters. Good stuff :)

Thinking that I might need to back down a bit Jon's Jedi once again stepped forward. I braced.

Jedi action 1: new feat giving him Damage Reduction of 10 - sensible / fair enough
Jedi action 2: lift and slam large cargo container into Big-Bad - minimal damage / felt like a let off
Jedi action 3: Force Stun on a natural 20 - Big-Bad drops down the CD like a stone - feck, Feck, FECK
 
Big-Bad is still going but is now at minus 10 to everything including his defense. He unleashes a bit, spending Dark Side force Points liberally and even with the Jedi spent and battered eyes the situation as the other lads suddenly find a bit more courage.
 
Tactical withdrawal thanks! Jon gets his powers refreshed but so can Big-Bad and they've still got to find what they're after and make a getaway........................ poxy Jedi ;)
 
Ding ding, round two!!