Phase 2 -- Stat Blocks

I now have a pretty comprehensive spreadsheet compiling the names, places, factions, etc., from non-5e D&D campaigns of today and yesteryear. These campaigns include:

• Alien 
• Cyberwars (with all of its prequels, sequels, and spinoffs)
• Dark Enigma
• Doctor Who
• Earth Commanders
• The Ladder
• The Other World
• Project Descartes
• Tales of the Ternion
• Torchlight
• The Vanguard Saga

Putting the spreadsheet together was the main objective of this phase of my project. However, in order to create a true multiverse where characters from various campaigns can cross over and interact with each other, the characters all need compatible game stats. The list above reflects a wide range of rules systems, from the Alien RPG (Alien) to TinyD6 (Dark Enigma) to 4e D&D (Torchlight). As I noted in a previous post, I've opted for the Cypher System as the common platform for the Front Porch multiverse. As such, my last step for Phase 2 is to assign a Cypher System level and stat block to all the characters in the spreadsheet. The core rulebook is a huge help, but I also picked up a copy of the Cypher System Bestiary, which looks like it will give me enough examples to balance characters from such wildly different genres.

Phase 1 Underway!

I mentioned last month that I've elected to use the Cypher System for my upcoming Vanguard sci-fi campaign and, ideally, all new campaigns in the Front Porch Multiverse going forward. (Side note: Big thank-you to my good friend Matt for really diving into the Cypher System rules!) One of the advantages of this system is that it's genre-agnostic, so it can be used for fantasy, modern, cyberpunk, or whatever. With a single ruleset, it will be super-duper easy for PCs and NPCs alike to cross over from one campaign to another. 

That got me thinking that I should pull together my notes from various campaigns -- names, places, storylines, adventure summaries, and the like -- and put them all into a single spreadsheet like the enormous one I created for the Druid Cycle campaign world. I have really great documentation from campaigns of the last few years -- Dark Enigma, Doctor Who, Tales of the Ternion -- so Phase 1 of my project is just to grab all that stuff and put it into one file. That's the easy part. 

Phase 2 is to go back to the not-so-well-documented campaigns of yesteryear, such as the Cyberwars series, and comb through my remaining notes for all the relevant info I can find. (Tim W, prepare to have your brain wracked!) The goal isn't to track down every last NPC name or obscure location, but essentially to mine those disparate records for anything that might help enrich future Front Porch Multiverse campaigns. 

Phase 3? I don't even want to think about it yet, but the final step is surely to merge the sheet created in the first two phases with the existing Druid Cycle spreadsheet to create one definitive repository of campaign data.

Cypher System

Recently the boys got me thinking about running a campaign set in my Vanguard universe, a sci-fi setting that has its origins in my very early childhood and has remained with me to this day. Most of my modern-setting campaigns -- from the cyberpunk Cyberwars (early 1990s) through the superheroes of Tales of the Ternion (2022) -- are essentially prequels of the Vanguard story. 

I've been looking around for an appropriate game system for this campaign, and gave the Alien RPG serious consideration, along with some d20-based systems. The boys, Nathaniel in particular, have broken the TinyD6 system (damn their incredible math skills!), so I needed something a bit more robust. I landed on Monte Cook's Cypher System, and now I'm kicking myself that I didn't find it sooner. This would have been the perfect system for all non-fantasy campaigns in my Front Porch multiverse. We could have used it for Tales of the Ternion, Doctor Who, Dark Enigma, and so many others. Well, better late than never! The Cypher System is now the official game engine of the multiverse.

Multiverse Mayhem

Don't ask me when we're going to find the time to run it, but I've been cooking up a new campaign for the boys that will link together many of the modern-setting storylines from across the Front Porch multiverse. Starting out as a direct sequel to Earth Commanders -- the first-ever Front Porch campaign from way back in 1988 -- and pulling in key characters and/or themes from The Other World, Cyberwars, and many more, this yet-to-be-titled story will give Matthew and Nathaniel a good foundation in our extensive catalog of non-fantasy campaigns. It's also an opportunity for me to untangle needless complexities and create a clearer narrative throughline from our earliest modern-setting campaign (The Ladder, set in 1895) through the various Cyberwars games of the late twenty-first century. More details to follow as this campaign takes shape, but I'm excited to get into some design work again!

BAM!

The venerable Cyberwars campaign and its many sequels and spin-offs has been a staple of the Front Porch multiverse since 1991. About five years ago, we started up a Cyberwars storyline in a post-apocalyptic setting and used the most recent Gamma World rules for game play. The event that led to the wacky mutations that are characteristic of Gamma World was a reality-rending cataclysm known as the Baryon Asymmetry Modification -- or BAM! The idea for the BAM came from the problem that the Big Bang Theory (the actual theory, not the TV show) predicts far more matter in the universe than we can actually detect. What, then, became of this missing matter? In the campaign, all that matter came back with a vengeance. In real life, it seems, the story of the missing matter is not quite so explosive...

Quintessence War

In 2015, the multiverse goes to war.

Galahad

I wasn't too interested in seeing the new Lone Ranger movie, but Matthew and I picked up one of the Lone Ranger Lego sets over the weekend (and I suspect Santa will be bringing the super-cool train set when Christmas rolls around!). We started building an Old West fort, and that got me thinking about a late-nineteenth-century Western setting for the Front Porch multiverse. The most logical location for the story would be the fictional town of Galahad, which, centuries in the future, would become the home base for the heroes in the post-apocalyptic Cyberwars spin-off, Ragnarok. I could use ancestors of the Ragnarok characters for the sheriff and other denizens of the town, and perhaps forge some links to The Ladder, the only nineteenth-century campaign we're had in a quarter-century of Front Porch action. I doubt if we'll ever get around to using this hypothetical Western setting for an actual campaign, but it may well add some interesting flavor to the growing multiverse.

Bastion #3

I mentioned earlier this week that I was changing the name of Elysium (the hidden stronghold of human civilization in the futuristic settings of the Front Porch multiverse) due to the recent film that overlaps with this concept. I've decided to change the name from Elysium to Bastion.

That name should sound familiar. A few months ago, I posted about adding a city called Bastion to the Shattered Realm campaign setting. Bastion is also the name of a city in the Druid Cycle setting. As a way of building up our multiverse and establishing links between the various campaign worlds, I'm going to insert a community called Bastion (some variation of the name may be necessary) in each setting. Bastion, then, will be the location where the folks are most closely aligned with the ideologies of the Ternion -- the overarching three-member pantheon of the Front Porch multiverse.

Elysium No More!

Those of you who have played in recent Cyberwars/Ragnarok campaigns or have perused the multiverse-spawning story "When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes" may recall that Elysium is the name of mankind's secret refuge in the bleak, post-apocalyptic future. However, it's also the name of a space station in the new Neill Blomkamp film of the same name. Given the similarities between the two Elysiums (although it's interesting to note that Blomkamp and I are using the concept of Elysium in almost diametrically opposing ways), I've decided to change the name of our Elysium. I'm not going to go back and edit "When Last We Left" or make any abrupt changes to the campaign narratives, but you'll notice a shift away from that name in the coming months. Later this week, I'll discuss the new name for this fabled Front Porch realm.

Launch of the Multiverse

Today I sent out copies of the story "When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes" to Front Porch players past and present. This story marks the beginning of a new era in Front Porch gaming. Now all campaigns -- as diverse as The Druid Cycle and Cyberwars -- are part of an overarching multiverse setting. Timothy and Amy are about to start new adventures in the multiverse era. If you'd like to start a new story of your own, just let me know!

When Last We Left...

After a lengthy and exhausting business trip, I'm now back in action and continuing work on the multiverse project that will either be the prelude to the Harbingers campaign or simply an amusing tale to celebrate twenty-five years of Porch games. The title of the story is "When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes," and I've divided it up into seven sections, with each section corresponding to a set of campaigns from our long history.

• Prologue: The Cyberwars / Ragnarok family of campaigns.
• Chapter 1: The Torchlight campaign setting.
• Chapter 2: The Druid Cycle campaign setting.
• Chapter 3: Shattered Realm and all the other fantasy campaigns from over the years.
• Chapter 4: 1930s and World War II campaigns.
• Chapter 5: The Other World, Earth Commanders, and the other modern-era campaigns, taking place in the Tales of the Ternion setting of Demeter.
• Epilogue: A return to the Cyberwars / Ragnarok campaigns.

So that's the basic outline. If you've played in a Front Porch campaign, you're very likely to see your character(s) mentioned in the story, or even show up in person! I've used Timothy's archives, as well as my own resources, to piece together as much of our history as possible. The finished product is still a couple of weeks away, but I'm excited about how it's coming along!

2013 Game Event: Part 2

My goal for our yearlong game event is to tell a story that resonates with events in other Front Porch campaigns, past and present. If you participate in this event -- either as a player or as an observer -- you'll see a lot of familiar names and themes, and you may even learn some vital information that pertains to the storylines of your usual characters.

To keep the focus squarely on the story, I'm going to go very, very light on game mechanics. Those of you who have participated in email-based adventures know that tactical encounters tend to slow things down. Weeks or even months can pass as we slog through round after round of combat.

We do need some sort of game rules, of course, so I considered a number of options. As you know, the game will be set in the contemporary city of Demeter (home to the superheroes of Tales of the Ternion) but since it's not going to be a superhero story, I've decided against Mutants & Masterminds. It isn't sci-fi, like the Cyberwars / Ragnarok campaign, so I'm not going to use Gamma World. It seems to me that the best choice would be d20 Modern, which is well suited for a "realistic" setting and is based on the familiar D&D 3.5 rules. I'll provide more information once we get started (including a link to the rules and a quick way to create a character), but for now I'll sign off with a promise to reveal the major theme of the story in my next post in this series.

Myths of the Far Future: Player's Guide

Check it out! Here's a free sci-fi RPG based on the 4e D&D rules.

Note for Timothy: This might be better than Gamma World for our Ragnarok / Cyberwars campaign...

DNS changer virus

Along with the discussion earlier this week about Cyberwars, I urge you to visit this site.  It wouldn't hurt to also run checks from the following websites.  It can deny your acccess to websites, but is relatively easy to fix.

Go to this website to verify that you are ok.
http://www.dns-ok.us/

Death of the Internet by making it non-functional really is a scary fantasy setting to live in!

Cyber Wars

My BBC news app brought up a story of a potential "cyber war". For some reason, this struck me as somehow...prophetic? It shouldn't really, because the term "cyber war" has been bandied about for many years now.

But could that long-ago game, Cyberwars, become a reality?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cyberwar-most-likely-to-take-place

Scary stuff, indeed.