Sci Campaign: The System So Far

So I've been ranting and raving about sci fi and pretty much putting my fingers in everything science fiction related. I'm replaying Mass Effect 2, as well as playing a lot of Beyond Earth again. I'm watching The Expanse with the missus. And I got a whole bunch of sci fi RPG books and supplements, like Book 6: Scouts for Traveller and SWN's Engines of Babylon, as well as some Mindjammer stuff (the new BLUE adventure) and Diaspora. Basically, I think I'm going all in for the sci fi game next year.

I am thinking that I'm going to be running Stars Without Number, with the Engines of Babylon, Suns of Gold, and Transhuman Archives supplements. I honestly enjoy the themes and settings in Eclipse Phase, but the lack of spaceship support is a real deal break. I was heavily considering Cepheus Engine (and I still am), but I think my players might be more familiar with the more D&D aspects of SWN.

With Engines of Babylon, it's to bring the ships down a bit in tech. Less Star Trek and more Firefly or The Expanse. I've modified it somewhat for ease, using Cepheus Engine's acceleration and distance chart for travel. For Suns of Gold, I'm using the colonization rules from that with some alterations. Since the players are out on their own without any real allies, they are going to have to get their own resources. The ark ship they have has resources on it, but eventually, they will need their own stuff to survive on their new home of NESS 89-03 (purposely made it sound too scientific so the players would feel encouraged to give it a more dynamic name). This won't get into the detail and minutiae like you'd see in a 4x game like Alpha Centauri. I haven't decided how to do the resource harvesting, but I plan on keeping it very simple. I'm actually looking at ACKS's Domain Management system for this, since most of the leg work is done and I really like that system.

Speaking of ACKS, I will be using their Population Increase mechanic for the players' colony. Much of this is to represent the people in cold sleep or archived being put online and brought back down to the new colony. The big change I'm making is the value of families. In ACKS, 1 family is 5 people. For this colony game, it will be 50, 500 or 5,000 people, depending on how much resources they put into self sustaining terraforming installations. This will essentially be a part of building Local Supplies (from Suns of Gold) and means that population growth will increase until the colony is big enough (100,000 people) to really be its own city-state instead of just an outpost.

For planet generation, I've been using Mindjammer's System Generator. It's surprisingly good, with lots of information for the planet and its make up and resources. This means that each planet will always have something interesting on it, even if it isn't a full-on session of adventure. That will be very useful, as eventually, the players will get their hands on FTL travel. But, that will bring its own issues, which I'll talk about another time. Finally, I like the dual class idea from SWN's Designer Notes. I may be allowing that.

That's about it for the rules side. I do want to talk about the setting and get things squared away with that.

Ideas for a Possible Sci Fi Campaign

It never really fails for me, really. When it comes to RPGs, I am very ADHD. One week, I'm all about D&D and fantasy races and building up my fantasy setting. The next week, I'm drawing up a star map for a sci fi campaign. Good thing for my players that I have a great deal of adventures ready for our 5e game, or else I'd be screwed for spending the last week prepping for a game I won't be running for a long time.

So, it started last Thursday on my girl friend's birthday. We went to see Rogue One. I liked it. And I kinda caught the bug for sci fi. Then we saw Interstellar on Sunday. Now we are watching through the Expanse. And boy, the sci fi bug is really hitting me. As much as I love D&D and fantasy, science fiction has always been my first love. Most of my movies, books, and video games are sci fi related. This is why I am now taking the time to detail out a possible campaign, or set of campaigns.

Campaign Idea

So here is what I have for ideas, first being what I'm most excited about.

Human Exodus - In this campaign, the Earth has been wrecked by a Luna mining incident gone wrong. This has fractured the moon and caused pieces of it to hit the Earth, flooding major cities and blanketing the world in a cloud of ash. The nations of the Earth come together in desperation and pour every resource into the impossible: a massive space ark with millions of people, seeds,  resources, and genetic material on board and a wormhole generator with enough energy to work once. So the players will be undertaking this one-way trip to a far away world charted for them. Of course, things go wrong...

For this, I'm torn between starting the game post launch, or starting it leading up to the launch. The latter is nice because it sets up the background and setting more with the ongoing conflict between those that want to fix the Earth and save everyone, and those that are leaving with only a handful of people. And it'll be something that'll haunt them in the future. For this first part, space travel will be stuck on the stellar system they currently jumped to. But that will change, as you'll see below.

One idea I have is that when the players make it to the world, they will eventually find remnants of a colony already there. The strange part is that they discover that the colony was filled with Earthlings. As they'll discover, they were stuck in the wormhole for decades, and in that time, the people of Earth sent a second ship capable of FTL to try and meet with the ark. Things went wrong, they crashed, and there are very few survivors. One of which is the person that invented FTL and can retrofit the ark with it. This will open up the sector and allow the players to have a more Traveller-esque experience with space exploration, further colonization, and getting more resources for their colony.

With all this, mind you, there will be colony and resource rules as well as exploration. The players will be creating a managing a colony, though the management part will be between sessions so that the session can focus more on the game itself. There will be your standard alien wilderness encounters, as well as the social issues of trying to keep a colony together. There will be splintering of factions and such as the colony is built up. Possibility of outright war. There is also dealing with the survivors of the FTL mission that have 'gone native' and are now raiding the colony for supplies. And even the air is attacking the players, as there is a large amount of fungal spores from the flora that is poisonous to the humans.

Some things for the future, if the campaign sticks, are plans for the players' first contact with aliens. I like to go weird with aliens rather than people with suits, so it'll be something crazy. In addition, when their colony is a large, bustling metropolis, there will be contact from an invading force. But it isn't aliens... it's the Earthlings they left behind. But that might be a different campaign for another time.

A lot of this is based on all kinds of games and movies with this in its nature. Alpha Centauri, Civ Beyond Earth, Mass Effect Andromeda, Interstellar... lots of good info of this. There is also a frontier feel to the game, much like Firefly and Starcraft. The players really are out in the space boonies. I tend to lean towards harder sci fi (though not too much) and I have been enjoying The Expanse, so expect at least the social issues of that to creep in. I have considered having multiple, smaller arks from different countries to make it easier to have rival colonies, but I think for now I will keep it one ark that they can fight for control over. Have the rival colonies splinter off from there. There will also be transhuman elements in the game, though not to the extent that you see with games like Eclipse Phase or Nova Praxis. But, there will be mind uplinks and sleeving, as well as some basic nanotechnology and cornucopia machines.

Rule System

So now the elephant in the room is... what system do I run this in? Right now, I'm looking at Stars Without Number, as it is the only rule system I know that has rules for running a colony (Suns of Gold). That is really important to me. I plan on tying that together with the rules of population growth from Adventure, Conqueror, King's Domain Management section. That said, I also enjoy Cepheus Engine (essentially old school Traveller) and the ruleset there. Though the trade section wouldn't get much use until much later. I thought about Mindjammer, but FATE rules don't quite resonate with me as they do with others. As much as I love the setting and technology of Eclipse Phase, the lack of rules for space travel and combat is a deal breaker for me. I've also considered M-Space, but I don't own that.

So that's the campaign I'm looking to make. Tell me what you thing, any ideas you have, and what ruleset would be great to try out.

Thivola Regional Map

Thivola Regional Map: 1 hex = 24 miles opposite corners. Sub hex = 6 miles

So here is the regional map of the setting I am running my players in. This isn't anywhere close to the final draft, as everything is too saturated and such. But, this is usable enough to where I can give it to my players and we can use it.

I will be placing some more icons on the map as the game continues and demands it. At the moment, the red triangle is the city of Kosna, the dilapidated frontier city that the players are currently at. As you can see, they are at the edge of a large forest. They've encountered some interesting locals both new to the players and familiar. There are some roads on the more zoomed in Province map below. These roads lead to some of the keeps that lie on the frontier. Two of the ones that the players have encountered were housing not the locals, but other people. The first one had a tribe of onbu, squat grey fey creatures that were robbing the locals on the roads. The second one had a mercenary band of orcs performing a sky burial for a fallen comrade killed by a pack of Iemesch. 

In addition to Kosna, there is the black square in the upper area by the merging rivers. This is the capital of the frontier province, Rikantu. This is very much a large city and a great place to get some items that would normally be out of the price range for the players. This is also a good place for some more urban styled adventures. Dealing with guilds 

At some point, I do plan on putting the map through the GIMP and work on it. Clean up the line art more, color it in a much better way, better icons. For now though, this will suffice for my game.

Thivola Provincal Map: 1 hex = 6 miles opposite corners. Sub hex = 1 mile

Above is the zoomed in Province Map, colored with pencils instead of GIMP. This is the actual map that I use currently for the day to day adventuring. Currently, my players are stranded in the mountains that are two hexes to the right of the city of Kosna (the red and black triangle). You can see that I've put in some roads and icons in here for the keeps and such. The way I have been doing my 'zoomed in' maps is that I try and break up the globs of terrain more as I zoom in. So, looking at the Regional and Provincial maps, you'll notice that I broke up the glob of forest some. I did this by adding bare patches of grasslands as well as some forested hills and such. I like doing this because it makes the terrain more realistic and more varied for the players. Though drawing it was a bit of a pain, but it was certainly worth it I feel.

I plan on populating it some more as the month progress. One of my biggest blocks right now is the trouble of finding stable work. Sadly, it's taken up a lot of my time to search for a job that can help pay to keep the lights on. The other thing I want to work on is the largest Atlas map, where I can get into some of the real big changes in area, like rainforests and deserts and such. Plus, I do plan on adding a sort of confederation of free city-states for the players to interact with and possibly even rule in, if that is their sort of thing.

That's it for now. I do want to detail some of the adventure sites on the Provincial map for the next blog, as well as talk about how the "Adventure in One 6 mile Hex" is going.

Turkey Day Approaches

For a RPG and food blog, I don't have much to say about food here. So, time for the second blog about food, celebrating Turkey Day. I apply that old school, DIY attitude to making food, making delicious stuff with both traditional and new methods.

So for this, I have decided to do something different with the turkey. See, I have a sous vide thermocirculator I got for myself as a graduation gift. It's a really handy device that lets me cook things in sous vide. What's sous vide? Well, it's when you store a food item in a ziplock bag or other plastic bag, then cook it in water that is kept at a certain temperature. It keeps the food at a constant temperature and lets you fire and forget, working on other stuff. To learn more, you can go to ChefSteps or Serious Eats for more information.

So I've been rocking that and have decided to sous vide the turkey pieces. This is to ensure correct cooking time, maximum juiciness, tenderness, and flavor. In addition, dark meat cook to a higher temperature than white meats. Cooking the breasts together and away from the thigh quarters ensures that the breasts don't end up dry and boring. So starting, I needed the turkey.

I made a bit of a mess here.

I went with a young turkey because I'm only feeding three people. So it'll be enough, especially with sides and such. With this, I broke down the turkey carcass into quarters. Two leg quarters and two airline breasts. One thing that was disappointing was that the company that pre-trussed the legs screwed up the skin on the tips of the turkey breast. Shame, as I really wanted it to cover the whole breast for searing. No worries though, we can manage.

Top two: Leg Quarters; Bottom two: Airline Breasts

An airline breast is a breast cut that retains the forewing bone. This was mostly for looks, so that it'd look the same as the leg quarters. Sadly, I screwed up the skin on the bottom left turkey breast. I'm getting out of practice. I also removed the thigh bone from the two thighs up top. Again, this was for symmetry and also for ease of slicing when I serve everything cooked up.

From this point, I seared all of the turkey pieces on a cast iron pan for maximum browning! Did it for a minute skin side down so that we can get the skin nice and crispy, then took it off. While I'm getting all of this prepped up, I have the thermocirculator heating the water to 167 F. Once the turkey pieces were seared on their skin side, I put each piece in a separate ziplock bag. In this bag, I also put olive oil, salt and sugar to brine while cooking, and some herbs. For salt and sugar, I like to go 5 parts salt to 2 parts sugar. Then I cover the pieces of meat with them fairly heavily. For herbs, I like rosemary and thyme with a bit of sage. Can't go wrong with that.

Now, we have our four bags, each with their flavorings and their turkey quarter. I elected to do the legs first, but you can start with the breasts. Here are the turkey leg quarters cooking in the sous vide hot bath.

Nice browning on these bad boys.

These suckers will be in there for seven hours. Plenty of time to kick back and relax, maybe plan out the sides. When they are done, I put them in an ice bath to bring down the temperature, then store them in the fridge until Thanksgiving. Because they are already cooked to the temperature required for doneness, it's all a matter of reheating by searing it again. I'll show you what I do with them on Thursday. From here, I repeat the process, but bring the temperature down to 131 F and do the breasts for eight hours. 

Thing is, now I have a carcass laying around. And with that, plus the wings and thigh bone, and all of the other offal (neck, gizzard, heart, liver), I still have a lot of stuff lying around. Do we through that away? Hell no. Throw it all into your biggest stock pot, throw some whole carrots and halved white onions and celery, fill with water, and put it out to make turkey stock.

DIY applied to cooking.

In mine, I also threw in some garlic cloves, black peppercorns, and bay leaves. I love that extra flavor. The stock stays on a simmer for 6-8 hours. You can also roast your carcass for extra flavor. I like to put my oven to 225 F and then place the stock pot in there to cook for eight hours. After that, strain it and cool it off so you can store it for later. I will be using this for gravy, but you can also use this to flavor your rice instead of using just water. Or make an awesome turkey soup. Or turkey polenta/grits. Maybe a turkey flavored gastrique.

That's the start of my Turkey Day. I plan on having some pictures and actual recipes of the sides in the coming two days. I'll also post up a picture of the finished turkey stock later. Until then, have a great Turkey Day!

Atlas Map of South Western Thivola (WIP) plus Campaign Stuff

With my 5e/ACKS mashup coming in less than a week, I've been taking a lot of the side work I've been doing the last couple of weeks and getting it all together for Session 1. Setting notes, NPCs, towns, people, monsters... I have quite the treasure trove of stuff ready for this game. While I've played 5e, I have only ever run it once, so I haven't gotten into creating my own races and such yet. Still want to get my sea legs with the current ruleset before I start creating. But I imagine it won't take too long.

Below is the Atlas sized map for South Western Thivola, the continent inspired by South America.

This map in particular is inspired by the Chilean-Argentinean area where Santiago is. The north western part becomes a desert due to the coastline mountain range blocking the trade winds and due to it getting ever so closer to those Horse Latitudes. Further north, there is a plateau similar to the Altiplano. I plan on having a variety of deserts up there. The barren wastelands, the dried up lake turned salt flat, and some sandy dunes. The mountain range is Etapu's Spine, named after the people's founder god of the earth and forests, Etapu. I plan on widening it some more as it goes more south. On the other side of it in the north lie the beginnings of sub tropical wet forest. Further north and east, I'll probably put in some more rain forests and swamps.

As you get more south, the terrain, climate, and vegetation changes to be more green and hilly. The mountains get closer to the coast. The climate becomes more temperate with Mediterranean summers. More rivers and some swamps here and there. This is where the players will be starting their adventures. On the other side of Etapu's Spine, I plan on widening the mountain range to be about 200 mi wide. Very much a montane/alpine area. Then, it will lead to a more arid, steppe-like area of nomadic tribes and such before hitting the coast on the other end.

From here, I have a great variety of terrains and climates that will make exploration and travel interesting to the players. While they will be starting in something a bit more familiar, they can end up in some deserts, rainforests, alpine, or even tundra. All in a geographically close area.

I do have more zoomed in maps for campaign use. I have a Regional Map with small 6-mile hexes that create large 24-mile hexes. I also have a Provincial Map with small 1-mile hexes that create a large 6-mile hex. And finally, I have the Local Map, which just focuses on a single 6 mile hex broken up into 43 1-mile hexes and half/third hexes. Below is a mostly finished Provincial Map. The players will be starting in the large triangle.

I'm bad at coloring within the lines

You can see that from the center to the upper left, my style of drawing changed drastically. I went from doing more symbolic mapping to more iconic mapping. I may redo this at a later point to keep the style consistent and to use a hex map that isn't so dark.

While this campaign is using 5e for the basic rules, I've been using ACKS for a lot of the nation building. You'll notice in the Atlas map that there are some pencil marks that encircle certain areas of the map. These are provinces of the empire ruling over the northern area. The cities are the capital holdings of the nobles in charge of these provinces, built up by ACKS's empire building rules. It was pretty interesting putting the rules to work. Setting up populations and big cities and the empire's metropolis capital in the mountains. The players will be adventuring on the frontier area, away from a lot of these big cities. However, with enough travel time and horses, they can get to one of the capitals in four days. Great if they want to buy and sell expensive stuff, or want more urban adventuring and a break from the wilderness.

I'll get more into detail with the mapping and campaign as the week goes by. Till then, let me know what you think about the maps. 

Running a Game Finally

So for the first time since the move in early October, I'm going to be running a game for some friends online. While I did want my first game to be face to face, it's still nice to get to GM again. And there is still time open to run a game in real life.

So the game of choice is 5e. While I'd prefer to try and run ACKS, the players are more familiar with 5e. And right now, given their revolving door of GMs and failed games, I think they could use some familiarity to ease their fears that my game will tank after a couple weeks.

So the question now is... what to run?

I have a setting I've been using for a couple of years now. It's based on a fantasy styled Caribbean, inspired by much of the folklore and cultures therein. While I like it and will continue to run games there, I've decided to expand the setting more. Inspired by South America's cultures, folklore, and terrain, I want to do something set there. 

The terrain is a big thing for me, because I love exploration. And South America has a great amount of varied, extreme terrain. Huge mountains, large deserts with the largest salt flat, massive rainforests... it's really exciting.

I've also been reading a lot about the different folklores and peoples there, which has been really fun. Great inspiration. It's helped me decide what I want to do for the campaign.

Here are the two ideas I have for it:

1. War has ended, but the continent is in turmoil. Ka Macha, new leader of the great Rational Quencha Empire, has won the civil war and now owns the empire. However, he now has to succeed in holding and repairing the land that is shattered by famine, violence, and hate. The players are currently paid body guards for a nobleman who is being sent to a fort hamlet as an act of reclaiming and repairing it for the Quencha Empire. 

This sets the players on a set goal at the beginning, but then opens it up to the sandbox a little later. I prefer easing players into the sandbox because I find that those that aren't used to it do freeze up a bit. After the initial adventure, they can leave the noble's service and do their own thing. Since this is also on the frontier, there is plenty of open wilderness to explore, take over, and own for the players. But for those that aren't interested in wilderness, there is the town and its people that they can interact with. 

2. The great Quencha Empire has consolidated its holdings and now seeks to add other tribes and city states into their control. The players are scattered tribes and bands, each driven from their lands into the great and terrible rainforests. In this, the players unite the squabbling tribes into one great kingdom to oppose the mighty empire.

This is a sandbox game with a sort of goal oriented metaplot. While it is a bit more buy in, I feel it's open enough where the players can still do what they want if they decide to take a break from being rulers. Plus, from a personal perspective, it turns the Law = Good Guys Chaos = Bad Guys around some as now, the players are the barbarians and beastmen dealing with adventurers and would-be conquerors driving them from their livelihood.

I'm leaning more towards the first one, though I do like the second one a lot. Tell me what you guys think. Also, for anyone that knows more about South American history, culture, and folklore, I'd love to know more about it for more inspiration. 

Tension, Stress, Fear, And Fatigue

I've been wanting to do a mechanic for stress and tension in the game to add a bit more atmosphere to my games while having mechanical bonuses/penalties for such things. In making this, I'm looking at something that is easy to run and adjudicate and adds a bit of difficulty and nuance to adventuring. An extra complication to consider before setting off into the great wilds. Much of this is inspired by Darkest Dungeon, a really great game where stress and fear play a big part of adventuring. Some of the rules part and rules decision is inspired by Goblin Punch's sanity rules here as well as the rules in Torchbearer. A lot of this is also inspired by reading my brother's journals about fatigue and mental stress and how the two combine. Here we go!

Fatigue

Fatigue is when your character pushes themselves too hard mentally and physically and their body suffers from it. Forced marches, constant adventuring, dungeon delving, starving themselves, staying up for 24+ hours... these are all physically and mentally taxing on a person. Whenever someone overdoes it and fails their Constitution save, they become Fatigued. Fatigued means you gain a -2 to all d20 rolls made.

A character can still continue to go even when fatigued. Caffeine, adrenaline, and stim packs could be very useful for keeping you up. Every hour you spend doing something while Fatigued, make a Constitution check (DC 10 + 1 for every additional hour active). Failure means you are Exhausted. You take -4 to all d20 rolls and can only move up to half your speed. You also lose your Dexterity to your AC.

If the character still keeps going while Exhausted, then they make the same Constitution checks as before (DC 10 + 1 for every additional hour active). Failure means you are Disabled. You take a -6 to all d20 rolls. You can't make any physical action without making a Constitution check. People that attack you automatically hit. If your GM does coup de grace, then that can happen to you. You're just a human lump at this point, and every hour spent awake or active forces a Constitution check like normal. Failure means you die of exhaustion.

Getting rid of Fatigue generally requires a couple hours of rest. Getting rid of Exhaustion is a whole day affair of rest and relaxation. Getting rid of Disabled is a week minimum of bed rest and some medical attention. 

Tension

Adventuring is a dangerous and stressful career that can be cut short if you don't keep a level head. Any time you encounter something that can make you uneasy, cause some stress, or surprised/shock ed, you gain a point of Tension. This is like a tally mark. Things like seeing a dead body, or the lights going out on you, or hearing the sounds of a crazed monster in the woods at night can all add Tension. Then, the players that gained the Tension Point roll 1d20 + Wis, against a Target Number of 10 + the amount of Tension points. If you meet or beat the TN, your character is fine. If you roll below it. then you get Stressed. Most scenarios should really only give 1 or 2 Tension Points to each player, but some truly gruesome and horrific stuff could give 3 or more.

Stressed

When your character gets Stressed, they have a sort of minor breakdown. They might panic a bit, need to sit down, or vomit. That's up to the character. A Stressed character becomes Fatigued. Being Stressed doesn't go away until you take a couple hours to chill out and relax, generally away from the thing causing stress. Every time your character fails a Tension Roll, they get more Stressed. This becomes Exhaustion, then Disabled, then Death. Eliminating these stress levels can take much longer.

Being Stressed can also be a form of fear, depending on the situation. This works out like normal Stressed, only with some different reactions. Generally, reactions to being stressed out go under the four F's: Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn.

• Fight: You engage the source of fear in combat, with disregard for the situation.
• Flight: You panic and flee away as fast as humanly possible, leaving behind anyone
• Freeze: You are paralyzed with fear and cannot move, hoping that the thing doesn't notice you
• Fawn: You beg, flatter, or try and reason with the source of fear, praying it will spare you.

A player can choose which action their character takes, or you can roll randomly. I prefer the former, but they have to commit. Sometimes one of the F's works out. Other times it lands you into trouble.

A GM can give a madness to players. This is optional and there are plenty of sites and books with examples, from manias to phobias. I'd suggest picking one that fits the situation, instead of rolling.

Reducing Tension

It's hard to reduce Tension while you are in the scenario causing it, but it is possible. If out adventuring in a dungeon or wilderness, taking a break to shoot the shit with your fellow PCs and NPCs can help drop it by 1 or 2. Finding a safe spot to rest also helps. In a more urban, social adventure, maybe taking an hour or two in the castle courtyard can help you find your center before tackling the corrupted vizier, dropping your Tension down 1 or 2 points. These also make great points for roleplaying with your compatriots, or other friendly NPCs that you know. Leaving the scenario that is causing Tension lets you reduce it all to 0.

Adrenaline Rush

Tension isn't all bad. When the chips are down and you need a boost, you can activate your Tension and get an Adrenaline Rush. For a number of rounds equal to half of your Tension Points (round up, minimum 1 round), you gain advantage on all attack rolls and ability checks. In addition, you ignore all Fatigue effects for these rounds. At the end of your rush, however, you are immediately Stressed out and gain a level of Fatigue. If you were Disabled and did an adrenaline rush, then you die. You pushed your body too far.

Jaded

Adventurers that survive have seen it all and don't get as easily spooked as veterans as they did when they were novices. When players survive a tense scenario or adventure, they can become jaded. That same scenario won't give them any Tension Points. So a player that keeps a level head while getting attacked by zombies won't get Tension Points when encountering future zombies. The only way to affect a jaded individual is escalating the scenario. So a jaded character won't get tense when being attacked by zombies, but maybe seeing them slaughter an entire village trapped in a church might. Fighting ghouls may be fine, but seeing a ghoul drag off your good friend while he's screaming and begging for help will make you Tense. It's all about context, and I encourage GMs not to overly abuse it.

Design Notes

One thing people might notice is that I've created the Fatigue, Exhausted, and Disabled conditions and tied them to stress and fear. Why is that? Well, my brother was once a Marine and I remember reading and hearing him talk about the humps and the fear and tension of being out in Afghanistan. And one thing that stuck from him and other soldiers is how the fear and fatigue really go hand in hand out there. So that's why I united the Fear/Stress mechanic with Fatigue. It simplifies the mechanics and I can use the Fatigue model for other things, like a project I'm working on for clerics.

In addition, I was looking for something a bit less drastic and more down-to-earth with these mechanics. I didn't want random madness tables or sanity scores. Just something a bit more low key.

These rules have been used in one game and were okay, but not enough to test them out. I think they work fine, but I can't wait to put them through their paces more. Tell me what you think about them, and any changes to the ruleset.