Space Madness!

[Ancient History]

Okay. Yuggothians are stat'd out. That is all the aliens in the xenobestiary. All that's left is the combat example, adventure seeds, and ending essay.

And I'm not sure how many adventure seeds I want to make.

[Ancient History]

Combat Example is done:

Combat Example
In an almost empty Martian saloon, Space Ranger Gabby Wandburner has tracked down the Space Pirate Red Asme—it’s high noon on Mars, and a cold wind blows outside as the Ranger steps through the door, and calls her quarry out by name…

Combat Round 1
The gamemaster determines that initiative goes to Gabby, since she is starting the encounter. The characters are about four meters apart.
Declare Actions: Gabby’s player announces she will draw her wand (Draw action) and use the Level 3 Vril function Break Gate (Use Wand action) on Red Asme’s wand, and orders her to surrender (Talk). The gamemaster declares Red also draws both of her wands (Draw), fires a disruptor beam at the Ranger with the wand in her right hand (Shoot), and uses her remaining action point to move to cover behind one of the tables (Move, 2 meters).
Resolve Actions: As Gabby spent the initiative, she out-draws Red. Break Gate on a Rating 3 Space Pirate Special is a Visualization (3) Test—Gabby’s player spends 3 sagans and rolls 16 dice (Perception 8 + Visualization 4 + 2 bonus dice for being a member of the Solar Patrol), scoring four hits, shutting the wand down for 8 rounds—Red Asme curses as she raises one of her wands to shoot, but it clicks ineffectively. Quickly, the Space Pirate ducks behind a table for cover.

Combat Round 2
With Red Asme having the worst of the previous round, the gamemaster gives the initiative to Gabby again.
Declare Actions: Gabby’s player declares the Ranger will take a few steps back (Move, 1 meter) and use the Level 3 Orgone function Detonate (Use Wand) on the table that the Space Pirate is hiding behind. The GM declares Asme will break cover, sprinting away from the table to take cover at another one (Move, 2 meters), and fire a disruptor beam at the Ranger with her other wand (Shoot).
Resolve Actions: Detonate is a Visualization (4) Test; Gabby spends 4 sagans and rolls 14 dice (Perception 8 + Visualization 4), expending initiative for an automatic hit; she scores 4 hits. Red Asme feels the table heat up behind her and starts to move, but is still within the blast radius when the table explodes in a fireball of wooden splinters—Red takes 2 points of damage (⊙⊙→⊘⊘). The Space Pirate still manage to fire her disruptor beam at Gabby, burning full charge (6 sagans for the function); at short range, that only requires a Combatives (1) Test, and Red Esme has 9 dice (Courage 4 + Combatives 5)—converting eight dice into two automatic hits, the gamemaster doesn’t even have to roll; the Ranger takes six points of damage (⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙→⊘⊘⊘⊘⊘⊘), and Red takes an additional point of damage because her wand is Unshielded (total: ⊘⊘⊘), the wand itself alo starts to overheat, taking 1 damage (⊡→⊟). Red successfully make it behind the cover of another table.

Combat Round 3
Both characters are now hurt. Given that Gabby had the worst of it last round, and is still standing in the open, the gamemaster determines Red Asme has the initiative.
Declare Actions: The GM declares that Red Asme will remain behind cover, poking her head out to fire another disruptor beam at the wounded Ranger (Shoot); Gabby’s player declares she will take cover behind a nearby table (Move, 1 meter) and Detonate the Space Pirate’s wand in her hand when she tries to shoot (Use Wand).
Resolve Actions: As Red cannot see her foe, the GM decides Gabby successfully moves to cover. When the Space Pirate ducks out to take a shot, she finds the Ranger is waiting, most of her body concealed behind a table (75% cover). While still a short range shot, Red now takes a -6 dice pool penalty for the cover—she spends 4 sagans and rolls 3 dice (Courage 4 + Combatives 5 - 6 cover) for the Combatives (1) Test—but fails to roll a single hit; she expends the initiative for an automatic hit, and the beam hits and burns through the Ranger’s exposed shoulder, dealing 4 damage. With the damage Gabby has already taken, she runs out of unmarked health circles and takes two wounds, (⊘⊘→⊗⊗, total:⊗⊗⊘⊘⊘⊘⊘⊘) Red’s wand takes another point of damage for exceeding its Rating (total: ⊟⊟).
As Red’s wand comes into view, Gabby tries to Detonate it; this is a Visualization (4) Test; Gabby spends 4 sagans and rolls 12 dice (Perception 8 + Visualization 4 - 2 for her wounds). She gets lucky, and rolls 5 hits. The already-damaged wand takes 4 points of damage, completely destroying it—and Red, who is holding it, takes 4 points of damage (total: ⊘⊘⊘⊘⊘⊘⊘). Gabby takes a point of damage from her unshielded wand, which gives her another wound as characteristic wand burn patterns form on her hand (total: ⊗⊗⊗⊘⊘⊘⊘⊘).

Weaponless, Red Esme could continue to fight against the wounded Space Ranger—but one good beam from the Ranger’s wand could also put a hole through her skull big enough to spit through. Shakily, the Space Pirate raise her hands in surrender, ending the combat.

To The Death?
Death is a fact of life—and sometimes it is the entire point of combat. But not every combat, or even most combats, need to last until one side or the other has completely filled in every health circle. Unless a character is particularly fanatical, suicidal, or willing to sacrifice their life at all costs, characters are wounded or severely outnumbered and outgunned (or who think they are) will take an opportunity to surrender, talk things out, or run away, if any such opportunities exist. Officially, Space Rangers prefer making arrests to making corpses, although they are permitted to kill in defense of themselves and others. Player characters too, need not fight to their last health circle—unless the enemy is obviously after their lives, which is often the case—and if the PCs have the worst of a fight, the GM might offer them to surrender or be captured rather than letting them die bravely and roll up new characters. Of course, whether or not the players accept this opportunity is up to them.

I used a couple of the sample characters for this fight, which could have gone either way - since I didn't design them specifically for this confrontation, but just as a general close-quarters combat-with-rayguns kind of thing - and it came out okay. The hiccup to combat for me is that, natch, there's no actual "Who's on first?" system - so the GM does a lot of ad hoc deciding which actions happen first, which even with two characters gets a little messy. In another life where I cared, I'd have little charts with a hex grid layout to showcase where exactly the characters are in relation to each other.

[Ancient History]

Okay, adventure seeds mission profiles are done. Only four, but honestly I could do fifty and it wouldn't be too much for some people. Now I just have to do the closing essay and...that's it.

...which is, of course, when I expect one of you to do a review thread about it.

[Ancient History]

Okay two hundred pages later...I declare it done. Bet fulfilled. Now what? I have no idea.

[Iduno]

Okay two hundred pages later...I declare it done. Bet fulfilled. Now what? I have no idea.

Based on your current OSSR, sucker someone into writing a Tomb of Horrors parody set in Space Madness?

Or, if you want an actual good idea, a good adventure based on a specific piece of 50's space pulp with mythos added.

[virgil]

I'm still messing with cover design, but here's the interior layout of Space Madness! for physical printing and personal use. All of the art assets are public domain, largely from gutenberg.org

[Ancient History]

That looks far better than this game deserves.

[virgil]

As I said years ago when you started, that I was expecting something smaller in scope, so the fact you went ahead and went far above and beyond just means I'm going to do the same for the layout.

I mean, it's obviously amateur hour for layout design, and is frankly the first actual attempt I've ever made. It lacks a proper playtest and the subsequent changes to the ruleset from such, yes. However, any changes can easily be incorporated into the document itself, so the template should be good going forward; especially if I decide some design element needs to change (several of the symbols need higher resolution).

I love the concept. I'm super happy that I chose Mythos as one of the keywords, because the sheer amount of lore you've put into it far surpasses anything Chaosium's done. Your design chops are competent and certainly better than mine, which frankly puts you a fair bit ahead of the current industry standard.

Honest question - what would need to be done to Space Madness to deserve my layout?

[Ancient History]

Playtest, incorporation of playtest feedback, some plans to publish.

[Shrapnel]

Congrats on finishing, AH. I've enjoyed watching the progress of this.

[Ancient History]

Well, it took me long enough. I should have finished this years ago.

[virgil]

The setting section describes Cats from Saturn as having a kind of camouflage ability, but the Xenoguide section clearly grants only the Venusian Cat such an ability. Relatedly, both the Cats from Mars & Venus have Aptitude (Cosmic Force), but I can't seem to see any native ability to wield such forces.

[Ancient History]

...this is why I need proofreaders.

[virgil]

I've been skipping mention of grammatical & spelling errors and just updating them as necessary for the master document I've done layout for.

Playtesting is certainly on the agenda...once I finish helping my wife prepare for vendoring out-of-state for an MLP convention.

ADDENDUM: An actual plan to publish, all professional-like, isn't really on the table. This is entirely a personal project for me; especially since a proper publishing plan would not only require your permission, but some kind of business structure, followed up by a Kickstarter or sales pitch to an established game publishing company.

IIRC, back when I did the napkin math for doing a Kickstarter for After Sundown, it would've been something on the order of $20K.

[Shrapnel]

What if you made, like, just one or two physical, faux-pro type hardcover copies, and raffled 'em off on the Den as "Lucky Draw" type raffle prizes?

Maybe you could even deco them in gold paint.

[JigokuBosatsu]

AH, I'd love to give the complete version a once-over.

[Ancient History]

Go for it. Everything I touch seems to turn to shit these days.

[JigokuBosatsu]

Everything I touch seems to turn to shit these days.

That's pretty much my baseline, but maybe with our powers combined...

[Orion]

Most of the backgrounds give you your choice of a cert or a piece of gear. But everyone ends up throwing away gear for lack of inventory space. So taking bonus gear is for suckers and everyone takes certs.

[Ancient History]

Not every combination of equipment is available at character creation, so I overloaded certain options to make characteristic/appropriate equipment available to the different backgrounds.

[virgil]

I mean, aside from edits due to playtest feedback, what I posted is the complete version. Biggest change is that I'm going over all of the actual public domain art used in it and giving them citations for the upcoming bibliography in the back; which is going to take a few weeks, as I just grabbed the images from Gutenberg.org

Also, some kind of copyright page on the front will be added as well. This is still a personal vanity piece, but whatevs.

[Iduno]

Last year in response to someone actually fulfilling my challenge to review all of Farcast, I agreed to write a complete RPG based around three keywords. Because I'm a fucking idiot. The "winner" was Vigil and the keywords were: atompunk, wands, Mythos.
... I'm digging this hole on my own and want to keep going until I hit bottom.

[JigokuBosatsu]

If I may put in my 2 rupees on this before I attempt an actual review, the one thing that I think is sorely needed in this book is a set of illustrations showing what the wands look like. For some reason other than the basic shape I just can't seem to picture them and as they are 1/3 of the basis of the game deserve a good visual representation.

(some of this is the failure of lysosomes to break down metabolic waste products in my brain, but I'm sure others would benefit from a picture or two as well)

[Omegonthesane]

I mean I'm pretty sure it says early edition wands were ray guns while the current versions are batons, but that's pretty vague to build a mental image around.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I haven't been keeping up, but I picture the wand-rayguns looking like long-barrelled pressure-washers:

And the up-to-date ones looking like the various Starman accessories: