I know that the premise of 101 Old Skool is getting a night of game together with minimal prep - basically, jumping right into gaming. However, I'm bouncing around the idea of running a once a month campaign of WEGS and was wondering if anyone else has tried it? While Stat bumps may boost Arks pretty rapidly, I figure the need to buy new phews! would slow that down as soon as they survive their first wicked fight.

If you have tried a campaign style, what worked, what didn't work? Even if you haven't tried it (yet) any suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks!

The Prof

Ah, a Kreator cut from the same cloth! Minions gotta eat after all!

I think phews! will limit the number of player deaths overall. Also, something that got toyed around with at Dreamation was allowing Arks to buy phews with existing rank #s. Basically, this kept them from ever dying although they ended up with pretty hollow shells of their former selves. I think I'm willing to allow this once between chapters or game session however.

Oh, and Arks are quick and easy to create so there shouldn't be too much whining!

The Prof
"Let the Ark slaughter begin!"

For WEGS 101 campaigns, look at Chapter 10 and the Not/Ren chart; that really diverts game play toward the old XP concept. The way we've been playing it at cons by aggressive stat bumps is a little over the top for long term gaming. 101 was built for instant gratification for all sides of the table; three to six hours of non-stop adventure, baby!

Another thing is to limit the number of skills an Ark starts with by basing it on the specific Strength. Warrior Strength 4 allows the Ark to take 4 Warrior Skills. When they get to WS5, they get another skill. This will hurt spellcasters most of all, as they are used to being bulked with spell options.

This also means that you have to pull way back on the minions/encounters, too.



Best long term campaign I ever ran was with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay; the career paths don't seem like much, but they added so much dimension to the characters. From my D&D mindset, I thought the careers would constrict players, but boy was I wrong. WEGS is going in this direction eventually with something called Vocations (working title).

The forlorn WEGS Copper...



Someday, it shall arise!

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L. Willy Wick
www.GameWick.com
Maker of WEGS, the Wickedly Errant Game System
Sword-n-Sorcery With A Vegas Twist!

"Stick THAT in your bag of holding!"

If the point is to make Ark progression last a little longer, here's another idea:

Have each skill level cost 6% for each In-Ark skill (i.e Warrior Skills for Warriors) and each Out-Ark skill cost 12% pl. (i.e. Mage Skills for Warriors). So a new skill for your Ark will cost 24% at Level 4. Cross training costs you twice that.

Instead of bumping up a Stat%, an Ark might buy a skill level instead. If Arks want to burn some existing Rank for skill levels, that exchange should be more costly (like a 4% early withdrawl penalty).

As noted in earlier thread, the Arks could start with their Strength in cards, but at Level 1. They can trade in cards to boost another by 1 Level. The cool thing is that Odd Skill are pretty tough to use at the first few levels (11% success, BAH!). This will really show a Skolar that getting magic ain't for noobs (and probably the reason why Mages/Sages tend to get wiped out in the adventure).

I think this will add a struggle for the players, but for those who want that type of progression it should work great. This is similar to where the game is going.

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L. Willy Wick
www.GameWick.com
Maker of WEGS, the Wickedly Errant Game System
Sword-n-Sorcery With A Vegas Twist!

"Stick THAT in your bag of holding!"

Righto. I think it's best to stick with Level 4 for effects, but you can limit the multi-classers to only half stat bonus (they get only +10% instead of +20%). That's easier to remember during gameplay. And multi-classers are generally weaker in the stat scores for these skills, so its a double kick.

The Strength scores should set the total number of skills allowed for that Ark. A Warrior with:

7 WS could have 7 Warrior Skills
4 RS could have 4 Ranger Skills (at half bonus)
4 MS could have 4 Trickster Skills (at half bonus)
5 SPS could have 5 Skolar Skills (at half bonus)

You might want to limit total skills to 11 for any one Ark. That's suggested on the Skill Deck FAQ.

Lots of different ways to go with this!

---

L. Willy Wick
www.GameWick.com
Maker of WEGS, the Wickedly Errant Game System
Sword-n-Sorcery With A Vegas Twist!

"Stick THAT in your bag of holding!"

Agreed on the 11 card deal. It will be limiting; purpose of WEGS 101 is full throttle action and having everything you need at your back/call.

For campaign purposes, there's got to be some limitation so everything is not so attainable.

For Skolars, you could go down the route that they can pull up to their SPS in spells out of the deck as the ones they've "memorized" for the day; very old skool. They can use these as often as they like, though.

Another option is to allow Arks to burn some rank to do a card exchange in middle of game. For example, a Mage finds that she needs Ethereality, but it's not in her deck. She can burn 6% from her Ingenuity Rank and exchange one card for that one. Burning Rank at higher levels (like 80%), won't hurt an Ark too much (the skill bump of +20% will buffer that). She will of course also lose total SPS (but no spoints).

This type of exchange builds character play: how BAD do they want that spell. They weren't mentally prepared for it, so it's gonna cost them!

This is also going to add a LOT of bang to Rank fluctuation. I've always seen Rank as something that should go up and down in a game. What fun is it being at 93% all the time?

Rank loss can be thought of as fatigue (and, not to plug future unreleased editions, but this is a WEGS Silver thing).

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L. Willy Wick
www.GameWick.com
Maker of WEGS, the Wickedly Errant Game System
Sword-n-Sorcery With A Vegas Twist!

"Stick THAT in your bag of holding!"

Ah, another home session of WEGS! We added two players last night who couldn't make it last time and lost or Sage (to a player absense). The new players rolled up a gnobbit Trickster and a Dwarven Warrior and set out to catch up with the rest of the group. Since the others had earned a total of about 25pts in rank bumps last game I started the new players with 40,20,20,20,10,10. Amazingly enough the Dwarf rolled a 32 for his prowess! And therefore started with a 72 prime stat!

I figured a quick encounter with two goblin warriors (5/55s) on the way to the dungeon would give them a quick feel for the game before we started. The game almost ended before it began. Between 01 Wicked Successes and 00 Wicked Failures the two Arks found themselves in at least 3 (maybe 4) Lost Action Phases. Luckily for them the Gobs would try to gang up on whomever was still standing and ignore the LAPped Ark for the time being. Without move and attack this kept the pain from being too severe but both Arks arrived at the dungeon a little banged up.

The rest of the night went well for them (although the Zombies w/ -3 on both physical and enchanted/elemental damage die were tough). Luckily they were only 4/44s and didn't hit too often! By the end we had 3 Arks with 80s in their prime stat, one with a 77 and a still living NPC warrior (6/66) from last month.

Next month brings the big finally . . . and an 80 won't be high enough to hold top of the inning! Should be a brutal fight but I think in the end the Arks will prevail! (albeit with many less phews! and missing quite a bit of their sanity!)

The Prof