I've started a "new" podcast!

So, I have started up a "new" podcast.

It's basically the old "Surly Grognards" show, but it's just me talking about tabletop game related things. :)

I'll be recording it on my twitch channel on Tuesday evenings starting at around 8:30pm Eastern. And I will upload the recordings to my youtube channel.

I've done two episodes so far and I've created a youtube playlist for it.

Here is a link to said playlist: Click Here

Enjoy!

Actually, do have some stuff to say!

So, yeah...

there are a lot of games I've been playing since I last posted here.

Gonna start with the thing I've been playing most recently. Pokemon Scarlett.

So far, done about 8ish hours in it? Somewhere around there. While I am disappointed in the graphical glitches that were in Legends:Arceus that have made it over into the new game. (framerate drops, clipping issues among others).

That said... I'm rather enjoying myself. The open world aspects have been fun so far. I like most of the new pokemon. It's a pretty chill game with some fun characters.

Far from perfect, obviously... but I'm enjoying myself so far.

Don't have many deep thoughts on it right now... will have more stuff to say later, most likely. Also, got a few more games to talk about... including multiple tabletop RPG campaigns I've been involved in. Woo. :)

See you lot later.

-MechaGM

Nothing much to say atm, but will post here more often. I think...

Man, I haven't posted on here in FOREVER.

So yea, the tweetars seems to be on fire and there are a bunch of different social media sites people are looking at. I'm on a bunch of them now.

Here is my linktree, it's got links to the ones I've either just signed up for, or that I've been on for a while and remember the links for them.

https://linktr.ee/mechagm

Not much else to say at the moment. But I'll probably post some thoughts here from time to time.

Ciao for now.

-MechaGM

Suggestions for F2P/Budget players of Star Trek Online for how to use the free T6 Ship Coupons.

So, you've completed the ongoing event for a free T6 Zen Store ship coupon, and you are a free to play player or you're on a very limited budget. And you are staring at the store and are overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices you have available. What do you do? Well, while I am not the very best at STO, I've been playing for a long time, have tried to keep somewhat abreast of what is generally good in the game, and I've been actually running a second account that is entirely F2P. So, I do have some suggestions. :) Here are some ships to consider (in no particular order) acquiring with a Free T6 Coupon for F2P/Budget Fed Players. (If you play KDF primarily, there are KDF equivilents of all of these ships) For many of the ships I list a Romulan equivalent in parentheses. This is always a viable option instead of the Fed ship. So go with what you prefer. :)

1) Gargarin Miracle Worker Battlecruiser
2) Arbiter Class Battlecruiser (or the Morrigu Heavy Warbird)
3) Narrenda Support Cruiser


These are, easily, the first three ships you probably want to be looking at from the Zen store. All three (four, kinda) are very solid ships in their own rights. All three have *very* good ship traits which will be useful, pretty much no matter what ship you eventually end up flying. I'll go into more detail later.

If you specifically need a Science ship, it is *very* hard to beat out the Temporal Multi-Mission Science Vessel (the Eternal Class). It's cross-faction, and is just a beast. (and temporal tricks supplement Science builds *very* well) Also, it's trait is kinda amazing for Exotic damage builds. Runners up are probably one of the other Multi-Mission explorers or the Nautilus. (I'd suggest the Somerville, which I lucked into getting via a giveaway on my F2P account, but that's not an option for the coupon currently)

I've also heard good things about the Cardassian Intel Science Dreadnought (which I've not used enough to form an opinion on, and haven't reseached it to the level I have the Eternal)

The Jem'Hadar Vanguard Carrier is another option, but it's not a true science ship. But, if you have a Jem'Hadar character, it *is* a fun carrier.

Other good ships woth picking up eventually (again in no particular order). All of these are good on their own and have good ship traits as well. There are plenty of other good ships which I've not listed

1) Andorian Chimesh Pilot Escort (or the Dewan Ikkabar Pilot Escort)
2) Andorian Thozyn Pilot Escort (or the Dewan Vandros Pilot Escort)
3) Phantom Intel Escort
4) Presidio Tactical Command Battlecruiser (Vastam Tactical Command Battlecruiser)
5) Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird (Eneavour Tactical Star Cruiser)
6) Flambard Science Dreadnought Warbird (Yorktown Science Star Cruiser)
7) Icarus Science Pilot Escort (Jaeih Science Pilot Warbird)
8) Tebok Tactical Miracle Worker Warbird (Tucker Tactical Mirror Worker Cruiser)


Now, as to why I suggested the first three ships as being the primary ones to look at? It's their Starship Traits that you unlock on each of them. These are traits that can be used no matter what ship you are flying (you can have up to 4 ship traits active once you hit level 50, with the ability to purchase a 5th trait slot through the fleet).

The Gargarin's trait, Enhance Tactical Matrices, makes running both beam weapons and a torpedo launcher much more effective. It means that once you activate either Beam: Fire at Will or Cannon: Scatter Volley, you will get Torpedo Spread 1 activated on your torpedo launcher for free. Similarly, activating any level of Torpedo Spread will activate Fire at Will 1 and/or Cannnon: Scatter Volley 1 for free. This makes it *much* easier to keep your AoE bridge officer abilities up consistently, which is *very* handy.

Additionally, the Gargarin is *very* good ship on its own. Because of the Lt. Commander Universal bridge officer seat, you have a TON of flexibility in how you build the ship. It's got a truckload of hull, good maneuverability (for a Fed cruiser) and an excellent console layout. Also, you get the Miracle Worker Innovation Effects. While you can't count on which one you'll have available at any given time, they're all pretty darn good. Lastly, it has the Cyclical Quantum Slipstream Drive, which is *amazing* for F2P players. This will make running the Tour The Galaxy daily mission much more profitable.

The Arbiter Battlecruiser (and the Morrigu Heavy Warbird for the Romulans) has probably the best trait for any ship that is seriously going to use Energy weponds, Emergency Weapon Cycle. Whenever you activate Emergency Power to Weapons (and you want this skill on basically any ship with energy weapons), it halves the energy cost and increases the firing speed by 20% of all of your energy weapons for 30 seconds.

The Arbiter is a nimble cruiser, that is pretty tough with surprisingly flexible bridge officer seating. Its console layout is good, and it's just a good all-around agressive cruiser. Not as tough as the Gargarin, but its more maneuverable. It also has access to Intel abilities, which can be *very* nice to have. The Morrigu (which is the Romulan equivilent) trades some of the durability of the Battlecruiser for more manuverability and more offensive punch. (and a Battle Cloaking Device) It's a nasty ship, but takes a bit of getting used to when flying it, as its pivot point isn't exactly where you think it would be, so it sometimes feels less maneuverable than it actually is. I would *slightly* recommend the Arbiter over the Morrigu as a general purpose choice, but if you prefer escorts, the Morrigu will serve you *very* well.

Last, but definatively not least, we have the Narrenda Support Cruiser. This is my favorite ship of the three from a purely visual standpoint. (I'm a big fan of how the Ambassador class looks) It's ship trait, History Will Remember, is probably the most generically useful trait of the three ships. For each foe that damages you, your ship gains 1 stack of History Will Remember. (capping at 30 stacks) These stacks last until you leave the map. They give you the following bonuses per stack: +1% All Damage, +1% Hull Regen, +1% Max Hull, +10% Threat Generation while in Threatening Stance. So, as you get shot, your ship gets tougher, repairs itself quicker and deals more damage. (and if you're tanking, you generate even more aggro) There may be traits that are more powerful for one specific thing, but there is not a ship that does not benefit from this trait in some way.

As a ship... the Narrenda is solid. With its less agressive weapon layout and lower maneuverability characteristics make it less flexible as to loadouts than it's extremely flexible bridge officer seating would indicate. You *could* go with Dual Beam Banks or Dual Cannons in the front with as many omnis as you can cram into the back as you can find (or turrets if you're using Cannons)... but it doesn't do it nearly as well as the Gargarin or the Arbiter. The Narrenda really is at its best using beam arrays and fighting primarily as a broadsiding ship. Still, it's a rock solid cruiser, as long as you play to its strengths.

I won't go into detail on the other ships here right now, but I hope people find this useful. Thanks for reading! :)

How to improve WWE's Women's Division:

WWE currently has a truckload of fanstastic wrestlers who happen to be women. But we currenly see only 8 of them on anything resembling a regular basis. Why is this? It's for a few reasons, one of which is that the only storylines that WWE seems capable of handling, currently, is a feud over a title.

Any time threy try doing a non-title based story, it usually sucks and it's almost always one of the following stories. (note, title feuds are often mired in one of these as well)

1) "We used to be friends, but now I hate you because women are fickle and don't actually like each other!"
2) "You're just jealous of my looks/modeling photoshoot"
3) "I'm sleeping with a man you care about!"
4) "LESBIANS!"

So, how would I fix this? Well I'm glad I asked!

Step 1: hire writers who understand the concept that just because it's a good angle for a men's wrestling feud, does not mean it cannot work with women. Also, take the above "storylines" and set them on fire. Then put the ashes in a box, seal the box in a block of concrete, put the concrete block in a safe, put the safe in a larger block of concrete and then sink the resulting concrete monstrosity in the deepest lake you can find. I'm sure these "angles" will find a way to return, like Michael Meyers, but we gotta start somewhere.

Step 2: get Charlotte involved in a non-title feud for, like, a year. This is not me knocking Charlotte Flair. She's actually really good. But, ye gods we need a break from her *always* being involved in the title picture. Let her expand her character's repetoire with a different feud type.

Step 3: Keep Becky and Charlotte separated from each other for at least a year. They're great together. But, again, we need a break from them.

Step 4: If and when you make Bailey face again, remember that being a nice, friendly good-guy is *not* a bad thing and does not make you a naive simpleton. Let the good guys actually be good guys occasionally. (this is also true for the men's roster)

Step 5: Eventually, book a feud between Asuka and Kairi Sane. Ideally for the title. They will kill it.

Step 6: For god's sake book Ember Moon into a real storyline ASAP.

Step 7: Make sure Vince *never* finds out about any of this. Preferably shoot him out of a cannon. Into the sun. If need be, hire a bunch of fitness models to be the "new women's division." and just have them "wrestle" every now and then. Make sure a good third of them are tall and blonde with huge knockers.

Step 8: Pull all of the RAW and Smackdown women off of RAW and Smackdown and give them their own show. There are enough good women wrestlers on those two shows to give a 1-2 hour show a full roster of performers to work with and give people some time off when they need it to get healthy. Also, this means we can, on a weekly basis, showcase more than just the storylines revolving around the title belts without eating into the men's programs. Normally, my instinct would be to *not* do something like this, but most of the women just don't get enough screen time as it is, and it sucks, because there are a lot of good performers among them. Give them time and they will fucking shine.

Anywho, those are just the thoughts of a, often casual, wrestling fan who really wants to see more of these exceptionally talented women actually get to do the things they're great at.

Slayers d20 RPG Campaign

Next campaign up is the Slayers d20 campaign. I've long been a fan of the anime series, "The Slayers" and was amused to see that there was a d20 supplement for it. I eventually picked up a copy when I found it on the discount shelf at my local game store. I ended up being pleasantly surprised by some of the ways the system changed things up from baseline D&D 3.5. I've now run the system twice, and have been pretty happy with how the game plays out.

I really wish I hadn't run out of creative steam for this campaign. We got to one of the major plot reveals and I really did not have a good plan for where I actually wanted to end up going. (something that does happen to me from time to time... I suspect it happens to many GMs) So, I ended up ending the game earlier than I would have prefered.

That being said, this game was a lot of fun. We had pretty amusing mix of player characters and we had several pretty darn memorable moments as we went along.

Anywho, here is the link to the playlist.

Or, you can start watching with the first episode here:



-Peter "MechaGM" Bowman

Saturday Kung-Fu Theatre RPG Campaign

Next up is the short Feng Shui Action-Movie RPG campaign I ran for a while. This particular game was heavily inspired by the classic Hong-Kong wuxia films that used to be shown on UHF tv on Saturday afternoons here in the Boston Area when I was a kid. :)

I adore the Feng Shui system, and find it does a really nice job of simulating the madcap action of action movies, especially those made in Hong Kong.

Here is the playlist for the campaign.

Or you can just start with Episode One of the campaign:



-Peter "MechaGM" Bowman

Podcasts

So, today I am going to post up the playlists for the two podcasts I am actively involved with. The first one is the longest-running one I've been doing. I started The Surly Grognards podcast with my friend Jesse back in 2014. Jesse decided that doing the podcast just wasn't for him, so I asked one of my other friends, Eric, to pinch-hit for Jesse while I thought about whether I would keep doing the show. Eric had fun, and the shows we did were pretty darn fun, so we just kept doing the podcast.

We started out being entirely focused on tabletop gaming, especially tabletop roleplaying games, but over time, we've branched out into other realms of nerdery. We've talked about movies, tv shows, books, comics, video games... just a wide variety of nerd-culture topics. We do, however, tend to focus on tabletop gaming for the most part.

Much like the Star City campaign, I was unable to get all of the old episodes off of blip before they went away, so there are a large chunk in the middle that I've so far been unable to recover in any way. That said, the majority of our shows are up on youtube.

Here is the youtube playlist for the podcast.

Instead of linking the first episode on the playlist, I thought I'd share our most recent episode, which is part of a series in which Eric and I take a basic RPG campaign concept of some sort, and do a live brainstorming session to work it up to a more fleshed out campaign concept.



The other podcast I'm involved in, is one I do with Eric and our friend Gav (who is from England). The three of us had been watching anime series together online while we were on a skype call together. (we now use discord) Gav had the suggestion that we could do a show where we talked about the series we had just finished watching. Thus, "Three Men and an Anime" was born.

While we do sometimes run way too long on some episodes of the show (most notably with the episode we did on "Girls und Panzer"), we always have a lot of fun recording this show.

Here is the link to the playlist on youtube.

And here is the most recent episode we've recorded:



-Peter "MechaGM" Bowman

Star City Campaign

Next up is the Mutants & Masterminds 3rd edition campaign I ran. This is the first game I ran where my good meatspace friend, Eric, joined in on the online RPG shenanigans. The group of players for this game changed over time, but as usual, it was a really solid group of players.

I adore superhero campaigns, and while this did end somewhat suddenly (I was kind of burnt out and had no good ideas of where to take the campaign), I am really happy with a lot of what happened in this campaign.

I think I came up with some excellent and memorable NPCs, and we had some genuinely fun adventures throughout the course of the campaign. My only "complaint" is that I do feel the fights would have been more fun and dynamic had we been using HERO system. If only because HERO actually has knockback built into the combat system, which, IMO, superhero combat just needs to feel right. (also, I generally prefer HERO to M&M, but M&M is a real solid system)

Unfortunately, I was unable to retrieve the recordings off of blip before it went down, so most, if not all, of the videos on youtube are uploads from my twitch highlights. Some of which have audio issues, and there are one or two episodes missing, sadly. That said, the vast majority of the campaign is on youtube now.

The campaign playlist can be found here.

Or, you can just watch part one of issue 1, here:



-Peter "MechaGM" Bowman

Shadowland Campaign

So, Shadowland was the first tabletop RPG campaign I ran on stream. The setting is one I came up with ages ago, back in the AD&D days, and I've been refining it and changing it for each edition of D&D since then. (haven't done it for 5th ed yet, since I've not gotten around to trying 5e yet)

This particular iteration went very well, right up until the final episode. But, I really do have to give most of the credit to the players in this game. (which is the case in basically every game I run) Chris, Gav, Liam, Nik and Scott (Sable too) were a great crew of players and I was really lucky to have them in this campaign.

We may not have gotten to the campaign finale I was thinking of, but we ended up with a pretty decent finale overall.

Anywho, I am going to link to the youtube playlist below. (I managed to recover most of this game from blip before it went away, something I was unable to do with all of the things I uploaded there)

Click here for the campaign playlist!

Or you can just watch part 1 of episode one here:



Peter "MechaGM" Bowman

Wait, I have a blog?!?!?!?

So, it's been a loooong while since I've updated the old blog here.

So, what I'm going to be doing on and off over the next week or two is posting up links and such to my various RPG campaigns and podcasts here, so they are easily viewable/listenable.

I also intend to get back to posting each new episode of the podcasts and rpg campaigns here. I will probably write occasional articles and such going forward as well.

Keep an eye on the blog for new content soon! :D

-Peter "MechaGM" Bowman

Mecha's Thoughts On Wrestlemania And Its Aftermath

This is not the sort of thing I normally post here, but I've been thinking a fair bit about last night's Wrestlemania and what I've seen from wrestling fans on the internet about it.

First off, overall, I rather enjoyed a lot of this year's Wrestlemania. There were parts I didn't like, but the end of the show was fucking gold. But I've been reading a fair bit of displeasure about the event and where the WWE is online.

What amazes me is how many wrestling fans forget where the WWE was a year+ ago, and how we got to where we are now.

While Reigns was clearly a rising star (and virtually everybody was cool with that), he was clearly not going to be in the title picture. Then the following happened.

1) Punk leaves/quits/retires/whatever you want to call it. 2) Bryan has neck surgery. 3) EVERYBODY is sick of Cena vs. Orton.

So, what does the WWE do? Well, first step, they can take advantage of Brock's contract. Give him the title, and the fact that he's not always around gives them time to figure out a few things.

So, who is going to be the guy? Punk's out. Bryan's hurt. Cena and Orton are stale. The fans would go crazy for Ziggler, but WWE is concerned about his ability to stay healthy. The bumps and risks he takes and the fact that he doesn't dial it back ever worry them given what happened to Bryan and the nasty concussion Ziggler had. (so, part of what endears him to his fans) Del Rio is gone. So, who does that leave? We need someone who's been around, but is relatively new.

1) Seth Rollins? It's happened, and it's been brilliant. He's a fabulous heel and relentlessly entertaining. And he's now the champ.
2) Dean Ambrose? Possible, but Seth's going to be our new top heel and Dean really isn't a face wrestler... I love the guy, but he's clearly a Piper/Pillman type.
3) Ryback? Bahahahhahahahaha... sorry, no.
4) Cesaro? ... Fuck, I'm just not sure why not. He's great. They even hooked him up with Heyman, which was a gold pairing. And then he proceeded to fall off a mountain. I honestly think he should have been the guy.
5) Bray Wyatt? Too ensconced as a heel. And he's FAR too good at it to move him face. That said, I don't get what they've done with him. He never gets to win important matches. But there is clearly some reason WWE doesn't want him at the very top right now. (even if it's a reason I simply cannot fathom)
6) Reigns... well he's not quite ready yet, but he's got off the charts athleticism, he's got "the look" (tm), and he's been getting better very quickly. His mic work needs to improve, let's give him a shot.

So, they went with Reigns. (eventually) And the fans, who *used* to like him... HATED the fuck out it. He wasn't supposed to be the guy yet. And I *think* most of the WWE brass would agree, but who else?

So, where are we now? Bryan won the ladder match and is now Intercontinental Champ, yet people are somehow upset about it. (Bryan's not the #1 guy! Ziggler was buried! Moan moan moan) Reigns isn't champ, Rollins is! (but he got to have a comeback against Lesnar! Rollins' win was awesome in the moment, but we know it won't last! Moan moan moan)

I may not be the happiest about where things are right now, but I'm just not sure what else WWE could do all things considered. They did a remakably good job considering that their two most popular guys either quit (Punk) or just came back from neck surgery (Bryan)... much like they did at last year's Wrestlemania.

-Peter "MechaGM" Bowman

The Surly Grognards Episode 115, "Live Long And Prosper"

This week Eric and I pay tribute to Leonard Nimoy.



If you have any feedback, suggestions (show topic or other) or questions you'd like answered during an episode, please feel free to email us at: surlygrognards@yahoo.com or you can post them on our forums at: http://mechagm.forumer.com

The Surly Grognards Episode 114 "Stuck On Mechanics"

This week Eric and I talk about game mechanics that players and game masters get stuck on and bring with them from game to game.



If you have any feedback, suggestions (show topic or other) or questions you'd like answered during an episode, please feel free to email us at: surlygrognards@yahoo.com or you can post them on our forums at: http://mechagm.forumer.com

"What's In A Name?" a D&D 4th ed Campaign, Episode Seven

This week our heroes continue to investigate the mines below Ironhame.



Players: Eric Carlson, Nik "Y Ruler of Time" Freeman, Michael "Skitch" Schiciano, Word on the Wind & Alice "Mjolna"
GM: Peter "MechaGM" Bowman
Campaign doc can be found here.

IKRPG Tutorial Game?

Hey guys,

So, Zeenith in my Twitch chat suggsted the possiblity of me running a one-shot Iron Kingdoms adventure aimed at teaching new players the system.

I honestly wish I had thought of that myself. XD

So, if there is enough interest, I will do so.

I will provide characters. :)

Let me know if you are interested, either here, or you can email me at: mechagm@hotmail.com. If there is enough interest, I'll run the adventure multiple times.

Not sure what day of the week this will happen, but let me know what days work for you.

-Peter "MechaGM" Bowman

The Surly Grognards Episode 113, "Conversions"

This week Eric and I talk about converting already existing material for one RPG system into another system.



If you have any feedback, suggestions (show topic or other) or questions you'd like answered during an episode, please feel free to email us at: surlygrognards@yahoo.com or you can post them on our forums at: http://mechagm.forumer.com

"What's In A Name" D&D 4th ed Campaign, episode 6

This week our heroes run afoul of Ironhame's city watch and may have to strike a deal for their freedom.



Players: Eric Carlson, Nik "Y Ruler of Time" Freeman, Michael "Skitch" Schiciano, Word on the Wind & Alice "Mjolna"
GM: Peter "MechaGM" Bowman
Campaign doc can be found here.

The Surly Grognards Episode 112, "Musings On Mecha"

This week Eric and I talk about designing a tabletop wargame, both on some mechanical ideas and on world building for it. Then we talk about what we've been watching/reading for a bit.



If you have any feedback, suggestions (show topic or other) or questions you'd like answered during an episode, please feel free to email us at: surlygrognards@yahoo.com or you can post them on our forums at: http://mechagm.forumer.com

The Surly Grognards Episode 111, "Live Sci-Fi Campaign Brainstorming"

This week Eric and I have another campaign brainstorming session... this time, we're doing Science Fiction. We focus almost entirely on creating the structure of the campaign universe, as opposed to coming up with a specific campaign idea.



If you have any feedback, suggestions (show topic or other) or questions you'd like answered during an episode, please feel free to email us at: surlygrognards@yahoo.com or you can post them on our forums at: http://mechagm.forumer.com