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 We were coming back from New Hope, after keeping the folks there from enslaving their neighbors again, when something went wrong. I guess the engineering section of the Vesuvius had taken a hit somewhere, because the drive burned out and we dropped out of hyperspace into the gravity well of Beta 07921. It was a lousy place to be, a red star blessed with just one class M planet - barely terraformable. What's more, a plasma storm surrounded the system, blocking FTL transmissions, and Science said it would be at least four months before that cleared. We hoped the mining colony could provide the drive parts we needed, otherwise, we were in for a long stay. Then we got the distress call from a Godard-class lab ship in a decaying low orbit. Our only working EVA rig was the assault shuttle, which only holds 12, but we figured a dozen UNC Marines could handle anything. We figured wrong. In 1979, a film called Alien was released, you may have heard of it. And in 1993, two game designers, Neal Sofge and Michael Wasson, released a game called Last Frontier: The Vesuvius Incident. It was a single-player wargame, about a dozen big tough space marines piling into a doomed space vessel, and getting their poo poo pushed in by a swarm of acid-blooded aliens. These two events were, of course, entirely unrelated. Almost twenty years after the game was released, Print & Play Productions ran a wildly-successful Kickstarter to get a new edition of that game created. Three years after that, SomethingAwful goon Poison Mushroom bought the new edition of the game, and had a terrible, terrible idea for a Let's Play. How is this going to work? "Solitare Tabletop Wargame" and "Let's Play" don't really seem to go together, but that's why I'm doing things a bit differently. Much like how some gamebooks have been done here previously, everything will be decided by you, fellow goons. More specifically, each game, one goon will be given executive control over all play decisions, while twelve others, representing the individual marines, will be able to weigh in and provide opinions- even if they're dead! A game will continue until it's won or lost, and then a new set of players will be chosen. During each game, I will be acting as a GM of sorts, making the rolls, pulling the chits from the bag, and generally being the rear end in a top hat responsible for your face getting eaten. We'll be using the map from the old edition because I want to play, what can I do? Cool. There are three possible ways you can contribute to playing this horrifically lethal game. In descending order of  required, they are...Players: You're the one telling everybody what to do. This one will require the most investment. Ideally, if you're selected, we'll communicate mainly through Skype or PMs, so I can clarify rules issues or unclear orders. I'd prefer you not put yourself on this list if you can't commit to replying regularly. If you go idle in the middle of the game, your spot will be given to the next person in line. Marines: Do you know the game, but not feel up to the commitment of playing it on a forum? Do you not care about reading rules and just wanna shoot some dudes? Are you good at yelling at other people to tell them what to do? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then the Marines waiting list might be right for you! Crewmembers: Don't care about the rules at all? No problem. You're on the list to be a member of the Crew of the Feynman. There is no guarantee that you will be alive or sane when you're found, but if you are, hey, maybe you'll be used as bait while the marines flee! You can be on either the Players or Marines waiting list, but not both, and I request that you read/reread the current edition's rules before applying for either. However, there is no restriction on the Crewmembers waiting list, as it's a rapidly-cycling list of cameos. (But no, you can't be on it more than once at a time.) Regardless of which list(s) you want to be on, they all use  this Application Form . After you enter, please post in the thread, confirming what role you selected. This is to prevent people from duping or other shenanigans.Posting Guidelines If you are the active Player, please bold any actual orders, to prevent confusion. If you are an active (alive or dead) Marine, go wild. Just remember that you're giving suggestions, and the Player by no means has to do what you suggest. If you are neither, then please keep your advice to the vague, general, or just smack talk/commentary. If we have everyone in here all giving four-step plans about how to proceed, it's going to give the Player some serious information overload. I can't actually do anything if you don't do these things, except maybe lock the thread, but please don't be a dick.  Links Game Rules Full Map View Application Form Buy the game! girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Jul 13, 2015 |
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Jul 10, 2015 07:04
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Game Logs Game 01 Player: Tollymain Marines: CommissarMega, markus_cz, NewMars, Pierzak, Slaan, TomViolence, six filler marines Game Start girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Jul 13, 2015 |
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Jul 10, 2015 07:13
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Also reserved.
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Jul 10, 2015 07:13
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One more, just in case.
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Jul 10, 2015 07:14
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Sign me up as crew! Pilot, if possible.
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Jul 10, 2015 07:45
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Gonna read up on the rules so I can sign up to get everybody killed 
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Jul 10, 2015 08:47
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Signed up as a marine. Will read the rules... eventually. A question though: do you intend to write the LP with the assumption that people have read the rules, or do you plan to feed us the rules (in simplified form) piece by piece?
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Jul 10, 2015 11:20
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I'm crew. Pretty sure the marines will do their job and bring us all to safety
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Jul 10, 2015 11:49
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Signed up for the
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Jul 10, 2015 12:08
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markus_cz posted:Signed up as a marine. Will read the rules... eventually.
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Jul 10, 2015 14:01
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Sign me up as a
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Jul 10, 2015 15:04
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Hell, I suppose I can give some orders as a Marine. The rules are free, right? The link's loading really slowly for me at the moment, sorry.
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Jul 10, 2015 18:36
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CommissarMega posted:Hell, I suppose I can give some orders as a Marine. The rules are free, right? The link's loading really slowly for me at the moment, sorry. Yeah, I put them up on Mediafire but if it's not working, you can also get them on BGG.
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Jul 10, 2015 21:24
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Looks amusing. Signed up as crow-bait. Uh, crew.
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Jul 10, 2015 22:17
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Never seen this before but looks neat. gently caress it. I'll die as as some useless crew.
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Jul 10, 2015 22:24
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Ready to die for the good of the crew!
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Jul 11, 2015 02:01
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Ah what the hell, signed myself as marine as well, let's see if I can gently caress things up more than the aliens.
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Jul 11, 2015 02:11
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I have applied to be a Player. Planning to be hands off except for emergencies. Of course I expect emergencies every turn...
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Jul 12, 2015 04:07
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Hm. I may have to run the first game without a lot of marines, just to drum up interest. Twelve people per game with active interest may have been too many.
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Jul 12, 2015 06:04
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Signed up as Marine / Crew. Whichever one you wanna stick me with.
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Jul 12, 2015 06:24
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Signed up as Marine/Crew. This should be fun. And by fun I mean WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! 
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Jul 12, 2015 15:17
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Put me in as a Marine!
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Jul 12, 2015 15:46
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Okay, that's probably enough to at least figure something out. I'll try to have the first game starting tonight or tomorrow.
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Jul 12, 2015 15:54
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Looking at the rules we could easily start with 6 marine players. The buddy system should be in full use due to
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Jul 12, 2015 17:39
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Everyone who requested to sign up but didn't fill out an application, I just filled them out for you, because I'm great. But in the future, I probably won't be able to keep up with the thread enough to make that feasible.
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Jul 13, 2015 12:59
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Game 01, Start Welcome to   This is the Feynman, the ship we're trying to investigate. There is a crew of 15 members, so all 15 of them must be accounted for (dead or alive) before the Marines can leave, unless the ship is seconds away from breaking up.  And this, fellow goons, is our stock of marines. I'd like to proudly introduce you to, from left to right and top to bottom... A filler Pilot, currently being NPCed by Toph Beifong Slaan, Mechanic TomViolence, Hacker Another filler Pilot, being filled in by Vanilla Ice. CommissarMega, generic Marine markus_cz, Medic NewMars, a real Tough guy Pierzak, potentially wielding a devastating Plasma rifle A filler mechanic, being played by Data the Monkey A filler marine, as played by Garfield Another generic marine, as played by Luigi A filler Tough guy who may have a Plasma Rifle, The Marine Formerly Known As Prince. And our Player, Tollymain Mechanics fix things, Hackers are good with computers, Pilots will be covered in a bit, Medics heal wounded Marines, Plasma Marines can carry giganto Plasma guns, and Tough Marines are less likely to panic. Now, a couple quick primers before we begin. Setup! In a normal game, these clowns would all be stacked up into big piles (Marines can stack up to 4 in a square) as chosen by the Player, but because of a quirk of how the first turn works, that 'deployment' is literally pointless, and the Assault Shuttle can just be treated as a big square blob where everyone stands around without changing anything. So, for the sake of expediency, that is exactly what I'm doing. Once the game proper begins, this shuttle will still be very important for two reasons. First, no one can be abducted from the Assault Shuttle. You can pile unconscious bodies in here to your heart's content, and not have to worry about them getting disappeared by aliens. (This is important for reasons that will be covered if/when someone is abducted.) And secondly, the Assault Shuttle is one of only three ways off the Feynman, and the only way off that doesn't need a Pilot. So, unless everyone dies immediately and horribly, someone's going to be coming back here sooner or later. Aside from the marines, on the map, you can also see two other objects. These are the Crew Manifests, and the RAM dumps. Getting someone to hack into the computers, then analyze the data from these, will account for three crewmembers each. Get both, and you're more than a third of the way to victory. There should also be a pair of lift cars in the lift shafts but Plasma Marines have the option, when the game starts, of replacing their standard-issue rifles with giant-rear end Plasma Rifles. They're big, they're heavy, and instead of jamming, they just straight-up break, but they have a longer range than the standard rifle and are guaranteed to at least down an alien on a hit, with a 50% chance of just outright killing the thing. Whether to use these weapons is the first choice available to Tollymain. The Turn Sequence Each turn has four phases, Human, Alien, Orbit, and Discovery. Human Phase At the start of each turn, the Player must choose between making this turn an Explore Turn, or a Combat Turn. Explore Turns are much longer in 'real time', representing a stretch of five-to-ten minutes. During an Explore Turn, most non-combat Human Phase actions can be performed an infinite number of times. This includes moving units around in already-explored areas, picking up and dropping objects, switching equipment, unjamming weapons, etc. In addition, Explore Turns give you access to longer, Explore-only actions during the Orbit phase, such as healing injured allies, examining records you've successfully hacked, and repairing or activating robots. The first catch is that each Explore Turn advances the Orbit Timer. When the Orbit Timer hits 0 (at a predetermined random point between 15 and 20 Explore turns), the ship begins to burn up, and you only have a few turns to get out before the ship breaks up. I'll get more into that when the time comes, but the short version is that Explore Turns slowly advance you to your doom. The second catch is that you can't use Explore Turn infinite-actions to enter an area where you don't already have at least one living human. Instead, you must use a Deploy action during the Orbit phase. The alternative is Combat Turns. Combat Turns are mandatory when there is at least one hostile on the board. These are much shorter, representing a period of only 10 seconds, and units move using movement points. Combat Turns do not advance the Orbit Timer, so you theoretically have an infinite number of them. So, you may be thinking, what's the catch? Why would I ever use an orbit turn except when I absolutely had to? For one very important reason: With no other modifiers, Combat Turns triple the chance of appearing aliens catching marines by surprise. Balancing your time, and not getting your face eaten, is a core part of Last Frontier. Alien Phase This is when aliens activate, and when you check for abduction. Since no one is eligible for abduction and there's no aliens on the board, we skip this for now. Orbit Phase The Orbit Phase Only Happens In Explore Turns, and begins by advancing the Orbit Timer. This is when the mentioned long-actions are performed, as well as deploying into unexplored areas. Discovery Phase This could also be called the "Event" Phase and is most of what I'll be automating. The short version is that this is the only time that new anything appears. Events, aliens, crew (live or dead), all of them show up during the Discovery Phase. The First Turn There, now that all that homework is out of the way, it's time to go charging into the ship! Except not quite. That square right above the Assault Shuttle is an Airlock. Airlocks are interesting, because aliens will never show up in them (though you can be abducted from them), but, during a Combat Turn or Deploy action, only one side of them can be activated at a time. That restriction is lifted during the first part of an Explore Turn Human Phase, but since the other side is unexplored, that doesn't help very much right now. In layman's terms, what this means is that at most, one full stack of four Marines can leave the ship on the first turn, by piling in during the Human Phase, then deploying out during the Orbit Phase (while four more from the shuttle pile into the airlock). So, this first turn is rather simple. Let's get it started so we can get to Summary of Player Choices -Will Pierzak and Prince use Plasma Rifles? -Will you start with an Explore Turn, or a Combat Turn? -Who will be the first ones to pile into the airlock? (Maxiumum of four.)
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Jul 13, 2015 15:32
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I need to sleep, and will make my move when I wake up. You've got about 8-12 hours to put your two cents in on the following decisions. Pierzak, do you want to tote some heavy artillery? All Marines, let me know which of you want to be the first to breach. I'll review the rules and see if I want to do Combat or Explore on the first turn when I get up, but feel free to weigh in on that as well.
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Jul 13, 2015 15:38
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Put me in the front coach! I am not afraid to die horribly for the good of spacelandia.
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Jul 13, 2015 16:09
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Tollymain posted:Pierzak, do you want to tote some heavy artillery? 
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Jul 13, 2015 16:18
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NewMars posted:Put me in the front coach! I'll go as well, just in case we need to fix the airlock or a door to an important room first
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Jul 13, 2015 16:37
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Cool, I'll hang out in the back. We may as well figure where we'll go next. I don't think there's much point for all of us to be going into the Command Pod, so the other half could be exploring down the hall. Send me where the danger is lowest EDIT: How good are we at combat? Am I, as a medic, as good as a regular marine? How about pilots, hackers and mechanics, can they fight?
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Jul 13, 2015 17:04
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Since I'm a hacker, I guess I should be in the section heading for the command pod, assuming there's computers there for me to mine. Probably best to keep me in the back for initial deployment, right enough.
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Jul 13, 2015 17:25
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markus_cz posted:EDIT: How good are we at combat? Am I, as a medic, as good as a regular marine? How about pilots, hackers and mechanics, can they fight?
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Jul 13, 2015 17:36
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Me and
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Jul 13, 2015 17:47
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The game seems interesting, I'll take a generic marine if there are any available; however, I'm losing internet acces in 2 weeks time if that's a problem. First, explore or combat turn? I'm of two minds here: my gut says explore, but I'm incredibly risk averse and we have a limited number of those; I think using an explore turn to reveal a corridor is an huge waste; in addition, we have all our men at full health and in the same position, so this is probably the best time to take the extra risk. Regardless of the combat/explore choice, we also have to decide who are the 4 lucky lads that are going to step off first. I think the 3 generic marines and the tough guy should be first, with the 2 BFG guys, the medic (and a mechanic? most expendable dude remaining) in the airlock ready to give support. Keep the pilots and the hacker in the shuttle until the dust settles. If the corridor is clear, simply use combat turns to get everyone out, if I understand the rules correctly we don't trigger the aliens until we step into the fog of war. EDIT: generic importance order 3 generic marines - cannon fodder. They take risk so the skilled people don't have to tough guy - see above 2 mechanics - we have 2, we can afford to lose 1 hacker - we have only one. Irrepleacable until he's done his thing, then he's a generic marine 2 plasma guys - phenomenal cosmic firepower. Let's try and keep them around 2 pilots - irrepleacables medic - protect the medic. always protect the medic Omobono fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Jul 13, 2015 |
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Jul 13, 2015 19:09
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Yes sir I'll take the BFG sir!  And I'll try to read the rules tonight so I'm at least firing in the right direction. For now, tell me if the plasma gun has limited ammo, area of effect and if friendly fire's on (who am I kidding it's always on). Pierzak fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Jul 13, 2015 |
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Jul 13, 2015 23:19
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Omobono posted:The game seems interesting, I'll take a generic marine if there are any available; however, I'm losing internet acces in 2 weeks time if that's a problem. I'm pretty sure we HAVE to do a combat turn for the first step outside of the airlock since the main hallway is unexplored.
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Jul 13, 2015 23:29
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Slaan posted:I'm pretty sure we HAVE to do a combat turn for the first step outside of the airlock since the main hallway is unexplored.
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Jul 14, 2015 03:59
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Seeing as I've got a really large chance of getting caught by surprise until we run into aliens anyway (5/6), I'm just going to eat the first surprise and go with a Combat Turn for now. Prince and Pierzak are kitted out with plasma, by popular demand. First into the lock: Newmars, Slaan, Garfield, and Data
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Jul 14, 2015 04:17
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Excellent. I'll explain in detail in my next big post, but just to save some time: Because this part of the ship is in 0G, everyone has the same MP amounts. 1 for walking, 2 for jogging, 6 for running. With that in mind, where will you move the four goobers out of the airlock and into the hallway? One big stack of four marines, or spread out more? As a reminder for future turns (as it won't be relevant just yet), walking gives a -1 to-hit penalty, jogging a -2, and running means you can't shoot at all that turn.
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Jul 14, 2015 04:21
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