Spaceship Landers

Some spaceship landers from my sketchbook.

 

Hellion Cross

I have spoken many times about ZSF, a space game I was/am working on. I did a metric ton of character sheets for it, just for funsies. And I have several drafts of the game written. But I needed something to get me over the edge, to help me commit to the bit.

Simultaneously I started thinking about comics again. Like, a LOT. Finally these things are aligning. I'm working on a new comic, Hellion Cross, which is set in the world of ZSF. At this moment, I have 11 pages inked. I haven't decided yet if this issue will be 24, 28, or 32 pages long. Still on the fence about that.

It has been a long time, it seems, since I dived this far into making comics. This is all I used to do. TTRPGs were a distant second in the back of my mind, though I never stopped fiddling with them. All through the 90s, 2000s, and of course beyond... always, always noodling and doodling about the elfgames.

But comics were always primary for me. I started seriously working on them in 1987 and didn't stop focusing on them until around 2012 when I suddenly shifted gears into an obsession with roleplaying games, particularly the OSR-type. Even then, the result was Black Pudding... a zine that looks a lot like a comic book.

So, what's up with the new comic? I started with a short script wherein a salvage ship finds a frozen woman who bursts out of her ice cage and sort of barges onto the ship, taking over. Much to my surprise, the character morphed before my eyes into Fawn Rainchild, the primary character of my Pan-Gea comics. I didn't expect to see her again, especially in space. But there she was, demanding to be in the book.

Who was I to say no?

So the small crew of the SS (space ship) Motorbreath comes up on a frozen Fawn, naked on a small planetoid. She comes out of her frozen spell and boards the ship, using up the hot water for a shower.

Now... you lascivious types might be going "naked", "hot shower" and thinking this is a prurient comic book. Tut-tut as they say. This is a serious comic about space adventure. The naked woman bit is just because the god damned wizard who gave Fawn the freeze spell was a pervert, most likely.

Where does the book go from here? Well, there's a secondary storyline about a robot vs. human war. At some point these two storylines will merge and we'll see a bigger picture, I'm sure. But right now I'm doing this comic the way I like to do everything: page by page, idea by idea. Hey... Mat Wagner, creator of Mage and Grendel, did it this way. So can I.

You'll know when I know.

ABOUT THE ZSF RPG

Oh yeah. So the comic title is Hellion Cross (unless I change my mind). But it is set in the Zoa Space Frontier, or ZSF. This is the wild west of the galaxy, outside the Galactic Main where everything is safe and sanitized. It's a dangerous place. Apparently, according to what I've written so far, there's a fuckin' war going on. But I feel like this is a relatively trivial matter. The robots of the RIO (Robot Imperial Order) have been warring with the UHF (United Human Federation) for countless years. This current war is just one of many, with the robots and humans fighting over resources. Perhaps they fight so much because the humans created the robots and the robots have a lot of mommy/daddy issues as a result. The humans... they just like to fight over resources. Always have.

So anyway, the game. It is going to be called ZSF, unless I change my mind. It's a space romp RPG. The setting, the ZSF, is magical space, mind you. This is not "hard sci-fi". This is pure space opera and sci-fantasy. There are wizards and shit. You will see barbarians with swords and blasters. This is my shit.

The RPG is an original system. A big part of me wanted to use GOZR as the system, so I could just wrap that setting into ZSF more easily. But I foolishly created an entirely different one. Mostly because I wanted to get away from the d20 as the core die, even though I love it and I think GOZR's system is great. I wanted to peel away from that a little bit. Right now ZSF uses a d6 pool with exploding dice and stuff. But more on that later.

First step is to get the comic done. A setting, in action, with characters and visuals... this will help establish the tone and "what you do" in the game.

But I've rambled on long enough. Back to inking.

Here's page one of Hellion Cross, y'all. Colors later.

Captain Vista

This post is a nerdy dive into some ZSF rules about character creation. Proceed at your own risk.

I've been drawing a lot of ZSF art lately. I don't know how much of it will end up in the game book, and I'm not even thinking about it. I'm just having a great old time drawing.

As I was doodling last night, I drew this sketch of a character who I named Captain Vista. So I thought I'd go ahead and give him game stats. I wanted to write a little bit about it because I can discuss the character creation system a bit.

Here's the Captain:

 He's a beefy lad! A real space hero. But he is not an example of a starting character. His stats are more beefy than a new PC would be. Of course, like any game, you could tweak the chargen rules to allow for more beefy starting PCs. That's fine. But let me break down how this guy is put together and how it differs from the chargen rules.

Basic Skills

Every PC has six Basic Skills: Explore, Drive, Fight, Operate, Shoot, and Talk.

A new PC has a rank of 1 in each skill and you can distribute 9 additional points between them for a total of 15 ranks. The Captain has a total of 19, not 15.

As you play the game, the GM will hand out Space Points, which are like XP. You spend them on your character to make changes. One of the changes you can make is bumping up your skills. It costs 3 SP to increase a skill by 1 rank. So the Captain has spent 12 SP on skills.

Life Points

Every PC starts with LP equal to their Explore + Fight ranks + 20. Cap's E+F+20 equals 29, but he has 35 LPs.

You can add 1 LP by spending 1 Space Point, so the Cap has spent 6 SP.

Traits

Every PC starts with 2 special Traits. A Trait is really just anything at all about your character that isn't covered by other chargen rules. Rapid healing, a rich uncle, and a magic gun are all examples of Traits you could add to your PC.

Captain Vista has 6 things listed on his sheet that could be counted as Traits, though 2 of them are probably just gear.

• Animated Hair (definitely a Trait)

• Hyper Strong (definitely a Trait)

• .50 Cal gun (probably gear, not special)

• Katana (probably gear, not special)

• Captain of the Heroic Tortoise (definitely a Trait)

• Space Eyes (definitely a Trait)

The difference between what is a Trait and what isn't is that a Trait is something extra. All PCs can buy a laser pistol. If your character buys a pistol for $100 and it deals 5 DMG (damage), then that's just a standard thing. If you want it to be something special, you can spend 2 Space Point and turn it into a Trait. You might then say the laser pistol actually has modular parts and you had a super zapper module lying around. Now your laser pistol, a Trait, deals 9 DMG instead of 5. Or it can be set to scan mode or something.

The Captain started with 2 Traits at chargen. Assuming his weapons are not special, he currently has 4 Traits, so he has spent a minimum of 4 Space Points to add 2 new Traits. It is possible that he spent more, because you can improve your Traits by spending 2 SP on them. We don't really know the details of his abilities from what we're shown here. Let's just assume he spent 4 SP.

Money

Captain has $625. All PCs begin with $100, so he has probably spent and earned some money over time. He's not rich at all. He can't even buy a laser pistol with that kind of cash. So I don't think he has spent any Space Points to make himself richer (you can get a quick $500 for 1 SP).

Summary

In total, we know that Captain Vista has spent 12+6+4 = 22 Space Points. If the GM follows the guidelines given in the rules, they will award 1 SP per 1 hour of play. Adjusting for snack runs and Monty Python jokes, Captain Vista has been involved in at least 22 hours of game play, or about 5 or 6 typical game sessions. He's not a new character.

Of course it's possible the GM awards more points than normal or starts with more bennies for PCs. Every table is different, you know.

Last Thought: The Heroic Tortoise

Nobody starts with a ship in this game. At least not a ship worth a bent penny. Part of the game's theme is that you are poor outsiders working within or against a system that is inherently unfair and kind of ruthless (sound familiar?). Captain Vista would not have a ship like this one as a new PC.

The Heroic Tortoise

How did he come by it? Does he own it or just work for the owner? These are details that grew out of playing the game. He might have rescued the ship from a bad owner and now claims it himself. In that case, the player would add "Heroic Tortoise" as a Trait. They didn't spend points to get it because it was just a result of organic play, as most things will be.

Later, the player might want to improve the ship in some way or add details to it. They can do so by spending money on upgrades or spending Space Points to bump up the Trait's details. It isn't terribly precise or crunchy... this is more of a narrative element. But some game benefits should be imbued, which can be negotiated between player and GM.

Also, this ship might not belong only to the Captain. This is a RPG, after all. It is probably the case that the ship belongs to the team, so every player has ownership. In that case, players could spend money or SPs to improve the ship as well. They just won't have sole ownership of it.

ZSF Noodle Doodle Drop II

Following up on this post, more thoughts about ZSF: Zoa Space Fantasy!

ZSF is a work-in-progress space fantasy adventure game set in a wild galaxy where the Companies and the Law run the show. PCs are on the outside of mainstream society, and probably outlaws.

Since my last post, I refined the rules a bit.

• Instead of rolling for your Basic Skill ranks, you start with 1 in each and can add 6 more to them. The only rule is you can't dump all 6 into one Skill. So you could end up with a mix, as long as it all adds up to 12 total.

• Successes, called Hits, are on a 5 or 6 on d6.

• The difficulty of any task is called the Difficulty Level, or DL for short. The GM sets the DL for tasks. NPCs and creatures will have DLs so you know what you need to score to hit or otherwise oppose them.

• The DLs are very limited in range. Due to the nature of the dice mechanic, getting even 2 Hits is not easy. So a range of 1-4 is plenty wide.

• All action dice rolls are made by the players, just like in GOZR.

I've spent some time thinking about money and economy in the setting. Not much has changed on that front. PCs begin with $100 and some basic equipment. As I said before, if you really want to start with a badass weapon you can use one of your Traits to describe it. Because almost everything really cool is well beyond your $100 budget.

Right now I'm considering different ways to approach equipment. What I'm thinking is, similar to GOZR, there will be some short, simple lists with prices for relatively generic goods. But then also a fat section on very specific goods and services, name brand stuff like the PH22 blaster or Breathe-O-Matic cozmask (space mask, a kind of auto-fitting helmet). Since Companies are tied into the setting, it'll be fun and rewarding to lean into that and have a lot of branded merchandise that PCs can get their hands on. Why settle for a generic laser rifle when you can have the industry standard RIG 17?

SUPERCALLA

Of course much of this material was first introduced in my 2019 Troika! book, Supercalla, and the 2020 follow-up Cozmic Metal Heads. I'm super proud of those books. ZSF is essentially taking that same core setting idea and exploding into a full-blown RPG with an original system. Almost everything you saw in those books will land somewhere in ZSF in one form or another.

EDFOST

Ok, a little behind the scenes into how my brain works when I'm noodling ideas. I spent a ridiculous amount of time deciding on the core stats (the Basic Skills). My idea was that they MUST form a cool acronym. At least something that you could pronounce. I can't even remember what all I came up with. One idea involved these monosyllabic words like Oomph, Bam, Yak, etc. Which was cool, but I veered away and landed on EDFOST:

Explore, Drive, Fight, Operate, Shoot, Talk.

Having the acronym, which is now etched into my brain, helps me always remember the list. "E is Explore... what was F? Oh Fight!"

More later.

ZSF Noodle Doodle Drop

The original Zoa Space Fantasy logo, c. 2008.

A long, rambly post about a game I'm working on.

Since the oughts, I've had this crazy space idea zipping around my brain. It's space, but it's not "normal" space. There are planets, but also potato-shaped worlds, worlds that look like castles, worlds that are domed, etc. Really just an anything goes fantasyland where you have vast oceans of space ichors, empty space, and rivers of phlogiston instead of fields and roads and seas between interesting locations.

I did a comic about it called Zoa Space Fantasy. I think I did around 20 pages or so before I petered out. The story was about a little robot guy called N9 who wakes up on a garbage planet without his memories. He fights a garbage creature and is rescued by a space pirate/salvage ship called The Workhorse, captained by Tyrrany Flack, a medusa space captain. The ship was powered by a demon.

Later, I revived the idea and published a Troika! RPG book called Supercalla, then a follow-up called Cozmic Metal Heads, which was all about robot PCs. I am super proud of these books. I think they rock. I worked on a third book to be called Hellion Cross, which was a den of scum and villainy. I actually did a ton of work on that one and I believe I finished all 36 character backgrounds and most of the art. But I didn't finish it up.

More recently, I ran a game in my Monday night Doomslakers group called Heat Death. It was an original system and was set, loosely, in the same universe. But Heat Death was more grounded, scaled back, less fantastical. It was intended to be something like "in the past" of the ZSF universe. It was more about down-and-out Earthlings working out in the armpit of the galaxy because of crimes they committed or something. It was fun, but the system ultimately didn't quite work for me.

Which brings us up to current times. For many months, perhaps a year or more, I've been noodling an entirely new game based on this crazy space fantasy idea. The game will be called ZSF, Zoa Space Fantasy. Or Zoa Space Frontier, if you like that better.

To create this game, I started with a character sheet idea. I wanted to narrow it down to what you will always need in order to run wild space adventures. I decided you need the following elements.

FORM AND BACKGROUND

Fundamental to your PC... what kind of life form are you and what sort of job skills do you have? A list of these things will be given, with some minor detail. But making the shit up is an option. Monkey pirate? Blob scientist? Humanoid guru? You decide.

TRAITS

A Trait is any kind of characteristic that has any kind of mechanical impact on play, such as having a third arm or x-ray vision. You can make up some Traits when creating your PC and you can add more later. A Trait can also be an item. So if you really want to start the game with a kick ass laser rifle, make it a Trait. You damn sure won't be able to buy one with the skimpy funds you'll be starting with.

BASIC SKILLS

Everyone is a spacer, so they all should have some common basic skills. Not everyone is equally good at them, so the skills should have ranks. I decided you should randomly roll your ranks on a d6 per skill. It feels right. There are six skills. Not because six attributes is common, but because it makes sense. Trust me... I preferred to have less than six. But my image of how this game works just ended up requiring these six skills. I don't want more.

•Explore (perception, instinct, toughness, etc.)

•Drive (ships, cars, bikes, etc.)

•Fight (punch, kick, tackle, bash, etc.)

•Operate (machines, robots, computers, etc.)

•Shoot (load, aim, fire, reload, and duck)

•Talk (charisma, persuasion, negotiation, etc.)

The way I see it, every conceivable common task a fantasy spacer could engage in is covered by these six skills. Blasting robots, flying ships, kicking in teeth, negotiating with locals, etc. Now you may wonder immediately... this is a space fantasy game. There are wizards. So how does a PC interact with magic? There isn't a skill that is obviously magical. There are reasons for this. First, most things that appear to be magical may actually be tech. Super science! Sufficiently advanced, as it were.

If the PCs encounter a truly mystical, magical thing that is beyond technology... why would they have a skill for it? Those are special situations.

LIFE POINTS

I thought about not having hit points. I thought about a wound levels system, or just ignoring this altogether. But honestly... this is an adventure game wherein you'll likely have fights with monsters and shit. I like hit point systems. They are quite reliable. So ZSF will have one. They are called Life Points to reinforce the fact that when you run out of them, you die. Or... probably... I will do a player choice: death or some kind of permanent drawback, akin to Death or Debasement from GOZR.

DEFENSE

Lifted straight from GOZR, which came straight from Into the Odd and other similar systems. Defense is just armor, or anything that absorbs damage. By default, this is a zero. And having a point or two is a big deal.

EXPLODING DICE

I love exploding dice. I can't not have them. So in this game, under the current rule sketch, you roll a d6 to do shit and if you roll a 6, the die explodes. There's more to it than that, but there it is.

ACES

I also love meta points. In this game, they are Aces. I used that term because years ago I did a dry run for a space game and the term "aces" played into that system. Plus "space ace" is fun. Anyway, this is exactly like GOZR's GOOZ points. You spend Aces to make shit happen.

GAMBLING

Way back in 2000, I wrote The Pool, which had a gambling element in the core mechanic. I wanted to bring that idea back because I do love the dynamic it provides. When players have a meaningful choice... to take a big risk and make big things happen. The idea here is you can literally roll as many dice as you want in any situation, thus increasing your chance of being wildly successful. But if you roll even a single 1, you have not only failed... you critically failed. I think this will be a fun game element.

MONEY AND GEAR

Mostly, I'm going to use The Black Hack's elegant usage dice for keeping track of bullets and stuff. But money, in the form of STDs (Standard Trade Dollars), will be tracked carefully. You'll shop and buy shit. You'll get ripped off. You'll rip people off. You start with a low amount of cash and things are expensive. I like it when players have to go buy things, haggle for them, and so forth. Plus if the PCs have to think about money, it underscores one of the game's core themes: corporate greed.

Gear is super important too. I think this is me showing my influences right on my sleeve because Star Frontiers was the second game I ever owned and I spent copious amounts of time pouring over the equipment descriptions. I love that shit. This game will have a lot of fun gear you can purchase, if you can get some money.

SETTING

I've already discussed this a bit. But to add to it, the galaxy is dominated by companies. Corporations have fully taken over as the real power. Governments exist, but are essentially fronts for corporations. Honestly... not very different than reality, huh?

The PCs will be adventuring mostly in the ZSF: the Zoa Space Frontier. This is basically the outer galaxy. Polite society is closer to the core of the galaxy, where streets are straight and the Law keeps things nice and neat. Out in the frontier it is a different story. Things are wild and wooly. Which can be good bad... the corporations reach out here to mine for resources, exploit natives, and so forth. The Law is their blunt tool. Many PCs may be outlaws. Fun.

Ok, so those are pretty much the important bits, in terms of what I wanted this game to emote. Let's talk system for a minute.

Currently, it's this:

•Roll a d6 to do a thing. A 6 explodes. Hit the Challenge Number and you succeed.

•Each skill level adds 1d6 to the roll. Traits can also add dice or add modifiers.

•Roll a 1 without a 6, and you failed. Roll the die again and if it's another 1, you crit fail. You describe what happens.

•Borrowing from GOZR, if you roll 1 under the target, you graze. Something beneficial might still happen.

•Spend Aces to do things like take extra actions, auto-explode a die, etc.

•Add dice to the roll as a gamble, as discussed above.

•Earn Space Points to build upon your character.

That's the gist of it. Work in progress, very much in the gestational phase. Even though, if you've seen any of my social media posts, I've been drawing tons of ZSF character sheets. I'm doing this because it's fun and because I want to lock myself into the bones of the system. I need to do this because I'm prone to change shit over and over and never get it done. How the fuck do you think I got GOZR finished? By literally drawing the rules I had a harder time changing them. If you knew how many iterations of Rabbits & Rangers exist and that game is still not written...

TONE

Holy fuck. This is a big deal. Because RPGs are for everyone, right? I want to be inclusive. I don't want to tell someone they can't play, either directly or indirectly. But at the same time, the tone of a work will invariably filter some people out. But this is a natural filter. It's ok.

For example, I don't line dance. Nobody tells me I can't do it. It's just not for me. In that respect, whatever tone this game ultimately strikes, it will filter out some players who just aren't into that tone. And that's a beautiful thing. Choice. Variety. The spice of life.

My inclination is to be a bit reckless and say naughty words. I could avoid that. I might avoid that. But I might just remove the training wheels on this one and let my raw imagination go nuts. It could be a galactic train wreck. We'll see.

An old Zoa banner, c. 2009.

Space Time?

While the GOZR Kickstarter is still going, of course I'm working on entirely other stuff. Namely, my space game.

Working title is ZSF, Zoa Space Fantasy. This is the setting from Supercalla and Cozmic Metal Heads, but instead of going with Troika! (much love) I'm going to make it another original game system. I'm having fun making original games, might as well ride that high.

This time I don't plan to hand letter the thing. It'll probably be a more traditionally laid out book. But the visual inspirations are 70s era art albums and art books... so the plan is for every page to be art. Lots of full page pieces, lots of small pieces. Not so much density of text per page. Something like 50/50 art book/RPG guide.

This cartoon world has lived in my head and in a couple of RPG books for years. It'll be fun to put it into yet another form, one that I can claim entirely as my own. I've been noodling and doodling this for the last week or so. Kind of excited about it. Kind of the same sort of feeling I had when I started working on GOZR.

Of course this could all change. I am a slave to my whims, after all. I might drift away from this. Hell, I really do need to get back to my OSR book and FINISH IT. But we'll see.

Let's talk about mechanics.

How do you decide what kind of mechanics a game needs? I don't know. But I have an idea about how to start.

First, what is the game about? In this case it's space opera with a strong 70s heavy metal aesthetic. What might characters in such a game be doing? Flying in space ships, fighting weird monsters, dealing with space wizards, making deals with demons, and contending with strange robots. In fact, the words "weird", "strange", and "cosmic" seem to pop up a lot when I think about this thing.

So I am starting with a list of actions. PCs in ZSF will:

Shoot (load, aim, fire, reload, and duck)

Talk (charisma, persuasion, negotiation, etc.)

Operate (machines, robots, computers, etc.)

Fight (punch, kick, tackle, bash, etc.)

Explore (perception, instinct, toughness, etc.)

Drive (ships, cars, bikes, etc.)

I think that covers the important bases. I wanted it to spell out something badass. "STOFED" is as close as I came.

What I like about this is that it strongly implies the game theme. It's a game "about" flying through space and doing action shit.

The primary mechanic (I really dislike the term "core mechanic" for some reason) is, for now, to roll d20 and add your modifiers vs. the GM's* roll. High roll wins.

So the whole hit point thing...

I have wrestled with this. I actually like hit points and damage as a mechanic (I used it in GOZR). But since I'm making an original game system, I might as well think about trying something different.

Right now I'm messing around with a mechanic from the least likely place of all... my stupid little game Lizards vs. Wizards. In that game, when you get hurt you simply roll a d100 vs. your survival trait. If you fail, you are a dead lizard. No hit point tracking at all. So I thinks to myself... why not? This is a space game, which means it is also, in some ways, a western. That is, when you get shot by a laser pistol you should probably almost certainly DIE.

Of course I don't want ZSF to be as slapstick and cartoonish as LvW. There's a trick to it. Yes, it is going to be a game where you can get shot and die with one die roll. But a Luck mechanic is also in place. Not luck points, as I usually like to do. More of a limitless luck roll. The trade off is that failing the luck roll causes instant bad luck for all the PCs.

Anyway... more on all that later.

*Ok, I'm actually planning to call the GM "Spacelord". Because fuck why not? It's a SPACE GAME. And nobody cares anyway.

Zoa Space Fantasy Design Notes #1

EDIT: The book is complete. The title is Supercalla. Go check it out! Now back to the older post...

I'm in the early stages of creating a Troika!-based sci-fantasy RPG. The working title has always been Zoa Space Fantasy, but that is subject to change. An alternate title I have on the table is Hellion Cross, which is the name of a specific sunrealm within the larger setting of the Coz.

Here are a couple of design choices I'm currently wrestling with.

1. Should this be a Troika! setting or a standalone RPG based on Troika!? My inclination is to make it standalone. My only reason for entertaining the idea of making it a setting is that it would be slightly easier to pull that off. Of course this game has precious few rules so really we're not talking about a huge amount of work to make it a standalone book. The benefit of going that direction is also that I can incorporate "house rules" directly into the actual rules.

2. I had this notion that the Backgrounds would either be in 3 sets of 36 or 6 sets of 36. I feel like 6 sets is a little overkill. It would be fun to create that many, but maybe that would make choosing a Background a little harder. Rolling for it would be as easier either way.

3. How much of the setting is implied by the Backgrounds vs. explicitly described in other sections? What I love about Troika! is that the Backgrounds do in fact give you a sketch of a setting and that's really all you need in order to get a game going. From there it can go anywhere. So here the conceit of the world-builder comes into conflict with the game's very simple aesthetic. The more I enforce the crunchy details of this world the less room you have as a player to be playful and creative. I have always gravitated to things that give me more room to play and be creative, so why would I want to create something that hinders people?

What I'm leaning toward right now is to have the vast majority of the setting suggested within the Backgrounds and maybe give the broad setting an Isle of Dread-style treatment... brief little paragraphs describing the major concepts and places - information that would fit on a couple of pages at most.

Ultimately I'd like to make this a fairly visual book, saddle-stitched and in the realm of 48-64 pages. Probably in color, like a 70s comic art album. A thing that inspires role-playing more than directing it.