Shatterzone: Xenos Alpha (RonCon Fall 2017)

System/Setting: Shatterzone

DATE: 2017/09/23

I am developing a trilogy of adventures for Shatterzone, slightly inspired by my old work in it.  I wanted to make it more gritty and fun, as well as unique.  I have struggled to get back into this ruleset though.  It has a strong 90s feel, with a lot of number crunching.  I am still trying to figure out ways to make that simpler in game.

It went well overall but adjusting the players minds to a more “involved” was of playing the game was a challenge.  The cards went over well.  It was the dice rolling, bonus number calculating and the number crunching afterwards that was difficult for them as well as me.  I need to have all the numbers in front of me.  I think between now and MACE, I am going to re-develop my old ShatZone program to a web program so I can have something to generate bad guys fairly quickly.

It did seem to be as deadly as I remember.  But I do have a few issues with it that, if they make a 2E version, I would recommend changing.  (1) Damage options.  There are too many of them.  Shock points, K/O, and wounds are just too much.  (2) Unify the bonus number, difficulty number and penalties, especially where Multi-Action and Many To One comes.  Both of those are way more involved than they need to be.  (3) Unify the Burst Fire, Single Shot, and Automatic Fire rules so they are part of the weapons chart.

Miniature play was difficult as I explained in Shatterzone RPG & Miniature Play.  I am going to work on some terrain for MACE, hopefully.  We’ll see.