Comparison

I've been watching both Alfas and Heroes on Netflix lately, I like both but I would rather gm Alfas because more work is put into rationale for abilities and it's more balanced. As a player I would take whatever advantage I could, but as a rule I don't usully play what I wouldn't gm. Also I prefer scifi tech at a level where players can't just solve everything with a nano tool, more at the level of Enterprise where the best they can do is warp 5 and no deflectors yet. Again, I think more challange equals more drama, and more fun for all. Old school is the best school.

RPG Virtual Tabletop

Recently I have been turned on to roll20 a virtual tabletop which allows for about any tabletop. I'm planning to run 4th ed Hero from Fantasy Hero Western Shores for a couple of friends the map is the main thing but also dice voice and video are all included, for now its free for regular pc browsers Chrome is the most compatible, I don't think it will remain free forever.

GMing

I don't get a chance to run a game often but I do find I have an aptitude at times I ran a game of Stars Without Number for our usual gm last week to the end of a chapter, we had fun but I know Hero System is what I know best he has an itch for fantasy so that is how I would run it. Hopefully we could get one or two others involved and play every other week.
In the SWN game we uncovered a secret of a cyberpunk type planet that a group of AIs really run the show and are using the planet as their game board and the pieces  being corporations and people.
We picked up a passenger who was one of them but was tired of playing you can't trust AIs but I don't want fight one either and this one knows stuff. He has been friendly so far.

Bull Shibboleth

Tonight I began running a SWN campaign. I have one player, Ryan who usually runs a campaign for two of us but with the holidays here the other player is busy and Ryan and I have extra time. So I decided to try my hand at running this game system and instead of starting in a star port or something normal, I went with a mystery horror theme and the shibboleth fit the bill. The book is deliberately vague about them so I've been filling in the blanks, for instance the book speaks of the aversion field only in relationship to humans so I decided the aversion field does not affect any species incapable of becoming psionic like hochog or eldreth or dogs. I say dogs but I introduced a genetically advanced strain of koth hounds with limited sentience and thumbs and able to learn about 4 skills during their 2 formative years. These carry great swords and grenades and wear light combat armor. I tried having him play 4 characters but in practice this was unnatural and we decided he would play 1 and the others could be NPCs. This was after I started them as captives in a temple of the "true way" awaiting sacrifice. They were rescued by 4 locals and the 4 hell hounds but due to overwhelming forces blocking the regular escape they were forced to flee through the secret door that led to the shibboleth lair they encountered 1 that was skinning a captive alive the locals had already undergone a procedure to allow them to see one of the hell hounds were hurt and they escaped with other captives through a small passage that led eventually to the surface where they met the hunter who trained the hell hounds and sent the locals they found some docile dinosaurs to ride and the saga continues to find a legendary leader of the old way to aid them in their quest.

Playing SWN

I am currently playing in a Stars Without Numbers campaign and have been since May. My character is a 5th level psychic majoring in precognition, minoring in biopsionics, telepathy and Photokinesis, he is a lesser prince in a matriarchal space faring vagabond clan (a dubious rank even within his clan) Still you can't be an interstellar vagabond without resources. This has led (after a series of successful adventures) to the shared party ownership of a custom Free Trader its around 1500m cubed and it looks like a bird it's called the Albatross.
He shares the ship with the expert technician who approached his clan for aid on a previous adventure he is a Quatah an avian race with bright plumage, named Vrinn, a member of Everin's clans elite guard, a woman called Dane Kestra, and a rescued warrior from a previous adventure known as Gustav, there is a female pilot, Sophia, and a ship technician Adler, who were also rescued from before.
Vrinn is played by another person the rest are henchpersons and hirelings. Having so many crew rescued makes for a really loyal crew, and we can't seem to stop rescuing people. That may be because Everin is a healer and a medtech and fights death and the Quotah have a racial vow not to attack humans first, our gm continues to invent ways for us to express these traits.
On one mission We revived a group of Hochogs (bore like warrior race) who we had just beaten in a fight and returned them to their captain thereby earning their respect and friendship.
This time it was a personnel extraction that ended up not only being the scientist but his daughter and a man that was being tested for "pain tolerance". We seem to have gained a reputation for being operatives with a heart.
We are still making money, and levels, as long as having a heart doesn't bankrupt us we can keep doing it.

Why I Blog

Why am I blogging? I Like scifi, fantasy, and super hero genres. This is where I will talk about the games I play, books I read, movies and stuff. Right now I'm playing in a sandbox RPG called Stars Without Number by Sine Nomine Publishing The GM has a blog too at savevspoison.blogspot.com Mostly I will post ideas for the game that any one who gms it could use.

13 months

We came up with a calendar for our Stars Without Numbers campaign. Roughly based on the Terran standard year to keep track of things.
Rounds, minutes, hours, days and weeks as normal, months are all 28 days or 4 weeks and a year is 13 months, 364 days and an even 52 weeks.
This makes things easier by accounting standards and what free merchant wouldn't like that. No the months aren't named just numbered. The year is 3200 Terran standard the campaign date is 6/10/00.