Oh.. gods.. I can't wait to receive my copy!!! I'm very tempted to buy it anyways... again!  My friends had an absolute SCREAM playing the play-test of the Centerville Assault... no better enemies than spellcasting Nazis with cybernetic Valkyrie... and my players were AWESOME..NONE of the Valkyrie died..they are actually trying to break their conditioning, such HEROES!

Been planning on buying Department 88 anyways.. want great bridge part 2...

Thunderbolt wrote on Nov 28^th, 2015 at 8:50am:


Wow! They were trying to turn the baddies! Very heroic! They deserve some bonuses for that.

Also, you're making me blush a little.

City Under Siege was a pain to write, but also a lot of fun! I got to step away from my normal anime/manga niche and do something a little different. It's really hard to discuss much on the forum without giving away spoiler - so I'll let it just go without comment for a while, other than to say it's actually kind of dark.

I really like Department 88. I just sat down and went kinda nuts with the whole "Japanese CHESS" concept. There is actually more stuff I could have put in there, but it was already getting to about the right page-count, and I could not figure out how to fit more in. Maybe I'll do another D-88 book one day. For now I am relaxing and pondering a Trilogy involving Kaiser Albrecht, the Valkyries, and more clockwork soldiers.

Great Bridge 2 was also fun to write. The biggest issue I had was that I had covered so many Anime/Manga archetypes in GB1, that I had to do some real work to get characters. I knew I wanted to do a Sentai Team of some kind, but I had already created the Armor Dolls in "Centerville Incident", so I went another direction with the low-tech sentai team. A Super-Sentai team would be cool as well, but the "Really Big Thing" rules need to be play-tested some more.

I did finally write an adventure featuring Marie LaRouge and her gals. It even has enhanced stats for her crew, and some information about how she operates. It was designed for first-time players, so it's really straight forward, but fun for new guys and can be tweaked for more experienced players. I still need to write backgrounds for her crewmembers. What do ya'll think? Should they be First Person like Marie's or third person (from Marie's point of view)?

Majestic wrote on Nov 29^th, 2015 at 12:39am:


Once ‘The Kaiser’ had made his demands and the Uhrwerk Soldaten began rounding people up the fight started in earnest.

I initially attacked with 50 Uhrwerk Soldaten, and Walkure – Skalmold and Kara {the two fliers}.  The Uhrwerk Soldaten were the main focus of the attack and the Walkure were to support the Soldaten’s efforts from above.  I held the rest of the Walkure in reserve with Hilder on the lift waiting as back up if needed.

The Soldaten were a fine opponent especially with all the civilian targets in the way… but I felt there should have been some function for the Soldaten to ‘combine-fire’ for greater accuracy as their +3 on Ranged attacks was not enough to be anything other than a minor inconvenience for the heroes… more of a threat to the masses of innocent bystanders.  Soldaten, at best, are 8- on d20 to hit - a less than 50% hit ratio.

Yes, with 50 of them on the field eventually several would be able to hit… but that is again why a battle map of the tactical combat area was sort of needed.  It did not seem reasonable considering the large scale of the area that all 50 could target the heroes at the same time, and with all the civilians in the way a clear line of fire would have been unlikely{not that this was a concern of the Soldaten}.

In my play test the Soldaten parachuted down from the Von Stengle... the 'rockets' must have been a refinement in the finished adventure.

{Blush}.. hehe...sorry most of what I posted was an excerpt from the After mission Assessment e-mail I sent to Yad of my play-tested observations after my party played the scenario.  So.. I probably should have cut a but more of what I pasted... snicker. 

It might be nice.. since Majestic is a long-time poster here if I could just send him the play test assessment notes of how our run through the scenario went... but, I'd have to ask YOU Ironnerd to ask Yad if that would be ok?  I was told to keep the lid on what we were testing and technically that info belongs to Yad alone... but I think Majestic would get a kick out of reading how our run of the scenario went! 

@ Majestic - Oh.. my players were all 6th to 8th level heroes so the fight was a bit more cinematic... though it was STILL a grueling hard battle... and the Kaiser STILL got away anyways!!

'Curses... Foiled by these upstarts! Mark my Words NEW GUARDIANS... I the DIVINE Albreck will have My REVENGE! You have not seen the last of the 4th Reich!!!' 

@ Ironnerd - An.. just noticed something..heh.. makes even MORE sense now..even though I did not know it before...

Marie LeRouge... her original Solar Sail ship design.. boat and all was STOLEN by GreenFuture...!!! All the more reason for her to be present as I used her in our run of the scenario! Cute and Sweet.. Yahar!

Majestic wrote on Nov 27^th, 2015 at 10:07pm:
FWIW, there is a $3 shipping charge on every order. Each order is actually processed individually by Scott live, and if the order is only PDFs he manually removes the shipping charge before processing your card. This is how the shopping cart has always been due to the web designer not writing a script that can distinguish the difference between product types.

I accept that I am something of an oddball when it comes to GMing (and writing adventures). I appreciate the value of rolling everything out in the open so the players can see the results, but that can also lead to problems. Problems like the main bad guy getting KO'd in the first phase because the GM rolled 01 on the Knock-Out roll, or all of the villain's minions losing their moral and running away from the Vigilantes when what really should happen is a cool battle. You can't take it back, because everyone saw it.

I roll behind a screen to make sure the die rolls fit the story and don't cause undo damage to the player-characters. About 90% of the rolls are left "un-fudged". The rolls that actually get massaged are altered only to increase player enjoyment or proper story-telling.

We're well into topic drift at this point, so I'll mention the $3 refunds. I chatted with one of the web guys last night. He's not aware of why the PDF's are being charged shipping when there is an option on the new site for "Downloadable" files.

For those who have already downloaded a PDF from the new site, please check your credit card statements to see how much you actually paid. You can PM me with the total.

I'm pretty sure the PDF's are $4 each (I got City Under Siege for free...), if you were charged $7 initially, then shipping is still being included, and that needs to be addressed. If you were charged $4, then the site is functioning properly, and the $3 refund is a different issue which the web team needs to track down.

There is still a bug in the shopping cart. The web guy is trying to find a work-around.

HOLY CRAP!!! THAT ROCKS!!

That does it.. I'm not waiting for my copy delivery... I'm buying the PDF..right damn now!

Very nice, mind if I share it on FB?

Thank you everyone! And yes share where you like! just tag either my Deviant art or webpage to it.

www.yadartworks.com
kanonfodder.deviantart.com

Yes, it IS available at Drive-thru... and I already have a super-great comment posted for the book (see pic).

I dunno if Chris D is in this forum. I would like to thank him for the comment, and for calling me and the owner of FGU "Criminals". The comment is so poorly written that most people who read it will thing that I am the criminal in question.  Of course I can't leave comments on my own work at Drive Thru (because I would look like a ever-lovin' jack-wagon), so I had to contact the humans that run Drive thru and ask that the comment be removed. No word back as yet.

Annnnd that comment is Liable no matter whom he is referring to. As there have been no criminal charges levied against anyone working for or with FGU.

BUT thats not what this thread is about. Back on Centerville Under Siege… anyone have the chance to play/read/flip through/lick/fondle the adventure yet?

Ironnerd wrote on Dec 6^th, 2015 at 3:59pm:


I'm glad to hear that.  Regardless of the dispute, there's no reason to pi$$ on your hard work.

Well, it was really just a random customer who has sympathies for Mr. Dee and Mr. Herman. DriveThru had nothing to do with the content of the post, but they did resolve the issue quickly. I just don't think that was the proper venue for the statement.

In other news... PLEASE post your positive reviews of the adventure on DriveThru RPG! It helps my sales, and all sales of V&V stuff (both FGU and MHG).

...if there are positive reviews that is... (fishing for a compliment here guys... don't leave me hanging...)

Quote:

What an intelligent, insightful, and totally un-prompted compliment on my work

Seriously, Thanks Kystron.

Thank-you for the high praise, Ramble. 

I hope you all enjoy the books, and I'm looking forward to seeing more books about other organizations.