Mad Brew Labs

[WARNING: Some people may find the following offensive. If you do, you were warned... do not whine about it in the comments.]

Merry Krampus by Steven Austin

Since time before the charlatan they called Christ walked the deserts outside Babylon, I have fed upon the terror and the bones of unruly children. My legend is immortal and I shall continue to feast on disobedient pups and wash my feet in their blood. Though my reputation ensures many a child grows into honorable adults, I fear that there are too many bad apples for me to sink my teeth into. Alas, though my power holds, its reach is not far enough and this world shall forever grow worse under the ravages of bad seed.

Background

The Krampus is a Slasher of Legend and he roams the World of Darkness every Yuletide in search of miserable little juveniles in need of punishment. In the beginning, the Krampus would only visit children in the night and sneak into their rooms to scare them. Though, as his legend grew, so did the terror and ghastly stories connected with him. His legend began to change his method of operation.

Over centuries, the Krampus was shaped by the stories parents told their children to encourage good behavior and he grew from a simple frightener of the night into a horror that fed upon wicked children. What behavior attracts the Krampus variable and depends on the stories parents tell their children. Should a child defy a parent’s wish which was communicated in the Krampus story, then there is a chance the Krampus will attempt to collect the child during Yuletide, though the Krampus prefers the flavor of bullies, liars, and teenagers of any sort.

What exactly constitutes a child in the Krampus’ eyes is determined by the culture, in most areas this begins when the child starts school (around 5 or 6) and ends when they are legally an adult (anywhere between 16 and 21 years of age). The Krampus can appear anywhere, but it is strongest where it’s stories are more prevalent. Austria and Bavaria are predominant in Krampus sighting; however, the Krampus often visits American towns where there is a large concentration of Germanic culture.

Appearance

The Krampus is vaguely human and is covered in short white fur (often splattered with the blood of bad children) and carries a massive wooden bucket chained to his back. The bucket is often filled with the appendages and blood of recent victims and both the bucket and its chain are used as weapons.

The Krampus also has an elongated tongue that constantly lolls out of its mouth and with which he alternatively frightens children or tempts women. He also has two twisted horns protruding from his forehead.

Storytelling Hints

The Krampus can only target children that have defied parents that have threatened their children with his legend. The Krampus is truly immortal as long as his stories continue to be told to children and should he ever be reduced to zero health, he dissipates in a cloud of coal soot and returns to his ways the next Yuletide.

The Krampus believes he is doing the world a favor and that his activities makes the world a better place. He thinks his presence inspires children to grow into good, responsible adults while he culls the bad seed from the world. He often monologues about such things when he claims rotten children to torture.

The Krampus is known for more than his thirst for misbehaving children and is known for his lust for the ladies and his obsession with cleavage in particular. A woman can attempt to persuade the Krampus to leave a particular child alone with a Seduction (p84-85 World of Darkness core rulebook) roll. For this particular roll, equipment rating is determined by the woman’s bust size (Storyteller’s discretion on how many dots).

Bad Bucket of Blood

This bucket can be spun around as an All Out Attack that targets all opponents in a 3 yard radius and it also counts as a Close Combat attack (Strength + Weaponry).

• Damage 4
• Bashing (-2)
• Knockdown 1
• Knockout 2
• Area Affect 3
• Size 4 (-4)
• Two-Handed (-1)

Chains of Castigation

The chain connected to the Bad Bucket can be used as a weapon by itself. A successful attack causes continuous damage as the sins of the victim burn her flesh. The Krampus gains the benefits of specializing in the Bad Bucket, Favored Weapon, and Weaponry Monomaniac as these chains are actually considered part of the Bad Bucket and are just an alternate use.

• Damage 1
• Lethal
• Continuous Damage 1
• Range 3
• Size 3 (-3)
• Two-Handed (-1)

Be sure to visit Nevermet Press as they have kindly commissioned the art and organized the Krampus Karnival.

Listening to: DevilDriver – Beast – Shitlist

When crafting or playing in the Weird West, it’s often handy to have some inspirational tunes spinning in the background. The band that I immediately think of for Weird West warbles is Ghoultown.

Ghoutown with Elvira

Their catchy hymns manage to strike a particular chord of the strange and horrific that is perfectly suited to a Weird West adventure. From tales of drinking with the dead to serial killers aboard trains, you can never go wrong firing up a track from one of their albums.

Life After Sundown

The flavor of their music is firmly in the realm of rockabilly/psychobilly; which means you get a fusion of hard rock riffs and lyrics mixed with blues and classic western guitar twang. Their is also a strong influence from south of border with a strong influx of mariachi inspired brass.

• Boots of Hell – 1999
• Tales From the Dead West – 2000
• Give ‘Em More Rope – 2002
• Live From Texas! – 2004
• Bury Them Deep – 2006
• Life After Sundown – 2008
• Skeleton Cowboys (vinyl) – 2008
• Mistress of the Dark – 2009

Their style eventually attracted the Mistress of the Dark, Elvira, to seek a theme song and video from the psyhobilly rockers from Texas. And for Vampire fans out there, their gig posters actually appeared in the 2004 Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines PC game. Well, enough of my wailin’s, I’ll their music speak for itself.

Wild West Weeks

• Welcome to Wild West Weeks
• Wild West RPG Database
• Into the Far West
• Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier
• Deadlands Reloaded
• Red Dead Redemption
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Part 1
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Core Mechanics
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits I
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits II
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits III
• Wild West Minis Database
• Legends of the West RPG: Vitality & Experience
• Tunes of the Weird West: Ghoultown

Listening to:  Ghoultown – Skeleton Cowboys – Hog Trail

Wild West Weeks

I haven’t given up on my 24 Hour RPG, Legends of the West, even though I didn’t make it within the time limitation. Here are two more Traits, Vitality (and Wounds) and Experience. Vitality is integral the Wounds system and determines what kind of beating a character can take while Experience is the currency of character improvement.

VITALITY & WOUNDS

Injury, disease, famine, and other ailments are a daily concern for people living in the frontier. Medicine and doctors are not as ubiquitous as they are in the urban areas of the East. The Trait that governs injury and general health is Vitality. Vitality is calculated from adding a character’s Body Resistance with her size and a static value. The default and minimum static value is five, but Judges can adjust this value to make the game more forgiving. Humans have a default size of five.

Whenever a character suffers injury, if the amount of injury meets or exceeds her Vitality score, then she suffers a Wound. For every Variance of Success, the character suffers an additional Wound. For every Wound, a character must apply a negative one modifier to all Action Rolls. A point of Grit may be spent to ignore Wound modifiers for a single Action Roll.

Miniatures and terrain are not for everyone, but many gamers like to enhance the visual experience of their game or require physical portrayals of the action for tactical reasons. If you’re looking for miniatures and terrain for a Wild West game, look no further, this article is your ultimate resource. I will highlight few of my favorite figures/lines.

At the end of the article you can find a Wild West Miniatures Database that compiles 75+ different miniature and terrain lines to fit the needs of anyone gaming in the American Old West. If you know of a manufacturer that isn’t on that list (or find that one of my links are broken), do not hesitate to inform me.

Witchtown Tales

Witchtown Tales documents a private Old West miniature collection. It shows some excellent paint schemes for figures as well as terrain. However, one of it’s best resources is its manufacturer scale comparison page.

Old West Scale Compare

Dixon Miniatures

Dixon has a solid range of figures and considering that the same figure can come with multiple head variants, it makes their line surprising large. I think my favorite mini from Dixon are the Lying Wounded and Lying Dead figures.

Lying Dead

Noon Stage

Blue Moon Manufacturing

Blue Moon’s lineup features a lot of famous names from the legendary West. The Earps, the James, and most of the names you hear while watching Tombstone are there.. I really like the Tombstone Civilians set and the Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane pack. Of particular coolness is Blue Moon’s Wagons Ho! line.

Tombstone Civilians

Wargames Foundry

The Foundry probably has the most expansive selection of Old West miniatures available. I especially like their Townsfolk and Mountain Men lines. For the gamer with deep pockets, they have two excellent army packs. The Plains War Indian Army comes with 99 figures (51 horses), but will set you back $450.

Yellowstone River Mountain Men

Black Scorpion

Black Scorpion has some of the most gorgeous Western themed lines available. They are a little taller than your average heroic sized minis (32mm vs. 28mm), but those extra millimeters allows for some additional detail. Particularly, I like the Billy the Kid and Bobba Fat Mexican sculpts.

Bobba Fat Mexican

Eric Hotz

Hotz’s Whitewash City is probably the most affordable, dynamic and re-usable terrain available for Old West gaming. It’s cardstock, but that means you can easily modify the images to change up the look and feel of building. I also like the game mat they have as a base for building an Old West town.

Whitewash City

Hovels, Ltd.

Hovels provides their resin buildings either plain or already painted. In addition to the 25mm Wild West line, they also have an American Civil War line which could easily be used in an Old West setting. My particular favorite is the Grand Hotel.

Grand Hotel

Roll Your Own

For the crafty gamer, you could also build your own terrain out of balsa wood or cardstock. A tutorial by David Marshall and another from Dave Bezio should give the DIY gamer a good place to begin.

Davestown Balsawood

Wild West Minis DB

Wild West Weeks

• Welcome to Wild West Weeks
• Wild West RPG Database
• Into the Far West
• Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier
• Deadlands Reloaded
• Red Dead Redemption
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Part 1
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Core Mechanics
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits I
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits II
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits III
• Wild West Minis Database
• Legends of the West RPG: Vitality & Experience

Listening to: Toy Story 2 Video Game OST – Al’s Penthouse

ADJUDICATION

24 Hour RPG

Today, I’m kicking off a 24 hour challenge where I develop a entire RPG, starting now (noon) and ending tomorrow at noon (EST). The rules of the challenge:

• Must complete within 24 hours
• All work must be done by me
• No pre-work, but can be based on pre-existing ideas

Design Goals

Listening to: Pantera – Cowboys from Hell – Cowboys from Hell

Red Dead Redemption

Red Dead Redemption^[1] is an action-adventure 3^rd person shooter that is set in the late (1911-1914) Old West. While it’s set in the Old West, the open game world locations and people are actually fictitious. Red Dead Redemption (RDR) is the spiritual successor to the PS2 game, Red Dead Revolver, but doesn’t share any common characters in the story lines (though you can unlock Revolver models for online play).

Plot

I’ll try to keep from spoilers, but the primary storyline for RDR follows former outlaw, John Marston, who is strong-armed into tracking down and killing his former gang members when the newly formed FBI kidnaps his wife and son.

Marston must obtain allies (by rendering services for them) in the Territory of New Austin and the Mexican province of Nuevo Paraiso in order to track down and incapacitate his former friends. Then Marston must face the law that shanghaied his life.

The voice acting is superb and the story and dialog do an excellent job of illustrating the underlying themes exemplified by the Old West. Civilization conquering the Wild. Law subverting Freedom and all the little grey areas between. The plot handles the moral and ethical ambiguity rooted in the myth of the American Frontier very well.

For a more complete synopsis of the plot (as well as detailed information about every part of the game), I highly recommend the walk-through provided by the Red Dead Wiki.^[2]

Gameplay

Red Dead Redemption is built on RAGE (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine), so it shares a lot technology with Rockstar’s other game built with the same engine, Grand Theft Auto IV, such as a sandbox game world and the third person shooter perspective.

Travel

Transportation across the open world is done primarily with a horse (along with carts, wagons, or stagecoaches if you steal one) or train, but once a place has been “unlocked” you can travel there instantly when you’ve set up camp or when you’re at a save location. You can always travel to waypoints you can place on the world map using this method. Some online games and story chapters have unique modes of transportation such as by river raft or automobile.

Combat

The controls (at least for the PS3 version) are pretty intuitive and easy to master. Firing a weapon consists of pressing and holding the aim button and then firing with another. You have three modes of aiming: Casual, Normal, and Expert. The difference between Casual and Normal are not that obvious at first, but they both snap-to-target (with Normal you have to be near the target for auto-aim to work). Casual aiming also increases heal speed. Expert removes all auto-aiming features (and gives an XP bonus in multi-player).

Damage is represented by blood splatter and red transparency that overlays the screen. Health is regenerative, and once you quit taking damage you quickly heal. However, it is still possible to be sniped in one-shot, especially in multi-player.

Weapons

The RDR team did a healthy bit of research for the weaponry found in the game. While some of the specs are inaccurate (Henry rifles held 16 rounds, not 12; original Evans repeating rifles held 34 rounds, not 22; Mauser pistols were not fully auto until after WWI), I think they were modified for game balance. Below is a list of available weapons and links to their real-world counterpart:

Weapon List:

• Lasso
• Hunting Knife (Bowie Knife)
• Throwing Knife
• Dynamite
• Fire Bottle (Molotov Cocktail)
• Tomahawk {Legends & Killers DLC}
• Cattleman Revolver (Colt Single Action Army Model 1873)
• Schofield Revolver (.45 Smith & Wesson Model 3 [1875])
• Double Action Revolver (Colt New Service Model [1898])
• LeMat Revolver [1861]
• Volcanic Pistol (Smith & Wesson No. 1 [1854])
• Semi-Automatic Pistol (Borchardt C-93 [1893])
• High Power Pistol (Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless OR Colt M1911)
• Mauser Pistol (Mauser C-96 [1899])
• Double-barreled Shotgun (Colt Model 1878?)
• Sawed-off Shotgun (Unknown)
• Pump-action Shotgun (Winchester Model 1897)
• Blunderbuss {Undead Nightmare DLC}
• Semi-Auto Shotgun (Browning Auto-5 [1898])
• Repeater Carbine (Spencer 1865 Carbine)
• Winchester Repeater (Winchester Model 1892)
• Henry Repeater [1860]
• Evans Repeater [1873]
• Springfield Rifle (Springfield Model 1873 Trapdoor)
• Bolt-action Rifle (Springfield Model 1892 Krag-Jørgensen)
• Buffalo Rifle (Sharps Model 1874 with Vernier Rear Sights)
• Explosive Rifle (Mauser Gewehr 98 [1898] w/ Rifle Grenade?) {Liars & Cheats DLC}
• Rolling Block Rifle (Remmington M1867)
• Carcano Rifle [1891]

Breaking Horses

Horse breaking is a mini-game in Red Dead Redemption. You can either break horses at one of the ranches or break horses in the wild. There are several breeds of horse that can be obtained (Welsh Mountain, Quarter Horse, & American Standard-bred being but a few), each with different qualities. Attributes for mounts include Speed, Stamina, and Health and each has a rating of 1 to 4 stars. Most of the breeds must be found and broken in game.

Gambling Mini-Games

There are several gambling mini-games available to play in both single-player and multi-player. Each mini-game has its own unique mechanics and/or controls. You can lock hands in Arm Wrestling, try not to exceed 21 in Blackjack, slice up your hand in Five Finger Fillet, test your luck in Horseshoes, prevaricate about faces in Liar’s Dice, or bluff your way to the pot in Poker.

Other Activities

Some other activities available in Red Dead Redemption include Bounty Hunting, Cattle Herding, watching newfangled film at the Cinema, commit Crimes & Murder, Drinking, Herb Collecting, Hunting & Skinning, and Train Robbing. There are also random mini-missions that you can accept like preventing hangings, escorting strangers, getting ambushed, dueling, and intervening with suicides.

There are also Gang Hideouts sprinkled across the map that bandits will repeatedly take over, but you can clear them out.

Multi-player

The single-player element of RDR could stand-alone as great game without adding online play, but Rockstar pulled out all the stops and included multi-player. There is no conventional lobby to enter the various types of multi-player games; instead you can select everything from Free Roam.

Free Roam

Free Roam is basically an online instance of the entire open game world of Red Dead Redemption that supports up to 16 players. Many of the activities available in single-player are available in Free Roam, the major exception is that you no longer have an inventory or economy (ammo can be obtained from slain players/NPCs or quasi-random ammo boxes that appear throughout the map).

Free Roam comes in three flavors: Normal, Hardcore, and Friendly. Player killing is available in Normal and Hardcore, but is removed in Friendly (though you can blow yourself up with dynamite and take nearby players with you or stun them long enough for enemies to kill them). In Hardcore, you must use Expert aiming.

There is also a Private instance where only invited players may join, but many of the achievements and challenges can only be accomplished in the above public Free Roams.

From Free Roam, you can form posses of up to 8 players and clear gang hideouts or just generally wreak havoc. Posses also allow you to stay together when entering one of the many game modes: competitive or cooperative.

The competitive game modes always begin with a Showdown, either a Mexican Standoff (free-for-all) or a Face-Off (gangs matches), and support 2-8 players. The Liars & Cheats DLC also allows you to play Poker and Liar’s Dice in multi-player.

Cooperative Missions

The cooperative game mode is available with the Outlaws to the End DLC and includes 6 coop missions that have both normal and advanced versions. Players can choose “classes” (classes merely define the beginning weapon loadout) and attempt to complete the missions in groups of 2 to 4 players.

Gang Shootout

A team deathmatch where the team with the most kills wins.

Gold Rush

The game randomly spawns bags of gold and you must capture more than the other players to win. The more gold you carry, the slower you move.

Grab Bag

Is much like capture the flag, but there is only one flag and it spawns in quasi-random locations as a bag of gold.

Hold Your Own

A classic capture the flag scenario.

Horse Racing {Liars & Cheats}

Players race against each other with mounted combat.

Land Grab {Undead Nightmare DLC}

This is like a free-for-all version of Stronghold below. Players fight to maintain control over sections of a town.

Shootout

A classic free-for-all deathmatch where the person with the most kills wins.

Stronghold {Liars & Cheats DLC}

For those familiar with the Warfare mode from Unreal Tournament 3^[3], Stronghold is very similar. One team tries to prevent the other team from capturing nodes on the map. Both teams take turns attacking and defending, and the team with the best score wins.

Undead Overrun {Undead Nightmare DLC}

This is a cooperative game that supports 2-4 players. Players are confronted with wave after wave of undead hordes and are scored by how many waves they survive.

Levels & Unlocks

Unlike the single-player game, multi-player has levels. A player may level from 1 to 50 (and do it again up to 5 more times to unlock Legendary stuff). A player’s level and how many times he’s passed into legend (i.e. started over at level 1) determine which mounts, weapons, character skins are available to him. Clearing gang hideouts, general killing, and participating in the multi-player game modes earns players experience.

Occasionally, Rockstar announces double and triple experience events on holidays and weekends. In order to be aware of when these things happen you have to follow them on Facebook^[4] or Twitter^[5] or catch the event on the Social Club.^[6]

Achievements & Challenges

The achievement & challenge system is an addiction for me. I simply cannot rest until I’ve unlocked every trophy (what is awarded on the PS3 for obtaining achievements) and beat every challenge. It makes the achiever in me forgo sleep in order to mark a single challenge off the list.

There are two similar systems at play in Red Dead Redemption. Achievements (or Trophies on the PS3) are usually tied to the storyline or with single impressive feats. If you complete the story, you end up with a lot of Trophies. Challenges are not tied to the story, and you could probably go through the entire game without completing one.

Most of the challenges exist in multi-player and there are so many of them (especially when you add the DLCs), that it could keep everyone but the most hardcore/unemployed busy for more than a year. Completing challenges always unlocks something like outfits, titles, or things like golden weapon skins.

Expansions (DLC)

There are five expansions, or downloadable content, available for Red Dead Redemption: Outlaws to the End, Legends & Killers, Liars & Cheats, Hunting & Trading, and Undead Nightmare. Except for Hunting & Trading, all of the DLC is premium content, which means you need to pay extra for it. However, they bundle four premiums together as the Undead Nightmare Collection and retails for $19.99.

I won’t go into the minutia, but the DLCs add new challenges, achievements, usually a weapon or new outfits, titles, character skins, and online game modes. Undead Nightmare is unique in that it adds an entire new single player campaign that takes place in between final events of the main storyline. An undead plague turns people into flesh eating zombies and Marston needs to recover an ancient Aztec artifact to stop it.

Just last week, Rockstar released another free DLC pack entitled Myths & Mavericks. It releases some popular single player characters for multiplayer as well as adding a bunch of multiplayer maps.

Awards

Since its release on May 18^th, 2010, Red Dead Redemption has collected an impressive array of critical acclaim and awards. Metacritic^[7] reports an aggregate score of 95, making it the 4th best ranked PS3 game of all time according to them. The only reputable review I could find that scored RDR less than in the 90^th percentile was from Eurogamer^[8] and they gave an 8/10.

At the only video game awards I monitor, the Game Developers Choice Awards, Red Dead Redemption was nominated for 6 categories (out of 7 it could be eligible for) and walked away with 4 awards including Best Audio, Best Technology, Best Game Design, and Game of the Year.^[9]

RDR has also claimed numerous Game of the Year awards from the media, including: Computer & Video Games, GameSpot, GameSpy, Good Game, and Machinima. The game has also been recognized for its music by GameSpot, Machinima, and SpikeTV; for its downloadable content by G4 TV, Game Revolution, and SpikeTV; and for its graphics at the Korean Games Conference.^[10]

Soundtracks

The two soundtracks available, Red Dead Redemption^[11] and Undead Nightmare,^[12] are simply phenomenal. The atmosphere and ambiance is perfectly captured by the game’s audio. These soundtracks would be an excellent tool to set the mood for any Western tabletop game. The music for both albums were composed by Bill Elm and Woody Jackson, current and former members, respectively, of the instrumental/post rock band Friends of Dean Martinez.[13]

Verdict

This game is my current favorite video game and I think it is certainly the best 2010 had to offer. Red Dead Redemption has all the Bartle player types^[14] covered. Explorers have an expansive open world to discover and roam. Achievers have countless Achievements and Challenges to complete. Killers can slay everything they meet. Socializers can form Posses and voice-chat or do whatever they like to do, I guess.

The only way I can envision this game being better is if they released it on PC and along with an editor and supported user generated content. I’d love to make stuff for this game!

From the characters to the plot, the locations and side-missions, and even the soundtrack, this game has all sorts of elements just waiting to be mined for a tabletop game. Play this game for just ten minutes and you’ll be ready to write a scene for the Wild West roleplaying game of your choice!

Wild West Weeks

• Welcome to Wild West Weeks
• Wild West RPG Database
• Into the Far West
• Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier
• Deadlands Reloaded
• Red Dead Redemption
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Part 1
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Core Mechanics
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits I
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits II
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits III
• Wild West Minis Database

Listening to: Red Dead Redemption – Undead Nightmare OST – Get Back in that Hole, Partner

References

[1] The official Red Dead Redemption website by Rockstar Games.
[2] The Red Dead Wiki, an exhaustive resource for all things Red Dead.
[3] Unreal Tournament 3 is a first-person shooter by Epic Games.
[4] Rockstar Games on Facebook.
[5] Rockstar Games on Twitter.
[6] Rockstar Games Social Club Events.
[7] Red Dead review aggregation on Metacritic.
[8] Red Dead Review from Eurogamer.
[9] Red Dead Redemption sweeps the Game Developers Choice Awards.
[10] RDR awards listed on Wikipedia.
[11] Red Dead Redemption YouTube playlist.
[12] Undead Nightmare YouTube playlist.
[13] Friends of Dean Martinez mySpace page.
[14] Dr. Richard Bartle’s Players Who Suit MUDs.