The Gears of War Tabletop Report: Finale · 8:29pm Nov 10th, 2018
So, you guys may have forgotten about this, but once upon a time on this site I did a small series talking about my experiences running a custom ruleset tabletop game for, of all things, a game based off of Microsoft’s Gears of War. Ultimately I stopped doing the session reports because they were digging into my time a little too much (I needed to be writing more important things, like the next book and whatnot), but the sessions themselves didn’t stop.
Until this last Tuesday, that is. Tuesday evening was the final session of the campaign. I won’t say it was a great one, because it was my first time being a DM, and it was a completely custom system that I built and had to do on-the-fly adjustments to … but there were definite fun moments and our team did have some good times.
So how did it end? Well, the players managed to prevent a surviving faction of UIR soldiers from setting off an experimental heavy-metal bomb (atomics, something the Gears universe isn’t very familiar with) in the middle of the COG defensive line on the Jacinto Plateau. Basically, they almost died, but saved the day, and in the end, were rewarded with a ship—something they’d been looking for all campaign. Sure, they had to fight for it, but with a gratuitous selection of high-powered weaponry, the players were able to find it, defend it, and then lay waste to everything that approached while loading it up.
The best campaign ever? Not by a long shot. But … they did have fun. And I did too.
It's hardly a surprise to hear that the system wasn't "perfect" the first go-around. It is good that you can see potential in it, and have some good ideas on where to improve things.
It's really good that you and your players all had fun with it, and had some memorable moments.
And the idea of a luchador kobold tickles me.
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Yeah. I'll put it on the back burner for the moment, and then maybe next year I'll drag it out and do some touch-up changes to it. It's honestly not a bad system, to my delight. It just needs tuning and some work fleshing out other, more traditional areas of tabletop.
Oh, it does me as well. I'm excited for this one. No sneak attacks (because that is the path of the dishonorable luchador) and a very over-the-top idea of justice and right. A three-foot kobold that runs around making grand proclamations and suplexing orcs.
It's going to be a blast.