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Glad to see the modules are still about half the size of the rules. Seriously, a 154 page module Sounds more like a source book to me. -
I can't order it until paypal stop pissing around with my account, or it comes to amazon pod which I think Chris mentioned somewhere. I'd love fresh copies of all the old stuff too, some of mine are a little grubby.Comment
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The last revision I read was 65 pages in length, but that was over 10 years ago.Originally posted by mmartin798 View PostComment
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I got a PDF version of Operation: Daidalos (Recon Pack - 014), since the printed copies are gonna be delayed a few weeks. Quick summary:- 156 pages including front and back cover
- the setting covers most of California, and some of Baja California
- the Project FAV is given stats in 4th Edition terms; I presume it's about the same as when it appeared in "Desert Search". Another, new type of Project vehicle is described in general terms.
- 1 pounder, 4 pounder, and 10 pounder muzzle-loading cannons are described.
Without giving much away (and I haven't read it cover-to-cover yet), the scenario involves the players' team in a small war.
Illustrations are nice looking, though there isn't a drawing of the new Morrow vehicle; and for some reason page 129 has a couple of nice drawings of an M88. Some more maps would have been nice.
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Michael B.Comment
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Without giving to much away. Did you find the description of the elevator shaft and entrance to the base odd as well To me it doesn't add up and something is missing to how it is described.Originally posted by Gelrir View PostComment
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MEDIUM SPOILERS FOLLOWOriginally posted by nuke11 View Post
Keep in mind the outside cover mentions "the specifications, layout and personnel of Juliet Echo One."
The Morrow Base
- The base does seem kind of a skimpy retread of Prime. The "find it and open things up" sequence seems odd, or maybe unlikely -- an awful lot of digging could go on, and the "find it with a metal detector" scheme seems to ignore all the other metal found in the rubble of a destroyed civilization. The area to be searched is almost 200 square kilometers.
- The "time to vent nitrogen" and "time to revive people" aren't stated, though a mention of "eight hour increments" suggests that's the amount of time it takes; the scenario seems to want to keep the player-characters "at bay", instead of wandering around the base while the NPCs are thawing. What set of RPG player-characters that have searched, blasted, tunneled, rappeled, etc. will then wait for ... well, they don't know it's eight hours. "Let's just sit on our hands and see what happens."
- Also, venting tens of thousands of cubic meters of nitrogen gas will be quite the spectacle on the surface.
- And there's no "back door". The effects of sea level rise on the "big vehicle door" aren't taken into account.
- The "fire stairs" seem to bypass some of the internal security. The floor plans conflict ... the "MARS" level map on page 109 shows stairs, but none of the later plans show them.
- It seems the medical staff will be the first people the player-characters interact with ("The 24 Medical staff are the first to be revived when the base is activated."), for eight hours or so ... and the leader of that group is described as "loud, overbearing, arrogant and contemptuous of others' opinions." Spending eight hours working with/under him could be interesting - I don't have a problem with cranky Project members, but a lot more description of his views and reactions would be useful, since by the time anyone higher-ranking and more diplomatic has woken up, this guy may well poison the attitudes of the player-character group.
- All in all, the Morrow base seems like a tacked-on "reward" for the player-characters after they've dealt with the war, earthquake, etc. -- or a way to entirely bail them out, if they're in over their heads.
The Daidalos Community
- The Project involvement in "Daidalos" and the "obligation by the Morrow team to do what somebody's great-, great-, great-grandchildren tell you" seems weird; also the "we can't tell anyone at Daidalos that our great-, great-, great grandparents were part of a secret, high-tech organization (the Morrow Project) dedicated to surviving the Atomic War and preserving civilization, because they'll freak out" ... even though Daidalos itself is exactly that. A handout text document of the "orders given to the Morrow Project agents at Daidalos" would have been very useful, since the scenario seems to think these orders convey some sort of authority over Project members.
- Page 72 seems to say that the likely player-character team (with two 20mm cannon-armed V-150 armored cars) was (besides the usual Recon stuff) to "establish the existence of the Daidalos research facility, and aid their efforts." Having the information known to the team, and their actual instructions, would be a very, very useful handout.
- When the player-characters are taken for interrogation at Daidalos, if the "refuse to help in any way", or object to rough handling (which implies they get some), they are thrown in jail, where they rot until the town is on the verge of destruction -- up to 2 or 3 months later! Hmm. I don't have an objection to people mistrusting strangers, but the scenario doesn't seem to have much information on what happens if the player-characters don't go along with the script. Keeping members out of the town in one of their two V-150 armored cars, or leaving someone to watch their own vehicles, or breaking out of jail: not described as options.
- If the player-character team does end up in custody, what their captors do with two armored cars and a lot of 21st Century gear isn't described. Their captors are reasonably tech-savvy, and would have the team's MPID cards.
Science
- A major feature of the scenario turns on some sketchy geological science ... which is fine; but since the "evidence" and the "refutation" are all up to various NPCs, it seems kinda arbitrary. A particular NPC can be asked to "analyze the data" by the player-characters ... but I haven't seen anything that suggests the player-character team would believe this NPC over some other NPCs. Having a player-character geologist would change a lot of things; none of the pre-generated potential player-characters are geologists.
- While I don't have a problem with it, one of the pre-gen MP characters barely graduated from high school, and spent 4 years working in a motor pool in the Army. That's fine, and he's an excellent mechanic ... but keep that in mind when your players describe their own non-college-educated Project concepts.
- A Project NPC has spent two years in the desert with a PRC-70 radio, no Morrow vehicle, somehow monitoring the radio quite a lot -- and keeping the batteries charged. He's not listed as having any technical skills at all.
- Sentient plants
Production
- The illustrations of people, vehicles, etc. are nice, though they don't often seem to be showing what's being described. See page 132 for an example: maybe those are Morrow team members, but what's that vehicle behind them Maps of California and wide areas are very nice; the maps of towns and the inside of the Morrow base, eh.
- The whole book is designed to resemble a set of manila folders, open on a wooden board surface. So, about 10-15% of the book is art surrounding the actual text -- the same two pieces of background art.
Things I Do Like
- There is a lot to like and use here -- and IMPORTANT I haven't read everything in every chapter yet. There's a lot of cultural and personality descriptions of the "nations" in Southern California. There's lots of detailed "order of battle" lists for the various forces going to war as the player-characters arrive. Is there a mass combat system incorporated into the Fourth Edition I also like that a couple of major fiction/gaming tropes are subverted by the actual events.
- The authors seem to prefer the player-character team find a diplomatic solution to the war threatening the area. It's nicely not a hand-holding scenario -- here's the people, what will you do -- and believably nigh-impossible to carry out completely peacefully.
I feel I will get my money's worth from this, and our players will enjoy it, but for our campaign a lot of reworking of the Morrow base will be needed.
Robert O'Connor, listed a content contributer, is presumably the same guy who made the excellent "North American Target List" and "UK and Western European Target List" documents for "classic" MP. I'm pretty sure he's the one who described the effects of the San Onofre reactor being destroyed.
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Michael B.Comment
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One other thing about the Daidalos scenario book: it seems to state that (at least) some members of the Morrow Project were able to bring their entire families along into cryosleep, in Project facilities.
An interesting facet, which the Project Director should think over carefully.
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Michael B.Comment
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MILD SPOILERS
As far as I can tell, the town of Daidalos is roughly at Josephine Peak, a few miles northwest of the Mount Wilson observatory.
A big weird "typo": there seem to be two maps of Daidalos "township" -- or a map of the town, and a map of the "facility" ...
- page 74: a crude map of the town -- definitely not the "facility"
- page 75: a nice map with contour lines (which led me to think it's at Josephine Peak), it seems to match the town description, and has the legend "Daidalos Township" printed at the bottom.
The numbered guide to the structures is a bit "off" for the nice map, which doesn't entirely match the written description, either. The maps are entirely different in layout; I suspect the "nice" map of Daidalos was drawn after the book was written and submitted for editing.
The nice one has 50 or 60 un-labeled buildings, presumably "homes"; the description of the town as having a population of only 110 residents (including 50 troops) seems way too low.
The separate "facility" isn't easy to pin down; it's in a valley northeast of the Town. Its population is stated as being "two or three times that of the town". There's supposedly an airfield and "launch gantries". If there's a hydroelectric power generator, it's not on top of a mountain ... so ... Big Tujunga Dam While not a power generating dam, it wouldn't be too hard to imagine a simple turbine installed post-boo-boo ... though the survival of the dam given the seismic changes described seems iffy.
Page 78 has the map of level 1 of the Morrow base ... I think that the map of the Daidalos "facility" got mixed up.
More reading to do.
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Michael B.Comment
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I believe what you are reading will also go into print as well, I have found a few typos as well in my slow reading.
There could be a few re-prints in the future for this one.Comment
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Just received the book in the mail today. The only thing I've noticed in the first few minutes: the nicely detailed maps on pages 147-148 are unreadable at the smallest font sizes, such as the town names. Otherwise it seems the same as the PDF; I doubt Timeline had enough time to fix any typos in the last few weeks!
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Michael B.Comment
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Received mine in the mail as well. Yes they are small, but I can read them ok. I'm hoping Chris is planning on releasing the maps as a separate download at some point in the near future.Originally posted by Gelrir View Post
I'll ask him what software and digital map source was used for those maps.Comment
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I think this particular scenario sacrificed a lot of the charm of the old modules for what felt like an old Twilight 2000 scenario in a bad way.
Basically dozens of samey communities with similar aims and none of the quirkiness that gave the older scenarios both fun and menace.
Also for such a large intact Morrow base it felt like it was a bit bland.Comment
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I've been working on a "classic" setting version of the Maritime Base for our local campaign.
SPOILERS BELOW
Instead of the very modern landing craft in the published book, our base has an older style (late Fifties/early Sixties) of LST. The Newport-class were newer at the time (mid-Eighties), but waaaay too big to be hiding in a tunnel.
Some notes:- the two side "storage and garage" areas each have a floor space of about 1.1 hectare
- I moved the "really hazardous" stuff out of the base, to bolthole-style storage bunkers at least a kilometer away.
- sea level rise can really mess with an underground "dry dock"!
- more entrances and exits seemed appropriate
- I'm not sure I will draw all the upper levels ... they're not likely to be the scene of a firefight.
- the Council of Tomorrow clearly is behind (i.e., secretly in control of, and probably founded) the Catalina land conservancy group. The base shown is located just north of the village of Two Harbors, on Santa Catalina Island; the cross-section showing a "mountain peak" is based (roughly) on the contour maps of the area.
Remember, all of this is for the "canonical" Atomic War date of 1989.
Feel free to crib, copy, re-use, criticize, kvetch, etc.; attribution would be appreciated but isn't required! Tip o' the hat to Nathan VanDuser, Chris Morrell, and Rob O'Connor for the excellent, original "Daidalos" book!
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Michael B.Comment
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I've been slowly going over sections in detail. A general problem: the table of contents isn't very good (and there's no Index). For example, the "survivor groups" (all the local nations and communities) fills pages 17 to 71 of 154 numbered pages (thus 1/3 of the book): but "survivor groups" (Chapter 2, second B) is as detailed as the table of contents gets for those pages.
Some puzzling decisions by the writers in regards to the nation-community of Amega S'hana:
MANY SPOILERS
Steven Baxter is an NPC Project member from a different team than the player-characters; he was captured 3 years (or not, see below) before the module date by the Coachella Valley community ("Amega S'hana", which isn't given a translation into the Cahuilla language); his team stumbled into a shootout with a patrol from one nation (the Nueva Republica, aka Mexicanos) and just as the bullets stopped flying the Amega S'hana army showed up. Six of his team members were killed in the continuous battle; he and one other survivor were captured, along with one remaining Morrow Project fusion-powered XR-311, and taken to the Coachella Valley (aka Palm Springs for the rest of you non-California). The two Project members were placed in a "prison camp" and kept there for a year (per page 73) or three years (per page 103) as convicted spies (despite their gear, language, etc. differences from the supposed enemy). Eventually the other Morrow prisoner died, and Baxter "pushed ... to his limit" escaped; he found a Project cache, resupplied himself a bit, and then spends two years eluding the Amegans, until he contacts the player-character team. None of the above are problems (though the date thing needs a fix); but:
- Baxter has Project radios, and the "wake up codes" for several other teams (he's the coordinator of all Recon teams in California) ... but hasn't used the radios to wake up any of those teams, though he's been hanging around the area, "... hoping all the time that some other MP team might eventually find him." Why didn't he wake one or more teams up The player-character team was awakened by someone else, not Baxter.
- another issue: on page 105 the text states Baxter "[...] does not like the Amegans but will grudgingly say that they are trustworthy and honorable if treated respectfully at all times. Baxter doesn't like the Mexicanos at all." Very, very odd: he spent one or three years in an Amegan prison camp, from which he was driven to escape -- and his only contact with the "Mexicanos" was during the same battle in which the Amegans captured him. Why would he like the Amegans any more than the Mexicanos Well, he is insane, I suppose. Stockholm syndrome
- no mention is made of his feelings about Colonel Mulderry, commander of the Border Rangers, the man who captured Baxter three or five years ago, and probably killed at least one of his team mates in that battle -- and "who will be anxious to take the team to into the capitol" for questioning.
- the description of the Amegans' understanding and treatment of the Project teams is inconsistent. It seems they were willfully ignorant of Baxter's obvious "not a spy" status when they captured him. But on page 104: "Unknown to Baxter, the Amegans had altered their judgement of him and his teammate soon after retrieving them from the desert [...] With their usual sharp wit and decisiveness they set to studying the vehicle, attempting to unlock its secrets." So asking him about the "secrets" was a no-no The circumstances of his captivity aren't described much, but apparently he wasn't questioned (except about his supposed espionage activities) and was driven to escape.
- the "Amegans" are Tech Level C (solar electricity, wind turbines) to E (agriculture, weapons). They're described as having a half-dozen internal-combustion military vehicles, but otherwise steam engines are the most advanced vehicles; Tech Level E weapons are circa the American Civil War. Okay, all well and good -- very "Mad Max". But the "great secret" is the fusion power plant of the captured XR-311. I can certainly agree the Tech Level C to E locals can realize it's amazing, but (page 104 again): "While they are still many years from creating a working fusion power plant themselves, the Amegan scientists have made great strides in understanding fusion power and its potential applications." The 4th Edition says about Project reactors: "Inside almost all the Projects vehicles was an electrodynamic confinement reactor - a vacuum chamber containing a complex grid of electromagnets which could hold a fusing ball of plasma and tap its energy to produce electricity. The big advantage of this system was that vehicles only needed to refuel every 18 months or so. The big disadvantage was that a high-voltage, high current electrical source was needed to start the reactor." I have my doubts about the Amegans being anywhere near understanding the reactor -- if they know it's fusion it will be due to the label on the casing.
- a related issue: if the reactor runs out of fuel after 18 months ... shouldn't the captured XR311 be out of fuel by the date of the module
- also about the Amegans: they have a stated population of 25,000. People under 18 will be about 25% of the population; "old" and the sick, criminal, etc. will be at least 15%. That leaves 15,000 productive adults. In the United States currently, 10% of the population are age 15 to 19 -- let's call that "high school" age; so the Amegans would have 2,500 people at that age level. Another ten percent are aged 20 to 24. In 1940, about 25% of white Americans over age 25 had a high school diploma; about 5% of white males over age 25 had a 4 year college degree. If we presume the Amegans can do as well overall as the most favored social group of 1940, then there would be (25,000 x 0.65 x 0.05 =) 813 college graduates (of all ages) in Amega S'hana ... which I consider too high for such a small self-sufficient community, but let's continue anyway. High school teachers, doctors and pharmacists, and "liberal arts" degree holders will make up half of these graduates (to an approximation, and not counting the chance of multiple degrees); so there are 406 people who might have STEM degrees. Assuming that graduates each year roughly equal the loss to death, emigration, or other "loss of status" events, there might be about 25 STEM degree graduates per year, out of 50 graduates total. Okay, so they have a well-established small ... hmm (page 66) "Nixon Gutierrez is Chair of the Engineering Department of Palm Springs University." Pretty fancy for a post-apocalyptic town college.
It's still an interesting and informative module, and our local group is looking forward to playing through it.
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Michael B.Comment
- Baxter has Project radios, and the "wake up codes" for several other teams (he's the coordinator of all Recon teams in California) ... but hasn't used the radios to wake up any of those teams, though he's been hanging around the area, "... hoping all the time that some other MP team might eventually find him." Why didn't he wake one or more teams up The player-character team was awakened by someone else, not Baxter.
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