Card-driven ASL

[Martin Mayers]

That's one of those magical moments that are impossible to create, but make it all worthwhile.
I miss those times.
We used to have an AD&D group fluctuating between 8-12 players regularly. We had a lot of fun.

Totally magic. I've not seen him in years but I know if and when we meet again that the first thing we talk of will be that 477

Had a similarly bizarre episode playing Gamma World as 14 year olds. Another friend had his character die on him and got quite emotional. Said "come on...what about a twist of fate or something that see me survive".....I felt sorry for him and said "sure....2% chance...Go for it"......Rolled 01 and announces "EASY". We decided that the bullet which had killed him had stuck in his metal hip flask and just winded him.

I've seen whackier shit playing ASL for 25 years mind you (although the 477 is unlikely to ever be bettered).

I miss role playing to. Tried to get a group together in Manchester in the last few months but one of the guys was very weird, and the less weird one explained to us that he "can do magic....REAL magic though....not the stupid stuff in acts". Errrr.....ooooo kkkkkk. Play a bit of Call of Cthulhu on occasion with the Liverpool ASL mafia to. But it's too rare to get any real momentum going.

I LOVED AD&D. Had something like a 20th level half pig half man call Eru Pigsy whose favoured weapon was a magical mud-rake.....The TV programme Monkey was all the rage at the time.

 

[Gunner Scott]

So what do these cards look like? Any pictures?

 

[von Marwitz]

I used to play MERP using the Rolemaster critical hit tables. My playing team screwed up an investigation mission into the lower depths of Moria. 4th Age. Post War of the Ring. So, I had them encounter The (much weakened) Balrog. My intention was to create a scenario ending where they had to flee the mines followed by 'Him'. I rules that he had lost the power of immolation since Sauron's downfall right. But, otherwise, pretty much as he was.

My mate Andy (whom I originally discovered ASL and wargaming with)...."we must stand and fight.....for ROHANNNN".....he attacked, managed to achieve an E Critical (the most serious). The final roll on the Critical was 477. God's honest truth. We still laugh about it. It's the highest 'open ended' roll I've ever seen in my 30 odd years of Role Playing. The table maxes out at 250+.

First attack roll. He was only bloody 15th level and had only been able to attack first with the benefit of a haste spell. We ruled that his magical sword had, somehow, caused a chain reaction in the magical make up of the beast causing it's cells to disrupt and resulting in it exploding in a puff of filthy, black, poisonous, smoke.

Probably not 'realistic' in hindsite (and in the context of Middle Earth)....but.....but.......477

I'm not suggesting we took the game seriously way back (we were in our early 20s), but he still has his lucky dice (or at least he still did last time I saw him a few years back).

Didn't know you played MERP. Played/mastered Rolemaster on Middle-Earth for 20+ years. Our highest ever roll was 456: What was it on? A dwarf convincing the rest of the group that it was not his turn to give a tip in a tavern. To his infinite pleasure, he never had to pay a tip ever after...

We played around 1640 Third Age though.

Nothing card-driven, though, in that game. It could have made sense there, too.

von Marwitz

 

[kcole4001]

So what do these cards look like? Any pictures?

(on topic)

+1
Pics in action would be cool!

 

[kcole4001]

(off topic)

My favorite most memorable RPG moments were:

1) Had a good friend playing a mage (in the big 8-12 player campaign) who always scav'd the best magical items as his share of the loot.
Didn't matter that he couldn't use it, or it was much better suited to go to another player (and generally agreed upon).
He didn't care, that was his character and that's role playing.
OK. (not really, it annoyed the hell out of everybody)
So, we fight a big battle with w couple of giants and a bunch of ogres, as well as NPC mercenaries.
Dale (the mage) fights a one on one duel with another mage, all cocky saying "I got this". Well, he gets knocked into the negatives, the other mage is badly wounded and almost out of spells, so he dashes out and save his skin, well played.
So, we're all really busy fighting for our lives (good battle, very tense) and so Dale's mage bleeds out, but everyone knows we'll resurrect him.
In the interim, someone throws a vial of universal solvent at a web if I remember correctly, but it misses.
Well, someone else has the bright idea ' maybe it hits dead Dale', since his body is in the general vicinity.
So, DM says to roll a d20 and on a 20 it hits Dale. Sure enough, it hits him, and he has to proceed to roll a save for all his items, most of which fail their save except for his bag of holding, which only contained most of his mundane gear.
So, all his item hoarding did not pay off in the end, and we often called his characters 'Dead Dale' after that, he took it reasonably well.

2) Starting off a small campaign of Oriental Adventures, one fellow had a monk he named Chin.
Well, Chin took exception when encountering a cleaning lady who told him rudely to get out of her way. This escalated until he insulted her, and she took to swinging at him with her mop.
He fought back, but as we were all 1st level, he wasn't very proficient.
She eventually knocked him out (the rest of us were NOT going to help beat up a cleaning lady for no reason), and we dragged him off to heal and apologized for him to the cleaning lady.
Forever after that his monk was renamed 'Mop Wound Chin", and we never let him forget it.

It may sound a bit vengeful, but was all done in a light-hearted spirit.
Good fun for all.

 

[RobZagnut]

It really is 'the game' and quirky stuff happens all the time, even if you remove breakage from the game. Personally I think snipers have messed up FAR more scenarios than the malfunction rules have. But that's just my impression.

I played a scenario once where I had one of those meat choppers with ROF 3 and IFE 20. My opponent moved his three 648s and 10-2 adjacent so I whacked him with 40-2. Broke it of course first shot. End result, two pinned 648s. He advanced into CC with a 648 and the 10-2. I got ambush. Didn't want to lose my meat chopper and I would have died anyhow, so rolled the dice. Got snakeseyes. My next prep fire on the 648s...broke them both. They both surrendered.

I never repaired the gun, but my crew still won the scenario for me.

Like I say...quirky shit happens. Mess around with the game at people's peril I'd say personally speaking.

Sorry, but any player that moves 3 full squads and a 10-2 adjacent to a meatchopper to eat a 40-2 FP attack deserves them to die the most horribly gruesome death ever...

 

[Martin Mayers]

Sorry, but any player that moves 3 full squads and a 10-2 adjacent to a meatchopper to eat a 40-2 FP attack deserves them to die the most horribly gruesome death ever...

In mitigation....

I'd put it in a ridiculous position, in a woods copse in the middle of a vast swathe of open ground (HIP of course - Flakvierling or whatever the hell it's called). He brought a smoke FFE down beyond it (by a hex or two only) which he believed had screened his advance (and had, in terms of the main defensive line). I'd put it there figuring he might use the smoke and make this mistake and he wandered straight into the trap. Also, it was a variable OOB scenario.

He went for a quick stride forward thinking the meat chopper would be more logically placed rather than set up aimed to disrupt and put him off stride. Which sort of worked, despite the broken gun. I think I got quite lucky in many ways, albeit unlucky with the broken gun (then lucky again).

 

[von Marwitz]

I remember playing a scenario in which I had a meat-chopper. My opponent needed to pass though I said: "Thou shall not!". He tried to swarm me, so I was in a pinch because the support of the meat-chopper had been reduced. I let him approach thinking that using IFE Spraying Fire with the beast during the DFPh would well do vs. ADJACENT units and give me a 50% chance of ROF on top of that to get rid of the attackers in a third hex. So I was salivating for my DFPh to come up - when do you ever get an opportunity to fire such a thing vs. 3 ADJACENT infantry units?

Of course, the f****** thing malfed, causing only a Pin on one enemy squad before being ingloriously despatched in the CCPh...

The injustice of it!

von Marwitz

 

[Martin Mayers]

I remember playing a scenario in which I had a meat-chopper. My opponent needed to pass though I said: "Thou shall not!". He tried to swarm me, so I was in a pinch because the support of the meat-chopper had been reduced. I let him approach thinking that using IFE Spraying Fire with the beast during the DFPh would well do vs. ADJACENT units and give me a 50% chance of ROF on top of that to get rid of the attackers in a third hex. So I was salivating for my DFPh to come up - when do you ever get an opportunity to fire such a thing vs. 3 ADJACENT infantry units?

Of course, the f****** thing malfed, causing only a Pin on one enemy squad before being ingloriously despatched in the CCPh...

The injustice of it!

von Marwitz

Why do malfs rarely seem to happen when it's a bit of a long shot at 20 hex range in a scenario you've already practically won, with no major bones at stake

Remember playing Custardpieface.....I rolled up my entire tank force (a mistake) adjacent to his HIP gun, sideways on. Doh. He fired, malfed, and my tanks clinically took the crew out in advance fire. He's never forgiven me

 

[von Marwitz]

Why do malfs rarely seem to happen when it's a bit of a long shot at 20 hex range in a scenario you've already practically won, with no major bones at stake

They do. Most of the time. But as this is nothing striking, it is not remembered.

von Marwitz

 

[Mister T]

Some single cards have been included in post#1 of the thread.

 

[BattleSchool]

Good collection of period photos give the cards some added historical flavour.

 

[Robin Reeve]

The picture of Swiss Général Guisan (overall commander of the Swiss Army during WW2) on the Swiss Knife card is an amusing detail.

 

[BattleSchool]

Finding a way to incorporate the Swiss into ASL at all is amusing.

 

[Martin Mayers]

The picture of Swiss Général Guisan (overall commander of the Swiss Army during WW2) on the Swiss Knife card is an amusing detail.

What does the Swiss Knife card do ?

 

[Robin Reeve]

What does the Swiss Knife card do ?

Many things.
Mr T just posted it (with some others) in his first post (card 65).

 

[Martin Mayers]

Out of interest does one play the card before or after actually making the roll to which it relates ??

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Every single card starts with "Play this card". It would be preferable to put that in the rules, and leave it off the card as they're too wordy. A quick reference should be 'quick.'

 

[Mister T]

Out of interest does one play the card before or after actually making the roll to which it relates ??

You play the card first which gives you the right to apply the effect (and allow the other player to monitor what is going on), unless the other play the 'interrupt' card.

 

[Mister T]

Every single card starts with "Play this card". It would be preferable to put that in the rules, and leave it off the card as they're too wordy. A quick reference should be 'quick.'

There are short, simple effects and slightly more elaborate effects. The latter would take more space on the card, if only because things have to be drafted with care as this is ASL and in order to avoid -as much as possible- unwarranted consequences.