Get Your Questions In For The Next Ask Me Anything For "Army Men"!

It's been about two years since my first RPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic dropped. And while I've been trying to keep putting out fresh content for it by talking it up here on my blog, making a series of videos called Tactical Plastic Report over on the Azukail Games YouTube channel, and writing as many supplements for it as I have time and space for, I wanted to take a moment to reach out to all my readers and fellow players out there. Because I could keep taking stabs in the dark all day, but I want to know what you want from the game going forward. I want your thoughts, your curiosities, and most of all, to answer your questions...

Which is why I think it's time to put together a second Ask Me Anything for this game!

My ears are open!

But before I get into the meat of today's post, remember, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

Wait, SECOND Ask Me Anything?

For folks who are just joining us, I actually put together an AMA when the Kickstarter was still running for Army Men several years ago. The video appeared over on the High Level Games YouTube channel, and it's still there if you want to take a look at it!

Now, I didn't intend on making that original AMA, but during the early days of the Kickstarter we were getting a lot of questions... or, more specifically, we kept getting the same question being asked by dozens of different people. As such, I figured it would be a good idea to take some of the most common questions, lay out the answers, and provide the truth straight from the horse's mouth, as it were.

 

However, it's been a hot minute since that video came out. As such, I thought it might be time for a sequel! So if there is something you're curious about regarding Army Men that wasn't answered in that original video, what I need you to do is put your question in the comment section of Tactical Plastic Report, Episode 16: Should We Have Another AMA For Army Men?

Now, I'm asking folks to leave their questions on that video for 2 reasons. First and foremost, it's a much easier comment section to monitor, and it will be seen by myself as well as Adrian Kennelly, the fellow behind Azukail Games. Secondly, it would be nice to get some extra upvotes, comments, and views on that video to help it spread its wings a little so that maybe the algorithm will help it reach more people's feeds, and thus I can get even more feedback before I start putting together an AMA!

So if there's something you've been curious about regarding the game itself, any of the supplements currently on the market, anything else that might come out for it in the future, or even about what goes on behind the scenes and what my experience was like with Kickstarter, BackerKit, and so on, leave those curiosities in the comment section for the above video, and if we get enough folks weighing in I'll be able to take some time to answer!

Army Men's Releases (At Time of Writing)

If this is your first time coming across Army Men, and it sounds like something you'd like to check out, consider grabbing the following materials to start digging in!

- Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic - The base rulebook which comes with everything you need to run or play the game, as well as an initial adventure to give you a jumping off point!

- Army Men: Threat Assessments - The first supplement released for the game, Threat Assessments is full of additional adversaries for your troopers to come across to really beef up the rogue's gallery.

- Army Men: Medals of Honor - This supplement introduces the Medals System, which is a way for you to reward your players, and to give troopers unique bonuses that carry through based on their past achievements. A good way to note successes, since equipment is requisitioned, and characters don't receive loot.

 

- Ungentlemanly Warfare: A Baker's Dozen of Booby Traps - A collection of noted in-world booby traps, these deadly hazards can make your troopers a great deal more careful.

 

- Boots On The Ground: Baker Team - A ready-to-play squad of troopers, Baker Team is ready to roll! Ideal for a pick up game, or for players who want to try out Army Men but aren't ready to make their own characters, this supplement can also be used as NPCs if your troopers need a little help on their current mission.

- A Night At Breckon's Beacon and Assault On Outpost 13: The first two stand-alone missions, the first involves searching for a squad that simply disappeared while out on maneuvers. The second involves an apprehension gone wrong, and a syndicate figurehead being held at a remote outpost. Troopers need to provide support, but will they be able to hold onto their captive when others come to spring him?

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my additional audio dramas over on The A.L.I.C.E. Files! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Resource Management and Tracking (Additional Challenge or Needless Frustration?)

There are a lot of contentious discussions when it comes to roleplaying games. Everything from the age-old debate of casters versus martials, to whether alignment implies a game setting is deterministic in its morality, to whether clerics and paladins require divine patrons to empower them, it seems these topics crop up again every handful of years, and a whole new generation of players and Game Masters grapple with these issues.

One topic that is often overlooked, though, is the proper place of resource management as it applies to your game's challenge. Because while all games have this aspect to some degree, the question is how in-depth do you want to go with it in your campaign, and at what point does it become more of a frustration than a way to add challenge to your game?

Wait... how many rounds have you fired?

As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

Tools and Limitations

When we strip back all the upper layers and look at the mechanics of how RPGs work, resource management is one of the most basic concepts that goes into creating a game's challenge. How many spells a character can cast before they need to rest, how many hit points they have before they die, how many times they can use certain class features before they need to be refreshed, all of these things fall into the "resource management" category. And, generally speaking, the broad categories I just mentioned are things that we accept as necessary as both players and Game Masters.

However, like a lot of mechanical aspects of a game, resource management can very quickly become micro-management if one isn't careful.

Okay, so, exactly HOW are you carrying all of that?

For example, a system to make the use of magic finite is generally thought of as a good use of a resource management mechanic. Whether it's a pool of spell points that the character uses to fuel their powers (each use of which costs a certain number of points), or a Vancian magic system where they can cast a certain number of specific spells per day, the idea is that they have to figure out when a situation is serious enough for them to dip into their magic since they only have so much gas in the tank before they're going to be tapped out. There are other situations, though, where managing particular resources is seen as more of a pain in the ass than it's really worth. Whether it's keeping track of a character's carrying capacity (including the weight of their clothes and their armor), tracking how many arrows or crossbow bolts they're carrying, or asking how much food they have in their packs for their journeys, a lot of Game Masters and players just don't want to deal with these things.

And, to be clear, that's fine if you don't want to deal with those aspects at your table. However, too often we just toss tools aside without really examining them... which is why this week I'd like to propose something I don't see show up very often in this conversation.

Instead of just universally writing off a resource management mechanic because you don't care for it, or don't want to use it, take a moment to really look at it. And while you're examining it, ask what kind of game it would be good for, and how it could act to create serious challenge in that game.

Using The Right Tool For The Right Job

Resource management is deeply tied in to the challenge of a game, and often the players' access to resources is what shapes their strategy and their decisions. For example, if your party of adventurers heads out into the forests for weeks on-end, but your ranger only brought a dozen arrows for their longbow, what is going to happen when they've fired every shaft? Will they attempt to recover the spent ammunition from the undergrowth? Will they pull their arrows out of the corpses of the creatures they shot in order to reuse them? Will they craft fresh arrows around the fireside, or while they're sitting on watch, to be sure they have enough ammunition to see them through to their destination?

For the purposes of an example, you can swap out any other item. What if the wizard runs out of material components for their spells? What if the fighter's sword breaks, and they need a backup weapon? What if your party has a two week trek through the forest, but they only brought enough food for 4 days? Or, and this is the big one, what if they only have enough silver to buy a certain number of items, but not everything they feel they're going to need?

Now, if you're a Game Master who prefers to travel by map in between towns, cities, and dungeons, then none of that is likely going to make a difference in your game. Because if surviving out in the wilderness and having to deal with random encounters (or even planned encounters) isn't something you're going to worry about, then none of the things mentioned above are going to be a big deal.

But if that's the case, these tools aren't made for the game you're running.

On the other hand, games that do focus on scarcity of resources, on environmental dangers, or just on survival often do lean heavily on these exact mechanics. Whether your party is lost in deep caverns of the World Beneath, whether you're all escaping from slavery and have to use whatever you can get your hands on to survive in the wilds away from civilization, or whether you're on an expedition to lost ruins to see what lies deep within, part of the inherent challenges of these scenarios is that you don't have endless resources... whether those resources happen to be ammunition, spells, healing, food, or even the amount of time it takes to complete your mission.

Now, pointing out that some players legitimately enjoy games that utilize these tools doesn't mean you have to play games centered around resource management. It doesn't mean you need to incorporate them into your game, and subject your players to these things if they aren't really interested in these mechanics. However, if you're one of the folks out there who have been wondering why these "relics of an older gaming age" as they're so often thought of still exist... well, I just wanted to provide some food for thought on the matter.

Lastly, if this is a topic you're interested in that you want to include more of in your games, might I recommend checking out some of the following:

- How Does Your Character Stay Fed? What Does It Take?: A recent post talking about food and eating while characters are out on the campaign trail.

- 100 Random Encounters For On The Road Or In The Wilderness: If you want to throw some unexpected surprises into your party's travel time... for good or ill!

- 100 NPCs To Meet On The Road Or In The Wilderness: A companion supplement to the above piece, just because the road is long or the wildlands dense, that doesn't mean there aren't people to meet.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Crunch post! To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Army Men Mission Packs: Full Modules, Or Merely A Mission Brief?

While the Anniversary Bundle For "Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic" is currently going on, I've been thinking on new directions to go with future supplements, and how to expand the game in a meaningful way. Though I've had ideas for expanded equipment, more enemies, additional genres, and more, I figured that the best thing to put out would be a few more missions. Because while there's a single mission module in the core rulebook, and A Night At Breckon's Beacon came out a little while ago, I figured that the best thing to get more people playing was to give them an easy way to get more boots on the ground.

However, a suggestion recently came in for upending the format I have been using so that I can get more missions (and more creative freedom) into the hands of Game Masters... my question for you all is which road you'd prefer I go down?

As always, make sure you leave your comments down below!

But before I get into the meat of today's post, remember, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

A Detailed Module, Or A Brief Layout?

For folks who've picked up any of my modules, whether it was for Army Men or something like my dark fae adventure The Price of Iron or the fantastical slasher The Curse of Sapphire Lake, you're probably familiar with the way I write a mission. Generally I cover the main plot, I provide a handful of NPCs and interactions, some history of the location, necessary maps for any combats, and some different, branching paths an adventure might take depending on player actions (or lack of actions, in some cases). It's pretty complete, and usually hits just over 10K words (something like 15-20 pages).

However, it was recently suggested that I should release something for Army Men that's along the lines of what Modiphius does for their Star Trek Adventure Briefs. The way these supplements are laid out is that each one details a dozen given disasters that act as the central plot lines of adventures, essentially givine the Game Master the central thrust of the mission, and then leaving them to fill in the blanks to flesh out the mission their own.

I'd check it out if you haven't!

Both of these formats have their own advantages and disadvantages. For example, fully-contained modules have their own maps, NPCs, and a full story along with a lot of safety rails to help a Game Master keep a story going. However, they require a lot of art, a lot of careful weaving together of plot points, and even adventure modules on the shorter side can eat up a lot of word count in a big damn hurry. They're also a huge pain in the ass to write, and frankly they don't tend to move a lot of copies... which are two main reasons I don't put them out as often as other supplements.

On the other hand, a single supplement that contains a slew of potential missions can make it feel like the Game Master is getting more bang for their buck. However, I feel the key is for all of those adventures to take place in a single location, which will act as the tentpole the missions surround. So just like how Star Trek mission packs focus on the ship and its crew, I feel that I would need to release these packs around something like a naval vessel and the situations it engages, or around a location like Fort Foxtrot, detailed in the back of the base book.

Where the hell is our fire support, dammit! We can't lose this fort!

On the one hand, I can see the appeal of getting a bunch of potential complications around a single location. However, given the tactical nature of Army Men as a game, I feel like leaving out all those details leaves a lot of work for the Game Master, who will now need to design encounters with vespoids, shoot outs with cartels, booby traps, maps of where troops are moving through, and so on, and so forth.

So I want to take a moment to ask folks this week, what kind of supplements would you like to see more of going forward? Do you like the detail-oriented missions where the Game Master is given the stats of the monsters, maps, laid-out encounters, equipment recommendations, and all the details they need to run a 2-4 hour session? Or do you think giving the Game Masters some basic tools, the profile of a shared location, and a nudge in the right direction is sufficient, even with all the extra work they'd need to do?

Now, this isn't technically an either-or situation. I'm perfectly capable of doing both varieties of content. However, I can only write so many things so quickly, so what I'm asking for from my readers this week is to let me know in the comments which variety of supplement you would prefer to see first. Are you someone who wants a bunch of loose threads and ideas that can be woven together into a pretty decent arc of a full campaign? Or do you prefer having all of the tools in your hands with as many maps, notes, and NPCs as possible so you aren't caught off-guard?

Let me know down in the comments below, on social media, and so on. Also, don't forget to pick up your Army Men Anniversary Bundle before it expires! And lastly, if this is your first time hearing about Army Men, and you'd like to know more, check out the series Tactical Plastic Report I'm doing about it over on the Azukail Games YouTube channel!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Stay Up-To-Date On All The Latest "Army Men" Developments!

As most folks know, my RPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic dropped a couple of months back. It was the Deal of The Day last month on Drive Thru RPG, which got a lot of fresh eyeballs on the game, and less than a month after its debut we already had the first supplement available. In the event you didn't grab your own copy yet, Army Men: Threat Assessments is ready for you to snatch up if you need more antagonists for your missions!

However, there are a lot of fresh things coming up for the game, and I'm hard at work on even more... so if you don't want to miss what's going on, make sure you join the newly created Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic group over on Facebook today!

Seriously, if you're going to play this game, you're going to want this one!

As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

A Central Location For Your "Army Men" Needs!

As we all know, social media has been tightening the leash more and more these days. Posts that used to be able to fly free are now routinely shot down by the algorithm, and this makes it significantly more difficult for gamers out there to stay tuned-in to what's going on with any given RPG... especially independently-produced and created ones, which don't have the budget or clout to get wider notice on a platform.

And while a lot of platforms were tossed around for where we wanted to start (including both a Discord and a subreddit), Facebook is where we decided on for the time being. Firstly because it's a platform that still has a lot of dedicated users, but also because it has discoverability (the potential for outsiders to stumble across the group and its content, even if they weren't specifically looking for it). Because the goal here is two-fold; to give existing players a place to congregate, but also to provide resources for new players who are looking for a community.

So what kinds of things can you find in this group if you join?

Well, it's certainly going to become a place for folks to share their experiences with the game, to find groups, and (hopefully) to post videos of live plays. It's very likely to be a place where additional tutorials (like the one above) are going to be shared as a way to help folks diversify their tables, and create more interesting arenas to battle in. It will also be a place to catch up on the latest news about supplements that are coming out, supplements that are currently being batted around as potential projects, short stories, audio dramas, and more!

So if you've wanted to give this game a try, or you want to talk to some of the folks who backed it and have been playing it, join the Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic Facebook group so that we can start growing our numbers. And if it gets large enough, who knows, we may even be able to expand and claim some territory on another platform as well!

It's also a great way to make sure that creators like myself, as well as other contributors, see what you would be interested in, so that we have some idea of what you want going forward as a community!

Lastly, make sure you subscribe to the Azukail Games YouTube channel. There's going to be a fair amount of Army Men content over that way in the near future, and I wouldn't want anyone to miss it!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Game Masters, When Running Army Men, Avoid White Rooming At All Costs

Since my RPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic recently dropped (and I'm hard at work on supplemental material for it) I've had it on my brain quite a lot recently. Which is why for this week's Crunch post I wanted to highlight something for the Game Masters who are planning on running a campaign (or even just a handful of missions) with this game.

Namely that under no circumstances should you be running your encounters in open, white rooms that are utterly disconnected from one another, with perfect lighting and fire lines. Because dynamic combat and strategy are the name of the game.

That's initiative! Go! Go!

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

"Tactical" is in The Title, After All

When you sit down to design a game, you build in certain assumptions of play. For example, if you make a high fantasy game where magic is commonly available, then part of the challenge rating of your encounters assumes that players will have access to spellcasting, magic items, and so on. If a Game Master decides to then restrict the availability of magic, that's going to throw off the game's balance and challenge because players are now being forced to participate with one hand tied behind their backs in a way that the designer never intended.

The same thing will happen if you try to run Army Men in an open field where two lines of enemies line up, and keep rolling dice until one side or the other is dead.

Cover! Where is my damn cover!?

When I sat down to create Army Men, I wanted to make a version of the DND 5E ruleset that had more options when it came to combat tactics. From a morale system, to expanded rules for cover, to a wider variety of weapons, there's a lot of stuff in here... but one of the assumptions that I made was that Game Masters would create dynamic encounters that put a lot of different battlefield conditions into play in order to get the most out of the game. It's why there are so many rules for all of these different aspects.

And it's why I would strongly recommend that Game Masters use those rules! Because tactics and strategy is a big part of the challenge your squad will have to face, so remember to consider:

- Lighting Conditions: None of the resinous peoples have darkvision without the aid of gear.

- Cover: A huge concern, everything from trenches and sandbags to trees and chest-high walls.

- Height: Higher ground has always been desirable.

- Ammunition: From the Hollywood Guns rules where you don't bother with ammo tracking at all, to low-ammunition situations where every round is valuable, this is a big deal for challenge

- Time: When a mission is time sensitive, you can't spend days raiding, retreating, and resting.

- Alerting The Enemy: Gunfire travels, and if your squad opens up that's going to attract more threats to their position.

And in addition to all of those reminders, Army Men's first supplement Threat Assessments recently dropped, which is full of additional enemy types with their own, unique abilities that can cause serious problems for your squad (in case you needed more tools to do so).

It Helps To Think Big Picture

When designing encounters in most games, but particularly for Army Men, it's important for a Game Master to look down at the full map, and ask what might go right or wrong when determining challenge for their squad. Because too often we just end up looking at a creature's CR, and plopping them down on the map without utilizing their full breadth of abilities and stretegies that makes up that challenge.

Which is why so often your encounters end up feeling too easy, or you have to bulk up enemy hit points or numbers just to challenge your players. Because this time it's the monsters who have one hand (or other miscellaneous limb) tied behind their backs.

What do you MEAN it's still up?!

As an example, many of the vespoids (the huge, insectoid creatures that are one of the prime antagonists in Army Men) have a hive mind feature. This means that whenever your squad attacks, that information is immediately conveyed to the hive, and it can make decisions based on its available data. That might mean that your squad has 1d6 rounds before more enemies show up. Even if they manage to ambush these bugs and kill them before they know what's going on, their deaths will still be registered to the hive mind... they just won't know the precise nature of the threat.

That feature is a large part of what makes these specific kinds of vespoid such a threat to a squad, because if you fight one of these creatures, you're fighting all of them. There is no way to take out an individual cluster of drones or soldiers without putting all of the others on high alert unless it's done at a range where they're not connected to the rest of the hive. They can act in perfect coordination, and even worse for a squad, hive minds are often immune to fear... which means that the squad has to struggle with Morale effects, while their enemy does not.

Consider, if you will...

It helps to picture a mission from a bird's eye view, and to see all of these separate encounters not as disparate, unconnected events, but as parts of a whole. What a squad does, and how well they succeed or fail, should organically effect the rest of their mission in important ways.

For example, say your squad was tasked with dealing with a criminal syndicate who has been stealing ordnance from the military, and trafficking those arms. If your squad poses as corruptible members of the military, and makes the right overtures to sell additional weapons, they might get in close with the customers. If they pass all the social checks, they might even be able to get everyone drunk enough at a post-sale celebration that they pass out, or are severely hampered. This puts the enemy at an extreme disadvantage when the squad starts cuffing the criminals to hand over for prosecution.

Strategy carried the day in this example, without a shot being fired.

However, say your squad instead snapped up a criminal contact and squeezed them for the information about who was buying guns. Yes, they might get the information about who is behind these crimes, where they are, etc., but that contact going missing could put the gun runners on high alert. And if the squad chooses to go after the war profiteers with their fingers on their triggers, now they're facing a group of people who are ready for a fight, and who have prepared themselves accordingly with a booby trapped and reinforced warehouse where they store their merchandise, body armor, heavy weapons, and other threats that put the squad at a dangerous disadvantage. This version is much more difficult as far as challenge goes, but that challenge is a direct result of actions taken (or not taken) up to this point.

The enemies in question didn't change in both scenarios. All the NPCs you had at the beginning are still there, as are all the weapons, armor, traps, etc., that could have been brought to bear agaisnt your squad. But what options the players chose, the strategy they used, and how well their dice rolled (as they would have a serious fight on their hands if their cover was blown while they were in the middle of enemy territory, and the gang had to get rid of them) all play a part in how events go down.

This is the sort of mindset a Game Master should adopt in order to make their games feel more organic, and to give as much power to their players as possible. Think of the mission as a clock. You choose the pieces, you fit them together, and you set it in motion... from that point onward, you're just watching what your players do, and making sure that all the moving pieces act in accordance to the abilities and strategy they bring to bear. Everything should be connected, because that's what's going to lead to an overall better game.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Crunch post. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

"Threat Assessments," "Medals of Honor," and More in 2024 For Army Men!

While I've been quiet about the project for the past several months as proofs get sent out, and prints get finalized, my first ever TTRPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic is currently on-schedule to be released in Spring of 2024! And in case you missed it, forgot about it, or you find yourself with a little extra holiday cash to spend, you can still grab a copy for yourself.

However, I don't just want to remind folks that this game exists. Rather, I wanted to give regular readers some updates on what's going on behind the scenes, and some of the things I'm currently working on for additional supplements and expansions that should be hitting the ground right behind the initial release!

We've got incoming!

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

Reinforcements on The Horizon!

While the initial Kickstarter for Army Men was a success (once again, a huge thank you to everyone who helped make it a reality), we didn't quite manage to reach any of our stretch goals, much less make the huge splash that some projects out there have. So while we don't have the extra scratch to put together any extra large rulebooks to cover additional genres and styles of play (yet) my hope is that the game will grow in popularity, and that there will be an audience demand for more once people get a look at what I and the rest of the team made.

However, there are a couple of smaller supplements that I'm currently tinkering with that I feel I can talk about to peak folks' interest. Because while the initial project was a rather large labor of love, there's still so much more that I feel we can cover with this game!

For unflinching valor under fire...

One of the first supplements I've been working on is something I'm tentatively titling Army Men: Medals of Honor. In this RPG you don't really have personal equipment the same way you do in traditional games; rather, you requisition your equipment before your mission. This cuts down on the constant treasure grabbing, and it provides your Game Master a relatively easy method of helping set the tone for your mission, as well as your difficulty. However, something I wanted to introduce as a kind of milestone mechanic was the concept of medals you can be awarded for your conduct. So whether you performed deeds of great valor, you saved companions at great risk to yourself, or in some cases survived what should have been a suicide mission, characters (or even entire squads) may be awarded these medals.

While that's fun for your story, and really adds to the military flair of the game (pun very much intended), the idea behind the medals system is that it will give you some kind of bonus that you can carry forth from that point onward. For relatively "easy" medals, like the Crimson Badge (the Styric Republic's equivalent of the Purple Heart with Silver Cluster, for those in the know), this might allow a recipient to, once per mission, gain temporary hit points when they would otherwise start making death saves because they're so used to fighting through injuries in the field. Alternatively, the Order of The Circle is a medal that denoted those who have been recognized by the ruler of United Polymeria (the equivalent of being knighted by the British crown, and just as with this honor, those not from the nation may only be given an honorary version of this medal). This medal may grant one bonuses in social situations, access to facilities they would normally be restricted from, and other benefits.

My hope is that all of these medals will be fun and useful, and that it's one of the many systems in this game that end up getting expansions both by myself, as well as by people who play Army Men!

They're in the goddamn trees!

The other supplement I'm currently working on which doesn't have a title as far as I know (but which I have labeled Threat Assessments in my notes), is a collection of additional antagonists for folks to use in their missions to spice things up a bit!

The base book has a bestiary of threats, ranging from regular animals one might have to deal with, through a dozen different varieties of Vespoid (the colossal, insectoid menaces that caused the different nations to unite into the Plastos Federation in the first place), but one of the original tiers on offer was to help design new monsters and threats... so that's what this project is going to do!

While there are going to be new vespoid forms and mutations, there are also going to be a variety of other types of enemy introduced through this supplement. Some are riffs on other types of toys (both the Creepy Crawlers and Easy Bake Oven were put forth by folks who supported the Kickstarter), but you're likely to also find those cheap, space-age looking robots, along with some unsettling military experiments that may have slipped the leash, and escaped from the laboratories of the various Federation nations.

EDIT: Threat Assessments and Medals of Honor are both now live on DTRPG!

What Could Be Next?

My hope is that these relatively modest projects are just stepping stones to bigger things for this game. As I mentioned in older posts like What's Next For "Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic" After The Kickstarter?, I still want to put together supplements like Motor Pool where I get into vehicles and vehicular combat. I'd also like to work on the next book Soldiers of Fortune, which discusses missions undertaken as freelancers and mercenaries, which will introduce new casts (classes), weapons, monetary tracking systems, and even a reputation system that will play into what kinds of clients you may attract, as well as how famous (or infamous) you and your fellow contractors are.

And, of course, I'd love to produce mission packs so that you have some objectives to send your various squads after. Covert operations, bug hunts, reconnaissance, naval patrol... there's a whole lot of possibilities out there! But, as with all things, how much time, effort, and energy can be dedicated to that will depend partially on you. You are the players and the Game Masters, and we need your support to make the game bigger, better, and more expansive than it already is!

So please, get yourself a copy if you haven't yet, and tell your friends about us so we can keep building interest and excitement in this game, and its unique setting. And if you're just hearing about this game for the first time, and you're wondering just what all this hype is about (not unusual, FB ate a lot of my attempts to spread the word earlier in 2023), then check out Under The Hood With "Army Men": A 5E Game With A Lot of Tactical Add-Ons to get the low-down on what the game itself is like, and some of its more unique selling points. And in the event you didn't see it, check out the short video I made for the Kickstarter itself to really get folks in the spirits of the game!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Daily Motion channel!. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my noir cat novels Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Under The Hood With "Army Men": A 5E Game With a Lot of Tactical Add-Ons

Folks who have been around here for the past few weeks have likely heard that my first RPG "Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic" is now live on Kickstarter! And while I've been talking about the game in very general terms the past few weeks, for this particular Crunch installment I wanted to get into what I did with the game's mechanics. Because while it uses the rules of Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition as a basis, there is a lot more to it than the basic package you might expect with a standard 5E game.

EDIT: Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic is now available on Drive Thru RPG!

Let's pop the hood, and see what's going on beneath your top coat.

Before we get into the details this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

The Origin of "Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic"

I've talked about it in a couple of interviews thus far, but for those who haven't caught any of the media I've been sharing around, Army Men was first devised several years ago when I was more or less put on retainer for a new game company who wanted to put together a product they could break into the market with. The head of the company wanted to design something that would appeal to the wargaming crowd, and while they originally wanted something that ran on the FATE system, after a lot of discussion we finally settled on using a system that was going to be more tactical in nature, but which was still going to be simple enough to pull in newer gamers.

And while there were a lot of options available at the time, DND 5E was definitely king of the heap. Even now, post-OGL, it's still a system known to a large portion of the tabletop community. It might not be their favorite game, but it is still one they won't need a crash course to learn how to play. And while this game was originally designed as an add-on for DND 5E, it is now a stand-alone game which uses the parts of Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition that have gone into the Creative Commons.

However... I felt the need to make additions.

First, Tactical Options

Targets acquired.

As we all know, Dungeons and Dragons was originally inspired by miniature combat games. It's one reason that, for all its story potential, DND (and games that use its various engines) is still a very combat-forward game. The 5th Edition, of course, was a little light on tactical rules... so I felt that should be corrected. Some additions I made include:

- Suppressing Fire: A standard tactic used by modern militaries, this maneuver is a particularly useful in Army Men where it allows you to give your allies cover... but it may be a tactic your enemies use against you as well!

- Taking a Knee: No one stands up during a firefight. Dropping to a knee is similar to going prone, but it only gives you some of the AC bonus. It does allow you to make better use of existing cover, however, and it's easier to get up and run from kneeling than from full prone.

- Flanking: While the 5th Edition of DND rules did have optional rules for flanking, Army Men makes them standard.

- The 5 Foot Step: A rule that was removed for 5th Edition, I felt it was a useful thing to bring back. For those not familiar, it allows someone to take a single, 5-foot-step in any direction without triggering an opportunity attack. This removes the need to spend your entire turn disengaging in case you just want to step behind cover, or give yourself a bit of breathing room before emptying your clip.

- Morale: Army Men has a morale system that takes you from +1 (battle frenzy), to -4 (utterly demoralized). This system provides a fluid way for battle to shift and change, and things like the Shake It Off action can be used to remove negatives from you and your comrades. It also means things like critical hits, and slaying enemy commanders, can have a serious effects on your team's ability to keep fighting.

Streamlined Gear Acquisition and Character Advancement

One of the major challenges that Game Masters have to deal with in traditional DND games is treasure acquisition, and making sure that PCs are properly equipped. This means you need to give them proper amounts of gold, make sure they have proper gear in treasure hoards, and so on, and so forth. Not only that, but if you follow the traditional rules, you also have to make sure your players are getting enough XP to level up, and that they're given the proper number of challenges to justify that reward.

Army Men does away with both of these concerns, in a way that gives more power to Game Masters.

Treasure management is a thing of the past.

First and foremost, Army Men does not have any XP; player characters will level up roughly every 3 missions. This saves GMs and players a lot of headaches when it comes to keeping track of who is close to leveling up, but it also removes the onus to solve problems in a particular fashion so that players will get the points. If they can sneak past periphery guards to steal the documents they were sent in to get without being caught, the mission is accomplished. If they infiltrate a militia as double agents, get everyone absolutely hammered, and then arrest them while they're passed-out drunk, the mission is still accomplished. And if they build layers of booby traps for a nest of Vespoids, and then lead the insects into the maze of tripwires, stake traps, landmines, etc., so that they barely have to pull a trigger at all to win the battle, the mission was still accomplished.

This flexible style also lends itself well to pick-up games, as well as character swaps due to death, wanting to try something new, etc. If someone new shows up (or a player had to make a new character), there's not really a lot of hemming and hawing over adding the new party member; command simply assigned them to the squad, here's their specialty, now shake hands and share your names, you've got a mission to complete.

Secondly, while characters in Army Men may have personal items and gear, a majority of what they're bringing into the field was given to them by the military before they were sent off on their mission. This removes the GM's need to make sure everyone is getting gold and treasure, because the PCs can just fill out a requisition form for the weapons, armor, ammo, etc., they want. But the Game Master can also restrict the gear that's available to add challenge/threat to a particular mission, if they so choose.

The very same mission with the same layout and the same enemies can be a very different game depending on what you allow the PCs to take into the field. If they're going to be fighting waves of Vespoids, but you give them huge belts of machine gun ammo, boxes of grenades, and high-quality armor, then it's going to be a Hollywood blockbuster sort of setup, with bullets flying and bugs dying. But if the PCs have standard armor, limited ammo, and they have to scrounge additional weaponry from the destroyed wreck of a base while avoiding Vespoid patrols, now that mission is going to feel tense and dangerous, with the squad choosing sneakier approaches, conserving ammo, and trying to keep moving.

Guns, Armor, and More!

Lastly, something I tried to do with this game was to try to avoid what's been dubbed the D20 Modern problem. Which is, namely, a game that has page, upon page, upon page of firearms, but where there's no real functional, mechanical difference between most of them. What I wanted to do instead was to present weapons and armor choices that each had their own strengths, unique capabilities, and which will allow players to really customize their characters in meaningful ways.

From plate carriers that can sacrifice a certain amount of armor to negate critical hits, to ballistic shields that can bring an old-world aesthetic to a modern battlefield, to shotguns rammed full of shrapnel to wreck utter devastation on close-range targets, there's all kinds of unusual options for players to play around with.

One shot, one kill.

And speaking of character customization, I altered both the way character backgrounds work, and introduced the Exploits System.

The changes to backgrounds is fairly simple. They still take the same form they did in Dungeons and Dragons 5E, but the difference is that each background gives you access to a specific, mechanical ability, in addition to a bonus exploit. These background abilities might be the power to requisition bonus equipment because you were a supply sergeant, so you know who to make the right phone calls to. Alternatively you might have been an irregular, so you can gain short-lived proficiencies in skills you don't normally have. You might be a spy with a cover identity, or a conscript who has friends in low places, allowing you to call in favors from the criminal elements of the setting.

And what is the Exploits System? Well, for folks who've played older editions of the game, it's basically the DND 3.5 version of feats. For those who haven't, they're a series of abilities that can shape the unique things your character is capable of doing when combined with their class features and background ability. Characters gain 1 exploit every odd level (including at creation), as well as an exploit from their background.

Exploits can do everything from making you better at hand-to-hand fighting, to granting you proficiency with certain types of weapons and armor, to allowing you to speak different languages, or granting you additional skill proficiencies. Some eliminate penalties from shooting from a prone position, while others give you bonuses to resisting fear and maintaining your morale. And by combining these abilities together, you can create a truly unique skillset for your soldier.

We Need You!

If that sounds like an interesting game system you'd like to give a try, back the Kickstarter today! We're 84% of the way to our initial funding goal at time of writing, but we have stretch goals at 10k and 15k that I would love to hit. And the more support this game gets at this stage, the more likely it is that we'll be able to expand and make even more supplements, missions, etc., going forward!

Like, Share, and Follow For More!

That's all for this week's Crunch topic! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio! Or if you'd like to read some of my books, like my alley cat noir novel Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well! And if you'd like to help support me and my work, consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron! Even a little bit of help can go a long way, trust me on that one.

We Want You! "Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic" is Now Live on Kickstarter!

Over the years various people have asked me why I only make content for existing games instead of making my own game. Well, about 5 years ago I started doing that very thing. Though there have been some ups and downs, today marks the final straightaway of this particular journey, because my TTRPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic is currently live on Kickstarter!

EDIT: The game funded, and Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic is now available on DTRPG!

While I'm trying to spread the word to help it get funded, I also wanted to give my readers a peek behind the scenes to see how the sausage is made, and to talk about the journey that led to this place a little bit. And, of course, to talk about the aspects of the game I think folks will enjoy, should they choose to help make it a reality!

Art by Anonymous Katsudon, found in the Army Men book!

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

What Is Army Men?

Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic is an RPG where you take on the roles of soldiers within the Plastos Federation. You choose your resin (green, gray, blue, red, or tan), your cast (medic, grunt, ordinance, tactician, or scout), customize your backgrounds and abilities, and then you are all formed into a squad sent off into the field. Whether you're exploring the wilderness and seeking deposits of much-needed resources for your home nations, you've been sent to reinforce a battle line, or you're on patrol to deal with the threat of the Vespoids (colossal, insectoid creatures that have put the Federation into a state of constant, military readiness), there's no shortage of threats for your squad to contend with!

Or, put another way, you're all living plastic people in a living plastic world, just trying to survive against the various threats that come knocking on your doorstep.

And to get out in front of several of the questions folks have asked, this is not a Toy Story style situation. The resinous peoples in the game are all human-sized, and the world they live in is written from the perspective of these characters. However, there is definitely a streak of the absurd running through the game that I feel makes it similar to Pugmire in its tone. This gives you a lot of flexibility, allowing you to do big, silly, bombastic stories that just feel like toys fighting each other (and which could just be the story a bunch of kids are making up around their games of plastic, backyard warfare), but you can also run tense survival-horror scenarios, stories about the scars of war, or anything else that your table can think of!

What About The Mechanics?

Army Men's engine uses the parts of Dungeons and Dragons that went into the Creative Commons recently, with a lot of tweaks and changes to help make it into a more tactical game. For example, there are additional options one can take during combat regarding cover, laying down distracting fire, and even shaking their comrades out of shock and fear so they can keep fighting. There's also 5 resins to choose from for your character, 5 casts (classes), along with 3 separate paths for each cast. There's also a bunch of fresh backgrounds, as well as the Exploits System, which replaces feats, but gives everyone a wider choice of abilities, and characters gain 1 exploit every odd-numbered level regardless of which casts they're choosing.

But wait, there's more!

Not everything in Army Men is about added complexity, though. In fact, there are a lot of mechanics in it that have been streamlined, simplified, or outright chucked out the window so that GMs and players don't have to deal with them anymore.

As a for-instance, this game has no XP; players simply level up after completing a certain number of missions. There's also no treasure to balance for the GM, because characters are all members of the armed forces; you requisition your equipment before you're sent into the field. That means you have the ability to give them as much (or as little) as you want to directly affect the challenge of the mission. There's also simplified rules for ammunition tracking, including the Hollywood Guns feature for folks who want to run a game that feels more like The Expendables or one of the later Rambo films.

Is There More Coming?

The Kickstarter for this game is set at $6k, but we do have some fun stretch goals in place. As Josh Heath said on the Dads With Nerdy Ambitions podcast (Steve Plays With Army Men is the episode), at $10k we're going to offer a d20 set of dice in the traditional, army green with gold numbers to ensure you've got your standard-issue polyhedrals by your side. And if that wasn't enough, at $15k the stretch goals will include an option for an ammo can to keep your materials in so that you're ready to rock whenever it's time to go on your next mission.

But what's coming down the pipe?

While the core rulebook for Army Men gives you everything you need to play the game, including a starting mission module, my hope is that this is merely the first step into a much larger world. I currently have ideas for a lot of extra content, ranging from missions Game Masters can run their players through, additional antagonists for the setting, expanded weapons, gear, and even advancing the meta story beyond the initial Vespoid conflict.

However, a lot of that is going to depend on you, the folks reading this right now.

The game is an all-or-nothing Kickstarter, meaning we need to at least hit the initial goal to make it happen. However, the more funding it generates, the bigger a message it sends to High Level Games that this is a good investment, and the more time it will buy me to put out additional content going forward.

The initial game took me roughly 2 years to write all the content for, because I had to squeeze it in between all the other TTRPG projects that were actually paying my bills. But if I could dedicate a lot of time and energy to expanding the setting, and adding new elements, folks would see follow-up projects coming to market a great deal more quickly. And, of course, if we had a bigger budget that would mean we could reach out to other creators, and put teams to work on future installments rather than keeping things small and controlled as we did with this initial game.

So, if you made it this far and Army Men sounds like a game you'd love to play, go back the Kickstarter today! Additionally, consider sharing the campaign on your social media pages, in your groups, or just telling your table about us... any and all help is greatly appreciated!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Daily Motion channel!. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!