NEW Adventure Module!

[Sprocketteer]

https://twitter.com/MorrowProject/st...35701081694208

[mmartin798]

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.

[Sprocketteer]

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.

[nuke11]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

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.

The last revision I read was 65 pages in length, but that was over 10 years ago.

[Gelrir]

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.

--
Michael B.

[nuke11]

Originally Posted by Gelrir

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.

--
Michael B.

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.

[Gelrir]

Originally Posted by nuke11

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.

MEDIUM SPOILERS FOLLOW

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.

--
Michael B.

[Gelrir]

More reading of the Operation: Daidalos scenario.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

• A surviving, working tactical nuclear weapon seems technically unlikely ... but eh. However, the trigger for the whole Purge story-line is "a scurrying mountain man" carrying tales back to incite the rabid anti-science cultures. This would seem to imply that any tale at all -- true or not -- would have set them off. The nuclear weapon isn't actually needed to start the war, just some Mountain Coot telling tall tales. "I think we're all indebted to Gabby Johnson for clearly stating what needed to be said! Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish ... "
• I'm still unconvinced by the "tectonic survey" and precision earthquake detection powers of the Daidalos people. I've decided to scrap the whole nuclear-weapon-and-massive-earthquake plot, and to go with ... an airplane. The people of Daidalos were chosen for their aerospace skills; the town has a runway and "launch gantries" somewhere. Getting the Luddite crusade all riled up would only take something as simple as a biplane flying around.

More thinkings needed ...

--
Michael B.

[nuke11]

Originally Posted by Gelrir

More reading of the Operation: Daidalos scenario.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

• A surviving, working tactical nuclear weapon seems technically unlikely ... but eh. However, the trigger for the whole Purge story-line is "a scurrying mountain man" carrying tales back to incite the rabid anti-science cultures. This would seem to imply that any tale at all -- true or not -- would have set them off. The nuclear weapon isn't actually needed to start the war, just some Mountain Coot telling tall tales. "I think we're all indebted to Gabby Johnson for clearly stating what needed to be said! Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish ... "
• I'm still unconvinced by the "tectonic survey" and precision earthquake detection powers of the Daidalos people. I've decided to scrap the whole nuclear-weapon-and-massive-earthquake plot, and to go with ... an airplane. The people of Daidalos were chosen for their aerospace skills; the town has a runway and "launch gantries" somewhere. Getting the Luddite crusade all riled up would only take something as simple as a biplane flying around.

More thinkings needed ...

--
Michael B.

I'm not completely set on the nuke either at this moment. I never put much thought into a replacement, but I do like your idea of an airplane, it does seem to fit into the anti-tech groups manifesto and ideology.

I have been thinking about how the team gets into the base thou, as written I think there could be a problem with how it is done.

[Gelrir]

Originally Posted by nuke11

I have been thinking about how the team gets into the base thou, as written I think there could be a problem with how it is done.

SPOILERS

Yeah, I think the authors underestimate the size of the island, and the amount of 20th Century "stuff" on the island.

"... a Morrow Project installation somewhere on Catalina Island ... In 2167 nothing remains of the facility, but careful searching with a Magnetic Anomaly Detector (MAD) or metal detector will locate the steel door ... buried under about five feet of soil, rock and vegetation ... "

So we're to expect a team will search the entire island with a metal detector, and whenever they get a signal they'll dig at least five feet down? They'll be doing a lot of digging!

Attached is an elevation view of the base for our (classic era) version.

--
Michael B.

[nuke11]

Originally Posted by Gelrir

SPOILERS

Yeah, I think the authors underestimate the size of the island, and the amount of 20th Century "stuff" on the island.

"... a Morrow Project installation somewhere on Catalina Island ... In 2167 nothing remains of the facility, but careful searching with a Magnetic Anomaly Detector (MAD) or metal detector will locate the steel door ... buried under about five feet of soil, rock and vegetation ... "

So we're to expect a team will search the entire island with a metal detector, and whenever they get a signal they'll dig at least five feet down? They'll be doing a lot of digging!

Attached is an elevation view of the base for our (classic era) version.

--
Michael B.

The only item that I have seen in the rules is the MAGNETIC SENSOR at 15kg and can be vehicle mounted, which kind of gives me the idea this is not what we think it should be. Now I'm not sure if 5 feet down is even detectable (another research project I guess)

I have begun doing up stats for portable metal/mine detectors for the game.

The elevator is what has me scratching my head.

Overall I like the module.

[Gelrir]

Originally Posted by nuke11

The only item that I have seen in the rules is the MAGNETIC SENSOR at 15kg and can be vehicle mounted, which kind of gives me the idea this is not what we think it should be. Now I'm not sure if 5 feet down is even detectable (another research project I guess)

Presuming that the "steel door at the top of the elevator shaft" is reasonably thick (any armor value at all), I feel that 5 feet of depth will be easily found by any sort of metal detector. Making a super-sensitive metal detector isn't always useful ... you pick up all the other stuff in the area, olod plumbing, rebar, your own gear, etc.. Military detectors look for land mines with a few ounces of metal, at least a few inches underground ... I suspect a hundred kilograms of stainless steel will set them off fine. You'll still have to be within 3 or 4 meters, though, at a guess.

"Feet" ... bah, mixing metric and Imperial units ...

The elevator is what has me scratching my head.

• I was also puzzled ... how was concrete during construction, motor vehicles, etc. supposed to have gotten into the underground base? The seaward opening seems to still be "original", undisturbed rock (until the base is unsealed).
  
• Opening the elevator shaft automatically resuscitates the base crew ... updates would have been awkward.
  
• "the elevator was destroyed when the [surface] facility was leveled" ... but the shaft is capped by a steel door. Why wasn't the elevator below the steel door? And, when the elevator was in use, the card slot at the bottom of the shaft would be hard to reach.
  
• The areas beyond the door at the bottom of the elevator have breathable air: "opening the doors atop the elevator shaft has triggered an automatic sequence that vents the inert gases used to preserve the facility and bleeds in oxygen." So: you open the top door, climb down 80 feet, open another door ... and everything is already peachy? That's gonna be some thrilling venting! Plus, oxygen being "bled" from tanks is gonna be cold ... though presumably there are heaters.
  
• It would be interesting to know the "five other languages" that the airlock instructions are labelled in. Given all the required California-only Project ID cards up to this point ... who do they expect will be reading it?
  
• I just now made a small graphic showing what I think they're trying to describe. Note the two human figures for scale, the inset ladder in the shaft, and the ... very much a guess ... location of the upper card terminal.

--
Michael B.

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by Gelrir

So we're to expect a team will search the entire island with a metal detector, and whenever they get a signal they'll dig at least five feet down? They'll be doing a lot of digging!

There may not be that much digging. The use of magentometers mounted on aircraft is used to scan for ferrous metals quite regularly. These aircraft mounted sensors can detect metal deposits 1000m underground with some pretty fine resolution, easily for the detection of a door.

The magnetic sensor is not well defined in either 3rd or 4th edition. But the description fits fairly well with the airborne sensors I have researched. The only difference would be the way it is mounted. In the air, the sensor is either a unit suspended under a rotary wing aircraft or on a stinger-like boom off the tail of a fixed wing aircraft. If the sensor were mounted to a metal vehicle, then it would be safe to say the rules description of a dead zone would be quite fit. I would think the dead zone would be closer to the 15m in 3rd edition rather than the 1m in 4th edition.

So to find this base, they just drive around and have the autonav marking the detected deposits and depths. Then look for the one that seems the most like an underground base, go to what looks like a hatch candidate and then start digging. What happens to the group as they drive all over the island is a different matter.

Note: I don't have this module, so I am just basing this on the information in this thread.

[Gelrir]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

There may not be that much digging. The use of magentometers mounted on aircraft is used to scan for ferrous metals quite regularly. These aircraft mounted sensors can detect metal deposits 1000m underground with some pretty fine resolution, easily for the detection of a door.

Hmm, if that's the range and resolution of a MAD boom, then finding any underground structure (let alone the door) will be trivial ... just a few passes over or near the island should be enough (especially if you know or suspect it's on the coast). The island is about 200 square kilometers in area, but much of it is only 5 kilometers wide. I wonder how the magnetic detector "indicates" information ...

--
Michael B.