# Love Helldivers II? Check out 3:16 - Carnage Amongst the Stars for Super Earth tags: #thoughts/helldivers #game/rpg/three-sixteen ![[Three-Sixteen (cover).png]] If you haven't been living under a rock or actively avoiding the very idea of popular videogame franchises, you probably know that **[Helldivers 2](https://store.steampowered.com/app/553850/HELLDIVERS_2/)** blasted off of Super Earth like an Orion rocket and has landed all over the face of streaming services with people having the sheer gall to have a whole lot of fun blowing things up while simultaneously being satiric and entertaining. Maybe you're even one of them.  If the intro video didn't give it away, the earth is unified against alien menaces, one of the most significant of which are very familiar insectile attackers called *Terminids*.[^term] You are one of a seemingly endless supply of ridiculously equipped, zealous, entirely expendable citizens devoted to entirely wiping out the enemy. To that end you get issued more equipment (which you can get even more as you unlock it by killing the enemy), more gear, and access to more difficult and complicated missions. All the while going absolutely bat shit in an over the shoulder third person beautiful shooter environment where friendly fire is not just possible but inevitable. ## Rise for Terra If that sounds like a good time but what you really want to do is have it on the tabletop, boy do I have good news for you! Back in 2008, [Gregor Hutton with BoxNinja](http://www.gregorhutton.com/boxninja/) published **[[Three-Sixteen - Carnage Among the Stars|3:16 - Carnage Among the Stars]]** which one the High Ronnie Award for Game Design that year, and it deserved every minute of it. It is a game in which you, as a relatively expendable member of a well-equipped military force, have to defend Terra as members of the 3:16th Expeditionary Force which left the home world with 10,000 members many years ago. Actually, let's grab the text: > [!quote] **[[Three-Sixteen - Carnage Among the Stars|3:16 - Carnage Among the Stars]]** > > **3:16 is a role-playing game set in the far future.** > > It’s a Science Fiction setting where everyone plays members of the elite 3:16th Expeditionary Force. This military force left Terra over 10,000 strong many years ago with an explicit mission. > > Their whole mission was to fight, and defeat, everything in the Universe that they could find. Alien civilizations, intelligences and life of any kind were to be wiped out to protect the future safety of the people home on Terra. Threats were to be neutralized at their > source. > > Terra is a prosperous place. No one works any more and there is no disease, no hate and no crime or trouble. People are sterile and have to seek the permission of the Terran Council to have children. Successful applicants have medical modifications made that allow for procreation and the children themselves are sterilized at the onset of puberty. They leave childish things behind them and become a citizen of Terra. > > Life expectancy is now essentially a meaningless statistic. How long do you want to live for? You only leave this life when you want to, and who would want to? > > Paradise is reality. > > When the Council formed the Expeditionary Forces they found it easy to recruit. After all they offered a life of excitement and adventure. See the cosmos, travel and live life to the full. Don’t drop yourself in a suicide booth, serve your fellow Terrans by joining the Force. Child permits were raised as necessary to meet the demand, and everyone rejoiced in the plan. > > Later recruiting posters featured wholesome troopers drinking cocktails on a cosmic beach on the edge of known space – an ideal that many wanted to live. Terrans had a taste for this glamourous promise. So they sought adventure in the Force. > > For years they have recruited Terrans for the Expeditionary Forces and sent troopers out into space. The players all play characters that joined the elite 3:16th unit. The 16th Brigade of the 3rd Army. These characters will experience a series of events strung across the vastness of the cosmos. And perhaps one day they will return > to Terra. > > That is 3:16. See? It's a great world. Everybody wins. ## But How's It Play? Architecturally, it's a traditional RPG in the sense that there is a GM and that there are player characters. The GM generates the opposition (literally; we'll get to that) and the players are responsible for playing their character, seeking their relationships, talking about their history. And killing aliens; lots of killing aliens! You could play with miniatures or you can do without; gameplay generally takes place on a very simplified map that manages ranges and not so much is concerned with specific maneuvering for cover and such. Picking up minis that suit your character's style certainly brings a level of finesse to the proceedings. ![[Three-Sixteen Range Map.png]] As for dice, you'll just need D6 and D10, a few of each. The game is effectively zero prep; the GM simply rolls up a planet (and the species that lives on it) at the beginning of the session and away you go. ### Characters Characters are very straightforward: - You have a **name**. It's probably one word. Hicks. Hotchkiss. Dog. You know the drill. - You get a **Reputation**, which is just a short phrase or word that describes who you are. Hotheaded. Ice Cold. Sleaze Ball. Loyal unto Death. Again, you know the drill. - Split 10 points between the only two **Abilities** you have: - **FA** (Fighting Ability) and **NFA** (Non-Fighting Ability). They cover exactly what you think they do. If it has to do with fighting, it's sweet FA. If it doesn't have to do with fighting, it's NFA. - Perhaps the most important stat: **Kills**.^[Maybe this would be better written **KILLS**.] When you create your character, roll a D10 for every point of FA you have and you start with that many Kills. Don't worry – you'll get more. Lots more. - You start with no **Flashbacks**, neither *Strengths* nor *Weaknesses*. You will create these during play in order to get you in or out of bad situations. This is really where character development happens and no one ever expects it, even when you're told this is where character development happens. - All characters have a **Rank** which determines some of the things they can do, and what gear and weapon kit they can choose from. Whoever has the highest NFA? They're the *Sergeant*. If you have two characters with the same NFA, have them rolloff and of the second one becomes the *Corporal*. Everybody else is a Trooper. Congratulations! You're ready to rock 'n' roll. Look up the effects of your combat drugs and be ready to be dropped into combat. ![[Three-Sixteen Rank Trooper.png]] Hold up, you might be asking? What does MandelBrite armor do anyway? What do you need it to do? I've ruled in the past that it has tiny thrusters for slow maneuvering in 0G, that it has a grappling gun for grabbing stuff and lifting you into the air, that there are heads up sensors that let you scan for the enemy – really, it's a fictional excuse to let you do whatever it takes to move things forward. Oh yes, it also absorbs damage. One of the things you've noticed from the Rank sheet is that weapons have a rating that differs based on the range. Both the Energy Rifle and the Slug Rifle suck in Close, but the E Rifle is good in relatively near and the S Rifle is more of a marksman's choice. Let's compare this load out to the Sergeant. ![[Three-Sixteen Rank Sergeant.png]] You'll notice there are somewhat different Responsibilities. I'll just let you imagine how that works out. The Sergeant is the only one that can call for emergency evac, which is kind of a big deal, especially when you're getting swarmed by bugs, life is getting spicy, and you're probably going to die. You really want to be able to call for evac. You'll also notice he doesn't get a grenade; he gets a pistol which has a little more flexibility. One last thing – weapons? They aren't rated in damage that they deal. They are rated in Kills. Every time you pull the trigger, that's the number of Kills you get, and you want to stack up those Kills pretty deep. Especially if you want a promotion. ### The GM The players make their characters. The GM generates a planet followed by setting up the mission. There are some fairly significant lists for determining the Alien Ability (the equivalent of the player FA/NFA, the name of the planet, the basic description of the planet, the basic creature form, and the alien special ability. The GM is encouraged to take those basic mechanical cores and wrap cool descriptions around them, as well you should. But just as importantly, there are boxes in front of each of those things. When you use them – they get checked off. They will not recur until everything on the list is checked off. If you're playing enough missions to come back through for a second pass, everything gets two or three Special Abilities. That deliberate diversification makes a huge difference to the way this game plays over time. Nobody knows what's going to show up next – the only thing that you do know is that it won't be what showed up last time or the time before that. And you know you're going to have to kill it. Each planet gets a certain number of Threat Tokens which basically represent the resources that the GM can bring to bear, used to activate Special Abilities and for the Players to remove with Successes. Your job as GM is to effectively play the antagonists, leaning into it, as well as the Officer cadre further up the chain who set the missions. (Of course, players can increase their Rank until they, themselves, are the Officers. Then they'll know a little bit more about why everything is both so awesome and sucks so much.) ### Okay, So - What? So far I've only skimmed the surface, truthfully. Despite being a very small, compact game, **3:16** is full of little emotionally evocative pieces of mechanic which really only come out in the process of play. For example, between missions there is some stuff to do, including being awarded medals – including one for number of Kills. That one doesn't get awarded until you've made 100 Kills and it gets an additional bar for every 1000 Kills thereafter. You get the idea. Oh yes, I've been holding off on showing you the character sheet until this moment because it provides just a little bit of foreshadowing. ![[Three-Sixteen Character Sheet.png]] Yes, there is a Weakness that is on every single character sheet and it's one that is extremely likely to get triggered for a lot of characters eventually in the campaign. *"Hatred for Home"*. It's a little thing. But it's on every single character sheet from the beginning. It's always standing there in the background, just waiting. Waiting for you. ## Exunt So – how about it, helldiver? Are you ready to sign up with the 3:16th, get stuck in there, and kill for Terra? There are a lot of hostiles out there, all just waiting for your attention, and you absolutely want to go up in rank to get your hands on some of that juicy, juicy gear. I promise that. I do *not* like GMing games. After decades of being the Omni GM, I have no interest in picking it up and doing it again. I focus and concentrate on GMless gaming… But. This RPG goes with me to every convention I attend. If anybody wants to play, or if I just get the itch, I'll set it up in a minute. Character design takes no time at all. Mission design takes no time at all. Teaching people to play takes no time at all. They immediately, unhesitatingly get the mood, get the feel, and get right in there – and it always feels so right and so good. You can run two or three missions even with absolute newbies in a three hour slot and if you are running back to back slots of **3:16**? You'll have people who want to stay from the first session to the second. It's that good. They'll want to continue playing that character into the next squad – and you can do that because it works just that well. Want a game for my greatest games of all time list? This is on it. No question, no hesitation, **3:16 – Carnage Amongst the Stars** is one of the best games of all time. If you play **Helldivers** and you enjoy it but you'd like to play it without a network connection with your buddies? Here you go. Rock 'n' roll. Hell, you know what? I'll even show you how myself!  Now if you'll excuse me, I have a planet to go glass. Out! ![[Helldivers 2 (wallpaper).png]] [^term]: Arrowhead Studios frequently had **[[Warhammer 40k]]** tables set up for company teambuilding exercises. You get no extra points for figuring out [what the Terminids are inspired by.](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Tyranids)