The Adventures of Dirk Daring

Introduction to Dirk Daring

Dirk Daring, a famed stunt pilot, is serving with the Lucranian Air Force in its war against the evil Reich. This day, he is testing some engine modifications recommended by his engineer, the talented and lovely  Sally Sweeting. She accompanies him this day.

They are beset by two Reich fighters - Cobras.

With some deft maneuvering, Dirk gets on their tails. He pulls the trigger and ...

Nothing. "Curses, a jam!" Dirk shouts.

He manages to clear the jam and tracks down one of the Cobras. But the other has crept behind him. Shots ring out.

Dirk barrel rolls, and escapes damage.

Some nifty maneuvering allows Dirk to turn the tables. He fires!

One Cobra goes down in flames.

The remaining Cobra doesn't stand a chance.

At this point, Sally calls out. "There's more of them!"

Dirk looks. It's an entire squadron!

"Sally, my dear. I think it's time to get out of here. Let's see what this new engine can do!"

Dirk guns it, and their craft pulls away from the pursuit.

Dirk is looking behind when a ball of light suddenly materializes in front of their plane.

"Look out!" cries Sally.

But it is too late! Their plane flies right into the ball. There is a crash, then everything turns black.

What happened to Dirk and Sally? Find out next time!

GAME NOTES

WARNING - Spoiler Alert

If you want to be surprised by Dirk's fate, you should skip these notes.

Anyway, my bout of RPGADD continues. I'm back to my homebrew, quick-play MicroQuest rules. Once of my goals with MQ is to have a set of rules that can handle any era. I decided to experiment with this premise. I figure the best way to test it is to run adventures across time and space. Sounds like a time travel RPG to me.

The Premise

For this campaign, I decided to reboot a character from some previous games. He first appeared in a dieselpunk Four Against Darkness variant then was featured in some air combat games. 

Now he's my time-tripping RPG hero. He'll be joined by his trusted engineer, Sally Sweeting.

I plan to take much of the setting from Timemaster, an 80's RPG that has been republished on Drivethrurpg.

The Dogfight

I decided to begin the campaign with a dogfight. Rather than use miniature rules, I decided to experiment with a quick-play RPG-style combat.

I borrowed some elements from Warbirds, a dieselpunk RPG about dueling pilots. Dogfighting is highly stylistic. Pilots make a maneuvering roll, with higher rollers being able to attack those with lower rolls. 

I adjusted the maneuvering rules to provide a degree of advantage. Winning by a small difference gives you a deflection shot but a large difference puts you on your enemy's tail.

Anyway, the rules seemed to work fine for a quick dogfight.