Neitherworld Stories

A Single Google Search for All the RPG Inspiration Pictures You Need

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 13:49:00 +0000

One of my new gaming buddies recently asked for advice about finding inspirational pictures for RPGs. He'd been mostly looking at video game concept art (which is a pretty good idea in itself).

Responses were pretty typical. Google searches. Deviantart. Whatever.

I suggested that he start from some pieces of art that he likes, find out the artist, and look at their online portfolios.

Then I saw someone suggested a particular Pinterest board... and it occurred to me: tons of people have RPG inspiration Pinterest boards. Why not let the cloud work for you?

Gyre, the Fractured City: An Introduction

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 03:09:00 +0000

Some of the twelve worlds are nearly indistinguishable from our own. Others are barren wastelands, sylvan paradises, or dystopian nightmares. They may be ruled by magic or by technology or by sheer greed and ambition.

Between the worlds, lies Gyre.

The great cycle brings each of the worlds in line with Gyre. When a world is aligned, the gates of Gyre open to it. It is said that it is through such traffic that the worlds first diverged from each other.

The Lords of Gyre control the cycle and the gates. Some say they control the twelve worlds themselves.

The people of Gyre reflect the diversity of the twelve worlds. Many are as human as you or I. Others are Neanderthals, elves, cyborgs, talking animals, and even stranger things. Cultures lost on the twelve worlds might still survive in Gyre, and there are certainly cultures in Gyre that have evolved separately from those on the twelve worlds.

Within Gyre, culture and belief have power. When a person passes through a gate to Gyre, their bond to their own world is fractured, opening them to a possibility to wield that power. This ability can be diminished if they leave Gyre for one of the worlds, but this is unpredictable. Some people have left Gyre and imposed their will upon some of the twelve worlds. The eighth world, for instance, is ruled by an oligarchy of mage-kings who come from Gyre. Their infighting has largely torn that world apart.

When the great cycle passes through all twelve worlds, there is a thirteenth point on the cycle. During this time, all gates are closed and none can leave Gyre. Still, sometimes, there are those who pass through the seemingly-closed gates into Gyre during this time. Some of these seem to come from the twelve worlds. Others seem to come from somewhere else... perhaps other worlds that never fully align with Gyre.

Many things are said of those who pass through into Gyre during this thirteenth period. What is known, about them is little, but all agree that they have been marked by fate and have the power to change Gyre itself...

* * *

This might be the setting/premise for the next game I run. The PCs would be new to Gyre, entering during the thirteenth period. Various factions in the city might hunt them, seek them out for help, or hope to use them as pawns. In the meantime, they would learn about their potential, explore the city, and choose their own allies and enemies.

There are three main inspirations here. The first, and probably most obvious, is Sigil (Planescape). I'm not using anything like the D&D cosmology, but a city filled with gates to strange worlds is pretty hard to beat as a setting. I'm also influenced here by the whole philosophy-as-magic thing, though that's going to get filtered through the second major influence, which is Unknown Armies. I see a lot of conceptual connections between Unknown Armies and Planescape (and once wrote up a weird amalgam of the two). I'm likely to use Unknown Armies as the basis for the rules for this game, though there will be a few tweaks to magic (mostly to make it more flexible)... and combat. The combat system in Unknown Armies is, as far as I can tell, intentionally bad. The third major influence is Don't Rest Your Head. I'm not necessarily going for the ultra-surreal-and-frenetic nature of that game, but I am certainly influenced by it here. The PCs are newcomers into a strange world tangentially connected to their own where they are powerful and special... and the powers that be in that world will certainly take an interest in them.

Thoughts on hit points and misplaced abstraction

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Wed, 30 May 2012 00:39:00 +0000

Hit points are an abstraction of a combination of physical durability, tenacity, skill, luck, narrative importance, and... well... probably a few other things.

Damage, however, typically scales directly with the size/power of the weapon used.

There's a disconnect here. At first level, I can maybe take a hit or two from an ax... but probably not more than that. At tenth level, I may be able to survive a dozen such hits. Why? The answer is, typically, that hit points are an abstraction... that not all of those hits represent actual connections between the weapon and my body... rather they represent me wearing down my reserves and such.

If that's the case, then why does damage scale according to the weapon? Is fighting someone who is armed with an ax more strenuous than fighting someone who is armed with a dagger? It might be, but that certainly isn't how weapon damage is scaled.

Moreover, most people don't describe combat that way. In most games that I play in, if I hit on the attack, the damage gets described as a wound. Why? Because I hit on the attack. Describing the effect of a successful hit as a wound is natural. Similarly, healing is nearly always described in terms of healing wounds. This is behind the problem that many people have with healing surges in 4e.

One way to describe the problem here is to say that it isn't hit points and damage that should be considered abstract, but rather hits - most successful attacks shouldn't actually hit the opponent.

Once this is accepted, a new way to abstract combat opens up. Hit points represent physical durability. Weapon damage represents the deadliness of the weapon. A single actual hit from a dagger in the back might be able to kill even a high level character. The trick is that it is exceedingly unlikely that a high level character would ever get hit in the back with a dagger. We need to introduce something like abstract hit points and apply it to attacks. Borrowing a bit from FATE, let's call this Stress.

Introducing stress

As characters advance in level, they don't really gain hit points. They might become harder to hit outright. They also gain more capacity for stress. What is stress? Well, when an attack would hit a character, that character can choose to take on some stress to prevent the attack from being successful. This might represent a near miss that throws the character off, but it could just as easily represent a twisted ankle or strained back that results from dodging (or falling) out of the way. All the abstractions that went into hit points are applicable here. When a character fills their capacity for stress, they can't take on more to avoid hits.

Stress and other subsystems

In a system with stress, armor should provide direct resistance to damage, whether that is a flat number or a variable. This provides characters with a meaningful choice of whether or not to take stress. If the threatened damage is likely to be absorbed by a character's armor, then taking on stress may be unnecessary (particularly if you expect to need that capacity later).

Healing could focus on primarily on hit points, but something like 4e's healing surges could be used to relieve stress. Once abstracted stress is separated from hit points, it makes sense for things like inspirational speeches to have an effect.

Various class abilities could trigger at specific stress points. Perhaps having stress makes it more difficult to cast spells. Warrior-types might gain the ability to use special attacks when they have a certain amount of stress (Final Fantasy Limit-Break-Style). There are several possibilities.

Perhaps (without certain special abilities), you can't take stress to avoid a surprise attack. This would make a dagger in the back a very serious danger for high level characters even without depending upon a backstab damage multiplier.

Roleplaying in the Secret History of...

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 13:57:00 +0000

The mystical secret history genre (think Tim Powers) is ripe for roleplaying. Unknown Armies sits squarely in this space, and many modern-setting games are compatible. They work because people largely share a sense of history and historical importance. If I say "the lost survivor of the Titanic" or "the sketchbook of Aquinas" or "the last words of Eva Braun," there is a social and historical context that gives these things meaning... and the potential for power.

In a homebrewed fantasy setting, this sort of thing is difficult. Players won't have the established knowledge to make such things meaningful to them. Telling them facts or expecting them to read up on histories you've written is unlikely to be effective. This can be accomplished more effectively if the characters care about the historical facts in question. I need to think about how to do this most effectively.

Still, this is one of the best uses I can think of for long-established campaign settings. With the right group of players, running a campaign around secret histories set in Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms or Tekumel... or even Middle Earth... would be simple... and could be incredibly compelling.

Thinking about it, there are a lot of classic D&D adventures that could really be recast in this light - many of them are centered around ancient tombs of historically-important individuals. Reworking them might largely be a matter of tone and objective.

Reversing Initiative: A Modest Proposal

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:48:00 +0000

Here's an idea for tweaking initiative in Pathfinder and other games that use d20-style system. It is loosely based on some ideas from Exalted. The system there had some neat ideas, but it was far too complicated. The system here is simplified quite a bit and requires minimal deviation from the basic d20 ruleset:

Each participant rolls a d20, as normal, but they subtract their initiative modifiers instead of adding them.
Find the character with the lowest initiative. That character goes first.
Each action happens immediately upon the initiative rating of the character who performs it. That action costs an amount of Delay. Add the Delay rating to the initiative count. That is when the character will be able to act again.
Different sorts of actions have different degrees of Delay:

Free actions: 0 delay if performed as part of an action with delay 2 or more. 1 delay otherwise.
Immediate actions: add 1 delay to your last action
Swift actions: 1 delay
Move actions: 4 delay
Standard actions: 5 delay
Full-round actions: 9 delay

When time is measured in rounds, 1 round=10 delay
You may delay your action normally.
The initiative count proceeds upwards. It stops only at the end of combat.

Five effects of this system:

You don't have to wait around too long for your turn to do something.
You need to pay more attention to what is going on. Combat is less of a series of states and more of a fluid thing.
Some combat manuevers (such as charging) become much more useful.
Characters who plan elaborate multistep things to do on their turn will have that broken up (and possibly disrupted).
You get to brag about how long (or short) your combat was. "I killed that dragon at initiative count 29! That's a personal best!"

Six optional rules tweaks for use with this system:

Surprise. If you start combat unaware of your opponents, roll initiative as normal. You cannot act normally until you are aware of your opponent, however. Delay until your first opportunity to notice your opponent and make a Perception/Spot check, which is a standard action (5 Delay) with a DC set by the circumstances. If you fail this, you may retry it on your next turn. The difficulty is likely to be lower by that point.
Quick Attack Option: You may make a single attack with a light weapon at 4 delay. This attack is made at -1 to hit, and you may not add a strength bonus to either your attack or damage rolls.
Haste causes all actions to have one less delay, except for movement actions and full attacks, which have 2 less delay. Slow causes all actions to have one more delay, except for movement actions and full attacks, which have 2 more delay. These effects and modifiers to attack rolls and AC are the only effects of these spells.
Attacks of Opportunity add two to the Delay of your last action.
The Dazed effect simply adds 10 to a creature's Delay. To add some uncertainty here, allow the dazed creature an optional second saving throw against the effect. If it succeeds, the effect ends after 8 Delay. It it fails, the effect ends after 12 Delay.
Two Weapon Fighting can be handled as follows: Attack penalties remain the same when fighting with two weapons. When making a full attack, you get an extra attack with your off-hand weapon as normal. In other circumstances, instead of getting a free attack with your off hand weapon each round, you may attack with both weapons as a standard action that has 6 Delay.

Despite the above, I'd avoid adding in too many deviations from the basic Delay costs. That's the road Exalted went down, and I feel like it rendered the system cumbersome.

This hasn't been playtested at all. If you try it out, let me know how it works.

Pushing your Luck

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 17:30:00 +0000

Let's revisit a topic that I brought up five years ago. I've never liked that luck tends to be handled in RPGs by a reroll. The other day, while driving into Baltimore, I think I realized why: a reroll is a test of skill.

This is largely system-agnostic, but I'll describe it in d20ish terms. Let's say my character is running away from an ever-expanding pool of acid and needs to jump a chasm to join the other PCs in safety. If I have a +10 to a roll and need to get a 20 or more on a d20+10 roll in order to succeed, then luck plays no more into a reroll than it did in the original roll. Sure, I'm getting a chance to have the luck work out the second time when it didn't work out the first time, but a success on that second roll wouldn't typically feel any different than a success on the first roll - nor would it usually be described differently. If I roll a 5 on the first roll and then succeed with a 16 on the second roll, would any of the other characters (or even my character) say, "Wow, that was lucky!" in response to a success on a luck reroll? Probably not. In game, there is usually nothing to distinguish success on the luck reroll from success on the original roll.

Luck bonuses are even worse here, as you don't even have that second roll to differentiate the effect of an unusual degree of luck.

It is certainly true that, in either of these cases, good attention to description can make a difference. If the second jump roll gets described as me falling a bit short but catching a convenient handhold rather than me just jumping successfully across the chasm, then the effect of luck can be seen in game. In a game where these sorts of successes are consistently described in terms of lucky breaks then, if I have a lot of luck rerolls (maybe because of some feats I took), other characters will tend to see me as lucky (rather than just skillful).

A side note:
All the OSR folks reading this have probably already said... "duh." In old-school play, this sort of thing is typically seen as part of the GM's responsibility. That's not to say that all such GMs are good at it - or view their responsibilities equally... and, really, in such games it is usually the initial die roll where luck is seen as coming into play. I find this situation really interesting, but its a topic for another blog post.

How can we support such descriptions with game mechanics, though? I can think of a couple ways. My current favorite is what I call "pushing your luck." In this mechanical variant, luck bonuses don't apply to standard rolls, and rerolls are special. When you fail a roll that you could have otherwise succeeded in, you can try to push your luck. Roll a d20. On a 20 you succeed due to the intervention of something lucky. On a 1, you hit a patch of bad luck and you not only fail, but suffer some other effect (insert typical botching rules). If you have a luck bonus, that expands your range of success on the d20 roll.

Characters might have a limit on how often they can push their luck. This would depend on genre and tone, but I'd suggest once per game session, plus one for any time they could take a luck reroll (due to feats or whatnot). There might be feats or luck powers that would allow people to push their luck on certain rolls that they wouldn't normally be able to succeed at as well.

Unless your game features a lot of luck bonuses, pushing your luck is fairly balanced. It offers chance at a lucky break, but not without a risk. Moreover, it provides a clear indicator and convenient hook for describing when luck comes into play.

A game designed for web based play?

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 05:02:00 +0000

When RPGs were created there were some assumptions that were made. They'd be played around a table. Players would have paper and writing implements. You'd be playing with people you know.These weren't outlandish assumptions. They probably weren't even conscious.

These assumptions led to some very basic game design decisions. Players could roll dice as a randomizer - everyone around the table could see the results. If you needed to, you could record die rolls (or other things) on paper. You could include rules that depend on things like having a clockwise order around the table or knowing who the youngest player is.

Today, some of us play RPGs remotely over the internet, whether that is via Skype, G+ Hangout, or some other system. We've adapted around assumptions like the ones mentioned above. For our dice rolls, we might depend on trust and self-reporting - or we might use an online program that shows everyone's results. Instead of setting up miniatures on a table, we might use a shared online document or a virtual game table. Instead of proceeding in a clockwise order, we might establish an arbitrary order when needed.

We're playing games designed for a tabletop in another medium. We're adapting.

...but what if there were RPGs designed specifically for such a medium? RPGs designed to be played by people online who aren't all in the same location? I'm not talking about MMORPGs. I'm talking about something analogous to a tabletop RPG. Something flexible. What would such an RPG look like?

I think we could fairly safely assume that it wouldn't have dice. If it has a randomizer at all, there'd be no reason to limit it to the number of choices governed by the size of physical dice.

That's a fairly trivial difference, though, all things considered. I think an online-play rpg could be a very different sort of game.

What do you think such a game would look like?

The Dwarves of Kor

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 03:57:00 +0000

In the new game I'm running, Dwarves are weird.

Before the refugees settled in Kor, they had no idea how weird.

First off, the dwarves who headed to the surface were all young. Dwarves in Kor will live nearly a thousand years. Typically, dwarves spend their young adulthood either in the military, in an apprenticeship, or as an entrepreneur. Adventurers fall into this last category.

Second, at about 300 years (give or take a century), dwarves begin growing two fleshy appendages on their cheeks to either side of their nose. These limply hang down into a dwarf's beard. Covered with hair, they could easily be missed from a distance. Dwarves say these organs allow them to "taste" metal and minerals from a distance. When already-skilled smiths grow their whiskers, they can become nearly legendary in their abilities. (As a side note, these "whiskers" are erogenous zones. Some scandalous dwarves shave them. Calling someone a "metal-taster" is a comment on their sexual promiscuity.)

Third, despite the famous dwarven work ethic, many older dwarves don't seem to actually do anything. Rumour has it that the pillars are filled with chambers in which 800 year old dwarves sit, staring at walls. This might be an exaggeration, but older dwarves often move and react slowly, and it is not unknown for one to sit down at a table in a tavern and stay there, unmoving, for days. Other dwarves don't seem to bat an eye at this (and the tavern keeper will happily close up the tavern around his immobile guest) - indeed, they seem to show deference to such dwarves. Either not all older dwarves have this tendency, or it might come and go. Possibly both.

Kor, Dwarfhome

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 03:13:00 +0000

As mentioned previously, I recently started running a new Pathfinder game. It is set in Kor, an enormous, ancient Dwarven city-state.

Kor means "home" in Dwarven.

Kor is more than a city. It is nearly a nation into itself. The Open Market - where dwarves trade with outsiders - is itself larger than most human cities were... and it only occupies a corner of the floor of the enormous cavern that is Kor.

Depending upon how you look at it, Kor has either three or twelve main sections. The cavern is dominated by twelve enormous pillars - formed where giant stalagmites and stalactites merged. Each of these is owned by one of the twelve Great Clans. Within the high city, each of the pillars is capped by a huge keep. The pillars themselves are filled with passages and chambers and have structures built upon them. They serve as the homes for many of those in one of the twelve clans. The outside of a pillar might be covered with shops, artisans' studios, cafes, and taverns run by those in the clans.

Those outside of the clans live in the Low and Middle cities.

The Low City: This comprises the floor of the cavern. It is home to most of Kor's large industry and the aforementioned Open Market. The Low City is loud and busy. Successful merchants and crafters may have private estates in the east, closer to the polyp farms. The western and northern parts of the Low City tend to be less desirable real estate.
The Middle City: This is a series of walkways and platforms that cover much of the height of the cavern. They have accumulated haphazardly over time (probably expanding out from the pillars). Now, the roads of the Middle City connect pillars, stalagmites, stalactites, and dwarf-made towers. Some areas of the cavern are much more built up than others. The Middle City has, historically, been where younger dwarvenfolk proved themselves. It has also been a center of criminal activity. Currently, many refugees live there in makeshift structures (often made of canvas).
The High City: This is carved into the roof of the cavern itself. There are few large buildings in the high city other than the great keeps, the Forum, and the Throne Hall (though these are all monumental in scope - the smallest of them being the size of a respectable surface
town). The few outsiders who have been to it have found it stark and somber, but dwarves tend to find it peaceful and beautiful.

The PCs in the game I'm running aren't dwarves. They are members of the aforementioned refugee class - most of whom are humans.

Seventeen years ago, the sky went dark. The surface became uninhabitable and nearly devoid of life. Horrors came out from the dark corners of the world to which they had been banished.

Some few surface dwellers took shelter where they could. Kor was one of the places they were welcomed. Still, the dwarven society changes slowly... and it was not built to accomodate a sizeable minority of non-dwarves.

The game is going to focus on political intrigue, mystery, prejudice, and destiny... with a healthy dose of high weirdness.

New Year, New (for me) Game: Discovering Pathfinder

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 02:58:00 +0000

I'm late to the party, but I recently discovered that Pathfinder is pretty cool.

Back in November, I picked up a few of the core Pathfinder books. I hadn't really looked at the game since the early days of the open playtesting/beta/whatever.

I was impressed.

Pathfinder isn't D&D 3.5. I think I assumed it would be D&D with the numbers filed off, a few rules tweaks, and some rebalancing. It could be described like that, but I feel like it is really its own game insofar as it has a different design philosophy than 3.5 did.

D&D 3.5 was all about the expansion of options. Obscure new feats, prestige classes, and other rule subsystems created a tone that encouraged players to scout out strangeness. The rules encouraged players to multiclass, play unusual races, and otherwise seek out "cool stuff" from fringe supplements.

Pathfinder is all about making the core PC options cool. Base classes are not only filled out so that there aren't any "dead levels" at which the class doesn't give you any benefits, but they also gain powerful capstone abilities at 20th level. The new favored class rules (choose any class as a favored class at level one... gain +1 hp or skill level - or another bonus based on your race/class combo - each time you take a level in that class) encourage you to stay single-classed. The class archetypes in the Advanced Player's Guide allow you to tweak base class abilities to fit your character concept.

I think the class archetypes are one of my favorite features. For instance, there are Bard archetypes that swap out the Bard's performance abilities for themed abilities. Some of these are subtle: the Court Bard gains abilities that are little more than tweaks of standard Bard abilities. Others are complete class rewrites: the Arcane Duelist swaps out performance for abilities that magically enhance her combat abilities. Some archetypes essentially replicate base classes in 3.5: the Sandman removes Bard performance abilities and replaces them with spell-stealing and a bit of sneak attack (basically recreating the Spellthief).

A big part of what I like about Pathfinder's approach is that it uses carrots rather than sticks. Players aren't punished for making choices that the game designers don't want them to make. Instead they are rewarded for making choices that are deemed desirable. The favored class rules are an obvious example of this. Class skills are another. You can learn cross-class skills to your heart's content in Pathfinder. They don't cost any more than class skills. They don't have a lower max rank. Instead, if you take a single rank in a class skill, you get a +3 in it. As a result, PCs tend to have at least one rank in each class skill. Another stick-removal: nothing has XP costs. If you buy an item creation feat, you aren't penalized for using it. Why would you be?

Pathfinder doesn't really address my biggest gripe about D&D 3.5 - that it is all about the next level and the eventual build - except by trying to make PCs a bit more interesting at lower levels (primarily via more feats and more little, colorful abilities). Is that enough? Maybe. Is it better than 3.5 - a game that I enjoy despite its flaws? Yeah.

I think that's the appeal here. I like D&D 3.5, and Pathfinder incorporates all those things I like about it and improves on them.

I've started running a Pathfinder campaign. Follow-up post on that is coming soon.

The sweet spot: simple, creative, tactical

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 05:36:00 +0000

The resurgence in old-school gaming has highlighted the appeal of simple rpgs that foster creativity. There is a powerful appeal here. Remove the learning curve for the rules, and you can focus on the learning curve for play. Player skill becomes a matter of critical thinking and decision-making rather than rules mastery.

(This last bit raises issues of tension between roleplaying a character's decisions and making informed player choices, but this tension really applies to rules master as well: Can you really justify your character taking that highly-optimized feat combination?)

The place where games with more complicated rulesets can shine is in tactical options. (I don't mean just combat tactics here, but that's the most obvious place where they show up.) That's not to say that old-school games lack tactics - one of the advantages of such games is that players can try just about anything. Crazy ideas are often encouraged. What old-school games lack, though, are systems for tactics. Crazy ideas are often encouraged... but not always. If the GM thinks (correctly or incorrectly) that something is dumb, he can (and often will) smack the attempt down. There is, of course, a lot of variability here. Some GMs take great delight in "laying the smackdown" on what they see as dumb player choices.

What do systems for tactics get you?

First, it tells players that they can do this sort of stuff and gives them a rough idea of how effective it would be. Let's say I wanted to try to trip a giant. In an old-school game, the GM would decide if this was even possible. I might, then, get a random chance of success. It might be a better chance if I have a good plan. Still, it is unlikely that any two randomly selected GMs would give me the same odds of success. One might just rule it impossible. Another might think the idea was cool and give me a 75% chance of success. Contrast this with d20 games, for example, in which I would have a pretty good (though imperfect) idea of how likely I am to succeed... and whether success is even in the realm of possibility.

There's something to be said for that.

On the other hand, there are drawbacks: enumerating tactical options implies that these are your options. Creativity in tactics isn't necessarily encouraged here. Instead, you are encouraged to choose from the options given.

Perhaps more importantly, there's a lot of overhead in terms of rules to learn. I happen to like achieving rules mastery, but a high learning curve means that I have fewer people to play with and I spend more time teaching people how to play and looking up rules... when I could be playing instead.

So... is there a sweet spot? Simple rules that offer a tactical system that promotes creativity?

I think there is.

There might be rules out there that would do this. I'm not sure. There are certainly some that try: Savage Worlds and Fate come to mind. Fate , to me, comes closest to a system for creative tactics... but it still isn't quite there.

I feel like I'm groping toward something. Maybe it is a stripped-down Fate with a tweaked maneuver system...

If there are games you think hit this sweet spot, leave a comment and let me know. I'm wondering whether I missed something obvious here.

How Many Stats?

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 03:30:00 +0000

What's the sweet spot for the number of attributes and skills in an RPG ruleset?

Last week, I complained a wee bit about the proliferation of attributes and skills in Eclipse Phase. One of my biggest frustrations with the Dresden Files RPG is how many disconnected social skills it has (Contacts, Deceit, Empathy, Intimidation, Performance, Presence, Rapport... ). Old World of Darkness games had a huge issue with introducing extra skills in supplements... which could be problematic when the number of skill points to split among them didn't increase.

I'm not a fan of attribute proliferation, but I might have gone too far the other way. In the Fate-based post-apocalyptic game I'm running, the skill list is:

Athletics
Combat
Knowledge
Persuasion
Will
Magic

There aren't any attributes. That's pretty much it, except for a couple of derived stats like Initiative and Defense.

Each character has a number of Aspects, though, that describe them. One of the tweaks I made here was requiring an Aspect that serves as a descriptor to each of the above skills. So, for instance, an android PC in the game has the Knowledge descriptor of Damaged memory cores alongside her rating and another has the Combat descriptor of Curl up and take it (alongside her very low combat score). Hmmm... the descriptors aren't generally negative. Those two just stuck out at me. In Fate terms, these are normal aspects. They just help to specify how the character applies each of their skills. Characters also have stunts, which let them tweak things in various ways.

Part of me really likes this approach. Another part of me thinks, "Only six skills?! Are you crazy?!" There is, of course, a perfect reply to that second part. It goes like this:

Strength
Dexterity
Constitution
Intelligence
Wisdom
Charisma

Almost Loving Eclipse Phase

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 00:26:00 +0000

Eclipse Phase is almost a great game.

As a rule, I don't like science fiction games set in space. I just don't get excited by them. I'm not sure why. I mean, I went to Space Camp when I was a kid. I like space travel.

My best guess is that in space games, you're typically just playing a normal guy. I don't think that's all of it, though. I don't know that it really matters, though. The point here is that I got excited about Eclipse Phase. I just started thinking of all sorts of character concepts. Given that a central conceit of the game is that people can download/copy/backup/reprogram/reupload their minds (into multiple bodies, no less), I think that the philosopher in me was intrigued by the idea of playing with different notions of the self.

The point is that I got excited by Eclipse Phase.

Then I tried to make a character.

As long-time readers of my blog know, I'm not afraid of game mechanics. Still, a ridiculously complicated spreadsheet was pretty much required for character creation. Even then, it took hours. The sad part is that it isn't necessary. Character creation allows you to tweak your character a lot, but the steps described for it are fairly inefficient and could be simplified quite a bit. Moreover, a significant number of stats are redundant. For instance, there is a Willpower aptitude. There is also:

Lucidity (Willpower x2)
Trauma Threshhold (Lucidity /5)
Insanity Rating (Lucidity x2)

These are all multiples of Willpower... Couldn't we just have a single stat and build the mechanics around that? Willpower isn't the only stat that gets multiplied like this. There are ten stats and seven aptitudes (basically extra stats). Five of the ten stats are derived from a multiple of one other stat or aptitude.

Eclipse Phase also has you separately define your Ego (mind) and Morph (body), because the two can become separated. Everything on your very long skill list is based off of both your Ego and Morph. Determining the changes to your character sheet that would come from replacing your Morph would take a significant amount of time without an impressive spreadsheet. In some games, though, this could happen all the time - an important means of travel is Egocasting: in which your ego is sent as information and downloaded into another (presumably temporary) Morph.

This is cool. It is also really annoying.

From the small amount of the game that I've actually played, it seems to run well... but we also haven't run into any of those situations that would call for switching out Morphs. As cool as the idea is in theory, I kind of hope we don't.

Open Atrium for Collaborative Campaign Websites

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 04:04:00 +0000

Open Atrium is an online team collaboration tool that's used for intranets and project management.

I've recently found that it makes a pretty kick-ass campaign website, as well.

Essentially, this is a free (if you have web space), open-source alternative to Obsidian Portal. It is built on the Drupal CMS, so it is extremely extensible. Built in features include:

blogging - Anyone on the team can write a blog post. So far, my group has used this to discuss character ideas, generate setting questions, and discuss rules.
microblogging - This is kind of twitter like. My group hasn't used it for anything useful, but it is mildly amusing. I might dedicate it to off-screen, in-character discussions down the road. or something.
a calendar/event system - good for scheduling games. If you are running a modern game, I suppose you could use it to track in-game events as well. That could be interesting.
Notebook: a wiki alternative - This requires some explanation. It is based on Drupal's Book module, and it allows hierarchical structuring of pages. I've set up one notebook for rules and one for setting. I'll probably also create one for NPCs. You can use this for just about anything you can use a wiki for... though it isn't precisely the same.
case tracking - I haven't enabled this. It might be useful as a quest log, but is probably overkill.

All content is, by default, restricted to your group, and you can allow group members to create all and/or edit the different types of content (or not, if you prefer). Commenting is enabled by default on the blog, but you can add it to the Notebook as well. You can also use Drupal's powerful taxonomy system to categorize content across blogs and notebooks.

There are some additional features you can download for Open Atrium that look pretty cool, such as an ideation tool and integration with Graphmind. There are also thousands of other modules for Drupal, but they will require varying levels of configuration and customization to work the way you want them to work.

So far, I'm a pretty big fan of the way this is working out. I have no complaints about Obsidian Portal, but this gives me a bit more control over my own content.

System Matters... Sometimes too much...

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 02:30:00 +0000

I'm going to be running a Wasterunners campaign for some friends scattered across the country. This is exciting, but it is also a bit frustrating. I have a good idea of the setting, but I don't have the necessary game mechanics down.

I'm a firm believer in the fact that system matters, otherwise I'd just run this in Shadowrun or something generic. Unfortunately, Shadowrun has some mechanical bits that just won't work for this setting (the opposition of magic and technology, magic as physically-draining on practitioners) and a whole host of mechanics that promote a different feel than I'm going for...

A generic system is... well... generic. It sacrifices flavor and focus for flexibility. A generic system might be able to model the powers and such in my game, but it isn't going to provide mechanical support for the game's spirit. Also, I want to go relatively rules-light, and most generic systems aren't.

What game systems do get at the spirit I'm going for? Well, Unknown Armies isn't far off... unfortunately, it has some limitations. It is a very human-centric system and isn't well-suited for things on a superhuman scale. Also, I really don't like the combat system. The combat system I can modify, but the human-centric nature of it is a bit rougher, since it is a percentile system scaled to set the 'human maximum' at 100%.

FATE is nicely flexible insofar as it can be tweaked to support different tones, but I'm a bit burnt out on it at the moment.

I feel like I'm missing something.

If I had the time, I'd just write up my own system for this... but I'd like to get going with it in the near future.

Old thoughts on Wraith

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Sun, 29 May 2011 17:03:00 +0000

My wife is planning on starting up a tabletop Wraith game. Wraith has a bit of a bad reputation, but it is one of my favorite games out there in some ways. Its game mechanics required PCs to care about things. Its setting was rich, and it could handle stories both intensely personal or epic in scope equally well.

Unfortunately, Wraith used a very old set of White Wolf's rules. It never got the revision that most other old World of Darkness games received, much less an update to the new WoD. I remember writing some things about Wraith rules long ago. Here's a post, verbatim, from an old blog of mine (from most of a decade ago). It still has an interesting point (though one that is, perhaps, not so revolutionary anymore).

Thoughts on Wraith and game mechanics
I play in a wraith LARP every Friday.

I enjoy it quite a bit. It is a relatively small game. The players and storytellers are generally good (and, more importantly, good friends). I have had a fondness for Wrath for quite awhile. It is definitely my favorite WoD game, and it is in strong contention for my favorite RPG.

My biggest problem with the game? The rules.

The rules we use are a modified version of the MET rules published by White Wolf. The original MET rules are fairly simple, but not particularly evocative. The ones we use are more complete and marginally better.

What Wraith really ought to emphasize are a character's Passions and Fetters - the things that makes a character a wraith. The tabletop game does this to a point, the LARP version soewhat less so. Even the tabletop version of the rules, however, I find lacking. The Wraith-specific rules are shoehorned into a familiar, but ill-suited system (i.e., Storyteller).

I remember when I first read Unknown Armies. The first part of character creation contains the personality mechanics - because that is what is important to the game. I remember thinking that Wraith should have been more like that. I think that was why I got excited when someone (a while back) started a RPG.net thread about converting Wraith to UA mechanics.

Even that, though, never quite sat with me as completely appropriate. Wraiths are, essentially, supposed to be composed of memories, ties to the earth, and driving passions. Why aren't these things the main attributes in the system? Wraiths have corpus (health levels). Why isn't their Corpus score equal to their points in Fetters (the objects that matter to them - the things that literally tie them to the world)? Wraiths have Passions (the things that motivate them, the actions they habitually take) - which I see as metaphysical grooves in the world through which a Wraith will tend to naturally flow. Why aren't Wraith naturally more successful at fulfilling their passions than they are at acting counter to them?

Then I thought... why limit these insights to Wraith? If they are treated more metaphorically than literally, they could apply to games with a variety of narrative structures. Why should health levels be physical? Are characters in novels more likely to survive if they are tough or are they more likely to survive if they have things to live for? Are characters in novels more or less likely to succeed in things that really matter to them.

I think that these are meaningful questions for game design. While they might, on occaision, be addressed, they haven't - to my knowledge - been made really central before.

Wasterunners: campaign idea

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 20:01:00 +0000

A friend of mine was jonesing for some Shadowrun. It didn't come together, but it got me thinking... What sort of Shadowrun game could I run? I don't know all the metaplot and setting, and I don't really see myself researching it. I like some of the basic ideas, though... and I was feeling a bit of a post-apocalyptic vibe... so this is what resulted:

Wasterunners: The year is 2030... but for the past thirty years, the world has been a different place.

It was Y2K that changed things. As midnight hit, the world held its breath in fearful anticipation. At the time, we thought it was a computer bug, as we saw a wave of darkness moving toward us hour by hour and time zone by time zone.

We were wrong. It was the fear itself - the mass of the populace concentrating their fear on one single thing. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. The power went out. Computers stopped working. In cities, people began looting.

In some places, power began trickling back on in a matter of hours, but it was already too late. When the lights came back on, the world had changed. So had the people in it. Those who had turned to looting and violence had become objects of fear... and had physically transformed into twisted, monstrous forms. Those who had sheltered others had likewise transformed, gaining angelic visages so that their bodies reflected their actions. Others changed in different ways.

Something had broken. People’s shared perceptions and emotions began to have a physical effect upon the world. Memes gained a sort of magical power. Certain times and places were found that could strengthen or weaken this effect. Enclosed arcologies began to spring up in the memetic dead zones in an attempt to insulate themselves from magic.

In late 2001, a giant reptilian beast emerged from the Pacific Ocean and laid waste to the remnants of Tokyo.

In early 2002, the Godstorm hit. People’s prayers began being answered. The sick were cured. The hungry were fed. People’s enemies were struck down by lightning. Beings of various sorts appeared and wreaked vengeance upon nonbelievers and sinners. No religion had priority here. Whatever people believed in, materialized. Organized religion soon became a target. Any group larger than a small family that engaged in a religious practice together is generally considered a cult to be hunted.

The gods and beings that appeared in the Godstorm didn’t go away. They merely changed. They became (or, perhaps, always were) malleable, animistic spirits. Some shamans learned to communicate with them directly and draw off small portions of their power.

Within the dead zone arcologies, corporate interests held sway. Most world governments collapsed by the beginning of 2002. The United States became a loose confederation of states. There are 32 states, most of which are now city-states. Few of them bear much resemblance or connection to those that existed before Y2K.

Outside the arcologies are the wastelands - areas of scattered settlements, uninhabitable territory, and monster-infested regions. In the wastelands, people’s fears and legends become true. Many of the world’s large cities before Y2K were left abandoned. A few were reclaimed.

While the arcologies insulated themselves from magic, they thrived on it as well. Wasterunners are employed to retrieve artifacts or materials of use to corporate interests... and sometimes to perform other tasks as well.

Nervewire,a living optical cable that can be easily grafted to the human nervous system, is rumored to have been pulled from the ruins of a laboratory in Rochester, New York in 2013. It has been used for connecting a wide variety of cybernetic systems to living creatures. Large numbers of soldiers and security forces have been augmented cybernetically and employed in clandestine military operations over the past fifteen years.

While those who were changed in the wake of Y2K were incredibly diverse in appearance, their children tend to form identifiable psuedo-racial groups. The two largest of these are commonly referred to as elves and goblins. In more isolated communities, diversity is the norm.

Shamans pull magical power from willing spirits. Usually this involves calling a spirit to partially possess the shaman and provide some unnatural ability. Shamans can also summon spirits directly, but spirits tend to be less willing participants in such things.

Sorcerers call new spirits into being and typically enslave them. They are effectively one-person religions. They tend to be feared and reviled, but they can be very powerful.

Mages harness pure magic. Through imagination and focus, they bring certain effects into the world. Most mages can only cast a few spells (many can never pull off more than one), and it helps them when their spells have a common theme. Most shamans and sorcerers know at least the basics of magecraft, though few are very good at it.

All the basic elements of Shadowrun: shamanic magic, cyborgs, elves, and cyberpunk - all mixed up in a post-apocalyptic wasteland primed for weirdness and exploration. You can easily run a standard Shadowrun-style mission-based game here, but you can just as easily run a 'dungeon' exploration game, a political game, or something full of spiritual trippiness.

System? Shadowrun would work. I was thinking either that, Mutants and Masterminds (probably starting around PL 6), or a modded version of the old Marvel Supers game (more on that later). Really, though, there are a ton of options.

The tricky thing in this sort of game is the economics of everything. Cybernetics, weaponry, and vehicles tend to need money for improvement. Magic and learned skill tend not to - with two paths to power, you need to give some thought to balancing advancement.

Free Sharable Online Battlemap - from Google

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 03:17:00 +0000

I think I've mentioned that I've been playing in a D&D game via Skype. In general, it has been working quite well. The biggest frustration has been combat. Without a battlemat, combat in 3.5 is... well... tricky.

We considered a few options. Last game, however, our GM hit upon a great, simple solution: Google Docs.

She set up a spreadsheet in the form of a grid, and she shared it with all the players. We could all edit the sheet simultaneously. We just typed our PCs' names into the appropriate squares and cut and pasted them around as needed. The cell backgrounds are easy to color, and you can even drop in images... or Google Draw pictures that you create within the document.

Should I run a game?

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 15:55:00 +0000

I'm more of a world-builder and game designer than I am a GM. I've certainly run games before, and most of them have been fairly successful, but I get a lot more satisfaction out of creating (or modifying) a setting and planning a game than I do out of actually running it. The social aspects of running a game are fine. I like playing host.

I think part of my issue is a strong belief that the PCs should be the protagonists of the story and at the center of the narrative. If I'm GMing, then I'm going to be pushing that... which, to some degree, means that what I'm doing is playing support. Sure, it is necessary support... but I'd rather be in the starring role. I want to be a player in my own games, yet that way lies madness... and, I am certain, a poor experience for everyone involved.

All this comes from my inkling that I should GM a game. Kenneth, who is running the Dresden Files game I've been playing in, has asked me a couple of times if I'd be interested in running Shadowrun.

Now, I like Shadowrun well enough, but I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the setting and timeline, so I said that if I ran it, it would be in a somewhat variant/abstracted setting. This idea, of course, took root in my brain and sent out tendrils. I now have an idea for a setting that I can best describe as a post-apocalyptic Shadowrun/Unknown Armies hybrid... with high-tech corporate arcologies separated by wastelands infected by wild animistic/memetic magic. I find the setting compelling, but should I run a game based in it?

Investigation in RPGs

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 09:37:00 +0000

Right now, the two games that I'm most actively playing in are primarily investigation-based, and this has gotten me to start thinking about the challenges of running an investigation-based RPG.

The trick to running an investigation-based game, I think, is to not make the investigation itself the hard part. The Dresden Files game I'm playing in is a bit guilty of this. In that game, a lot of the challenge comes from trying to figure out what's going on. We investigate clues, and we might get information from them, but that information rarely suggests a clear next step. One of the players has (a couple times) just asked the GM if she could roll her Investigation ability to try and figure out what to do next. This isn't ideal.

How could this be better? New information should usually have an obvious next step attached to it. It doesn't have to come with that information. It doesn't have to be the ideal next step - there might be far better choices available to the PCs... but as a GM, you ought to make it obvious that there are things that PCs can do to advance the plot.

The other game - the Planescape detective agency game I'm playing in - had a great example of not making the investigation the hard part. We were hired by a woman to find out if her husband was cheating on her. Here, the investigation was straightforward. We staked out his place of work and followed him. The tricky part was the decision-making. We were fairly sure that his wife wanted us to fabricate evidence that he was cheating on her (so that she could divorce him). We had to decide whether we were willing to do that (there was a lot of money involved). When we found out that he wasn't cheating on her, but was involved in some other questionable activities, we had to decide what to do with that information and whether we wanted to act on it. This (not the investigation per se) is what made the story compelling.

What I'm Playing Now

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 23:32:00 +0000

The Dresden Files RPG

We met up with some local(ish) gamers and decided to give the new Dresden Files game a try. I'm the person with the most FATE experience in the group, but I'm not GMing. That's OK. I get to play. It is a low-ish powered game, and I'm playing an aspiring wizard/art student. The game is set in Baltimore, which is the setting fleshed out in the book. It also has the advantage of being local. We're planning a field trip at some point to locations that show up in-game.

So far, the game is fun. There's a bit more reliance on dice-rolling and a bit less in-character roleplaying than I'm used to in this group - but only a bit... and I am wondering how much of that is a matter of people's comfort level. Angela and I didn't know any of the people in the game going into it... and few of them knew each other... but things appear to be working out.

System-wise, I have mixed feelings. I really like a lot of the tweaks to the system that they implemented for DFRPG. On the other hand, there are some places that are vague to the point of being problematic (Thaumaturgy rules - I'm looking at you!). My other big gripe is that the skill list is far too large and has some arbitrary distinctions.

I think that an analysis of the rules will be another post... once I get the hard copy of my books. (I've been using the free-with-preorder PDFs).

The Bridge Company (D&D 3.5, Planescape)

I'm also playing in a game with my old gaming group in Illinois via Skype. I've been a bit wary of this in the past, but I use Skype daily at work now. It seems to be working. The PCs in this game are the employees of a private investigative firm in Sigil. So far, it is a lot of fun. I am playing an Illumian bard/paladin. The character was adopted and had thought himself human (something was surpressing his sigils) until recently. I'm treating bardic music (and spellcasting to some degree) as functions of the Illumian language - which is pretty cool in play.

Other games

Angela started to run a sequel to her long-running D&D campaign, but it has stalled due to scheduling issues. We've also been in two goofy, low-key 1st ed campaigns - one of which has also had some scheduling issues lately... and the other we haven't made it to in several weeks... and will likely end up dropping out of due to schedule conflicts.

Plans

Kenneth (who is running the Dresden Files game) has been pushing for me to run Shadowrun. It is tempting, though I haven't come up with a compelling angle yet. I also recently picked up Mutants and Masterminds, which is my current game-system-crush.

Spells vs. Rituals

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:28:00 +0000

When 4e came around, one of my big criticisms was the ritual system. I mean, I liked the idea of rituals, but the way that they were implemented seemed driven wholly by game balance. It didn't make any sense to me that the vast majority of utility magics cost time and money to use while combat spells were quick and free.

I knew that I wanted both spells and rituals in Destined, and I also knew that I wanted the distinction between them to make sense. My solution was to make rituals into more formal versions of spells. Spells are quick, flexible... and dangerous. Rituals are slow, more static, more reliable, and far more safe.

How are spells dangerous? I'd discussed how to limit magic use here before. I don't think I explained what I settled on. The first thing to note is that to cast a spell very effectively, you need a number of degrees of success which can be used to do things like increase the spell's duration, range, damage, etc. On the flip side, spells have a penalty to their casting roll based on their power level. Spellcasters will be scrounging for bonuses (there are a variety of ways to get these) and will need to manage them wisely. They can get by on casting spells without bonuses, but those spells will tend to be much less effective... and they are far more likely to fail altogether.

When a spellcaster fails a roll to cast a spell, he has a choice: he may accept the negative shifts on his failed roll as a penalty on all his future spellcasting rolls for the day (until he gets at least four hours of sleep) or he can suffer a penalty such as fatigue or damage that is based upon his degree of failure. If the spellcaster just barely fails, then he doesn't suffer either of these problems. Instead, the spell misfires. In general, this means both that the spell has an effect that is slightly less useful than that of a one-success casting and that it has some unintended (and unwanted) side effects. For example, a misfire on a simple Light spell might result in one of the caster's fingers glowing in flashing colors that fade over the course of a few days. If a spell misfire occurs and the GM sees an opportunity for a spectacular spell failure, he may offer the spellcaster a fate point (which the spellcaster can later use for a bonus). If it is accepted, the GM may describe the misfire any way she wishes. In general, established rituals do not misfire. This is one of the benefits of rituals, but it also accounts for their cost.

It is possible for a spell to be cast as if it were a ritual. You could perform a ceremony that ends with a fireball... and no chance of misfire or backlash. There are other costs involved in this, though.

I'm actually really happy with my ritual system. Nonspellcasters can, potentially, learn rituals. In some ways, they can even be better at using rituals than spellcasters (though it is more of an investment for them to learn how to use them in the first place). The primary factor here is that identification and learning rituals depends upon the Lore skill rather than the Spellcasting skill. In addition, many (particularly more powerful) rituals must be performed at auspicious times, and the caster must calculate the next time they will be able to cast it. For a rare and potent ritual, it might be a number of years before it can be next used effectively. If a ritual has an

auspicious time listed, this is the length of time until it can be cast. The caster can attempt

to calculate a sooner time; this, too, is a Lore roll.

Destined sample character: Drilla the Rat

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:40:00 +0000

Here's a sample starting character for Destined and my first draft at a very simple character sheet. Drilla is a bit of a hard character to pigeonhole. She has a bit of magic, but with her low Spellcasting (and noting ameliorating that), she isn't going to be very reliable in using it. She's competent (but not outstanding) in combat. She has a solid base to build on in a variety of directions (though it would be rough trying to make her a socially-competent character). I included the text of her feats and spells for those who might be curious.

Drilla the Rat

High Concept: Rat Shaman

Other Aspects: Uncertain Ancestry ● The rats, my children ● Take care of the street, and it will take care of you ● Stench of the sewers ● Relentless

Skills:

Athletics: 6 ● Combat: 4 ● Persuasion: 1 (First Impressions: -2) ●

Lore: 3 (Streetwise: 4) ● Will: 6 ● Spellcasting: 1

Reflex Defense: 6 ● Toughness Defense: 5 (+2 armor) ● Initiative: 6

Languages: Low Tongue, Gutterspeak, Gobble

Feats:

Display of Prowess (Will)

Choose a skill other than persuasion. When you are attempting to intimidate someone, you may display your prowess with this skill. When you make an intimidation attempt, you may choose to roll this skill. The degrees of success or failure modify your persuasion dice roll.

Danger Sense

In the first round of combat, you gain access to your reflex defense immediately, instead of at the beginning of your turn.

Rat Swarm (Creature Companion)

You have an animal or other creature that is a faithful companion. You share an unusual

rapport with your companion, who could be a pet, mount, or familiar. Your companion is

an NPC that is run by the GM and created by the GM in consultation with you. Your

companion will have an aspect reflecting its loyalty to you, and you may use your fate

points to compel this aspect. Doing so, however, does not give your companion the fate

point.

Spells:

Illuminate – Level 1 (-0) (Basic Spell)

Effect: A glowing light as bright as a torch appears. You control its movements: each light may float anywhere within arms reach or remain stationary.

Duration: 5 minutes (extendable)

Degrees of Success: Increase the number of lights by one (+1). Move the light(s) anywhere within your zone (+1).

Aspects: Light

System: If you need to roll to control the created light – if, for instance, using it in a maneuver – the ability rolled is Will.

Notes: You may use this spell as an attack to impose the consequence Dazzled at a cost of three successes.

Whispers – Level 1 (-0) (Basic Spell)

Effect: You can link yourself to a single target you can see. You hear your target's words as whispers. In addition, you may make your own whispers heard to any target you can see.

Duration: 10 minutes (extendable) or continuous Concentration

Degrees of Success: Link to an additional target (+1 each). Subvocalize your whisper without actually making any noise except at the location of the target (+2).

Target: A creature within line of sight.

System: If you link to a target, the target may banish that link with a simple success on a Will roll.

Rat Form – Level 1 (-2)

Effect: You turn into a giant rat, about 30 lbs in weight. While in rat form, you cannot speak or cast other spells, but you gain some of the rat's physical attributes. When you attack with your bite, you do not count as unarmed.

Duration: five minutes (extendable)

Degrees of Success: You may spend degrees of success on a one-for-one basis to increase your Athletics rating and the damage bonus of your bite.

Aspects: Rat

Target: Self

Rituals:

Animal Servitor

Requirements: Small animal ● Modifiers: -1 Casting ● Time: 30 minutes ● Duration: Eight hours (extendable) ● Type: Nature ● Effect: This ritual binds a small animal (such as a rat or a small bird) to you for use as a messenger or spy. While the binding is in effect, the animal can be used as a conduit for a Whispers spell (assuming the caster can cast one). It will go to a location that the caster designates, provided that it is well-known to the caster. The caster will know when it has arrived, and can then use it both to speak (with the caster's voice) and hear. The animal can carry a small object (like a homing pigeon). The caster can have the animal seek out a specific target when it reaches its destination. The target must be no more than two zones away from the destination and must either have been present at the time of casting or have been indicated at that time (the latter costs 2 successes).

Equipment:

knife (+2)

light armor (+2/0): piecemeal scraps of leather, fur, and canvas

crowbar

waterskin

Destined: What is it?

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:54:00 +0000

I'm just about done with the first full draft of the game I've been writing. At this point, it is over 100 pages, although nearly half of that is devoted to things like spells and feats - long lists of things with write-ups.

So, what sort of game have I written? Originally, I set out to create a fantasy version of Spirit of the Century (a Fate based game). Angela and I had used Fate to run a modern fantasy game, and she wanted a D&Desque version so that she could run a fantasy campaign with them. She'd used 3.5 last time, but the prep work was too intense, and she isn't keen on 4e. So, yeah. I told her I'd make her the rules she wanted. Then I thought I'd throw out some of the bits of Fate that neither of us were thrilled with and fuse the Fate and d20 systems. The end result isn't really either. From Fate, I took Aspects and Fate Points. The similarities don't precisely end there, but the feel of the game will be very different.

Some highlights:

The base mechanic is 3d6+skill+modifiers. Despite my love of the d12, the only dice you need are six-siders. People who love Fudge dice and Fate's ladder will be disappointed. OK. If you want to impose the ladder on Destined, it would be trivial to do so.
Six skills: Athletics, Combat, Lore, Persuasion, Will, and (sometimes) Spellcasting, plus the ability to have areas of player-defined strength and/or weakness within those skills.
Really simple, but very flexible character creation.
Power level gauges that reflect character strength without dictating it - useful for judging the appropriate difficulty of encounters for PCs. If you are familiar with Mutants and Masterminds, think in those terms.
A flexible, tactical combat system. It functions a bit like a cross between Spirit of the Century and Mutants and Masterminds... with a some resource allocation thrown in. It doesn't require a battlemat (it uses zones), it doesn't use stress tracks, it expands the idea of consequences (merging it with d20's conditions), and it includes an abstract system for gauging combat advantage. How long do combats take? I still need more data on this, but they seem to take significantly less time than in d20.
I scrapped the idea of a rigid social combat system. I've rarely gotten it to work well in play without it feeling very artificial. The social manipulation system in Destined is designed to have the same functionality without the structure.

So. What am I going to do with this thing?

I'm going to play it.

Monsters as Terrain

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 20:40:00 +0000

Long ago, I wrote about the problems of fighting big monsters. Part of this came from watching my housemate at the time play through Shadow of the Colossus. In that game, you have to climb giant monsters in order to attack them at their (few) vulnerable points.

D&D, with its recent emphasis on a two-dimensional grid, has a huge problem accounting for these sorts of tactics. Instead, it seems to assume that you are always attacking giants in their shins. Or something.

In Destined, I think I've figured out a way to handle this. In general, I'm using the zone system that is found in FATE. Basically, a zone is a roughly-room-sized area. Normally, you can attack anything in your zone in melee combat. Ranged weapons can usually attack things a couple of zones away (depending on the weapon type). The borders between zones may or may not be difficult to cross. If two zones are connected by an open door, there's no problem (unless someone is blocking it). If there is a wall between the two zones, however, there's a difficulty that must be overcome to cross it in combat.

So, what I'm doing is giving big monsters their own zones. I'm still working out how, exactly, this will work, but the basics are simple. That giant? His back is a zone. It is non-trivial to get onto this zone, but if you do, the giant might be limited in how he can attack you. Maybe the giant's armor is weaker there, too...