Neat Campaign Idea

So I saw something pretty cool pop up on one of the Facebook groups the other day. A guy was talking about a really cool concept for a campaign that he and his group ran.

His group created characters in Unisystem: Armageddon (a gritty futuristic setting) and then they took those characters with their specific skills, abilities, powers, and tech and translated them as best they could into Old World of Darkness, Shadowrun, DnD 3.5, Boot Hill, Marvel Super Heroes, L5R, Savage Worlds: Deadlands, Savage Worlds: Rippers, and 7th Sea. He started the game off in the Unisystem world in an office building. The story of it was that the characters were going about their daily lives in this office building when they ended up too close to a magical experiment that went wrong.

The characters got shifted around the Space-Time Continuum by a process they called “Jaunting” and had no control of when or where they would end up. They used this as an excuse to pass off GM duties to the next person at the table at the end of a story arc and switch systems. Typically they would get drawn into the events in the universe they showed up in by being told about someone/something that might be able to get them back to their world. Meanwhile the guy who setup the experiment (a thief who was using it to steal artifacts from these alternate realities to get rich) was stuck going through this with them and they were trying to catch/stop them (after discovering the truth of what he was doing).

So each of the characters was who they were in their home reality with translated stats and abilities, they weren’t transplanted into a reality as their alternate selves. They were themselves stuck there trying to survive. Each character wasn’t limited to their stuff from their own reality though. They were granted a few powers, abilities, etc from the universe/system they arrived in. The powers would slowly manifest themselves as the previous system’s powers faded.

Each of the 5 players got to run a whole system at least twice before they stopped playing it and they each got 3 to 7 session in under their belt. He was saying that it was an absolute blast though and I don’t see how it couldn’t be. Just from his brief description of it I was shocked at how much fun it sounded.

I’ll probably never get to do that anytime soon, if ever, but at least I’ve heard the idea and can file it away on the off chance that the opportunity presents itself.

Suddenly Awesome News Appeared!

HOLY WTFBBQSHIT!!! One of my favorite authors, Larry Correia, is the one writing the Faction novel for my favorite Warmachine faction. The novel will be called Into the Storm and that’s about all I know about it other than the fact that it is back in his hands after the final edits were added. He’s even calling it a badass book, and he usually doesn’t gloat over his work like that.

 

I am quite literally trying to contain my fanboyisms right now and it might be a losing proposition.

 

We have a man who is one of the rising stars of the genre, who is also a big fan of the game, and happens to be one of my favorite authors of a couple awesome book series writing the novel about my favorite faction in one of my favorite games in one of my favorite settings. I had multiple nergasms reading the announcement. I am going to have to try and figure out how I’m going to pre-order a copy because holy crap-balls.

I have no class, and I like it.

A thread on a Facebook group caught my attention, and one comment in particular got me a little riled up. The subject was on how you prefer your character creation system. Do you prefer Iconic Classes, Homebrew Rules, or Classless systems (e.g. GURPS)? Good question and a neat thing to think about and see what other people say just to get a peek at the way other people think.

I of course mention that I prefer systems that don’t use classes and that I feel that Iconic Classes (and classes in general) restrict the player unnecessarily when crafting their characters. That got a few likes from like-minded individuals and it was all pretty benign discussion until one person decided to disagree with my statement. Now, I’m all for disagreement, but when you don’t address me directly and say something that’s philosophically incorrect it bothers me in a pet peeve kind of way.

Anyways, the response was directly regarding what I said with an underhanded insult. Basically he said Iconic Classes are only limiting if you lacked imagination. It got a little bit nastier as it went on. There were accusations of requiring Labels and Mechanics in order to be able to design a character. Some type of implication that the only way to interact with the world is through dice rolls. I’m sorry for being the butt hurt guy going to my blog with this but, WHAT!?!

Seriously, that’s insane and doesn’t make sense. A character class automatically is a restriction on your imagination. It is designed to give you certain gameplay bonuses based on a set role. A fighter is a weapons master, typically refining their ability to use a single type of weapon to the point of insane mastery. A Wizard studies spell books and is able to cast spells. A Rogue sneaks about, does precision damage, and is an extremely skill-based character.

In a game like Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder you select a class to be granted a set of bonuses, abilities, and powers related to your specialties that give you bonuses based upon particular rules situations. When you create a character you must funnel their personality and backgrounds through the filter of how it brought them to whom they are when you start playing. Their abilities are restricted to whatever the class says they are unless you’re allowed to multiclass. Even then you are still going to see restrictions on what you can or cannot do based upon what classes and archetypes are available to you.

I am very strongly in favor of a system that isn’t based on classes and allows complete creative control of the design of PCs. It might be because I grew up playing Everway and how spoiled I was playing such a simple and liberating system. You don’t realize how spoiled you are until you try to design your first character in a class based game with a non-class based mindset. This was something I struggled with for years. I never could get it quite right.

Take a character like Shem the Forsaken. Shem is a fallen paladin. Not a Blackguard, a fallen paladin. His story was that his knighthood and powers were stripped from him by his order because he tried to protect non-believers and violated the orders of his superiors doing so. He married one of them and was living a simple life with the people he saved until some new evil-infused power raided his town. He fought as bravely as he could, but he didn’t have his old powers and was eventually overwhelmed. Most of the people in his town were captured or killed while he was unconscious and left for dead. He awakens to see the evil god that was the nemesis of his order’s god before him offering him power to go forth and find and rescue his wife and his people. He was given a magic sword, some magic, and “shadow creatures” that would help him on his quest. The shadow creatures were things coming from his own shadow that mostly only he could see that would make strange noises and would tempt him down the darker path at every opportunity. He doesn’t want to be lead down these paths of evil and tries his best to resist, but the more he uses the powers, the more he is tempted and converted.

Shem is a character that doesn’t fit anything in the DnD/PF system. The closest thing available is Pathfinder’s Anti-Paladin who shares a couple of the proper powers. Unfortunately, as always, the requirements to be an anti-paladin are pretty restrictive. The requirement of being forced to perform evil deeds and embracing evil to its fullest just doesn’t sit right with me. I’d have to alter the concept more towards the embracing of evil rather than the attempt to only use it when necessary to prevent corruption for as long as possible.

Meanwhile in a game like Fate or Everway all I need to do is generate these powers using the rules with the DMs help designing and we’re good to go. I get exactly the narrative and mechanical items that I as a player want and we create a character that will be beholden to his high concept as a reluctant agent of evil who is trying to do the right thing. We have a man walking the path to damnation while trying to redeem himself and repent for his decision, but only attempting to drop the mantle when his quest is complete. If you attempted to do this in DnD/PF you’d be having far more difficult time playing this character in an RP heavy game.

Essentially all I’m saying is that I like it when I have no class.

The World's Largest Dungeon, Part 2

So it turns out that the internet has plenty of conversations already about The World’s Largest Dungeon (TWLD) being converted into Pathfinder.

Most of it requires nothing more than just running it as written or using the Pathfinder version of a critter. Combat Maneuver Bonus and Combat Maneuver Defense can generally be estimated and is really the only important difference between the 3.0 and the PF versions most of the time anyways. Anything that has PC class levels though will need some conversion, but those aren’t all that much to worry about, other than some possible spell selections being altered.

Overall my biggest difficulty is going to be using Roll20.net to run this. It is a wonderful program for the price that it is (free), but I haven’t directly messed around with it to map out something this intensive. I don’t know if my initial concept of just loading the map files I have is going to work. I may have to individually build each room as its own encounter map.

That’s a totally legitimate solution and everything, but it’s a lot of work. There are 800+ pages in this book and most have 2-5 rooms a piece on them. It can get confusing and painful very quickly if I act like my normal lazy self. I’ll ask to potential Co-DMs if they wouldn’t mind helping out with it. That might make it tolerable.

The next thing to worry about is how to handle the building of characters and the drop-in drop-out nature of this game that’s taking place in a dungeon that’s meant to be a one-way trip to the exit with all your supplies gathered from inside. If the players are different from session to session, how are you supposed to be keeping track of things like Power Points or Spells per day between each section? How do you justify new PCs suddenly coming in with fresh supplies when the party may not have anything customizable available?

These are the some of the questions I really need to figure out answers to. It has the potential to throw off the balance of the game.

I think the best way to handle the swapping players will be to end each session with a full night’s rest for the party in a guaranteed “safe room” so that each session we start off with freshly rested characters. This way we can swap out characters and no one is at a major disadvantage. The supplies thing might be an issue though. I might have to just say that there’s an interdimensional immortal merchant that can offer most of the basic supplies as found in the Core Rulebook between sessions. I’ve got to read through some more to see where there are other merchants available throughout to see if this is potentially game breaking. (Maybe we can justify getting some items by “finding previous adventurer parties’ remains” after or during a session.)

Now, as for what PCs are available. That’s going to be a tougher question. I think sticking with a Point Buy system for stats is the fairest way to do that portion. Races would best be your standard races, maybe a few of the +0 monstrous humanoids/templates. Maybe a few ECL type characters. Everything must be approved though. Starting gold will be the class maximum or appropriate starting wealth when making a higher level character. HP will either be rolled or max, probably max. This dungeon was not designed with gunplay in mind so I think having Gunslinger classes in there might be inappropriate. There may be an allowance for it though in a very limited capacity with very simple firearms and a good build. Other than that potential Gunslinger issue, I’m thinking everything is fair game.

There is a thing about long distance/interplanar travel and summoning in TWLD though. Officially it is designed as a prison for celestial critters and prevents anything from escaping it except through the single exit. So because of this prison status the dungeon doesn’t function well with spells or abilities that call upon extra-planar creatures and abilities. This means that Summoners and Summoning spells might not work right, or that the creatures aren’t banished at the end of spell duration or the summoner loses control of them afterwards. I don’t think that works for casual atmosphere that I’m trying to encourage though. So maybe we’ll not deal with that concept unless someone really wants to be designing someone that would test the limits of TWLD.

I’m not sure how harsh I want to be with carrying capacity because I’m not a fan of it, but in a hardcore, save or die, style adventure it seems like a bad idea to just hand wave it away. So it means we probably will have to give a rat’s ass about it just to be practical and fair.

Now, magic items, rewards and such are going to require more research and an answer to the immortal merchant question.

I think that’s a good start. We’ll see if this one goes anywhere…

The World's Largest Dungeon

Upon finding out that the maps for The World’s Largest Dungeon are available online for free I just about made a mess in my pants.

For about 9 years I’ve had a copy of the book The World’s Largest Dungeon (TWLD). It is a supplement by AEG for Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition. When released it was a $100 book with over 800 pages, 16 full color poster sized maps, and it even came with a couple miniatures from Reaper. The thing is a work of art. It is designed with the express purpose of taking up to 2 years real time to get through from start to finish. During one of the many moves I had while in the navy, all of the maps for this book were lost and I was really upset about it. It has sat on my shelves waiting for me to find a use for it ever since. At least until now.

The book also claims that it uses “every monster” in the 3.0 Monster Manual. Which is partially true, it doesn’t use regular animals and it doesn’t use every single version of things. For example they use a single Sphinx in the entire dungeon and you will never see the other two types. There are also a lot of things that have odd templates added to them as well. I haven’t read all of it over the years because I want to keep it a surprise, but from what I hear they are at least interesting.

The whole concept for it is really neat too. The Dungeon that the PCs wander into is essentially a completely sealed prison for celestial beings forgotten for an untold number of millennia. It is filled with some of the most dangerous creatures in the game and has been reshaped from its original design by countless beings and natural disasters. The dungeon is designed to take a single party on a one way journey (because the entrance is a one way wall of force and the entire thing is sealed against interdimensional transportation) starting at level 1 and taking you to level 20 at the end.

It is rough, difficult, and unforgiving. This thing is one of the most brutal endurance tests of the gaming world. Oh how I wish I could play this. I haven’t met many gamers who haven’t wanted to take a crack at it. It is a challenge that we all have wanted to take on at some point just for the bragging rights. No one ever does though because of how big of a commitment it is. Plus, outside of my high school gaming group, I don’t think I’ve ever had a gaming group that I’ve had 2 or more continuous years with gaming on a nearly weekly basis. I think the group we had on board the boat is the second closest and we were getting interrupted by that whole “deployment” thing every once in a while.

As much as I love the campaign I’m currently playing in it just happens far too infrequently due to a variety of real life factors to satisfy my relapsed addiction to tabletop gaming. I also want to practice my GM skills to hone my very dull instincts. Then there’s also the want to try out many different and bizarre character builds that have been running around my head for a while. I also want an excuse to be gaming more often; enjoying the great nerdy gathering that is a game night. Mostly I just want the company of fellow nerds on a regular basis, oh how I miss it.

So, as much as I’d like to run TWLD I know I can’t realistically get a dedicated and enjoyable group together to run it. Not without making the game flexible. Plus there will always be the inevitable GM burnout that can kill a game as well. If I were to run this I would need to have a rotating GM, a flexible player base, and a regularly scheduled session with casual requirements for who is playing and who isn’t.

While thinking about those requirements I remembered something I had thought of back when I first picked up the book. It could be run in an X-Crawl campaign. Then an idea started forming in my head. If this was used in an X-Crawl style tournament or marathon, then we could just do it in a completely casual and semi-goofy style. Maybe X-Crawl isn’t necessary, but it gives us a viable story-like reason to justify it. Basically I just want to run a 4thcore style gaming group every couple of weeks using TWLD as the primary module.

I want to play some good old fashioned dungeon crawls with no real storyline and/or run some classic modules in addition to using the world’s largest dungeon. I want some min-maxed powergaming with a flexible group of people who are there to kill some monsters and take their stuff.

I guess X-Crawl isn’t needed in all reality. We can just do some hardcore dungeon crawling on a virtual tabletop in non-sequitur dungeons while enjoying silly game mechanics. I think I might explore this concept a little bit more.

More on this later. I've got some numbers to run and things to look up. There might be some conversion issues because of 3.0 vs Pathfinder, but I doubt that it's much of an issue.

Campaigns that will never happen: Werewolf

So here’s an Idea I had for a Werewolf the Apocalypse chronicle that I penned up in about 2007. It took about 8 months or so to fully flesh out the idea and put together the outline of the overall storyline. I statted up the major NPCs, broke out a bunch of my supplements and made notes based upon what differences had come about in the published stuff from what had transpired in our high school gaming groups version of New York (I was basing it inside the same continuum because that’s what I knew and I liked where it had gone). I started talking to people about wanting to run a Werewolf chronicle and everyone in our group gave a collective “No” and demanded to do everything under the sun but Werewolf. Which of course this led to an extremely undeveloped and poorly conceived “Zombie Apocalypse in the World of Darkness” that I threw together on a duty day and didn’t really give much of a crap about that I royally screwed up on due to being so far out of practice in Storytelling that I had no business running a game. (Okay, maybe I’m just bitter and ranting right now)

Anyways, the Chronicle I wanted to run has been sitting dormant and waiting for over 5 years now and I’m pretty sure I’ll never get to run it. I liked the idea of the story too much though to give up on it entirely. I think the story is a solid idea and I want to share it with people. Unfortunately due to the difficulty of getting people together to play anything is next to impossible, let alone playing a system like Werewolf so I’ve resigned myself to only being able to share the idea of it via this blog with an overview of what I wanted to do. If you think you’d want to play a Werewolf campaign with me as Storyteller and think it’s an actual possibility that it could happen don’t read the rest of this entry because I’m going to give away pretty much everything that was going to happen from a major plot standpoint.

So to start off this Chronicle we would have a new pack being formed in New York City at the Sept of the Green. This pack will be the new wolves getting ready for their rite of passage. These would be the PCs. One of the requirements of this campaign is to have one of the PCs have a close female family member or the Merit: True Love (and I’d try to help set them up as someone useful with an important skill or connection and as a female) which will be important later. In general the characters would go through their normal early paces for a newly formed pack of werewolves. Hunting down Fomori (Wyrm-tainted humans), Banes (Wyrm spirits), and generally carrying out basic errands for the Sept.

The goal was to not have the real plot start until about 5 or 6 chapters into the Chronicle, just before anyone in the group would make it to Rank 2. They would be given the opportunity to really show themselves as useful members of the Sept by taking out a Wyrm tainted Garou who betrayed the Black Furies tribe and became a Black Spiral Dancer. [Name and description of the character here] In the end the players would eventually track her down after a long, drawn out chase and tracking sequence and would be forced to either kill her there or they would be able to take her back to the Sept for the appropriate punishment rites to be performed. They would also get some valuable information about the Black Spiral Dancer’s current operations and goals in the area that they would pass on to the Sept’s leadership. There would be a grand celebration and an automatic promotion for them to Rank 2 following this. They would get to lead the raid on the first BSD stronghold/operation after this.

A couple more sessions would go by with the pack joining other packs in the area for more successful hunting. Nothing here would be extremely difficult. It would mostly consist of Banes and Fomori with one or two nameless BSD wolves that they’d take out and ruin the machinations of the Wyrm forces. Things are going great until they come across the Elder BSD in charge of these things. She was [Black Furies’) lover and is here for revenge. This is [Black Spiral Dancer leader and her pack’s description]

Her pack is far more experienced, is empowered by the Wyrm, and in a much better tactical situation than the PC pack is when they meet. Basically the situation can’t be won by the PCs but they do have a clear route of escape. If the PCs did what PCs like to do and try to fight their way out I’d let them get almost slaughtered, and then drop a deus ex machina pack on the scene to get them out of there (which would probably be the pack my all-time favorite character Epithail was a part of because they were some of the most experienced and capable Garou in the area at that point in time). They would make it out alive, but defeated.

[Queen] would then become their bane for the next few sessions. Making their lives hell by using corporate and political contacts to screw with the Sept (which is located in Central Park) by arresting Kinfolk and various Garou by having the police crackdown on the “homeless” and “gang” population in the Park (which are mostly the Garou). A few of the higher rolling Glass Walkers within the Sept (mainly Epithail and Simon) would be running political/financial cover as best they could but would also be put under investigation themselves eventually. This would require the pack to use their heads and try to obtain either evidence to exonerate the Glass Walkers (getting it to the right people in the right way so as to not compromise it) or deal with the arrests of the “homeless”/”gangs” somehow. These sessions would be intentionally frustrating and would be tailored to the specific non-combat skills of the pack. It would be to set them up to get pissed off at [Queen] more and more. There would also be a few combat related sessions having to stop Fomori and Banes from hurting the Park.

Occasionally the members of [Queen’s] pack and [Queen] herself would be at some of the sites and would repeatedly get away because of better planning or bad luck. Following this shitty set of circumstances the PCs would eventually catch one member of her pack and be able to kill them or turn them over for punishment rites. Before their death though, they’ll reveal that the True Love/Family member of one of the PCs is being kidnapped as they speak. A call or investigation to said person reveals that this is the truth. Nothing can be done to stop it and the trail has basically been magically covered.

Eventually they get some clues based off of some of the information put together from the various sites they’ve been to and are able to piece together what’s going to happen. It’s some type of ritual that will be happening very soon. They are able to track down the location of the ritual to an abandoned chemical processing plant in New Jersey. There they find resistance and are able to fight their way through just in time to see the ritual being completed. The ritual tears the spirit of [Black Fury] out of whatever green Balefire ridden hell she is burning in and shoves her spirit into the body of the True Love/Family member, granting it a mortal body once more. The spirit being attached also allows her to shift into Crinos form (although that’s it, nothing else). It isn’t a normal “painless” transformation though.

This transformation, being unnatural and from the unholy scriptures of the Black Spiral is unbelievably painful. The body shifts and boils beneath the skin, eventually growing larger while the skin painfully tears apart over it, the nightmare beast standing there with everglowing green eyes that look like they have balefire pouring out from them. (I think I was watching Van Hellsing’s werewolf transformation when I got the inspiration on that one, the flaming eyes are just for effect though). They are forced to fight the reborn [Black Fury] but when she goes to deliver a vicious and brutal blow to the PC to whom the NPC is attached, she stops and the flame in the eyes dies off temporarily as the Crinos form shrinks back and grabs its head. Obviously at this point it is clear that both souls are in the same body and that there might be hope to save her.

The rest of the chronicle revolves around preventing [Queen] from kidnapping more Kinfolk to use in this ritual as the PCs gather more information on the ritual itself to see if they can reverse it. They kill off most of [Queen’s] pack and start to undo most of the damage she’s causing around the city. The chronicle is setup to allow the PCs to reverse this ritual and give her some semblance of her old life back (although the permanent effects of this were still up for debate, and the psychological scars she would have from it would require intense therapy and treatment). Eventually the PCs are able to capture [Black Fury] and use the reversal ritual upon her if they so choose. They then get the last bits of information they need to take down [Queen] and show up for a final confrontation with her.

The final confrontation would be a true final showdown though and PC death would be possible. [Queen] would be at her full strength and prepared with an unknown number of possessed Kinfolk at her command. How this battle turned out would depend upon PC prep and dice. The next chronicle would deal with the fallout of all of this and would involve a search for all the places where this ritual could be learned again in an attempt to eliminate them. Likely it would also end up leading to the Garou asking themselves if they would use the ritual themselves in preparation for the Apocalypse.

Needless to say, I’m sad that I don’t think I’ll ever get to run this campaign and tell the story. I can’t even write it as a piece of fiction because of how heavily tied to the old World of Darkness it is without getting major permissions from White Wolf themselves (which considering that old WoD is long out of print, that seems unlikely).

Evil Player Characters

So today I feel like whining about Evil Player Characters. I’m not a fan of them, never have been. It might have something to do with my want to play these games as a form of heroic escapism to avoid the horrible reality that I see in the world around me. That’s probably some type of psychological problem I need to have looked into, but meh. I’ve got RPGs to work that out.

Everyone has at one point or another played an evil character just to explore something new. That’s cool and perfectly acceptable. That’s not what I have a problem with. Hell, right now I’m probably playing one the most evil characters I’ve ever played by a traditional 2-axis alignment system. Karrak Seaborne isn’t exactly a nice guy, he’s a pirate who has faked his own death, killed people he really had no personal reasons to even raise arms against, and conducts raiding, pillaging, and burning of various native and colonial powers localities while framing another faction for the raids while amassing support to create his own Pirate empire. These aren’t the actions of a “Good” or even “Neutral” character, but he’s a fleshed out character with real motivation and perfectly good reasons for doing what he does.

And I sidetracked myself…

Anyways, the point is that it isn’t the occasional anti-hero or rare occasion evil PC that I have an issue with. My issues are with Players who insist on playing nothing but Evil characters, players who play cartoonishly evil characters, and those who play evil characters in a completely disruptive manner. Each of those have various problems associated with them and all of them stem from portion of the player’s own personalities generally having to do with the need for some sort of attention.

The player that plays a cartoonishly evil character is the least offensive of the three in my opinion. These tend to be people who have either never played an RPG before or are inexperienced role players playing one of their first evil characters. These are easy to get under control as a GM. You basically make the real world come crashing down upon their antics. These characters either get craftier and more subtle or they get killed/captured/indefinitely disposed of. It’s just a short term annoyance that will temporarily disrupt the party. (The last time I saw this was in a gaming group that loved to talk about how awesome they role played their characters. The general extent of this was that they forced people who played Bards to actually sing in order to use their abilities as well as rendering all social related skills 100% useless by not allowing them to be used for any type of interaction and then penalized you for not being able to be a silver tounged rogue like your character should be because you’re an awkward nerd who isn’t very good at dealing with people.)

Those who play a disruptively evil character, in my experience, are doing it because they crave some type of attention. Any attention. These players are playing a character that is generally acting like a dick to other party members or generally being difficult to play with. I’m not talking about people who are playing a character that’s secretly evil (waiting to betray the party at the right moment), an anti-hero, or an evil character who is teaming up with good characters for the sake of taking on a far greater enemy. The ones I’m talking about are the types of guys who play a blatantly evil Cleric while the rest of the party is generally good or there’s a Paldin or Good Cleric. They play a Sith while the party is mostly Light-side. They tend to perform certain acts for shock value or to push for a fight within the party, typically with a player that they are personally trying to antagonize. These are the players who aren’t there to enjoy the game. They are there to be disruptive jerks and have their own fun at other people’s expense.

The Disruptive Evil PC is a little bit more difficult to deal with, as their actions are on purpose dickitude. The only truly effective cure for this tends to be exile from the gaming group. It’s boring for everyone at the table to be around these guys. It ruins the fun you have and is a waste of time. The older I’ve gotten and the fewer and further between the gaming has been for me I don’t have time to deal with that kind of crap anymore and have lost all patience for it. So if I see it happen I’m giving one warning, or I’m nixing that character concept from the start.

The last type of Evil PC is played by the guy (always a guy) who does nothing but play evil PCs. I really don’t like it. Something about it rubs me the wrong way. It’s like the person playing it has such a bad attitude towards reality and life that they can only lash out at everything in a harmful way, even in their own imagination. The problem I have here is a collision of individuals and their different visions for our mutual hobby of fantasy fulfillment.

A person who continuously plays a single class, alignment, or personality type annoys me on a fundamental level when it comes to these games. There’s just something wrong about it to me. The player who does nothing but play Evil PCs disrupts the potential story that can be told. They must always be planned for separately and tend to drag a group down.

As a GM this is disappointing on many levels. I don’t know if I can really put it into words properly. There’s just something sad about it. It’s like the player is trying to do something in a fantasy world to make up for their inability to do something in the real world.

I play RPGs for the escapism. In the real world I pay attention to politics, economics, and world events constantly. I read stories about some of the worst aspects of humanity on a daily basis. I vent about these things on Facebook in general and try my best to keep them out of the few blog entries I write here. This is because I try my best to keep my political junkie and activist habits out of my gaming hobby. Gaming is a place where I can be away from the real world and handle the problems put before me, or enjoy the ride through a story. It’s a pleasant distraction.

The problem with people who consistently play Evil characters though is that they bring in the suffering of humanity and the evil of the real world into our fantasy world and force it upon the world themselves. It ruins one of the things I like about it by thrusting a piece of reality directly in my face.

It’s also boring to see someone play the same thing or a similar theme over and over again. I just don’t get the appeal.

There's not much constructive thought here, I'm just bitching.

Anime Hunt

So following the 2nd BAMCon being a success, I've become interested in watching some anime again (at least temporarily) and I've realized that I haven't seen anything new (or at least new to me) that I've been able to enjoy in years.

The last anime I was introduced to that I enjoyed was Rune Soldier and Record of Lodoss War which I only watched because we owned them already. Most everything else I've seen in the past few years just isn't interesting to me.

I enjoy fantasy and sci-fi most of the time and love Shonen type things. I loved Trigun, Hellsing, Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop, Akira, Spriggan, Transformers, Dragonball Z, Bastard!, Full Metal Alchemist, some Gundam series, Voltron, Yu-Gi-Oh, the first Pokemon series, and a bunch of others of a similar vein.

I've tried to watch things like Vandread, Gurren Lagann, and a few others that have been available on Netflix. I found them too goofy/formulaic/other random complaint for my tastes and never got into them.

I didn't enjoy Naruto. I did enjoy Bleach, the little bit I've watched. (I keep meaning to go back to it...)

Hmmm, I'm really just rambling here. I just want something creative and entertaining that doesn't follow predictable patterns and doesn't murder my eyeballs. Is that too much to ask?

If anyone has some suggestions let me know. I don't have the money to spare going out and buying up discs and I'm not going to pirate things so please make suggestions that are available through Netflix/Hulu or other legitimate places.

Fate in Pathfinder and 3.5

A thought occurred to me the other day while debating other gamers on Facebook about alignment systems and how I feel about them. Which of course, as you should all know by now, I really don’t like them because of how restricting and personality stunting they tend to be. My preferred systems tend to use personality traits of some type or another that reward role play with mechanic based rewards.

 

In Whitewolf’s old World of Darkness games this would be Nature and Demeanor, with acting out your Nature giving your character back extremely important Willpower points. In Fate, you have your character’s Aspects; High concept, Trouble and three Aspects. Having your aspects compelled gains you fate points you can use to enhance your rolls in some way shape or form related to your Aspects. It is one of the nicest and smoothest systems for encouraging roleplaying I’ve seen in a system and have been dying to use it for real.

 

Bringing up the topic of Fate’s aspects made me pause for a second though when I was debating the merits of alignment. Why couldn’t you put the Aspects and Fate points into DnD style games in place of the 2-axis alignment system?

 

You might be able to put the whole set of 5 Aspects (High concept, Trouble, and 3 “Other”) on each D20 character and make it work. Compels and Invocations could still work the same too. The only real questions that come up are related to the mechanical effects of Fate points in a D20 setting and the removal of alignment from a D20 setting. Those two concerns are not little. Both of those things are capable of completely breaking the mechanics of the game. I’ve talked about my problems with alignment before (maybe not on this blog, but I’ve had the discussion before!) and I think I can deal with the issues of removing it fairly well, but the Fate point question is a new one to deal with and is going to require some speculation and thought.

 

The removal of alignments is pretty straight forward. Overall I remove the descriptors of Law, Chaos, Evil, and Good from many different abilities, spells, and class features. In cases of spells like “Detect Evil” it becomes a spell that detects intent and/or actions and not just a general aura of “this dude is just totally reeking of Evil” to make it a more strategic spell to use. Any type of damage related abilities (e.g. Smite Evil, or Damage Reduction 5/Good) is replaced with either a generic “magic” descriptor or some specific type of damage modifier (Silver, Fire, etc). Good and Evil are actions, not elements. Holy and Dark can replace Good and Evil as energy types, but they aren’t inherently Good or Evil. Some spells like the Protection spells just get combined and turned into a generic spell that just does what it does in general and doesn’t care about specific types of enemies or their alignments.

 

Like I said, eliminating the 2-axis alignment is easy. Now for the hard part.

 

The creation of aspects is easy enough to put into D20 systems. You just use the same exact rules. Easy, simple, clean. The rules for that stuff are basically universal and could be applied anywhere since it is all really just about creating a character and defining their personality quirks and motivations.

 

Where it gets difficult is when you get into the mechanics of it all. Fate points and the Fate point economy are very different from most anything in standard D20 settings. Mechanically the Fate point grants a +2 bonus, a reroll, and a handful of other mechanic specific things unique to the Fate system that are only able to be utilized by invoking an Aspect on something. A +2 bonus isn’t very useful most of the time. It is really only improving your odds on a D20 by 10% and is only a minor boost to any damage roll. Very different from the significant increase that it grants you in Fate. The reroll is a useful tool and could be wonderful to use. The creation of a scene aspect is something that translates decently too. Maybe it’s time to look at some of the things available in the D20 system that might be similar.

 

In Unearthed Arcana you find Action points. Action Points are a rather similar thing that have also made an appearance in settings like Ebberon. A character, according to Unearthed Arcana, gains 5 action points at first level or 5 + ½ character level for characters starting at higher than level 1. The characters gain 5 + ½ Character level (rounded down) every time they level. Leveling is the only way (per Unearthed Arcana at least) is the only way to obtain more Action Points. Action points can be used to give a bonus on a D20 roll (+1D6 lvl 1-7, +2D6 lvl 8-14, +3D6 lvl 15-20, taking only the highest number rolled when rolling multiple dice), use a class ability an additional time per day, double their AC bonus for fighting defensively (goes from a +4 to a +8 Dodge bonus to AC normally, +6 to a +12 with 5 ranks in tumble), Emulate a Feat that they qualify for but may not have, gain an extra attack during a full attack action at their highest attack bonus, boost their effective caster level by 2 for a spell, recall a spell just cast, stabilize if they’re in negative HP, and enhance various feats that already exist (e.g. Applying metamagic feats on the fly, bonuses to power attack or combat expertise).

 

These action points sound like they’re a good place to start. I’m going to check Pathfinder’s rules for something similar though first to make sure that these are the best they can be.

 

Well, so a check with Pathfinder reveals them using Hero Points. Each character starts off with 1 Hero point and only gaining one every level (or with DM rewarding them for milestones and such, there’s a long list to give you ideas). Each character is only allowed a maximum of 3 Hero points at any one time. These points can be used for the following types of things: Act out of turn to perform a Move or Standard action, Bonus to any D20 roll (+8 Luck for prior to the roll, or a +4 after the roll. Can be used on another character for half the bonus), Extra Move or Standard action on your turn, Petition the GM for a hint, Recall a spell or daily ability use, Reroll any D20 roll, Special things not normally possible (like a fighter casting a first level spell, blind a foe with a normal attack, bypass damage reduction entirely, all of which should typically require a skill/attack roll), Cheat death (if your character would be killed you are instead left with negative HP and are Stable. This requires 2 Hero Points).

 

Well, they have some similar themes. That’s for sure. They also have a limitation of only allowing a single point to be used in a turn (the exception being the Cheating Death option). Maybe a combination of the two would be best since neither seems quite right for the intent and spirit of Fate points.

 

So obviously the amount of starting points is an important thing to establish. Starting Fate points are normally determined by your character’s Refresh rating. This isn’t possible to use since there is no refresh rating in the D20 system. Unearthed Arcana’s Action point starting number is way too high. It ruins the Fate point economy right out of the gate. Why compel an aspect if you have plenty of points on hand? So I think the 1 point of the Pathfinder Hero points system wins out.

 

Next up is how you earn them. I will continue with the 1 point free per level theme of the Hero points system here. It’s quite a logical extension of the system already established in the previous paragraph. Now as for other ways to gain points, we look to the normal way Fate points are earned. Here we use the normal rules for driving the Fate point economy. Compels give the PCs points to use while Invoking or placing aspects spends them. The hard limit set on Hero points of no more than 3 at a time is meant to limit the potential for abuse by players. Now that the points are being used via the Aspect system that means that there are other limitations on their use and the need to have a hard limit like that is unnecessary now. So we’ll remove that from the rules.

 

The uses of these points will be a little bit more difficult.

 

First you have to invoke you aspects. When you Invoke in Fate you have to show a good reason why it makes sense for this aspect to be used in the situation and context you are using it in. In Fate spending a point lets you do things like adding static bonuses to a roll for yourself or another PC, allowing a reroll on any of your rolls, or adding bonuses to the passive defense of something. Obviously these mechanics don’t translate well so I think just allowing a combination of both systems (Unearthed Arcana and Pathfinder) is the way to go. So I think a proper list of actions should be as follows:

 

-Give a Luck bonus of +8 to any D20 roll, or +4 to another player’s roll (if the aspect invocation is appropriate)

                -I’ve eliminated the penalty for before or after because of that’s the spirit of the Fate point rules

-Reroll any one D20 roll, taking the second result no matter what

-Recall a spell or gain 1 additional use of an ability/power

-Gain an extra Standard or Move Action (if the Standard action is an attack it is at your highest Attack Bonus)

-Act out of order, acts like a readied action. May only use a Move action or a Standard Action

-Cheat Death, does not require the invocation of an aspect. As above, spend 2 points and you survive a blow that should have killed the character with negative HP, unconscious, and in stabilized condition. This will force the character to have to take a new Aspect similar to a (Severe Consequence or Extreme Consequence, can’t decide yet) that is entirely a negative and is in keeping with the theme of the blow delivered to them. The recovery will require something similar to the recovery rules in Fate and will impose a new aspect on you until you are fully recovered from the blow.

-Boost your effective caster level by 2 levels

-Use a feat you don’t have but qualify for, or enhance one you already have

-Perform an action that is “impossible” (casting a spell as a pure Fighter, bypassing damage reduction, etc). This action should have a a skill check or an attack roll associated with it at an appropriate difficulty.

 

I will also replace the 1 point per turn limit with a rule requiring the invocation of multiple aspects, and the limit of only being able to invoke each aspect once per turn. Obviously Compels work the same way they always do. You gain a Fate point for accepting a Compel and can refuse one by spending a Fate point.

 

By adding in Fate points to the mix you might be able to add additional uses for your various skills in D20 settings. You could potentially use them to create advantages and Tags, or use them to allow the players to add a free-invocation aspect to a scene. The possibilities are really limitless and could really enhance the game. Obviously there are plenty of tweaks that can be made here and these are only the baselines I’m looking at for how I would implement these. I’d love to hear someone else’s thoughts on this.

 

(Hmmmm… what about the consequences rules being used as bonus HP…)