Playing over Hangouts

After scheduling conflicts had been resolved, I've joined +Other Tim's Numenera game, being played over Hangouts. It's been around a year and a half since the last time I played, I think, and the game had been +Chris McDowall's Into the Odd.

I had fun. I really, genuinely had fun. Numenera is a pretty great game and Tim is a good GM. He really gets in character with NPCs and can really push a particular image or sensation into your mind, in that good way.

I'm playing a glaive that really quite show-offy. He's a decent fighter and a decent person.

Highlights included vivid descriptions of some creepy things, a fight with two mutants which I crushed with skill and really shifting the plot by killing what could've been an important NPC. She was creepy and spoke in my head.

So I'm looking forward to the next session, both since it was a fun, specific group and it's nice, in general, to get back to playing rather than just GMing.

Also, following some short discussion, we're planning to have a one shot of D&D 5e and I'm set for DMing it. Huzzah!

Another Valoria

While in the shower, and shortly before it, I was thinking about Stuff of Legends - the RPG I'm writing. I've hit a rut both in the system itself and in the development of its setting, Valoria. So while in the shower, I thought about what I could do differently, or at least what bothers me so much that I'm stuck, and it hit me that I still have a pretty ordinary fantasy world, except with some palettes switched out for different ones. It took me very little to picture a different Valoria.

Base assumptions

Valoria was thought up with some certain base assumptions: there were elves and dwarves and now there weren't, there was mighty magic and now it's harder to access, there are dragons and they aren't uniformly evil nor good across certain spectrums and finally - there's little actual and true evil anywhere to be seen.

I wanted to get rid of elves and dwarves since they were becoming less interesting for me alive. Their ruins are exploitable, but actual characters are... boring to some degree. Magic has a price, as can be seen in one previous post. Dragons are more of a united race. There are no demons.

Valoria v1

Saying it's the first version is misleading. It went through a bunch of iterations, but it's the first solid version. There are 5 races, after the elves and dwarves had gone, that all stem from humans - warped in one way or another. There are conflicting political superpowers. There are mysterious things to still come to know. But overall, when I write it out like this, doesn't it seem... kitchen-sinky? Not a bad thing to be, but I suddenly find myself boring.

The rut

I've been stuck for ages on other races. A full fledged five! One did this certain type of character well, another did that other type well. In trying to sidestep a trope, I walked right into one. I feel ashamed of myself, in a way. The same goes towards the political superpowers - the same old lady but with different clothes. Their precise creeds, forms of government and cultural quirks do little to make them truly interesting. And then there's the whammy, which hit me hard - what game am I trying to make again? Why do I care so much about political superpowers spanning half a continent? I felt like I lost sight of what I was going for.

Imitation and intentions

An advice that comes up often is to try and avoid building games from scratch, not because it's hard, but because it can be redundant. It follows with trying to see which game best fits the style you're going for and hacking or imitating it to a worthwhile degree.

And so I gave that some thought: I want adventures and adventurers, but I don't want classes. I want combat but I want it to matter. I don't want social interactions to be a heavy system. I don't want spell slots. There are numerous games out there in the fantasy genre and many fall into any number of these wants and don't wants, but I haven't yet run into one which answers everything. Hacking or imitation sounds about right, though.

So what is my game supposed to be about? It's supposed to be about going out on adventures and delving into dungeons, about exploring the wilderness and the unknown, about attaining power. This sounds like D&D, but some of my don't wants stand out. So do I hack or imitate? Remains to be a question.

And what this post is really about

But I went on a really long, winding path to get to my point. This post is about another Valoria, not necessarily Stuff of Legends as much as the setting that I wish to tie the game into.

In this other Valoria, some things are different but share a common base assumption:

• The elves and dwarves did die, just not sequentially and quite recently. All out war brought the continent to its knees and the setting takes place during recovery.
• From 5 races remain 3, and they get a bigger spotlight. Instead of covering bases, I want to make choosing a race an interesting choice. More than giving you general guidelines, I want the process to give you a feel for who your character is just from the racial choice process. I'm playing favorites and nixing races that felt too out of place and redundant.
•  A multitude of disparate factions in favor of a few unified ones. Gone is the empire and other such superpowers. Spared are those who were far from the war. Points of Light all the way.
• The elves and dwarves dying out took with them more than just cultures and history - inherent parts of the world became weakened.
• The Not-Demons can be allowed to be more... unseemly.

These points still fall into many tropes, but out of them I see my vision as more fun to attain. I see a game closer to what I want to do and how I want to portray it, though this setting.

So there's a second Valoria. It isn't the new one, or the better one, just another one.

Rough Ideas: Supervillains of another Earth - the Gentleman's Club

I like comicbooks and I like the stories therein. I've pretty much always liked them and always also had a soft spot for superhero comicbooks. Granted, what I like the most are stories about villains - villains gone good, villains doing good and even villains just being villains. Notable titles include Bad-Ass by Dynamite, Edison Rex by Monkeybrain, the Worm web serial, Deadpool (which you could argue is not a villain, but still) and others.

But there's a special spot in my heart reserved for villains not often found - ones that have unique and interesting powers. Granted, most powers have been done to death, but there are always new spins.

So I'd like to present the Gentleman's Club, supervillains of another Earth.

---

Mr. Multiple

Position: leader of the Gentleman's Club.

Real Identity: unknown.

Power: can create real, physical duplicates of himself, materialized in any pose and carrying up to anything he himself wears or is holding. The distance he can create these duplicates from his own body has been estimated at 50 meters. Neither he nor anyone else know the upper limit on how many duplicates he may create. When a duplicate dies, he simply disappears in a puff of smoke, although they are as durable as Mr Multiple.

(Author's Notes: I know this one has been done to death, but I can't imagine a non-duplicator not being at the top.)

Mr. Curve

Position: right-hand man and bodyguard of Mr. Multiple.

Real Identity: unknown.

Power: Mr. Curve's power is threefold and immensely powerful. It's first part is the ability to perceive trajectories of moving objects - fists, bullets, debris and pretty much anything in motion, as long as it can be clearly defined in thought. The second part is slowed down sensory perception, which allows him to think at normal speed while perceiving everything in slow motion - slow enough to see bullets travel is a leisurely pace. The third and final part is the ability to modify trajectories - the faster and bigger they are, the harder they become to modify. Nonetheless, Mr. Curve has yet to be harmed by a bullet, even at point blank, to illustrate a point.

(Author's Notes: this guy was the first to crop up as an idea. I really like him since he has a finely defined field of work with a massive scope.)

Mr. Fear

Position: in charge of drug trafficking.

Real Identity: Daniel Du Leyri,

Power: triggers acute hallucinations in line of sight which are directly connected to feelings and sensations. Whilst he can cover the entire psychological spectrum, Mr. Fear found that common punishment, in the form of fear-tied hallucinations, and rare rewards, in the form of pleasurable ones, are the best motivators. His primary restriction, line of sight, is also the primary reason why he isn't leading the Gentleman's Club - Mr. Multiple always has more than one duplicate running around and nearly always out of sight.

(Author's Notes: this is one wicked power that I thought up when I was researching tarot cards and thinking of suitable powers based on their meanings. This one is tied to the Moon.)

Mr. Shepherd

Position: in charge of violent operations.

Real Identity: George McNeilly.

Power: in justification of his position, Mr. Shepherd's power allows him to excite crowds in a frenzy that he is in partial control of. While his range is relatively short, at least as far as activation goes, those under the frenzy are susceptible to his commands and directions and are generally healthier and studier than they would otherwise be.

(Author's Notes: where Mr. Fear comes from the Moon card, Mr. Shepherd comes from the Sun card.)

Mr. Vault

Position: in charge of smuggling.

Real Identity: Armand Marney.

Power: has the power to store objects in an alternate, nearby dimension which overlaps with our own and in which time does not move.. The objects occupy physical space that directly corresponds to our own world and that surrounds Mr. Vault. No one but him, and Mr. Shift below, is capable of interacting with the objects within, as well as removing them. It is assumed, when he will die, that everything that was stored will be released all at once. Due to that, he claims, though the veracity of the claim could be questioned, that he has an atomic bomb stored several hundreds of feet above of himself and which is primed to detonate.

(Author's Notes: came up as a power in post-apo setting I've thought of. I liked it a lot.)

Mr. Shift

Position: in charge of covert operation.

Real Identity: Alexander Breen.

Power: where Mr. Vault can store things in that alternate, nearby dimension, Mr. Shift can physically enter it, along with anything he's wearing or carrying. Remaining inside is exhausting and ages him asynchronously in comparison to our own dimension, which has made him actually older, than just appearing to be. Anything that leaves his person, as though dropped or fired, immediately shifts back. While inside, time goes slowly enough as though to simulate that he's actually move abnormally fast.

(Author's Notes: in the post-apo setting, the main character and best friend of the guy with Mr. Vault's power.)

Mr. Devil

Position: in charge of legitimate fronts and promoting crime and chaos.

Real Identity: Tulliver Perdu.

Power: able to grant superpowers temporarily and permanently to others by trading it for something of worth. Mr. Devil is in full control of power retention and can revoke powers as long as someone he has powered is in line of sight. Things of worth are defined by those who trade them in and no one thing has any inherent worth outside of what the one trading it gives. Two lives might be worth very different powers, depending on all kinds of things. The powers given are impossible to predict, but can be directed by trading certain things.

(Author's Notes: the Devil tarot card, in continuation of the Moon and Sun cards.)

---

And there you have the Gentleman's Club, one of the most dangerous supervillain groups I could think of.

Late D&D 5e impression, schools of magic and play experiences in other countries

So this post is coming in really really late.

D&D 5e Impressions

So, sure, I've seen the Basic rules like a long while ago - about a month. Before I went to London, anyway. So I'm late to the impressions party. But still.

My biggest impression is thus, seeing as I didn't _really_ play before 3.x: this new edition is a fabulous thing. It's back to roleplaying goodness after how 4e had been more of a miniatures tactical simulation with RPG elements, rather than an RPG with major combat elements.

Now to be more precise - I like how...

• ...classes are less boring, compared to 3.x, most notably spellcasters, which stopped having just the one schtick of spellcasting.
• ...character sheets are less packed and offer better visibility to different aspects of a character. Also that they aren't the one that won that one contest.
• ...that they removed a lot of modifiers, making things simpler and DCs adhere to a stricter scale.
• ...how wizards have been given a middle ground that feels fair about spell prep.

I'm sure there are more things I have to say about the game, but this is the gist of it. I was excited by virtue of reentering the roleplaying hobby to play D&D 3.x, but 5e has me genuinely excited about the game.

Schools of Magic

So I'm still working on my RPG, Stuff of Legend, and recently really looked into how I want magic to work in my game and setting. After one iteration which didn't prove solid enough, I've stolen the magic schools of D&D 3.x and mixed them up a bit to get a better spread.

There are a total of 8 magic schools, divided into 3 tiers:

• At the lowest tier are the essentially standard magic: illusion, conjuration, abjuration and evocation. These are scary in their own right, but they are predictable and direct.
• Above them are more versatile and potentially dangerous schools: divination and transmutation. One can supply information about many things, the chief of which being the Enumeration spell. They are scary because the supply power that's harder to fight against.
• At the top are the most dangerous ones, capable of the most harm: vitamancy and cerebremancy. The prior has the power to snuff out life indiscriminately with a flick of the wrist. The latter allows the wizard to read minds and cause massive brain damage with as much effort as vitamancer expend into killing. These are so considerably hard to defend against that they are the most scary and most regulated.

Players may choose the lowest or middle tiers when they create spellcasting characters. The schools are intended to speak for themselves, in regards to expected effects and I think I've done a good job.

Gaming in other countries

About a month ago I've been to London, for my sister's graduation from City University London (house of Gryffindor). Before I flew in, I sought out activities with people from the internet that I'm familiar with. James Young answered that call with an invite to their weekly game night he was GMing. The experience was fab.

To start with, it was my first time playing outside of my physical comfort zone - somewhere public that isn't directly tied to RPGs. Cons don't count, for that matter, is what I mean.

I had a beer sometime in the middle, which also counts for points.

My character, which started with the name Arlen but ended up with the name Frog*, lived through the session (well, there was no combat, although other characters had nearly died) and even contributed a bunch by defeating a ghost at Jenga.

We gamed for 3.5 hours, but they were a total blast. All players got as much spotlight as they were seeking and everyone was pretty much really grand.

Sorry that the posts aren't coming in very often, but I'm struggling to leave my social comfort zone of being a lurker. So here, have a late post about things.

*There are two good reasons for this switch in names: 1) the only remaining miniature to represent a character was a plastic frog, and 2) Frog had 4 charisma, which makes the name, at least as a nickname, sound pretty fair I think.

611 views and Stuff of Legends progress report

I did not expect this. Somehow, since the last time I checked my statistics, this blog had a sudden influx of views. Allegedly, a third of my total of 611 views are from January, but a full sixth is from the last month. I am pleasantly shocked.

So I have some news to report, particularly on the Stuff of Legends front:

First Playtest

I ran a first playtest for a friend, solo session, last week. He rolled up two character and the process proved to be several things:

• Quick. In under 20 minutes, one player rolled up both characters. Random attribute generation works well (roll 3d6, take middle) and the skills are clear enough as to make putting points into them a simple task.
• Clear. During that time, I needed to explain fairly little, as the mechanical bits were clear and self-explanatory. Those mechanical bits grew a little in size since, but more on that in a moment.
• Missing things. Mainly those I've yet to write. You can create complete characters, but there's nothing particularly definite about the entire thing.

The player had some experience with RPGs, so that contributed to the overall speed, so something to consider that, if not for the following entry...

 Not-Really-A-Playtest (Second Playtest)

I had gone to visit a friend of mine who's in the hospital for a little while. I had suggested that maybe I could run a solo session for her and she was psyched. Two birds with one stone! Her prior experience was a single session of Warrior, Rogue & Mage (by +Michael Wolf , aka Stargazer) with a pregenerated character and then a session of BareBones Fantasy (by +DwD Studios / DWD Studios) with a character she made herself, although inexpertly. In short, this playtest didn't test the system's finer points as much as how friendly it was to newbies.

The findings:

• Viscerally fun. The game now relies on rolling a dice pool that can reach 9 to 10 dice easily for starting characters. Despite what might turn out to be a bit heavy, she found the mechanic fun and satisfying. Also, adequately suspenseful when her thief was getting attacked by guards.
• Needs a rule reference. I kept slipping up some rules that are somewhat important. I need a rules reference printed out for the next playtests.
• Clear character creation. The volume of skills had increased ever so slightly between one playtest and the next, from 12 to 16, and their dynamic shifted a bit. Despite the fact, I had to explain very little and a character was created quickly and easily even by someone with less experience. Due respect for this questionnaire for providing a viscerally fun time in figuring out what kind of character she should make.

A fun time was had by both of us and the lessons from the first playtest remained while other were added, as can be seen.

I must say that I'm pleased with the game I have now. It's interesting, fun, viscerally satisfying (rolling many d6s always is) and most of all - simple and intuitive. I have other playtests with other players lined up, although lacking dates, and a distinct want to test out group play before Aethercon III and the session I'm planning on running (Rite of the Black Keep, there).

An Open Invitation

My schedule is clearing up soon and with all this free time I will need some way to occupy myself.

So I would like for you, the reader, to do one of two things:

1. Find me on Google+, or contact by Hangouts if you already know me, and ask about playtesting via Hangouts.
2. Spread the word about the first thing, so might be that you are not interested, but another person may be.

Either of these being done would be greatly appreciated, as I really want to run this game some more and work out the kinks.

One shots, TPKs and hardcore Fate Dice

So, after buying a pair of hardcore Fate dice at my FLGS (see bottom of post), I decided to break a habit and join the local Thursday one shot. What followed was a lot of fun for me and a TPK for our party of 6. I may have been the reason for the TPK. I regret nothing.

We were sent by the king, as a squad of elite sorcerer-commandos (in, for some reason, leather armors and wielding short swords), to retrieve his kidnapped son. Apparently, a sorcerer more often attributed to myth than reality is actually real. Banished from the kingdom about 10 kings prior, with a slow turnover of kings, he... I think he vowed the destruction of the kingdom? Allegedly immortal but incapable of raising a mortal army, he has decided to summon demons with a ritual that requires royal blood. Enter us, as the ceremony can only be stopped right as it happens by the heroes.

It stands to reason to mention that the game had been billed as Classic D&D to me, sans actual D&D. As far as I'm concerned, that's codeword for "if one of you survives this, consider it a group win". I acted accordingly. This will factor in later.

So we raided the king's pantry and rode out several hours, leaving in the morning and arriving during twilight to the tower of Burtos the Black (or Burtos the Saint, the king got confused). This is a surprisingly short distance, but who am I to argue with the scenario?

The tower is surrounded by half a kilometer of a medium density forest. Sizable. The forest contained a camp of 40 trolls and the tower with an entrance guarded by 5 additional trolls. I suppose trolls of this amount don't count as an army?

My character was the only one to actually scout ahead, as the others bickered, leading to the discovery of the trolls and entrance. What followed was 45 minutes of additional bickering on what plan to implement in order to gain entry. To say the group was united would be wrong.

We gained entry with some clever illusions and found that the tower, inside, was barren of any and all lighting, furniture or decoration. Odd choice for The Tower of the BBEG. We climbed a nearly endless staircase leading to a ladder. The ladder had no landing (that is, below it was nothing leading to the lower iteration of the staircase) and led to a trap door with no one on the other side. We ascended, nearly lost one of our own, and were presented with another room, this time having no real proportions.

The room had a bunch of supermassive tiles and a stupid riddle about where you can and cannot step. The riddle we very easily grasped and as we moved forward on the tiles, we discovered a very large gap between one good tile and the next. This kind of threw a switch for me, since I dislike bad base construction.

At this point, things started to go wrong. One of the players decided to test what happens when you step on a bad tile and was rewarded with a massive stone crushing his leg into paste. He barely made the first jump across a gap. We later had a second gap and this is where things went worse. We lost one man to the first gap, since apparently a very healthy man cannot jump a 3m gap, much less one made smaller by the stone that scraped my ankle and broke it. I dislike  how this GM chose to interpret the die roll results.

The one we lost to the first gap had his knee crushed and he had become immobilized. I egged the party on to use him as a bridge, corpse or alive. We killed him but were unable to stop bickering long enough to remove his crushed leg above the knee and drag the corpse away. The one with the crushed leg was about to make the jump, after another player, who could cast Telekinesis, made the jump. As the prior was about to roll, I announced that I push him into the bad tile, to get crushed. My reasoning that he would make a fantastic bridge. Saved by telekinesis and having caused 2 stones to drop perfectly into a bridge, I thought everything was dandy.

And then the telekinesis caster decided to sneak up on me with an arbitrary die roll (which I could not resist because the GM decided) and kill me. I responded in the only logical way when a character I have no attachment to is killed by a character I have no attachment to. I used my Lightning spell to take her out with me. Death count went to 3.5. The player with telekinesis was oddly more mad than I thought she would be.

The remaining were two very healthy players with Wall of Flames and Force Fists spells. And a cripple.

They passed through the next to last door into an encounter with 4 goblins. I suspect that this sorcerer did not take a course in how to defend your base properly.

The encounter saw the cripple dead and the remaining characters to go down to 10% (wall of flames) and 50% (force fists) health. The goblins were played by myself and the telekinesis user and we tried to kill the others dead.

So the two remaining characters enter what turns out to be the final room, past the goblins, and see the sorcerer just about to stab the prince. Force fists are go and the dagger is knocked from the sorcerer's hands. He looks up and says (paraphrased): "You may have foiled my plans today, but this will be your downfall!" and promptly leaps out the window, the only one in the tower, and disappears, as force fists discovers when looking out. I had no idea it was that easy to disrupt a ceremony with no prerequisite conditions.

For some reason, after very little PC-NPC discussion with the prince, force fists throws the kid out the window, knocks out wall of flames and throw him out the window as well and then every corpse he could get his hands on follows suit. And then he jumps, getting himself killed.

And that's the tale of how I believe to have caused a TPK.

I think we all had fun, myself having most of it. The GM was pretty bad and the scenario kind of ridiculous and mundane, but it was fun. I doubt any of them would be willing to play with me again, though.

The aforementioned hardcore Fate dice. Note the lack of blank sides and the inclusion of a double Plus side and double Minus side.

Valoria d20-like - Character Creation, Classes and Advancement

So I said I'd post some thing about Valoria d20-like, so here comes some of it.

After I thought about what to retain from d20 games and what to ditch, I believe I have something solid now.

Character Creation

Among the things I've chosen to retain are the 6 attributes. They are not good, in my opinion, but they serve and they are familiar enough to get things moving quickly. Also retaining levels, HD and a relatively rigid class structure.

When creating characters, you first need attributes which range from -3 to 3 for humans. This is done in one of several ways:

• Rolling 3dF is the best method, as it tends towards the center and provides a very easy way to generate a simple -3 to 3. Simulating 3dF with d6s is passable but not as good.
• Rolling 3d6 for a point pool to assign from. Start from 0 and change as wanted, until all points are spent. Negative attributes give back 1 point per negative point (0 to -1 is 1 points, -1 to -2 is another point and -2 to -3 is a third point). Positive attributes require as many points as the score you're going into (1 requires 1 point, 2 requires 2 points and 3 requires 3 points).
• A 12 point pool to assign from. Static and fine.
• A standard spread, very likely 2, 1, 1, 0, 0, -1.

Notably, the low numbers on attributes have a very meaningful impact on rolling - much more than the 3 to 18 scale of standard d20 - but that I will cover in a later post.

After you have your attributes, apply any modifiers from racial choice, roll your HD based on race, choose your first class level and add anything the class gives you, like an HP bonus and advancement.

Classes

In Valoria d20-like, the choice of class is relatively definite and final. The class you choose at character creation defines the character very heavily and deviations become slight.

Unlike many other d20 games, classes in Valoria d20-like have a specific structure and interaction. The essential structure looks like a hexagon with a central vertex connected to all outside vertices. This structure defines who is neighbors with who and what type of multi-classing that class can do. In the center is the Jack (or Jane). The other six vertices act like a color wheel: primary colors are pure classes - warrior, spellcaster and rogue - while secondary colors are the complementary mixed classes to the pure ones - warrior-spellcaster, warrior-rogue and spellcaster-rogue.

The Jack is a unique class that has no attribute requirements. It's unlikely to ever become the core class of a character, but it is possible. Jacks advance in the smallest increments but do so much more quickly than the other classes.

The other classes require either double or triple the EXP than the Jack does, advance in larger increments and have attribute requirements.

Outside the structure there is a final type of class, tied to the "color" classes: specializations. Pure classes can specialize in only their own specializations and taking these specialty classes increases EXP requirements. Mixed classes may pick from their own special selection or from either of their pure neighbors. Jacks are unable to specialize, but may take more multi-class levels.

Advancement

Advancement in Valoria d20-like is very simple: as you gain EXP, you invest it into a valid class (core class, multi-class or specialization). That EXP is taken from you and the cost of all valid classes goes up by 1 increment (2^[next level]*[base cost]).

Character receive their first advancement with their first level, so right off the bat. Each advancement provides Advancement Points, which may be spent on Primary Features, Secondary Features or Special Features. Primary and secondary cost 1 point each and special features cost 2 points, with the exception of the Jack.

Jacks receive 2 points, pure classes 3 points and mixed classes 4 points. Every specialization taken gives another point per level after it had been taken. Specialization levels don't provide points but rather give their special feature at the basest level.

There is no limit on how much of which features you take each level, except that you can't take the same feature twice in a level.

On the matter of multi-classing, you simply gain that level normally for that class, with all perks associated. The restriction is that you may not take more than a single multi-class level in any neighbor. Jacks may take 3 multi-class levels total while the other classes may only take 2. Humans receive another multi-class level to take.

I don't think I have anything else meaningful to share for now, so any comments and critique on what I have thus far will be very appreciated. Feel free to message me on Hangouts with any questions about the game.