tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88369983011670072942024-03-14T11:59:32.257-04:00Dono's Gaming & Etc BlogOne avid RPG player's blog primarily about RPGs, namely Star Wars in it's various forms, but also about other random stuff as the mood strikes.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger230125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-43983542008056802182020-07-13T18:51:00.001-04:002020-07-13T18:51:25.628-04:00Wow, look how time's flown!
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My how the world has changed since I last posted.
Needless to say, anyone's expectations for how 2020 would turn out have been
largely scuttled, especially those occurring from mid-May onwards, especially for
those of us living in the United States.</div>
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To be fair, I'd meant to make several posts in the time
between then and now, but just never seemed to get around to it. Then
again, I have mentioned this would get sporadic updates as opposed to constant
ones, and I generally hold to the opinion that I should really only say
something if I feel I've got something to say.</div>
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As for how I'm weathering the current state of affairs,
to be quite honest not a whole lot has changed for me. I've pretty much
been working remotely from my apartment since late last year, with the only
difference being that I'm now officially a full-time work-at-home
employee. Which suits me fine, as most of the folks that I knew in the
actual office have themselves transitioned to working remotely full-time or
have left the company, some by choice but most not.</div>
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In early March I made the trip to Walt Disney World along
with my mother, with my main intent to spend as much time as I could hanging
out in Galaxy's Edge. And I will admit that the work Disney put into that
section of Hollywood Studios was amazing, as it very much looked like a place
you'd see in a Star Wars film. The Millennium Falcon ride was a lot of
fun, with my favorite position being pilot; sadly if you do the single rider
line, you're pretty much stuck being an engineer, which was the most boring
position. I did plan ahead and booked a session at Savi's Workshop to
build my own lightsaber, opting for a purple crystal and an Old Republic themed
hilt; I did also pick up a blue and red kyber crystal as well as a Jedi
holocron, as well as the obligatory t-shirts and stuff for a few other
folks. The only downer was that my mother and I caught what she believes
was a (luckily) very mild case of the coronavirus, with us having a nasty cough
and sore throats; the worst of mine went away in about a week with a lingering
cough for another couple weeks, but other than that I'm fine with no other
symptoms.</div>
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Now one of the things I do miss due having to social
distance is the Friday night live table gaming, which began with an Adventures
in Middle Earth campaign, using Cubicle7's D&D5e adaptation of their One
Ring game, with the campaign starting out with an adaption of the Lost Mines of
Phandelver adventure. In that game, I played a Dunedain Wanderer (their
version of a non-magical Ranger with some generally better class features) that
was unashamedly an Aragorn-clone, though completely lacking in leadership
traits. It was a fun game, but wound up falling by the wayside as half
the players in that group just didn't care for playing online, and I get the
feeling that campaign has pretty much been scuttled.</div>
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Fortunately, enough of us remained and were able to rope
in a couple newer local folks that we knew and had zero issues with playing via
Zoom (we tried Skype and Discord, but there were connection issues that we've
not had with Zoom), and have launched into a D&D 5e campaign, one that is
very much in the theme of gothic horror, but per the DM is not set in
Ravenloft, though I'd be very surprised if he's not pulled elements of the
Ravenloft setting to populate this Uberwald region. I've very much
enjoyed playing Esryn Vandryr, a Half-Elf Blood Hunter of the Order of the
Profane Soul, using the 2020 updated version that Matt Mercer published much
earlier in the year. It's amusing, as I initially made the character as a
"what if?" concept, with no aspirations of him ever seeing play, so
getting to actually play this snarky, semi-broody hunter of monsters has been a
great deal of fun. We've got an interesting crew, including a couple of
characters for whom the players unapologetically took inspiration from Critical
Role, being a female human monk (Beau) and a tiefling genderfluid bard
(Mollymauk in personality), though our monk (who with the GM's approval is
using the updated Path of the Cobalt Soul subclass that Matt Mercer posted
online some time ago) is much more cheerful and socially adjusted, perhaps
being the most upbeat and energetic PCs of the group (though not anywhere near
Jester levels).</div>
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Speaking of Mister Mercer, I guess I can officially
consider myself a Critter, as I'm very much on the Critical Role
bandwagon. While Campaign 1 had some rough patches, I've generally
enjoyed Campaign 2, with my favorite characters being Jester (who honestly
doesn't love how Laura Bailey portrays the adorably bubbly and mischievous
little blue tiefling girl?) and Caleb (Liam O'Brian does a fantastic job
balancing the pathos involved without drowning the entire campaign in it).
It was rough not having the show to look forward to, but I totally get why they
shut things down until a safe way to continue the sessions could be
implemented. Though I've also been enjoying their Narrative Telephone
series, and do hope that continues for the foreseeable future.</div>
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Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 and the current federal
administration's absolutely botched job of handling the pandemic, the another
thing that I'm missing out on this year is GamerNationCon. While I
ultimately wasn't planning on running anything, it's still nice to get together
with members of the D20Radio network to roll some dice and exchange
stories. But with Texas being in the condition it is now, I can't see
anyway they'd be able to hold the convention this year, and unless things seriously
change even trying to hold it in April 2021 might be a stretch. I hope
that's not case, and that once a new administration takes effect in January
things will start to drastically improve. But sadly, I've lost a lot of
faith in humanity over the past several months, so I'm setting my expectations
really low.</div>
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Another thing I very much miss is opportunities to hang
out over lunch or dinner with my long-time friends Amy and Tiff. I miss
the two of you horribly, and hope that you both remain safe and sound; once
things are under control and it's safe to do, I am eager for an opportunity to
get together over good food and hear all about Amy's initial efforts of running
a campaign of her own.</div>
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Back to personal gaming, a couple weeks ago, on the night
of the Fourth of July, I concluded my Force and Destiny campaign. I'd
started this campaign way back in August of 2015, though with a number of
breaks so that other folks could run games, especially during those times when
one of the players was unavailable for personal reasons (some good, some alas
painful). The campaign, called the Errant Ventures, ran for a grand sum
of 43 sessions, with the PCs generally being at around 1000 XP. The group
enjoyed it, and as a GM it's reassuring to hear that your players are saddened
for a campaign to end due to their ties and investment into the world you've
created. I will admit that it was fun to have the PCs from my friend
Linda's sadly aborted Age of Rebellion game show up as cameo appearances,
especially as it was the same group of gamers that had played the members of
Roke Squad that played in my F&D campaign. I did mention to them that
I wasn't adverse to returning to those characters at some future point, but
sadly one of the glaring problems that's shown itself with the FFG system is
that it can be difficult to remember all the stuff a PC can do (especially if
they're a Force user) if you've not played that character for several months.</div>
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Currently, we're gearing up for Linda to run the
Onslaught at Arda campaign for a new group of Age of Rebellion PCs, with that
due to properly start up come the first weekend in August, with that running
however many weeks it takes. Sadly, one of the players has a prior
commitment for the next couple weeks, so August is the soonest we could
start. But this should be fun, as it gives me a chance to once again play
my Chadra-Fan Engineer/Saboteur whose quasi-Brooklyn accent is in zero way
indicative of his being a pastiche of a certain explosives-loving, gun-totting
anthromorphic procyon lotor whose good with motors.</div>
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The other game that is being worked on by my Canadian
buddy Eric is a new Mutants and Masterminds campaign. He'd made the
decision that it was time to bring the story of the Stormbreakers, the team of
heroes that had started with the long-faded Punching for Justice podcast, to a
premature conclusion. We did have a pre-Session zero conversation this
past Saturday, both to discuss how events of what would have been the final
sessions would play out and how our PCs would be involved in the gigantic
galactic event that would be thwarting Collapsar's attack on Earth, as well as
the aftermath and why this iteration of the Stormbreakers would go their
separate ways.</div>
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Now, I'll be honest in that a part of me is going to miss
the opportunity to play my take on Spider-Man, and someone did mention
"you could just a Miles Morales and make a legacy character!" but
that just doesn't feel right, and it does feel like it's time to put that
character aside and let him become a background element of Emerald City, being
one of its few active superheroes and one that's very much paying attention to
lower-level street crime (in between juggling college courses, a paid intern
program at MarsTech, and maintaining a long-distance relationship).</div>
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However, I am looking forward to the new campaign, as
we're playing teenage heroes in the newly founded "supers school" of
Arcadia Academy. I've come to really like Emerald City as a campaign
setting, and it'll be fun to play a new hero (very much leaning into a Paragon
archetype for this one, making for a substantial change from Spider's role in
the Stormbreakers) in a setting that I'm more familiar with now and that has a
history that I and the other players have helped shape. Plus, high school
hijinks and the various emotional minefields that come with playing teenagers,
especially ones who truly have the power to change the world around them.</div>
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<![endif]-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-21364748907443398952020-01-01T09:00:00.000-05:002020-01-01T09:25:24.748-05:00Homebrew Arms and Equipment for FFG's Star Wars RPGWow, two entries within that many weeks? Yeah, I don't expect that pattern to continue either.<br />
<br />
So to ring in the new year, I thought I'd offer up some of the various weapons, armor, gear, and personal items that I've come up with for use with Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars RPG. I'm also including why I created each item. It's worth noting that I've been working here and there on the meat of this
particular post for a while, deciding what to include and what adjustments might be needed. There are a number of other items that I've created for this game over the years, though the majority of them can be found in my old Ways of the Force fan supplement if you're interested <br />
<br />
<i><u><b>Armor</b></u></i><br />
<br />
<u><b>Padded Flight Suit</b></u><br />
Favored by pilots and spacers across the galaxy, these one-piece protective garments provide limited life support, protecting the wearer from the harsh effects of vacuum as well as lessening some of the adverse effects of high-velocity flying.<br />
<b>Encumbrance</b>: 4<br />
<b>Price</b>: 250 credits<br />
<b>Rarity</b>: 3<br />
<b>Soak Value</b>: 1<br />
<b>Defense Value</b>: 0<br />
<b>Hard Points</b>: 1 <br />
<b>Features</b>: When sealed, the wearer can ignore the effects of vacuum or poisonous atmospheric environments for up to 30 minutes.<br />
<br />
<b>Why is this a thing?</b> A good friend of mine really likes the snubjock mold of character, even if she doesn't get many opportunities to play that type of character. We both felt it was an oversight that something like the near-ubiquitous Alliance flight suit really didn't get any sort of coverage, and were both dismayed when Stay on Target missed the opportunity to address that. I know that one of the FFG freelancers (Jason Marker I think it was) poo-poo'd the idea of Rebel/Resistance flight suits offering any sort of protection to the wearer, but I think on that point he's full of it. So, I wound up porting over the padded flight suit from WotC's Star Wars RPGs. From what friends in the Rebel Legion have told me, those get-ups are not exactly easy to move around in, thus why this suit has such a high Encumbrance value, as the various tubes and straps are going to hinder one's movement, even if only a little.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Security Uniform</b></u><br />
Common ballistic uniform worn by local soldiers, ship security, and law enforcement. Comfortable, but with a blast helmet giving a definite military appearance.<br />
<b>Encumbrance</b>: 2<br />
<b>Price</b>: 250 credits<br />
<b>Rarity</b>: 4<br />
<b>Soak Value</b>: 1<br />
<b>Defense Value</b>: 0<br />
<b>Features</b>: Includes a helmet comlink attachment, and the wearer adds an Advantage to any Coercion or Leadership checks made in which the wearer is presumed to have a position of authority.<br />
<br />
<b>Why is this a thing?</b> I don't know about the rest of you, but I've run enough fringe type games where the PCs for some reason or another swipe the uniforms of the local guards. Granted, it's not the same as Han and Luke stealing stormtrooper armor during A New Hope, but its happened enough times I figured that I'd go ahead and come up with something like this, which can function for Imperials, corporate security, and<br />
even royal guardsmen.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Tailored Clothing</b></u><br />
Using any number of design aesthetics and distinctive color palettes to catch the eyes of onlookers, these outfits can be found in a plethora of styles and fashions, running the gamut from from the tactfully subtle to outrageously flamboyant, and are well-suited for those occasions when the wearer is wants to make a solid impression on those around them.<br />
<b>Encumbrance</b>: 3<br />
<b>Price</b>: 300 credits<br />
<b>Rarity</b>: 5<br />
<b>Soak Value</b>: 1<br />
<b>Defense Value</b>: 0<br />
<b>Features</b>: Add an Advantage to any successful Charm, Deception, or Negotiation checks the wearer makes when interacting with others and can be seen.<br />
<br />
<b>Why is this a thing?</b> So this is pretty much the equivalent of the custom-fitted three-piece suit or tailor-made evening gown, making the wearer look good but without the outrageous price tag that a truly custom designer outfit would command. It's a nice boost for social-focused characters. There are items that do similar for a higher price tag, but I'm not that worried since this counts as armor, and a character can only benefit from one set of armor.<br />
<br />
<br />
<u><i><b>Equipment</b></i></u><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><u><b>Adventurer's Utility Belt</b></u></span><b> </b><br />
Marketed and sold under a variety of brand names by several different manufacturers to professional scouts, and amateur explorers alike, this style of utility belt contains a number of useful items for dealing with the hazards that one can encounter when out in the less civilized portions of the galaxy. The belt's contents are arrayed in such a way as to not encumber the wearer while also providing a couple of empty pouches for whatever else the wearer might have need of, as well as attachment points on either side for a holster or weapon clip.<b> </b><br />
<b>Category</b>: Survival<br />
<b>Price</b>: 600 credits<br />
<b>Rarity</b>: 3<br />
<b>Features</b>: Contains the following items: a handheld comlink, an emergency medpac, a glow rod, a condensed tool kit, a personal respirator, a spare energy cell, a roll of mesh tape, a liquid cable dispenser (15 meters) and grappling hook, and one week's supply of food capsules. In addition, this item increases the wearer's Encumbrance Threshold by one.<br />
<br />
<b>Why is this a thing?</b> So one item that I always liked from Saga Edition was the utility belt, as it made gear shopping for a lot of my characters very easy; just spend your credits and you've got most of what you need in one place. Most of what's in this item is what's found in the Saga Edition version, sans the power pack aka extra reload. The price is a bit higher than what Saga Edition listed, but that's due to a combination of the cost of what's included and the fact that the belt doesn't add to the character's encumbrance total, which lets them carry a lot more other stuff.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><u><b>Decorative Jewelry</b></u></span><br />
Consisting of a wide and varied array and styles and made using a combination of semi-precious stones and polished metals, decorative jewelry adds a bit of class to one's appearance without being too overtly ostentatious.<br />
<b>Category</b>: Luxury Items<br />
<b>Price</b>: 500 credits<br />
<b>Rarity</b>: 5<br />
<b>Features</b>: Add an Advantage to any successful Charm or Deception checks the wearer makes when interacting with others and can be seen.<br />
<br />
<b>Why is this a thing?</b> This came up during an early EotE campaign I was in, where one of the PCs wanted her Twi'lek Smuggler/Scoundrel to have something that would make her look "extra fancy" and provide a boost on her social skills (namely Charm and Deception). Funny thing was, I cooked up an early version of these about the time I got offered to do playtesting for Desperate Allies, which had the similar Expensive Jewelry item in it. Like a lot of what's in that supplement, I feel the official item is overpriced or what it does, so I don't mind that this item about the same at a fraction of the cost. Plus, it's a fun item for characters from a well-to-do background (or those pretending to be from such) to have without needing to break the bank.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><u><b>Personal Multitool</b></u></span><br />
Offered
in a bewildering variety of styles and replate with a number of small
yet useful implements, these small devices have proven useful in a pinch
to numerous beings across the galaxy.<br />
<b>Category</b>: Tools<br />
<b>Encumbrance</b>: 1<br />
<b>Price</b>: 100 credits<br />
<b>Rarity</b>: 2<br />
<b>Features</b>:The
user is considered to have the proper tools when performing Mechanics
checks to repair or modify simple devices or when performing Skulduggery
checks to open or disable simple locks.<br />
<br />
<b>Why is this a thing?</b>
Because what is a MacGuyver style of character without their ubiquitous
Swiss Army knife? This way, a character with Mechanics and/or
Skulduggery can attempt to do their thing without necessarily having to
lug around a full-blown tool kit. Granted, it's not as good as having
the full-blown proper kit for the job, but it's better than nothing.
That and I wanted to have an option out there for characters to be able
to modify the attachments on their gear without necessarily having to
have access to a full blown tool kit.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><u><b>Portable Fire Extinguisher</b></u></span><br />
Small and easily portable, these devices are most often used to douse flames, but more than a few creative individuals have used them to create an impromptu if short-lived smokescreen.<br />
<b>Category</b>: Tools<br />
<b>Encumbrance</b>: 1<br />
<b>Price</b>: 50 credits<br />
<b>Rarity</b>: 1<br />
<b>Features</b>: This is a one-use item, and must be replaced after each usage.<br />
<br />
<b>Why is this a thing?</b> Because we saw R2-D2 use one to such memorable effect during the Bespin escape in The Empire Strikes Back. It's here in part as a former gaming companion of mine had a huge thing for astromech droids, to the point that any Star Wars game he was in, he'd play an astromech unless the GM went out of their way to disallow it. Also, I figure it's a nice thing for a repair/technical droid to have on them without having to flip a Destiny Point any time they wanted to provide some impromptu concealment for their allies.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><u><b>Security Kit</b></u></span><br />
Comprised of a special set of tools and devices for the express purpose of bypassing electronic and mechanical security measures, most worlds treat the possession of such a kit as illegal, thus requiring specialized permits to legally carry.<br />
<b>Category</b>: Security<br />
<b>Encumbrance</b>: 2<br />
<b>Price</b>: 750 credits<br />
<b>Rarity</b>: 5(R)<br />
<b>Features</b>: Remove 2 Threat from the results from any Computers or Skulduggery checks made to defeat a mechanical or simple electronic lock.<br />
<br />
<b>Why is this a thing?</b> So I came up with this one well before Fly Casual introduced the far cheaper Lockpicking Tools, mostly a less-sophisticated version of the electronic lock breaker that would give sneaky types a bonus to their efforts to get past more conventional locking systems without lugging around a full tool kit. The bonus does seem a bit good at first pass, enough so that I considered limiting the effects to successful skill checks, but I ultimately decided that the higher price tag was enough of a balancing factor.<br />
<br />
<i><u><b>Weapons</b></u></i><br />
<br />
<u><b>Blastsword</b></u><br />
The
preferred weapon of duelists from the remote world of Adumar, the
blastsword is an unusual combination of a standard vibroblade and the
inner workings of a blaster. At the weapon's tip sits an emitter nozzle
which glows and hums audibly when the weapon is activated.<br />
<b>Skill</b>: Melee<br />
<b>Encumbrance</b>: 2<br />
<b>Price</b>: 1200 credits <br />
<b>Rarity</b>: 8 <br />
<b>Damage</b>: 6 <br />
<b>Range</b>: Engaged<br />
<b>Critical</b>: 2<br />
<b>Hard Points</b>: 1<br />
<b>Qualities</b>: Defensive 1, Stun Setting<br />
<br />
<b>Why is this a thing?</b>
Okay, on this one I'll cop to it just being silly; it was silly when
introduced in Starfighters of Adumar, it was silly when I wrote the Saga
Edition stats for the Unknown Regions sourcebook, and it's still silly
now. And that's why I like this weapon, which was aptly described by
Wes Janson as "a blaster you hit somebody with," and that one listener
to the Order 66 podcast denounced as sounding like something from a bad
Final Fantasy game. I've yet to see or play a character with this weapon, mostly as the specs that lean themselves towards melee combat lean towards the brutish side of things while the dueling-orientated specs are focused more on using lightsabers than swords.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Double-Barreled Blaster Carbine</b></u><br />
A
favored weapon of bounty hunters, enforcers, and those who generally
live on society's fringe, the double-barreled carbine packs a rather
substantial punch for its unassuming size.<br />
<b>Skill</b>: Ranged (Heavy) <br />
<b>Encumbrance</b>: 3<br />
<b>Price</b>: 1200 credits <br />
<b>Rarity</b>: 6(R)<br />
<b>Damage</b>: 8<br />
<b>Range</b>: Medium<br />
<b>Critical</b>: 3<br />
<b>Hard Points</b>: 1<br />
<b>Qualities</b>: Linked 1, Stun Setting<br />
<br />
<b>Why is this a thing?</b>
Yes, it's from the Legacy comic book series, but it's essentially a
sawed-off double-barreled shotgun that fires blaster bolts. The version
of the weapon that appeared in Saga Edition's Legacy Era Campaign Guide
gave it what in FFG's system amounts to the Blast quality, but there's
already enough Ranged (Heavy) blasters that offer up the Blast quality.
That, and with it being double-barreled, using the Linked quality made
more sense, even if it does make this weapon a lot more dangerous in a
fight, thus why it has the restricted tag next to the price.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Electroshock Prod</b></u><br />
Usually attached to droids, the probe emits a brief electrical discharge capable of shorting out a computer terminal or security lock.<br />
<b>Skill</b>: Ranged (Light)<br />
<b>Encumbrance</b>: 1<br />
<b>Price</b>: 100 credits <br />
<b>Rarity</b>: 2<br />
<b>Damage</b>: 5 <br />
<b>Range</b>: Short<br />
<b>Critical</b>: n/a<br />
<b>Hard Points</b>: 1<br />
<b>Qualities</b>:Disorient 1, Stun Damage<br />
<br />
<b>Why is this a thing?</b> So this kinda initially came from the old KOTOR video games, with the idea that your astromech companion could use small blasters to assist in combat, but was largely codified by Chopper, the cantankerous astromech from Star Wars Rebels. It's a low-powered weapon that lets droid PCs, especially if they're playing some variety of astromech, be able to make ranged attacks without having to pick up full-blown blaster weapons (assuming they care about that sort of thing).<br />
<br />
<u><b>Fighting Pike</b></u><br />
Typically
made of either fire-hardened wood or well-crafted metal, the fighting
pike is a preferred weapon for itinerent monks, being not only innocuous
in appearance, but surprisingly effective in the hands of a skilled
wielder.<br />
<b>Skill</b>: Melee <br />
<b>Encumbrance</b>: 3<br />
<b>Price</b>: 1000 credits <br />
<b>Rarity</b>: 3<br />
<b>Damage</b>: +3 <br />
<b>Range</b>: Engaged<br />
<b>Critical</b>:4<br />
<b>Hard Points</b>:2<br />
<b>Qualities</b>: Defensive 1, Disorient 2, Knockdown, Superior<br />
<br />
<b>Why is this a thing?</b>
Because there really isn't anything that covers Chirrit's staff from
Rogue One, not even in the Dawn of Rebellion supplement where they
introduced the Force Adherent universal spec, which is pretty much "You
want to play a warrior monk like Donny Yen's character? Here you go!" I
suppose there's the gaffi stick from the EotE core rulebook, or the
heavy staff from TFA Beginner Box, but both of those feel lacking. The
price feels a little low for having the Superior quality baked in, but
given ho much of a general disadvantage most melee weapon users are at
in this game compared to ranged weapons or to lightsabers, I'm not too
concerned about it.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Sporting Blaster Rifle</b></u><br />
A favored weapon
of bounty hunters, enforcers, and those who generally live on society's
fringe, the double-barreled carbine packs a rather substantial punch for
its unassuming size..<br />
<b>Skill</b>: Ranged (Heavy) <br />
<b>Encumbrance</b>: 4<br />
<b>Price</b>: 800 credits <br />
<b>Rarity</b>: 5<br />
<b>Damage</b>: 8<br />
<b>Range</b>: Long<br />
<b>Critical</b>: 3<br />
<b>Hard Points</b>:2<br />
<b>Qualities</b>: Accurate 1, Stun Setting<br />
<br />
<b>Why is this a thing?</b>
This was something I came up with in the early days of the system,
wanting something that sat between rifles and carbines but not being
quite so military in nature; as the name suggests it's a sporting weapon
that civilians could carry around without getting into too much
trouble.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Tapani Lightfoil</b></u><br />
Although
the first lightfoils were creations of the Sith operating in the Tapani
Sector, during the time of the Empire a sub-culture of young nobles
known as “Saber Rakes” have taken to wielding modern recreations of the
lightfoil. Although not as potent a weapon as a lightsaber, the Tapani
lightfoil is still a dangerous weapon; a sure sign that one is dealing
with an experienced Saber Rake is the presence of a cybernetic
prosthesis, often earned as the result of being on the losing end of a
lightfoil duel. A Saber Rake without such a prosthesis is either a
novice duelist or a very skilled swordsman.<br />
<b>Skill</b>: Lighsaber <br />
<b>Encumbrance</b>: 1<br />
<b>Price</b>: 4500 credits<br />
<b>Rarity</b>: 8(R)<br />
<b>Damage</b>: 5<br />
<b>Range</b>: Engaged<br />
<b>Critical</b>: 2<br />
<b>Hard Points</b>: 1<br />
<b>Qualities</b>: Accurate 1, Defensive 1, Pierce 2<br />
<b>Features</b>:
A Despair result from any combat check made using this weapon can be
spent to have it short out and deactivate after the combat check has
been resolved. The weapon may be reactivated as an incidental, but not
until after the last initiative slot during the following round If this
weapon is used with the Parry or Reflect talents, the attacker can
spend a Triumph to trigger the same effect on the weapon.<br />
<br />
<b>Why is this a thing?</b>
So one of my favorite settings from the WEG era was the Tapani Expanse,
as detailed in the Lords of the Expanse boxed set, with the lightfoil
being such a fun weapon in concept, providing a means to have lightsaber
duels without necessarily bringing in lightsabers or even Jedi for that
matter. I've had versions of this in the past, and often struggled
with getting the right balance between it being useful in a fight while
still retaining it's quirky nature but keeping it from being as potent
as a proper lightsaber. I ultimately decided to just employ the effects
of refined cortosis weapons from the F&D core rulebook to mimic the
Tapani lightfoil's unreliability, and from the handful of test combats
I've run, it does seem to work without requiring a bunch of extra rolls.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-7741803631422341652019-12-25T10:00:00.000-05:002019-12-25T10:00:00.149-05:00The (Once Again) End of The Skywalker SagaFirstly, a Merry Christmas to one and all who celebrate the holiday, and a Happy Holidays to those who celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanza, or other festive events that occur this season.<br />
<br />
Now, fair warning that if you've not seen The Rise of Skywalker, there's going to be some major spoilers in this post, so consider yourselves warned...<br />
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Okay, now that that's out of the way, on to my thoughts and impressions of what's been billed as the final installment of the Skywalker Saga aka the tale one family's drama effing up the entire galaxy for three generations. I've seen the film twice thus far, and while I won't be seeing it in the theater again due to the price of tickets and finding the time to go, I'm eager for this movie to hit Disney+ and watch it yet again.<br />
<br />
So to start with, on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd put this movie at a 7.5; overall the film was good, I enjoyed it, the cast did great (Adam Driver especially so), but it had problems, the least of which was the first act being a bit too hectic; I normally don't fret that much about so-called "pacing issues" as even action films need to take time to breath, but for much of this film's first act, it did feel like Abrams forgot that stopping to breath is a good thing, and that breakneck action paces aren't always the way to go. But in general, the film was well shot, well directed, and well produced. I certainly feel I got my money's worth, which really is all that I ever ask from a movie when I go see it in the theater.<br />
<br />
For me, the biggest problem was the ass pull of Rey's status as it was established in The Last Jedi, in which it was revealed that she was a nobody, that as per Kylo Ren's words she "had no place in this story" as she had no special lineage or connection to the major players of the saga, that she was just a girl from pretty much nowhere. TLJ took pains to highlight that anyone could rise up to become the hero, and how deserving of one's hero status wasn't dependent upon bloodlines.<br />
<br />
And then this film decides to undercut that whole message by revealing that Rey has secretly been Palpatine's grandchild all along. I literally facepalmed in my seat in theater at this, and silently hoped that this reveal turned out to be some kind of manipulative twist, that Palpatine had lied to Kylo Ren, and that Rey was indeed still a "nobody" in terms of her heritage. The writers did make a (to me at least) half-assed attempt to keep the "your parents were nobody" aspect from TLJ, by saying they went to ground as junk-salvaging drunks who only sold Rey for money to protect her from her (presumably dead at that point) grandfather. Needless to say, this whole reveal was the biggest strike against the movie, and again feels like it was LFL trying to offer an olive branch to a segment of the fanbase that couldn't accept Rey being strong in the Force for reason other than the plot required it. Heck, Snoke himself in both TFA and TLJ all but outright says that the only reason Rey is getting so powerful so quickly is that the Force is pushing her up to counterbalance Kylo Ren's growing power. If you've listened to Freddie Prinze Jr's rant about what the Force is and isn't, then you know that Rey's growth in power was the Force trying to restore balance by creating a champion to counter the growing darkness of Kylo Ren.<br />
<br />
I'll be honest in that I was actually disappointed that they trotted out Palpatine as being the major villain behind it all. I might not have been that disappointed if there'd been hints of Darth Sidious having survived the events of RotJ, but that would have required JJ Abrams and other writers to put some thought into the story of this trilogy as a whole instead just the specific movie they were working on. Instead, it feels like Palpatine's robes should be covered in brown rather than being all black given where his reappearance came from.<br />
<br />
The last element that I guess irked me was the fake-out deaths, which this film did much too often. I went into this film fully expecting that we were going to see one or more of the good guys take the final jump and go out. I know a number of folks would have lost their collective shit if Chewie had indeed died when the movie made you think he did, but I feel his death would have added more weight to the scene of Rey's freakout, and that revealing he was alive all along only lessened the impact of that scene, as it felt like her and Finn's reactions were overly dramatic. I was also onboard with the Falcon, the iconic ship of the franchise, being destroyed during the final battle, with Lando (possibly even Chewie) going out in a heroic blaze of glory, and Lando making one last jaunty quip before it happened. While I understand that Threepio is a droid and him losing his memories only to have them restored from a backup is a thing, that said thing existed undercut the drama of Threepio's "I'm taking one last look... at my friends" scene, as it was less of a major sacrifice on his part and more of a minor inconvenience for the rest of the group. Yes, I know Leia died, but with the far too soon passing of Carrie Fisher, we all know that was coming.<br />
<br />
So enough of my complaints about what I didn't like, and onto some of the things I did like. I won't be listing them all, but instead will hit what for me were the real highlights.<br />
<br />
Top of the list was that each actor did great, from Daisy Ridley and Oscar Issacs (probably my two faves out of the new heroes) to Billy Dee Williams (it was as if Lando had never really left), and it was indeed a treat to see Rey, Finn, and Poe finally able to interact with and bounce off each other, making me really wish that we'd gotten more of this earlier in the trilogy.<br />
<br />
But quite frankly, Adam Driver just fucking killed it from start to finish, especially in the third act where his lack of dialogue would have been a major hindrance for a less capable actor. Hell, I cracked a grin when during his battle with the Knights of Ren, his expression upon getting the Skywalker lightsaber all but screamed, "game on bitches!" before pulling back to show him giving a very Han Solo-esque shrug before he proceeds to rip each of them a new one. You could see the anguish on his face as he cradled Rey's lifeless body, the relief when she came back to life, and joy at her having accepted/forgiven him for what he'd done as Kylo Ren, and then the reluctant acceptance that his act of healing Rey meant his own death and becoming one with the Force. There were a couple of young girls that were apparently Reylo shippers due to their squeals of delight at Ben and Rey's kiss followed by their moans of despair when Ben died and faded away. This is a purely personal take, but I would have liked to have seen Ben avoid the "redemption = death" trope and survive to try and make amends for his actions as Kylo Ren. But, like his grandfather Anakin, the boy is all about the drama, and hard to get more dramatic than peacing out after saving the girl you're hot for and sharing a big ol' victory smooch.<br />
<br />
Which brings me to the final lightsaber duel between Rey and Kylo. It was reminiscent not only of RotJ's final duel, but also of RotS' duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan. Not only was the scene shot well, but you could see and almost feel the intensity in the faces of each combatant, with the duel going on to a point where they're both getting physically exhausted. It had the feeling of weight that Luke and Vader's duel in ESB had, even though Rey and Kylo were fairly evenly matched up until the very end. Also the fact that their moves lacked the degree of polish that the prequel fights had lent more weight to the duel. And then Rey's horrified reaction at what she's done in fatally stabbing Ben and the shock of feeling Leia pass, showing a young woman (she's only 20 as of this film, being a few years younger than Luke and Anakin at the end of their respective trilogies) who is struggling to come to grips with everything that's been happening and just happened; it's no small wonder she fled to Ahch-To and intended to become a hermit in the wake of something like that.<br />
<br />
And next up comes the reappearance of Luke Skywalker, not merely as a Force ghost but as the Jedi Master we had all hoped to see in the sequel trilogy, full of renewed faith and jovial humor, making a jocular call back to his casual disregard for his father's lightsaber in TJL. Now, I know some folks have said that JJ took a big steaming dump over TLJ and how Luke was portrayed there, but I disagree with that. If anything, we're seeing in TRoS the culmination of that arc, that had Luke survived the events of TLJ, this is the person he would now be, having come through his crisis of faith with said faith not only renewed but stronger than ever, having learned Yoda's final lesson that one shouldn't let their failures define who they are, and that what matters is what you do after failing. And in his own way, he imparts that same lesson to Rey, going so far as to reinforce that notion that it's what you do and the choices you make that matters the most, rekindling her heroic spirit. And then there was him lifting the X-Wing out of the ocean's muck, much like Yoda did and with a smirk on his face, showing that this was the Luke that Snoke (and Palpatine by extension I suppose) were very much worried would come back should the Resistance find him.<br />
<br />
And then we have Harrison Ford's uncredited appearance as Han Solo, and in spite of being nothing more than a memory, it was great to see a father (even if just the memory of a father) reaching out to his son in that son's time of emotional crisis and be supportive. I loved that the dialogue was a replay of Han's final scene in TFA, only this time ending with Ben Solo forsaking the dark side and shedding the mask of Kylo Ren, much as Anakin forsook the dark side and shed the mask of Darth Vader in the climax of RotJ. I did smile at Han getting to be himself by cutting off what was probably going to be some very inelegant blubbering on Ben's part by saying "I know," which has kind of become the franchise's way of saying "I love you too," and it's nice to see what was an ad lib in ESB be used deliberately in such a touching manner. <br />
<br />
The giant final space battle was pretty intense, and I can see why some folks felt the arrival of the cavalry felt unearned, but I didn't have that problem. For me, after mulling the film over in my head for a couple days, while the timing of the Big Damn Fleet might have been a little off, that this around <i>everyone</i> showed up makes sense. When the Resistance sends out their call for help towards the end of TLJ, the only people the First Order are openly antagonizing is the Resistance, so the rest of the galaxy may well have figured that there wasn't much of a point of picking a fight. But come the climax of TRoS, when Palpatine has pretty much outed himself as a Sith (i.e. the MAJOR villains of the setting's history) and told everyone either kneel or I kill you, when the call for aid came out, the galaxy knew that if they didn't stand up now, then they'd either be kneeling forever or be dead. Of course, having it be the suave old smoothie Lando making the call for help probably didn't hurt.<br />
<br />
And Lando very much filled the "wise mentor" role not only very well, but in his own way, providing verbal support where needed, especially to Poe during his personal crisis after finding out General Leia was dead. Speaking of Leia, I thought they handled her scenes very well, even if there were a few instances where it was pretty clear they were using body doubles; makes sense that they'd have to, given the limited footage to work with and Abram's promise to not use a digital double. It really does sadden me that she passed before this film could be shot, as I can't help but wonder how much larger of a role she would have played in the film. Finding out that Luke had trained her, to the point where Leia had built her own lightsaber, was a nice reveal, as it showed that he passed on what he had learned, just as Yoda had advised him to do. While she may not have fully completed her training as a Jedi, it was still nice to see that Leia had at least developed her abilities to the extent that she could serve as a capable teacher for Rey.<br />
<br />
One complaint I saw was that the film never really addressed if Finn was Force-sensitive or not, and that if he was then the film didn't do anything with it. That didn't bother me because RotJ ended much the same way with regards to Leia's revelation of being Force-sensitive, with her only getting one brief moment of using it before the credits rolled. At various points in the film, Finn gets these "feelings" about things, as well as sensing when Rey died on Exogal, so even if it wasn't stated as such, he at least got to display some minor uses of the Force, which is a touch I liked.<br />
<br />
All that said, from the perspective of a GM that has run Star Wars games
aplenty in the past, I am intrigued to see where LFL will go from here,
and what shape Rey's rebuilt Jedi Order will take. I did like that she
converted the head of her staff into a lightsaber at the very end, just
before announcing herself to be a Skywalker in honor of Luke, Leia, and
Ben, and that it had a yellow/amber blade, demonstrating that she's not
as bound by the ways of the old Jedi as Luke had initially been. It was also touching to see the Force ghosts of Luke and Leia, being reunited in the netherworld of the Force. For Rey's first crop of students, I'm
guessing Finn will be one of her first students, along with the broom
kid from the end of TLJ. I'd be interesting in seeing or reading about
such a story, of her establishing a renewed Jedi Order, this around
hopefully free from lazy writers who decide to turn said Jedi school
into an easy way to justify having new dark side villains; given how
often he had students go rogue in New Republic era of Legends, it's
amazing that Luke's Yavin 4 Praxuem wasn't shut down for being a hazard
to galactic security.<br />
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Overall, I think this was as good a movie to close out not only the sequel trilogy but also the entire Skywalker Saga as could be made. I do think all three sequel films, but this one especially, were hampered by there not being a roadmap to help guide the filmmakers from the opening scene of TFA to the rolling of credits in TRoS, but I found the films to quite enjoyable, with TFA perhaps being my favorite of the three. I seriously wanted to love this film, but the first of my major grievances with the film, that of Rey being retcon'd into having a special lineage after all, keeps that from happening.<br />
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So while far from being a perfect film (and let's be honest, NONE of the Star Wars films are truly perfect, no matter what nostalgia tells you), it was enjoyable end to a saga that began when I was a wee child, and I do look forward to seeing what's yet to come. Apart from The Mandalorian which has thus far been fairly good, there's a Kenobi series by Deborah Chow (who directed what I think were some of the best episodes of The Mandalorian bar none), a Rogue One prequel series focusing on Cassian Andor, and apparently a new Star Wars film that's slated for December of 2022, with another new film in the Decembers of 2024 and 2026, though no details have been released about whether this will be a new trilogy or what.<br />
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Chris Witt of the Order 66 podcast said it best when he said that right now, it's a good time to be a Star Wars fan. The franchise may hit stumbling blocks along the way, even as far back as Lucas making the first movie back in the mid 1970's, but it's also a franchise that has endured over the decades, and I think it'll be around for many more decades to come.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-28299518542096025272019-11-27T09:00:00.000-05:002019-11-29T09:05:42.278-05:00Of Jedi, Vidoe Games, and Fallen OrdersGreetings programs!<br />
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Yeah, been a spell since my last post here. Mostly that's been due to having been rather busy with real life things (nothing worrisome, just time consuming).<br />
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So a little over a week ago, I opted to take the plunge and pick up EA's latest offering, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order. I'll be honest in that I was largely skeptical about whether I'd enjoy this game or not, given the less than stellar experiences I had with Spider-Man and Kingdom Hearts 3. Still, I'd been hearing lots of good things being said about this game, both from reviewers and especially from one of my friends whose opinion on video games I generally trust.<br />
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And I have to admit that the game is generally pretty fun, being an action-adventure "metroidvania" style game. Now admittedly I'm playing the game on Story Mode (aka Easy Mode) as at this point in my life I play video games as a means of relaxation and am not looking for a serious/frustrating challenge. The game's not perfect, as the combat controls feel like there's a bit of lag between button input and result, especially when there's a lot of enemies on the screen.<br />
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So that said, I got the inspiration to work up some stats and such of people and things that appeared in the game.<br />
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<u><b>Cal Kestis, Jedi Fugitive (as of Escape from Bracca)</b></u><br />
<u><b><a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Cal_Kestis" target="_blank">https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Cal_Kestis</a> </b></u><br />
The protagonist of Jedi: Fallen Order, young Cal is a survivor of the purge that was Order 66, and has spent the five years since that fateful day hiding on the planet Bracca, where he works as a scrapper alongside his Abednado co-worker and friend Prauf. Circumstances arise that causes Cal to reveal his Force abilities and subsequently coming to the attention of the dreaded Imperial Inquisitors.<br />
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I built Cal using the Jedi career and Padawan specialization from the Rise of the Separatists supplement, as it not only fit his background, but also allowed me to get him up to Force Rating 2 rather inexpensively and thus acquire the Bind power, which is what I'm using to represent his Force Statis ability both to slow down enemies but also to briefly freeze various obstacles to allow him to progress. I also gave him the benefit of the Mentor shared background resource from Force & Destiny to account for the his proper training prior to the events of Order 66.<br />
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<u><b>Psychometry (New Force Power)</b></u></div>
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So this was a Force power I had originally taken a crack at years ago as part of my old Ways of the Force fan supplement. At the time, the only example of a Force user that was skilled with this ability was Quinlan Vos, but now that we have Cal demonstrating the power, I've got a somewhat better handle on what the power can accomplish. It's fair to warn GMs that this Force power very much has the ability to unravel adventure plots that center on discovering things, so that end many of the upgrades for this power are expensive to purchase.</div>
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Kudos also to FFG forum user Nytwing, whose on take on Psychometry helped inform a fair bit the above. You can read his take on the power on his website <a href="http://myswrpg.com/force-power-psychometry/" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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<u><b>BD Unit Droid</b></u><br />
<a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/BD_unit" target="_blank">https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/BD_unit</a><br />
Serving as Cal's companion through much of the game, BD-1 is the game's exposition fairy, and has been likened to an intelligent puppy in terms of how he acts. The stat block presented here presents more of a "factory model" version of the droid.<br />
<b>Cost/Rarity</b>: 4500 credits/6<br />
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<u><b>Abednado</b></u><br />
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<a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Abednedo" target="_blank">https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Abednedo</a><br />
While the species was introduced in The Force Awakens, I thought it'd be fitting to include my take on a species write-up given that the character of Prauf plays a pivotal role in pushing Cal to undertake the grand quest that is the game's focus and for the young man to embrace his destiny as a Jedi. I did use the character sheet for the Abednado Colonist Bormo from FFG's The Force Awakens Beginner Box set to help inform my choices on how to design this species. It of course goes without saying that FFG ever does an official write-up of the Abednado, it's going to look rather different than what I'm posting here.<br />
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<b>Starting Characteristics</b><br />
Brawn 2, Agility 2, Intellect 3, Cunning 1, Willpower 2, Presence 2<br />
<b>Wound Threshold</b>: 9+Brawn<br />
<b>Strain Threshold</b>: 12+Willpower<br />
<b>Starting XP</b>: 90<br />
<b>Species Abilities</b>: Abednado being with one free rank in Resilience. They still may not train Resilience above Rank 2 at character creation.<br />
<b>Gregarious</b>: Due to their affable and friendly nature, Abednado characters add an Advantage to the results of all Charm and Negotiation checks the character makes.<br />
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<u><b>S-161 "Stinger" XL Luxury Yacht</b></u><br />
<a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/S-161_%22Stinger%22_XL" target="_blank">https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/S-161_%22Stinger%22_XL</a><br />
The game's principle method of getting Cal and company from planet to planet on their quest, the Mantis is fairly sleek ship design. There's not a whole lot to go on apart from the comments of Greeze, the ship's captain and pilot, about how the Mantis is fast but not much good in a fight.<br />
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We don't get to explore much of the ship in the game, but I feel safe in presuming that there's more interior space than what is shown, enough to warrant putting this vessel in the Silhouette 4 category and with a decent amount of space for passengers and cargo. I also decided to price the vessel as something that an Edge of the Empire group could begin play with, though it is out of the initial reach of a Force and Destiny group.<br />
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You can find PDFs of most of the above (everything save the write-up for the Abednado) in a zip file located here: <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/696xqpegf7c2eut/Jedi%20Fallen%20Order%20files.zip?dl=0" target="_blank">https://www.dropbox.com/s/696xqpegf7c2eut/Jedi%20Fallen%20Order%20files.zip?dl=0</a></div>
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Hopefully you've enjoyed reading this, and may even find use for some or even all of this material in your own games.</div>
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So until next time, remember.... persistence reveals the path, and trust in the Force.</div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-29459489482162811102019-08-25T10:00:00.000-04:002019-08-25T10:00:09.651-04:00And the Road Goes Ever On...Well, it's certainly been longer between updates than I'd originally planned. Most of that was due to distractions of other things, mostly gaming and work in about that order.<br />
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So firstly, another birthday has come and gone, leaving me a little bit older and hopefully a little wiser than I was. In spite of some annoying incompetence on the part of the Arkansas Postal Service, I did at last get the last of my birthday presents from Clan Whitson, including a cool geek t-shirt and some yummy home-baked chocolate chip cookies.<br />
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In terms of gaming, in spite of some unexpected shake-ups in the routine, I've been fairly active on that front. A Star Wars campaign using FFG's system in which I played a youngish minor Jedi (Sentinel/Shien Expert/Padawan) named Colwyn Morningfire just recently wrapped up; with the GM saying it might be possible that we'll return to that group of characters at some later point, but that he wanted to run a different system and style of campaign for a little while.<br />
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In lieu of that Star Wars campaign, the GM started off a campaign using Cubicle 7's Adventures in Middle-Earth, which is there d20 version of their award-winning The One Ring game, set several years after the events taking place in The Hobbit. We're starting out as 3rd level characters, and have a notable lack of Elves or Dwarves amidst our company, and with having 32 points to use to purchase our ability scores, each of us is generally pretty competent in our areas of respective expertise.<br />
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The GM has already said he's not running the game as being entirely "rules pure" and has adapted a couple elements from D&D 5e for the characters. The first of these was importing the Inquisitive archetype from Xanathar's Guide to Everything for our Hobbit Treasure Seeker (C7's slightly reworked Rogue class) as neither of the existing AiME archetypes (Agent and Burgler) really seemed to fit the character concept she had in mind. So we now have a Hobbit who's quite cheerful in spite being so far from the Shire, overly curious about most everything, and having the common sense of a Took; nobody's called her a "Fool of a Took!" but that may just be a matter of time. She is however <i>very</i> good at Riddles, something she proved in the first session by getting into Middle-Earth's version of an impromptu rap battle by engaging in a riddle-contest with a bunch of bar patrons and trouncing the handily; likely helped that the player has researched and typed up a bunch of riddles to have on hand to recite.<br />
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The other house-ruled bit in this game is our Woodwoman Scholar has the ability to use actual D&D-style magic, having used her starting virtue/feat and 3rd level class archetype feature to gain a limited number of spells, most of which are cantrips with a single first level spell. Narratively, her background is that she was taken in as a sort-of apprentice by Radagast the Brown (she really enjoyed Sylvester McCoy's portrayal in the Hobbit films, and felt having Gandalf as her mentor would have been too cliche). Helpfully, Cubicle 7 listed a number of 5e OGL spells that fit the general themes of Middle-Earth, from which the character made her selections, most of them being various utility spells, with only one spell (Produce Flame) having offensive capabilities, and even then it's not that great. The player (who is the youngest of the group) seems pretty content with what she's got for magic, and even with her primary experience of the setting being the Peter Jackson films grasps that D&D style spellcasters are not a thing in this setting, and that magical effects are far more limited, so not sure if she's going to try to finagle more spells or not.<br />
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Another imported D&D 5e elements for this group is a reworking of the Totem Warrior Path for our Beorning Slayer, with the spell-based abilities removed and a couple other abilities tweaked. He's already stated that he intends to go full-on Bear Totem.<br />
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The last imported element being the GM having tossed out the Known Lands feature the Wanderer class (C7's reworking of the Ranger to remove all spell-casting) and replacing it with a slightly modified version of the Natural Explorer feature from the Revised Ranger presented in WotC's Unearthed Arcana series, done mostly so that he's got more freedom to send our party into various parts of the Wilderlands without having to worry about my Dunedain Wanderer's key class feature being of limited use, especially as we have a mage who has a bevy of at-will cantrips to her name. Though we've started out in Lake-Town, having come there separately for different reasons, I have a feeling the GM's going to have us be traipsing all about the Wilderlands during the course of our various adventures, so I admit it'll be nice to not have to worry about is the journey taking us through my character's Known Lands. The bonuses provided aren't quite as nice, having lost the "double your proficiency bonus for Intelligence and Wisdom checks when dealing with a known land" and not getting some of the revised Natural Explorer's other abilities right away, I think it works out, trading overall potency for increased utility. We're still fine-tuning, so I won't be posting what the current state of this revised-revised Natural Explorer is at the moment.<br />
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So far, it does seem like quite a fun group, having a Barding Warden with the Fallen Scion background having a bit of a casanova vibe and aspirations of being The Hero of the group, much to our Woodwoman Scholar's great dismay, while the Beorning Slayer and Hobbit Treasure Seeker are fast becoming the group's comedic duo. My Dunedain Wanderer hasn't quite found his niche within the company's social dynamics, but we've only had one session so I'm sure he'll find his place soon enough.,<br />
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Sadly, the Saturday Discord group that I'm in had a disruption due to our GM struggling with various real-life concerns, leaving our Mutants & Masterminds 3e Emerald City campaign in a bit of a lurch. Luckily, thanks the above AiME campaign, I got the notion to run an adventure using that game for the group while our GM briefly stepped down to sort a few things out. It helped that we're all pretty familiar with the 5e rules, so we wouldn't have to try and learn a radically different new system for what was likely to be a one-off. And so, with a company consisting of a Dwarf Fallen Scion Warrior, a Barding Harrowed Warden, a Hobbit World Weary Scholar, and a Woodwoman Lured by the Road Wanderer, I ran them through the Eaves of Mirkwood. A couple players remarked on the oddity of playing actual first-level characters, but everyone had fun and enjoyed themselves. Unlike a typical D&D adventure, there wasn't very much combat except towards the very end, and I think the "encounter" that the players had the most fun with was sitting and conversing with a trio of traveling dwarves over a meal of roast pig and fine mead, getting into a riddle contest and a contest of blowing smoke rings, the later of which our Hobbit sadly lost in spite of a great effort of going for a big finish.<br />
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One major change I did for the adventure was to frame it as a tale being told by Gandalf to a group of Hobbit children, with the introduction being Gandalf agreeing to tell the children a story (he was in an unusually chipper mood that late spring afternoon), which also let me set the stage for the players as to where and when they were in the timeline of Middle-Earth (five years after the Battle of Five Armies, and on the western reaches of Mirkwood). I had thought about using Bilbo to tell the story, but decided to use Gandalf instead as I've always liked the Grey Wizard, cranky as he might get at times. And after the adventure as written had concluded, I went back to having Gandalf conclude the tale and shoo the various Hobbit children away, with one of them hanging around just a bit longer to ask the old Wizard if indeed there were more stories of this company of adventurers, to which Gandalf told a very young Frodo Baggins that there were indeed, but those were stories for another time. The players very much loved the use of the framing device of their adventure being a story told by one of The Wise, giving them a greater sense of accomplishment and tie to the world of Middle-Earth. I can only hope that any further adventures I run for them are met with equal enthusiasm and appreciation, given that until this adventure, I'd had an abysmal track record when trying to run any sort of D&D game (most efforts crashed and burned by the third session at the latest, and several attempts during my 20's didn't even make it through the first session), so it was nice to have a D&D game (modified though the system was) be both successful and appreciated by the players.<br />
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I also have to say that I really like the Journey mechanics that Cubicle 7 imported from The One Ring. It removes a lot of the "need to roll for random encounters" and the chart for Journey Events gives the GM a number of options to either roll for or choose from beyond "you run into a bunch of monsters, what do you do?" I can see why a lot of GMs have decided to import the Journey rules into their regular D&D campaigns.<br />
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Well, that's about what's been going on of late for me. I've got a notion for a smaller Star Wars RPG post, but that will probably wait for next weekend.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-42790067565110141252019-06-08T13:11:00.001-04:002019-06-08T13:50:02.895-04:00Two from the archivesI know, I know, it's been a while since my last update. I haven't forgotten this page exists, but rather keep getting pulled in different directions and rarely have something that I really feel is worth posting here.<br />
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Well, that's obviously changed, as I finally got around to doing something I'd been meaning to do for quite some time, that being converting a pair of very memorable characters from a long ago Star Wars Saga Edition campaign over to the FFG system.<br />
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The characters in question were by far the two most memorable PCs from a Legacy Era campaign as run by Ben "Cyril" Erickson, and were the brainchildren of Kevin "Rikoshi" Frane and Nateal Falk. I had a couple of different characters in that campaign, starting off with a Corellian near-human ex-cop (nobody but me seemed to remember that he as a near-human, and even I forgot a few times) before he had a very explosive end (something I don't think Nateal has still quite forgiven me for) and I brought in a Jedi PC from an older New Jedi Order campaign that made the transition to the Legacy Era courtesy of a very long carbonite nap (and managed to avert most of the carbon hibernation symptoms by way of Jedi hibernation trance), though sadly the campaign never really got the chance to explore just how young(ish) Alwyn handled the transition between two very different eras. Then again, from his perspective the galaxy was still at war, just the bad guys had changed from Yuuzhan Vong to the One Sith. I think at the end there was a remark about how my PC had a similar name and appearance to a young Jedi from the Skywalker Praxuem that had helped save the Imperial capital of Bastion from a maniacal Dark Jedi's invasion efforts, but again nothing that was explored in any depth due to the campaign wrapping up. <br />
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Now, given how very different the two systems approach things, I opted to try and decided to instead aim more for the spirit of what each character was rather than do a straight point-to-point conversion. Once that decision was made however, the characters actually fell into place, more or less, pretty quickly. I did have to take a couple of liberties with each of them, but I think they work out pretty well as low-end player-characters.<br />
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For both of these, I opted to grant them an additional 25XP, which was treated as "earned XP" and couldn't be used to increase characteristics, as well as an extra 1000 credits worth of equipment. I considered going full-on Heroic/Knight Level, but found that just that extra 25XP sufficed to get the basics of the character.<br />
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The first of these two is Kirikinerry-tovante (Kiri for short), and he remains memorable to me simply for virtue of being a Squib, a meter-high species of blue-furred goofballs with a love of over-complicated negotiations and a notable lack of self-preservation instincts. This character was played by Rikoshi, and to my view, if our campaign had been a TV series, he would have been the fandom favorite of the cast. What really sold the character was the way Rikoshi voiced him as well as the mannerisms; given we were playing through Skype and Roll20, that he was able to convey all that with voice alone is pretty amazing. Heck, I still chuckle at the fact that Rikoshi took the time to draw up a "contract" for the group, denoting who got what amount of any proceeds, with all sorts of adjustments based on some of the most odd factors, such as "non-koovy non-Jedi penalty" for the Caamasi Force adept. I sadly don't have the list anymore, and I'm pretty sure the forum thread for the campaign has long been pruned for inactivity, but it was a piece of demented genius.<br />
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When writing up Kiri's stats, I opted to take two bites at the apple. In Saga Edition, he was built using the Smuggler class, so I first opted to go the route of the Smuggler career, and settling on the Thief career. However, that just didn't quite feel right for an "independent busyness being" like Kiri, so I did a second build using Explorer as the career and Trader as his specialization, which I honestly think works a bit better. Obviously, there's no official write-up for the Squib as a species (a major oversight on FFG's part in my estimation), so I used the unofficial stats that I'd created for this blog some time ago instead.<br />
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At any rate, here's links to each of the versions. Hopefully Kevin can forgive me for using the stock image of a Squib, as I sadly lack the artistic talent to create an image that suitably captures the koovy majesty of the character.<br />
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<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/0dn8s3uvhpecxcf/Kirikinerry-tovante%2C%20Squib%20Smuggler.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank">Kirikinerry-tovante, Squib Smuggler</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbaew0vcbuqexte/Kirikinerry-tovante%2C%20Squib%20Explorer.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank">Kirikinerry-tovante, Squib Explorer</a><br />
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Now, for the second character, this was Niera Kurucz, an Arkanian scientist with a rather abrasive personality when it came to dealing with organics, but had quite the soft spot with regards to droids and cybernetically-augmented creatures. While Kiri was just that right sort of crazy-awesome that makes a character both memorable and enjoyable to have in the group, Niera was in part memorable to me for the fact she was kind of the party face while really not having the personality for it.<br />
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Niera's conversion was a lot more difficult, due in large part to her being Force-sensitive, an ability that was always present but was only slowly developed over time. She never became a really potent Force user due to her cybernetic enhancements (Saga Edition operated under the old assumption that cybernetics interfered with one's ability to use the Force, itself based upon Darth Vader no longer having the potential power that he'd had as Anakin Skywalker), but there were some interesting moments with her trying to learn about the Force from the Caamasi Force adept; she never did quite get around to trusting my Jedi character, though she did accept his offer to let her borrow his copy of The Jedi Path: A Manual for Students of the Force (in-setting, that book was a reprint of the tome that Luke had uncovered some time prior to the NJO era, but obviously without the various in-character margin notes from different owners over the decades; said book is now Legends, but it's worth reading if you're looking to play a character trained in the mold of the classic Jedi).<br />
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Ultimately, I decided that Niera's core concept would be best served if I deep-sixed the bulk of the "party face" elements and focused on her being a highly intelligent engineering and droid mechanics expert, and settled on Technician for her career and Droid Tech as her starting specialization. I did still give her Force-sensitivity by way of the Force Sensitive Exile specialization, though much like her original character build in Saga Edition she's lacking much in the way of actual Force abilities, though that will change over time. I was sorely tempted to give her the Manipulate power out of Endless Vigil, but all she could really afford was the basic power and that effect didn't really jive with her focus on droids and cyber-technology.<br />
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One bit of rule-bending I had to do for Niera was to employ the droid-crafting rules from Special Modifications, and assign a certain number of advantages and triumphs from her Mechanics and Computers checks to build and program her custom personal droid PLUM. I have no idea what sort of stats PLUM had in Saga Edition, so I built the little droid as having proficiency in mechanics and computers, with a small scientific database, with the intent that it pretty much provides Niera with a boost die on her Computers, Mechanics, and Knowledge (Education) checks. She can also send PLUM out to operate independently, with it working a little better while following her directions.<br />
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So here's my take on Niera and her droid companion PLUM (which in my head canon at least stands for PersonaL Utility Mechanism):<br />
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<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/9yjjj0qyxkxen1l/Niera%20Kurucz%2C%20Arkanian%20Force-Sensitive%20Technician.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank">Niera Kurucz, Arkanian Force-Sensitive Technician</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/7kbnlhox81m1ump/PLUM%2C%20Niera%27s%20custom%20droid.PNG?dl=0" target="_blank">PLUM, Niera's custom droid companion</a><br />
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I do have a few other ideas rattling around in my brain, but we'll see how long it takes before something viable actually shakes out.<br />
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<b>Edit</b>: Forgot to note, but the characters were built and the character sheets are from OggDude's excellent character generator program.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-44499256168381306612019-04-13T13:00:00.000-04:002019-04-13T13:00:03.711-04:00The Intrepid Fellows - a party of adventurers for WFRP4eWow, two posts in one week. That's got to be some kind of record, though we'll see how long it lasts.<br />
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As you might have surmised, I was pretty darn busy over the prior weekend, what with being down in Plano, Texas for the 6th GamerNationCon and 4 Days of Gaming Goodness.<br />
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Prior to that however, I had the chance to run a one-shot for my Discord gaming group, that being "<a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/259270/WFRP-Ubersreik-Adventures--If-Looks-Could-Kill?cPath=179_31700" target="_blank">If Looks Could Kill</a>" by Cubicle 7 for the fourth edition of the venerable Warhammer Fantasy Role Play game (aka WFRP4e). I made a few one-the-fly tweaks to events in the module, but overall it ran rather smoothly, with my buddy Eric (who is notorious for abysmal dice rolls) having a blast simply due to his usual habit of rolling low working in his favor, even going so far as to snark that "this must be what it feels like to be Jon!" in reference to my own habit of making some pretty awesome rolls when I'm playing.<br />
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Now, while I've got the PDFs of the characters from the Starter Set, I opted to instead use a quintet of characters that I'd created myself, as I knew for a fact they were legally built starting PCs and didn't suffer from any oddities incurred by the errata. Plus, having made these characters myself, I had a fairly solid idea of what each of them was capable of doing. And for the most part, they did what they were designed to do and did it well.<br />
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In the interest of sharing, here are the group of adventurers that refer to themselves as the Intrepid Fellows. You can either click on the links in the individual character's name to get their character sheet, or click <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/p6fomvfm2gpczw3/WFRP4e%20Pre-Gens.zip?dl=0" target="_blank">here</a> to download the entire group as a single zip file.<br /><b></b><u><b></b></u><br />
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<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/z1tac557tlofjw6/WFRP4e_Cedred%20Laudenheim%2C%20Human%20Guard.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank"><u><b>Cedred Laudenheim, Human Guard</b></u></a><br />The ostensible leader of the band, Cedred is actually from a noble family that has long since been impoverished and fallen upon hard times. He's very much a front-line combatant using a sword and buckler, but is also quite sociable thanks to a high Fellowship, and hard to surprise thanks to high scores in Intuition and Perception. This was the character that Eric played, and between his very much getting into character as a generally heroic-minded individual and his habit of generally rolling very low on his percentile dice, Cedred was probably the MVP of the entire adventure, taking down the major threat of the adventure and gradually working on building for himself a reputation as a heroic figure.<br />
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<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/aylb1dnvq0d6vox/WFRP4e_Erwin%20Brahms%2C%20Human%20Rat%20Catcher.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank"><u><b>Erwin Brahms, Human Rat Catcher</b></u></a><br />Erwin is very much a salt of the earth sort of fellow, as indicated by his trade of hunting down and cleaning out vermin infestations, with his small (but vicious) dog Otto being his most stalwart traveling companion. Despite of only having a sling, he's the groups ranged attacker, which in this system can be surprisingly effective given how a single well-placed sling bullet can undercut whatever combat momentum the target has built up for themselves. Erwin was played by Rick, and I didn't realize it until much later that Rick and Eric had largely reversed the character dynamic they have with their characters in my Force and Destiny campaign, with Rick being the crass boor contrasting with Eric's well-mannered heroic figure this time around.<br />
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<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/stuo6hxdd8jat7m/WFRP4e_Heidric%20Strohmann%2C%20Human%20Wizard.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank"><u><b>Heidric Strohmann, Human Wizard</b></u></a><br />
The token spellcaster in a setting where being a spellcaster can get you into a lot of trouble with the locals (namely, being lynched and/or burned at the stake), Heidric is an apprentice at the Colleges of Magic in the capital city of Altdorf. For a one-shot, I didn't designate which color of magic he was studying, and figured that since he only has access to petty magic that he's drawing on just drabs of magical energy rather than properly channeling and focusing the various winds of magic. Brennen played this character, and while unaware of the consequences of being an open magic user outside of Altdorf, he did much to avoid making it was obvious that he could use magic.<br />
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<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/v68ehmkk8ytb7i9/WFRP4e_Karrag%20Thronsson%2C%20Dwarf%20Bounty%20Hunter.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank"><u><b>Karrag Thronsson, Dwarf Bounty Hunter</b></u></a><br />
A surly and rather blunt individual, as befits a dwarf, Karrag is the group's muscle and ostensibly their tracker (sadly, the player's dice rolls didn't really help in that regard). Played by Doran, Karrag as indeed quite blunt in his dealings with others, and had made good on capturing all three of a trio of local bandits that'd been plaguing the area that the adventure took place in. He did notably get covered in ichor, and took down two of the bandits (who'd tried to lay an ambush for him) by himself without killing either of them.<br />
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<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/2uew91o1jixnx42/WFRP4e_Rosalinda%20Dottenbacher%2C%20Human%20Apothecary.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank"><u><b>Rosalinda Dottenbacher, Human Apothecary</b></u></a><br />
This was a pre-gen I made specifically for Linda, as she has a deeply abiding love for medic/healer characters. I had debated about making Rosalinda a Halfling, and in retrospect I kind of wish I had, but that would have pushed Rosalinda too far into being the party face, a role that I know Linda is usually not very comfortable with taking most nights. Still, Rosalinda was helpful in patching up the injured members of the group and identifying a few plot threads, though she is very much a support character and generally not much use during a fight. Still, her staggering variety of Lore skills can certainly provide the group extra information in the right circumstances.<br />
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For those curious, for each character I used the same set of randomly rolled values for their characteristics, which amusingly worked out to 125 points. For race, I rolled randomly with the exception of Karrag, thus winding up with a party of Humans for some extra XP. Talents were all rolled randomly, with most of them working out for the character concepts quite well, though Cedred having Noble-Blooded was a wrinkle that I eventually made work out for the character.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-85641683819509259292019-04-10T13:00:00.000-04:002019-04-10T13:00:04.743-04:00Post-GamerNationCon 6And once more, another GamerNationCon has come and gone. As was the norm for me, I had a lot of fun, got to play a lot of games, catch up with old faces, and make some new acquaintances. It was pretty cool to meet the members of the Dice Pool Podcast, most of
whom made the very long trek from Australia just to attend the
convention. And naturally getting to see Linda and her family in person, as well as having at least a couple chances to sit down and share a meal with them. It was a major shame that Eric couldn't make the trip, as the con's theme was superheroes and he's a big-time superhero fan.<br />
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One thing that helped the mood for me was that this year, I'd opted to spring for the MVG pledge on the Kickstarter. Granted, it was a few hundred bucks, but the pledge got me a guaranteed seat in two games as well as first dibs on getting into scheduled games when even sign-up went live. This was a marked difference from previous years where I wound up getting locked out of a number of games that I really wanted to play in, such as GM Phil's always entertaining Fallout sessions.<br />
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Highlights for me were playing in the Star Wars D6 1st edition session run by convention Guest of Honor Michael Witwer, who is a very enthusiastic GM, with our group having a blast all around playing through the classic module Starfall. We had to speed things up a bit, but my smuggler did get a chance to shine by engaging the big bad in a one-on-one AT-ST duel, which ended with my character ramming into the overly chatty Imperial officer's vehicle to end the fight.<br />
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There was of course GM Phil's Fallout session, run using the Genesys system with the theme of the PCs having adopted heroic personas in the post-apoc wasteland. In this one, I played a Protectotron that due to a programming glitch believed it actually was the space-faring hero Captain Cosmos, accompanied by a robot companion that had a stuffed toy hanging off the front of it to play the roll of the Captain's loyal space monkey companion (and was apparently not happy about it). Phil is probably one of the most fun and energetic GMs that I've had the privilege to play under, so any time spent in one of his sessions is sure to be a lot of fun.<br />
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Another major highlight was playing in a GI Joe session again using the
Genesys system (detecting a theme for the con yet?), this one run by
Dustin of the Staggering Dragon crew. In this one, I played Spirit, who
was the team's tracker and sharpshooter as our team of Joes (Flint,
Mainframe, Chuckles, and Snake-Eyes) got dropped into Transylvania to
see what mischief Cobra was getting up to in Castle Dracula. Playing
Snake-Eyes was my Texas friend Will, who got seriously into character
and never spoke once until the session had concluded, which for those
who know Will is a major achievement as by his own admission he is an
incredibly chatty fellow, and communicated by way of writing on index
cards. We each got a number of cool moments, starting up with the two
of us coordinating to flawlessly take down a Cobra sentry without
raising an alarm, starting with Spirit timing his rifle shot (normally a
very loud crack) to fire in time with a peal of thunder to mask the
sound, and Snake-Eyes being right next to the guy to catch him before
the sentry hit the ground and noiselessly tuck away the body. Next was
Snake-Eyes taking out a bunch of Cobra soldiers while hanging from a
chandelier without scratching Chuckles (who was wearing a Cobra uniform)
with his sub-machine gun. And finally, after completing our objectives
and bugging out of the castle in a stolen Cobra Stinger jeep, while
being pursued by a pack of some sort of serpent-themed
lycanthrope/Frankenstein's monster crossbreeds, we worked together to
take down all but one of them while Mainframe got an old Russian
helicopter up and working. Snake-Eyes did most of the work with using
the jeep's on-board missiles, while I got to take down the very last
monster while quoting an appropriate line from Dresden Files, that being
"Mother says you don't belong here. *crack of thunder* Father says
you're ugly too" before putting a rifle round into the thing's gaping
maw and out the back of its freakish head as it leapt to attack the
group, and stopping its sliding body with my boot before we boarded the
repaired helicopter and made our exit. <br />
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A couple of unexpected highlights came from a pair of pick-up games, both being Genesys games. The first of these had the group playing members of Marvel's Alpha Flight, the Canadian government's sponsored team of superheroes, as run by Canadian Chris Hunt, which pretty much wound up with myself and another lady playing Canadian superheroes in a game run by a Canadian GM with other members of the Canadian contingent. Also in the group was convention guest Andy Hurley of Fall Out Boy, who is a pretty chill guy and fun to game with. We were probably one of the few teams of superheroes to shut down a bad guy's operation by way of government regulations. It was also amusing to be witness to the Canadians dropping cultural references that we Americans are generally unaware of.<br />
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The other unexpected highlight Genesys pick-up game that I got into was Sunday morning, due to the GM for the scheduled 7th Sea game being "under the weather," which I'm <i>sure</i> had nothing to do with the night prior being "GamerNation After Dark" (i.e. booze being served and shared liberally). Said game was run by Brett Bowen, one of GM Phil's longtime friends, and was using the Earthdawn setting. Now Earthdawn is a setting that I've always liked (post-apoc high fantasy), though sadly the game's mechanics were in short a total mess. Heck, I liked this enough that when a printed copy of the theme (signed by Brett) came up for bid in the post-con auction, I largely made sure it was mine to take home by effectively squashing the bidding war by doubling what was the current bid at the time. I've skimmed through the book a couple times, and may well try running some one-offs for some of the gaming groups I'm in. The look of the document is very slick, and you can tell from looking at it that Brett is not only a major fan of the setting but put a lot of work into this.<br />
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Other gaming included playing in both parts of the Android two-part module that FFG released for their Shadow of the Beanstalk Genesys supplement. This one I didn't find quite as enjoyable, but I think that was more circumstances than anything Darren West (the GM) did specifically. First part, we had one player pretty much commandeer the group at a critical point and effectively tell half the group (which I was in) to sod off in terms of how to resolve a particular dilemma and instead make things a whole lot worse for us. In the second part, we got hung up in a combat encounter that the module intended for us to avoid, except that the way things played out there was no way for us to really avoid it, which in turn effectively lead for a TPK with the exception of the medic PC.<br />
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In terms of food, I got to try out a couple of places that I'd never eaten at before, which were generally good, although one of them was a Chinese place where the food smelled good was way too spicy for me to really stomach. The pre-con barbecue feast provided by the Rayburns was just as delicious as last year's, and was a great way to start things. I wound up not going with the majority of the remaining con attendees to the post-con dinner, and instead headed with Lin, her family, and our friend Doran to a Chinese buffet that was pretty solid in terms of food, and it was nice to have a chance to wind down after four solid days of gaming goodness.<br />
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So yeah, a whole lot of fun was had, and I've already got at least a couple ideas for things I could run for next year's GNCon, from a Genesys major cross-over using various fan-made themes to a 7th Sea adventure whose roots can be drawn from a pick-up session I played during this recent con.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-90969522097665614182019-02-22T08:26:00.001-05:002019-02-22T08:26:33.402-05:00Does the answer lie in the heart of battle?Okay, been a lot longer than I'd intended between updates (seems to be a habitual thing). Fair warning, this is going to be a long post without a whole lot of crunchy content.<br />
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So quick update, gaming-wise I seem to be suffering from a plethora of gaming opportunities. Yeah, I know, woe is me, amirite? ;)<br />
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Don't recall if I talked about on this blog or not, but last summer a local friend of mine decided to take her third crack at being a GM, after her first two efforts went less than swimmingly. Her first effort was a Buffy the Vampire Slayer one-shot, being inspired by the Roll4It series Layla the Vampire Slayer (Season 1 is solid, Season 2 was middling at best for me; I'll include a link at the bottom of this post to the YouTube playlist if you want to check it out) which went okay and was fun, but was a little rough as nobody really knew the system all that well, so combat was a bit of a slog. Her second effort was running the WotC Saga Edition campaign Dawn of Defiance under FFG's Star Wars system, but her mistakes were having us all start at Knight Level and having a couple of players that are a struggle for experienced GMs to handle given their personalities and eagerness to go completely off the rails of what a GM has planned at the drop of a hat, both of which are bad things for a newbie GM still cutting their teeth to deal with, and the campaign came to a screeching halt after only four sessions. Third attempt was the charm, as she ran an original campaign mostly with players that were both new to the FFG system and new to RPGs in general; I was asked to help everyone make their characters as I knew the system but also wouldn't be super-pushy in terms of how they should build those characters, and while some sub-optimal choices were made, it all worked out and the players had a lot of fun before the campaign closed with a near TPK at the hands of no less than Darth Vader.<br />
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Well, her husband had an idea for a new Star Wars campaign, having learned from mistakes he made in trying to run prior campaigns, and assembled a new group (and deliberately not inviting those two problem players that caused his wife's Dawn of Defiance campaign to crash and burn), with a primary focus of us being spacers on the fringe, with a slight cant towards archaeological ventures due to one PC being an Explorer/Archaeologist. We're still in the early stages of the campaign (only about six sessions in), but it's been pretty fun and certainly has a Firefly vibe to it, with the PCs being something of an impromptu if occasionally dysfunctional family. Award for the quirkiest character in the group is undoubtedly the astromech Tech/Modder, who instead of being the classic R2-series is an even smaller model based upon artwork from the defunct mobile game Star Wars: Uprising, while most badass is the Twi'lek Hired Gun/Enforcer, who can be charming and intimidating with equal aplomb while mixing it up quite well in combat. So far the GM's mostly been running canned adventures with a few tweaks, but it's been working out for us.<br />
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For the Saturday Discord group, I wrapped up the penultimate arc of my Force and Destiny campaign, with the final session having the PCs finally square off against the Chiss Inquisitor that's been stalking them from behind the scenes and that half the PCs were terrified of facing. And to be honest, even after buffing the guy up a bit, the PCs didn't have nearly as much trouble with him, though part of that may have been my dice were not rolling all that well for him, and even with the Enhanced Nemesis rules he was still getting wailed on by the party. I know there's going to be at least one more encounter between them, but I'll need to reconsider how I approach it. Given that half the group will be at GamerNationCon 6 in a little over a month's time, we've opted to instead run some one-offs, with this Saturday (hopefully) being our first major venture into Savage Rifts. Now, to be clear I've always found the initial concept of Rifts Earth to be interesting, just that it was sadly paired with one of the most unplayable RPG systems on the planet and very quickly succumbed to radically escalating power creep, to the point that if you tried to play a class from the core book, you were hilariously outgunned by characters made using classes from the latest splats. Still, with Savage Worlds being a far more refined system and being well and truly playable, I'm curious to see how this one-shot will play out. If it goes well, we might be playing it as the pick-up system of choice for one of our recurring GMs. After that, we're doing an Age of Rebellion adventure that will eventually lead into a new AoR campaign, after the GM of our prior AoR campaign finally admitted that she had no interest or desire to pick up the old campaign. And following the AoR adventure, I'll hopefully be running an adventure (or two) using the new edition of Warhammer Fantasy Role Play. I have to say, I'm liking WFRP4e, especially in how the difficulties were tweaked so that starting PCs aren't a bunch of bumbling incomps and that combats don't drag out due to the extensive whiff factor that 1e and 2e suffered from. I've got a bunch of pre-gens for my players that I rolled up using the character creation rules, and they're an interesting bunch.<br />
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I also recently decided that it was within my budget to buy a gaming console that was made this decade, and bought myself a PlayStation4, as my PlayStation2 Slim finally gave up the ghost (was having trouble reading discs and wouldn't read PS1 or PS2 memory cards). Granted, this means that most of my PlayStation library of PS1 and PS2 games I can't play anymore, but to be honest it'd been years since I'd played most of them, and frankly I'm in no hurry to play most of them again. I did buy Kingdom Hearts 3 and Spider-Man along with my new system, and did digital purchases of a few other games, notably Final Fantasy 7 and the Kingdom Hearts 1.5+2.5 pack. I've only played a bit of KH3, but sadly the game's just not grabbing me the way first two KH console games did, and instead have been spending time playing FF7 (just got out of Midgar and into the world map) and KH1 (just arrived at Atlantis), and having fun doing so. I'd played FF7 when it came out (and had the big shocker scene spoiled by some twit) and had fun, but never really did a second complete play through. We'll see if I can make it all the way through this time, given it's been well over a decade since I lasted made the attempt. And Kingdom Hearts 1.5 is just a fun title without having what I feel are the needlessly flashy combat gimmicks that KH3 seems intent to shove down my throat. Haven't delved into Spider-Man yet, but going to try and change that over the course of the weekend.<br />
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The most recent bit of gaming news is another of my local gaming friends got a bunch of us together earlier in the year to take the old Street Fighter RPG by White Wolf out for a spin. The game is something of an old shame for the so-called "serious" White Wolf fans, as due to the nature of the source material (especially in recent years), the SFRPG is admittedly goofy, and I feel it works for the best if you embrace the goofiness and just go with it. We've only played two sessions, but they've been fun, with me playing an ex-street kid <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Shotoclone" target="_blank">shotoclone</a> and another player running a snooty-yet-winsome upper-class <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KickChick" target="_blank">kick chick</a>, and an alternating third player (first session had a comedic Jiu-Jitsu Hong Kong ex-cop while second one had a ghetto-fab hip-hop dance battler who was painfully stereotypical). We've finally been able to get schedules worked out enough to try playing on a more regular basis, starting with this coming Sunday, so we'll see how it works out. I kind of hope the ex-cop returns, and frankly am not the least bit sad the dance-fighter won't be making a return, but we'll see. Fair to say the GM has incorporated some house rules in character creation and advancement, allowing us to start out a lot more competent than a typical beginning SFRPG character would be. For instance, my shotoclone has watered-down versions of the Dragon Punch/Shoryuken and Hadoken attacks that I'd normally would probably not see for quite some time due to how expensive character advancement in White Wolf games are and how stingy they can be with XP awards. I have to say I'm looking forward to this, as it promises to be generally light-hearted series with our disparate team of fighters traveling the globe, having adventures and competing in various underground tournaments. There's also been some hints of sparkage between the shotoclone and the kick chick, especially given their very different backgrounds, and the lady playing said kick chick is a long-time friend that I've gamed with several times before and have had our characters in those past campaigns get into relationships, so we'll see if the UST between our latest characters ever resolves or not.<br />
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While the books are near-impossible to get, a group of fans did put together a "20th Anniversary" version compiling data from the line into one resource (sans of the stat blocks of the World Warriors or other NPCs) which can be freely downloaded. It's worth checking out, and while the combat system takes some definite getting used to (after all, the Storyteller system was not intended to be used for combat given White Wolf's disdain for combat at the time, and man does it show!), it's a fun and quirky system that if nothing else is good for one-offs of a non-serious nature.<br />
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So, that's about it for now. I'm going to get back to playing me some videogames, and see about navigating Atlantis without getting too annoyed at what I remember being frustrating controls.<br />
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<u><b>Linkage</b></u><br />
<i>Roll4It's Layla the Vampire Slayer YouTube Playlist (Seasons 1 and 2)</i><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlus4T4FXi0&list=PLefFB0SBo4P7dpxfJep-kMTK-ZlqhfIvo" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlus4T4FXi0&list=PLefFB0SBo4P7dpxfJep-kMTK-ZlqhfIvo</a><br />
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<i>Street Fighter RPG 20th Anniversary Edition</i><br />
<a href="https://sfrpg.neocities.org/sf20.html" target="_blank">https://sfrpg.neocities.org/sf20.html</a><br />
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The G-File, a fan supplement for SFRPG covering fighters and moves outside of Street Fighter II<br /> <a href="http://sfrpg.com/g-file/" target="_blank">http://sfrpg.com/g-file/</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-44343313097362404662018-11-16T10:00:00.000-05:002018-11-16T10:00:06.449-05:00Welcome to the Wizarding World, Mister PotterSo given that the second installment of the Fantastic Beasts film series (aka the "we're giving you backstory on the Potterverse!" films) has just hit theaters, as well as the fact that Chris "GM Chris" Witt has released his Harry Potter Genesys theme to the masses (link to be found below), I thought it'd be appropriate to publish a collection of pre-generated Hogwarts students that I've used for a couple of one-shots that I've run using said Genesys theme.<br />
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You've already seen one of them, a young chap by the name of Timothy Barnett, an adventurous young Gryffindor with a mild penchant for mischief. But now is perhaps a good time to present a few of the other students in his year from various other Hogwarts Houses.<br />
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When I initially came up with these characters, I had originally figured that they would be having their adventures a few years <i>after</i> the events of the Second Wizarding War as detailed in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and that it had been at least a few years since Voldemort's final defeat. With that said, for the first one-shot I ran with these characters I set their doings during Harry's third year at Hogwarts (when things were still fairly innocent and Voldemort was a not much of a threat to the wizarding world), if only for the chance for me to portray Professor Snape as the horrible person that he was to students, especially those who got into trouble.<br />
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It's also worth noting that I initially conceived each of these characters as being First Year students, fairly fresh off the Hogwarts Express and with plenty to learn. But given how Genesys operates, they just felt too competent for a group of eleven year olds, so I opted to bump them up to being Third Year students, putting them all at about thirteen years old; this way they're capable without seeming ridiculously so, but also still have a lot of room to grow.<br />
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You can of course download the <b>Harry Potter and the Theme for Genesys</b> file from the <a href="http://www.d20radio.com/main/rpgs/" target="_blank">d20 Radio BackerZone</a> page, with the link located under the "2017 Content" header.<br />
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And now, on to our students...<br />
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<b><u>Dedrick Bigglesworth, Hufflepuff Athlete</u></b><br />
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To put it plainly, Dedrick is a jock with a focus on the wizarding sport of Quidditch; he's not very good at casting spells, but can get by when it comes to low-end magics. Though he's a pureblood by birth, he really doesn't have any of the more negative traits that many of the pureblood families and students are shown to have in the books. That doesn't mean muggleborns and muggle society won't leave him as baffled as they do Ron Weasley.<br />
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<u><b>Emmamanelle "Emma" Falk</b></u><br />
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So Emma is actually the second of the first series of characters I made using GM Chris' Genesys Harry Potter theme, and drew inspiration from a dear friend of mine, that being Nateal "Tariel" Falk. Emma's big thing is her fondness and knowledge of animals, especially the fantastic beasts and magical creatures that populate the world of Harry Potter, but she's also by far the sunniest and most cheerful of the students. She is a bit of a "squishy wizard" but can play well as support and help get people to see her side of things.<br />
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<b><u>Issac Tobin, Ravenclaw Academic</u></b><br />
Yeah, I'll admit to going with the stereotype and making the Ravenclaw representative being both a bookworm and very much the brains of the party. He is a bit of a genderflip on Hermione, being that he's a muggleborn who is probably far more knowledgeable about the wizarding world than many of his peers who were born and raised in it, but he's much more shy and reserved than the much more outgoing and frankly bossy Hermione; he's much happier with his nose in a book thank you very much. He's not adept at the flashier sort of magics, and works best when trying to think his way around a problem as opposed to just blasting it.<br />
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<u><b>Selene Vale, Slytherin Potioneer</b></u><br />
So originally, Selena started out as being more of a "social expert" who was better at getting people to do what she wanted with words and manipulation before I decided to toss that and embrace yet another stereotype of the Slytherin who excelled at potions. However, she does still have some traces of her original concept, from being able to drop the occasional zinger to put others at a disadvantage in social encounters and a fairly strong base for most social checks she might have to make. She does break the mold a bit by being a half-blood, since to my mind in the wake of Voldemort's defeat it made sense that Slytherin would dial it back regarding pureblood mania. Selena's not inherently ruthless but she is pragmatic, such as having the right potion on hand at the right time.<br />
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<u><b>Timothy Barnett, Gryffindor Opportunist</b></u><br />
The first character I'd written up for this Genesys theme, Tim very much is not the typical "brave and forthright Gryffindor" that many folks would presume a student of that house to be. Now of course, you've got the Weasley Twins and the Marauders for examples of generally well-meaning Gryffindors who managed to get into loads of mischief during their school years, to say nothing of what Harry got up to, <i>especially</i> during his second year, in the course of doing what was right. So in that respect, Tim is following a fine Gryffindor tradition of getting into mischief but not doing so out of malice, and he's quite good at it, though he is a bit lacking in the raw physicality department. Magically speaking, he's got a number of tricks up his sleeve and is broadly capable, as long as you don't ask him to do any serious potions work. And by making a third year student as opposed to a somewhat more naive (for a given value of the word) first year, it's easier to explain why Tim has a bit of a record for getting into mischief at school, as he's quite good at getting into the exact sort of situations that more sensible students would prefer to avoid; if played right, he should be the one dragging the rest of group into whatever adventure is at hand.<br />
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And there we have a quintet of third year students of the illustrious Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizadry, each of them with their own strengths to contribute to whatever sort of adventures a group of young students might find themselves drawn into during the course of the school year.<br />
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You can download the zip file with their respective character sheets from here:<br />
<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/4bkvcbrewn7jxvu/HPGenesys%20PreGens.zip?dl=0" target="_blank">Harry Potter Genesys Pregenerated Characters</a><br />
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All character images were made using Hogwarts Student Maker, found on the Doll Divine website here: <a href="https://www.dolldivine.com/hogwarts-student-maker.php">https://www.dolldivine.com/hogwarts-student-maker.php</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-84240247277968818422018-08-27T13:14:00.001-04:002018-08-27T13:14:36.150-04:00Thoughts on Warhammer Fantasy Role Play 4th EditionSo to switch gears a bit (apart from the actually posting), rather than jawing about the Star Wars RPG I'll be giving my thoughts on the newest edition of the Warhammer Fantasy Role Play, published by Cubicle 7. I won't be going into exacting details on the mechanics, just sort of an overview.<br />
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For a bit of background, I got my proper introduction to WFRP with the second edition created by Green Ronin. I had a good deal of fun with the small handful of characters I got to play, in particular a Bretonnian Knight Errant and a Human Protagonist (i.e. professional bully).<br />
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The world of WFRP is is much darker than your typical fantasy RPG setting, with magic being (ostensibly) a very rare and unusual thing, with the general tech level being around early Renaissance with some steampunk elements, mostly revolving around gunpowder weapons. Also, the PC are not going to be grand heroes saving the world; in fact the best summary I've heard for WFRP is "the world's finest crappy peasant simulator" since most PCs are going to start off being on the lower end of the social strata and will be lucky to have a decent weapon or a leather vest. You can read more about the game's history and elements of of the setting <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_Fantasy_Roleplay" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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So now the preamble's out of the way, on to what my thoughts are with the latest edition of "the world's finest crappy peasant simulator." Overall, I like the tweaks made between 2e and 4e (sorry, but just couldn't get into the Fantasy Flight Games edition as it felt far too gimmicky and too much like a board game than a proper RPG). I've only played two sessions thus far, having rolled up a Human Protagonist (what can I say, I love the entire concept of the career) for the group.<br />
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One notable change right off the bat is that it's officially part of the rules that you can either roll randomly to determine things like your race and your starting career or you can pick what you want. However, if you opt to go with the random roll method, your awarded with a bit of bonus XP for each part of the process that you go with the rolled result; it's not a huge amount, but it's a nice little bonus to allow a little extra tweaking to your PC in the early going.<br />
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An issue that plagued the first and second editions was the "whiff factor" given that for most trained skills a PC would typically need to roll under a 35 on percentile dice, meaning that unless your had circumstantial bonuses you were more likely to flub the roll, which got especially tedious with combat as you could go several rounds of two opponents swinging and missing at each other. What 4e has done is changed skills so that they now have ranks (or Advances as this game calls them) that give you a bonus to your value, meaning that as a PC gains more XP they can get better at the skills in their career; starting PCs still won't be amazing but at least there's a definite improvement track.<br />
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Talents have gotten a significant overall, as many of them are now ranked and provide a small bonus to successful tests <br />
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Another tweak is to combat itself, where melee fighting is now an opposed check, with the attack hitting if the aggressor gets the better degree of success. Also changed is the introduction of Advantage, with each point you have giving you a bonus to your combat checks. Defending against attacks have been expanded, so that a creative player has a bevy of options available to them to protect against people trying to cave their face in, which is nice.<br />
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Combat overall feels a bit more dangerous, as every successful attack will inflict at least 1 point of damage no matter how good your armor rating it, so the much maligned "naked dwarf syndrome" of 1e has been averted, though it will still take a while to chip away at the health of foes with a high Wounds total. Also, if you roll doubles on a successful attack (or even a successful defense) you inflict a critical hit, which can lead to some really nasty injuries that will linger for quite some time if nobody in the group is a trained healer. So much like 2e, getting into a fight can have some nasty consequences beyond losing health points even if you win, which will definitely come to a shock to those players used to a "kick in the door" style of play.<br />
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Spellcasting has gotten quite a revamp, now requiring a skill check, with the more advanced spells needing a better degree of success. It's definitely a bit more complicated than 1e or 2e, but if you do really well on the skill check with the lower power spells, you can get a greater degree of effect.<br />
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Now I've only played a couple of sessions so far, with the GM running us through a converted 2e adventure (don't know which one), but it's been pretty fun thus far, starting off with a bar brawl to ease us into how combat worked without too drastic of consequences, leading then into a investigative segment where we had to exonerate an innocent farmer that a local (and not very trustworthy) bounty hunter looking for a quick payday by claiming the farmer was a local bandit that'd been causing problems, and leading to a rather intense social encounter between the us and the bounty hunter as each side made their case to the local road warden. Next portion had us on the road after liberating the farmer and the disreputable bounty hunter winding up with a heck of a black eye (literally and figuratively), and then getting roped into rescuing a little girl who'd been snatched up by bandits and was apparently the illegitimate daughter of a local noble baron, only to find the bandits had been ambushed by a band of goblins that had taken the little girl as a prisoner. Our attempts at being sneaky and distract/scare off the goblins didn't really work out so well, leading to our Halfling Rat Catcher catching a nasty head wound from the lead goblin, though we managed to flee away with a couple of horses and the rightly terrified little girl, which itself lead to an amusing situation with the Witch having to deal with calming down the little girl at least enough that she wasn't screaming as we made our speedy escape from the pursuing goblins. Of course, now we have to bring the girl to her father, which I'm sure that given this is WFRP is going to go swimmingly.<br />
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Overall, I've been enjoying playing this system. It's definitely a bit more on the gritty side, and I will admit it's kind of fun to play a PC that's not the typical noble and upstanding individual, and instead embracing that fact that my character in this group is a boisterous rapscallion with a penchant for punching folks in very uncomfortable places.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-59209066168624534972018-07-04T10:00:00.000-04:002018-07-04T10:00:04.434-04:00Y2K-class Light Freighter - A New Ride for FFG Star WarsFirstly, to my fellow American residents, a happy Fourth of July. While our nation's current state of affairs is tumultuous (to put it mildly), as a young nation (at least when compared to Europe) we've still managed to accomplish quite a bit for what was once derided as "The Great Experiment." So that at least we can celebrate. There's still a long ways to go, but I'm hopeful we'll get there sooner rather than later.<br />
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Now, while it might not be May the Fourth, it's still appropriate to say that the Fourth will be with you, so in that vein I'm posting up a little something I threw together not that long ago.<br />
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Over on the FFG Star Wars RPG forums, a thread cropped up with a newer member asking for some suggestions on how to stat up a ship design they'd found on the interwebz, jokingly calling said ship a "Falcon Junior." Dubbed the <a href="https://miniaturescenery.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=114" target="_blank">Y2K Peregrine</a> by Miniature Scenery, it's actually a pretty neat looking ship, and to my mind would indeed be perfect for a small group of PCs, probably no more than two or three characters as a starting ship, perhaps especially for a Force and Destiny group, who frankly don't have a lot of options when it comes to available starting craft due to the limit of a 70K credit price tag.<br />
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The thread's OP was initially just using the stats of the JumpMaster 5000 (which still holds a place of amusement in my brain for reasons) as the baseline, but the JM-5K is designed more as a scout ship than any sort of cargo-carrying craft. So I thought I'd take a stab at coming up with a set of stats for this "baby YT-1300" that set it apart at least somewhat from the JumpMaster.<br />
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So one point of contention in the forum thread was the Silhouette, with a few folks being rather insistent that based upon their calculation of the ship's measurements that it <i>must</i> be Silhouette 3 and no bigger. However, given that Silhouette 3 is pretty much the domain of starfighters and the Y2K freighter is a lot wider compared to most starships, I felt that this fits into the lower end of Silhouette 4 and is better suited for a ship that's designed to haul cargo. I also wanted something that wasn't a flying death trap in case the PCs wind up getting into a starship battle, so making the ship Silhouette 4 also justified a higher Hull Trauma threshold than a Silhouette 3 ship would generally have. The initial armament isn't great, but it's serviceable and it wouldn't be too hard to swap it out for a quad laser cannon at some point down the road; admittedly I was tempted to give the ship a quad laser cannon as the default weapon, but I felt the ship had enough going for it already that it didn't need an awesome gun right off the bat.<br />
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I won't bore you with too much more of the creative thought processes that went into coming up with these stats, as if you take a look you can see where the stats for the JumpMaster 5000 had a strong influence on the stat block for the Y2K-class light freighter.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u><b>Y2K-class Light Freighter</b></u></span> <br />
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Designed and put into production a few years after the end of the Clone Wars and the formation of the Galactic Empire, Corellian Engineering Corporation sought to create a smaller-scale version of their venerable YT-series of freighters, which were beginning to show their age. Applying lessons learned over the decades, the design team for the Y2K-series strove to design a courier-vessel, opting to skimp on the frills and focus on functionality.<br />
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Unfortunately, not unlike Kuat Systems Engineering's much-maligned S40K <i>Phoenix Hawk</i>-class Light Pinnace, the Y2K-class crew compartments were considered cramped even though it was spacious in terms of cargo hold. While most independent freighter pilots aren't overly concerned with having luxury accommodations, the Y2K-series' crew berths were certainly not a major selling point. What the Y2K-series did have was a high-performance ion drive that was reliable and needed far less maintenance than similar models, and while the hypedrive is not exceptional it too is very reliable. Instead of the more typical single laser cannon that ships of the YT-series featured, the Y2K-series comes standard with a twin blaster cannon, allowing it to more easily pass the Empire's increasingly strict weapon restrictions. The Y2K-series is surprisingly robust and nimble for a ship of it's size; a Y2K-series freighter won't be doing loops around your typical starfighter, but it won't be easy prey for raiders and pirates either. Unfortunately, even CEC's long reputation of easily modifiable craft couldn't overcome the ship's reduced size, and the Y2K-series isn't nearly as welcoming of modifications as many other CEC designs.<br />
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Unfortunately, CEC's core market weren't overly interested in what amounted to a cramped courier vessel, even at the deeply-discounted price the ship was being sold at, and production ceased after only a couple years. While replacement parts for this specific make of freighter are becoming increasingly scarce, the Y2K-series is surprisingly accepting of parts and components made for the YT-series, allowing this small and largely overlooked ship design to continue to operate and even thrive long after CEC had forgotten about it and moved on to other, more profitable ship designs.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-54138010313480829762018-05-25T10:00:00.000-04:002018-05-25T10:00:02.556-04:00Some Force & Destiny rules tweaks (Star Wars RPG)Yeah, yeah, I missed "May the Fourth" in terms of posting something relating to the wide world of Star Wars geekdom. Still, given that Solo is officially released today here in the U.S., I figure a Star Wars themed RPG post is acceptable.<br />
<br />
Far warning, this post is going to be a bit on the lengthy side, not due to the volume of things being tweaked, but more due to explanations of the reasoning behind why the tweaks were made in the first place. That and the matter that the bulk of what I'd consider my rules tweaks for Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars Force and Destiny RPG is covered in version 2.0 of my old Ways of the Force fan supplement.<br />
<br />
Now to be clear, I consider the FFG Star Wars RPG to be a pretty solid system, one that can be run very well without a single house rule needing to be made or implemented. I've played and run a number of games, from one-shots at conventions to campaigns of varying lengths, and not once have I been disappointed beyond a rare string of crappy dice rolls, but that's more an issue with the Star Wars dice roller apps generally not liking me than any sort of fault of the system.<br />
<br />
That's not to say there's elements that I don't think could be tweaked a bit, such as the revised talent trees that I posted a while back for the Ataru Striker, Shii-Cho Knight, and Soresu Defender specializations (you can check them out <a href="http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/search/label/Lightsaber%20Forms" target="_blank">here</a>), or things that could be added such as the inclusion of synthetic lightsaber crystals (much as I like Dave Filoni's work on Star Wars Rebels, I disagree on the notion that synthetic 'saber crystals are emphatically not a thing in the new canon).<br />
<br />
I've been working on most of these for a while, running a series of test combats as well as using them in live game sessions where possible. Some of what I'm posting below is fairly minor, some of it less so. But, enough prattling, on to the house rules...<br />
<br />
<u><b>Skills</b></u><br />
<i>Deception checks are now opposed by Vigilance instead of Discipline</i><br />Okay, so this isn't so much a house rule as adopting a rules element from FFG's Genesys RPG, one that I happen to like. This change/update/tweak takes some of the value off of Discipline, which is already pretty solid since it's used to resist Coercion and fear, is the default skill for Force powers when a skill check is required, and can be used to recover strain. As a result, Vigilance becomes a bit more than the "roll initiative" or "resist an ambush" skill.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Talents</b></u><br />
<i>Feint</i><br />
So like I posted last year when discussing the various Lightsaber Form specializations, the Feint talent for a Makashi Duelist is problematic because given how the game's combat system works, said talent is likely to be become less and less useful. Reason being that combat is skewed towards making it harder to avoid getting hit than it is to be able to hit your opponent. And since as written Feint requires you to miss on a melee-based combat check, that means that the talent is going to see less and less use as your character gets better at using a lightsaber, which is bad since Feint is the Makashi Duelist's primary defensive talent.<br />
<br />
So my suggested tweak is to re-word the talent's effects to read as follows:<br />
<br />
F&D pg82 (short description)<br />Spend Triumph or 3 Advantage when making a melee combat check against an opponent to upgrade the difficulty of the opponent's next melee combat check targeting the character during this encounter by the character's ranks in Feint.<br />
<br />
<br />F&D pg142 (full description)<br />
When making a Lightsaber, Brawl, or Melee combat check against an opponent, the character may spend Triumph or 3 Advantage to upgrade the difficulty of the opponent's next Lightsaber, Brawl, or Melee combat check targeting the character during this encounter by the character's ranks in Feint.<br />
<br />
In short, make it so that Feint can be spent whether you hit or miss, but as a trade-off the effects only apply if the opponent themselves is making a melee-based attack, which makes sense for a combat form that is built entirely around dueling; Feint should be zero help if the other guy decides to draw a blaster or throw a grenade at you.<br />
<br />
<i>Defensive Circle</i><br />
So after some pondering based upon observations of the Soresu Defender PC in my current F&D campaign, I've decided that this talent needs a bit of a tweak to make it more viable as a tactic. While on paper it looks pretty good as written, the stumbling block comes when you've got a party where most everyone is wearing armor that provides defense or routinely takes cover when the blaster bolts start flying. Even more so is the fact that you're rolling against a Hard difficulty, meaning you're probably not going to be getting a lot of Advantage to spend if you succeed on the Lightsaber (Intellect) check that the talent requires. This is a rules tweak that I've tested in live play sessions, and it's worked out pretty well as it lets the PC be a "defender" for the party without having to min-max his Lightsaber skill or Intellect in order for the talent to be worth the XP. So for this tweak, the rules text would be re-worded as follows:<br />
<br />
F&D pg77 (short description)<br />
Make a Hard difficulty Lightsaber (Intellect) check as an action. The character plus one ally within short range per uncancelled success increases their defense by 1 until the beginning of next turn. Increase defense bonus by 1 per 2 Advantage.<br />
<br />
F&D pg141 (full description)<br />Force Talent: While wielding a lightsaber, the character may take the Defensive Circle action, making a Hard difficulty Lightsaber (Intellect) check. If successful, the character plus one ally within short range per uncancelled success increases their current ranged and melee defense by 1 until the beginning of the character's next turn. Increase the bonus to defense by 1 for every 2 Advantage.<br />
<br />
With the most recent FAQ adding some needed clarification on defense stacking as well as a hard cap on how high a character's defense can get, the rewording of Defensive Circle now allows for the character to help out his party members who are benefiting from armor defense or cover, but not to such an extreme degree that enemy dice pools are loaded with setback dice thanks to the hard cap that's now in place.<br />
<br />
<i>Strategic Form</i><br />
So another Soresu Defender talent, this one caught my eye as at a later date I will be entering into a friend's F&D-themed campaign using a character that has this as his starting specialization. While he's only at Knight Level in terms of XP, I did take a look at other talents in the tree, especially since the GM is keeping things fairly close to RAW with regards to specializations. For me, the problem with this talent is there's an entire Signature Ability called Fated Duel, which is for the Guardian career, that does a lot of what Strategic Form does (forces an enemy to attack you and only you), but does it in such a way that the Soresu PC isn't suddenly overwhelmed. Which, given my experiences with Feint above as well as general play regarding the strain cost of Parry and Reflect, means that a Soresu Defender using Strategic Form as written is pretty much drawing aggro like crazy and more likely than not will be taken out of action before they get another chance to act, either from burning strain to fuel Parry and especially Reflect or from the sheer volume of wounds taken.<br />
<br />
Now, as I mentioned under Defensive Circle above, one of the key tenets of Soresu is <i>don't get hit</i>, but is also to use those defensive motions to create opportunities for the Soresu user to make their own attacks while weathering the storm of their opponents' offense. As written, Strategic Form does neither of these, and instead it really just paints a huge bullseye on the character's chest, making it more of a desperation tactic than something the player would want to use. Yeah, the talent's tucked into the top corner of the spec, so the player doesn't have to purchase Strategic Form if they don't want to, but it's location does mean that you'd either need to buy it anyway or purchase and go through a second Guardian specialization if you wanted the previously mentioned Fated Duel Signature Ability. So, my proposed revision to the talent is such:<br />
<br />
F&D pg77 (short description)<br />
Make a Hard difficulty Lightsaber (Intellect) check as an action, rolling Force dice no greater than Force rating. Add 1 Threat to results of combat checks targeting the character until the beginning of next turn; add additional Threat per 2 Success. Spend Force point to recover one strain.<br />
<br />
F&D pg152 (full description)<br />
<i>Force Talent</i>: While wielding a Lightsaber weapon, the character may take the Strategic Form action, making a Hard difficulty Lightsaber (Intellect) check and rolling Force dice no greater than Force rating as part of the check. If the check is successful, add 1 Threat to results of any combat checks targeting the character until the beginning of the character's next turn, adding additional Threat per 2 Success generated on the check. The character may spend Force point to recover one strain.<br />
<br />
So with this revamp of the talent, Soresu Defender now has a tactic that lets them "weather the storm" (recoup strain used to fuel Parry and Reflect) while creating openings for them to exploit by making it more likely they'll be able to trigger Improved Parry and/or Improved Reflect, which is going to be the main way a Soresu Defender PC is able to make attacks seeing as how using this talent causes them to forfeit their action, and thus pass on attacking with what is probably one of the most devastating close-quarters weapons in the game, especially if they're using a highly-modded Ilum or Mephite crystal (which given Intellect is one of their key characteristics is fairly likely).<br />
<br />
<u><b>Equipment</b></u><br />
Most of this is actually tweaks to some of the previous homebrew material I previously published in Ways of the Force rather than tweaks to officially published FFG material.<br />
<br />
<i>Adegan Crystal (Lightsaber Attachment)</i><br />
Okay, so this originally began as a "starter crystal" option for GMs that were hesitant about handing out some of the potentially more potent crystals early in the campaign. However, given the lore behind Adegan crystals over in Legends, and how they were standard for the Jedi prior to the discovery of Ilum, I felt I was underselling them. Now granted there are a number of varieties of Adegan crystals, from the Pontite and Mephite to the lowly Katharcite, but I ultimately wanted to keep things more on the simpler side rather than have several different types of Adegan crystals. I also wanted something that had a bit more punching power than the Athiss Cave crystals from the F&D Beta adventure Lost Knowledge, which are themselves excellent starter crystals for a group of aspiring 'saber monkeys.<br />
<br />
So here's an updated version of the Adegan crystal, one that's more potent than the WotF version, but not as potentially potent as a fully-modded Ilum crystal:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Adegan Crystal</b></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Base Modifiers</b>: Installing this crystal changes a lightsaber's
base damage to 6 and critical rating to 2, and the lightsaber gains the
Breach 1 and Sunder qualities. If the crystal is ever removed, the lightsaber loses
these qualities and reverts to its previous base damage and critical
rating.</span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Modifications</b>: 3 Damage +1 Mods, 1 Decrease the weapon's critical rating by 1 to a minimum of 1
Mod, 1 Item Quality (Vicious +1) Mods.</span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Hard Points Required</b>: 2</span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Cost</b>: 8,000 credits</span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Rarity</b>: 10 (R)</span><br />
<br />
So main changes are an extra damage mod, one less rank of Vicious, a mod to get the crit rating down to 1 as well as an increase in both price and rarity owing to the increased power of the crystal.<br />
<br />
Now, having pretty much removed Adegan crystals as a lower-end "starter crystal," that left me with something of a blank space in that regard. I still wanted something that a player whose character was designed to be a lightsaber wielder could have that wasn't as timid as the training emitter but wouldn't give novice GMs pause by providing the Breach 1 quality. The answer was found in the lore for the Tapani lightfoil, in particular the modern versions of the weapon, which per Legends are effectively novelty store knock-offs of a proper lightsabers, not being nearly as well made and employing sub-standard or synthetic focusing lenses. And so was born...<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Synthetic Focusing Lens</b></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Base Modifiers</b>: Installing this crystal changes a lightsaber's
base damage to 6 and critical rating to 3, and the lightsaber gains the
Pierce 1 quality. If the crystal is ever removed, the lightsaber loses
these qualities and reverts to its previous base damage and critical
rating.</span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Modifications</b>: 1 Damage +1 Mod, 1 Decrease the weapon's critical rating by 1 to a minimum of 1
Mod, 1 Item Quality (Pierce +1) Mod, 1 Item Quality (Vicious +1) Mod.</span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Hard Points Required</b>: 2</span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Cost</b>: 500 credits</span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Rarity</b>: 8 (R)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">So yeah, definitely a good deal more heft than the training emitter, given the potential to make this a Damage 7 with Pierce 2 weapon, but not as potent as a full kyber crystal, making a nice midpoint between the two. I'm not 100% settled on the price, as a part of me thinks 500 credits is too cheap, but I still want this to be something a starting character could begin play with.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">And much like building a training emitter as detailed in the sidebar of the Lightsaber crafting rules from Endless Vigil, it'd take an Average difficulty Mechanics check and 150 credits' worth of parts to build a synthetic focusing lens.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<u><b><span style="font-size: small;">Force Powers</span></b></u><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">And this is the part where I'm likely due to irk some folks, as one of the powers that I've been working on tweaking is the Move power. However, unlike a number of folks that have sought to water down the power based solely upon their presumptions of how potent Move is (9.9 times out of 10, the naysayers are using hypothetical examples of PCs with either awesome dice luck to be constantly rolling double light side pips or a few hundred XP invested in both Move and getting to Force Rating 3 or higher), what I've been testing over the past several months probably makes this most contentious of Force powers a bit more powerful, at least in the early going. But more on that in a moment.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-size: small;">Enhance</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Okay, full disclosure, there's been two things with Enhance as written that have irked me. The first is that leaping horizontally and vertically are split into two separate Control upgrades. The second is that as the effect is written (and was confirmed by Sam Stewart during one of his guest appearances on the Order 66 podcast), you can't use a Force leap to engage or disengage with an opponent, meaning that you'd have to spend at least one maneuver to either disengage and then Force leap away, or Force leap in and spend a maneuver to engage.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">So, my tweak to Enhance is to address both of those points, first by rolling the "leap horizontal" and "leap vertical" Control upgrades into a single Control upgrade that reads as follows:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Control Upgrade</b>: Take a Force Leap action to make an Enhance power check. The user may spend Force point to jump to any location with short range, ignoring obstacles and difficult or impassible terrain. The user may not activate this multiple times.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">(if using OggDude's awesome character generator, you can label this as Control: Force Leap)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Now, that leaves an empty slot where the "leap vertical" Control upgrade used to sit. This is easily filled in with the following:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Control Upgrade</b>: When taking the Force Leap action, the user may disengage from or engage with another character as part of the action. Cost = 10XP</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">I've not really tested this outside of a few test combats, but given that for the longest time I'd been allowing a character to use this power to engage/disengage without problem, I don't foresee any major issues with implementing this revision.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-size: small;">Move</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">And here we go, the tweak regarding the one Force power that's drawn all sorts of concern and consternation from many folks who are going on pure speculation of how "overpowered" this power is compared to the reality where it's not nearly as potent as it looks on paper.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Now way back in the EotE Beta days, I had toyed with the notion of incorporating an inherent "attack" ability into the base Move power, much like a character trained in Use the Force could do in WotC's Saga Edition game. That never made it past the concept phase, until last year when I was working on a bunch of Force user pre-gens for the Star Wars module I ran at this past April's GamerNationCon, when it struck me that none of the PCs (who were originally Padawans of the Jedi Order) had the ability to make ranged attacks. Yes, most of them had lightsabers, but nobody could really attack at a distance if the situation called for it, something that I recalled happened to Chris "GM Chris" Witt of Order 66 podcast fame during one of his initial Saga Edition games, which resulted in a frustrating experience for players and GM alike. Of course, the tricky part was "how do I balance this without making Move too powerful?" The answer proved to be deceptively simple once I stopped obsessing over it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">So, my tweak to the Move basic power is as follows:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Basic Power</b>: The user may spend Force point to move or hurl one object of Silhouette 0 that is within short range up to his maximum range. Hurling an object is a ranged attack using an Easy difficulty Discipline check combined with a Move power check, and deals 5 damage if successful. The default range is short range. May not be activated multiple times.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">So, the offset is that while you can now use Move to attack as part of the basic power, it's no longer a Discipline check with no difficulty dice, meaning the attack is generally going to do less damage or not generate as much Advantage as said attack would under the rules as written. And this change has actually seen play at the table, both in the con session I ran (though most of the players were too eager to use their lightsabers to attack than hurl small objects) and in a recent campaign a friend of mine is running. Thus far, it's not proved to be unbalanced in the slightest, and the increased difficulty actually helps address a point of concern with throwing bigger objects (see below).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Now, with removing the "hurl objects" Control upgrade, that leaves a blank spot in the power tree, which similar to Enhance is rather easily patched with the following:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Control</b>: The target of an attack mad with a hurled object is disoriented for a number of rounds equal to the number of Force points spent on the power check. Cost = 10XP</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">I took this idea from the Bind power in that any damage the base Bind power inflicts is determined by the number of Force points spent on fueling the power, so long as at least one of them came from a dark side pip. Yes, there is potential for a target to be disoriented for several rounds by a powerful Force user, but as being disoriented only adds a setback die to checks, and can itself be overcome with various talents or even equipment upgrades (such as the custom hilt attachment), that's not too big of a concern.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Now, by rolling the "hurl objects to deal damage" Control upgrade into the basic power, this necessitates some rewording of the Magnitude and Strength upgrades, such as:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Magnitude</b> (add the following sentence): If hurling multiple objects or attacking multiple targets, the attack uses the rules for the Auto-fire quality.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Strength</b> (add the following sentence): When hurled, damage is equal to ten times the object's silhouette and the base difficulty is increased by the object's silhouette.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Magnitude isn't really changed so much as relocating verbiage from the "hurl objects" Control upgrade regarding attacking multiple objects or attacking multiple targets.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Now with the Strength upgrade, this actually addresses one of the concerns with the difficulty (or lack thereof) for hurling around larger objects and doing considerably more damage. As one of my friends put it, the increased difficulty made it so that the tactic of hurling multiple silhouette 1 objects (base damage of 10 each per hit) at only 2 difficulty is no longer an easily accomplished thing. This change also happens to make it so that hurling anything above silhouette 4 falls under the purview of "impossible tasks" and can only be attempted by flipping a Destiny Point, which since you're limited to one Destiny Point expenditure per skill check means that you'd be stuck with whatever pips your Force dice rolled, meaning you'd be unable to convert them if the wrong flavor comes up. This puts tossing around truly colossal objects is the realm of the very powerful among Force users, and won't be the sort of thing that player-characters will be able to pull off until they've invested a whole lot of XP into both increasing their Force rating and investing in the Move power.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Okay, that's enough of my rambling on about what my more recent bouts of incessant tinker-monkeying have wrought.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">I'm off to go what Solo, which if nothing else I expect to be a fun romp in the Star Wars universe. To be fair, I was never a huge fan of Han Solo as a kid, so I don't have any sort of emotional investment in the character for the film to trample on, and thus no real expectations for how things are going to turn out beyond Han and Chewing taking ownership of the Falcon and Lando being ticked off about them making off with "his" ship.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-42150085747242448632018-04-27T10:01:00.001-04:002018-04-27T10:01:19.010-04:00Revisiting the Unofficial Species Menagerie - SquibsSo several days ago, while helping a budding GM and new players build their characters for their first foray into Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars Roleplaying Game, I wound digging up up an older entry into the aging Unofficial Species Menagerie that Ben "Cyril" Erickson and I had collaborated on a surprising number of years ago. <br />
<br />
The species in question was the Squib, which you can read about on Wookieepedia <a href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Squib" target="_blank">here</a>. I'm not entirely sure what exactly it is that made these goofy little fuzzballs so endearing to me, but I am certain I can blame Kevin "Rikoshi" Frane for cementing just how off-the-wall awesome the species can be in the hands of the right player.<br />
<br />
So, in light of unleashing the Squibs on an unsuspecting gaming group, which sadly I won't there to witness the initial fallout of this action as I'm not a player (at least not at the moment), I decided to look back and reassess the species based upon what I've learned about this system and what FFG has done in terms of published species.<br />
<br />
Overall, the Squib as originally written is solid, if not anything overly exciting: Brawn 1, Agility 3, -1 to starting Wound Threshold, +1 to starting Strain Threshold, a free rank of Negotiation, a free Advantage on Mechanics checks, and Mechanics is always considered a career skill. A lot of this was informed by the Squib write-ups in previous Star Wars RPGs, namely WEG's Galaxy Guide 4 (which introduced the species) and Saga Edition's Unknown Regions (for which I got to write the Squib as a species), but upon further review and with the elements I'd mentioned in the paragraph above, I'd certainly tweak a few things.<br />
<br />
First change is that I'd drop their Agility down to 2 and boost their Presence to 3. From the further research into the species that I've done, Squibs are generally gregarious and outgoing, even if it at times they get on other sentients' nerves. They're not Kender-levels of cheerful, but they're certainly not timid or reserved by nature.<br />
<br />
Second change is that I'd remove the free skill rank in Negotiation, and replace it with the Savvy Negotiator talent from Disciples of Harmony, which is a ranked talent that removes a setback die from Negotiation and Streetwise checks. This does steer Squibs away from all being expert negotiators, allowing for members of the species that maybe can't sell you a bucket of air and keep the bucket, but does let them keep a cultural aptitude for haggling while also adding in some degree of talent for sussing things out simply by asking around in what is probably a complicated arrangement of little favors that lets the Squib find out things a bit more easily simply because the folks they're talking too are off-balance from trying to keep up with the increasingly convoluted chain of conversation. Or at least that's how I'd picture a Squib asking around as part of making a Streetwise check and paying for information, because you know full well that any Squib worth their fur isn't going to just say "Here, let me offer you a few credits in exchange for you answering a few questions!"<br />
<br />
Third change is that to set their Wound Threshold to the default of 10+Brawn, as their lower starting Brawn already makes them a bit more frail than other species by default.<br />
<br />
Fourth and final change is to tweak Tech Savvy so that instead of having Mechanics as a career skill that instead once per encounter Squibs can convert up to 2 Threat to an equal number of Advantage on a Mechanics check. Reason for this is that for a tech-minded Squib, having Mechanics as a career skill isn't much of a boon, and Squibs that aren't tech-minded probably aren't going to buy more than one or two ranks. However, if the player gets to swap out a couple of Threat results and instead add a couple advantages to the check, that's a lot more interesting even if the Squib character isn't much of a mechanic.<br />
<br />
So with all that in mind, here's an updated version of the Squib species...<br />
<br />
<u><b>Squibs</b></u><br />
<b>Starting Characteristics</b><br />Brawn 1, Agility 2, Intellect 2, Cunning 2, Willpower 2, Presence 3<br />
<b>Starting Wound Threshold</b>: 10+Brawn<br />
<b>Starting Strain Threshold</b>: 11+Willpower<br />
<b>Starting XP</b>: 100<br />
<b>Special Abilities</b>: Squibs begin the game with one rank in the Savvy Negotiator talent<br />
<b>Tech Savvy</b>: Once per encounter, Squibs may convert up to 2 Threat from a Mechanics check into an equal number of Advantages.<br />
<br />
Not sure this will become any sort of recurring series, given how many of the entries in the Unofficial Species Menagerie have since been supplanted with official FFG write-ups. as the years have gone by. There's a couple other species I've got my eye on revisiting, but time will tell when or even if I'll get around to doing so.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-6797300078451037502018-04-13T16:43:00.002-04:002018-04-13T16:43:39.341-04:00GamerNationCon 5 - The AftermathSo yeah, GamerNationCon 5 has come and went, and it certainly was a thing.<br />
<br />
Lest that first sentence be misleading, I had a lot of fun at GNC5. I wasn't able to get into a game run by GM Chris or GM Phil, but that's not too surprising given how quickly those tend to fill up. I did get a few pick-up games in, as well as getting to see a number of friends that I'd not seen or talked to in quite a while, such as Kevin "Rikoshi" Frane and the ever-lovely Adie from across the pond, as well as getting to spend some time chatting with Christopher West and Star Wars RPG authorial legend Sterling Hershey (about 80's cartoons and differences in animated TV series that were brought over from Japan between the original version and the American version of all things). I also got to catch up with folks I'd not really seen or talked to since last year's GamerNationCon, and enjoy a few meals out. Got to try Mediterranean food, but it doesn't seem it agreed with my stomach, which is a shame as it was tasty.<br />
<br />
I don't have a bunch of pictures, as frankly I've never been really much of a photo-taker, either in terms of pictures I take generally not turning out so well or just a lack of interest in doing so. Adie did get a pretty good pick of me in my Hogwarts student cosplay, though sans the school robe. Lin got a group shot of me in costume, Eric in his Black Mage costume, and Andrew Maiaweski (Phil's brother) in his Hogwarts outfit. Also in costume was one guy in a very good
Hagrid costume and one gent done as Uncle Vernon after tussling with
owls to snatch Harry's Hogwarts letter. I wasn't the only person to don
their Hogwarts robes, with other folks wearing theirs on different days of the con.<br />
<br />
Amusingly and on a bit of a lark, I'd decided to pack the Plagg plush that I'd picked up on a bit of a whim last year. Plagg is a character from the CGI animated series Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir, which is a series that while aimed at younger audiences is surprisingly good both in terms of plot and quality. For the first couple days of the con, I'd had Plagg's oversized head sticking out of my messenger bag, but for Saturday and Sunday I got the notion to tuck him into my badge holder, again with his giant noggin peering out over it. That got some grins and laughs from folks, and since Plagg is a magical creature (in the show, he's a kwami and provides one of the heroes with his powers) it fit well with the con's theme of "magic" and with my Hogwarts get-up.<br />
<br />
Gaming-wise, the sessions I ran were mostly hits, but a couple of misses. I had one player that was in two of my sessions and frankly if he never shows up to another of my games, I'll count myself fortunate. I hate players that don't want to get involved or constantly question my GM calls when running a game, and this guy did both, the former during my Dragon Age game (which ran way shorter than I figured) and the latter during my Star Wars game. If he reads this and gets offended, I really don't care, and again will be glad if he doesn't play in another game I run. But with the exception of that one person (who thankfully was not in my 7th Sea game), most of it went well. Again, Dragon Age ran way short, but I think a large part of that was my simplifying the first initial combats, which upon re-reading was probably mean to chew up more time; when I first ran the module it ended up going over due to combat drag, so I probably chopped it down more than I needed to.<br />
<br />
My Star Wars module went pretty well, though I ended up ab-libbing much of the specifics, which is something I'm wont to do when running a pre-written module, even if I'm the one that wrote it. Part of that is not being certain of what the players will do, but part of that is not wanting to break the flow of a scene to look up what exactly had been written. Luckily I'm pretty good at improve GMing and making stuff up as I go, so it worked out. The final combat got interesting, as one of the players who had taken one of the two beatsticks in the party simply couldn't succeed on a combat check no matter what he did. Still it was fun, and apart from the wet towel player I mentioned above, the players all had fun. I guess said wet towel player has had some bad GMing experiences from what a mutual friend told me, and so had learned to constantly question anytime a GM did something that was outside the rules-as-written. I guess I've gotten so used to gaming with folks that know ahead of time that I'll throw rules aside in the favor of "rule of cool" or having fun that I forget not all players at my table are aware of that; I should probably adopt a variation of GM Chris' boilerplate speech in the future.<br />
<br />
The 7th Sea game more than made up for any drags up to that point. I was running my "Under a Harvest Moon" adventure, which was itself an adaptation of Steve Kenson's "Apple of Her Eye" for the Shadow of the Demon Lord RPG. This is a horror-themed adventure with some pretty unsettling elements, but this group of players were punch-drunk enough that the session turned into a near-constant laugh-fest with some really absurd lines being tossed out. Again, the players had a blast, and more than once we had to pause so everyone could catch their collective breath after a particular good zinger got tossed out. This was also the first time that the Heroes directly confronted the Villain rather than outwitting them, and in retrospect I think the Villain needs to be punched up a bit in the offense department as they simply could not deal enough Wounds to the Heroes to be a credible threat. I had considered using the 7th Sea: Khitai quick start rules for Brute Squads for this adventure, but I forgot about them and simply used the default rules as that's what I was more used to, and the last thing I wanted to do was go book-diving in the midst of a combat scene; it's one thing to do it for a home campaign, but just feels tacky to do it when you're the one GMing a con module.<br />
<br />
The last game I ran was on Sunday and was a pick-up making use of GM Chris' Harry Potter theme for the Genesys RPG. I had a quintet of pre-gens that I'd managed to get printed out, and with a big thanks to Will for rounding up players I was able to run this. I'd intended for this pick-up to run no more than a couple hours, and at roughly 2.5 hours it fell within that metric. There wasn't a whole lot of pre-planning on my part; just enough for the basic set-up and after that I simply riffed off what the players did, giving occasional nudges here and there so that they didn't all just sit around. Big props to the guy that played the Gryffindor Opportunist, as he did a lot to keep things moving, and props all around to the table as they had fun with the characters, with most of them getting fully into the spirit of things. One moment of unexpected hilarity was one of the two Hufflepuffs deciding to sock the Gryffindor in the face after coming to an erroneous conclusion that Gryffindor was a culprit in making a 2nd Year Hufflepuff have a really rotten day, with the other Hufflepuff reacting in shock (all while saying "we said we'd TALK to him!") and the Slytherin was annoyed at this time-wasting foolishness. I'll certainly be keeping this on hand as a quick pick-up game for future cons and game days.<br />
<br />
As for games I played, I got into a D&D pick-up (was supposed to be a Star Wars pick-up, but the GM sadly had a bad case of nerves and had to back out) that used some of the most oddball pre-gens I had ever seen. It deliberately had a Coen Brothers movie vibe, with out hapless bunch of adventurers inadvertently becoming notable assassins in the space of a morning. The two stars of that game were Kevin and his friend Paulie, playing a duo of a moronic half-giant fighter and a really smart kobold druid respectively.<br />
<br />
Another game I played in was a Star Wars module set around the Battle of Jakku, with our party being a Rebel ops team that was one of a dozen such teams sent to capture a Star Destroyer. We failed the mission (which seems to be the norm) but were able to survive (2nd group to do so in all the times the GM had run the module). I wound up playing a Gand beat-stick, who had some Force abilities that I never wound up using as there was never really a need for them.<br />
<br />
I did get to play in my friend Eric's magic-themed Geneys game. I won't spoil anything, but it was a neat set-up with an interesting twist. I had a lot of fun, and ultimately wound up becoming the party leader of the group.<br />
<br />
So overall, it was fun experience. Luckily my flights down to Texas and back were largely incident free (a half hour delay on the return trip on both the initial and connecting flight). Also, I've now left behind DSL-based internet and now have high-speed, a choice that was spurned by my copper-wire landline being shut down by the apartment complex (they claim notifications were sent out, but I never received one and it seems neither did a few other folks). Definitely a whole lot faster than what I'm used to, which is nice.<br />
<br />
In other news, I did go see Ready Player One on the opening Friday, and I very much enjoyed it. The movie is notably different from the book, but I think they had to make many of the changes they did as the Challenges/Gates as presented in the book simply don't work for a purely visual medium. I liked the changes to the cast in general, which again was something that needed to be done for the sake of a two-hour film as opposed to several-hours long novel.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-10842284703120039242018-03-18T10:00:00.000-04:002018-03-18T10:00:03.022-04:00"Yer a wizard Harry!"Welp, so much for that notion of regular updates I had way back last year.<br />
<br />
So short version is that between work and campaigns, I've not really had a lot of mental bandwidth for a whole lot else, much less posting here. The campaigns have been fun (couple of Star Wars ones, and just recently restarted Mutants & Masterminds), while work has been far less so. I had considered putting up a blog post in the wake of seeing The Last Jedi, which I did enjoy but really did need to see a second time to properly enjoy it, but all the ignorant toxicity that got flung around by whiny gatekeeping man-babies about how it wasn't "their" Star Wars soured me on that notion.<br />
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Now, I must say that I'm really looking forward to the beginning of April, as I'll be taking a much-deserved vacation and flying down to Texas for GamerNationCon 5. Looking forward to seeing a number of friends, including a few faces I've not seen in some time. Planning to run three events, one for Star Wars, one for 7th Sea, and one for the Dragon Age RPG; the last two are modules I've run in the past, and have worked out pretty well. The Star Wars module I'm still nervous about, as I wound up doing some pretty major re-writes from what I initially had as well as re-doing almost all of the pregens, but I'm pretty happy with how the module looks in its current form.<br />
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So speaking of GamerNationCon 5, as one of the backers of the most recent Kickstarter, I and all the other backers got access not only to Phil "DarthGM" Maiewski's Fallout theme for the Genesys RPG by Fantasy Flight Games, but also the very cool and well-written Harry Potter theme for the same RPG written by Chris "GM Chris" Witt.<br />
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I've been a fan of the Harry Potter series ever since my mother convinced me to go see the first movie with her in theaters, and pretty much devoured the first four books of the series when I got them as a Christmas present later that year. So having a Harry Potter hack for an RPG whose mechanics I already know pretty well was certainly intriguing; I've checked out a number of other efforts for different systems and none of them really seemed to fit well for the setting mechanics-wise or were too focused on Hogwarts as of the time of the books. I think Chris managed to avoid both those issues, as Genesys' mechanics are pretty adaptable, and he's broadened things to include Ilvermony and American magical society as introduced in the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them movie.<br />
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One of the things I'd been meaning to do was sit down and work up a character using the HP theme. And after a hectic previous week at work, I was finally able to do just that over the weekend.<br />
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For my character, I figured I'd go with a first Hogwarts student, someone that had a knack for magic but still had much to learn. In a fit of whimsy, I decided to borrow the first name of the protagonist of the Books of Magic comic book series, and named my character-to-be Timothy. And yes, I did chuckle at the notion of playing a wizard who some call... Tim. I then did a Google search for British surnames, and eventually settled on Barnett.<br />
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With the name in place, now came the matter of which of Hogwart's Houses would young Timothy (Tim to his friends) would be sorted. I decided that I'd instead skip ahead in the character creation process to figure out his Strength (Witty), Flaw (Recklessness), Desire (Expertise), and Fear (Obscurity), all determined randomly. Based on those, he sounded like a good fit for either Slytherin or Gryffindor; I decided to once again rely on random chance and flipped a coin, with the result landing young Tim amongst the ranks of Gryffindor House (my personal fave of the Hogwarts four).<br />
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Next came deciding Tim's "career" or what sort of aspiring wizard he'd be. Looking through the options, I settled on Opportunist, as I liked the notion of a Gryffindor that employed out-of-the-box thinking and clever ploys, who may not always be completely honorable but instead uses unconventional methods to accomplish things. In a way, he's not unlike a slightly more serious Fred or George Weasley, or a less arrogant school-age James Potter. I decided that as part of Tim's backstory, he had an ancestor that was a famous Curse-breaker, and one of his goals was to follow in his ancestor's footsteps but also seeking to make his own mark on the wizarding world. This in turn made him a half-blood, though I figure both of his parents were muggleborns (magical genetics in the Potterverse are weird, but then again it's magic).<br />
<br />
Picking skills was pretty simple, giving young Tim a good mix of magical, social, and practical skills, which I decided meant that he's not been raised completely in the wizarding world, and has some notions of how muggle society operates; he probably went to a public primary school prior to getting his Hogwarts letter and picked up some peculiar skills as a result.<br />
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Spending XP was pretty simple, picking up a couple extra skill ranks (none of which are above a 1, which fits an eleven-year old that's still got loads to learn) and a couple of talents that go with the "rush into trouble" and "react quickly" notions of the character. And in a change for the usual types of characters I make, Tim isn't all that physically impressive, instead relying more on guile (Cunning), tenacity (Willpower), and pure cheek (Presence), which is very fitting for a adventuresome wizard-in-training.<br />
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The fun part then came in figuring out what sort of wand this character have. Fortunately, the Harry Potter Wiki has a very useful page on the topic (read it <a href="http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Wandlore" target="_blank">here</a>) which made the process a bit less daunting. I ultimately choose spruce wand with a phoenix feather core, and then went with the standard school supplies package. I was tempted to snag a familiar as well, but decided not to and instead give young Tim some leftover currency for pocket money. I did grab a set of Thieves' Tools (renamed as a Lockpicking Kit) from the Fantasy Theme section of the Genesys core rulebook, given that Tim's got a rank of Skullduggery and his muggle-influenced upbringing would give him an appreciation for non-magical ways of getting into places he's not supposed to.<br />
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And thus, here's young Timothy "Tim" Barnett, an eleven year old boy about to embark upon a new set of adventures as he begins his magical education at Hogwarts' School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.<br />
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<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/3hcnqzszl3lspfo/Timothy%20Barnett%2C%20Gryffindor%20Opportunist.pdf?dl=0" target="_blank">Timothy Barnett, Gryffindor Opportunist - Character Sheet (PDF version)</a><br />
<br />
Obviously another thing I did was modify the Star Wars character sheet that I've been using for years to fit the Harry Potter theme, as I like having a recognizable character sheet that I electronically enter information into. It's a Word document, but that works easier for me in terms of modifying that trying to set it up as a form-fillable PDF, especially given the fonts used for the dice and result icons that Genesys uses. I tried using a couple different Potterverse-themed fonts, but none of them really worked for me, and instead wound up using a LotR-themed font called Ringbearer.<br />
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I do have a few notions for the rest of a groupof First Years, coming from a variety of Houses, such as an intellectually-focused Slytherin, a social-focused Ravenclaw, and maybe even an Ilvermony exchange student, but not sure when I'll be able to write them all up. Hopefully sometime in the not-to-distant future now that I don't have to worry about writing modules, but even that's up in the air.<br />
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But even still, I think Tim would be a fun character to play, a Gryffindor that bucks the "honorable and noble" stereotype while still being a decent kid at heart.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-21257063465864336892017-10-31T16:00:00.000-04:002017-10-31T16:42:44.853-04:00Danny Copperfield, Novice Wizard and Amatuer SleuthHappy Halloween!!!<br />
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So I'm writing this post coming off the conclusion of the long-running Curse of Strahd campaign that my friend Eric has been running for our Saturday night online group (used to call it the Skype group, but we've pretty much switched over to Discord at this point as it's given us far less grief that Skype so far, and the ability to have separate channels for general and game-specific discussions is quite nice). I don't think any of us were really expecting the campaign to end the way it did; yes we managed to defeat Strahd, but it was a very bitter victory indeed, leaving the party largely broken and ultimately going their separate ways. I did have fun playing Sir Thomas, even though in hindsight there are things I would have done very differently if I'd had a better handle on who the character was. Still, it's nice to bring that campaign to a conclusion, with the advent of running a campaign that's far more cheerful and bright on the near horizon.<br />
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Now, to continue with my string of Samhain appropriate blog postings, I thought I'd post up a character that I'd made a while back, got to play briefly, have remade and may have a chance to play again.<br />
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The character in question was originally made for the Dresden Files Role-Playing Game by Evil Hat Productions, taking place in the world detailed in the highly enjoyable Dresden Files series of novels written by Jim Butcher. Personally, I prefer the audiobooks as I honestly feel that James Marsters (best known for playing Spike on the classic TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer) does a bang up job of giving voice to the many characters; it's at the point where to me he's pretty much the voice of series protagonist Harry Dresden.<br />
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Said character was Danny Copperfield, a young/novice wizard of the White Council, and can be summed up as Dresden-Lite. This was deliberate, as I liked the notion of playing a still-fresh and mostly-untested wizard, just barely into his 20's (Harry started out in mid to late 20's I believe), albeit one that had proper training as a wizard and lacked the many tragic elements of Harry's personal history. In his original incarnation, Danny had a solid mix of control and power, in that while he might not have been hitting at the same level of power as Harry Dresden, but neither was he quite as likely to set the immediate on area with an errant blast of flame. I did get the chance to play him in a rather short campaign, and he was quite a bit of fun, delivering snark and unexpected bouts of sheer magical power with aplomb.<br />
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So when Evil Hat released the Dresden Files Accelerated RPG, updating the material to work with their very fun Fate Accelerated Edition, I decided (mostly on a lark) to do an updated version of Danny, just to see how the character would work out given DFA's method of using Mantles to set character archetypes. And overall, I think it worked out pretty well. The fact that in DFA a spellcaster isn't nearly as restricted in hurling magic (that was an issue with the original DFRPG was that spellcasters had very limited mojo, an issue that in the books really only affected Harry "powerhouse slob" Dresden given his own admittance for simply grabbing as much power as he could and hurling it at his foe with little to no finesse) means that Danny can make much more use of his evocations, in particular attacking enemies with fire. As a bit of a trade-off, he's not quite as adept starting out with divination or ward magic, but seeing as how his Mantle gives him a much broader bonus to thaumaturgy makes up for it.<br />
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One thing that is nice about DFA is that by essentially rolling spellcasting into a character's approaches, there's not as much worry about balancing things out for the Pure Mortals; yes a spellcaster does get to work their mojo at a higher power scale, but magic may well not always be the answer. That and I suspect a GM could easily compel the Wizard part of the character's aspect to have modern technology breakdown around the spellcaster. And even the higher power scale isn't that huge of a boost when competing with Pure Mortals, whose own Mantles have some pretty neat tricks of their own.<br />
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With my friend Doran wanting to run at least a one-shot of Dresden Files Accelerated (to the great delight of the entire group as we're all fans of the Dresden Files), I'm looking forward to an opportunity to once again don the red canvas duster and whip out the blasting rod (mind out of gutter, thank you very much!) and step into the role of this character. Given the interesting personalities that I'm sure the rest of the players will bring to the table with their own characters, it should be interesting to see how things shake out... preferably without multiple buildings being on fire (especially if it's not his fault)!<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><u><b>Danny Copperfield</b></u></span><br />
<b><b>Mantle</b></b>: Magical Practitioner<b> </b><br />
<b>High Concept</b>: Novice Wizard of the White Council<br />
<b>Trouble</b>: Chronic Wiseass<br />
<b>Aspects</b>: Amateur Sleuth; Don't Underestimate My Power!<br />
<b>Refresh</b>: 1<br />
<br />
<b>Approaches</b><br />
<i>Good (+3)</i>: Force<br />
<i>Fair (+2)</i>: Haste, Intellect<br />
<i>Average (+1)</i>: Focus, Guile<br />
<i>Mediocre (+0)</i>: Flair<br />
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<b>Stress and Conditions</b><br />
Stress: [<u>1</u>][<u>1</u>][<u>1</u>][<u>1</u>][<u>1</u>][<u>1</u>]<br />
Combat Wizard: [<u>1</u>][<u>1</u>]<br />
In Peril (sticky): [<u>4</u>]<br />
Doomed (lasting): [<u>6</u>]<br />
Indebted (sticky): [_][_][_][_][_]<br />
Exhausted (sticky): [_] <br />
Burned Out (lasting): [_]<br />
The Third Eye (sticky): [_] <br />
<br />
<b>Stunts</b><br />
<i>Evocation</i>: You are able to cast spells on the fly and without need for ritual preparation.<br />
<i>Thaumaturgy</i>: You are able to cast a variety of arcane rituals, adding a +2 bonus to the roll.<br />
<i>Soulgaze</i>: You have the ability to look directly upon the soul of another person, and they can look at yours in turn.<br />
<i>Combat Wizard</i>: Gain two stress boxes explicitly for enhancing evocations.<br />
<i>Evocation Specialist</i>: Gain +2 bonus when making a Force attack using the element of fire.<br />
<i>White Council Membership</i>: Once per session, you may request aid from the White Council.<br />
<br />
<b>Appearance</b><br />
Danny is a tall, lanky young man just under six and a half feet tall, with shoulder-length charcoal black hair, several strands of which constantly hang in front of his dark blue eyes, a good-natured lopsided smile befitting his generally irreverent nature on his face, although his expression turns much darker once his ire has been raised. His preferred attire is a dark-hued shirt, a pair of blue jeans, simple sneakers, and a full-length red canvas duster, with his blasting rod tucked away but always within easy reach.<br />
<br />
<b>Notable Possessions</b><br />
Blasting rod (made of hickory), red canvas duster with extra pockets, assorted ritual tools and aids stuffed in said extra pockets.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-46901138890008786032017-10-28T11:00:00.000-04:002017-10-28T11:00:36.606-04:00Light and Darkness: Two PCs for D&D 5th EditionAnd so it is that Halloween is pretty much upon us. In the spirit of the holiday, I'll be doing three things related to role-playing games.<br />
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The first of these is that this afternoon, I will be running "Under a Harvest Moon," a 7th Sea 2nd edition conversion of the Shadow of the Demon Lord adventure "Apple of Her Eye" for one group of gamers that want to try out 7th Sea 2e. I've had a fair amount of success with this adventure, which you can grab from my blog here: <a href="http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/2017/10/once-upon-harvest-moon-7th-sea-2e.html" target="_blank">http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/2017/10/once-upon-harvest-moon-7th-sea-2e.html</a><br />
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The second of these will be later this night I will be gaming with an online group via Discord to engage in what may very well be the final confrontation with Strahd Von Zarovich in the possible conclusion of the 5e Curse of Strahd adventure. As our group's DM for this adventure, Eric has done a bang-up job, not only in running the adventure but in customizing it so that the lands and culture of Barovia have some very distinctive elements. I've had fun playing an Oath of Vengeance Paladin who due to decisions made has taken a much darker turn, and to be honest I'm not sure he's going to come out of this even remotely close to the person he was when the adventure started. But as much fun as I've had, I think I am ready for this to wrap-up and for our group to move onto something a bit more cheerful and less dark.<br />
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As for the third, well you're reading it, as I thought I'd post up a couple of D&D 5e characters who are about as different as night and day, an aasimar paladin and a half-elf warlock, both of good alignment though of very different means and outlooks. I opted to go ahead and post the third level versions of these, as the general agreement online seems to be that 3rd level is when a character really starts to "come alive" in terms of their abilities on top of not being frail enough that a single wayward encounter could spell their doom.<br />
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<u><b>Aramir Greyhaven, Aasimar Paladin of Lathander</b></u><br />
<b>Class/Level</b>: Paladin 3<br />
<b>Alignment</b>: Lawful Good<br />
<b>Background</b>: Acolyte<br />
<i>Personality Trait</i> - I've spent so long in the temple that I have little practical experience dealing with people in the outside world.<br />
<i>Ideal</i> - I trust that Lathander will guide my actions; I have faith that if I work hard enough, things will go well.<br />
<i>Bond</i> - I owe my life to the priest who took me in when my parents died.<br />
<i>Flaw</i> - Once I pick a goal, I become obsessed with it to the detriment of everything else in my life.<b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>Ability Scores</b><br />
STR 15 (+2), DEX 10 (+0), CON 12 (+1), INT 10 (+0), WIS 14 (+2), CHA 14 (+2)<br />
<br />
<b>Armor Class</b>: 18 (chain mail and shield) <br />
<b>Melee Attack</b>: +4 (longsword, 1d8+4 slashing, versatile)<b> </b><br />
<b>Ranged Attack</b>: +4 (javelin, 1d6+2 piercing, range 30/120, thrown)<br />
<b>Hit Dice</b>: 3d10<br />
<b>Hit Points</b>: 25<br />
<b>Speed</b>: 30 feet<br />
<br />
<b>Class and Species Abilities</b><br />
<i>Darkvision</i> - see in dim light as bright light out to 60 feet, and in darkness as dim light.<br />
<i>Celestial Resistance</i> - resistance to necrotic and radiant damage.<br />
<i>Celestial Legacy</i> - knows the <i>light</i> cantrip and can cast <i>lesser restoration</i> once per long rest.<br />
<i>Divine Sense</i> (3/day) - as per page 84 of the Player's Handbook<br />
<i>Fighting Style</i> - Dueling (as per page 84 of the Player's Handbook)<br />
<i>Divine Health</i> - as per page 85 of the Player's Handbook <br />
<i>Divine Smite</i> - As per page 85 of the Player's Handbook.<br />
<i>Sacred Oath</i> - Oath of Devotion (as per page 86 of the Player's Handbook)<br />
<br />
<b>Spellcasting</b> (Spell DC 12, Spell Attack +4)<br />
<i>1st</i> - Compelled Duel, Divine Favor, Searing Smite<br />
<br />
<b>Languages and Proficiencies</b><br />
<i>Saving Throws</i> - Wisdom and Charisma<br />
<i>Languages</i> - Common, Celestial, Draconic, Elvish<br />
<i>Skill Proficiencies</i> - Athletics (+4), Insight (+4), Persuasion (+4), Religion (+2)<br />
<br />
<b>Gear</b>: Longsword, 5 javelins, chain mail, shield, holy symbol of Lathander, explorer's pack, prayer book, 5 sticks of incense, vestments, set of common clothes, belt pouch containing 15 gold pieces.<br />
<br />
<b>Image</b>: Aramir is quite tall, standing just over six feet, but with a lithe build that belies his strength of arms. His weapons and armor are kept in near-pristine condition, which along with his shoulder-length mane of golden-blonde hair and soft blue eyes marks him as a champion of the light, with a gaze that is resolute and firm yet fair.<br />
<br />
<b>Summary</b>: Aramir is at heart your typical knight in shining armor type, the heroic and noble champion of all that is good in the world. He's also not very worldly, and will probably be likely to take most people at their word unless he has cause to distrust them. From my own experiences with playing a Paladin, he'll be able to hit pretty hard a couple times of per day, and with his Oath of Devotion he can power up his sword to be able to inflict substantial damage to creatures that are otherwise resistant or immune to non-magical attacks. As for the source of Aramir's racial traits, I used the Aasimir write-up from pages 286 and 287 of the 5e Dungeon Master's Guide, so check with your GM to see if they will allow that race at their table.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Xevlanna Nightblossom, Half-Elf Warlock</b></u><br />
<b>Class/Level</b>: Warlock 3<br />
<b>Alignment</b>: Chaotic Good<br />
<b>Background</b>: Entertainer (Routines - Dancer/Tumbler, Storyteller)<br />
<i>Personality Trait</i> - Nobody stays angry at me or around me for long, since I can defuse any amount of tension.<br />
<i>Ideal</i> - The world is in need of new ideas and bold action.<br />
<i>Bond</i> - I want to be famous, whatever it takes.<br />
<i>Flaw</i> - I have trouble keeping my true feelings hidden; my sharp tongue lands me in trouble.<b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>Ability Scores</b><br />
STR 8 (-1), DEX 15 (+2), CON 14 (+2), INT 12 (+1), WIS 10 (+0), CHA 17 (+3)<br />
<br />
<b>Armor Class</b>: 13 (leather armor) <br />
<b>Melee Attack</b>: +1 (spear, 1d6-1 piercing, versatile)<br />
<b>Melee Attack</b> +5 (Shocking Grasp, 1d8 lightning)<br />
<b>Ranged Attack</b>: +4 (dagger, 1d4+2 slashing, light, range 20/60, thrown)<br />
<b>Ranged Attack</b>: +5 (Eldritch Blast, 1d10 force, range 120)<br />
<b>Hit Dice</b>: 3d8<br />
<b>Hit Points</b>: 24<br />
<b>Speed</b>: 30 feet<br />
<br />
<b>Class and Species Abilities</b><br />
<i>Darkvision</i> - see in dim light as bright light out to 60 feet, and in darkness as dim light.<br />
<i>Celestial Resistance</i> - resistance to necrotic and radiant damage.<br />
<i>Fey Ancestry</i> - advantage on saving throws against being charmed, cannot be magically put to sleep.<br />
<i>Skill Versatility</i> - proficient in two skills of your choice <br />
<i>Otherworldy Patron</i> - The Fiend (as per page 109 of the Player's Handbook)<br />
<i>Pact Boon</i> - Pact of the Tome (as per page 108 of the Player's Handbook) <br />
<br />
<b>Spellcasting</b> (Spell DC 13, Spell Attack +5)<br />
<i>Cantrips</i> - Eldritch Blast, Minor Illusion, Shocking Grasp*, Thaumaturgy*, Vicious Mockery*<i> </i><br />
<i>Spells (cast as 2nd level)</i> - Hellish Rebuke, Hex, Scorching Ray, Suggestion<br />
*from Pact Boon<br />
<br />
<b>Languages and Proficiencies</b><br />
<i>Saving Throws</i> - Wisdom and Charisma<br />
<i>Languages</i> - Abyssal, Common, Elvish<br />
<i>Skill Proficiencies</i> - Acrobatics (+5), Arcane (+4), Deception (+6), Investigation (+4), Performance (+6), Persuasion (+6)<br />
<i>Tool Proficiencies</i> - Disguise kit, flute<br />
<br />
<b>Gear</b>:
Spear, 3 daggers, leather armor, arcane focus, scholar's pack, flute, entertainer's outfit, belt pouch containing 15 good pieces, an old divination card bearing her likeness, a silver teardrop earring (favor of a past admirer).<br />
<br />
<b>Image</b>: Xevlanna's very presence draws attention, from her eye-catching apparel to her long tresses of curling raven-black hair decorated with colorful glass beads to her languid yet graceful movements to her smoke-grey eyes. Not much taller than most elves, her features retain a sense of elvish delicateness, and her lips are most often settled in a mirthful smile.<br />
<br />
<b>Summary</b>:Xevlanna is pretty much the ideological opposite of Aramir in many ways. Where he's a devout servant of the light and a champion of good, Xev is more self-centered and draws her power from a devil's bargain. She's also a talented manipulator of people, sweet-talking and deceiving as the situation warrants or her whim decides. She's also very much a blaster-caster and would do well to stay out of range of melee-focused opponents, though she's got a couple tricks to make enemies that do close with her regret it. Her Pact Boon certainly broadens her spell repertoire, giving her a few more options both in and out of combat.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-29448920336664673802017-10-19T16:00:00.000-04:002017-10-19T16:00:20.035-04:00Thoughts on FFG's Legend of the Five Rings BetaSo as many may have heard, Fantasy Flight Games has released a beta version of their spin of the Legend of the Five Rings RPG. If not, you can grab it <a href="https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/10/4/honor-and-adventure-await/" target="_blank">here</a> from FFG's own website or you can snag a copy from DriveThruRPG.<br />
<br />
So first off, I will admit to not being that impressed with the system. One thing that people have noted and railed against was that the game uses custom dice rather than the classic d10s that prior versions L5R used in the long-standing Roll and Keep system. Seeing as how FFG likely only bought the rights to L5R as a property and not the actual R&K mechanics from AEG, it's no surprise that they'd use a dice mechanic of their own making. In fact, many folks (myself included) suspected that FFG would use the Genesys dice system, as that had by and large been tested and validated by means of their Star Wars RPG, with the Genesys dice being much the same but using slightly different symbols. Instead, FFG went with creating an entirely new set of custom dice, this one using just d6s and d12s. At least with Genesys, odds are good that you'll be able to use the dice there for different settings, and for those of us that already have a bunch of Star Wars dice we can go ahead and use those (something I will probably do as I'm already very familiar with reading those symbols to get the results of a roll).<br />
<br />
My own take on the current state of the L5R Beta is simply that there seems to be a lot of added complexity for no reason other than to add complexity. A prime example is formal iaijutsu dueling, which in the previous L5R games by AEG were resolved with three rolls (Assessment, Focus, Strike) and unless the battle was to the death, once those were resolved the matter was settled. Under FFG's system, dueling feels like it's more fitting for a western-based RPG replicating the back-and-forth of the famous duel between Inigo Montoya and Westley in The Princess Bride instead of the single stroke contest that the samurai-genre is well known for.<br />
<br />
Another issue is that starting characters don't feel very capable, as the dice mechanics are skewed to very heavily favor Skill ranks (which use the d12s) over Ring rating (which use the d6s) and characters don't get to start with that many ranks in skills. Easy solution here is to simply provide the PC with a small number of extra skill ranks, so hopefully FFG does something to address other than to say "if you want more capable PCs, simply start with more XP."<br />
<br />
Now, I did manage to play a short session of the L5R Beta this past Saturday, with a friend running a modified version of Heroes of Rokugan II: Champions of the Sapphire Throne module "Writ of Justice." Our party composition was rather interesting, consisting of a Kakita Duelist (myself), a Togashi Tattooed Monk (wandering kung fu fighter), a Kuni Purifier, and a Shosuro Infiltrator (cover was traveling performer). Certainly an interesting and diverse group, with my PC winding up as the closest thing to a proper "face character" simply due to what skills were available and the general lack of being able to select skills outside of the presets that the beta schools provide. While there were some hiccups in making the characters, they did turn out to be an interesting bunch, and were this 4th Edition L5R I'd certainly be looking forward to playing more sessions with this particular cast.<br />
<br />
So, after having played at least one session of this new version of L5R, I'm still not convinced that it's something I want to continue playing, especially as I'm not at all found of the "forced social outbursts" that the current Strife mechanics enforce, as we had much of the group breaking their composure and displaying dishonorable behavior more often than any of us would have liked. I know that it's probably far too late for any sort of changes to how the dice are laid out, but in all honestly the rate at which PCs gain Strife compared to how they lose it needs to be revised, or at the very least the rules on "outbursts" need to be addressed; I'm very much of the camp that simple dice rolls shouldn't dictate how a character reacts to a scene, and unless it's from a mystical source the most they should do is help inform the player how their character might react to given stimuli.<br />
<br />
But ultimately, I think I'm at a point in my gaming preferences that I'd rather stick with systems that don't overwhelm you with options on how to resolve in-game challenges, and that's something this version of L5R does, is overwhelm the player and GM so many different ways that skills can work. Again, it feels like complexity for the sake of complexity without really providing anything meaningful to the story being told. And to be frank, if that's the sort of thing I'm after, I'll go play 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons, since the high degree of complexity that it had with regards to combat works with what the game was meant to be.<br />
<br />
Given the limits of my own time, especially with working on my own Force and Destiny campaign and working on modules for next year's GamerNationCon (I may just scale back to two modules instead of the three I was initially leaning towards), I'm not really keen on learning the ins and outs of a complex set of RPG mechanics when they don't really provide a satisfying return on investment. I was willing to learn the complex rules of FFG's Star Wars RPG because it proved to be a very fun experience, a high return on the investment of time made. But for a setting that I don't see myself doing much gaming in to start with, FFG's Legends of the Five Rings just falls flat.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-42451645753728421372017-10-16T16:00:00.000-04:002017-10-16T16:00:23.755-04:00The Building of a Crane Duelist (Legend of the Five Rings Beta)So as I mentioned in last week's blog post, for the Legend of the Five Rings Beta one-shot that I played in, I created a Kakita Duelist for my PC, who generally wound up being the party face due to how skill selections played out.<br />
<br />
For this week, I'm going to go through the 20 Questions character creation process as outlined in the initial release of the beta rules. It's entirely possible that aspects of the process will have changed between when I made my character and now, but I'm going to stick with the original process.<br />
<br />
So let's get the ball rolling...<br />
<br />
<u><b>Part 1: Core Identity (Clan and Family)</b></u><br />
<i>#1) What clan does your character belong to?</i><br />
So looking through the options, I decide I want to go with elegant and refined, so the easy choice is Crane. Scorpion was also a possibility, but got dismissed for reasons you'll see later on in the process. Being a Crane, this gives my character a +1 to his Air Ring and 1 rank in Culture, and a starting Status of 35<br />
<i> </i><br />
<i>#2) What family does your character belong to?</i><br />
Since I already chose Crane as my clan, going through the options I decide to pick Kakita, as I've always enjoyed playing iaijutsu duelists in my prior L5R outings. This choice gives my unnamed PC a +1 bonus to his Fire Ring as well as 1 rank each in Aesthetics and Meditation, and sets initial Glory at 44.<br />
<i> </i><br />
<u><b>Part 2: Role and School</b></u><br />
<i>#3) What is your character's role and school?</i><br />
<u><b> </b></u>Since I'm leaning towards being a duelist, that means my character's role within the Crane is that of a bushi, which makes my school choice simply as Kakita Duelist is the only bushi school available to the Crane in the beta rules. This provides a +1 bonus to both the Earth and Air Rings, as well as 1 rank in five skills of my choice, for which I select Courtesy, Fitness, Martial Arts [Melee], Meditation, and Sentiment, and sets initial Honor at 50. This also gives me the Iaijutsu Kata and Weight of Duty Shuji (social technique), and the Way of the Crane school ability. For chuckles, I choose an attendant as part of my starting outfit (do need somebody to handle the menial tasks that are beneath a Crane samurai's concern after all)<br />
<br />
<i>#4) How does your character stand out within their school?</i><br />
Okay, so for this one I went more with a mechanical choice than a character-driven choice, deciding to take a +1 increase to my character's Water Ring so that he's fairly well-rounded in his Rings rather than being strongly focused in two and deficient in two.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Part 3: Honor and Glory</b></u><br />
<i>#5) What is your character's duty to their lord?</i><br />
Well, being that a large part of a Crane duelist's job is to serve as a bodyguard and stand-in for the Crane diplomats at court, I decide my character serves as yojimbo and companion to his lord's niece, a demure yet elegantly lovely young Crane courtier, with whom my character is enamored with though he knows that she's far too high of station for him to pursue. And so my character's Giri is described as "Yojimbo to my lord's niece, a demure yet elegantly lovely young Crane courtier."<br />
<br />
<i>#6) What does your character long for?</i><br />
Now I could just go the easy route and say that my character longs for the hand in marriage of his lord's niece, but instead I decide to go with another classic staple and decide that my character wants to become the most renowned duelist of the era. This sets my character's Ninjo as "Become the most renowned duelist of the era."<br />
<br />
<i>#7) What is your character's opinion of their clan?</i><br />
Before even looking at the options, it's easy to determine that my PC has a positive view of the Crane and how they do things (after all, it was Lady Doji that set the standards for proper civilized behavior in Rokugan, and who is he to disagree with a Kami?) While disagreeing would net me a free skill rank, agreeing with the Crane outlook instead gets me a +5 increase to Glory.<br />
<br />
<i>#8) What does your character think of Bushido?</i><br />
I picture this character being a firm believer in the tenets of Bushido, though probably not to the zealous extreme of the Lion Clan, which increases my character's starting Honor by 10.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Part 4: Strengths and Weaknesses</b></u><br />
<i>#9) What is your character's greatest accomplishment so far?</i><br />
I figure being an iaijutsu duelist, that my character is very quick to react to danger, and so select the Quick Reflexes as his Distinction, having used his speed to win several iaijutsu contests during his time as a student at the Kakita Academy.<br />
<br />
<i>#10) What holds your character back the most in life?</i><br />
This one gives a character an Adversity, for which I pick Sworn Enemy, with the idea that it's a young samurai of a different clan and higher status that is also enamored with the young Crane courtier that my character is charged with protecting. I'm not sure which clan yet, though Scorpion is a strong contender as is Lion (particularly if the enemy were of the Matsu family).<br />
<br />
<i>#11) What activity makes your character feel most at peace?</i><br />
This choice gives my character a Passion, and for this I pick Wordplay, so that rather than being stoic and stolid, my Crane bushi has a penchant for amusing phrasing of words and statements that can seem complimentary but frequently have added meaning to them. It's also an in character excuse for me to make puns and quips at the table, so added bonus!<br />
<br />
<i>#12) What concern, fear, or foible troubles your character the most?</i><br />
And lastly one's choice here gives the character an Anxiety, and this one proved tough. I initially leaned towards Irrepressible Flirtation, in no small part to convey his trouble with keeping his feelings towards his charge within the realm of propriety, or with Jealousy given his Ninjo, but I ultimately go with Painful Honesty, to reflect his commitment to Bushido, and that while he might make clever insinuations about a person, there's always going to be a grain of truth to them.<br />
<br />
<i>#13) Who has your character learned the most from during their life?</i><br />
For this one, I'm going to say that it was his sensei that my character learned the most from. And as I want my character to be a very capable duelist, I opt to take an extra rank of Martial Arts [Melee], bringing that skill up to two ranks, as well as the disadvantage of Whispers of Poverty, for which I decide is reflected in my character opting to dress in a somewhat subdued manner compared to the ostentatious style that many Crane prefer leading others to incorrectly conclude that he lacks the resources one would expect a member of his clan to have.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Part 5: Personality and Behavior</u></b><br />
<i>#14) What detail do others find most striking about your character?</i><br />
Well, apart from his more modest style of dress, I go with my character having the classic Kakita look of the lean bishonen, with a polite smile and striking eyes that have an almost predatory cant to them.<br />
<br />
<i>#15) How does your character react to stressful situations?</i><br />
Okay, this is a part of the game I'm not enthused with, as it plays into the Strife mechanic that I really dislike. Still, it's part of the process, so going with part of what's described directly above, and that his eyes taken on a much darker aspect and his expression hardens from that of cheerful bishie to the fierce warrior that he is, with his verbal remarks often becoming far harsher.<br />
<br />
<i>#16) What are your character's preexisting relationships with other clans, families, organizations, and traditions?</i><br />
For a character that I'm really only planning to play once, I'm not going to go into a lot of depth on this one, so I'm just going to say that my character leans towards the general Crane attitudes of the other Great Clans, as well as having the previously mentioned relationship with the young Crane courtier he's been charged with protecting. I also put a bit more thought into his Sworn Enemy, and decide to buck the trend and make it a Yoritomo courtier, who would be of lower status given the Mantis are a Minor Clan at this point in time, but said enemy is obviously more politically savvy, making for a contrast of brains vs. brawn.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Part 6: Ancestry and Family</b></u><br />
<i>#17) How would your character's parents describe them?</i><br />
Again, more of a RP-heavy question that isn't important for a one-shot character, so I'm just going to say that they're proud of his accomplishments thus far, but hold him to a high expectation given the Crane Clan's long legacy of expert duelists and gallant bushi.<br />
<br />
<i>#18) Who was your character named to honor?</i><br />
I'll go with a great-great grandfather as the person, and rolling on the Samurai Heritage table I get a result of 3 for "Wondrous Work" (netting my character +5 to his Glory), and a 6 for a free rank in Composition, which works nicely for his Wordplay advantage.<br />
<br />
<i>#19) What is your character's name?</i><br />
Finally we get to the "what's your character's name?" section, and
frankly I think this should be pushed up in the question order, probably to be under Part 1 and as question #3. After a fair bit of musing, I decide to grab a name from the Bushi character booklet that Katrina Ostrander made for her L5R 4e module at GamerNationCon 2017, and pick the name Takahiro.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Part 7: Death</b></u><br />
<i>#20) How should your character die?</i><br />
So putting aside the temptation to use Tyrion's answer from Game of Thrones, I figure a fitting end for one that lives by the sword is to die by the sword, perhaps perishing in a manner not unlike that of his school's founder, that being of wounds inflicted during an iaijutsu duel of great importance.<br />
<br />
Phew, okay now that I've worked my way through the 20 Questions process, here's what the final version of the character's stats look like.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Kakita Takahiro, Crane Duelist</b></u><br />
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<b>Clan/Family</b>: Crane/Kakita<br />
<b>School</b>: Kakita Duelist<br />
<b>Rings</b>: Air 3, Earth 2, Fire 2, Water 2, Void 1<br />
<b>Skills</b>: Aesthetics 1, Composition 1, Fitness 1, Martial Arts (Melee) 2, Meditation 2, Courtesy 1, Culture 1, Sentiment 1<br />
<b>Techniques</b>: Iaijutsu, Weight of Duty<br />
<b>School Ability</b>: Way of the Crane<br />
<b>Giri</b>: Yojimbo to his lord's niece, a demure yet elegantly lovely young Crane courtier.<br />
<b>Ninjo</b>: To become the most renowned duelist of the era.<br />
<b>Glory</b>: 54<br />
<b>Honor</b>: 60<br />
<b>Status</b>: 35<br />
<b>Resilience</b>:8<br />
<b>Focus</b>: 5<br />
<b>Composure</b>: 8<br />
<b>Vigilance</b>: 3<br />
<b>Starting Outfit</b>: Daisho, yari, traveling clothes, ceremonial clothes, traveling pack (blanket, bottle of sake, chopsticks, coin purse, daisho stand, pillow book, sweets [4 servings], spare kimono, week's reations, wide-brimmed straw hat), attendant, 10 koku<br />
<b>Distinction Advantage</b>: Quick Reflexes (Fire)<br />
<b>Passion Advantage</b>: Wordplay (Air)<br />
<b>Adversity Disadvantage</b>: Sworn Enemy (Earth), Whispers of Poverty (Water)<br />
<b>Anxiety Disadvantage</b>: Painful Honesty (Air)<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-85221165595798638032017-10-13T13:00:00.000-04:002017-10-13T13:00:30.145-04:00Once Upon a Harvest Moon (7th Sea 2e Adventure)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
So quite a while back, I found myself in need of a one-shot adventure for my online gaming group, something we could play while our scheduled GM was indisposed. Luckily, I had some advance notice of this, giving me time to consider options.<br />
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Given that it was close to Halloween, I wanted to something that had a horror theme to it, while also really wanting another shot at running 7th Sea 2e for my group, given the fun we'd had when I ran a one-shot. But also being a backer of the Kickstarter of the Shadows of the Demon Lord RPG, I also wanted to make use of one of the adventures that were provided as a backer reward. Which, seeing as how Eisen in second edition is a bit less of "war torn wasteland" and a bit more "dark uberwald crawling with monsters," it seemed like a pretty viable combination.<br />
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The SotDL module I wound up choosing to use and modify was "The Apple of Her Eye," a Novice-level adventure written by gaming industry legend Steve Kenson (seriously, is this man even capable of creating a product of sub-par quality?) which I felt would be of suitable challenge for a group of freshly-made 7th Sea Heroes. I obviously changed the name to prevent any of my would-be players from stumbling across the source adventure and thus spoiling the tale, but I also had to adapt it from a fairly crunchy "move then roll" system to a less crunchy "roll then move" one, which made some bits rather interesting, especially as there really wasn't much of anything in the way of actual guidelines in creating a 7th Sea adventure, just some general suggestions. Of course, this was meant as a one-shot, so I wasn't that worried about it, and instead was more concerned with my players having fun.<br />
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And they did. One of my usual players is a mother, and a core aspect of the adventure really hit home for her given it involved children and a not-so-pleasant fate for them (something that is probably the norm for Shadows of the Demon Lord, but then pretty much everyone in that setting is doomed to a not-so-pleasant fate). Another of my players, who is a big fan of the Witcher series loved it, saying that it felt very much like a sidequest he might have chanced upon in Witcher 3.<br />
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So yeah, mission successful. And certainly successful enough that I decided to run it as a scheduled event at GamerNationCon 2017, adding a few more pre-gens (five instead of the original three) and tweaking a few things to make the adventure flow a bit smoother and perhaps make it a bit more challenging. I will say this, having a Hero with access to Hexenwerk makes things generally easier for the party, and I am curious to see how the adventure turns out if none of the Heroes have Sorcery. For the most part, fun was had, though the mood towards the end was soured by one player that was more focused on ordering food on their phone, something that didn't really sit well with a couple of the players. Ah well, such is the peril inherent in running games at a convention, though I will probably institute a "no smartphone/tablet" policy unless it's being used as a dice roller or to reference rulebooks at any future games I run.<br />
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That all being said, here's the link to a seasonally appropriate 7th Sea 2nd edition adventure for the time of year:<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/3vnljl9o8pzfsz2/Once%20Upon%20a%20Harvest%20Moon.zip?dl=0" target="_blank">Once Upon a Harvest Moon</a></b></span><br />
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As was the case with "An Idol Venture," I'm including the five per-generated Heroes that I created for the adventure, with the character sheets being fairly simple. Still, each of the characters worked out well for the adventure, and folks had a lot of fun playing them. Also included is a reference sheet for the Major and Minor Unguents that the Hexenwerk Hero knows, so whichever player has that character doesn't have to reference the books to see what their Sorcery does.<br />
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If you're interested in Shadow of the Demon Lord (which is itself seasonally appropriate for this time of year), you can check out the main website at <a href="http://schwalbentertainment.com/shadow-of-the-demon-lord/" target="_blank">http://schwalbentertainment.com/shadow-of-the-demon-lord/</a>, as well as DriveThruRPG for PDFs of the books and numerous adventures, including "The Apple of Her Eye."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-88504956892047712282017-08-31T16:59:00.002-04:002017-08-31T16:59:33.690-04:00RPGaDay Question #31<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Question #31: What do you anticipate most for gaming in 2018?<br />
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First thing that immediately sprang to mind is GamerNation Con 2018, or what I choose to think of the "The Best Four Days of Actual Gaming."</div>
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While weather caused me to miss the inaugural GamerNation Con, I've been able to make it to all the subsequent cons, and Yoda willing I'll be making it to the 2018 edition as well. It's a small gaming-centric convention, and the small size really helps as you get a much better sense of camaraderie with the folks in attendance. Plus, the Guests of Honor have been pretty cool individuals, and I even got to help induct Rodney Thompson (he of Star Wars Saga Edition fame) into the Rebel Legion as an Honorary Member, as well as play in games run by Sam Stewart (just the tip) and Katrina Ostrander/Lee, which were both a lot of fun. I've got a couple of modules in mind to bring to run for next year, and am eager to see what other folks bring. I suspect there will be a lot of Genesys games using assorted homebrew settings, which while cool will take away some of the charm that GM Phil's "Edge of the Wasteland" Fallout conversion has. Though at least Phil can always claims "First!" in terms of his Fallout conversion being a "proof of concept" for FFG, which I'm sure is something that Phil will never get tired of reflecting upon.</div>
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Other things I'm looking forward to for 2018 is the resuming of Eric Brender's Mutants and Masterminds 3e Emerald City campaign. Even if it does wind up being the swan song of Spider-Man and the Stormbreakers, it's been a blast to of a campaign to play, with a pretty cool set of characters, though my favorite of the PCs is probably Mayfield, a Golden Age style Superman that never lost his Idaho country farmboy roots.</div>
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I don't know for certain if it's going to start up this year or not, but I am looking forward to the Kickstarter for 7th Sea: The East, the sister game line to 7th Sea 2nd edition. I've checked out the quickstart document for 7th Sea: The East, and on first brush it looks pretty neat, with a few system tweaks that I wouldn't mind seeing make it over to the main game. I've generally enjoyed the 7th Sea 2nd edition product line, even if I've not gotten to play it nearly as much as I would have liked.</div>
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I'd be remiss if I were to omit the previously mentioned Genesys RPG, Fantasy Flight Game's translation of the Star Wars narrative dice system into a setting-agnostic game. While I'd so love to see Mechamorphosis make a return as an official sourcebook for Genesys, I'm not holding my breath. Depending on time and interest, I might kitbash my own conversion of the Not!Transformers d20 game that FFG published back during the days of the d20 boom. I don't know how much actual usage I'll get out of Genesys as my regular gaming group is pretty happy with Star Wars, but we'll see.</div>
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Well, that about wraps up not only this post, but also RPGaDay 2017. I'm not sure that I'll do this again next year, but it was a fun experience. Now admittedly, I did cheat a little and take advantage of posting these to my blog to write a bunch of my answers in advance (usually no more than a few days), which worked out as there were some days where after coming home from work my brain felt like a lump of clay.</div>
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At any rate, I hope at least a few folks found my answers at the very least amusing if not interesting. Thanks for playing along, and see you on the flip side. Or maybe better yet, see you at GamerNation Con 2018!<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-89021289602090726752017-08-30T20:34:00.001-04:002017-08-30T20:34:26.909-04:00RPGaDay Question #30<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Wow, almost forgot to post this one.<br />
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Question #30: What is an RPG genre-mashup you would most like to see?<br />
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Honestly, most of the genre-mashups I'd like to see have already hit publication.<br />
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For instance, Horror+Western is covered by Deadlands, while Horror+Noir is covered by Deadlands: Noir, and Horror+Post-Apoc is addressed by Deadlands: Hell on Earth, so Pinnacle's got my back there.<br />
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Lovecraft-themed supernatural horror and anime is addressed by the sadly underrated CthulhuTech.<br />
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Then there's just the simple fact that Star Wars, as the embodiment of the space opera genre, is itself a mashup of genres that it covers a lot of bases. Heroic knights with laser swords and quasi-psychic powers squaring off against faceless minions of a cruel tyrant with quick-drawing smartass scoundrels, sassy nobles that can handle themselves in a fight, and non-human mascots at their side goes a long ways.<br />
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7th Sea might have a Renaissance-era Pirates and Swashbucklers feel to it, but it can easily be adapted to cover themes of horror and/or exploration, especially in 2nd edition where the Syrenth are far more of an unknown and the mystical elements of the world have much more of a sinister cant to them.<br />
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Welp, one final day to go in RPGaDay for 2017. I have to say this has been interesting, and certainly gave this ol' blog of mine a lot more activity in the span of a month than it usually sees over the course of a year. But as for what the future holds? Well, guess we'll just have to see, won't we?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-57539095496159468902017-08-29T16:00:00.000-04:002017-08-29T16:00:15.968-04:00RPGaDay Question #29<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Question #29: What has been the best-run RPG Kickstarter you have backed?<br />
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Far and away that has been the FATE Core Kickstarter by Evil Hat Productions. Quite honestly, Fred Hicks could teach a class on how to properly run a professional Kickstarter campaign. Not only is he transparent about where things are, he's been savvy enough to avoid over-extending Evil Hat's ability to fulfill the various goals.<br />
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A close runner-up are the various Maps of Mastery campaigns run by cartographer Christopher West. While I may not use maps quite as much as I used to these days, I still back every single one of his Kickstarters, and he's got the process more or less down to a science. He doesn't go crazy with stretch goals, though a part of that may be due the fairly short length of some of his more recent Kickstarters, as he's only got so many days to reach the intended goal. And since he's created the maps ahead of time, there's generally not a huge delay on getting the maps either, which is always a plus.<br />
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While it's had some hiccups and delays, the Kickstarter run by John Wick for the 7th Sea 2nd edition was handled pretty well. I figured from the get-go that their proposed production schedule was very aggressive and required that nothing go wrong to cause delays, something that veteran gamers know almost never happens as something hiccup or another occurs that causes delays and products to be rescheduled. Still, they've been very good about producing the supplements in roughly the order proposed, with the only switch-up being they released Heroes & Villains prior to Pirate Nations.<br />
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Now to be fair, I don't tend to back a lot of Kickstarters, mostly as I've become adverse to pledging money for RPGs that I may very well never get to play. Thus far, I've only gotten burned twice, one was due to the backer suffering some catastrophic real life issues regarding his mental health that were beyond his control, and I don't begrudge the man for not being able to follow through given that by the time he was able to resume working on it, all interest on both the part of him and the backers had passed. Which is a shame, as it looked like it had a lot of potential.<br />
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The other "burn" thus far has been the Mekton Zero Kickstarter by R. Talsorian. Honestly, I really should have known better for a company that's become increasingly infamous for not being able to follow through on a timely manner. There's still periodic updates, but the last few that I've seen have been more about their woes with the minis line, which I frankly don't really care about as I'm more keen on the RPG. Hopefully they'll get things sorted out and have an actual rulebook put together, but I've kind of given up on having it anytime in the near future. Which is a shame as the few times I was able to play Mekton Zeta, it was quite fun even if the rules could be horribly abused by savvy players that knew what they were doing.<br />
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Only two more days in this marathon of questions, so check up here tomorrow for what won't quite be my final answer.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8836998301167007294.post-54501094955791719542017-08-28T16:00:00.000-04:002017-08-28T16:00:24.694-04:00RPGaDay Question #28<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Question #28: What film/series is the biggest source of quotes in your group?<br />
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To start with, Monty Python and the Holy Grail isn't very commonly referenced in our Skype group, which is currently the most enduring gaming group I've had over the past several years. I think the main reason for that is enough of us have been gaming long enough that quotes from said movie are more annoying than amusing at this point.<br />
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Frankly, there are times it feels like I'm the one that makes the most movie quotes, and I tend to draw on a number of different cinematic sources, though I do have a few that consistently draw from.<br />
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Of course, it's hard to go wrong with The Princess Bride, as just so much of that movie is quotable in and of itself, even more so if playing a swashbuckling-themed game such as 7th Sea. During the running of Erebus Cross with a short-lived group, my Castillian Duelist dropped many a line from the film, including switching up the "You seem a decent fellow, I hate to kill you / You seem a decent fellow, I hate to die" exchange, with Estevan saying the second part when about to face off with an honorable Vodacce swordsman in the employ of an unscrupulous merchant. Playing a character that was a romantic idealist and a bit of smartass (that last part covers an unsurprisingly large number of my characters over the years) gave me plenty of chances to quote either Inigo or Westley at various points of the adventure.<br />
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I suppose that if I ever wind up running a pirate-themed 7th Sea game, then I can expect the various Pirates of the Caribbean flicks to be mined for quotes. But it's not happened yet.<br />
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I also favor the sayings of Doctor Peter Venkman, another smartass character (sensing a theme yet?), especially the "nice thinking Ray" when a fellow PC does something foolish or unwise. And there's always Egon's "Sorry Venkman, I'm terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought" for situations that get really hairy and other PCs are turning to my character for suggestions on what to do.<br />
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Star Wars comes up a fair bit, given one of our more recurring RPGs is Star Wars, especially the wit and witticisms of Obi-Wan Kenobi as well as the nigh-obligatory "I've got a bad feeling about this!" Han Solo lines also get some love, but not nearly as much.<br />
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But frankly, I think our group tends to draw more from pop culture, with various memes being dropped, such as "Morrigan Approves +10" when my Human Paladin in Eric's D&D 5e Curse of Strahd campaign pretty much entered into a pact with the essence of a corrupted mad archangel housed in an amulet. Or one of our players, Rick, dropping a YouTube link to an audio clip of "dark side points gained' from KOTORII whenever a PC does something dark/evil in the game. It also depends on what movie has come out recently that at least a few of us have seen, especially the Marvel movies if we're in the midst of playing Mutants and Masterminds.<br />
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I think for us it also depends on the setting and characters, as we tend to skew more heavily towards playing our roles and not making quite so many fourth-wall breaking comments like quoting media that don't exist in the setting. Of course, I'm also the guy that played a character that was Harry Dresden Lite in a Dresden Files RPG that spouted pop culture references like they were going out of style, much the mixed enjoyment and chagrin of the players and their characters; I believe there were a few times the padre thought my far younger White Council wizard's brain had been utterly fried given some of the pop-culture nonsense I was spouting off.<br />
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That's all for today, so check back tomorrow for another answer in the RPGaDay question series. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0