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Remnants is a cool and fun RPG about using your giant robot in the broken radioactive wasteland to punch slavers in the face and look cool doing it. To be clearer, though, and far less cheeky: Remnants is a roleplaying game created by Outrider Studios and Steve Bergeron in 2012. Utilizing Outrider's Rapidfire Rules, the game focuses on Ishinari: pilots of ancient battle mecha from a lost civilization. But that doesn't exactly tell the whole story. Remnants takes place in the Broken Lands, a small subset of a planet, shattered and set into ruin by some kind of apocalyptic event that took place in the distant past. This event left the land shattered and blasted, completely inhospitable in some regions, while others support some life. The exact specifics of the event are unknown and left intentionally vague... but I think I can let the book, in its own words, tell you about the setting. Remnants Sez posted:Remnants is set in the aptly named Broken Lands. Th Lands are the scarred remains of a once beautiful and verdant place. Most of the mountains are volcanic, the forests are filed with dead and petrifid trees, the water is often poison, and wastelands are pockmarked with the bones of dead cities and the massive craters of ancient doomsday weapons. One important thing to note about the Ishin, the mecha used by Ishinari (Also called Player Characters or Murderhobos) is their size and adaptability. Most Ishin range from 10 to 20 feet tall and capable of self repair, but more importantly than that is their capacity for self improvement. An Ishin bonded to a pilot will adapt over time to the pilot's personality, fighting style, and needs by changing its form. More than that, Ishin work like Saiyans from Dragonball Z: damaging one to the point where it shuts down and then not finishing it off by killing the pilot causes it to come back in 8 or so hours, fully repaired and even harder to kill than last time.  Okay, with that out of the way, you might ask: How do you do a Let's Play of a tabletop game? The answer is that I'm running Remnants for a group of four players, and I'll be posting all about the Campaign right here, using the opportunity to talk about the game and its systems. I'll also take the opportunity to talk about the setting and flesh things out as the players travel from place to place, or as their backstory comes up and involves various locations.
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Jul 27, 2019 03:06
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With the introduction out of the way, it's time to introduce the player characters- for now, I'll leave the players Anonymous for various reasons. The four Ishinari who find themselves coming together in this game are a diverse lot, though not so diverse as to be alien to one another. Each has their own unique origin, and bring their own set of skills to the table. They are, in no particularly order: Marcelle  A caravaner who's lost her caravan a few decades back in a series of events that saw her have a religious experience, ultimately leading her to find an Ishin in a sealed cave. The oldest of the pilots at 67 years old, she looks not a day over 40 due to the immortality of the people of the Broken Lands, but as a result she suffers from the dreaded Age Decay, which means she runs the risk of rapidly dying of starvation if she ever runs out of food. Compared to the other pilots, she has much more Easy Living at start. Remnants Sez on Easy Living posted:In Remnants, money is a real problem. While the city-states and some of the clans/tribes have local currency, such coins are worthless beyond the borders of the nation in which theyre issued. Most people just barter, and actual wealth is difficult to judge. Food, animals, salt, and slaves are often used for smaller trades and things like land, rarities, and minor Remnants (not priceless Battle Remnants) are used for larger trades. For ease of play, Remnants uses a money system based on the concept of Easy Living, which ignores the complex maze known as bartering. Shirin  is a native of the Vast, a wide open and seemingly endless expanse of grasslands and steppe that lies to the East of the Broken Lands proper, across the Shieldstone Mountains; the people of the Vast are skilled riders and culturally pastoralist nomads who regularly engage in raids of the settled peoples of the Broken Lands. Shirin was captured from her tribe at a young age and taken as a servant by another band in preparations for a major raid through the mountains- a raid that went poorly for those who planned it. This ambush, carried out by a 'Blade' of Ishinari, was Shirin's salvation. She was adopted as an apprentice by one of Ishinari, and when he was killed in battle, she inherited his Ishin for herself. Siiv  in comparison, is the youngest member of the group, at 19; she's also the shortest and the most naieve. Best described as tribal, the Marshlanders are relatively isolated from the rest of the Broken Lands by their home, a marshy and swampy region that is hard to navigate, even and especially for Ishin.; while almost every insect and animal is poisonous to some extent. They make their living, though, living in small villages built on stilts and surviving through cautiousness and innovation. Some of the villages deeper into the Marsh, however, are so isolate that they've lost things like writing and metalworking. One such village, boring and small, is where Siiv comes from. The youngest of various siblings, she wandered away from home out of boredom and a desire to see the world... and stumbled across an Ishin half buried in the swamp muck. Climbing in, she bolted out of the marshlands as fast as she could and hasn't looked back since. Tadeu  is a native of Amantin, the largest city in the Broken Lands, and the most wretched hive of scum and villainy one could ever hope to find within it. Built on top and out of an old pre-apocalypse military facility, Amantin is both a major trade hub and the hub of the slave trade. It has the richest people in the Broken Lands living in its spire, and the single largest organized group of Ishinari in its Jade Guard. It is also a place of destitution, with vast slave and peasant quarters stretching out from its walls, as well as of despair. Tadeu, with his good heart and a mind of science, wanted to change all of that, to free the slaves. His family, one of the richest in Amantin, decided to cut its losses and tried to have Tadeu killed, the poor man escaping into the wastes, heavily injured. He was saved from expiration by providence's hand, stumbling upon an Ishinari that saved him from death. his wounds and injuries left him weak, and his funds are terrible, but he's alive, and is trying to get as far away from Amantin as possible. --- Suffice to say, that is quite the colorful cast of characters, but what makes them tick? Well, the mechanical bits of Character Creation in the Rapidfire System are pretty simple. Step 1) Assign Stats. There are three Stats used by characters in the Rapidfire System: Body, Mind, and Spirit. These start at 0, and a player has a single point to increase one of them to +1. Stats can be lowered to a maximum of -2 in total to gain more stat points. You might think this would make some characters useless in their Ishin, but we'll get to that. Let's look at our party: Marcelle, being older and generally wiser and more spiritual than others, focused on her Spirit: -1 Body, 0 Mind, 2 Spirit; meanwhile, Shirin, who is more physical but less experienced, did something similar with 2 Body, 0 Mind, -1 Spirit. Then we get to Siiv and Tadeu. Siiv is physically fit, active, and agile from her years growing up in the Marshlands, but is very book dumb to be polite; thus she has 2 body, -1 Mind, 0 Spirit. Tadeu, on the other hand, is a Now, remember how I said "Don't worry about Tadeu being useless in their Ishin?" There's a fourth Stat used for that, called Situational Awareness. SA is the stat used for combat rolls when piloting an Ishin. SA is the sum up a character's Body, Mind, and Spirit. You might notice that, no matter what statline these characters have, they all start with a Situational Awareness of 1. This is on purpose, and helps, I think, solve the 'God Stat' problem common in games like Mekton and Silcore. But carrying on, there's Step 2) Buy Skills. Skills are what a character can do, and range in level from 0(Unskilled) to 6 (Grand Master). Characters start with 10 points to spend on Skills, with the ability to spend a maximum of 2 points on them. But wait, there's more: Characters receive a bonus skill based on where they're from. Now let's go back to our party again: Marcelle, being a Caravaner, has a choice between the Bureaucracy and Language skill, and chose the Bureaucracy skill before buying the rest of her skills. This gives her a skill layout of: Archery 1, Dodge 1, Awareness 1, Bureaucracy 2, Command 2, Etiquette 2, and Larceny 2 Essentially, while she's somewhat competent in fighting outside of her Ishin, Marcelle has neatly slotted herself in as the Blade's defacto leader, being the person capable of handling the paperwork and negotiating with employers while also keeping a good handle on giving orders and doing less than legal things Shirin is from the Vast, and only has a single option for her bonus skill: Ride, because she learned to ride before she could walk. Her skill Layout looks like: Archery 1, Athletics 1, Awareness 2, Dodge 1, Ride 2, Survival 2, Melee 2 Shirin has the skill set of a pastoral nomad, used to riding for long stretches of time, shooting from tagonback and using long lances to spear the enemy. Not much use in social situations, but she has the others to make up for it Siiv, then, would be able to choose from the options for a Marshlander: Archery or Medicine, and her lack of learning led to her choosing Archery. Her skills, then: Archery 1, Dodge 2, Melee 2, Stealth 1, Awareness 2, Survival 2, Larceny 1 Siiv is passable at Archery, stealth, and pickpocketing- she's already good at avoiding blows, handing out blows with her weapon of choice, surviving in the wilds, and being aware of her surroundings. Again, not much social use, but not useless in the Broken Lands. Tadeu got to choose, as a native of a City State, Larceny or Etiquette, and chose Etiquette. His skillset is wildly different form the rest of the party: Awareness 2, Etiquette 1, History 2 (With a Knack, which allows him to roll the d6 twice and pick the better result), Language 2 (With specializations in Amantin, Trade, and the Ancient Tongue), Lore 2 (focused on the Ishi and Ishin), And Sciences 2 (Focused on Engineering and alchemy) Essentially, Tadeu is a big science nerd, who can't hold up in a fight, and is only passable in social situations... but he can speak a ton of different languages, and has knowledge on the ancients and various bits of information. He is, for better or worse, the party's Daniel Jackson. Then comes Step 3) The Remnant Skills. These skills are used to actually fight in an Ishin, or Battle Remnant, and thus are fairly important. There are three of them: Assault (Close Combat), Strike (Ranged Combat), and Motion (moving the Ishin and avoiding attacks). Each Remnant Skill starts at 1, and the characters have a single point to increase one up to 2. Marcelle went with Assault 1, Strike 2, and Motion 1. Clearly, she's a ranged fighter. Shirin went with Assault 2, Strike 1, and Motion 1. Again, clear here, she's focused on melee combat Siiv also went for the same set up as Shirin, another melee fighter Tadeu went different, going Assault 1, Strike 1, and Motion 2. His focus is clearly on running away and not being hit. Step 4) Secondary Stats. Each character has their own set of Secondary Stats, Which are modified by their Stats and Skills: Defense (3 + Body + Dodge Skill), Resist (Spirit + Armor), and Health (3 + Body + Spirit). Defense is used to avoid getting hit, Resist reduces the damage of attacks, and Health is a pool of health. Characters die when they run out of health. Marcelle has Defense 4, Resist 4, and Health 4. Shirin has Defense 6, 2 Resist, and 4 Health Siiv has 7 Defense, 2 Resist, and 5 Health Tadeu has 1 Defense, 1 Resist, and 2 Health. Yes, he truly is the party's Daniel Jackson. Step 5 of character creation involves giving characters Advantages and Disadvantages. Advantages are good things for a character, Disadvantages are bad things; Characters all have 1 Major Advantage and 1 Major Disadvantage, and can take up to 3 Minor Advantages by taking up to the same number of Minor Disadvantages. Marcelle has the Soothing Presence Major Advantage, helping her calm down people around her; this is balanced by the Age Decay Major Advantage. She has the Minor Advantages of Fortune, representing her additional saved up Easy Living, and the minor disadvantage Infamy, because she's a creepy cult lady Shirin only has a Major Advantage, Good Luck, while having the Major Disadvantage of Infamy for being a Vaster, who are most known in the Broken Lands for showing up and raiding every few years. Siiv has the Major Advantage of Low Friends, representing her contacts in the criminal underworld made for various reasons; while balancing it with the major Disadvantage of being Broke, starting with essentially half the the starting amount of resources of normal. Her minor Advantage and Disadvantage are her luck and her being illiterate, respectively. Tadeu has the Major Advantage of being really good looking, but the minor disadvantage of being also broke like Siiv. His Minor Advantages are him being a CLAMP Bishounen and having some friends back in Amantin's high circles; his Minor Disadvantages are being infamous for betraying Amantin's rich families, and being hunted by Amantin's slave traders for speaking out against him. Finally there's some gear but that isn't important. What is important, next, is building the party's Ishin! Now, Ishin all start as a blank slate of sorts, all with the same stats. Armour: 5 (Damage Resistance 1) Armor Reduces damage done to the Ishin. Damage Resistance pushes back the Ishin's Damage track, turning a -1 Penalty into a 0 and a -2 Penalty into a -1. Speed: 3 Speed is how fast the Ishin Moves. Its used for Defense and also moving. Structure: 5 (Standard Structure Track: 0 0 -1 -1 -2) Structure is the health of the Ishin. As it gets lower, the Ishin gains penalties to its rolls until it is render nonfunctional. Assault Damage: Lead +4 Assault is the damage the Ishin does in Melee. Lead is the difference between the target of a roll, and the result on the dice- rolling a 6 when the target was 5 would give you a Lead of 1. Strike Damage: Lead +2 Strike is the amount of ranged damage the Ishin does. Inspiring: 1 Inspiring is how inspiring the Ishin is to allies. Terrifying: 1 Terrifying is how frightful the Ishin is to enemies. Now, the first thing pilots can do to customize their Ishin is to do one or both of the available tradeoffs: Trading a point of Armor for Speed or Vice Versa, or trading a point of Assault Damage for Strike Damage. Both of these tradeoffs can only be done once at Ishin creation, however. Reducing Armor to 4 removes the Ishin's Damage Resistance, turning it's Structure Track into ( 0 -1 -1 -2 -2 ), while increasing Armor to six adds Damage resistance, resulting in (0 0 0 -1 -1 ) Ishin have a number of traits, starting with the Basic things that every Ishin can do, and then the various optional Traits that can be earned. I won't list all the Traits here now, just the Basic ones, and then what the players chose. Environmental protection the Ishin protects against extreme heat and cold, and can even function under water (though it will sink to the bottom and run out of air after an hour or so). Characters in an Ishin are even protected from low-intensity fie, lightning strikes, and Wasteland Sickness. Armored Cockpit - Th pilots compartment is uncomfortable and claustrophobic, but incredibly tough. Unless a Remnant is Wrecked or destroyed outright, direct attacks against the pilot of a Remnant are impossible while he is sealed in his armor. Link every Ishin is linked to its user and will not function for anyone else. Basic Senses - The Ishin has human-like vision/hearing and can project a voice through a small mouth/loudspeaker. It will even go so far as to provide the pilot with such senses if he is blind, deaf or mute. Com - Battle Remnants can talk to each other on an open radio-style net. It has a range of about 10 km, but its open, meaning everyone can hear everyone. If the pilot wants to mute the taunts of an enemy, he has to cut of everyone trying to communicate with him. Finally, Remnants start with a Specialization. These are what the Remnant is especially good at, and I won't list them- again, I'll just say what each player has on their Ishin. Marcelle built a dedicated Sniper, made to stay at range and pelt enemies while soaking up incoming fire. Armour: 6 (Damage Resistance 2) Speed: 2 Structure: 5 (Standard Structure Track: 0 0 0 -1) Assault Damage: Lead +3 Strike Damage: Lead +3 Inspiring: 1 Terrifying: 1 Sniper Specialization: Maximum range for Strikes is Strike Skill x 150 Meters, Burst Strike: Can charge for a round to make a strike attack that hits all targets within the user's Strike Skill in meters. Shirin's Ishin is faster and focused on melee combat, relying on agility to avoid further damage. Armour: 4 (Damage Resistance 0) Speed: 4 Structure: 5 (Standard Structure Track: 0 -1 -1 -2 -2) Assault Damage: Lead +5 Strike Damage: Lead +1 Inspiring: 1 Terrifying: 1 Quick Reactions Specialization: +1 Bonus to Awareness and Initiative Rolls All Around Sight: Ishin can see in all directions, +2 Awareness bonus vs Stealth Siiv's model is slower than Shirin's, but is made more for charging directly into the middle of combat and engaging in direct melee combat. Armour: 5 (Damage Resistance 1) Speed: 3 Structure: 5 (Standard Structure Track: 0 0 -1 -1 -2) Assault Damage: Lead +5 Strike Damage: Lead +1 Inspiring: 1 Terrifying: 1 Thick of the Fight Specialization: Ignores the first attacker when ganged up on by multiple enemies. Breaching Strike: By spending a round Focusing, the Ishin can make a Strike attack that reduces enemy armor by 1 rather than do damage. Tadeu's Ishin is balanced and more of a jack of all trades type compared to the others'. Armour: 4 (Damage Resistance 0) Speed: 4 Structure: 5 (Standard Structure Track: 0 -1 -1 -2 -2) Assault Damage: Lead +3 Strike Damage: Lead +3 Inspiring: 1 Terrifying: 1 Quick Reactions Specialization: +1 Bonus to Awareness and Initiative Rolls Secure Com: Sets up a secure com network for allied remnants within 20km. With that, we have our cast of four Ishinari and their Ishin. Next Time, we talk about Sessions 0.5 and 1.
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Jul 27, 2019 03:18
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I'm a bit disappointed that I have not heard of this before. Interested to see how it plays.
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Aug 1, 2019 07:30
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why does one of the pictures look like it was taken from a porn site and then cropped to make it work safe
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Aug 10, 2019 18:52
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I'm gonna guess player choice and that you might be on to something.
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Aug 11, 2019 07:40
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