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KillerQueen posted:
Glad to hear it! (And thanks again to the thread for helping me whip it into shape.) Since last I posted I've been running a campaign set in the midst of an industrial revolution and a WWI-scale conflict. It was going to be a noir-ish game of intrigue and mystery but quickly and naturally became something else. The--I believe--third or fourth session was when it really came together and amazing stuff happened. It's a bit of a long story, though--should I post it in the Notable Experiences thread instead?
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Mar 25, 2013 10:19
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Yay, playtesting! Anyhow--as I was saying, I've been running a game set in a world going through 1) an industrial revolution and 2) a WWI-scale conflict, the front of which could stand to be further from the PCs' current residence, the City of Progress. In theory this was going to be a game of intrigue and espionage as the characters, among the last able-bodied combatants and non-utility magic-users in the city, rooted out corruption and fought crime that the skeletonized police department and trigger-happy law automatons (lawtomatons?) couldn't or would only exacerbate. Central to this particular story are: Thadeus the paladin. Imagine a cross between a Megacity One Judge and a noir-style detective. He retired in disgrace when his fellow paladins in the order of St. Ebeneezer (taken from an idea in grognards.txt) framed him for assorted nastiness after he tried to expose some political corruption. He may be disgraced and disliked by the law, but he's a big hit among the common people and never shy about helping the helpless... or requesting heavy weapons at a sympathetic St. Ebeneezer temple. His player, admittedly, mostly just located the rule that would let him shoot stuff and neglected the rest of his abilities for a few sessions. When I asked him if he wanted to go on a Quest I had to link him the Paladin playbook and point out exactly how. (Something similar happened in a FATE game when he flubbed a Guns roll and I pointed out he could spend Fate points to bump up his roll.) Oksana the human wizard. Her style is to build up fancy magi-tech devices through which to cast spells--a flare gun for magic missiles, bandoliers of healing potions for cure light wounds, that sort of thing. She's a comparatively recent widow, and a lot of her character stems from her mixed feelings about her husband (missing him dearly, resenting him for leaving her stranded in the City of Progress). She also has quite long-reaching designs for magic and invention and likes to think big when it comes to the Ritual move. Also part of the group: Sevallyn the elven fighter. He's got a literally bloodthirsty axe and his player rolls consistently high damage with it. Most monsters wind up pulped or flung around in one or two solid whacks. Oberon the halfling druid. He's a halfling with a lion inside him! And a stalk of long grass growing out of his head, because that's his tell and it's cute, alright? This merry band had just fought off a hideous monster with hallucination-inducing toxic waste for blood. It had been mysteriously summoned into a tank of waste water dumped into one of the city's many canals, which had it not been for the quick intervention of Oksana (ritually cleansing the toxic waste), Oberon (getting the 411 from Grandfather Catfish, an ancient, wise SUV-sized catfish who'd been poisoned by the beastie), and Sevallyn (for knocking the beast on its rear end and knocking out half its HP in one strike) things could've turned bad. They poked around the city and the sight of the summoning and sussed out the likely cause and who could help--in this case it turned out to be a young magician named Ivan, and his good pal Sledge the huge woman with a sledgehammer who likes to sledge things. They helped him and her put the boot to a bunch of Tindalos hounds (which used Blink Dog stats) they'd accidentally summoned while helping teach aspiring magicians how to summon harmless spirits and unseen servants. Ivan speculated that someone had attuned the city to the home dimension of these hideous beasties, and so even a spell as minor as Unseen Servant may wind up bringing more into the world. Keep that in mind for later. Ivan's got a good idea who's behind all this, so one of his pals volunteers to ferry the crew over to them ASAP since they're on the other side of town. Naturally this prompts the paladin to drop in at a sympathetic temple of St. Ebeneezer and ask for heavy ordinance. He winds up with a demon-purging knife, the other weapons they had on-hand being drafted into the war effort. Thad and the mother superior have a discussion on the topic of doing the right thing and what have you while the others get some demon-slaying charms to strap their weapons (hands in Oberon's case, around his axehead in Sev's, and around casting implements in Oksana's). Then they double-time it to the suspect! Said suspect is on horseback and the driver, in his infinite wisdom, decides to run her down. She leaps clear of the horse before it's splattered across the truck and gets to running. I start to type a description of Ivan screaming at the driver for nearly running down his (that is, Ivan's) sister when one of the players makes their first move. Specifically, Thadeus pulls his revolver and shoots her. I take a moment to ask if that's what he wants to do. I made absolutely sure he knew his options--he could describe the attack as going for the kneecaps or just over her head, or even for something that could get in her way. Nope--he, the paladin, plans on shooting an unarmed suspect whose horse just got run over. I say okay, he rolls well, and kills her stone dead. Let's say he didn't take this too well--apparently he thought she could take it, since nothing else had died in a single hit. I pointed out they'd only fought monsters so far, not fleeing unarmed suspects. Ivan sort of lets it loose that Thad just killed his sister, right before her dead-man's-switch summoning spell calls up a flock of acid-dripping mutant birds of prey. The screwup is briefly let go as they slay the beasts before the birds become some manner of infestation or epidemic. The last action in battle is Oksana loosing a magic missile and rolling a 7-9. The hour is drawing nigh for the session's time, so the player picks "Draw unwanted attention," figuring that since battle is over and there's only a few minutes left they'll be in the clear. At which point I have an idea. See, the original idea was that she'd have run into the crowd, and then summoned up monsters and threw around mage-killer grenades--explosives triggered by the casting of spells or other supernatural things. Which would include 3/4ths of the team's abilities (spellcasting, declarations of exterminatus, shapeshiftin') and the use of the anti-demon charms for the one not packing magic. Since she'd been gunned down in the street, her coat pockets were full of anti-magic explosives... Thadeus's player asks if it's possible to bring Ivan's sister back to life, if only so she could see a fair trial. I say maybe, so you better get her to the temple ASAP before it's too late. Thadeus hefts her body and heads back to the truck, where everyone else has already piled back in. Once the body is within a yard or so of Oksana, a cacophony of loud beeping sounds start sounding from the suspect's pockets. Two 7-9 Spout Lores ensue. Sevallyn remembers having faced men armed with anti-magician grenades; Oksana remembers that imperfect spellcasting can leave lingering auras of magic around the caster. Putting two and two together Oksana casts Unseen Servant and orders it to pull off the suspect's vest and leap into the nearby canal with it. It's a 10+ roll, so when she accidentally summons a hideous winged abomination from another dimension, it does obey to the best of its ability. It clamps its hideous fangs into Ivan's sister's body and flies off, far enough that when the grenades go off only it and the sister's body are completely destroyed by a dozen or so exploding grenades. This, naturally, takes resurrection off the table, option-wise. Thadeus just stares on in slack-jawed shock, the strength leaves Ivan's legs and he collapses into Sledge's arms, and Oksana just steps off the truck and starts walking home in stunned silence. Session ends! This essentially rewrote the campaign to be about Oksana and Thadeus atoning for their hideous mistakes and trying to get to the heart of what made Ivan's sister (her name was Elisa) do the things she did. It also led into another dimension and an apocalypse cult that dwelt there. There's about... three or four more sessions to go, depending on what the players plan on doing. I'm having a hell of a time, as are my players, if'n you couldn't tell.
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Mar 25, 2013 20:01
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If you wanted multiclassing to be easier, you could have every class have Multiclass Dabbler and Multiclass Initiate as moves in addition to the moves they already have--so fighters and bards have four multiclassing moves, druids can multiclass within ranger in addition to regular multiclassing, and classes that don't otherwise multiclass have a bit of leeway. I wouldn't want free or mostly-free multiclassing, though. You could get some ridiculous The Secret Fire style "I am every character class" poo poo going, like (just putting it out there) a level 3 fighter that casts like a wizard and cleric of level 2, as well as shapechanging like a druid and declaring exterminatus like a paladin, neither of which are level-dependent. Even if it's not necessarily overpowered (only so many bonuses to go around), it'd have a shitton of options.
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Mar 25, 2013 22:38
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I've been pondering straight-up writing a DW version of the Psionics Handbook. Well, not literally, but just doin' a big ol' book about psychic powers and all the things tied into 'em. The Psion would be in, of course, all playtested and everything, and I've been thinking of doing the Psychic Warrior too, and some other psychic classes if I could ponder a sufficiently interesting hook and theme for them. Psychic combat, beasts of the id, potent mental artifacts, all that good stuff. You know, this is sounding more and more like a good idea. I think I just got myself a little project to do.
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Mar 26, 2013 15:27
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While I've mainly been enjoying the hell out of Fiasco lately, I've also been prodding at that psionics-handbook-for-DW idea. Here's what I have so far of the Psychic Warrior. I'm thinking it's a front-line fighter like the, well, Fighter, and Paladin, thus the 10+Con HP and d10 damage die. The current idea for Sharpened Thoughts is to grant PWs good melee weapon coverage, so it's easier for them to commit to an unusual weapon for style purposes, easier to use unarmed strikes, or able to Jackie Chan trough myriad situational weapons. Enlightened Strike and Perfection in Form are the meat and potatoes of the psychic-powers thing, the flavor I'm going for being Wuxia and The Matrix and such. I'm also trying to think of a fourth core move, though I think it might do well with three if I can't think of one (or you fine fellows don't suggest one). I've hit a bit of a wall where I'm not sure where to take the 6-10th level moves, and what other "psychic warrior" archetypes I want to delve into. Ultimately, I think Multiclass Dabbler covers a lot of what I would otherwise be cramming in there--Multiclass Dabbling with Psion to get into Expanded Consciousness or Telekinetic Strike, with Fighter to get assorted bone-crunching attacks, Cleric to make like a 3.X gish Psion... you get the picture... and focusing on the wuxia-style combat the starting moves and most of the moves I've thought up so far cover. As always, comment and critique away--it worked great for the psion.
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Apr 5, 2013 05:59
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Lemon Curdistan posted:Observations and such While 10/d10 is definitely the fighter's claim to fame, the paladin also has 10/d10 for HP/damage and can do a variety of non-combat stuff in addition to being a powerhouse. I suppose it'll fluctuate more as I come down to the line. That said, the fighter and paladin also don't have any significant ranged support other than "if you pick up and use a bow you're gonna be hitting pretty hard with that d10," while the d8 ranger gets a lot more love in that department. From what I can tell that's deliberate, making melee damage the most dangerous period while Volley and its damage is slightly weaker to give melee types a chance to close in and making ranged combatants have to think about what they're doing, not just plink away invincibly. PWs thus far have great range, and that's been a concern so far. The throwing move they no longer have essentially gave them every range from hand to near so long as they had something to toss at people, which immediately leapt out at me as too good after I wrote it. And, yeah, there's that concern about the Battlemind. I'm torn between not stepping on its toes and just pretending it doesn't exist for the purposes of the PW--after all, neither are core classes and gamers are free to choose which one they like better and roll with it. Only so many ways to do the wuxia thing, I suppose. Which leads to another thing. Actually whittling down what a PW can do from its inspiration list (assorted wuxia, The Matrix [a kind of wuxia], Earthbound's Ness and Poo, River Tam, the Jedi, the original Psychic Warrior) has been a hell of a thing. Flat-out giving them Multiclass Dabbler cleared a lot of the air--so now they can pick up any number of moves to flesh out their abilities (Divine Protection, Exterminatus, Shapechange, Duelist's Parry, and the Psion's Expanded Consciousness and Telekinetic Strike all come to mind and a form of each were all on the PW's 2-5 at one point). Might even extend that to Soul Shatter/Soul Sever, though a part of me nags about not including a damage-boosting move on a dedicated brawler, which includes every core class expected to hit things. And so on. And so on. Clearly, this is my punishment for adapting a DnD class with no or few inspirations outside of a purely mechanical "but what if you could think and hit?" proposition. Ah, well, took the PW 6-7 versions to get right. I got time. Boing posted:Monk vs. Psychic Warrior A fair point. Right now it's basically a different implementation of the monk. The idea I had going in was that the other classes use incredible but comparatively mundane skill to achieve feats of battle, whereas the psychic warrior casually sidesteps conventional physics the way a rogue might toss pepper bombs in someone's eye or the fighter sweep someone off their feet with a scythe. Right now it's got some funky special abilities but not too many. Perhaps that's where I should be focusing... Also, a namechange from Psychic Warrior is... well, probably going to happen, but I'm sticking with PW until I think of something better. For reference, other psychic classes I'm planning are the Fury (pyro/cryo/etc.kinesis), the Poltergeist (telekinesis, and based a bit on the Wilder), and the Telepath (also in need of a better name, and just what it sounds like). The current pitch I have is that the Psion and Psychic Warrior are general-issue psychics that could easily fit into a DW game, while the others would either be one-of-a-kind freaks or the replacement for conventional magic classes in a psychic-heavy game. But I'm just blathering now. Holy poo poo that was a lot of words. TombsGrave fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Apr 5, 2013 |
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Apr 5, 2013 14:39
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gnome7 posted:I like all of these ideas, make some moves for these. And yes, the Sky Dancer was a definite influence on how I wrote the PW's flight moves. You do some drat good stuff. Thanks for the tips--especially with Enlightened Strike, which I wasn't feeling other than "they need something funky to do in combat." Working on some new and improved moves as we speak!
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Apr 5, 2013 19:02
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I think I'm the only person in this thread who prefers "Psychic Warrior" to "Soulknife," and that weirds me out a bit. Here's the Psychic Hitting Things Guy Name To Be Determined with some updated and removed moves! A couple moves are suggestions from forumsgoer Zemyla. It seems that I can no longer put words together coherently, so I'll get back to workin' on it tomorrow. And thanks for the link, That Rough Beast! I'll look it over and do some more thinking 'til I get what I want out of it more in shape. The thread has been a great help so far! TombsGrave fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Apr 6, 2013 |
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Apr 6, 2013 01:57
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sentrygun posted:Enlightened Shot refers to a move that doesn't exist anymore. Was it renamed, or should it just not be there? Should not be there. Another thing I missed. You can tell it's been a busy day, can't you. Gonna fix the pastebin and the link.
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Apr 6, 2013 02:19
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So I wake up this morning sneezing and the phrase "Slipstream Warrior" sort of... dislodges and pops into my mind. It's got to be a sign. Here's (LAST EDIT: Newer version posted ahead, go ahead and check that one out instead) the Slipstream Warrior! This comment's still relevant tough: You Don't Belong In This World may be a 6-10 move, I'm not sure. While otherworldly/spirit creatures may be uncommon enemies, purely by having a slipstream warrior in the party one might expect to find 'em more often. Particularly with that Scent the Void thing! It's a little more powerful than Peer Through the Veil, but it's also more narrow, so maybe it balances out. Gonna come back to this this afternoon/evening sometime and see what else comes to mind. And next time the moves are gonna be in alphabetical order because that's starting to bug me. TombsGrave fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Apr 6, 2013 |
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Apr 6, 2013 13:02
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Tollymain posted:The Talebound. I think you need to be a little more specific with Defy Danger in Pulpy Dialog--I presume you mean "rolled a 10+" on Defy Danger. Likewise, "A Million To One" may be ludicrously powerful, and I'm not sure how one might resolve it without basically spending 1-plot to skip over giant swathes of plot and encounter. This is an amazing idea, though, and I wholeheartedly support it. Speaking of making things, I've already done some trimming and reworking with the Slipstream Warrior. I went ahead and made Slipstream Step a starting move and moved Slipstream Dodge to Advanced. I also removed the mobility move, since while the Slipstream Warrior does get some general psychic effects, the whole wuxia thing wasn't really showing up in any of their other moves. The non-wuxia focus may also lead to different alignment effects, now that I think about it. But more when I've the time.
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Apr 6, 2013 19:47
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Things I have done: felt warm and fuzzy at tales of the Psion and its moves in the wild, purchased the Witch class, and gotten up to version 7 of the Slipstream Warrior! I've got ten 2-5 moves and ten 6-10 moves, and made an attempt at some race moves and less martial-arts-y alignments! On the other hand the human race move is martial-arts-school-y so man, whatever. I'm feeling pretty good about the moves list right now, pending critique. There's only three starting moves but they feel pretty flexible and satisfying, so I think I'm alright with it. As before, I'll save the names for last, though it struck me whilst walking my dog that "Chell" should be a name for human slipstream warriors.
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Apr 10, 2013 04:16
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I think I've just got the human racial move for Slipstream Warrior. "When you use Slipstream Step to appear within Reach range or closer, take the 10+ result." Simple, highly useful, but not so useful as to be a gamebreaker... hopefully. If we've got a human racial move, then I'll write up some names and the Slipstream Warrior will be done!
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Apr 10, 2013 16:13
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gnome7 posted:I think I like that one, yeah. It gives that option the freedom to go crazy with teleporting, but only very short distances. Put it up on gdocs or mediafire and I will put a link to it in the content post! Unless you want to hold off until you have an entire psionics' class book, of course. Working on the full psionics handbook is gonna take a while--it's looking to be pretty busy the next few months--and the book's going to have a crapton of other stuff. I don't mind sharing. That and, you know, playtesting. Gotta iron the kinks out before it gets done! Ladies and gents: The Slipstream Warrior! As always, thanks for the help.
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Apr 10, 2013 17:06
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sentrygun posted:A couple things bother me just from a quick scan, might look over it in more detail later. I've changed Exorcist's Blade to Exorcist's Eye, letting the Slipstream Warrior Pokedex-scan outsiders with a glance. I've also implemented your suggestions for Tempered/Kiln Body and YDBITW.
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Apr 11, 2013 00:59
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A little bit late, but on the topic of dual-wielding: getting both weapon's tags would be handy and close to real life. An advantage of using a rapier and maine-gauche, for instance, was not just having two weapons to hack away with but two weapons to parry with, and one that was inside the range of an opponent's attack. Otherwise, the advantage of dual-wielding would be entirely narrative, much like most of the non-tag differences in weapon.
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Apr 19, 2013 05:46
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Long story short, Sentrygun, that's a pretty flavorful-looking class you've got. I particularly like the flavor of it and the assorted ways they use their gimmick. Comments... Spiritbind's 10+ is easier than a 7-9 but it also sounds more limited. Maybe it should read "On a 10+, the spirit agrees to help you for a time. On a 7-9 the spirit is unwilling; choose one: * It puts up a struggle. * It will only help you on one condition." You might need to clarify "Become the Hunted." Maybe "you send your spirit out to act in your stead" instead of "you may act as your incorporeal spirit;" as-is, it sounds like you turn yourself incorporeal, and "returning to your body" looks like either an error or a non-sequitur. Soul Eater is thematically interesting but the catch of it is more than likely going to dissuade players from learning it rather than take it and use it wisely for fear of permanent loss of control. Also? Purely by coincidence I've been working on my own class with a similar theme, the Channeler. I say "similar" because while they've got a couple moves in common (namely the perma-bound-spirit-buddy, a capture/channel option that succeeds at 10+ when somebody you've killed is involved) they're still pretty different.
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Apr 23, 2013 07:39
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That's how I do it. I even allowed takedown shots with firearms in the case of my player's paladin--though it only came up once, and after explicitly asking if he really wanted to shoot to kill at the unarmed suspect. (He did. I related the full story somewhere in the first page or two of this thread.)
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Apr 23, 2013 18:47
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Myself, I've been trying out moves that are double-edged swords with the Poltergeist class. The gist of their Poltergeist Effect move is that it lets the Poltergeist bring in dream effects into the real world--more flexible physics, creepy sights and sounds, whole environments on particularly effective manifestations. However, the move triggers when they slip into a trance or fall asleep, so while they can use it voluntarily it can also go off when they don't want it to. I haven't been working on DW stuff too much the past couple of weeks because things are just crazy-hectic around here. I'll see if I can't come up with something presentable, at least as a start, though.
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May 9, 2013 17:57
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