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Night10194 posted:What was the first game to do the whole Fate/Fortune point thing? It's always been one of my favorite mechanics. Knowing you've got some mechanical backup to try again or pull out of a crazy plan if something goes really wrong is a great way to encourage players to try crazy plans and be heroic. I believe TSR's Top Secret was the first game to use "luck points," but I could be wrong. Tulpa posted:Yeah honestly I would just use the playbook/town generation stuff and then run it in World of Dungeons or something. Yeah, the basic engine of it is nothing special, just a pretty well-executed, very light port of OD&D. Other than the magic system and the true name stuff (both of which are easy to port to other systems), it's very much a traditional take. Which is fine; I think it'd be a great way to introduce more traditional players to storygame elements while still giving them a familiar system to hold onto. I will say that the "roll under for attribute checks, but over for saves and attacks" drives me batty; pick a resolution mechanic and stick to it, drat it! Saves are easy to convert, just take the roll-over value, subtract it from 20, and use that as the roll-under number, but attack rolls aren't quite so easy. You could maybe get close by making your attack roll an attribute check with the enemy's AC bonus as a penalty and your BAB as a bonus, and leave the attribute mod for damage, but I haven't crunched the numbers to see if that actually works. EDIT: Oh man, I forgot to put this in the review, but there is a sidebar in the rules chapter that addresses the roll high vs. roll low conundrum. I'm just going to quote the whole thing, because... yeah. Do I roll high or low? posted:Sometimes people get confused in older versions of fantasy roleplaying games because rolling high is good in some situations, while in others you want to roll low. This is not as confusing as it might seem at first. This reminds me of taking my car into the mechanic because it wasn't turning over and being told "well, we don't know what's wrong, but if you just gun the engine while you crank it it'll start. You'll get used to it." I'd also probably do something different with death and dying--the old standard of "at 0 hp you're down and bleeding out, at -10 you're dead" doesn't really feel right. Maybe steal a page from Darkest Dungeon and say that at 0 hp you're at death's door, with a -2 penalty to everything, and if you take any further damage you have to make a save or be seriously injured (lost hand/foot/eye, pierced by a spear, whatever), or die if you're already maimed. GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Mar 28, 2015 |
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Mar 28, 2015 22:40
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Come with me on a journey back to a simpler time. A time when nature was a thing to be respected, feared, and endured, not used as a half-assed justification for murder and public pooping. A time when a loyal hound was your faithful hunting companion, not your fuckbuddy. That's right, it's time for more Now that we've got the core rules out of the way, it's time to delve into the aspect of Beyond the Wall that really sets it apart: character and scenario creation, and getting the game itself kicked off. The introduction lays out the thinking behind all this pretty clearly: long, sweeping campaigns are great and all, but a lot of us (particularly as we get older, start careers and families, and so on) just can't commit the time for a weekly, bi-weekly, or whatever game, let alone GM prep time between sessions. Thus, Beyond the Wall gives us the tools to create reasonably fleshed out characters, a setting, and an adventure that should be playable in a single 3-4 hour session of play. The second reason, and the one I actually find more interesting in terms of "things to think about when writing an RPG book," is that a lot of tabletop RPGs don't often provide much in the way of tools to help you get playing "out of the box." At best you might get a collection of pregen characters and a canned sample adventure, but that's only really good for one game. Even games like Apocalypse World or Trollbabe (which I should really finish my F&F review of) rely heavily on the GM's improv abilities to get playing right off the bat. Beyond the Wall, "Playbook" terminology aside, actually reminds me more of Fiasco: prompting story by giving you a bunch of random tables full of short, evocative descriptions that are concrete enough to run with but also open enough to riff on. The introduction wraps up with the caveat that the Playbook rules completely replace the quick character creation rules in the previous section. Which is a good caveat to have, because in at least one instance, Playbook-created characters end up breaking the rules in that section: depending on how you roll, you can end up with a third (5th for rogues) Skill using the Playbook tables. Playbooks and Scenario Packs Okay, we've talked a lot about Playbooks and Scenario Packs so far, but what, exactly, are they?  Pictured: The Best Playbook Character Playbooks are very similar to the playbooks in Apocalypse World or the skins in Monsterhearts: a self-contained package that encompasses an archetypal character (the Village Hero, maybe, or the Nobleman's Wild Daughter if you want to play Arya Stark). Each gives you your starting ability scores (usually two at 10 or one at 12, the rest at 8), and by the time you've gone through all the tables in your playbook, you'll also have your final ability scores, skills, all your class features, starting equipment, and at least the skeleton of a backstory and relationships with the other PCs and your village's NPCs. Because Beyond the Wall is a game about young people going off and having adventures in the wild, all the playbooks start with the assumption that the PCs are young, talented, but not-truly-tested people, all of whom grew up in the same village and who have been best friends since childhood. Think the very start of the Wheel of Time novels before poo poo went off the deep end and the main character got three super hot wives, and you've got the idea. One of the free expansions Flatland Games has released, The Nobility, tweaks this a bit and allows you to create sons and daughters of the local lord, but even then their manor house should be in or very near the village and the noble kids should be friends with the village kids. The core book provides six: The Village Hero, The Untested Thief, The Would-Be Knight, The Young Woodsman, The Self-Taught Mage, and the Witch's Prentice. Each Playbook consists of seven tables in two sections. The first three tables represent childhood, and they're the same for every Playbook (well, the Nobility gets a modified version of the first one, but otherwise). The intent of having them be the same is to create some connections among the PCs. If two players roll "your parents were merchants," that probably means those characters are siblings--or maybe not, and their parents were business rivals. The golden rule here (and throughout this process really) is: "It's a small village. If two Playbook results describe a similar character, they're probably the same person." Example: Table 1 asks you to roll 1d12 to answer "What did your parents do in the village? What did you learn from them?" If you roll a 4, "Your family worked a small farm outside the village." You gain +2 Con, +1 Wis, +1 Cha, and Skill: Farming. A 7, on the other hand, means "Your parents ran the local inn. You grew up meeting many travellers and hearing their tales (+2 Cha, +1 Int, +1 Dex, +1 Wis)." The next four tables are where the Playbooks differentiate themselves, and describe how the character became a warrior, rogue, or mage. Typically you get a skill and one of your class features defined by the playbook, then roll on the tables to fill in the rest and modify some more attributes. One of the tables describes an event that both you and one of the other PCs were part of, and gives both of you an attribute boost, so no matter what you're guaranteed to have a relationship with at least two other characters. Example: The Would-Be Knight says: "As you came of age, you began your quest to become a great knight. You become a level 1 Warrior. You gain the class abilities Weapon Specialization and Knacks, and the skill Riding. The tables below will further define your class abilities." The first table asks you to roll a d6 to answer "How did you begin your quest?" You might roll a 1 and learn that "Raiders from the north sometimes reach the village, and you were always the first volunteer in the forces which defended against them." You gain +3 Str and Skill: Command. Or you might roll a 5: "When traders from the south came to the village, you found an old warrior’s training manual and you studied it every day thereafter." You gain +3 Int and Skill: Military History. Other tables will tell you what weapon you're specialized in, your Knacks, etc. The playbooks also have the occasional icon (either a hand or a map) next to the tables, which indicate that at this point the player should add an interesting person or location to the Village Map (which is just a blank sheet of paper with a masrk for "the local Inn" in the middle; players and GMs can add stuff to it throughout the process). The thing they add can be inspired by the table they just rolled on, but doesn't have to be. It's a classic way to not only move some of the heavy lifting off the GM, but also get the players invested in the setting. Finally, you get a preset bit of equipment, usually some basic adventuring gear, maybe a weapon or armor, and at least one odd little trinket. As a brief aside, yes, the Playbooks are all randomized. The rules do allow you to ignore the result of one out of your seven rolls and pick something from the table instead, but otherwise it's all random. While the book doesn't expressly say so, it seems to me you could probably let players pick without breaking things too horribly, though you might see slightly higher primary attributes that way, if your players are more system-focused than story-focused. The book does tell us that, while it's not terribly likely it is possible to end up with one attribute in the 18-20 range, or even higher. Regardless of rolls, though, the highest any attribute can start is 19, and any points in excess of that are lost. Sucks, but a 19 attribute is enough reward in its own right. Scenario Packs meanwhile, are the same thing, but for adventures. The core rulebook includes two: the Angered Fae (somebody pissed off the faeries and now it's up to you to make things right!) and the Hidden Cult (your neighbors are Chaos-worshiping lunatics, oh no!), with the Goblin Infestation available as a free download. They've got some prompts you might expect, like random lists of names for when you need a quick NPC name and various "what's the core of the problem?" tables, but my favorite thing is the blank table. The idea is, as the players are going through their Playbooks and establishing important NPCs, you fill those names in on the table. Then, when you need an NPC for some plot point (maybe to figure out who's in the cult or who pissed off the Fae Lord, or just "whose house do the goblins set fire to?") you can roll on the table and boom! Instant personal stakes. Scenario Packs also have random events to fire off if the momentum starts to flag, some scene-setting preliminary events that draw the PCs into the story (and provide a handy place to teach attribute and skill checks), and suggestions for hooks to extend the story into future adventures, if that's your bag. Example: The Angered Fae Scenario Pack suggests throwing a random, seemingly unrelated problem within the village into the mix after about a half hour if things are lagging. Maybe "Someone of import to the characters is going through an extremely difficult delivery. The witch needs help of some sort to get her through it." Or maybe "An ancestral feud has been rekindled, and the entire village is split over the matter. Worse, the characters’ families are on opposite sides of the quarrel."  Future adventure hook: "gently caress you, got mine.' Getting Ready to Play This section is pretty straightforward, outlining the jobs of each player during the setup phase. Players, obviously, should be rolling on their Playbook tables and recording the results, but more importantly they should be talking about what their results mean, kibbitzing with the rest of the table to flesh out the story and relationships, and so on. The GM has some tables to roll on too, but mostly she should be guiding the players and taking notes on everything. Everything the players come up with here is potential fodder for the adventure. The last thing to do is to have each player roll on the Recent Events table for the Scenario Pack. These are short, inciting incidents that include an attribute check that might give the players some advantage in the story if they pass, or create complications if they don't. The PC to their left is also involved somehow, and can help out with skills or Fortune Points. Each scenario has 15: 12 on the table and three "special events" that only kick in if players roll a duplicate event. Example: Again in the Angred Fae Scenario Pack, you might start off with this: Unlikely couples have been falling in love throughout the village as a result of faerie magic. Test Charisma (gossip related skills may help). Success: you learn that one member of each of these new couples has recently angered a wisewoman in the forest. Failure: your favorite cousin falls in love with someone you disapprove of. Or this: The village well is filled with wine and you are sent to the witch to ask about it. Test Charisma (social skills may help). Success: the witch tells you to save some of the wine; begin the game with two healing potions. Failure: the witch turns the wine back to water, but not before the whole village gets drunk. If someone rolls the "well filled with wine" result again, they might instead get this: Your faerie godmother came to visit you last night and said that she takes pity on the village. Test Charisma (socializing skills may help). Success: she gave you a blessing which allows you to see through all faerie illusions for this adventure. Failure: You accidentally insulted your godmother, who left saddened and said she would not bother with you again, but not before giving you a token which grants +1 to all saving throws against fae magic. Finally, the Scenario Packs helpfully contain a couple pages of appropriate monsters if you need to throw a fight at the players on the fly. Running the Game This is a very brief GMing advice chapter. Not a lot here, and more than anyplace I think this is where the game shows it's geared more toward experienced gamers. The main bullet points are Keep Things Moving (don't let things lag; if the players seem stuck throw a new problem at them), Make it Personal (again, use the stuff in the Playbooks and the important people and places the PCs come up with when you need stuff to happen), and Avoid Illusionism (let the PCs' choices matter). There's also a nice little essay on the tone Beyond the Wall strives for (gritty, but not grim: the peril is real, but not omnipresent, heroes can save the day, and even in the most dangerous places there is beauty and enchantment) and this delightful sidebar: Special Items posted:Many of the Character Playbooks give some truly odd items to a starting character: a branch from the Dark Heart of the Wood, an engraved ring, etc. These trinkets may be useful or not, but they are a great source of hooks for the gamemaster.  Next time: The obligatory sample character creation post! Actually, hell, I'll go through a whole Scenario Pack prep just to show how all of this works. We'll definitely be making a Witch's Prentice, because hell yeah, but I'll let the thread vote on two other compatriots and which Scenario Pack to use. So, thread, how about it? Pick two from the following Playbooks:
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Mar 29, 2015 19:06
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Okay, obviously we're doing the Angered Fae, but right now we've got a three-way tie between Self-Taught Mage, Village Hero, and Would-Be Knight, with Untested Thief in second place with two. So it's time for a  SUDDEN DEATH TIEBREAKERNext vote for Mage, Hero, or Knight decides which of those three joins an Untested Thief and a Witch's Prentice to try and calm the Angered Fae. Go!
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Mar 30, 2015 02:18
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Night10194 posted:Self taught mage. Mage it is. Post coming soon, but first, meet our cast, courtesy of art I found on the Internet! (Clicking the link will take you to the source.)  The Untested Thief!  The Self-Taught Mage!  The Witch's Prentice! You guys it's really hard to find cartoon witches who aren't super sexualized.  Humbug Scoolbus posted:Untested Thief and Ahh, I see you found the second-best Playbook in the game. Don't worry, we'll get to that.
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Mar 30, 2015 03:05
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 Okay, let's get this game started. We're making three characters and setting up the Angered Fae Scenario. First off, let's take a look at our heroes and their playbooks.  The Untested Thief Some young would-be adventurers get by with their sword arm or with words of power in the language of magic, but you need neither. The world is full of things to see and enjoy, and your fi ngers are more than quick enough to let you have what you like. You are deft and quick. Your Dexterity begins at 12, and all of your other ability scores begin at 8. The Self-Taught Mage You were always a bright child, and loved stories of ancient wizards and sorceresses who mastered the arcane arts. Unfortunately, there was no one around to teach you such things. In fact, sometimes you wondered if the stories of magic were even true. When you came of age, you found an ancient tome and decided to find out for yourself. You were the brightest child in the village. Your Intelligence begins at 12, and all of your other ability scores begin at 8. The Witch's Prentice Every great mage was a student once. Some say the true heart of magic is the simple, practical work of the village witch. Your village, like many, had its own crone who tended the sick and blessed the fi elds. She chose you as her apprentice. You are naturally intelligent and thoughtful. Your Intelligence and Wisdom begin at 10, and all of your other ability scores begin at 8. For the sake of stuff that comes up later, we'll assume that's the order they're sitting in, left to right. Now, the first section is Childhood: Since these are shared across all the playbooks I'm going to do them by question, then switch to by character for the class-specific stuff. Oh, and I guess these kids need names, too. Luckily, the Scenario Pack has a convenient table of random Welsh/Celtic names, so I'll just roll on that. Our Untested Thief is named Arawn. Our Self-Taught Mage is Keelin. Our Witch's Prentice is Cait. Those all seem good to me, so let's start the action! Childhood 1d12 What did your parents do in the village? What did you learn from them?  Your father was the local smith and taught you both hammer and bellows. +2 Str, +1 Dex, +1 Cha, Skill: Smithing You are an orphan. Things were hard for you. +2 Wis, +2 Con, +1 Int Your father or mother kept the old stories. Your head is filled with them. +2 Int, +1 Cha, +1 Wis, Skill: FolkloreNot a whole lot of commonality in the backgrounds there, but maybe Keelin earned a roof over her head from time to time tending the forge-fires, or Cait liked to scare Arawn with tales of the dead kings in the old barrows outside town. Also at this stage, everybody gets to add a location of note to the village map. Arawn goes for the obvious and picks "My Da's Smithy," and if it wouldn't be just talking to myself here I'd start asking about their relationship and so on. Keelin, already thinking ahead to her class features, adds a mysterious, ruined tower fort on a hill half a day's walk from the village. The locals call it the Breekintoor, and they say it used to be the home of a great and wise druid of the old days. Cait really likes the idea of ghosts and spooky happenings, so she adds Kingsbarrow, a complex of old earthen tombs just south of the village. 1d8 How did you distinguish yourself as a child? Your empathy made you a sought after confidant. +2 Wis, +1 Con No secret escaped you. +2 Int, +1 Dex No secret escaped you. +2 Int, +1 DexOur first duplicate result, and it's a perfect fit. I'm already seeing Keelin and Cait as childhood rivals and best frenemies. Both are constantly trying to outsmart the other and figure out the latest mystery, and since their juuuuuust about even in mental attributes at this point I imagine they never settled that "who's smartest" rivalry. Arawn, meanwhile, got very good at empathizing with both his friends and never ever actually choosing sides. At the same time, he's starting to realize it's a lot easier to get things from people who like you than it is to sweat over an anvil all day. 1d8 The other player characters were your best friends. Who else in the village befriended you while you were growing up? You are about to marry into the Miller’s family. +2 Wis, +1 Str The fishermen took a liking to you and you swapped stories with them. +2 Dex, +1 Wis The grizzled mercenary who settled in town taught you a thing or two. +1 Dex, +1 Con, +1 WisWell, this is interesting. I don't know whether Arawn is genuinely in love with the miller's daughter, or if this is his father setting up an arranged marriage, or what. Maybe Arawn's running a con. Keelin spends time with the Raft Folk, which is probably how she found the Breekintoor--in fact, let's change it so the tower is on an island in the middle of the river. Bet there's some stuff in that old place that would shut Cait up. Cait meanwhile is proving that the Witch's Prentice is The Best Playbook before we even get into the playbook-specific stuff, palling around with mercenaries and probably learning all sorts of new and exciting profanity. That'll come in handy next time Keelin mouths off. Also here we get to add an interesting person to the village. Arawn decides to add Pwyll, the village bully and son of the richest man in town, who was certain he'd be marrying the miller's daughter when she came of age and is none too happy that she's betrothed to this lazy son of a blacksmith. (To complicate Arawn's life further, I think we'll say he doesn't even want to get married, it's all a horrible mistake. But try telling Pwyll that.) Keelin, sensing an opportunity for mischief, adds Tara the miller's daughter as one of her closest friends. And finally, it's Cait's turn, and she goes with Salty Ambrose, that scarred, poxy, one-eyed veteran of the raider wars who settled in town. His stories tend to have a lot more drinking, cursing, and grand larceny than her parents' stories. And with that we wrap up the childhood phase and move on to the class-specific tables. First up is Arawn: You learned some unsavory things and found your niche. You become a level 1 Rogue. You gain the class abilities Fortune’s Favor and Highly Skilled, and the skill Stealth. The tables below will give you all your bonus skills from your class abilities. What happened when you took to thievery?1d6 Who taught you how to cheat or steal? You trained yourself by trial and error. +3 Int, Skill: Trapping Poor Arawn. I'm beginning to see how he ended up in this engagement to Tara. 1d6 How do you attain your ill-gotten gains? You charm everyone you meet. +2 Cha, Skill: Deceit I swear I didn't cheat this or skip ahead on rolls, but this is kind of perfect. He's already naturally empathic and disinclined to hard work, so this fits him perfectly. Arawn also gets to add a location to the map now, and apropos of nothing much I'm going to have him add the Village Stane. It's a weathered, rune-scarred old monolith in the middle of town. These days it's not used for much other than equinox and solstice celebrations. And weddings, of course. 1d6 As happens with many thieves, your first job went bad. What did you do when you got caught? The player to your right was there when it happened. For this one I rolled a 4, which is "You pleaded your case and walked free," but I'm going to exercise my veto power and go with option 6, because it's too perfect: You fast-talked the mark and made nice. The friend to your right bought you both drinks and joined the party, and gains +1 Cha. +2 Cha, Skill: Drinking So basically what happened was Arawn was trying to rob the miller when Tara walked in on him. She's ready to stomp his guts out, but Arawn fast talks like crazy and buys her a drink to smooth things over. Then Keelin, excited to see two of her best friends starting to hit it off, kept the drinks coming and then everything gets hazy and oh god we're engaged now. Arawn and Tara both kind of hate each other, but they can't break things off without it being a huge scandal. Apparently oaths were sworn and grand gestures made before the Stane, and you just don't break those oaths. 1d6 What was your greatest heist? You stole from another thief. +2 Dex, a fine set of lockpicks Hmm. Well I guess the miller used to be a Prince of Thieves in the Imperial City to the south before he retired up here? I mean, that would explain his missing hand. Arawn gets one last character to add here, and rather than the obvious miller, he goes with Ludus, a thief-taker from one of the southern cities up on the frontier to try and find the One That Got Away, the Black Fox himself. That's it for Arawn. His final stats: Arawn, level 1 rogue Fortune Points: 5 Alignment: Neutral HP: 8 AC: 12 Initiative: 4 Attack: Dagger +1 to hit, 1d4 dmg; hammer +0 to hit, 1d6 dmg Saves: Poison 13, Breath Weapon 16, Polymorph 12, Spell 15, Magic Item 14 Str 12, Dex 15, Con 9, Int 11, Wis 12, Cha 13 Skills: Deceit, Drinking, Smithing, Stealth, Trapping Equipment: Adventuring gear, several daggers (d4 dmg), dark clothing, a light-weight sack, a 10’ coil of rope, smith's hammer (d6 damage), betrothal ring, a fine set of lockpicks, leather armor, and 4d6 silvers You found the tome and began your studies. You become a level 1 Mage. You gain the class abilities Sense Magic and Spell Casting, the skill Ancient History, and the cantrip Mage Light. The tables below will tell you your other spells. What happened to you as you learned magic?1d6 Who wrote your precious book of magic? An old sage from the south. +3 Int, Skill: Ancient History Keelin gets our first doubled-up skill, meaning she's at +4 for Ancient History-related rolls. Probably she found the book in the old, crumbling library at the very top of the Breekintoor. 1d6 What sort of mage was the author of the book? A summoner of dark spirits. You learned the following magics: the spell Abjuration, the ritual Circle of Protection, and the cantrip Second Sight. +2 Int, spells Well now we know why he wasn't in the South. And suddenly the spooky image I picked for Keelin makes a lot more sense. Keelin also needs to add a place to the village, and let's say it's a little sheltered hollow in the riverbank where she could hide her precious valuables and study uninterrupted. 1d6 A spirit of Chaos was drawn by your power. How did you fight it off? The player to your right was there with you. You stood before it with steady hands. The friend to your right stood by your side and did not waver, and gains +1 Wis. +2 Wis, Spell: Commanding Word Obviously said demon of Chaos was accidentally summoned in one of Keelin's experiments and it fell to the Witch's Prentice (and maybe the witch herself) to help fight it off. This is certainly not doing wonders for Keelin and Cait's relationship. 1d6 A real wizard from the south passed through the village when you came of age. What did he think of you? He inducted you into his secret order. +2 Wis, a wizard’s staff Well drat, good on you, Keelin! Talk about a rags-to-crazy-wizard-powers story. In the interests of not going super dark, I think this southron wizard is probably a member of an order of demon-binders and exorcists rather than, you know, a cult of demon summoners. For Keelin's last important person in the village... well, since she's got the Sight now, I think the ghost of her mother, lingering to watch over her daughter and beaming with pride, makes sense. And that's it for Keelin. Her final stat block: Keelin, level 1 mage Fortune Points: 3 Alignment: Lawful HP: 6 AC: 13 Initiative: 1 Attack: Wizard's staff +2 to hit, 1d6+2 dmg; dagger +0 to hit, 1d4-1 dmg Saves: Poison 14, Breath Weapon 15, Polymorph 13, Spell 12, Magic Item 11 Str 8, Dex 11, Con 10, Int 17, Wis 15, Cha 8 Skills: Ancient History (+4) Cantrips: Mage Light, Second Sight Spells: Abjuration, Commanding Word Rituals: Circle of Protection Equipment: Adventuring gear, a dagger (d4 damage), a wizard's staff (d6 dmg)*, common robes, an ancient tome, many pouches, the components for a single casting of the Circle of Protection ritual, and 4d6 silvers. * I'm not sure this is supposed to mean the wizard's staff magic item that's in the book, which is a +2 staff that grants +3 AC and automatically passes one Cantrip check per day, but what the hell, we'll say it is. The witch chose you to be her apprentice and you began your training. You become a level 1 Mage. You gain the class abilities Sense Magic and Spell Casting, the skill Herbalism, and the cantrip Hexing. The tables below will tell you your other spells. What else happened to you when you were her apprentice?1d6 What first caused the witch to choose you? No other six-year old had his own still. +3 Cha, Skill: Brewing See? See? I told you this was the best goddamn Playbook. I was all set to use my veto on this one to make sure it showed up, but the dice gods were kind. Also, since kids aren't allowed to drink, clearly that whole fiasco with Arawn and Tara was the work of Cait's illicit moonshine. 1d6 With what did the witch have power? With people. She taught you the following magics: the spell Sense Nature, the ritual Witch’s Watchman, and the cantrip Blessing. +2 Cha spells to left Cait is already shaping up to be a witch in the classic Discworld vein. It seems logical to add the witch's weird hut on its crooked hill that overlooks the village from the foot of the Kingsbarrow. 1d6 The witch was hard on you. How did you finally prove yourself to her? The player to your right was there with you. Last summer you protected her from bandits in the forest and helped her escape the danger. The friend to your right helped you fight them off while you aided the witch in escaping, and gains +1 Str. +2 Str Spell: Mystical Shield Yeah, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the bandits were unprepared for a drunk, foul-mouthed 11 year old to come roaring out of the woods, screaming about their various diseases and the questionable parentage of their goats. The kid with the hammer and the desperate "oh god what did I do while I was drunk?" look in his eye probably didn't help. 1d6 Where is the witch now? I rolled "She still works in the village as she always has," but again I'm going to veto that in favor of a different option: She vanished one day; her location is a mystery even to you. +2 Wis, the witch’s hut How loving cool is that? Obviously this is related to that demon that made trouble in Keelin's backstory--or so Cait thinks. She hasn't forgiven Keelin for that yet, but dear God imagine the mischief this little reprobate can get up to with a whole witch's hut full of crazy poo poo to play with. Cait, level 1 mage Fortune Points 3 Alignment: Chaotic HP: 6 AC: 10 Initiative: 1 Attack: Dagger +0 to hit, 1d4 dmg Saves: Poison 14, Breath Weapon 15, Polymorph 13, Spell 12, Magic Item 11 Str 8, Dex 10, Con 9, Int 14, Wis 15, Cha 13 Skills: Brewing, Folklore, Herbalism Cantrips: Blessing, Hexing Spells: Mystical Shield, Sense Nature Rituals: Witch's Watchman Equipment: Adventuring gear, a dagger, simple clothing, a flamboyant hat, a small musical instrument, the witch's hut, and 4d6 silvers. And that's our merry band of "heroes!" A con artist trapped in a drunken engagement, an orphan girl who taught herself to summon demons out of a book she found, and a juvenile moonshiner/sorceress. None of them have any combat skill at all to speak of, so they'll have to rely on their wits to save them in the event of monsters. Luckily they're all pretty clever and have enough skills that they should be able to find creative solutions that don't involve murder. They will, however, probably involve liquor and drugs. Gods help the Fae. Next time: We'll set up the Angered Fae Scenario! GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 05:40 on Mar 30, 2015 |
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Mar 30, 2015 05:28
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Jeez, I go to bed and everybody discovers the Village Bear without me.  Humbug Scoolbus posted:I've had this game since it was released. The Bear is tied for the best with the Witch. The Nobleman's Wild Daughter is right behind them. On further assessment, I agree with this ranking. Really, the only playbooks I'm not a huge fan of are the demihuman ones, and that's just because, as Kai Tave and FMguru brought up, Beyond the Wall is really at its best when it's not clinging to the structure of D&D. The Fae Foundling is about the farthest I like to go into nonhuman PCs for this game, and it's actually another really cool one. FMguru posted:And it's not even that - really really old skool D&D didn't even have different damage ratings for weapons - everything did a D6. Stabbed by a dagger or shot by an arrow or chopped by an axe? Same effect - which makes sense given how abstract hit points are supposed to be. In fairness to the designers, they at least admit that the saves vs. paralysis are in there purely to make it easier to drop old modules in with a minimum of work, and they give you a Fort/Ref/Will option (pity there's no character sheet with Fort/Ref/Will saves marked, though). The Moorcockian alignment, damage by weapon type, and hireling rules (I still can't get over that one. Hireling rules. In a game about teenagers exploring the dangerous woods. It's almost as irrelevant as the Battlestar Galactica RPG having a Swim skill.) though, definitely feel like they're there because that's what the OSR audience expects to be there. Thing is, I like the core mechanic. It doesn't do a whole lot of fancy narrative bells and whistles, but it's simple and transparent and covers just about anything you might want to try. There's just, like, three things that should really be changed to make it great. Kai Tave posted:For a game like this I think it's interesting to consider a party that maybe just straight up sucks at combat and has to get by through other means, because for one thing older D&Ds often did have a strong undercurrent of "find a way to get the loot/get to your goal without fighting every monster" (up to a point anyway, once you hit AD&D2E fighting monsters in dungeons seemed to be the go-to game) and provided this game lends support to that it isn't a terrible way to approach things, and also it seems appropriate to the source material that the game is ostensibly aiming for. I second this wholeheartedly. I mean, you have to have a GM that doesn't treat monsters like they've all got a little red circle under their feet and they automatically charge the instant a player is within 50 feet, but because the game relies on a philosophy of "most anyone can try most anything with an attribute check" it's really easy to adjudicate crazy stunts, and you're encouraged to award monster XP for overcoming the challenge, not just red-handed slaughter. And, again, part of the GM's job is to look at the PCs' stuff and muse on ways it could be surprisingly useful. Arawn's not going to be braining many giant spiders with his smith's hammer, but you can bet it's made of iron and might very well give a hefty bonus if he has to clobber a redcap later on. Further Afield also introduces some optional XP tweaks that can further disincentivize combat, including a really neat variant on the old "XP for treasure" system that I'm looking forward to talking about when we get there.
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Mar 30, 2015 16:15
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Kai Tave posted:If I were to hack the game re: weapon damage, I'd assign damage values by role rather than by weapon. Warriors would do d8 damage with hand weapons and bows or d10 damage with great weapons but couldn't use shields at the same time, Rogues would do d6 with hand weapons and bows but couldn't use great weapons, and Mages would do d4 damage with hand weapons and couldn't use anything else. You could keep Weapon Specialization the same, even. I'd probably still let rogues and mages step up damage by one die type for going with a two-handed weapon, but yeah, that's pretty close to how I'd run it. I'd love to turn attacks and saves into attribute checks to get one consistent task resolution mechanic, but then I'd have to give all the monsters attribute lines and I'm deeply, deeply lazy. Hmm... maybe you could eyeball it by saying monsters have a "good" attribute that's 10 + HD and a "bad" attribute that's 5 + HD, and you roll whichever seems appropriate (a big stupid ogre probably rolls its bad attribute to avoid being bamboozled by fast talk, but definitely uses its "good" attribute to smash the fast talker into paste). Turn armor into an attack penalty and I think you might have something. At least ballparking with a few monster stats it looks like the probabilities end up roughly within 5%. EDIT: The only problem with a system like this is it doesn't scale well with level--there's no "we'll come back and fight this giant when we're level 4" because your to-hit roll is still Strength - the giant's AC. Maybe that's not necessarily a bad thing, it pushes big, scary monsters into the "find another solution" arena, but it's something that might cause problems. GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Mar 30, 2015 |
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Mar 30, 2015 20:10
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AmiYumi posted:Not only am I joining the "please continue" bandwagon, I'm requesting that your future subjects be in the same vein. Like, I know there's a Song of Ice and Fire RPG, there's a Firefly RPG that I'm pretty sure has multiple editions...is there a terrible "Superwholock" RPG out there, somewhere? I'm seriously thinking about doing an F&F of the Song of Ice and Fire RPG. It's... special. When the numbers are balanced it's pretty fun, but the numbers unbalance easily. Like, "a starting character can accidentally be literally unbeatable by anyone but the greatest (swordsman/schemer/whatever) in the land" unbalanced. Anyway, enough musing about Beyond the Wall house rules, let's knock out scenario creation! The Angered Fae Someone or something has greatly angered the faerie court in the forest near the village. Now the fae are sowing discord among your friends and family, and village life has been turned on its head. You and your friends must find a way to appease or coerce the fae in order to sort out the mess. So, when last we left our heroes, someone or something had pissed off the fae. The first thing to do is figure out who and how. We've got a blank 1d8 table (well, blank except for the 8 spot, which is "a stranger did it!") that we'll fill in with various interesting NPCs from the character creation process. Looking back over the list, I'm going with: pre:1 Arawn's father (who we'll name Ambrose the Smith) 2 The Witch (she might be missing, but she could still be responsible) 3 Tara 4 Math the Miller/the Black Fox 5 Ludus 6 Salty Ambrose 7 Pwyll 8 A stranger from another place is actually the one who loosed the fae. 1d6 How did the character above bring this problem upon your village? They broke an ancient seal of protection which had been hidden for long years somewhere in the area. Well, sounds like Ludus went poking around places he shouldn't have looking for the master thief's lair and unleashed something bad. We've already got a mysterious wizard's tower in play, which seems like the kind of place you might expect to find a hiding thief, so maybe that's where it all went down. (Keelin's ancient book of magic probably has some clues or something in it.) The PCs, of course, don't know any of this yet. Next up we have a couple of charts to define the nature of the faerie court: 1d6 Who is the local lord of the fae? A kindly ogre hoping to find a consort and gain an heir. 1d6 What is this faerie lord’s secret weakness? The fae lord has fallen in love with a mortal from the village. 1d6 What strange rule of etiquette or whimsy is enforced in this court? The faeries here have a strange and strict code of behavior. Anyone in the forest must make a saving throw vs. spell in order to lie, betray, or steal. Oh my. This is really perfect. Arawn the smooth-talking liar is forced to be honest and true by faerie magic. We've also got a real "love and marriage" theme going on here between these results and Arawn's backstory. I kind of want to just pile it on Arawn here and say the kindly ogre has fallen in love with him. Oh, that's why the kindly ogre is mad! Ludus broke the seal, then the fae lord's spies and agents spotted him harassing Arawn (because Ludus saw the stolen lockpicks maybe?) and now they're coming after the village because nobody hurts Balor of the Evil Eye's bae. So that gives me a pretty strong idea for an opening scene, with Ludus accosting Arawn and then some weird stuff happening. We also get a couple of mid-game events to trigger: one about 15-30 minutes in unless the game's humming along at a good pace, and one to happen just when the players think they have a handle on the crisis. 1d6 What problems are the neighbors having? A random character’s parents are having marital difficulties, and the relationship is dissolving due to financial problems. Both sides come, separately, for help. I swear I'm not cheating these rolls guys, my dice just really like the marriage options. Anyways, even though it says "financial problems," I'm going to say this is a symptom of the fae lord's unhappiness--in that Celtic "the king is the land" sort of way, his marital dissatisfaction is bleeding out into other couples. We'll say it's Cait's parents this time, since Arawn's got a lot to do already and Keelin's are, well... dead. 1d6 How does the faerie lord summon the characters? An emissary from the faerie lord arrives in town. Angry villagers surround the creature, but he has a proposal for peace. Probably the least inspired summons (my favorite is "Two villagers go missing from their beds. Bundles of twigs and a note of summons to the faerie court are left in their place." Creeeeeeeepy.) but hey, we've got enough strange poo poo going on already. And given that the terms for peace will be "Arawn comes back to Elfland and marries the Ogre Lord," I think we've got plenty to work with. The last set of tables before we get to the Recent Events actions is to build a mini-dungeon. In this case, it's a quest the fae lord might send the PCs on, if the story spins out that way. Maybe Arawn tries to deflect the fae lord's proposal by pointing out he's already engaged to Tara, but the lord can nullify that oath as a boon in return for worthy deeds. Maybe Cait will threaten to kneecap every goddamn faerie in the forest unless Arawn doesn't have to get married and the lord makes a counterproposal. Or maybe Keelin convinces the fae lord that they can find him a worthier consort than Arawn. Whatever way, let's see what we got: 1d8 What do the faeries need the characters to do in order to be appeased? Yours is a mission of mercy and not of arms. The lord asks for your help in mending fences with two of his warring subjects. 1d6 What prevents the characters from reaching the site of their quest? Pukka crosses the characters’ paths while they are on their quest and tries to strike a bargain with them. 1d6 What makes the site of the quest dangerous? A wizardly blight dampens all magic. All magic, including that of magical items, has a 25% chance of failing outright when used here. 1d6 What stands in the way of the culmination of the quest? Other humans block the characters from accomplishing their goal; these may be fellow villagers, bandits, or strangers from other lands. Okay, lots of good stuff here. Arawn gets a chance to out-blag the trickster spirit, some magic stuff for Keelin and Cait, and probably a climactic confrontation with Ludus, possibly driven mad by vengeful faeries. I'll probably leave the details until I see what plays out in the game, though. And with that, all that's left to do is Recent Events. Each player gets to roll on the table for a "pre-game" event with the player on their left. Each event has an attribute check associated that can change the course of the scenario slightly: usually by introducing a boon or a complication. I'm not going to try to play these out, but here are a few of my favorites:
To be fair, that last one was probably Cait's fault. And that's it! It's obviously less in-depth and engrossing than the character backstory, but most of the details would be filled in during play, based on how things go and what the players jump at. All in all it's a decent setup for an evening's gaming, though. We'll talk more about Beyond the Wall's long-form campaign prep when we get to Further Afield. It's pretty cool, though. Next time: We wrap up the core book with magic and monsters.
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Mar 30, 2015 22:15
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Xelkelvos posted:I've seen this from personal experience and it's absurdly batshit how easy it is to unbalance everything by having someone really focused on a given skill. In this case it was Archery and that meant most enemies got taken out fast and early before they even could get close. The thing that baffles me is that, as jacked as the probabilities are, they published a chart of the probabilities in the book. Like, how do you look at that chart and not go "hmm, that's a lot of 95%+ results. Maybe I should rethink these numbers?"
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Mar 31, 2015 03:48
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Ratpick posted:Question to GimpInBlack: how well suited would Beyond the Wall be to a one-shot convention game with a four-hour slot? Your review is giving me ideas. It's practically designed for that kind of game. Rolling up playbooks shouldn't take more than 45 minutes tops, and the scenarios generally play out in about 2-3 hours. Only thing I'd suggest is that you curate your selection of available playbooks; all told there are 24 available right now, and that's a bit much to ask people to skim through and pick from in a con slot.
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Mar 31, 2015 13:21
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Tatum Girlparts posted:
Yeah. Taking a page from the Telltale video game (and the books themselves), you could probably do some kind of troupe play to minimize the "sitting on your hands while Jaime Lannister kills dudes" problem: have everybody create a member of a noble house, then spend the first session contriving to scatter them to the four winds and explain that these are the "main" characters of the story, but everyone will be creating a supporting cast member in the same vein. So, like, you send the family's eldest daughter to King's Landing to play politics and have the rest of the group play spies, ladies-in-waiting, etc. who can engage with the Intrigue system as well, send the heir off to fight a war and give everybody else lieutenants and banner knights, etc. Or just have everybody create one "fighty" character, one "intrigue-y" character, and one, I dunno, "wildcard" or whatever, then you can just pull whoever you need for a given scene. Too bad there's little to no support for that kind of game in the book. Of course, having four Jaime Lannisters to go off and kill dudes really doesn't help the "it's hilariously easy to break the system over your knee by specializing" problem, but still....
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Mar 31, 2015 15:10
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Doresh posted:Man, Beyond The Wall's looking pretty nifty. Hope it can continue that trend. We're almost done with the core book, I'm just trying to figure out the best way to make reviewing what's essentially a big list of spells and monsters interesting. Further Afield will be up next, which is a really cool supplement. Doresh posted:How do you eff up what is essentially a modified D6 System? By turning it into a roll-and-keep system where the default difficulty is 9 and yet it's trivially easy to start with a character who keeps the best 5 out of 8-9 dice rolled. Basically the game works okay if everybody is a jack of all trades, slightly better at one, but there's absolutely nothing stopping you from making a specialist character that breaks a large chunk of the game over your knee. Doresh posted:Next Time: Chapters 2+3 for Qualities, Weaknesses, Quirks and Skills, as well as the first example character or two (sans special moves for the moment). There's currently lots of talk about bears. You wanna see a bear?! I'm gonna go ahead and say every character creation example should include a bear.
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Apr 1, 2015 19:56
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Kurieg posted:Well I've got that covered for you no problem Put a twist on it. Make a bear that has the soul of an elephant.
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Apr 1, 2015 20:39
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thatbastardken posted:The writer for this should probably be paying you some kind of commission. I was playing around with character creation and I noticed with a few rolls some of the playbooks can go above 19 in a stat. That doesn't seem all that useful. Would you just re-roll those results, or reassign the stat points? Nope, you just lose any points in excess of 19. Sucks a bit, but a 19 in Beyond the Wall is way more valuable than in, say, 3E, so it more or less evens out.
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Apr 2, 2015 01:46
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In this final update covering the core rules, we'll talk a bit about magic and monsters, then wrap up with a quick look at the various short, free supplements Flatland Games has released. So let's dive in, shall we? Spells and Magic We already saw the basic rules for the three kinds of magic earlier in the Core Rules section, but the book reprints all the rules for each category of magic at the beginning of its respective spell list. Which is convenient, I suppose, but in a book this short (the Magic section of the core rules is only 20 pages before the list of cantrips starts), it seems like a bit of a waste of page space. Personally, I'd have preferred if the mage class just said "rules for magic begin on p. 47" and the game had used that page in the Core Rules section for something else, but oh well. To recap the three types:
Cantrips RPGs, especially those trying to emulate a mythic or fictional source material, live and die on the flavor of their magic system, and fortunately Beyond the Wall has flavor in spades. Cantrips have just the right level of flexibility and utility without overwhelming power to feel like the sort of small, subtle magics you'd expect from a wizard out of folklore. There are eight Cantrips in the book, and helpfully every description covers not only the basics of what you can do with it, but some suggestions for "stretching" the magic to do a little more at a penalty to the roll. For example, Beast Ken lets a mage speak to any one kind of non-magical animal and find them generally agreeable to his suggestions, but with a -3 penalty he can also compel them to action even against their best interests, or at a -6 penalty can call them to fight for him. Second Sight, which you might remember as Keelin's go-to cantrip, lets the mage perceive invisible spirits like ghosts, faeries, demons, and gods. Furthermore, if she knows a spirit's True Name, she can attempt to compel it and set it to perform a task for her. This trick requires a Charisma check, which does receive the +5 bonus for knowing the target's true name. However, if the check fails, not only is the spirit free of the mage's control, she can never attempt to command that spirit again. Since a natural 20 always fails an attribute check, the even a very charismatic mage is smart to keep a Fortune Point or two handy before trying to bind a big, scary demon. Other Cantrips include Blessing and Hexing (small bonus/penalty to a specific action), Druid's Touch (makes plants grow and bloom and ensures that gardens are bountiful), and Glamour Weaving (minor illusions, with penalties to create more complex or mobile illusions). Spells Beyond the Wall's spell list has a fair few D&D staples, including standbys like turning undead and healing magic, but skewed heavily toward the support and creative problem-solving end of things than the "smash entire encounters" end. A bunch of spells have familiar effects, but are renamed to something that feels a bit more folkloric than technical. For example, instead of Resist Fire, the spell that makes a mage immune to fire is called Brave the Flames, and Cure Light Wounds becomes Healing Touch. In another nice touch, most of the spells include a bit of flavor on how they're cast. For example, Flash of Brilliance, a spell that conjures a dazzling burst of light, has this to say: Flash of Brilliance posted:The mage makes the ancient sign of light with the fingers of both hands, then claps them together with a sharp crack, producing a blinding flash of light. There are only two direct combat spells: Magic Missile and Burning Hands, but spells like Veil of Sleep and Web are probably more effective ways of dealing with fights. One spell of note is Blight of Loneliness. The idea behind it is cool--all targets automatically fail any Charisma checks for the duration--but since monsters and NPCs don't have attributes and thus don't really make attribute checks, it's tough to adjudicate mechanically. Forgetful Mind is similar: the target forgets the details of basically anything important unless it makes a successful Int check, and also loses the benefit of all skills for the duration. Again, though, attribute checks and skills are PC mechanics. Other fun spells include The Howling, which conjures an otherworldly howl that forces everyone in near range to save or spend the duration clutching their ears in agony and fear, Smuggler's Luck (cast it on an object no larger than a short sword or a small sack of coins and any non-magical searches will fail to find it), and Terrifying Presence (basically, this.  Wizard people, dear readers. Rituals Rituals are where the big, dramatic magic that's not practical for use in action scenes. Their effects are usually much bigger and/or longer-lasting than spells, but they come with a commensurate cost: they take an hour per level to cast, and they require rare, expensive, or otherwise story hook generating components. (A sidebar briefly talks about how it's okay to reflavor ritual components to better match the feel of a character's magic: subsituting nature stuff for a druid-esque mage, for example, or bones and tomb-dust for a necromancer.) Even first level rituals are nothing to sneeze at, including Circle of Protection (wards an area up to the size of, say, a room or a forest clearing against demons, the dead, faeries, or whatever the caster specifies), Staff of Might (imbue a cudgel or staff with the ability to strike even incorporeal spirits), and Steed of the Sorcerer (summons an otherworldly horse with a night-black coat and eyes of fire that serves for 11 hours). Steed of the Sorcerer also has one of the best ritual components in the game: Steed of the Sorcerer posted:The caster must sit perfectly still for the hour it takes to cast this ritual, uttering only a single, unintelligible word at the culmination: the name of his dark steed. He must then saddle his mount with a pristine, never used bridle and saddle of black leather, which will fade with the beast when it departs this world. First level also bosts the Bind Familiar ritual, which alone of all the rituals in the game says that, if a mage begins play with it, she can be assumed to have cast it before the game starts and thus have a familiar at the beginning of the game. Most familiars are no bigger than a cat, but the GM may allow a more unusual familiar of up to 2 HD. This is discouraged for a oneshot since a 2 HD monster can potentially outshine first-level PCs, but in longer-running games it will quickly become academic. At second level, a mage can do things like call forth a massive thunderstorm, summon spirits from the Otherworld (or shades from the land of the dead), or enchant an ordinary object such that it seems like a powerful mystic artifact. At even higher levels, she can do things like make herself preternaturally trustworthy (Friends, level 3), divine the future (Augury, level 4), or permanently curse a target with -5 to all rolls, forever (The Great Curse, level 6). The most potent rituals include raising every corpse in a cemetery as a zombie or skeleton under your control (Raise Undead Horde, level 8), causing everyone in the region to have the same dream (or terrifying nightmare; Dream, level 9), and calling forth a wall of stone from the earth itself, several yards thick and up to a half-mile long (Wall of Stone, level 10). Resurrection is also a level 10 ritual, but casting it ensures that, success or failure, something nasty finds its way back through the doors of death along with the resurrected character. Magic Items Aside from making sure to tell us that every magic item is unique and has a story, Beyond the Wall doesn't really do anything revolutionary with magic items. The example ones we get are pretty cool (like Weyland's Iron, a +1 sword forged by Weyland Smith himself that can wound any creature, no matter its immunities), but it's the standard weapons, armor, potions, rods/staffs/wands, and miscellaneous items. The one item I have to call out in particular is the obligatory Love Potion: Love Potion posted:A staple of every witch’s repertoire, the love potion’s strength will vary by maker. Our local wise woman’s brew made me fall in love with the next woman I saw; it took the work of another three witches to free my heart. The drinker is affected as though the target cast the False Friend spell. I... what? This is the only place in the entire book where the voice switches to an in-character narrator; the book does occasionally refer to its athors in the first person, but always in the sense of the designer talking to the player (e.g. "we suggest a -3 penalty for this sort of action"). It's not called out in any way, it's just there and I have no idea why. Bestiary Finally, we get to the monsters section. Monster stat blocks are dirt simple: hit dice, hp, AC, attack/damage, Alignment, and XP value for killing them. The text here is vague on whether each PC gets the listed XP or if you divvy it up among the whole group. (Further Afield clarifies that it's the former.) Special abilities are usually pretty concise; this is neither 2E-3E's ridiculous monster spell lists nor 4E's "every monster has tactical abilities to use." The list includes D&D staples like goblins, ogres, trolls, and zombies, plus plenty of stuff pulled from Celtic mythology: the cat sidhe is a faerie cat that sometimes brings omens of future battles to heroes on the spring equinox, and the Green Man is a vast, mysterious figure they say is as old as the hills and the rivers. He's not the only unique monster in the book, either: you might come across the nightmarish Creature of Fear and Flame, the cruel Nameless One, or even the trickster-faerie Pukka. The Sluagh is a great example of a foe you can't fight traditionally: this host of spirits of the unquiet dead appears as a rushing black cloud or a swarm of carrion birds. It can't be killed, only temporarily driven off or held at bay by ancient magics. It can also attack anyone it finds out of shelter in an area up to Near range (so, for example, anyone caught outside anywhere within the village). There's also "monstrosities," which are convenient stat blocks that can sub in for any kind of one-off monster like a chimaera or what have you. The Bestiary wraps up with sections on how to create your own demons, dragons, and goblins. In all three cases, this is basically a set of four "vanilla" stat blocks of increasing power levels and some custom powers to tack onto them. For goblins and dragons, that's about it, but demons get a bit more attention. Demons can either be incarnate (actual, corporeal monsters clawed up out of Chaos) or incorporeal, in which case they possess people or animals. Demons' extra powers are determined by two rolls on a table of demonic influences, with the first roll being what the demon feeds on and the second roll being how it procures that food. For example, a demon might feed on Greed, which it creates through Betrayal: this might be a demon that convinces siblings to poison each other over inheritances or adventurers to turn on each other over the dragon's hoard. It's a neat idea, I just wish it wasn't structured in such a way that you could roll for a demon and end up with one that feeds on Lust, which it creates through Violence and Fear.   Pictured: A beautiful, majestic unicorn. Free Supplements With monsters, we wrap up the Beyond the Wall's core rulebook, but I'm going to touch briefly on the four free supplements Flatland Games has released for the game: The Village, The Nobility, and Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings all follow a similar pattern: A short, 3-page overview of interesting locations and NPCs you might find in the village, the castle, or the lands of nonhumans, plus a few new character Playbooks. Highlight playbooks include the Assistant Beast Keeper (a rogue/mage with a special animal friend), the Fae Foundling (warrior/mage, a creepy faerie baby left on the outskirts of the village and taken in by humans) and Nobleman's Wild Daughter (warrior, Merida: the Playbook). All About Goblins is a bit more involved. In addition to a new Goblin Infestation Scenario Pack, we get a 12-page booklet with some goblin magic, a few new goblin monsters (including goblin animals), and, coolest of all, a system for randomly generating networks of goblin warrens. Rather than trying to create a precise dungeon map, this system generates a loose flowchart of goblin "neighborhoods" and the connections between them, which are abstracted out as lots of shifty, twisting tunnels, rickety bridges, and the like. (If you roll that a neighborhood connects to itself, that neighborhood instead has a secret room with treasure!) You start off rolling 1d6 to figure out what the entrance is like: is it underwater, guarded, trapped, etc. Then you roll on a series of tables to determine the various "neighborhoods" that connect off of the entrance (e.g. sleeping quarters, mines, throne room) and what special features they have. Each neighborhood has one or more exits, and for each exit you'll roll to see what neighborhood it connects to and what the exit is like (narrow tunnel, ladder, bridge, etc.). Eventually you'll have a maze of interconnected zones and crazy hazards and hijinx to get between them, something that might look like this:  It's a neat little mechanic, and the game suggests varying the size of the die you roll on the neighborhoods table to control how big the dungeon is: A d6 will create a small warren suitable for an evening's gaming (since there will at most be 6 neighborhoods), a d8 will create enough for a long session, and a d10 warren will probably take multiple sessions to complete. Next time: I put this to a thread vote: Shall we continue talking about Beyond the Wall by diving into its sandbox campaign supplement, Further Afield, or shall we detour and talk about one of the following:
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Apr 5, 2015 20:44
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The Obtenebrous Mysteriorum that resides within the deepest soul of FATAL & Friends has spoken, and Katanas & Trenchcoats has won by a landslide. Come, darkest immortals. Dare you enter its fuliginous realm? Breathe in Inspiration Bendigeidfran posted:Wakizashis and Greatcoats Kavak posted:Zweihanders and I-just-like-the-uniforms Snorb posted:Nodachis and Buffcoats! Cythereal posted:Flamberges and petticoats! Katanas & Trenchcoats encompasses all these and more, for it is the pinnacle of deep, story driven roleplaying. pkfan2004 posted:Empty mailing tubes and cardboard boxes! Except this one. Failure to take the secrets of darkest immortality seriously is the height of bad roleplaying, and will be punished to the full extent of the rules. Evil Mastermind posted:If someone does do Katanas & Trenchcoats, then they need to do it in the "it's the 90's and this is awesome" tone of the game. You say that like there's any other way to talk about Katanas & Trenchcoats. GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Apr 6, 2015 |
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Apr 6, 2015 03:15
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pkfan2004 posted:You don't understand. My Black Soul Flame allows me to master any weapon. I choose the humble board of card to humiliate foes who are not worthy of tasting my immortal, pure starmetal steel folded six hundred and sixty six times by the blind monk Sensei-sensei. I DEFY YOUR PUNISHMENT.  Take +1 Glory Rank.
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Apr 6, 2015 03:38
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 GLORY posted:Do you yearn to portray the passionate and harrowing drama of awesome Immortals in a secret supernatural world? Does your heart sing the ancient aphotic melody of ’90s storytelling? Does endless fire burn within you to make an everlasting mark on this Darkest Cosmos? If you meet another Immortal in on a windswept street, do you fight with swords as your way of saying hello? Harken, Immortals, for the time has come to emerge from the tenebrous dissimulation of your shadowy lair and take your place as the trench coated, be-katana'd badasses that you truly are. The time has come for a revolution in roleplaying that will change the very face of the 90s. The time has come for Katanas & Trenchcoats - Episode 1: Welcome to Darkest Vancouver. You're Welcome. For those who dare to take this journey with me, follow these winding trails through the digital maze of the Netrealm: The Basic Edition will provide you with what you require to essay the tragic stories of the Undying Ones. Should your immortality trend toward more rarefied tastes, however, you may desire the Premium Edition which, aside from being personally watermarked for you and you alone, grants its owner a +1 Grandeur Rank. (Have no fear, Grandeur Rank shall be discussed anon.) Alas, like all things that dwell within the Realms Mortal, the time of the Immortal Edition has come and gone. And yet, like its namesake, might it not rise again? Time will tell.... And now, let us crack the spine and drink deep of the storytelling marrow that dwells within. Prepare yourselves for immortality. Part the First: Forged from Stardust and Ancient Fire Immortals walk among us, ruling from the shadows. There they do battle with rivals, friends and erstwhile lovers, masking the pain of an endless existence behind a facade of stoic hedonism. Since swordfights, emotions, and ruling from the shadows are the ingredients that make for the richest stories of all, Katanas and Trenchcoats takes its inspiration from those secret princes of the universe who truly live in our world. Whether 'tis meant as a tribute to their glory or to expose their secrets to those mortals who yet slumber, who can truly say? And what even is an immortal? Even among themselves, that knowledge is shrouded in mystery. They have come among us in every era of history, moving silently down through the centuries. Immune to such tawdry frailties as age, sickness, and injury, they live forever--unless another immortal takes their head. Immortals know this deed as "perma-killing," and it is the engine that drives the drama of their lives. Can you even imagine it? Knowing that at any moment your dearest friend, your sweetest lover, might strike off your head for the power contained within--or even that you might do the same? That's roleplaying. Other games might let you kill a dragon--this game lets you slay a dragon and then shed a single tear over it. Deep. The great tragedy of Immortalkind is that they are, to a one, sterile. No Immortal will ever know the joy of holding their infant child in their arms, or seeing her grow into a properly badass swordswoman in her own right. On the other hand, this means Immortals can have all the consequence-free sex they want. (STIs, naturally, are only a concern for mortals.) That's how you give a character rich, inner conflict. Give them a curse that is also a blessing. I might have to take a break here, folks, because my mind is seriously blown. But no! We must press on. Yearning for companionship and understanding, Immortals congregate in various Houses, which they call their Genus. The Houses define a great deal about their members, and their number are:
Speaking of story hooks, we're also treated to brief summaries of Houses Minor and the three Lost Houses: House Pistrix are madmen, shunned by Immortal society for their horrifying customs. Every Immortal knows that the proper way to perma-kill an Immortal is to take their head in the street, but Pistrix prefers to bite them off. Gross. House Acerodon is a little-known house that does little, but may have connections to vampires. That's right: this game has vampires too. The Lost Houses include House Gallus, who were destroyed in an orgy of violence, House Anatidae, who disappeared mysteriously, and House Meleagri, who are not so much lost as newly found. They claim to be Anatidae returned and even call Gallus their ancestors, but their goals remain mysterious--at least, here in Episode 1. Part the Second: Immortalizing Yourself  Pictured: Majesty. What You Need to Play posted:The usual stuff: character sheets and pencils. Each player needs 8–10 d10s. But, really, you can borrow that poo poo. The one thing you must bring that’s uniquely yours is your awesome. Nobody can give you that. Yes, play the laconic antihero. Yes, brood over inner tragedy. Yes, of course it’s snowing softly as you duel your sworn enemy against a backdrop of snowcapped mountains. Revel in it. Embrace it. Bring. Your. Awesome. Welcome to a character creation section that will blow your mind. You might be reaching for your dice right now to start "rolling up" a character. STOP! In Katanas and Trenchcoats, the greatest emphasis is placed upon your Saga, or "Personal Bullshit" as it's sometimes known. You'll start by rolling 3d10 to determine the year of your immortal birth. You may arrange the dice in whatever order you like, and use good roleplaying to determine the thousands digit or BCE suffix.Next you must inscribe the saga of your history in five parts. As we all know when writing character backgrounds, more is more. The quality of your backstory determines your starting Grandeur Rank, so don't skimp here! Your Saga encompasses the following richly-detailed aspects of your story:
Stay thine hand from yon dice, knave! For Katanas & Trenchcoats is not content to merely hand you a pile of random numbers and force you to eke character from chaos. Nay, this system personally hand-crafts your character along with you, as though you were Hanzo himself and the text your able apprentice, working the bellows and keeping the flames hot. The flames are inspiration. That's right, you actually get to pick your own stats in Katanas & Trenchcoats. First you'll define the five Traits common to all Immortals: Awesome Sword, Ancient Memories, Raging Passion, Mystical Talents, and Kickass Wardrobe. You'll choose one to rate at three Marks, two at two Marks, and the rest at one. It's considered good roleplaying to rename one or two of these to reflect your personal character. Perhaps your Ancient Memories are Memories of Old Paris or your Awesome Sword is Durandal, Which Roland Gifted Me on the Field of Ronceveaux. Next are Skills, which we'll discuss anon. All Immortals begin with Fight at 3 Marks, this is the Immortal's Essential Skill. You may choose one further Skill at 3 Marks now; the rest you actually rate as you play. The first time you roll a new Skill, you decide what your character's rank in it is (four skills at 2 Marks, the rest at 1). Your character actually adapts to the game, like a master of kenjutsu shifting seamlessly into the Jodan stance to counter an enemy's attack. You may further define your character by choosing Edges. Edges are cool tricks and special talents that mess with the rules. Immortals are double-edged characters, so they receive two Edges. However, if you were lucky enough to roll triple-digits when you determined your Birth Year, you are tripleedged and may select three. Now comes the most important stat in the game, for it is the stat you, the player, share with your character. Grandeur Rank is the mark of good roleplaying, the measure of your commitment to the chronicle of a brooding Immortal, and the roll of your awesomeness. Your starting Grandeur Rank is determined by your Saga: a sentence in each category earns you a Grandeur Rank of 1, paragraphs are worth 2, and so n, up to epic poetry being worth 4 Grandeur Ranks. You'll earn additional Grandeur for drawing your character, dressing as your character, bringing your actual Awesome Sword to the game, and so on. However, bad roleplaying will cost you Grandeur Ranks, so don't suck. Finally, you must name your Throne of Comfort. This is the one thing so important to you that a threat to it would spur you to immediate action. Don't worry though, this is just for roleplaying--the SM would never actually threaten it. And with that, you have forged your Immortal hero! Or perhaps... villain? Part the Third: Rules That Bind the Cosmos  Pictured: Immortality. Katanas and Trenchcoats employs a system that is sheer elegance in its simplicity. When your Immortal desires to undertake an action, you assemble a dice pool equal to your Marks in a Trait + a Skill. Your opposition has a chance to respond with an action of her own (if there is no direct opposition, the SM sets a difficulty between 1 and 10 and rolls that many dice). Any die showing 7-0 is a success, and whoever rolls the most successes wins, with the difference in successes determining the degree of their victory. The three types of actions available are Attack (striking to wound with the Fight Skill), Boost (create an advantage for a follow-up action; spendng a Boost gives you two free successes), and Push, which is the catch-all for "doing something." And yes, you can respond to Arttacks with your own Attack. That's badass. Combat follows much the same system, with liberal use of Attack actions to inflict Wounds. When an Immortal has filled her last Wound box, she is vanquished, and her vanquisher may choose from one of several fates, including killing her, demanding some immediate concession, or taking a Trophy. Fortunately, Immortals heal quickly. All normal Wounds go away after a few moments of rest. If you die, though, you suffer a Hardcore Wound, because dying and coming back to life is the definition of Hardcore. Hardcore Wounds only go away if you undertake an epic quest. If you fill your Wound Track with Hardcore Wounds, you're critically vulnerable. You can't Attack, and even a single Wound will put you down. Ah, but what of Perma-death? That black doom is present here as well. When an Immortal is killer, her slayer may attempt to take her head. Doing so requires critical success on a roll of a Trait + the Will Skill, opposed by the victim's Will + 1 die per non-Hardcore Wound currently marked. (So a fresh Immortal with no Hardcore Wounds yet adds 5 dice, but a critically vulnerable one must resist with Will alone.) Sometimes the rules will call for a character to Break a Trait, rendering it temporarily unavailable. There is only one way to restore a Broken Trait, which Immortals name Resverie. During this state, an Immortal's past sins and failures return to haunt her. She and the SM (and the other players, perhaps) play out a flashback scene of one of the lowest moments of her Immortal life. When these scene is resolved and the character developed to everyone's satisfaction, the Resverie ends and all Broken Traits are restored. THEME SONGS MAKE YOUR GAME posted:You literally can’t have a good game without a loving awesome soundtrack, got that? Here’s how music works in Katanas & Trenchcoats. Every player should bring their favorite song. The song can be about their character, nay, should embody the very essence of character. The best songs grant +1 Grandeur. Part the Fourth: Skills and Mastercraft Actions As you can see the Skill list on the Immortal Record Sheet available at http://somanykatanas.com I won't repeat them here, except to mention that the Knowledge Skill is split into five categories: Academics, Politics, Secret Lore, Street, and Damascus Steel Production. Here we also get rules for such vital elements of roleplaying games as rolling to find hidden clues and influencing people. Also, to prove that this is a game for mature minds, there are actually rules for what happens when you have sex. (Spoiler alert: You roll off and whoever gets the most successes has the best sex.) If anyone rolls a 1, the sex is interrupted by something batshit crazy, like ninjas or your ex. Part the Fifth: The Darkest Cosmos The Darkest Cosmos takes the world you know, the Boring-rear end Timeline, and peels it back to reveal the Supernatural Underneath. It's a world where every organization is puppeteered by shadowy puppeteers, where every club has a secret sex dungeon under it that only the darkest and most beautiful are invited to, and where magic lurks just out of sight of slumbering Mortals who are just too dumb to Get It. Poor mundanes. The capital of the Darkest Cosmos is Darkest Vancouver, and its turgid, throbbing heart is the Granville Entertainment District. Moreover, Glamour cloaks Vancouver in a rich, heady stew of illusion, showing he city's chimerical face and drawing film and television production from all over the world. It's the city on the edge of the world, with the best view of the coming Apocalypse, and there's room for a thousand thousabd stories in its shadown alleyways.  The immaculately-researched skyline of Darkest Vancouver. Part the Sixth: Dancers in a Perilous Tango Here we meet many of the great powers of the Darkest Cosmos. I'll tell you no secrets, but herein you might encounter the Royal Mounted Black Ops Task Force or the mysterious Team Nunchuck. You might dance the night away at Scars Sub Rosa, or stumble across the secrets of the Illuminated Council of the New Future... secrets they might kill for. FULIGINOUS CITADEL: IRELAND posted:Ireland, or Tír na nÓg in the whispers of supernaturals, is the threshold of the Faery realm—a threshold drenched in blood and terror. The land is bitterly divided between Catholic native and Protestant invader, from the capital Dublin (Tara in the true tongue) to the other cities and villages. If you hail from this ancient land, you have red hair and alcoholism and totally wield a traditional claymore. (It’s cool; an actual Irish writer wrote this. That makes insulting and appropriating their culture okay, right?) Part the Seventh: Playing Other Supernaturals Ah, so the siren song of Immortality calls not to you? Have no fear, for Katanas & Trenchcoats accomodates your most forbidden desires. Herein you'll find rules for playing Vampires, Werebeasts, Technomages, Ghosts, and the Fey-Touched. Each takes the basic template of Immortality and adjusts it slightly at various steps: changing elements of the Saga, replacing Traits, providing new Essential Skills, and so on. The Fae-touched, for example, replace Ancient Memories and Mystical Talents with Faerie Marks and Wyrd Bonds, have L.C.S. (Lie, Cheat, Steal) as their Essential Skill, and can be perma-killed only by weapons of cold steel. Later Episodes, we're promised, will cover Demons, Mummies, Sorcerers, Nephilim, Paladins, Mutants, Orcs, Urban Shamans, Avatars, Dragonkin, Visible Clergy, Halflings, Pre-Ghosts, and more! Part the Eighth: Being A drat Story Master Alas, I took an oath and dare not reveal the Story Mastering secrets where a mere player might chance upon them. Rest assured, however, that they are masterful. Part the Ninth: Armory: Edges Here at last are presented the secrets of Immortal power: the Edges that make your character cooler than everyone else's. You might be the Inheritor of the Dragon Spirit, possess Deadly Hanzo Steel, or even have a Majestic Accent. Herein observe a sampling: Deadly Hanzo Steel posted:Every Immortal bears a Awesome Sword, but yours is told in story and in song. 6s count as successes when you wield your blade against someone who knows its legend. Requires: Awesome Sword 2+ and a poem about the deadly beauty of your blade. Part the Tenth and Final: LARP Rules, Part One You know this is what you wanted. Rules for not just portraying your Immortal, but embodying her in that most mature of hobbies, Live-Action Roleplaying. The LARP rules for Katanas & Trenchcoats replace the simple, elegant dice pool system with a simple and elegant Rock Paper Scissors system. Those with advanced Traits and Skills (3+) may employ additional hand-signs granting them an edge. For example, in a Will Challenge, Immortals with a Will of 3 or more may throw the Horns, which lose only to the Anvil and the Fist. Further LARP rules will be presented in future Episodes. And here, dear readers, our journey together through the Mysteries must end, for we have come to the close of this tome. Now that you have an understanding of the Ways Immortal, know that should we meet again in a mist-shrouded alley or snow-swept mountain temple, I shall not be so merciful. Ours is a lonely and intemperate existence, and I shall not hesitate to take your head, for in the end But One May Remain. Keep your blades sharp, my lovelies. I leave you, then, with final words of wisdom gleaned from the text itself:  Okay, dropping the ridiculous character bit for a moment: Yes, Katanas & Trenchcoats is a parody game, and yes it's a loving tease aimed at the excesses of 90s-era roleplaying, but it actually is a solid, playable, and fun game n its own right. There are some Edges that don't actually have any mechanical effect, and a couple of deliberate inconsistencies and "poor editing," but it's all part of the fun. Anybody who likes getting drunk and binge-watching Highlander: The Series or laughing at F&Fs like Immortal: The Invisible War or any of the old World of Darkness games should definitely drop a few bucks on it. Also, all proceeds go to Seattle Children's Hospital, so you're being awesome and helping sick kids. Finally, full disclosure, I did write a teeny, tiny bit of Katanas & Trenchcoats, so maybe I'm biased. But if I am, it's only about 150 words worth of bias. You should buy it anyways. GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Apr 6, 2015 |
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Apr 6, 2015 19:18
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Evil Mastermind posted:I must climb to the highest spire of the abandoned church in the rain, and brood moodily as I realize I'll never write a review this good. As I stare out over the darkened skyline of Darkest Rhode Island, I realize that the sharp blade of your katana-like writing has beheaded the belief I had in my own ability, and now I must face eternity knowing I have been bested at a game I was kind of okay at by a foe I have never met. Fear not, Mine Immortal Cousine. There is yet a chance for you to redeem your honor:  You know what you must do. (Seriously though, glad you liked the review. Honestly, it was hard not to just copy/paste entire swathes of the book; the other writers did a really fantastic job nailing the exuberant solemnity of "serious, mature" 90s games. There's so much more awesome than what I was able to fit into the review.)
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Apr 6, 2015 19:53
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Evil Mastermind posted:You laugh, but a friend of mine actually owned this back in the day. We almost played it, too. It's not even "Highlander with the serial numbers filed off", it's "Highlander with a Sharpie line through the UPC code". Ahahahahaha, just in the six page preview on DTRPG they cram in song lyrics from Rush, Indigo Girls, MGMT, and Melissa Etheridge. This is amazing.
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Apr 6, 2015 20:25
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PantsOptional posted:It pleases me immensely that for the Basic edition they kept the same incredibly terrible art from the original. I wonder what the difference is between the versions? I'd imagine the basic version strips out the World of Darkness copycat stuff (not-vampires, not-mages, etc) but that might be a generous assumption of competence. It does say the Basic Edition presents a "streamlined version of the setting," so that'd be my guess. It's definitely still a Highlander copycat judging from the preview pages. Halloween Jack posted:Actually, I'm planning on finishing out my Dune review as quickly as possible. I have a copy of Legacy, and I'm happy to tackle it if no one else wants to. Shouldn't take too long; there's not a lot to the game. I for one would love to see that.
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Apr 6, 2015 20:36
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Kurieg posted:There was some spillover into the nWoD as well, Genius the Transgression is basically "We are really really mad that you didn't port over the sons of ether and the technocracy" The RPG. poo poo, did that actually get legit published? I thought it was just an nWoD fan game of the type that haunted BJ Zanzibar's website back in the 90s.
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Apr 6, 2015 21:27
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Evil Mastermind posted:It was, but it was seen with more of a hindsight thing. At the time Japanese corporations were buying up American factories left and right and nobody knew how we were supposed to deal with it. Oh we knew exactly how to deal with it.  Make racist movies about it.
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Apr 7, 2015 21:02
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Halloween Jack posted:That sounds really cool, actually. Oh hey, yeah, I have this game; albeit a later edition that uses dice rather than cards. It's published by the same studio that did Aletheia, the game I reviewed... God, two threads ago, maybe? It's definitely interesting, and yeah, very Twin Peaks. theironjef posted:Don't worry, it doesn't stick the landing. Pity. I remember the third edition being pretty good.
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Apr 14, 2015 15:49
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Halloween Jack posted:I've heard D&D magic defended by people saying "Well if you want to know why St. Cuthbert won't give you more spells when you're fighting vampires, go ask him yourself." "One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with St. Cuthbert. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky. In each scene I noticed spell slots in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of spell slots. Other times there were one set of spell slots. This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life When I was fighting vampires, ghouls, and liches, I could see only one set of spell slots. So I said to St. Cuthbert, "You promised me, St. Cuthbert, That if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I noticed that during the most trying periods of my life There have only been one set of spell slots in the sand. Why, When I have needed you most, you have not been there for me?" St. Cuthbert replied, "The times when you have seen only one set of spell slots Is.... Then I woke up. St. Cuthbert isn't taking my calls any more.
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Apr 24, 2015 14:33
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This is the most stupid conceivable answer because in D&D you can literally do that, and the books/DM won't have an answer for you.
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Plague of Hats posted:Hm, maybe I forgot Green Ronin called it that. Could've sworn it was something else. It is; Green Ronin calls its SoIaF system Chronicle. No idea what "Sword and Sorcery" is.
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Apr 29, 2015 22:46
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Night10194 posted:I would play the poo poo out of Revenge of the Exposed. And for this, you want Mythender. (EDIT: I haven't forgotten about Beyond the Wall, just got really busy. I'll try to start Further Afield this weekend.)
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May 8, 2015 18:11
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Bieeardo posted:I mostly read the horrifying fluff for the Scion line, but didn't Legend have some annoyingly ill-defined drawback that made people increasingly likely to become pawns of your developing personal myth? Yeah, basically it was, like most of Legend's side effects, an in-universe justification for plot contrivances like "the town you stopped off in for the night just happens to be crawling with jotnar" or "oh look, it's that plucky cub reporter we saved from the Hydra in Vegas last month." I don't recall the specific mechanics enough to say if they were a pain in the rear end, though. But my guess is probably.
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May 8, 2015 18:53
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Nessus posted:If a thing occurs repeatedly and provably then it is possible, and I want to see scientists in some setting who go with "Holy poo poo, we need to rewrite the books!" rather than "We must be hallucinating, this can't be possible!" when confronted with the supernatural. That's exactly what Null Mysteriis are. If other books (and admittedly, I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of every time they were referenced anywhere in nWoD) hae portrayed them as "it's all a bunch of simple tricks and nonsense" types, that's a case of the author Not Getting It and should be disregarded.
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May 27, 2015 20:36
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Mors Rattus posted:It's more that they keep getting set up with stuff like their Aegis Kai Doru quote where they go 'thing that the book tells us is real and true? obviously nonsense' I guess, but I think it's just as valid to read that as "These two groups have had little to no contact so far." Null Mysteriis accepts the supernatural, but they don't blindly believe everything someone tells them without evidence. Take it in part with their Lucifuge stereotype and it reads less as willful ignorance and more as "without direct confirmation, I remain skeptical." Cythereal posted:See also the sidebar in one of the splats that goes "Task Force Valkyrie? Run by vampires fyi and does all their dirty work." Weirdly that book was written by Chuck Wendig, who was the line developer for Hunter, so that's less a case of "freelancer going off the reservation." Not a call I'm particularly fond of, but still.
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May 27, 2015 21:08
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MonsieurChoc posted:I love how the Lucifuge know about the existence of the Qashmallim, and have no loving clue how to interpret them. I love how the descendants of the literal Devil are one of the most sympathetic splats in all of Hunter, at least going by the core. (Like Null Mysteriis, they suffered a bit from concept drift later on.) They're one of my favorite splats in nWoD in general.
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May 28, 2015 04:34
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Bacchante posted:One of the Castigations is for a familiar. You could probably talk your ST into letting you take it more than once. Or you could make your familiar a Swarm critter. Might be simpler mechanically.
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May 28, 2015 13:38
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I know I promised Further Afield soon, and it's still on the docket, but in the meantime I have a few moments to share with you more nitro-boosted secrets of the Darkest Cosmos. Hearken, my immortal lovelies, to the full-throated V8 song of the Mechanical Talents, the Physics Benders, the Road Ronin. I speak, of course, of nothing less than: Not content merely to blow our minds with the pinnacle of bleeding edge 90s roleplaying, the Secret Masters have seen fit to peel back the Curtain Temporal and deliver a supplement that lives life a quarter-mile at a time. Packed into three tiny pages is a fully tricked out 250 hp hemi engine of story. And what even is a Car Wizard? They are the first in a new breed of playable character, the Exceptional Mortal. "Mortals?" I hear you scoff. "Exceptional? What a parochial notion!" It's true, no mere mortal can hope to match the dark sexiness of Immortality on its own terms, but when a Car Wizard is behind the wheel, the Darkest Cosmos itself is her co-pilot. And that, my beauties, is about as dark and sexy as it gets. Making A Car Wizard Thanks to Katanas & Trenchcoat's incredibly robust and innovative story-building system, creating a Car Wizard is simplicity itself. The process is much the same as creating any of the Higher Supernaturals, with but a few adjustments. Firstly, for Age Generation, a Car Wizard rolls 2d10 and sums the results. This is the number of cars she stole last week, or perhaps the number of months (or years) she spent in prison before getting out last week, or perhaps (if she's an undercover cop) the number of criminals she's tricked into thinking she's one of them. Use Good Roleplaying to decide which, and to determine how old your Car Wizard actually is. Since Car Wizards live the mayfly lives of Common Mortality, they replace Influence on History with Shadowy Connections, representing favors owed and debts to call in. Car Wizards have two options for detailing the amazing vehicles they drive. You may replace Awesome Sword with Awesome Ride, representing your iconic vehicle and its storied past. It is the car that defines you, and because you spend most of your downtime tinkering with it, you must have Make at 2+. Alternately, you may replace Kickass Wardrobe with Kickass Rides, representing the string of fast, sexy vehicles that you burn through like nitrous in your fuel-air mix. For this option, you must have L.C.S. (recall that this stands for Lie, Cheat, Steal) at 2+ to explain how you're constantly conning or straight-up boosting your way into all those rides. Did I say two options? Forgive an old Immortal his japes, for it is in fact three: Like the gluttons of House Sus, you may choose both of the options described above, should you wish to have a string of disposable cars to blow through before pulling the tarp off of your father's 1970 Dodge Charger for the final act. Oh, such decadence! Finally, Car Wizards replace Ancient Memories with Storied Past, representing their improbably former lives as hackers, undercover cops, or pro-wrestling superstars, and Mystical Talents with Uncanny Talent, representing their ability to tell the laws of physics to shut up and sit in the corner while behind the wheel. Move, of course, replaces Fight as the Car Wizard's Essential Skill. And what of the sweet embrace of sweet Lady Death? Simply put, as long as a Car Wizard is behind the wheel of a moving vehicle (and it matters not how the car is moving--tumbling off a cliff, sinking into the sea, or leaping the gap between two skyscrapers), she cannot die. If the rules say otherwise, then either the rules are incorrect or the car has, obviously, come to a stop somehow. Exceptional Mortals There follows a short summation of Exceptional Mortals. Chiefest of these points is the matter of death and healing. While in truth mortals heal far more slowly than the Higher Supernaturals, such would be dreadfully dull in a dark, sexy epic like Katanas & Trenchcoats. One cannot brood sexily in a brightly-lit, sterile hospital room, after all. Thus, for the sake of King Story, we bend the laws of probability and decree that Exceptional Mortals heal at the same rate as Immortals, and that "death" merely means, for them, grievous injury and Hardcore Wounds. Hardcore Wounds likewise heal for Exceptional Mortals the same way they do for Immortals, you simply need an outlandishly awesome narrative justification. For example, if you've had your back broken and been thrown into a hellish prison-pit, you might simply need a wise old prisoner to un-break your back with ropes, believe in yourself extra-hard, and your Hardcore wounds would be healed. High Supernaturals, however, get a free Boost when attempting to perma-kill Exceptional Mortals to reflect their fragility. Instead of Resverie, Exceptional Mortals have Reflection, which is basically the same except that it involves brooding on something that happened months or years ago instead of centuries. For Car Wizards, it's usually working on their Awesome Ride while drinking a beer, because poo poo's hosed up and right now that's all you can do. Skills & Car Wizardry While Move is the Car Wizard's Essential Skill, it's far from the only one they might require on the Darkest Streets. Fight is useful when you try to Wound someone (but not something; Move does for that) while behind the wheel, Knowledge (Street) covers not just "the streets" as a concept but the actual, literal streets and the surfaces you drive on, be it concrete, asphalt, dirt, whatever. Knowledge (  ) covers automotive engineering, the auto industry, and related fields like the international oil market and new energy technologies.New Dancers In a Perilous Tango Two new Dancers are presented herein: The demon-haunted street races of Tokyo's Yami No Sugano, where three different clans of Immortals duel over a mighty temple, and the Road Ronin, a loose network of small, tight-knit Car Wizard crews that often serve as couriers and transporters to the shadowy underworld--both literal and figurative. Both are, naturally, surpassingly awesome and dripping with story hooks. Hot Rules Rules for Chases, Races, and Car Fights adorn this section, condensed, we are told, from the Darkest Drift Episode, which one day may yet be. Races and Chases both rely on a system of Move rolls to gain Distance, with Races being a flat attempt to be the first to reach a set number (say, five for the typical quarter-mile street race) and chases involve one party trying to reach a fixed number while the other tries to match the chasee's total. You can also accept a chase scene in lieu of Breaking a Trait when you flee a scene, but of course you run the risk of being caught again. In both instances, the exploding dice rule is, of course, in play. New Edges Finally, proving that the adage "save the best for last" is like all good and wondrous things an invention of the Immortals, we end with three new Edges suitable to Car Wizards: Cars Do Fly, One-Point-Twenty-One, and War Rig. All are elegantly-crafted mechanical jewels, but I will share one with you in its entirety: Cars Do Fly posted:When the SM tells you that your car probably can’t do something—like drive off of a perfectly good cargo plane, parachute down, and immediately start racing once you land—you tell the SM to shut their filthy lying face, then explain with the loosest grasp of physics why obviously it can. That, then, is the secret truth of the Car Wizards. Learn it well, my pretties, and remember: If you're idling at a traffic light on the Darkest Highway and you hear the roar of an engine off to your left, don't dare to look. You just might find yourself in a race... A race straight to Hell. (Go buy Car Wizards.)
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May 28, 2015 20:15
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GimpInBlack posted:
Addendum post: Much as proceeds from K&T went to Seattle Children's Hospital, proceeds for Car Wizards likewise goes to a good cause. This time, all sales proceeds for the first couple months of sales go to Derek Guder, the Events Manager for Gen Con, who's spent the last few months fighting cancer while simultaneously managing freaking Gen Con. Read more about it here. Go buy Car Wizards.
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May 28, 2015 22:35
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Somebody should do Demon: The Descent.
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May 29, 2015 00:50
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Gerund posted:I love the meta-satire of Car Wizards. Of course the 90s pastiche parody RPG would have a supplement, and said supplement would be a cheap reflavoring of the system to hamfistefly jam in a completely unrelated game experience. I dunno what you're talking about, Immortals and Car Wizards are deeply, thematically connected by being totally sweet. They go together like peanut butter and sick guitar riffs.
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May 29, 2015 02:32
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Mors Rattus posted:Strictly speaking, no. Practically speaking, you're gonna have some trouble getting into multiple conspiracies without pissing your GM off. But it's not exactly hard to infiltrate the Union or the Lucifuge as a conspiracy person. That'd be totally fine. There are a couple of limits as laid out in a sidebar on p. 73: Subsequent Compact/Conspiracy Merits after your "real" one are capped at two dots, and buying those dots cost (new dots x 4) XP. Endowment costs rise to (new dots x 6) for your second and on Conspiracy. Those rules seem more geared toward, like, "neighborhood priest who's in the Union but also knows secret Vatican prayer magic" than undercover agents, though. Surprised you didn't mention one of the biggest editing gaffes in the book: the Bleeder, which causes Willpower loss, can't be made to cause Willpower loss. Oops.
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May 29, 2015 05:08
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Mors Rattus posted:Gonna be honest: I totally missed the gaffe, having focused more on the fluff. (Likewise, I didn't spot the sidebar in my quick scan back over that part of the book.) Fair enough. It just irks me because it's in my section.
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May 29, 2015 14:50
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Mors Rattus posted:What do you want to see next? I'm saving Compacts and Conspiracies and some of the other books for later - four books came out first, and those four are pretty independent of each other. These are Slasher (about serial killers), Witchfinders (about mages), Spirit Slayers (about werewolves and also spirits) and Night Stalkers (about vampires). Which one do you guys want to see first? Slasher.
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May 29, 2015 18:15
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Bieeardo posted:Not a hill I'm willing to die on, but 'dwarven women have (shorter) beards' is one of the things that's always stuck with me from the Basic Set. I always thought it was neat: halflings have hairy feet, dwarves have hairy faces, just another way they veer off from the human defaults. Rat Queens has dwarf women with beards. Rat Queens is the best. Ergo, by the transitive property, bearded dwarf women are the best. This logic is flawless.
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Jun 11, 2015 17:40
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