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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I may rag on Harn, but by god I respect it. When I said it was THE Peasant/ simulator I was not kidding in the slightest. I was at the GENCON where it was first released and it produced the same 'Holy poo poo!' reactions then as it does now. Robin Crossby is a mad genius. You were at GenCon '86? 
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Aug 14, 2015 10:11
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I was at Gencon 79 <--------- Born in 1960. I am an Old School grog that started playing elfgames in 1975.
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Aug 14, 2015 10:18
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If you want to use Harn to do something more, uh, classic. Being murderhobos, exploring and adventuring, that sort of thing, how well does the system work for that? Does it bury you under complicated injury tables and end up with every single PC a ragged cripple after the first adventure?
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Aug 14, 2015 10:21
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Worldbuilding stuff always gets me excited. Can it handle non-medieval tech levels? I guess that might be asking for too much.
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Aug 14, 2015 10:31
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FMguru posted:More Anglo-Saxon than Norman England IMHO - peep the Kingdom conquered by the not-Vikings in the far north. Yep, this looks about right.
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Aug 14, 2015 12:35
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It appears I misunderstood what Harn is all about. I am still very impressed and am probably going to give a try to their method to calculate stuff like crop yeild for my own setting. Do you guys have any suggestion about what should I check out if I am mostly interested in their worldbuilding and all the precise data they poured into their books? paradoxGentleman fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Aug 14, 2015 |
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Aug 14, 2015 12:58
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oriongates posted:Unknown Armies: Postmodern Magick Adept Rundown, part 1 To me, a lot of these rituals read more like plot hooks for street level campaigns than anything else. No player character or group of player characters would ever willingly pursue the Pentacost Ritual, but you could make a pretty exciting session based on the characters trying to stop some lunatic from pulling it off.
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Aug 14, 2015 14:17
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I feel like the tongue-mashing ritual is only worth doing if you are literally giving, like, the State of the Union. And have the Secret Service helping you out with the thing. Basically: it is worth doing if you are already literally the President.
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Aug 14, 2015 14:19
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I have a lot of respect for Harn, but I'm still a little baffled at character creation rules that just go by population demographics and give you a 70% chance of being a serf who is a farmer or servant. I'm not going to compare WFRP to Harn for historicity (it has fantasy Vikings, Cossacks, and Italian swashbucklers, and Knights of the Round Table bumming around a fantasy Holy Roman Empire), but even the peasant classes that WFRP gives you can actually have pretty good abilities and are assumed to be plucked from their usual lives to go on adventure, not bound by law to grow turnips until their wattle-and-daub cottage falls in on them. Is HarnMaster like Traveller, where you have a fanbase that likes using it to procedurally generate things for pleasure without intending the use them in a game? I like to play around with lifepath character generation rules, but this is just a fuckin shitfarm generator Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Aug 14, 2015 |
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Aug 14, 2015 15:04
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Mors Rattus posted:I feel like the tongue-mashing ritual is only worth doing if you are literally giving, like, the State of the Union. And have the Secret Service helping you out with the thing. I kept thinking of someone trying to perform the John Galt speech. Nevermind that it doesn't function over transmissions.
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Aug 14, 2015 15:27
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Mors Rattus posted:I feel like the tongue-mashing ritual is only worth doing if you are literally giving, like, the State of the Union. And have the Secret Service helping you out with the thing. That was my first thought as well. It could work...it would only work on the actual present audience but since that audience is...you know...Congress that could be a big deal. But then you better get rushed out really quick because you'll spend the next hour-or-so spewing gibberish. So, yeah, potentially useful when giving a speech to a major political body such as congress or the UN...but I'd question a +25% bonus is worth the amount of murdering and co-conspirators required. quote:To me, a lot of these rituals read more like plot hooks for street level campaigns than anything else. No player character or group of player characters would ever willingly pursue the Pentacost Ritual, but you could make a pretty exciting session based on the characters trying to stop some lunatic from pulling it off. I agree. You could totally center an adventure around the "tongue-tier" serial killer. I just think there's way more detail than we need at that point. All a plot hook requires is something like "The pentecost ritual requires 12 tongues taken from those fluent in multiple languages which must be ground and mixed with fresh blood in a grueling 24 hour ritual requiring no pauses and several assistants. The final product is a potion that could make anyone as persuasive as the Demagogue Archetype itself." Or something to that effect. And, while I'll gripe here and there I should note that this is stuff that the writers of UA definitely did get better at. Stuff like the Pentacost ritual is ridiculous in hindsight when compared to the more subdued rituals presented in the most recent edition and the "rumors" and "experience fictions" scattered throughout the book are very effective as plot hooks and inspiration. The writers were able to see the problem with the older edition and improve on it with later versions.
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Aug 14, 2015 15:36
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Those ritual descriptions read like something you'd see in a 'real' grimoire, or something from the occult section of your local bookstore. Given how much magic has changed with postmodernism, I can understand them being fairly useless to downright weird-- that old knowledge is still floating around, but its efficacy is dwindling, and if anyone's figured out a contemporary version then they're not saying anything. ...unfortunately they're still not all that useful, and could probably have been pared down to adventure seeds. At least they got a firmer grasp on things for 2E.
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Aug 14, 2015 16:11
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Serf posted:Yep, this looks about right.  I cannot help but think of this image every time Peasant Simulator games come up. Peasant coming through, step aside.
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Aug 14, 2015 16:35
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oriongates posted:I agree. You could totally center an adventure around the "tongue-tier" serial killer.
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Aug 14, 2015 17:17
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paradoxGentleman posted:It appears I misunderstood what Harn is all about. I am still very impressed and am probably going to give a try to their method to calculate stuff like crop yeild for my own setting. - HarnManor is the crop farming simulator quoted above. Full economic rules for running a noble estate, plus four fully worked examples (with maps and NPCs and everything). 80 pages, $30. - Pilot's Almanac, also quoted above. Rules for building ships, crewing ships, sailing ships, and engaging in trade, with full stats for every port in Harn and the nearby continent. 68 pages, oddly out of print and unavailable in PDF. There are also the Magic and Religion modules, but they're not "realistic" (although they are low-key and integrated into the setting) and you're probably already swimming in game systems for Magic and Religion. Halloween Jack posted:Is HarnMaster like Traveller, where you have a fanbase that likes using it to procedurally generate things for pleasure without intending the use them in a game? I like to play around with lifepath character generation rules, but this is just a fuckin shitfarm generator  Night10194 posted:
paradoxGentleman posted:Worldbuilding stuff always gets me excited. Can it handle non-medieval tech levels? I guess that might be asking for too much. PurpleXVI posted:If you want to use Harn to do something more, uh, classic. Being murderhobos, exploring and adventuring, that sort of thing, how well does the system work for that? Does it bury you under complicated injury tables and end up with every single PC a ragged cripple after the first adventure? Humbug Scoolbus posted:I may rag on Harn, but by god I respect it. When I said it was THE Peasant/ simulator I was not kidding in the slightest. I was at the GENCON where it was first released and it produced the same 'Holy poo poo!' reactions then as it does now. Robin Crossby is a mad genius.  . Dude passed away in 2008. Always and forever: gently caress Cancer.FMguru fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Aug 14, 2015 |
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Aug 14, 2015 17:44
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HARP: High Adventure Role Playing High Adventure Role Playing is a game by Tim Dugger and Heike Kubasch. It was published in 2003 by Ice Crown Enterprises. ICE was the company behind the famously complicated RoleMaster system, and HARP is supposed to be a more streamlined version of that game. The core dice mechanic of the game is something called “open-ended percentile rolls”, or a d100 where success is determined by reaching 100 or more. Basically, you have a set of skills whose value ranges from 0 to 105. You roll percentile dice, add the skill, and then you score a success on a 100 or better. Further, if you roll within 96-100, you take that result, roll again and add the second roll to the running total, and so on as long as you keep rolling 96-100. While going over 100 is moot for an “all-or-nothing” roll, there are several other types of rolls, particularly with regards to attacks in combat, where going well above 100 counts for something. This is very samilar to the Basic Roleplaying/Call of Cthulhu/RuneQuest’s percentile dice system: whereas in BRP you might have a skill of 40% and you roll percentile and try to get 40 or less to succeed, here you might have a skill of 40 and you roll percentile, add 40 to the result, and you want to get 100 or more to succeed. Same thing, except bonuses/positive numbers are always good and penalties/negative numbers are always bad. Part 1: Character Creation The first step in creating a character is to choose their profession, which tells you your Favored Categories, your Key Stats, and your Professional Abilities. * A Favored Category gives you a number of free skill ranks to invest into any skills in that category, and any further purchases of skill ranks in that Category can be made at the cost of 2 points per rank, as opposed to 4 points per rank for unfavored Categories. * A Key Stat just clues you in on which stats you put your highest stats into. * Professional Abilities are special abilities, called Talents, that let you perform your character’s chosen role. The standard fantasy characters are all covered: Clerics, Fighters, Mages, Monks, Rangers, Warrior Mages. Instead of a Bard, they have a Harper (get it?!), and the Rogue and the Thief are two different professions: the Rogue is a generic skill-monkey, while the Thief is specifically a stealer-of-things. So let’s try making a character, then: Athan the Fighter The Favored Category for a Fighter is Athletics and General with 2 free skill ranks each, and then Combat and Physical with 8 free skill ranks each. The Key Stats for a Fighter are Strength, Agility, Constitution, and Quickness The Fighter’s Professional Abilities are the Shield Training and Lightning Reflexes Talents. Skipping ahead to look for these, we find that Shield Training lets you make full use of a shield, while Lightning Reflexes gives a +5 to initiative rolls. The next step is to generate and assign Stats, of which there are 8: Strength Constitution Agility Quickness - note that Agility covers manual dexterity, while Quickness covers reflexes, coordination, and and reaction time Self-Discipline Reasoning Insight - splitting up of Intelligence and Wisdom in these last three stats) Presence - force of personality, or Charisma without the implications with regards to physical appearance The random rolling option is to roll 1d100, reroll anything lower than 40, and assign as desired http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4849021/ That gives me the following rolls: 80, 77, 76, 65, 63, 48, 46, 41 Assigning it per the Key Stats recommendations, I get the following: Strength: 80 Constitution: 76 Agility: 77 Quickness: 65 Self-Discipline: 48 Reasoning: 46 Insight: 41 Presence: 63 There are two other options for stat generation: A point-buy system where a character has 550 points, and then increase stats at a 1:1 basis until a stat hits 91, where it becomes a 2 points:1 stat trade, then a 3:1 trade when the stat hits 96, then finally a 10:1 trade when the stat hits 101 A modified point-buy system where a character has 10d10+500 points. That’s an average of 555 points. After generating my stats, I cross-reference the stats against a table to get the stat bonus and the number of Development Points I earn from the stats: Strength: 80 (+6) Constitution: 76 (+6) Agility: 77 (+6) Quickness: 65 (+3) Self-Discipline: 48 (0) Reasoning: 46 (0) Insight: 41 (-2) Presence: 63 (+3) The amount of Development Points I gain is equal to the bonus, and I gain twice as many Development Points at level 1 (disregarding negative numbers), so I begin with 48 Development Points. These Development Points are used to increase stats (using the same point-buy rules I mentioned earlier), or to purchase ranks in skills (with the per-category discounts I mentioned earlier), or to acquire new Talents (such as the Shield Training and Lightning Reflexes that the Fighter starts with). (One quirk that stands out is that if a character has no stats better than a 51, then they earn 0 Development Points, which means they never get better no matter how much they level up) Next we have to select a race for the character. Randomly rolling between Dwarf, Elf, Halfling and Human, I chose a Halfling, which has a penalty to Strength, but a bonus to Constitution, Agility and Quickness. Recalculating my stats, I get: Strength: 78 (+6) Constitution: 79 (+6) Agility: 81 (+7) Quickness: 69 (+4) Self-Discipline: 48 (0) Reasoning: 46 (0) Insight: 41 (-2) Presence: 63 (+3) Development Points: 52 Halflings get a +5 to Base Movement Rate, +10 to Stalking and Acrobatic checks, +35 to Endurance, +25 to Power Points, +15 to Stamina and Will resistance, and are immune to the penalties caused by naturally occurring extremes of cold and heat. Next, I need to calculate the character’s height, because that modifies the Base Movement Rate. The base height for a Male Halfling is 3’0”. I roll 1d10 and it comes up odd, meaning I subtract the next 1d10 roll. I roll 1d10 again and it comes up 9, meaning I subtract 9 inches off the base height, so Athan the Male Halfling Fighter has a height of 2’3”. At that height, my Base Movement Rate is 2 feet, with no bonus from my 69 Quickness, and +5 from being a Halfling, so a final Movement Rate of 7 feet per round, where 1 round is 2 seconds. The next step is to determine my Culture, which can range from Deep Warrens, Sylvan, Underhill, Rural or Urban. Rolling randomly for this, I get an Urban Culture. This gives me some starting ranks in Appraisal, Armor, Crafts, Endurance, Healing, Jumping, Lore (Local Region), Navigation, Perception, Runes, Stalking & Hiding, Swimming, and one melee and one ranged Weapon Skill. Part 2: Skills There are 10 skill categories in HARP: Artistic Athletic Combat Concentration General Influence Mystical Arts Outdoor Physical Subterfuge The Athletics category, for example, covers the Acrobatics and Climbing skills, while Outdoor covers the Animal Handling, Foraging/Survival, Navigation, Riding, Sailing and Tracking skills. These 10 categories cover the game’s 44 different skills. Each skill has a rank, capped at [level x 3 + 3], then either two different stat bonuses are added or a single stat twice, and then circumstantial bonuses are applied. Okay, so let’s try that. Athan gets 2 ranks in Swimming from his Urban background. A skill rank of 2 equates to a +10 on the skill roll. Swimming uses Strength and Agility, and so with a +6 Strength modifier and a +7 Agility modifier Athan gets a total of +23 to their skill check. If, for example, Athan wanted to swim across a fast-flowing river (as with most TRPG’s, the game says to only call for rolls where the outcome is uncertain or there is significant stress involved), I’d roll a 1d100 + 23, and would succeed on a 101 or higher. Athan has a 23% chance of pulling that off, although the GM can award circumstantial modifiers in amounts of +/- 20, 40, 60, 80, 100. At level 1, the skill rank cap is 6. To go from Swimming skill rank 2 to skill rank 6 is 4 ranks, and each rank costs 2 Development Points since Swimming is under the Physical category that is Favored by Fighters, so that would take 8 out of Athan’s 52 Development Points. If he does this, then skill rank 6 equates to a +30 on the skill roll, or a +43 after including Strength and Agility. That’s much better. That’s the basic pattern for all the skills: Rank converts to a two-digit bonus on the percentile roll, then you get a single-digit bonus from the associated stat. Without going through the full list, there are a couple of special skills that are worth mentioning: Endurance is based on Constitution and Self-Discipline. Athan, with +5 from 1 rank in Endurance from his Urban background, +6 from Constitution, +0 from Self-Discipline, and +35 from being a Halfling, would have a total of 46 Endurance. This actual value represents how much damage Athan can sustain before going unconscious, and then he dies at -79 (the negative of his Constitution value). Since most hits deal about 20 damage on average, that’s not very many hits before Athan is knocked out. More ranks in Endurance will probably be needed. There are three different Resistance skills, one for Stamina, one for Will and another for Magic. When a character is about to suffer a detrimental effect that falls under any of these, they make a percentile roll, adding the bonus from their Resistance skill, and then their attacker must make a roll to beat the character’s result. Spell-casting is a skill. Every spell in the game is considered its own skill, and every character can learn how to cast spells simply by learning the skill. Athan could, at a somewhat hefty cost of 8 Development Points, learn 2 ranks of Arcane Bolt, learn 1 rank of Power Points Development and start shooting bolts of blazing magical enemy at fools. Power Points Development, on the other hand, is the skill that controls how many Power Points a character has, which is a generic term for what powers spells in the game. Athan might spend 4 Development Points to gain 1 rank in PP Development, which gives him a +5, and then he gets a +25 just for being a Halfling, for a total of 30 Power Points. The most basic Arcane Bolt is 2 PP to cast, so he could shoot 15 of the things before running out, although there are more rules later on about increased PP costs based on armor and modifying a spell’s effect. PP is recovered at the rate of 25% of max for every 2 hours of “sleep, meditation, or just lying still for a time” Weapon attacks are just skills broken up into broad categories like axes, long blades, clubs, bows, crossbows, and so on, and then Martial Arts Strikes is its own skill. The game has a small sidebar to tell you that you should definitely sink points into: Endurance Perception At least 1 rank into each of the three Resistance skills At least one melee and one ranged weapon skill Power Point Development, and the spells you like, if you’re a spellcaster Climbing Jumping Swimming Herbcraft Healing - combined with Herbcraft, this’ll allow you to heal injuries and stanch wounds Stalk & Hide Armor - this allows you to negate Agility and Quickness-related penalties with wearing heavy armor Attunement - this allows you to activate magical items What I’m liking here so far is that as long as the character is willing to spend the points, magic is freely accessible, and magic itself is based on a points system. Next: I try to further flesh out the sample character’s skills, and we’ll look at Talents
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Aug 14, 2015 17:48
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Harn actually looks really impressive. If you're going to go that route, doing it via lots of actual research is the way to make it interesting instead of horrible.
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Aug 14, 2015 17:48
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FMguru posted:The system is very much of its age (early 80s) where randomly rolling for everything was The Thing in order to have proper simulative verisimilitude. But even this has been updated. Here are the 3.0 rules from 2003 for rolling your social class HarnMaster and FATAL are the only two games I've ever seen that has an attribute measuring the appeal of your voice.
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Aug 14, 2015 18:09
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It's good though that that Social Class table specifically says "Choice", because while it might be accurate and correct that 70% of the population will be serfs/slaves, practically speaking you're going to reroll anyway until you get a playable character, so might as well cut out the middle-man.
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Aug 14, 2015 18:19
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Halloween Jack posted:Oh yeah man, that's what I'm talking about. 70% chance to be a serf (maybe slave) and then you're inevitably a farmer, herder, or servant. gently caress, you're better off if you're actually in Rethem because then you have a 2% chance to be a gladiator. Update: I actually managed to roll up a yeoman soldier! 
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Aug 14, 2015 18:26
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Hackmaster, 11: My name is irrelevant for my classes are many I am hard-pressed to think of a single fantasy game in which multiclassing isn't either a universally bad idea, or a broken mechanic giving ridiculous results. This especially applies to the various flavors of D&D. 2e had the silly multiclassing which made you advance more slowly at everything than anyone else in the party and made you useless in short order, plus the bizarre dual classing which kicked you back to 1st level in the middle of a campaign (!) until you caught up and suddenly were good at everything again. 3e had the strictly level-slot based multiclassing which resulted in silly front-loaded combinations, 4e had pit fighting clerics, and 5e brings back front-loading again with extra abusability by spellcasting classes. Hackmaster doesn't technically have multiclassing. It has blended classes, each of which combines two of the other classes together. They're selected at character generation just like any other class, and there's no awkward XP penalties or anything complicated like that. We start with the Fighter/Mage. As you'd expect, they get an attack bonus that's halfway between the Mage and the Fighter, the same as a bonus to saves vs spells, and slightly worse Speed and Initative modifiers. They start with some weapon proficiencies and can buy them slightly cheaper than a Mage does (but for more than a Fighter does). Their spell progression is interesting: they get their initial spells quite quickly at the first three levels, but then slow down to half speed, meaning they only ever get up to level 10 spells (whereas in Hackmaster the Mage would go all the way up to level 20). They have spell points in the same way as a regular mage, and can use them in all the same ways, but they have less of them. In what I can only presume is an attempt at trolling, they also have a huge bunch of starting Armor Proficiencies, including Heavy Armor.. and the proviso that they can't cast spells while wearing any of it. Or at least, so it looks from the Player's Guide: the Dungeon Master's Guide shows it isn't actually anywhere near as bad as that. There's only a chance of a mishap, and Fighter/Mages get a substantially reduced chance of it happening, with even less if they're an Elf. So, um, Elves, I guess. Nothing else helps, not even Intelligence, which normally resists spell mishaps. So nobody with any sense is ever going to use that Heavy Armor proficiency, though: you'll get a spell mishap on a roll of less than 12 on a d20, or 14 if you committed the sin of not being an elf. Oh, and while you're enjoying not wearing armor, remember that your Hit Dice is worse than a Fighter's, too, although slightly better than a Mage's (actually, you alternate hit dice every 2 levels. First you get a d8, then a d6, and they swap back and forth.) So, yea.. typical not-really-very-good Fighter/Mage crossover, really. Loses a lot of the value of fighting and their spellcasting will get less and less useful over time. It's not quite as bad in Hackmaster as it is in some fantasy games (although they stop at level 10 spells, they still get more and more spell points, which can be used to scale up the lower level spell effects), but the general golden rule of "never splash casting" still holds. The Fighter/Thief I'll deal with quickly, because it's kind of boring. They get very close to the Fighter's initial proficiencies but give up progression in their attack statistics, in exchange for the thief's Core Skill mechanic which gives a limited number of free advances ever level, and luck points. Unfortunately, trading off for skills is a really bad idea because of the Mastery Die system where unlucky/lucky rolls can give you massive skill advantages even if you got a lower number of rolls. The Mage/Thief, however, has a few more interesting properties. Their attack bonus is terrible, but they get the same Saving Throw vs Spell bonus as the Fighter/Mage, plus a slower version of the Rogue's initiative bonus progression, and the Fighter/Mage's spell and spell point progression. Since they aren't expected to fight and Thieves wouldn't normally be tanks, they aren't so subject to problems with armor - especially since they can cast Illusory Leather Armor and have a temporary armor DR with no penalties to sneaking or spellcasting. Also, they do get both Core Skills and Luck. Their Core Skills are still only thief-type skills, but they do have access to the Arcane Lore skill and their Luck Points can be repurposed to give bonuses to magic skills such as learning spells (although not actual spellcasting). This means they're quite good for winning initiative and blasting. Using spells for stealth might not be quite as useful - Invisibility is a 6th level spell, which means the blended class doesn't get it until level 12, but Inaudibility is only 3rd level, and makes sneaking much more viable without destroying the value of the skill. So, the Mage/Thief is by far the most functional of the multiclasses, but ultimately they're likely to have the same problem as multiclasses have in most games: you're probably in a party, the party probably has been designed to cover all the bases, covering two bases with one character doesn't really give much of an advantage. So, we've now seen most of the standard rules, and assuming we don't want to get into rather boring and tedious lists of character options, the next step is to look at some of the lighter guidance material in the GMG, some of which is actually really good.
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Aug 14, 2015 18:55
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hyphz posted:So, we've now seen most of the standard rules, and assuming we don't want to get into rather boring and tedious lists of character options, the next step is to look at some of the lighter guidance material in the GMG, some of which is actually really good. That whole Chapter 10 on encounter building and planning out an entire series of encounters for an adventure is, I agree, really good, and shows how much thought was put into the game.
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Aug 14, 2015 19:07
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theironjef posted:Thanks everyone! We're really happy to have been doing it this long and are currently on track for this week (AD&D 1st). Sorry about Duckman, but hey, it exists now! I have to celebrate for this anniversary by visiting the first German Cheese Dudes restaurant in Sprechenhaltestelle (the exact location is a seeecret). And man, I missed your last three Movie Masteries o_O FMguru posted:From this, we know that approaching the port of Cherafir in a 40-foot ship we will pay 50 pence to dock there (half due on arrival, half paid on departure) and 40p per day to stay docked there (or 8p a day to float at anchor in the bay). The local longshoremen can unload 14 tuns of goods per day (at a cost of 6 farthings/tun) or the crew can unload it at half that rate. There's a large Pilot's Guildhouse and Seaman's Hall for our officers and crew to stay in (at 1-2p per person per night). We will pay a 15% hawking fee (i.e. tax) to sell our cargo, and a whopping 3% of the value of the cargo per month to store it in a local warehouse (one month minimum). Yikes, this isn't a cheap place to do business. The local shipyard has 8 full-time employees and charges 35% more than book value for repairs or modifications. The work is rated at an ML of 75, which is a three-star rating; competent, but not brilliant. High tides are at 3am and 3pm, so if we want to depart in daylight we will have to leave between 2pm and 6pm (or 2am-6am if the moon is out - and yes, there are calendar charts showing the moon phases). That's just an example of the kind of detail you find all throughout Harn products. See that HarnManor clip above for another example. Hey, that's almost like The Dark Eye. That game let's you calculated the final price of an item based on through which borders it got transported. Other Dust  Now onto some Dust.  This is like the ending of a Junji Itou story. A History Writ in Dust The fluff section starts off with a summary of things you've already seen in Stars Without Numbers. There's a bit of information for the pre-Spike Drive era with the "Years of Smoke", a catastrophic global event whose exact nature has been lost in time (probably thanks to the help of the Terran Mandate), though it was probably either climate change or World War 3. Fast forwarding into the Golden Age with their physics-defying psitech and the amazing Jump Gates, the Terran Mandate was living pretty swell on Old Terra. Any rebels and other troublemakers could just be loaded into the next ship towards the frontier. To help in finding these dangerous elements, the Mandate created the Maestros, a group of one of the most advanced AIs ever created - though their development was of course limited with a brake, as it was custom ever since on of the first AIs went a bit crazy. The Maestros would watch over Old Terra 24/7, and nothing escaped their gaze. On the technological and medical side, Old Terra was a utopia. Scarcity of anything was unheard of, diseases have been abolished, and people could live up to 300 years in peak physical condition. Humans being humans, it was only a matter of time before the all-powerful Terran Mandate would fall prey to corruption, its former morales hollowed out by a lust for power and gruelty. Opposition to this development came from the Maestros themselves. They were programmed to obey their masters, but their built-in compassion for Earth and its people was stronger. The Maestros would actively refuse orders that went to far, and they warned rebels and others from the Mandate's death squads (as the Mandate become so paranoid of revolt in the colonies they moved on to killing people instead of banishing them). The Mandate faced a real problem here, as the Maestros were too important for Old Terra to just shut off. So they had to continue to send troublemakers to the frontier worlds. And then The Scream happened. Around 90% of all psychics on Old Terra died instantly, the others became the Crazed, immensely dangerous and hopelessly insane psychopaths. As psychics were in charge of the greatest technological marvels of the Golden Age, the Crazed and myriads of tools at their disposal to go to town on Old Terra. Defense system were turned against the people, nanites got tweaked into the deadly Black Dust, and power plants went nuclear. All in all, it took the Crazed about 20 minutes to bomb everything back into the Stone Age. As the Maestros tried to help the people, they ran into the Bender, a female master psychic and hacker. Using old killswitches, she erased 4 of the 7 Maetros. The survivors were forced to flee from one computer node to the next in a deadly chase that is still going on. Inbetween all of this the Highshine system got messed with and at least partially fixed, leading to numerous mutations among people and animals. Worst of all (at least in the long run), the Bender also messed with the Bright Mirror solar defense system, leading to any ship that coming even close to Sol's space to be blastest to smithereens by particle beams and antimatter mines. So even if the party were to find a working spaceship (or get it into working condition), leaving the planet is a bit out of the question, as is waiting for outside help. For this goal (and the less cowardly "Let's fix Earth somehow"), the long-term plan involves rescuing the surviving 3 Maestros, as they're the only ones who know enough about the old technology to maybe fix stuff on a global scale. Speaking of the 3 Maestros, here they are:
(I sure know who I'd want to free first. Robot paladins to the rescue!) Unfortunately, Uriel, the one Maestro who was responsible for the Bright Mirror system was among the casualties. Then again, the text only talks of the "dead" Maestros to be "presumed destroyed", so the others might still be out there. (The other "presumed destroyed" Maestros include the spy Nisha, the farmer Shennong, and Big Brother Wasira) Further sections are dedicated to live under the Terran Mandate, with rebel activities and the Mandate's plan of "Social harmony" severely restricting the people's freedom. Next Time: The next chapter talks about sandbox stuff and features your tag-based random enclave/ruin construction rules. Nifty as always, but similar enough to what we've seen in Stars Without Numbers that I'll skip it. There's also a random loot table, but those aren't to interesting. So join me on Groups and Enclaves, Other Dust's faction management rules.
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Aug 14, 2015 22:13
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PurpleXVI posted:I'm... not usually a fan of the hardcore realism thing, but this is charming me by how the realism seems to be REALLY REALLY ACCURATE and not just "WE NEED MORE MATHS TO SHOW HOW SERIOUS WE ARE."
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Aug 14, 2015 22:55
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oriongates posted:That was my first thought as well. It could work...it would only work on the actual present audience but since that audience is...you know...Congress that could be a big deal. But then you better get rushed out really quick because you'll spend the next hour-or-so spewing gibberish. Unless you're say North Korea and can go through the prison camps for polyglots before your speech to the UN.
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Aug 14, 2015 23:32
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Doresh posted:
I really like that, even if it's a long term thing, there is a chance to make things better for the whole post-apoc world instead of WELP WE'LL BE DUSTFARMERS FENDING OFF RADSCORPIONS FOREVER.
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Aug 15, 2015 03:21
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 Back in the day, Steve Jackson Games used to run an ISP and BBS called Illuminati Online. It's probably most famous for having been seized by the Secret Service in 1990. But that's not what I'm here to discuss. What I'm here to discuss is a book that originated as a collaboratively-built setting for one of the BBS's online roleplaying boards, Illuminati University (which, as the introduction points out, makes Illuminati University the only college to ever be seized by the Secret Service). SJG have always been run by folks with a somewhat goofy sense of humor, and in 1990 they released GURPS Illuminati University, AKA GURPS IOU. (You're not cleared to know what the O stands for.) The first Chapter, Welcome, introduces IOU and introduces us to a few of the characters we'll be seeing in the book's short fiction and stat blocks. Our first fiction short features a freshman orientation leader gunning down a baby Tyrannosaurus ("Just a little escape from the Department of Zoology, folks!")and attempting with little success to convince the orientation group that it won't happen again. Here we meet Gillian Brent, witch in training, and her backpack-riding familiar, a black cat named Pyewacket. Much of this chapter is kind of hard to summarize, because it's the same marketing flash and summary of the institution that anybody who's applied to universities will have seen a hundred times, only with the added bonus of applying to a university where you can major in Mad Science, Character Assassination, and Applied Theology. Obligatory Marketing Hype The short version is that Illuminati University is a school like any other, aside from its being located on a nexus between pretty much all dimensions. They've got all the amenities, facilities, and resources you'd expect of a modern university, particularly one accredited by the InterDimensional Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc. Because students, faculty, staff, and visitors at IOU cannot be assumed to be of a particular gender, or human, or of a species which possesses gender, or an organic lifeform, the terms "freshman" and "chairman" aren't in use, with "freshthing" and "chairthing" in use instead. Admission is fairly straightforward: you need your SAT results, three references, a successfully passed credit rating check, and a suitcase full of small, unmarked bills to cover the application fee. Financial aid is available- scholarships from successful Ilumni, private and subsidized loans, and loans directly from the University- after all, it gets the money right back from the student and then pretty much owns the student's income for the next couple of decades. There's also the "Smith And Wesson Scholarship", which the University regards as the sign of a self-starter who's probably headed for great things- and probably generating rather a lot of profitable blackmail material besides... Here we're also introduced to the major Colleges: The College of Communication, the College of Metaphysics (magic, alchemy, and explosions), the College of Obscure and Unhealthy Professions (covert operations, explosions), the College of Temporal Happenstance, Ultimate Lies, and Historical Undertakings (history and time travel, and be sure to include the periods in the acronym), the School of Anti-Social Sciences, the School of Conservative Arts (making money, but not explosions, which are unprofitable), the School for Performing and Creative Arts (which only creates explosions if they're pretty), the School of Social Anti-Sciences (liberal arts, regards explosions as uncouth), and the College of Weird and Unusual Science and Engineering (science, technology, and a fairly high percentage of the local count of explosions). There's a whole section on these later. IOU Overview IOU sits at a dimensional nexus and virtually any sort of being can be found here. The GURPS Disadvantage Weirdness Magnet applies to the entire institution and its campus, and a classroom containing a mad scientist, a vampire, a psychic, a witch, a rock star, and a chiropractor is on the mundane side. The physical structure of the campus reflects this- some of the buildings are a bit too large to make sense for what they are, one of the buildings is an enormous tree, and a crater where a science building used to be means the University hasn't brought in the replacement yet. IOU has, in addition to the usual collegiate rules and regulations, 9 rules that are always, always in force and will attract the unwelcome attention of the deeply scary ArchDean in a hurry if broken. They are: 1. The ArchDean always gets 10%. 2. There are no exceptions to rule 1. 3. Don't mess with cats. 4. Thou shalt never lower the ArchDean's stock values. 5. First-semester freshthings are completely off-limits. 6. No black holes on campus. 7. No antimatter on campus. 8. Destroying any worlds, stars, or universes requires the ArchDean's written permission. 9. Faculty bloodfeuds require a current permit. Speaking of the ArchDean, she seems to be responsible for the current state of IOU, coming to a University which is believed to predate the Universewhen it was at its lowest point and revitalizing it. It's suspected that she knows what the O stands for. Like all the major characters and groups, she'll be detailed later. Students are expected to take 12-18 credit hours per semester, needing 120 to graduate (though graduation requirements may vary wildly without warning); this is useful both to flesh out a PC's skill advancements and to generate things for PCs to actually do. They're also expected to maintain a certain minimum standard of both academic and financial standing, with failure in either being grounds for expulsion. Of course, between the two, a student is better off maintaining their finances, as most professors are entirely willing to have a lenient view of their grading standards if properly motivated. Up next: Character traits and types. Vague familiarity with the GURPS system will help but not be entirely necessary.
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Aug 15, 2015 05:16
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Aaaaawesome! I love IOU!
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Aug 15, 2015 05:35
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oriongates posted:Aaaaawesome! I love IOU! Some of the jokes haven't aged well, but it's pretty good.
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Aug 15, 2015 05:42
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Oh was it their house RP board setting? That explains a lot.
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Aug 15, 2015 05:47
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IOU still occupies a warm place in my circulatory system.
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Aug 15, 2015 05:50
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These last few pages have been amazing, especially about games I never knew existed (Freebooter's Fare, Harn). I'm really enjoying the Kai Tave's Blue Rose write-ups too. I'm kinda surprised at how interesting I'm finding the setting, I think I agree with the assessment that the setting would have avoided most of the initial "too perfect" vibes if it wasn't a little TOO detailed at the beginning. Everybody is pointing out the tongue ritual for sheer over-the-topness but I think the Hex is almost as bad. Minor stat penalties vs. having to dance on knives for ten days, I think I know who's getting ahead out of that one.
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Aug 15, 2015 05:54
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mycot posted:Everybody is pointing out the tongue ritual for sheer over-the-topness but I think the Hex is almost as bad. Minor stat penalties vs. having to dance on knives for ten days, I think I know who's getting ahead out of that one. Definitely. Most of the Significant rituals have severely diminishing returns. Hex is clearly not worth the effort and the Cartesian Curse is actually probably worse on the "risk vs reward" scale than the Pentacost ritual. Although the Pentecost ritual requires more people be murdered, finding multilingual victims is relatively easy compared to what you need for the Cartesian Curse (the easiest options being the heart of an avatar and the brain of an adept, but you still need a third).
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Aug 15, 2015 06:16
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Bieeardo posted:IOU still occupies a warm place in my circulatory system. I might be jumping the gun a bit here, but the artist for it should be familiar to everyone here I suspect.  Also, notably, it isn't Dan Smith who did basically every piece of interior illustration for almost every goddamn GURPS book in the 90s.
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Aug 15, 2015 06:53
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I notice that when I run IOU I get really weird characters. And I mean really weird...not just like "I'm a witch", "I'm an alien", "I'm an alien witch" kind of characters. For some reason the people I play with interpret "kitchen sink" as "let your bizarre subconscious run wild". Some examples: *A 12 foot tall artificial humaniod created as a kind of physical manifestation of gluttony, possessing mouths for eyes and prehensile hair which it used to feed itself (via a fourth mouth under the hair) constantly from a backpack full of junk food. It was getting a liberal arts degree. *An alien whose physical form resembled crystal tubes arranged like a windchime, held together via telekinesis. *Another alien, this one a Vort from Commander Keen. It had a long prehinsile tongue and a stomach that served as a bag of holding. *A Nekomancer: a wizard whose powers revolved solely around cats.
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Aug 15, 2015 07:16
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I've been working from my old hard copy, but I'll see if I can get a pdf so I can share some of the Foglio (and only Foglio) art. It's surprisingly tone-appropriate.
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Aug 15, 2015 07:21
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mycot posted:These last few pages have been amazing, especially about games I never knew existed (Freebooter's Fare, Harn). I'm really enjoying the Kai Tave's Blue Rose write-ups too. I'm kinda surprised at how interesting I'm finding the setting, I think I agree with the assessment that the setting would have avoided most of the initial "too perfect" vibes if it wasn't a little TOO detailed at the beginning. Thanks, I aim to edutain. I feel like Blue Rose is one of those things where it has definite flaws, but those flaws are almost invariably overlooked by people grinding an axe against perceived flaws which may or may not exist. It's like how D&D 4E has plenty of flaws, from kludgy math in places to an overabundance of feats to ritual costs which become increasingly superfluous at mid- to high-levels to skill challenges needing an overhaul and a bunch of other things which could definitely be pointed to as being in need of polish and revision, and yet most people with a beef against 4E are mad about dissociated mechanics stealing our jobs and arms shouting Warlords back on. Blue Rose is far from a perfect game, and it's not necessarily a game for everyone, but I feel like the setting is more interesting than a lot of people gave it credit for while at the same time a lot of the rough patches that it actually has go overlooked. Speaking of which:  What Makes a Hero Characters in Blue Rose aren't just wandering murder-hobos, or put a bit less flippantly they aren't merely rootless mercenaries out for coin and perhaps the thrill of cheating death. Not every player-character in a game of Blue Rose needs to be a noble knight clad in shining armor, but both the themes of romantic fantasy and the game itself urge players to be who has a reason to do what they do, a drive and desire to protect their community or to make the world a better place. These are characters with calling, characters with conviction, and if their actions are bold and their deeds are great they may one day become the stuff of legend. But first, gaining levels and multiclassing! Because Multiclassing Has Always Worked Out So Well Before Yeah, it's time for some more mechanics stuff, this time leveling up and how to multiclass. I'm covering this real quick because I don't think it got covered in the last update, so let's just go ahead and rip the band-aid off and get it over with. Okay, so leveling up. You level up when the GM decides you do, bam, done. I mean let's be honest, most of us do this already unless you really have a fetish for tracking XP values since most D&D players these days aren't using asymmetric XP advancement charts anymore. Ever since 3E D&D standardized XP across the classes the only time that it really becomes relevant to know how much XP someone has is if they're a spellcaster getting up to magic item crafting shenanigans. Most D&D games these days probably handwave XP as a matter of course, so I appreciate that Blue Rose's writers are at least savvy enough to say "just do it whenever, okay?" The GM section later on in the book goes into more detail about when to hand levels out, but right now we're still firmly in PC territory. Leveling up gives you the following benefits:
The system for how to handle multiclassing and skills is some hilariously tedious bullshit that I have no interest in dealing with so I'll just quote the book here: quote:If you add a level in a new role for your hero, you may be able to learn additional skills that role favors. If you think I'm reading any of that poo poo you've got another thing coming, sorry. If the way your multiclassing system intersects with your skill system requires three paragraphs of explanation then somewhere along the line you've done something wrong. That's a rule to live by that's served me well so far. Feats are thankfully much less ridiculous, you get one per level no matter what and the feat you get has to be from the allowed categories for the role you're leveling up in, so taking an Arcanist level gives you access to Arcanist allowed feats. Makes sense. Mixed role heroes use their adept level for arcana effects which is an ominous statement to anyone with extensive familiarity of 3E D&D but we'll see how that shakes out later. Also a couple things called Conviction and Reputation get namedropped here, wonder what that's all about? Thank god there's some fiction here. RPG fiction: still better than reading d20 rules. Svel is hungry, standing in the rain, and waiting. He's been wet a lot and hungry a lot this year, the implication being that Svel is on the destitute side of things. What he's waiting for, as it turns out, is to see if the local spirit dancers will take him in. He's not the only one. Rich and poor, young and old, an entire crowd is gathered waiting for the gate to be opened (Svel falls into the poor and young category, as well as the orphaned one it turns out). Finally the gates are opened by a kindly old man who seems to put Svel at ease. But of course the spirit dancers don't just take anyone, there's a test to pass. The hall's students are crowded onto the porch to watch the candidates attempt to literally follow in the old man's footsteps as he nimbly dances up a series of stumps arranged in a path. Nobody makes it path the seventh stump, but Svel begins to realize that the old man is looking for something that goes beyond raw skill...some candidates who make it farther than others are turned away while some who stumble and fall are accepted. The ways of the Jedi are mysterious indeed. Svel steps up to take his turn and as he leaps from one stump to the next he realizes that there's a rhythm there, a rhythm that he's out of. He tries to correct himself but he only manages to make it to the sixth stump before landing in the mud, but he's not upset at all because he realizes that he can feel the rhythm now, in his heartbeat and in the earth beneath him, all around him. It surrounds him and penetrates him and binds the galaxy together. The old man helps him up to his feet and tells the hall's newest apprentice to get out of those wet clothes and get himself some soup. Frequently Asked Questions And now, thankfully, we're onto something that's actually kind of interesting, namely the part of the character creation chapter where you're supposed to think about the all the little details that make your character come to life, fleshing them out beyond numbers on a sheet of paper. Personally I'm of the school of thought that says that RPG characters are best when you start with a few broad, colorful details and fill out the specifics over the course of play...I find it a bit too tedious to think about, say, my character's culinary preferences when I'm first putting them together, but it feels organic to decide at an appropriate moment that she's actually a bit of a wine snob and will happily talk your ear off about vintages if you let her. However, I understand that not everyone prefers this approach, and for people who are new to roleplaying games this can be a good springboard to get them thinking about their character as a character. We get the usual...names, age, appearance (with another sidebar on the difference between Charisma and appearance, helpfully reminding us yet again that ugly people can have high Charisma scores), but also a bit on gender which talks about more than just putting "M" or "F" in the appropriate checkbox. Vata are somewhat androgynous while sea-folk are even moreso, and so beyond "what gender is your character" it also suggests considering how masculine or feminine (or in-between) your character might be. And years before D&D Next would get kudos across the internet for having a section on diversity in elfgaming, Blue Rose mentions that you might even want to play characters that aren't your own (the player's) gender or are even transgender, mentioning that there are transgendered characters of every race. There's one bit which that makes me look askance at it though which is the mention that transgendered characters might seek a means of living as another gender (okay so far), and the possibility they suggest for this is the Flesh Shaping arcanum. But this is sorcery, as the book helpfully reminds us, and is this a price your hero is willing to pay? On the one hand, it's nice that Blue Rose comes right out and says "Hey, you want your character to be transgendered? That's cool," and it's fine that they suggest a goal for such a character might be to find a way to bring their body in line with where they want it, but I find it a little questionable that they decide to couch this in terms of "will you risk dabbling in the dark side of the Force to transition?" I dunno, I can't speak with any authority on the matter not being trans myself, but this seems like a lovely dilemma to throw at transgendered characters, especially if they're being played by transgendered players. Following these questions comes a question so important that it gets several pages all to itself, namely what is your character's calling? Excuse me, your character's Calling? Everyone has a goal and motivation in life beyond the immediate things like "defeat this bandit" or "find the perfect birthday gift." Callings are something less concrete, maybe a bit more abstract, and much larger in scope, and they drive everything a character does, acting as a lens through which they rest of their actions get filtered. Not everyone's callings are as loud and insistent as some but everyone has one all the same, and someone who forsakes their calling or achieves it through twisted means is a tragic figure. Of course not everyone has to respond to a calling the same way. Two people may be called to temporal power, but while one might rule with wisdom and compassion the other might be a big dumb jerk always after more more more. A calling is the goal, but the character's nature reflected in his or her alignment to the Light or Shadow determines how they're likely to approach that goal. A calling is often something that a character is guided to through outside forces...the village elder, loved ones, a spirit in the woods, the voice of a god. Sometimes heroes call themselves, either through exceptional self-awareness or amazing hubris, but either way it gets the job done. There's an interesting way for randomly determining a character's calling if you're the sort of person who likes to leave things to chance. A sidebar lists the 22 primary callings that have been identified by the Roamers, each of which is associated with one of the Major Arcana of the Cards of the Royal Road...it's a tarot deck, okay? They're talking about a tarot deck. There's a whole other sidebar here about Roamers and the not-tarot deck that I refuse to dignify because the Roamers are dumb, so let's ignore all that and instead focus on less dumb things, namely that if you want to randomly determine a character's calling you can either chose from the list or draw a card from one of the Major Arcana, or come up with a different calling based on your own reading of one of the cards. Or roll a d22 I guess. The list of callings is comprised of: quote:The Fool: Adventure and excitement In addition to callings, the book suggests deciding whether your character has any other long-term goals that are a bit less abstract and more personal, things like finding their long-lost family, avenging a terrible wrong, seeking acceptance and a new home in Aldis, or living up to a mentor's legacy. Giving your character motivations beyond "generically do good" makes them more interesting and gives you more roleplaying opportunities. Next up is the matter of a character's alignment, and if you've been paying attention at all during this writeup you probably know exactly what this comprises in the world of Blue Rose. There are three potential alignments for characters, Light, Shadow, and Twilight. Light-aligned individuals follow their Light nature. They value community, cooperation, peace, and the general good, though they may still disagree on the best way to achieve all of that. Shadow-aligned individuals are selfish rear end in a top hat who follow their Shadow nature. Twilight-aligned individuals, who we've only seen passing mention of up until now, are Players choose their alignment to start with, but Alignment can be changed if they decide it's appropriate. Quoth the book: quote:Alignment is not fixed; people change over time. Nobles who start out Light-aligned with nothing but the good of Aldis at heart can become cynical and jaded, shifting toward Twilight or even Shadow. The Shadow-aligned can find that spark of Light within them and nurture it to change their ways. Twilight-aligned people choose one side or another as their path, and so forth. In practical terms, if a player wants to change alignment all that's required for them to do is decide "okay I'm gonna change my Alignment now" and spend a point of Conviction which doesn't return until they next level up. What's Conviction, you ask? We'll get to that shortly. For some creatures, however, Alignment is an intrinsic part of their nature, unicorns and darkfiends for example. It's up to the Narrator to decide whether it's even possible for creatures like these to change their Alignment and suggests that if it is then it's almost certainly the sort of thing that epic quests are made of, but it's nice that they leave the possibility open that you could, with sufficient effort and dedication, redeem a being of raw elemental evil from the evil dimension. Alignment is easy enough to figure out here, but what's with all this Light nature and Shadow nature business? While Alignment indicates whether the character is generally a decent person or a jerk, natures are how the character is decent and/or jerkish. "And/or" is the appropriate grammatical conjunction here because characters don't just possess a single nature, they all possess both a Light and a Shadow nature. Even the nicest, most do-right person has the threat of Shadow within them, tiny little selfish urges and impulses, while even the meanest Grinch has it within him to allow his heart to swell three sizes even if only for a day. Natures are broad terms and aren't meant to fully encapsulate a character's personality, but are pivotal forces, two of the primary modes they might assume as they follow their calling. Examples of Light natures are things like Compassionate, Courageous, Diplomatic, and Resolute, while examples of Shadow natures include things like Treacherous, Cold, Standoffish, and Overzealous. If you thought we were done with the tarot cards think again because this time we're using the rest of the deck...there are 56 random entries corresponding to the minor arcana, each of which itself corresponds to a single Light and Shadow nature, for a total of 112 pregenerated Natures for your character to follow (of course you can also make your own up but with 112 entries chances are pretty high that you'll be able to find something that's close on the list). I'm not going to list all 56 entries because I don't feel like formatting that much fiddly text, but I think you've for the gist of it. Players can draw one card for their Light nature and one for their Shadow nature, or they can draw a handful of cards and decide among them, or they can just choose whatever they think fits best. Characters can change Nature the same way they can change Alignment, at the cost of a point of Conviction which is only regained after they level up (so changing both Natures is going to require two points of Conviction if you decide to do both at once). At the Narrator's discretion certain major events in a character's life might also be grounds for a change in Nature, but these should be few and far between. Okay okay, so what in the world is Conviction? It must be pretty important if all this stuff keeps bringing it up, right? For that, let's turn to my partner in deer-related crime gradenko_2000 who's ready to give us the lowdown. Conviction quote:Whether it’s luck, talent, or sheer determination, heroes have something setting them apart from everyone else, allowing them to perform amazing deeds under the most difficult circumstances. In Blue Rose that something is Conviction. Spending a Conviction point can make the difference between success and failure. When you’re entrusted with the safety of the kingdom, that means a lot! As I had mentioned, all heroes in Blue Rose have Conviction. They start with 3 points (and a maximum of 3), and then gain more as they grow in levels, topping out at 12/12 Conviction can be used to do a number of things: * Reroll: any time you roll a d20, such as for an attack roll or a skill check, you can spend a Conviction point to roll again and then choose which result to want to use. You can do this after you make the initial roll, but before the Narrator declares the result of the roll. If both the original roll and the reroll are lower than 10, the reroll can be considered as a 10, so this use of Conviction can also be treated as Taking 10 on any given roll. * Perform feat: you can spend a Conviction point to gain the effects of a feat you do not already have, for 1 round. You must already be eligible to learn the feat that you want to have. * Dodge: you can spend a Conviction point to gain your Dodge bonus whenever you would otherwise be denied it but are not currently incapacitated, such as during the surprise round, or while still flat-footed, etc., at which point you gain your Dodge bonus until your next turn. * Surge: you can spend a Conviction point to gain an extra Movement Action or Standard Action. * Recover: you can spend a Conviction point to immediately recover from a Stunned or Fatigued condition, or turn the Exhausted condition into the Fatigued condition, or immediately make a Recovery Check. Sidebar: More on Blue Rose's damage system. As I briefly touched on in the Rhydan discussion, Blue Rose does not use a traditional Hit Point system. Rather, characters need to make Toughness saving throws, with the DC based on the amount of damage inflicted by the attack. The other half of this system is a "Wound Track", or a 5-step series of states of damage representing how badly hurt the character is. If the player fails a Toughness save, they become Hurt, and then succeeding failures on Toughness saves wil make them Wounded, then Disabled, then Dying, then Dead. A Recovery Check is a DC 10 Constitution ability check to "move up" one place on that wound track, such going from Wounded to Hurt, or Hurt to unhurt. Since the Reroll function of Conviction also grants an automatic 10, then a player could spend one Conviction point to trigger a Recovery Check, then a second Conviction point to Take 10 on that Recovery Check and pass it. * Escape Death: the last possible use of a Conviction point is to use it to stabilize a dying character, either yourself an ally that you're assisting. Conviction Points are themselves regained by a variety of means: Heroes regain one every 24 hours. The game recommends the hero choose a specific time of day when this will happen, such as dawn for Light-aligned heroes, midday for Twilight-aligned heroes and then dusk or midnight for Shadow-aligned heroes.  This seems like a fantastically picky way to handle things bordering on the asinine, and I imagine the reason it exists is to head off people blowing all their Conviction just before they decide to bed down for the night and waking up with their tank filled automatically, but Blue Rose is largely based on a game where wizards can't cast any more spells once they've run out unless they sleep for a minimum of 8 hours so I guess there's precedent for this sort of meticulous scheduling of metaphysical concepts.It's also designed to be used as a role-playing reward, but besides the "give one to the player if they're Light-aligned and they're especially good at being a Light-aligned dude" approach, or the "give one to the player as a reward for completing as especially heroic or challenging feat of derring-do", the game also challenges the Narrator to use it as a temptation. That is, when giving the player a choice between two different actions, the Narrator may want to tell the hero that there is a Conviction point waiting for them at the other end of the branch that is contrary to the person's alignment. This strikes me as a sort proto-Fate-Aspect-invoke, or what the Numenera system might call a "DM intrusion", where you're asking the player to do something that goes against the established nature of their character and/or something that has negative consequences for them (a deal with the devil, or an ends-justify-the-means, greater-good situation), but in exchange they get something that'll help them deal with the resulting fallout. The Light/Shadow nature dynamic puts me in mind of the new World of Darkness' Virtue and Vice system, and of course the Star Wars comparisons are inevitable. However since following your Shadow nature gives you exactly the same reward as following your Light nature does (one point either way), it doesn't really feel like there's as much of a compelling reason for players to go "welllllll..." when confronted with an opportunity to give into their darker nature as there might otherwise be. It feels more like something you'll wind up doing because there was nothing else good on TV and you were in the neighborhood than a struggle to avoid the temptations of the Dark Side.The thing about Conviction is that it's actually one of the variant rules in 3.5's Unearthed Arcana. They were called Action Points in there, but then Green Ronin renamed and modified it. Action Points, for example, let a player add 1d6 to their roll, as opposed to here where it's a reroll/take 10. In fact, this isn't even the first game of Green Ronin's where Conviction appeared! In Mutants & Masterminds they're called Hero Points and they work more or less the same way with some differences here and there.:And on that note, this is where I point out that there are quite a number of mechanics that were, like Conviction, originally from Unearthed Arcana but were then adapted and polished and modified for use in Blue Rose. So far, we've encountered: 1. Blue Rose's skill system is a modification of the "Maximum Ranks, Limited Choices" system from UA 2. The three roles are UA's Generic Classes: Warrior, Expert and Spellcaster 3. Defense Bonus, which I've talked about 4. The damage/wound track system, which I've only briefly mentioned, is a heavily modified version of the Injury rules from UA, except with a dedicated Toughness saving throw and re-math'd damage values instead of UA trying to crowbar everything in with the Fort save and 'divide all damage taken by 5' 5. Conviction And then we're about to encounter another one: Reputation All heroes have a Reputation stat, adjusted by their Role: Experts and Adepts start with +1 and gain another every 4 levels to top out of +6, while Warriors start at +0 and end up with +5. Fighter? Never heard of'im.The idea is that the Reputation stat is a codified representation of the hero gaining fame (or infamy) as they grow in levels/power, and that this affects their interactions with various other NPCs. Whenever a hero encounters an NPC (that per the Narrator is an interaction important enough to merit it), a DC 25 Reputation check is rolled: [d20 + Reputation stat + the NPC's Intelligence]. If the check is successful, then the NPC has heard of the hero. The hero will then have up to a +4 bonus or -4 penalty on social skills with that NPC to represent the change in the NPC's attitude toward them. I imagine most tables that play in this sort of game already try to account for "the farmer has heard of you burning down crops one county over and thus hates you", and it's a neat little touch to have actual rules written for it, and the fact that it's built right into this particular tells you directly that you should be keeping track of it for Blue Rose - rules inform the fiction and all that.  Skirt or cellophane, you decide. And with that, we're finished with chapter 2 of Blue Rose! We're 74 pages into a 219 page book not counting the index, so about a third of the way done. I know that gradenko_2000 has already written up a rundown of chapter 3 but this update is already getting pretty long so I'm going to save that for next time as we continue our review. Next Time: I have a particular set of skills. Kai Tave fucked around with this message at 08:12 on Aug 15, 2015 |
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Aug 15, 2015 08:10
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oriongates posted:Definitely. Most of the Significant rituals have severely diminishing returns. Hex is clearly not worth the effort and the Cartesian Curse is actually probably worse on the "risk vs reward" scale than the Pentacost ritual. Although the Pentecost ritual requires more people be murdered, finding multilingual victims is relatively easy compared to what you need for the Cartesian Curse (the easiest options being the heart of an avatar and the brain of an adept, but you still need a third).
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Aug 15, 2015 13:14
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Zereth posted:The spittle of a servitor option seems like the only one which doesn't require poo poo like murdering a dude or observing an item constantly from harvesting to after the ritual's done. Less available than the body parts of magic guys, but it also doesn't require you to actually hurt anything. It's true, but you need 3 of the items listed. Technically you can do them without murder, a golem would happily hand over it's pinky of given a sufficently compelling command and you could likely negotiate (either directly or with the master) for saliva from an unspeakable servant, and although a quart is a lot of blood you could technically get it from a lycanthrope without killing them. The problem is actually finding and acquiring all of those items. Do-able...but I still say just shoot the bastard.
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Aug 15, 2015 13:57
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Kai Tave posted:There's one bit which that makes me look askance at it though which is the mention that transgendered characters might seek a means of living as another gender (okay so far), and the possibility they suggest for this is the Flesh Shaping arcanum. But this is sorcery, as the book helpfully reminds us, and is this a price your hero is willing to pay? On the one hand, it's nice that Blue Rose comes right out and says "Hey, you want your character to be transgendered? That's cool," and it's fine that they suggest a goal for such a character might be to find a way to bring their body in line with where they want it, but I find it a little questionable that they decide to couch this in terms of "will you risk dabbling in the dark side of the Force to transition?" I dunno, I can't speak with any authority on the matter not being trans myself, but this seems like a lovely dilemma to throw at transgendered characters, especially if they're being played by transgendered players. Yeah, demonizing the desire to transition is a really garbage thing to do. I mean, I'm still going to give them some praise for being a ten year old RPG that's actively trying to be welcoming regarding gender stuff, but this whole plot hook makes it sound like they never actually had a trans person look at it to make sure it wasn't completely out of touch. As an aside, it didn't really sink in that Blue Rose's Roma equivalent are named the Roamers until this post and I am legitimately kind of mad about it now.
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Aug 15, 2015 17:30
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