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Doresh
Jan 7, 2015
Valor - The Heroic Roleplay System


Game Master's Guide

The opening page is your typical GM advice along the lines of "everyone should have fun" and "don't be a dick", after which we get straigth into NPC creation:

NPCs


Skeletons ready to goth out.

NPCs in valor are built just like PCs, with a couple modifications based on the exact type of NPC:

Flunkies are like D&D 4e Minions in that they only have 1 Health, with around half the base damage output that is further diminished by the greatly reduced number of points they can spend on Skills and Techniques, their lack of a base Support Action and their inability to use Valor. They also cannot take damage in any way form a Technique that missed, which primarily means they don't knock themselves out from doing a Muscle Guard.
Depending on how good the PCs are at blasting the crap out of the battlefield, a single PC is around equal to 4-8 Flunkies.

Soldiers are the next step up, with half as much Health as a normal character, more points to spend on Techniques and generally less limitations than a Flunkie (though they still don't use Valor). They are roughly half as strong as a PC.

Swarms are several weaker enemies designed as a what is essentially a giant blob that attacks anyone in the spaces it occupies, similar to a D&D swarm with a greater variety of attacks to pull off.

Elites are just built like normal PCs, and therefore the first NPC tier to use Valor.

Finally, there are Masters, the final bosses at the end of a story arc. They are around twice as powerful as a normal PC and are the only characters in the game that have two Attack Actions.

NPCs also have two exclusive Skills available to them, which would be either a bit overpowered or not very useful for PCs and therefore require GM fiat for players to purchase them: Invisibility works like the Hidden Companion Skills, except it applies to an actual character instead of a squishy Companion, while Revive can restore a KOed Soldier back to full Health or revive a couple Flunkies. NPCs can also slap the Sacrifice Limit onto their Techniques, which has the Technique draw Health from an ally in order to activate. For a bit of a death spiral, there's the Battle Damage Flaw, which applies a penalty to all rolls for the remainder of battle every time the NPC loses more than 2 Health Increments (aka 40%) of its health, which works well for undead, robots and other types of constructs that have to be cut to pieces.

There are also some neat guidelines on how to create a challenging encounter for the party and how to factor in various kinds of battlefield hazards without making things too hard or too easy.

Valor Mechanics in the Game

Valor, the Action/Hero points of the game, can be gained through good roleplaying. This isn't called the "Heroic Roleplay System" for nothing, so PCs are expected to essentially behave like shounen characters: Shouting attack names, making dramatic speeches and generally helping people. The downside of this is that PCs can actually lose Valor from harming innocents, cheating or interrupting a villain's monologue.

Scenes

This is mostly dedicated to offering guidelines for Challenge Scenes, with additional talk about Hybrid Scenes that involve both combat and challenges.

Also mentioned are Elaborate Actions which are essentially swashbuckling actions for the PCs to attempt ino rder to gain a few bonuses, like a hit bonus or a bit of extra damage.

Campaign-specific Mechanics

These include a bunch of optional rules and Skills that might not fit every campaign.

Dark Valor are essentially Dark Side points and are gained instead of normal Valor when a character is driven by rage or anger and just has to win. They work just like normal Valor, but a character suffers one of several penalties each time they are used (like losing Health or triggering a Malevolent Entity).

Pillars and Vices are a new set of merits & flaws. Pillars are a character's ideals, codes of honor and similar things. Characters can gain Valor by upholding their Pillars, but they will also lose Valor from acting against them.
Vices on the other hand are essentially guilty pleasures. Your character knows you shouldn't solve every problem with energy blasts, but that won't stop him from doing it every now and then. Ignoring them gets you nothing, but relishing in your Vices gets you Dark Valor.

Every character should start with the same amount of Pillars and Vices, which can further be adjusted with a new Skill and Flaw.

Hunger and Fatigue describe the effects of lack of hunger and a lack of sleep, if the campaign bothers to include that bit of versimilitude. Both just boil down to a general roll penalty. Also included is a new Fatigue Limit that fatigues you instantly after using the Technique or ending the Transformation.

Illusions

I'm not too sure why these are optional, but here are a few illusion-related Skills. You can alter your appearance, create illusory barriers or a bunch of fake allies. Other characters can generally only see through an illusion if they have a good reason to believe something fishy is going on, or if they pick another new Skill that lets them attempt to see through illusions form the get-go.

Elements

This here is pretty nifty. You get the expected assortment of elemental-related Skills, Flaws and Modifiers (being vulnerable/resistant to an element, attaching an element to a Technique, or being so attuned to an element that all Techniques use it by default), but before all of that, the GM has to decide what kind of element system to use in the campaign. He can pick a simple direct opposition system where the elements are grouped in pairs that oppose each other, a more elaborate wheel system where each element is strong against one but weak against another element, or a combination of the two that lets you replicate Pokemon.
And since "Percing", "Bashing" and "Slashing" could also qualify as elements, you can also do Persona.

Equipment

As you may have noticed by now, Valor doesn't really care all that much about equipment. Characters are supposed to alway have what they need for their Skills and Techniques. A fighter always has his weapon of choice with him, and a wizard's spellbook is mostly for style.

These optional rules add a bit more meat, with new Skills, Flaws and Limits. A character could be Armor or Ward Reliant, reducing his Defense or Resistance if he doesn't wear armor or a protective charm. Damaging Techniques might require a weapon to use, becoming weaker or be not available at all if the weapon is missing. Other Techniques might require ammunition that must be gained outside of combat.

On the upside, two Skills are introduced to make your life a bit easier: Ranged Weapon Wielder adds additional range to all Ranged Techniques, while Polearm Wielder adds a bit of extra reach to any Technique that is neither ranged nor an AoE.

Special Equipment is also introduced. This is pretty much like Accessories from a CRPG, providing a permanent buff (aka bonus Skills) as long as they are worn.
A detailled example of Special Equipment comes in the form of Ego Weapons, which are intelligent weapons that become more powerful as they attune to their wielder, represented by their Synchronization rating.

(Though not really mentioned anywhere, things like potions and elixirs can probably be handwaved as "Here's a one-use item that gives you an Increment of Health/Stamina")

Next Time: Sample Campaign - Night of the Living Super Zombies.

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Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?

Doresh posted:

(Though not really mentioned anywhere, things like potions and elixirs can probably be handwaved as "Here's a one-use item that gives you an Increment of Health/Stamina")

The ideal proper way to do that would be to stat it out as a one-off Healing Tech, but that's what I've done in the past. In my Dragon Ball game, Senzu beans are a full heal out of combat or an increment each of Health and Stamina in combat.

Or, someone could just be the party Potion Guy, and instead of tracking how many potions you have on hand he just has a healing technique with Ammo Limit that's flavored as fishing out another potion to give someone.

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

ProfessorProf posted:

The ideal proper way to do that would be to stat it out as a one-off Healing Tech, but that's what I've done in the past. In my Dragon Ball game, Senzu beans are a full heal out of combat or an increment each of Health and Stamina in combat.

Or, someone could just be the party Potion Guy, and instead of tracking how many potions you have on hand he just has a healing technique with Ammo Limit that's flavored as fishing out another potion to give someone.

Of course, any sort of alchemist would just have potions as the descriptor. I was more referring to loot.

Adnachiel
Oct 21, 2012


Part 2: How to Get Away with Murder by Using Lists

It’s been established that the Witches World Council doesn’t give a poo poo about much. They do, however, care about two things when it comes to magical crime: Curses and spells that remove a person’s free will, both of which are considered to be a form of assault. Other lesser crimes, like using your magic maliciously or stealing, are just “frowned upon”. Of course, because this is Witch Girls, this section goes on to mention all of the ways witches get around being punished these crimes: claiming they were acts of self-defense, having the injured party ignore them out of fear of their powers or losing their social standing (guess there’s a “snitches get stitches” aspect to their culture), or just being really powerful and living in a Highbinder controlled area.

Wicked Ways posted:

Otherkin and mortals living in the magical world know that depending on the local magistrate and government their rights may or may not be guaranteed.

Then why live there?

Thankfully, both immortals and vampires have started their own organizations of magistrates that make it their job to go out and punish witches who aren’t getting punished by the local law or the WWC for their crimes. The WWC probably isn’t happy about this, but they go over the other governments all the time so gently caress them.

Now for the highlight of this chapter: What happens when the WWC actually gets off its rear end and punishes people for being lovely. If a witch is caught by a WWC magistrate (which might not happen depending on where they are), they usually get hit with one of three punishments: a fine, community service, or binding. There is no trial. The magistrate has the final call and Lilith help you if you get someone who is a wicked rear end in a top hat themselves. Binding is usually reserved for repeat offenders whose crimes include mass destruction and death, and is the most feared of the punishments, natch. Here, have a chart.



As the term suggests, binding turns magical beings into mundanes. They can’t cast magic, lose all of their immunities, and age normally. (So if their sentence is long enough, it is theoretically possible for a witch to die of old age.) For witches, this is “a fate worse than death” and many will try to get an alternate punishment. (Which the magistrates or WWC, if it’s a major world-threatening crime, have the final say on as well.) These are usually one of the following:

  • Banishment – The offender is put in a pocket dimension. Note that this is the same punishment that the dorm mother for Coventry uses.

  • Exile – The offender is sent to another universe, with a lock preventing them from returning to their original one, and effectively becomes someone else’s problem. If they’re smart, they can request a decent reality, but magistrates have the final say and usually pick lovely ones.

  • Geas – The offender is mind-controlled into not doing whatever it was they did again. Can be worked around if they’re smart enough and know the conditions that trigger the block.

  • Imprisonment – Usually reserved for otherkin and other beings with little magic that can’t just teleport out of a prison cell. The lone prison for witches, a former cold iron mine called… “Cold-Iron”, is a penal colony that has turned into an “inmates running the asylum” situation. Thankfully, none of them can cast magic. Other prisons have a combination of comfortable cells and forced positive reinforcement.

    Wicked Ways posted:

    Prison life in the magical world is more about isolation and education than anything as those in it are confined to austere but comfortably cells for the duration and are exposed magically to positive reinforcement that they can not shut out for 2-3 hours a day.

    I imagine those positive reinforcement programs have a lot of “Obey the Witches World Council” bits in them.

  • Transformation – Because Witch Girls. Was common until WHAM started protesting its use. Why just this and not the mind control option is unknown. Involves the offender being turned either into an animal ala Salem from Sabrina, The Teenage Witch or an object, which is given to family members for safekeeping or put on display in a public place to deter others.

  • Saint Joan’s Reformatory – A magic school in Antarctica. Its students are minors who would otherwise face large fines or a binding for their crimes. Only keeps individuals up to 19 years old.

Because this is Witch Girls, and because this was written in one go and Harris forgot that he already talked about some of these things, the book goes into more detail about all of the ways one can get out of being punished for a crime.

  • Diplomatic Immunity – Reserved for dignitaries from other magical governments. Rare and makes the character untouchable. Though it can be revoked. There is a specific reason why this is here.

  • Power – The tried and true method of throwing your influence, family connections, or money at something to make it go away.

  • Self-Defense – Also used when saving the life of or defending another person.

  • Youth – Kids are stupid and make mistakes. Unless they’re repeat offenders, killed someone, or took a person’s free will away, they can escape binding. They can also get away with breaking the Laws of Interaction if they don’t do it too much because what are laws?

Of course, if crimes are committed in the mundane world, the magistrates don’t give a poo poo unless it’s something major.

The next paragraph is so badly worded that sounds like it end up meaning the opposite of what it should mean.

Wicked Ways posted:

The magical world is ill prepared for dealing with Wicked witches in an official capacity. With the exception for a few small "fringe' agencies magic is something mortals do acknowledge as a real thing.

Next is a rundown of all of the mortal societies dedicated to protecting mundanes from the witch menace. Some of them are repeats. (The section on freelance hunters includes a mention that 90% of them die on their first mission.) In terms of new agencies, we have:

  • The Maximum Institute – A thinktank for inventors, engineers, and artists run by Harris’ second self-insert. Only the inner circle knows about magic and does the whole inventing to hunt down magical troublemakers stuff.

  • The Questers – A group of teenagers in Olympia, Colorado that battle magical occurrences in their hometown and across North America (during school breaks, of course). Olympia also sits on top of an unstable magical nexus. Hence why they exist. Are actually pretty good at what they do, despite being teenagers, and have been known to take down witches.

  • Phantom Breakers – Ghost hunters who think everything magical is caused by ghosts. Show up during a scene in Pirates of Buccaneer Hill.

  • Project Storm-wall – Due to recovering some files, they’ve been retconned into knowing that unusual occurrences are caused by magic again, not aliens. They work out of an underground bunker in D.C. called ‘The Dome’. I wonder if that’s an XCOM reference.

Annabelle Deville posted:

Heroes? Bah, more like delusional busy bodies out to force their morality on others.

I've run afoul of Deacon Black and his cronies in the past. They and their ilk are the true villains hunting witches with impudently with their "monstrous" technology.

Thy prove why mortals should be taught to fear us and be in awe of us and why hiding from them is the biggest mistake witches have ever made.

Silas Black did nothing wrong.

The “organized villainy” section is the same as the heroes one. For new entries, we’ve got:

  • Die für Immer Königin – The remains of the magical forces that backed the Nazis during World War II, led by Ingrid Frieze. Allies with the Followers of Echidna and want to use her awakening as a cover for their taking over the world. Based in Germany near Reinhexxen because of course it is. Google Translate says their name is “The for Everqueen”.

  • The Night Court – Witches and otherkin who want to bring a nebulous “eternal darkness” to the world. So badly run that it’s more of a lovely goth club than a real threat.

The last section is just about how evil witches see killing as unoriginal and boring and prefer to do things like torture, transform, drive insane, and bind the powers of their targets.

Chapter’s over. Have some pictures.



That guy doesn't look like he's bothered by his predicament.





There's nothing really wrong with this one (other than the Wingdings name tag). I just like the penguin's expression.

Up next: New character creation options

Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Apr 18, 2016

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Good to know that if I am kidnapped and forcibly used as office furniture for two weeks, my abductor might face up to six whole months in wizard jail.

Oh wait no they'd just have their magic privileges taken away for that time.

Rand Brittain
Mar 25, 2013

"Go on until you're stopped."
That isn't what "positive reinforcement" means. :-[

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
Regarding Wicked Ways, this is reaching back a few updates but...am I the only one who noticed that the Japanese witch is a ninja, the Indian one is a snake charmer, and the African teacher is based on the only African myth every white kids learns about in elementary school? If a witch isn't white she's probably barefoot in a stereotypical ethnic costume.

Simian_Prime
Nov 6, 2011

When they passed out body parts in the comics today, I got Cathy's nose and Dick Tracy's private parts.
How does WGA keep having supplements published? I've literally never heard of it outside of this forum.

Does it just have a KS constantly funded by a dedicated core of fetishists? Or are the publishers all trust-fund kids?

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

They're also cheap, apparently at least one artist they commissioned has yet to get the full amount they're owed.

megane
Jun 20, 2008



Adnachiel posted:

[*]Die für Immer Königin – The remains of the magical forces that backed the Nazis during World War II, led by Ingrid Frieze. Allies with the Followers of Echidna and want to use her awakening as a cover for their taking over the world. Based in Germany near Reinhexxen because of course it is. Google Translate says their name is “The for Everqueen”.
Somebody used Google Translate to come up with it, too. "Die fur Immer Königin" is like "the for ever queen"; it's completely awful grammar. A better way to say it would be something like "die ewige Königin."

megane fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Apr 18, 2016

Adnachiel
Oct 21, 2012

Halloween Jack posted:

Regarding Wicked Ways, this is reaching back a few updates but...am I the only one who noticed that the Japanese witch is a ninja, the Indian one is a snake charmer, and the African teacher is based on the only African myth every white kids learns about in elementary school? If a witch isn't white she's probably barefoot in a stereotypical ethnic costume.

It's more like every character that isn't white or black and from America is some sort of stereotype. There's also the weird undercurrent of all German witches being evil or mean-looking. In Harris' defense, the Coventry stuff is obviously older than everything else. Though the bad characterization still pops up here and there.

Simian_Prime posted:

How does WGA keep having supplements published? I've literally never heard of it outside of this forum.

Does it just have a KS constantly funded by a dedicated core of fetishists? Or are the publishers all trust-fund kids?

My guess is a combination of Harris being bad with money and not knowing when to stop spending it (and then putting out more half-assed rambling supplements or splitting up existing books to make it up); him getting cheap as free art from Soto, putting Photoshop filters on stock photos, and taking advantage of Deviantart's users' bad tendency of devaluing commissions and not paying them in full; and possibly having a dedicated core of defenders. (I know there's some people on TV Tropes who are really into it.) After a point, the credits for the supplements are pretty much just Harris, Soto, and the handful of people they could scrap together for extra art and "playtesting".

I also spent money on these. So that probably helps too. :\

Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Apr 19, 2016

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Adnachiel posted:

There's also the weird undercurrent of all German witches being evil or mean-looking.

Well, unfortunately, it brings this sort of thing to mind.

hyphz
Aug 5, 2003

Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.
Unlockable Ben

Adnachiel posted:

My guess is a combination of Harris being bad with money and not knowing when to stop spending it (and then putting out more half-assed rambling supplements or splitting up existing books to make it up); him getting cheap as free art from Soto, putting Photoshop filters on stock photos, and taking advantage of Deviantart's users' bad tendency of devaluing commissions and not paying them in full; and possibly having a dedicated core of defenders. (I know there's some people on TV Tropes who will defend it with their lives.) After a point, the credits for the supplements are pretty much just Harris, Soto, and the handful of people they could scrap together for extra art and "playtesting".

My understanding is that the current round of supplements were all funded by a Kickstarter for a mega-huge book called Witch Girls: Book of Shadows which was going to include almost all the material from the current supplements, including Respelled, Cryptonomicon, Wicked Ways and so on. Which was seriously postponed when for some reason Harris decided to sue Disney (!!!) for putting a witch called Lucinda in an episode of Sofia the First ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc45XehQxp0 ).

He then screwed over the backers by dividing Book of Shadows into multiple books and only giving the backers a copy of one of them, that one being Witch Girls Respelled. Because, hey, they had signed up to get "the core book for WGA 2nd edition" and the fact that 80% of the promised content of it had been removed and was being sold in other books didn't change the fact that it was still the core book for WGA 2nd edition! Right? Right? They weren't impressed.

hyphz fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Apr 18, 2016

Adnachiel
Oct 21, 2012

hyphz posted:

My understanding is that the current round of supplements were all funded by a Kickstarter for a mega-huge book called Witch Girls: Book of Shadows which was going to include almost all the material from the current supplements, including Respelled, Cryptonomicon, Wicked Ways and so on. Which was seriously postponed when for some reason Harris decided to sue Disney (!!!) for putting a witch called Lucinda in an episode of Sofia the First.

He then screwed over the backers by dividing Book of Shadows into multiple books and only giving the backers a copy of one of them, that one being Witch Girls Respelled. Because, hey, they had signed up to get "the core book for WGA 2nd edition" and the fact that 80% of the promised content of it had been removed and was being sold in other books didn't change the fact that it was still the core book for WGA 2nd edition! Right? Right? They weren't impressed.

I know. I mentioned it at the top of the first book's writeup. Hence the "bad with money" part.

Also just bad at running a business in general.

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

megane posted:

Somebody used Google Translate to come up with it, too. "Die fur Immer Königin" is like "the for ever queen," it's completely awful grammar. A better way to say it would be something like "die ewige Königin."

If they wanted to go the poetic/whimsical route, they could've also used "Die Immerkönigin". Or go the anime route and pick "Ewig Königin" or something.

Adnachiel posted:

It's more like every character that isn't white or black and from America is some sort of stereotype. There's also the weird undercurrent of all German witches being evil or mean-looking. In Harris' defense, the Coventry stuff is obviously older than everything else. Though the bad characterization still pops up here and there.

Well, the typical German witch is very stereotypical. Though since this is about witch girls, there's Bibi Blocksberg. She is like Jesus compared to [insert any WGA character ever], making her an ill fit for the game. So Nazis it is.

hyphz posted:

He then screwed over the backers by dividing Book of Shadows into multiple books and only giving the backers a copy of one of them, that one being Witch Girls Respelled. Because, hey, they had signed up to get "the core book for WGA 2nd edition" and the fact that 80% of the promised content of it had been removed and was being sold in other books didn't change the fact that it was still the core book for WGA 2nd edition! Right? Right? They weren't impressed.

A 2nd edition that is basically a conversion tool to turn 1st edition into the Director's Cit [sic]. Classic.

Doresh fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Apr 18, 2016

drrockso20
May 6, 2013

Has Not Actually Done Cocaine
Man now I just want to shoot the WGA author in the kneecaps

Simian_Prime
Nov 6, 2011

When they passed out body parts in the comics today, I got Cathy's nose and Dick Tracy's private parts.
It says a lot about the collective RPG industry as a whole that when their market clearly demanded a Harry Potter-alike RPG setting...

... And this is what it got. :smith:

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually

Simian_Prime posted:

It says a lot about the collective RPG industry as a whole that when their market clearly demanded a Harry Potter-alike RPG setting...

... And this is what it got. :smith:
Redhurst Academy of Magic - the Matt Forbeck-written D20 setting that is Harry-Potter-With-The-Serial-Numbers-FIled-Off (Plus Some Redwall) - is now available for free download at Forbeck's website.

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib

Robindaybird posted:

They're also cheap, apparently at least one artist they commissioned has yet to get the full amount they're owed.

Fortunately Abby Soto works for cigarettes.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
Right, but you don't want to know where they're getting them.

Kaza42
Oct 3, 2013

Blood and Souls and all that

FMguru posted:

Redhurst Academy of Magic - the Matt Forbeck-written D20 setting that is Harry-Potter-With-The-Serial-Numbers-FIled-Off (Plus Some Redwall) - is now available for free download at Forbeck's website.

Does it just use regular d20 classes, or does it have its own rules and mechanics? Because vancian magic is terrible for a Harry Potter style school

Keiya
Aug 22, 2009

Come with me if you want to not die.
Seriously, harry potterish or like the Italian magical girl genre or something. It's ripe ground for a good game! Just... make it about things that aren't killing boys by turning them into cigarettes and smoking them.

Count Chocula
Dec 25, 2011

WE HAVE TO CONTROL OUR ENVIRONMENT
IF YOU SEE ME POSTING OUTSIDE OF THE AUSPOL THREAD PLEASE TELL ME THAT I'M MISSED AND TO START POSTING AGAIN
Is there a connection to Sam Haight being turned into an ashtray?
One stylish villianess in a cool outfit in a good setting turning men into cigs and smoking them might work, but they gotta be real camp and a bit noirish. Like Jessica Lange on American Horror Story. All the WGA characters are Emma Roberts in Coven tho.
This kind of carnage is probably what would happen if you have teens magic (see LOEG Century 1999) but somebody still needs to do a fun, fluffy magical school setting. I remember loving those kind of books even before Harry Potter. Just pick up The Dark Is Rising or So You Want To Be A Wizard license.

Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Apr 19, 2016

Keiya
Aug 22, 2009

Come with me if you want to not die.
The Young Wizards setting would be interesting, but very, very different than 'fun fluffy magical school'. For one thing, there's no school.

On the other hand, you could put out splat books forever detailing the wizardly traditions of various species both on and off Earth*. And oh god, a Crossings setting book!

*: Restricted to major recurring characters, we've seen human, cat, assorted cetaceans, alien giant metallic centipede, alien tree, and a couple of near-human alien wizards. And whatever Mamvish is, I was never quite clear on how to describe her (other than really liking tomatoes).

Astus
Nov 11, 2008


Fantaji Universal RPG Part 4: Combat Tiles

Fantaji uses four “tiles” to represent almost everything in the game, each based on the “four elements of a good story”. In actual face-to-face games, tiles are notecards or something similar, keeping track of everything that's important in the game. The tiles are Characters, Obstacles, Themes, and Conditions, since all good stories are about interesting characters and meaningful conflicts.



Character Tiles are fairly simple, they're your character sheet. Each PC starts with two traits (although they can eventually get more, or make a trait more powerful and let them roll two dice when playing to it), two “powers” which act a little like SFX from Marvel Heroic, three slots for important gear/equipment, and some health blocks. Instead of the usual HP system, Health/Resistance is measured in groups of one, two, or three blocks (the book just uses [3] for a three block and so on), each one requiring that number of successes from a single action to fill it. So a [2] needs two successes to actually damage it, and you can't save successes from separate actions to later fill in a [2] or [3]. Each PC starts with 1 [3] (the mortal wound], two [2]'s (flesh wounds), and four [1]'s (stress wounds). While Character Tiles are mostly for the PC's, any sort of recurring nemesis can also have their own Character Tile.

Obstacle Tiles are used for basically anything that gets in the PC's way. There are two broad types of Obstacles: Typical ones that require you to deal damage to beat them, and Abstract ones that can only be beaten by draining its Drama. Obstacle Tiles also have Traits, Powers, and Health/Resistance. Usually, Obstacle Traits are a bit more focused than Character Traits, simply because if you're throwing an Ogre at your players, it makes sense for it to be focused on being a challenge in normal combat, while a PC has to face all kinds of different challenges. And now the fun part, where we see what you can actually do with Obstacles:

quote:

Avoid the Nightwatch: Keep yourself secret; Keep yourself safe.
Trait: The Walls Have Eyes
Should the tile reach 6DT, you are spotted.
Begins with 4DT.

Fairly simple way to handle stealth, the tile is capable of making checks every round by playing to its The Walls Have Eyes trait, using any success it gets to gain more Drama, making the players have to be proactive about forcing conditions on it to drain its Drama, since there's no way to remove the tile through damage.

quote:

Drop to the Airship: You must drop from the silent glider down to the airship to take it hostage.
Trait: Freefallin'
Should you lose any Challenge, your character slides off the ship and plummets. If you Clash or score [1], you collide with the ship and roll across its surface; you must Challenge again to gain a footing.
[2].

Where the previous tile had a time pressure forcing the PC's to keep managing the rising Drama, this tile is the opposite. The PC's want to gain as much drama as they can before they make their approach. Would probably work better with another Obstacle adding some pressure to get the PC's moving, and also something to happen to the PC's who fail besides “well, guess you aren't part of this scene anymore”.

quote:

Pack of Wolves: The young wolves, hungry for meat and eager to please their leader.
Traits: Gnashing Teeth, Haggard But Hopeful
Powers: Howl (Can swap up to 2DT with any Tile that is part of the pack at will), Pin (When Creating
a “Pack Pinning Their Target” Condition, the Wolves automatically sap 1DT at the same time).
3[2] / 3[1]
Begins with 2DT.

Dire Alpha Wolf: The aged leader of the pack.
Traits: Long in the Tooth, Never Follows, Eater of Bears
Powers: Howl (see above), Alpha Stare (Can “play to” a single Trait of his target on any Challenge or defense).
1[3] / 2[2] / 2[1]
Begins with 4DT.

Escape the Wolves: They will still be on your trail, but at least you can get a mile ahead of them and come up with a plan.
Traits: Long suffering Hunters, On Your Scent, Masters of The Territory
If the Tile reaches zero Drama, you have escaped. Begins with 1 more than twice the Drama present on all remaining Wolf Tiles.

And here's an example of using multiple Obstacles to set up a fun scene about either fighting off the wolf pack, or running for the hills. It's very easy to set up multiple goals for each scene, and you can always add a new Obstacle if the players come up with some other plan.

Themes are basically Traits for the current scene that anyone can play to. They affect the overall mood and tenor of the scene, giving everyone a prompt for how to act in the scene. And instead of the GM just deciding how each Theme should be interpreted, the group as a whole figures out how they want to use a Theme. For example, Hot Sun, Cold Blood gets used in a scene with a giant Terrorsaur rampaging through a village in the middle of a desert. While there are a few ways to look at that theme, the example group turns it into a kind of knowledge check, with them playing to it anytime they play off their characters' growing knowledge of the dangerous and ruthless environment around them.

Themes are also the XP of Fantaji, with each Theme used in a scene being awarded to whichever player demonstrated or enacted that Theme the most. You can spend Theme tiles to get more/stronger Traits, get new powers, or increase your Health. Note that while a player is “awarded” the Theme tile, the Theme can still show up in other scenes. You don't have to create unique Themes throughout the game, and in fact the game recommends reusing Themes you know the group enjoys playing to.

Condition Tiles are the final type of tile (kinda, there's a couple types of tiles we won't see until we get to the Powers section). A Condition is a “matter of fact” that players and the GM introduce during play. Unlike Traits or Themes, Conditions should be written down as straightforward and literal as they can be. So creating a Condition where some goblins are pushed near a roaring inferno would be written as “The Goblins Are Near The Fire”. Kinda reminds me of complications from Marvel Heroic, but there is an important difference between the two: Conditions are also neutral and universal.

A Condition is not inherently negative or harmful, it is simple something that happens to be true. So, “The Goblins Are On Fire” would not be a Condition, as it is completely harmful for the goblins. The previous Condition still puts the goblins in a bad spot, but it's possible for them to use that Condition against someone else, such as by protecting themselves from a sneak attack by using the fire as a barrier. But more than likely, the person who created the Condition is in a better position to use it to their advantage. Something not mentioned in this chapter but that's very important to understand: a Condition can't be removed until either the scene ends or someone uses a success to remove it. So putting someone in a headlock is a bad condition, not just because it is completely negative to the guy in the headlock, but also because you can't just “let go” and end the condition.


Next chapter is How to Play, which goes into more depth of how scenes actually work, and how to create encounters.

Fossilized Rappy
Dec 26, 2012

Halloween Jack posted:

Regarding Wicked Ways, this is reaching back a few updates but...am I the only one who noticed that the Japanese witch is a ninja, the Indian one is a snake charmer, and the African teacher is based on the only African myth every white kids learns about in elementary school? If a witch isn't white she's probably barefoot in a stereotypical ethnic costume.
Nah, it's definitely noticeable. It's just that racial stereotypes often get overlooked when they are sitting next to things like that comic where the witches turn a man into a little girl and his (presumably) friend into a lollipop for him to eat.

Mors Rattus posted:

Good to know that if I am kidnapped and forcibly used as office furniture for two weeks, my abductor might face up to six whole months in wizard jail.

Oh wait no they'd just have their magic privileges taken away for that time.
I did end up chuckling a bit at the note that the law against turning someone into an inanimate object is specifically only if you do it for more than a week. Make someone into an article of clothing or fancy wall upholstry for seven days? Perfectly fine! Now, eight days, that's just inhumane.

Behold the Void
Feb 16, 2016

Doresh posted:

Illusions

I'm not too sure why these are optional, but here are a few illusion-related Skills. You can alter your appearance, create illusory barriers or a bunch of fake allies. Other characters can generally only see through an illusion if they have a good reason to believe something fishy is going on, or if they pick another new Skill that lets them attempt to see through illusions form the get-go.

Equipment

(Though not really mentioned anywhere, things like potions and elixirs can probably be handwaved as "Here's a one-use item that gives you an Increment of Health/Stamina")


Illusions are kind of a niche thing in a lot of anime settings and can get a bit finicky rules-wise which is why we made them optional.

Consumables to replace standard recovery from increments at the end of every scene is a great way to run a more classic Dungeon Crawl, which we'll be addressing more in Tools of the Trade when we expand the equipment rules.

Behold the Void fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Apr 19, 2016

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Afterthought 30 - Nemesis is live. We've had an interesting discussion over on our site about the concept of "spotlight buys" in the forms of flaws in merit/flaw systems. I've always personally maintained that stuff like nemesis or sidekick as a flaw is inherently just a way to stuff more characters of your own design that need attention from everyone into a game. Not a big deal, but also not something you should get points for. Instead everyone should just be doing it all the time. Anyway, we discuss this for a while and then answer a big pile of questions, including one about the currently elephant in the game store, the whole Emily Garland Wyrd boycott thing. Come, watch us navigate a minefield!

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib

theironjef posted:

Afterthought 30 - Nemesis is live. We've had an interesting discussion over on our site about the concept of "spotlight buys" in the forms of flaws in merit/flaw systems. I've always personally maintained that stuff like nemesis or sidekick as a flaw is inherently just a way to stuff more characters of your own design that need attention from everyone into a game. Not a big deal, but also not something you should get points for. Instead everyone should just be doing it all the time. Anyway, we discuss this for a while and then answer a big pile of questions, including one about the currently elephant in the game store, the whole Emily Garland Wyrd boycott thing. Come, watch us navigate a minefield!

I haven't listened to the 7th Sea podcast yet but this is actually exactly what John Wick has to say on the matter of Nemesis type flaws, and in fact I believe that in 7th Sea (if you haven't covered it already) you actually have to pay points to have a Nemesis. The White Wolf game Adventure! handled it like a background that you paid points for as well, every level gave your Nemesis more bonuses against you but also gave you more bonuses against them. I'm not sure how something like that would actually work out in practice, it seems like it could lead to some form of rocket tag shenanigans if you and your nemesis are both swinging inflated dicepools at each other every time they show up, but it's a novel take at least.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

The other notable thing in 7th Sea was you also got bonus EXP equivalent to the EXP/CP invested in your background when you resolved it, which isn't a terrible idea.

hyphz
Aug 5, 2003

Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.
Unlockable Ben

Fossilized Rappy posted:

Nah, it's definitely noticeable. It's just that racial stereotypes often get overlooked when they are sitting next to things like that comic where the witches turn a man into a little girl and his (presumably) friend into a lollipop for him to eat.

That one actually struck me as rather generous for Lucinda actually (assuming the girl wasn't killed by the giant insects that appear later). Presumably the guy kept his memories, but had his age reset!

Cue issue that even bound witches can't die of old age if they have a friend to transform them young. Or how ability to gender flip people should make Bellum Maga irrelevant and combines weirdly with the ability to temporarily turn regular girls into witches.

Grnegsnspm
Oct 20, 2003

This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarian 2: Electric Boogaloo

Night10194 posted:

The other notable thing in 7th Sea was you also got bonus EXP equivalent to the EXP/CP invested in your background when you resolved it, which isn't a terrible idea.

The problem was you actually got bonus XP every time it came up, not just when you resolved it. Which meant that if I purchased the Lost Love background and I'm constantly searching for my one true, then I am disincentivized from actually finding her because it means my XP engine runs dry. So you have a player making a choice between keeping his XP generator or acting in character.

Count Chocula
Dec 25, 2011

WE HAVE TO CONTROL OUR ENVIRONMENT
IF YOU SEE ME POSTING OUTSIDE OF THE AUSPOL THREAD PLEASE TELL ME THAT I'M MISSED AND TO START POSTING AGAIN

Grnegsnspm posted:

The problem was you actually got bonus XP every time it came up, not just when you resolved it. Which meant that if I purchased the Lost Love background and I'm constantly searching for my one true, then I am disincentivized from actually finding her because it means my XP engine runs dry. So you have a player making a choice between keeping his XP generator or acting in character.

Which nicely emulates shows that can never resolve their premises - Gilligan can't get off the island, Mulder can't reveal the truth, etc.

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib

Count Chocula posted:

Which nicely emulates shows that can never resolve their premises - Gilligan can't get off the island, Mulder can't reveal the truth, etc.

Okay but at that point why even make it an optional thing? All it does is turn this particular type of background into a regular infusion of bonus XP which, I mean, RPGs of that era always told GMs to hand out bonus XP for "good roleplaying" whenever they felt like it anyway.

Lupercalcalcal
Jan 28, 2016

Suck a dick, dumb shits
SPELLBOUND KINGDOMS PART 9: WEALTH AND WORLD

This is a little bit of a strange chapter, as it sort of wedges in a lot of rules that presumably Brunner couldn't find anywhere else to put.

It opens with an examination of wealth, and explains how spending money works and also how Wealth Levels function. Basically, Wealth Level is an abstract representation of income, the ability to take out loans, holdings and the ability to convince others to chip in. It’s sort of a measure of social standing as well as economic standing.

Basically, everyone starts at wealth level 2, and it goes up to 20. You can own a bunch of items at your wealth level and a bunch more at each level below for free, and replace them when you lose them (though doing so takes about a week). That means you can have a decent spread of kit without having to worry about things too much. Also, because troops, buildings and other things like that all have wealth ratings, you can swan around on your own personal Zeppelin if you’re rich enough.

There’s also actual gold coinage too, which you track and get and spend. You can invest gold to raise your wealth level (equal to current wealth level x 1000 gold to get to the next one). Once invested, the gold is gone, so there’s a balancing act between getting the odd bit of nice kit now, and saving it for future prosperity. You’re basically buying into social and economic standing, and risking it (since other people can attack your wealth levels socially in some cases).

Spellbound Kingdoms posted:

A Wealth Level 10 character may receive an invitation to the archbishop's ordination or the Baron's polo match, but a Wealth Level 2 character never will. On the other hand, enemies have an easier time destroying a character's wealth if it is represented in Wealth Levels because they can attempt blackmail, arson, embezzlement, and other crimes beyond theft.


You can drop wealth levels voluntarily to “cash out” and get half of what you invested back. That can be useful in a pinch, but the book makes clear that it’s rarely a good idea, and instead recommends that you look at investing your money in something that makes a profit instead (we’ll look at that later on).

There are then some rules for selling items, the cost of living, a formula for working out how much it costs in gold based on an item’s wealth level and a discussion of coins and coinage. Gold coins are named by kingdom (kings, crowns, suns, dragons, etc) while silver are usually called moons and copper called dirts. It indicates you shouldn’t ever have to worry about such trivial coinage.

There’s then a neat little section about economies and fluctuating prices, with some guidance on how they should change and why. There’s also a neat table on wealth and social class:



After the discussion of wealth, Brunner moves on to culture. Each region in Spellbound Kingdoms has three “culture lines”. Each culture line is basically a short statement which describes what people in that region fear, value or practice. In most cases the royalty sets two of them, and most powerful local organisation sets the third.
That means that royalty have vast power over people, because these culture lines aren’t just flavour, they have massive mechanical effects. For an example, here are one of the major setting city’s (Rithaign’s) culture lines:

Spellbound Kingdoms posted:

Royal: Beauty is fleeting, shallow, cheap, and hateful. Anyone with an Inspiration valuing beauty or art has his maximum Mood lowered by 1 while in the kingdom.

Royal: Beauty, especially in art, is the highest, most noble pursuit possible in this life. Anyone who does not have a skill valuing beauty or art has his Mood lowered by 1 while in the kingdom.

(Yes, the two royal culture lines are selfcontradictory. Lucius has intentionally established a culture that drives people to practice skills in which they find no Inspiration, probably because he is mad, sadistic, or both.

Rithaign: Rithites love adventure. Anyone who has completed what can be considered "an adventure" boosts all existing positive reputations by 1 while in the city.

If all of your inspirations match the culture lines, then your maximum mood increases by one because you’re “home”. If they clash badly, genuinely opposing them, then max mood drops by one per clash. That makes a huge difference, and I'm not 100% sold on this rule to be honest - it might be one of the few things I’d house rule in this game. It just seems harsh.

Changing culture lines is a pretty monumental task, but it’s possible: revolutions, major cultural shifts, propelling an organisation to the heady heights or finding a chosen one of prophecy and getting them to where they need be (Chosen One is a character class).

That done Brunner moves on to a really odd hodgepodge of rules and pieces of advice - how to help get players out of research dead ends, how to help pacing, a few mentions of organisations (though they get their own chapter later on), and a bit more detail about reputations and how they work.

That out of the way, there’s a weird shift of tone and focus, and we suddenly start learning about disease. There’s a simple infection system, but it feel pretty unnecessary… until you hit magical diseases.

Every one of these is gold, bluntly. Spellstalks are magical infections that slowly turn people into a tentacle monster, and Brunner gets bonus points for using the term “desquamates”. Madfire is terrifying, causing roaring infernos of flame whenever a wild surge occurs, and driving the character mad. Blink makes parts of you blink in and out of existence until you completely fade away. Abynder akkas causes your most treasured secrets and inner thoughts to be written on your skin. Drain mystically drains your mood, and makes you an undead magnet.

Next up are some rules for common disasters, from earthquakes to floods to rains of frogs. There are rules for what they do to regions, and how the heroes can survive. There are some… odder ones too.

Spellbound Kingdoms posted:

Faces like pillars of light. Scholars do not 62 understand why this bizarre disaster is so frequently associated with crisis surges. This disaster transforms everyone in the region who fails a Magic roll against the Doom. A transformed creature loses his face; where it once was, a beam of light shoots forth. The beam projects an image in the manner of a masked spotlight, and it is powerful enough to put the image even on clouds in a night sky. The image might be dragons diving, or a burning witch, or a freak hatching from a cracked skull. An afflicted creature takes damage equal to the Doom. The GM or an instigating player selects the image.

Spellbound Kingdoms posted:

Glass. Buildings and characters begin to turn to glass unless successful on a Quality or Magic check against the Doom. The vitrification takes seven days. Each day, a new body part or building area vitrifies, but each day allows a new Quality or Magic check. Vitrification of a body part must be taken as a maiming, taking the place of one history item. If the eyes are cut out of a fully vitrified man, then for a day afterwards, no matter how far away they are taken, what they see appears as an image in the glass of the eyeless body.

Deprivations, breaking objects and simple crafting rules are then covered. The crafting rules are… surprisingly tame and dull for the rest of this book, but they don’t look bad as such.

Finally experience gain is covered - after each session you get one or two history points, which are worth more if you spend them on something that you did in play. After every second or third session you gain an experience level instead.

Next up: CHARACTER CREATION, RACES AND CHARACTERISTICS

Lupercalcalcal
Jan 28, 2016

Suck a dick, dumb shits
SPELLBOUND KINGDOMS PART 10: CHARACTER CREATION, RACES AND CHARACTERISTICS

Character creation is pretty simple:

Spellbound Kingdoms posted:

I. Choose species and race.
II. Assign chracteristic scores.
III. Choose a class.
IV. Choose one history or skill
V. Choose what inspires your character.

Species and race is an interesting one. There are two (consistently) intelligent species that exists in Spellbound Kingdoms - humans and trolls. The author remarks that

Spellbound Kingdoms posted:

Other intelligent creatures exist, but they are singletons, sterile freaks of magic: a cranky aspen, a riddling weasel, a man gone to spellstalks.

Which is probably my favourite sentence in the history of the English language.

Trolls come in two flavours: rain trolls are a bit bigger than human beings, tend to be blue or green, and sometimes have horns and/or antlers; Seradynn are smaller, more human looking in skin tone and have small horns (and occasionally prehensile tails).

All trolls can regenerate at least a little, and there’s excellent information on roleplaying then, with really good explanations and suggestions. There are also suggestions about what classes are good to play with them, and some of their history.

Rain trolls have been around basically forever, are very calm and confident, and have a body part that can function remotely (so you can pluck out your eye and leave it somewhere to spy on people). They also get a slight edge in histories, since their start at d6 rather than d4.

Seradyn are… well… uh.

Spellbound Kingdoms posted:

The seradynn arrived forty-eight years ago, in living memory for some in the Kingdoms.

The first discovery took place aboard a caravel named the Windsnare. The discovery was a troll foot, wrapped in cheesecloth, in a crate of bacon forks destined for the table of a tycoon of far Oryn-ja. The stevedore who unwrapped the foot did not know what to make of it.

Contrastingly, the foot knew exactly what to make of itself. Namely, a new troll. It twitched out of the shocked stevedore’s hand and began an awkward toecrawl toward a pottery crate. Out of that crate flopped a troll leg. The foot and leg attached. Then they knee-inched to a wine barrel, where a one-armed torso hauled itself over the rim and assembled itself with the footleg. And so on. Other stevedores watched troll bodies reform all across the Windsnare.

The same events played out everywhere in the harbor of far Oryn-ja that day. Not a single regenerated troll knew where he had come from or why he arrived dismembered and scattered in cargo holds. The origin of the seradynn remains a mystery to this day

So that’s a thing. An entire species who were mysterious delivered in packing crates.They’re suspiciously magical and also get a body part to detach.

Humans are just humans, bog standard normal… nah I can’t even keep up the pretence. This is Spellbound Kingdoms. Humans are loving insane.

All of them get a bonus to heart, which is cool, and then there are four races.

Ninebloods are the most common, and are basically “paneuropean”. They’re the classic fantasy human, and probably the dullest of the lot. They can use one inspiration twice in a scene instead of once.

Islanders live out on the Ephemera and Dragon Islands in the far east, and basically have to survive all kinds of insane bullshit - cyclones, volcanoes, madfire, undead, and lots of other stuff. They’re basically hammered into being pure badasses by this experience, and are basically Fremen from Dune. They can lower the Doom of a check by one for themselves or someone else, once per scene per person. They don’t have to spend any time doing that, they just do it.

Wights are descended from a group of people who changed their nature by seeking power, immortality and the dark arts. They live longer than other humans, can sense fears and use other people's’ fears as inspirations, which makes them lose mood. They’re a bunch of goths, basically, and spend a lot of time being ostracised from society and hanging around in moody forests in thunderstorms.

Finally there are the Princes and Princesses of Wolves - children abandoned in the wilds and raised by wolves.

Spellbound Kingdoms posted:

Why would a mother do this? If you lived in the Kingdoms, you wouldn’t have to ask. Kings are not kind to children. Children dream, and hope, and love. The kings teach them how wrong this is, how unbridled inspirations can have disastrous consequences. Their lessons are not gentle. The lessons are wicked enough that a tradition has developed, fervently denounced by the monarchies, that if the stars are the right color, and the season is right, then when a mother lays her babe down on a bed of moss and ferns in the forest, or rubbish in the alley, magic can save the child. The tradition says that a pack of wolves, or perhaps wild dogs, awakens to intelligence, and runs with the child, keeping it safe from kings and cruelty.

I just can’t imagine reading this as a standard race choice in any other fantasy RPG. It’s just nuts. One of the instructions for creating a character of this kind is to

Spellbound Kingdoms posted:

Describe your pack. Name the wolves, sketch their personalities, draw a map of their hunting grounds, talk about the way the pack smelled on cold mornings and summer mornings and after crossing a river. Talk about memorable hunts, favorite prey, and pack enemies.

What the poo poo Brunner? That’s amazing, but totally ridiculous. Basically they can loan an inspiration to someone else once a scene, which is cool. But not as cool as being raised by wolves.

So we finally get to characteristics! There are six of them: Strength, Quickness, Reason, Charisma, Magic and Heart. You get a spread to assign to them of 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8 at character creation, and you assign the largest die you can to each as with histories and reputations and so on. Characteristics max out at 12, unless you’re a dragon or something (you might get to be a dragon later on).

Brunner outright comes out and says you should have a high Heart score, since that sets your maximum mood and is vital to using inspirations (it’s the bonus die you roll when you use them).

Health is the final part of this chapter, and is split into body, mood and reputation. We’ve talked about all of these before, so I won’t spend more time on them now. Body starts at 5 for everyone (and raising it isn’t easy).

Next up: CHARACTER CLASSES (AN INTRODUCTION AND FROM CHOSEN ONE TO FIXER)

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

I think I would like to kill kings.

Doodmons
Jan 17, 2009
It's a lovely bit of game mechanics and fluff working together - the game works best as a rip-roaring high adventure where you rescue innocents from the clutches of evil nobles and help the peasantry rise up and overthrow their cruel masters and Brunner's gone out of his way to make sure that the setting is one where you want to do that. Every aspect of the setting is so completely designed to be awful to normal, innocent people that even the most adventure-shy of PCs will eventually crack and decide that it's all wrong and something needs to be done about it. The only choice is to overthrow the Kingdoms.

This doesn't have to be swashbuckling and using the War and Organisation rules to start an organised rebellion, by the way. It'll come up later, but any player character with an appropriate History or skill can use the Research rules to start working on ways to improve the quality of life for everyone. If you want, you can just use this to buff up your equipment and make yourself rich - but if you wanted to you could, say, do some research to reduce the Wealth Level of food down to 0, making not starving to death effectively a cost-free endeavour for even the lowliest peasant - simultaneously saving many lives and making life just that little bit brighter for the common folk. Imagine what doing that will do to the Doom in the region, eh? There's a reason that Trader and Engineer are character classes and Trading Company is one of the PC organisation types - if you want that kind of campaign, you can very much save the world through enlightened thinking and sound economic practices. You'll probably have to swashbuckle the occasional noble who wants to stop you in the early days, but eventually you'll be able to crush them under the weight of your highly trained and well-equipped armies. And your fleets of zeppelins.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

On the other hand: the game is also perfect for a game I've wanted to run forever, which is best summarized as Harry Potter In College meets German Aristocratic Fencing Schools. Just scale kingdoms down to parts of the city and campus, etc. Dueling becomes a major pastime, fencing scars a major fashion statement, history and trade and so on taught alongside swordsmanship and magic.

Basically this game own bones.

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Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?
The Seradynn are the most wild RPG race concept I've ever heard of.

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