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 PEOPLE, PART 8  The MI6 Lamplighter Brett "Portman" Bankson. Uses his job as an MI6 agent to travel, get some exercise, work outdoors. Still very skilled, though, and is in a position to hear things. Asset: Angling to become a Duke by making himself indispensable to Edom. That, or he's Hopkins. Minion: Renfield, Dracula uses him to keep tabs on what Edom is up to.  The MI6 Romania Desk Analyst Alexander Tarber. Has files on everyone - AQIR, Mafia, half the NPCs in this book. Almost excessively British. Hopkins: Inherited Cushing's job, could either be an ally to the agents or ultimately sell them to Edom. Asset: Not Edom, but desperately wants to be - he could be flipped by seeing proof that the mole hunt was a bust, learning of Edom's massive collateral damage, and accepting that Hound will never love him. Minion: Eager to get on Dracula's team for the ever-popular immortality ticket. He's not getting any younger.  The Nato Liason Colonel Iliu Cezar Epureanu. Military historian, only knows about the non-supernatural side of the Romania missions (if innocent). Asset: Zealous supporter of Edom fueled by hatred of the Islamic world. Minion: Renfield, turned in 1940, has changed identities three times since then. Protects Castle Dracula frome enemy surveillance.  The Online Mystic Mathilda Nordling. Possible crackpot who runs a psychic rambling website. Her investigations into the supernatural may bring her path in line to cross with the party. Asset: Unwitting Edom puppet - Prince has a backdoor into her computer and uses her forum to track vampire movements. Minion: Dracula's dream thrall, preying on the insecurities of her followers to send them into the jaws of the Conspiracy.  The Petroleum Executive Martin Creasey. Runs an American oil and gas firm, visiting Romania a lot for business reasons. Knows a bit about telluric power, willing to lend a cooperative party his helicopter. Asset: Really obvious CIA Friendly, cleared for their vampire project - he's business in Romania may not be what he claims it is. Minion: Possible Morris legacy, low-level node on the Conspyramid. Maybe a Renfield with weird habits, like drinking horse blood or something.  The Pharmaceutical Researcher Hettie Shahzad. Director of clinical research for an Israeli pharmaceutical company. Does a lot of fundraising for infections disease research or Heal the Children. Asset: Spends much of her time researching vampirism under Mossad direction, may have her own version of the Seward Serum. Minion: Believes that God has given her a mission, but it's actually Dracula's psychic influence.  The Radical Imam Sait Aydin. Istanbul mosque preacher denouncing the corrupt influence of the West. Might be with AQIR. Asset: Actually a deep-cover MI6 asset. If his cover gets blown, someone will get him messily killed. Minion: Renfield infiltrator for the MIT, or maybe MI6 if you combine versions.  The Real Estate Broker Zhu Liwen. Extremely rich, may accidentally butt heads with the Conspiracy looking for a real estate deal in Romania - maybe to buy Castle Dracula itself. Asset: Edom or the Conspiracy could be asking her for favors through a Chinese cut-out company in exchange for protection from not-so-savory past business dealings. Minion: Trading properties, trading lives, what's the difference? We're almost done with the NPCs chapter, I swear.
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Apr 19, 2016 13:28
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Edit: oops, posted that twice by mistake.
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Apr 19, 2016 15:38
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SPELLBOUND KINGDOMS PART 11: CHARACTER CLASSES (AN INTRODUCTION AND THE CHOSEN ONE) It turned out I didn't have as much time to work on this right now so I’ll cover the other classes mentioned in the next part - want to get it up before I head out. Characters in Spellbound Kingdoms belong to one or more classes of character. As the book calls out, the choices within a class are often more important than the class itself, and there’s a good amount of flexibility in there. The classes are:
Each character class determines what kind of styles they have and at what level, the number of talents they get at each level, special class abilities and some characteristic increases to go along with it. Because the tables show what your character should have at each level rather than showing what they gain, it’s super easy to multiclass - just read off the line for the level you have in each and note everything down. You use whatever talent table is best for you. There is a kink in multiclassing, and it’s a very clever one - name level. The different levels of a class have different titles, and one of them is the same as the character class - that’s the name level. If you choose to take a level in a new class before you've reached name level in all your current classes, your maximum mood is cut in half and you take mood damage at the start of each day. It seems harsh, but it’s actually a very clever balancing act designed to reign in some combinations and push people to others. Those combinations aren't just about mechanical balance either, but thematic. They encourage the kind of stories that Spellbound Kingdoms is really trying to emulate. I'm going to tackle each character class in turn, with a bit of detail on each and (if I've seen them in play, which I have most of them) how they actually play out. CHOSEN ONE  The Chosen One is one of the quirkiest and most interesting classes in the game, in my opinion, and satisfyingly fills a niche that many other games aim to tackle but fall short on. In effect, the chosen one is the hero of prophecy, the farm girl turned divinity, the lost king, or whatever “from humble origins to legend” trope you fancy playing around with. Chosen Ones are very flexible (almost as flexible as the Noble class, which is impressive in its versatility), and can choose to be magical or martial in their approach. When you choose your first style its type fixes your levels to be one or the other - so make sure you pick what you want to start! That said, you can still choose styles from magic or fighting, however you like, so it’s not the end of the world if you decide later on you prefer one over the other. Since this is the first class, here’s the progression table:  Chosen ones get to progress their attributes in Strength, Quickness and Magic as they progress, and have a steady but not exceptional acquisition of combat and magical styles. They reach name level at 10th, which means you’re locked into the class for quite a while, but honestly, you’re likely to want to stick with it once you get to that point because it really starts getting off the wall from about 15th onwards. You start off with a destiny history which is basically a bonus history relating to your destiny - the sword you inherited, the prophecy that was spoken about you, the cult that backs you, etc. Once acquired you have to raise it in play like any other history, but you’re likely to do that a lot because it’ll be relevant all the time. Destiny inspiration is basically the same, but with an inspiration (surprise). Zealots are just what you might expect - a bunch of crazy obsessives who follow you around and do whatever you wish. They’re not exactly smart and tough, but they’ll die for you in combat and get can lash out some damage. As you level up, they level with you, and get replaced slowly when they die. Mass following creates an organisation - an armed legion or secret society that obeys your whim, and if you happen to already have such a thing you get to buff it to hell and back. Also, you get to rewrite one of your home region’s culture lines - that’s a massive deal as we discovered earlier, and makes them seriously potent on a huge scale. Finally you lead a revolution and things really kick off - any military unit that fights for you gets honking bonuses, and you get to rewrite another culture line, this time one of the royal ones. Basically you’ve utterly changed the shape of the world. In the campaign I ran with a chosen one, they discovered their true heritage, became the high priest of a sky kraken, and then conquered Akra and threw down King Lucius… and by the time they did, they’d already taken control of 90% of the country. Chosen Ones are super powerful at high levels. Talents start off as marital or magic (as per your levels), and after level 10 can be social. You get talents at a decent rate, but not excessively. Here’s the talent table so you know what they look like:  Oh, a last nice touch: if your destiny involves a special object like a shield or a sword, it gains 1 quality per chosen level so you’ve got a reason to keep using it all the way up to level 20. Next up: CLASSES (ENGINEER AND FIXER)
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Apr 19, 2016 15:38
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Between this and the Kickstarter thread I am in love with so much new stuff. I may do Fragged Empire at some point if no one takes up that banner.
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Apr 19, 2016 15:44
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Halloween Jack posted:Between this and the Kickstarter thread I am in love with so much new stuff. I may do Fragged Empire at some point if no one takes up that banner. Please, my friends have been harping me on Facebook to give that a try.
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Apr 19, 2016 16:10
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Now that's a good way to start a class chapter. I hope the rest is similarily stylish.Behold the Void posted: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. I dunno, I feel they are at least as common as ninja duplication tricks and Mons.
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Apr 19, 2016 16:27
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Chosen One, as a side note, also makes a good pick for basically a design-your-own class deal - it may not get fast combat style advancement, but it can pick literally any style, magic or not, each time. Also note that all chart stuff is cumulative, rather than each level individually - when it says +1 over and over in the columns, that's not per level, that's total. The idea is to allow for easy creation of high level characters by just having to look at that one cell rather than the whole column. Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Apr 19, 2016 |
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Apr 19, 2016 16:34
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Just a quick question about "name level": where exactly is it defined in the book? I just assumed it meant the first title after level 1, so it'd be level 4 or 5 depending on class. And looking around, it seems other people also ended up reading it that way.
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Apr 19, 2016 16:34
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It's not, but according to old D&D tradition it's the level where your title matches your class name.
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Apr 19, 2016 16:36
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Halloween Jack posted:Between this and the Kickstarter thread I am in love with so much new stuff. I may do Fragged Empire at some point if no one takes up that banner. I've been wanting to do a writeup of it myself, but considering the pace (and scale) of Torg posts...
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Apr 19, 2016 16:51
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Nifara posted:Talents start off as marital or magic (as per your levels), and after level 10 can be social. Please tell us about the marital talents.
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Apr 19, 2016 17:40
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Halloween Jack posted:Between this and the Kickstarter thread I am in love with so much new stuff. I may do Fragged Empire at some point if no one takes up that banner. I'm for this as well. It's a game I've been on the fence about for a while and I would like to know what's up before I commit to buying it.
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Apr 19, 2016 17:45
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I think the race mysteriously delivered in packing crates has finally sold me on Spellbound Kingdoms. That's amazing.
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Apr 19, 2016 17:56
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You know, if you're going to savagely punish multiclassing before a certain point, maybe it would make more sense not to allow it at all before that point, because that sounds ludicrously crippling.
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Apr 19, 2016 18:06
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Wait, so is name level for Chosen One "Chosen" or "The One"?
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Apr 20, 2016 04:21
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The Lone Badger posted:I think I would like to kill kings.  So how do you handle multiclassing in general, then? This sort of sounds like the old human dual-classing in AD&D where unlike the guys who were fighter/thief/mages, you had to hustle hard until you got past your original class, at which point you'd have the benefit of your frozen original class level even as you progressed as the other thing.
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Apr 20, 2016 04:38
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gourdcaptain posted:You know, if you're going to savagely punish multiclassing before a certain point, maybe it would make more sense not to allow it at all before that point, because that sounds ludicrously crippling. I think it's to make it harder for the GM to just go "oh I'll just allow multiclassing whenever" Maxwell Lord posted:Wait, so is name level for Chosen One "Chosen" or "The One"? I think neither. Nobles don't have a name level either. Once you get on the Destiny train, you can never get off.
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Apr 20, 2016 11:15
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Doodmons posted:I think neither. Nobles don't have a name level either. Once you get on the Destiny train, you can never get off. Actually, looking things over, I think you're probably right. I though it was 10th, but I think reading through it's probably locked in. I'll try and get the next chunk of review done this afternoon.
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Apr 20, 2016 12:51
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SPELLBOUND KINGDOMS PART 12: CLASSES (ENGINEER AND FIXER) Next up after the chosen one is the ENGINEER  So, Spellbound Kingdoms is broadly an age of enlightenment setting, and that means that there’s some focus on technology and how it’s changing things. It is still a fantasy game though, so that technology is in the shape of Zeppelins and grappling hooks. The Engineer is the king of ridiculous technology. Their very first class power is Engineering, which just adds 1 bonus point per engineer level to up to three Histories primarily focused on engineering. That means that you hit ridiculous levels of ability super fast, particularly if you’re willing to invest points in them as part of normal play - having a d20 in one or two histories certainly isn’t impossible by the time you’re level 4 or 5. Engineers also get a signature item - a particular bit of tech that you get to use your Reason with rather than a physical characteristic when you’re doing a trick in combat. It’s a neat idea that makes engineers much less squishy and noncombat than you might think. To put into context the kind of thing you might get with this, let’s have a quick tangent and look at some of the redunkulous poo poo that you can purchase in this setting.   Here are my favourites: Spellbound Kingdoms posted:10' pole (engineer's). An engineer's 10' pole, also called a longspoon army knife, weighs 5 pounds and telescopes between 2' and 11'. It contains a periscope for seeing around corners or through dimensional portals. The staff also has thermometers to detect temperatures and thermal gradients along the length of the pole. A sliding bullseye lantern can move between 2' and 10'. Finally, two flint-tipped and three drilltipped grippers form a retractable waldo that grabs with Strength 3 and has the dexterity to write one's name with a quill, spark a fire, or drill a 0.5"-diameter bore hole up to 1 foot deep. Spellbound Kingdoms posted:Lightning gyre. This steel sphere pockmarked with teardrop-shaped spigots whirs, sparks, and rotates blindingly fast when activated. The gyre sparks to every character in the area wearing metal armor or carrying a metal weapon (up to 30 targets maximum). If there are no characters in the area with metal armor or weapons, the gyre sparks to five randomly determined targets. It attacks with a Quality vs. Defense roll and does 2 points of damage per strike. The lightning gyre operates for a number of rounds equal to its Quality. You may toss the gyre one area for every three points of Strength that you have. Spellbound Kingdoms posted:Piston boots. Pistons in these boots' heels aid your jumps. Roll the boots' Quality as a bonus die on any jump. Unfortunately, your Quickness is reduced by 3 when wearing these heavy boots Spellbound Kingdoms posted:Riotwire comet arrow. A riotwire comet arrow spools out multiple coils of riotwire as it flies, leaving behind it a wide tail of razor-sharp filaments. The “safe ends” of the tail wires are simple cable for three or four feet, attached to belt loops on the archer’s belt. This allows the archer to tie off the cable after the arrow has flown. Comet arrows provide a quick way to spread riotwire across an area of up to 100 feet by 10 feet (the most wire that can fit in an arrow capsule). An engineer with scope goggles, smoke bombs and a grapple gun is basically Batman. The Combat Engineer ability increases the damage of engineering objects used in combat, so you can make your bombs and gyres do more damage, or make a siege engine more effective. Mechanical advantage lets you treat any item you use as a higher quality. Engineers also get a boost to histories at 11th, 17th and 19th, making the high level engineer a terrifying powerhouse of skill. At 15th they can start making masterworks, which are basically engineering kit that work way better than normal. The real earth-shattering skill of the engineer comes with wonders. You can build your first one at 18th level (with the appropriate title of Architect of Wonder) and at 20th you can just build as many as you like. Wonders are truly incredible bits of kit.  Spellbound Kingdoms posted:Legion Below. Fixers and thieves are not the only ones who use the underworld. A king who has constructed a Legion Below has thousands of terra cotta soldiers prepared to animate and swell the ranks of his forces. The Legion Below cannot move of its own power before being brought to life; it must be transported. It is the equivalent of 5 troops when filling a zeppelin, barge, or wagon's cargo hold. Once deployed, it can negate up to 50 Health damage in a battle by replacing living units as they fall. The Legion Below can only be used once; its clay falls lifeless after the use. The Legion Below is built by an engineer, but the final step of its preparation is to anoint it with two takings (this is similar to the Giant, above). The takings must be the Peace of a warrior and the Faith of a criminal. Spellbound Kingdoms posted:Ziggurat, pyramid. Enduring and powerful, pyramids and ziggurats are statements of raw power. Increase your organization’s arcana score by 6 and all maneuver attacks and defenses of spellbound troops and beasts by one die size. As well as these abilities, they also get bonuses to reason as they progress, and though their combat styles aren’t plentiful, they’re not completely screwed. They become an Engineer at level 5, so they can multiclass out after that. Their talents are martial or shadow (and then social from level 10 onwards). FIXER  Fixers are something of an odd addition to Spellbound Kingdoms, because though they fit a common trope (alchemist) they do it in a way which is pretty unusual. Fixers are alchemists, sure, but also surgeons, healers, sages… and fences. They’re mostly criminals, operating a fraternity across the kingdoms that serves to preserve centuries of secrets and mystic talents that are not magical in the way other things are magical. A noble might have a fixer on staff, but they would do so in secret, and they’d never be sure that the fixer wouldn’t be looking to betray them. The most astonishing thing that fixers can do is cancel out magic. They specifically counteract the power which the nobles take for themselves, and because of that they’re hunted and ostracized. Fixers can, of course, fix - cure any disease, stop any magic or alchemical effect, or neutralize any poison. If your fixer level is greater than the quality level of the item or than the virulence of the disease, you just do it. You have to roll Reason against Magic against spells, but again, if you win, it’s gone, no matter what it was. Fixing someone takes a hours and can only be attempted once a week (so as not to kill the victim), and needs supplies and a laboratory. It’s still probably the most powerful ability in the game, and you get it at level 1. Fixers also get access to the Fraternity, gaining a reputation with them and access to a very powerful and dangerous organisation, which can assist in tasks every now and then. They also get the mirror of the engineer’s key ability, alchemy, which gives you a bonus point in three histories per level, and lets you treat any alchemical item you use as being of a higher quality. At level 9 you get the ability to attempt a quick fix, using the fix ability but in combat as a trick, but with its effects being temporary (you can still spend the time afterwards to fix it properly). Higher levels allow you to transfuse various substances into a subject, from phlegm which lets you restore characteristic damage to magic juice that turns people into golems. You can also transmute lead into gold, do extra damage with alchemical goods, get bonus history points and, at 20th level, make the Ultimate Solution, which makes you immune to surges and magical disease and gives you massive bonuses to resist magic. The big draw of fixers is that they can create alchemical goods, and boy, are there some alchemical goods to choose from:   Some of my favourites are: Spellbound Kingdoms posted:Twitcher head. A twitcher zombie’s head begins to twitch after being lifted out of its alchemical preserving fluids. It can be pulled from its storage sack and tossed in the same round as a Trick in combat. The next round, it explodes, rolling its Quality die as an attack die against all in the area. It causes two points of damage and exposes those hit to the flake plague (see p. 59). Spellbound Kingdoms posted:White kohl. In the Old Claw, white kohl is an ancient art. Each shade, each whorl, is freighted with meaning from centuries of tradition. White kohl performance ceremonies are most common in the long stretch between midwinter and spring but can occur throughout the year. Increase any one of your Reputations by two if, at a significant white kohl party, yours is applied by someone whose skill roll beats the Doom. White kohl wears off after six hours, and it cannot be worn with other kohl. Spellbound Kingdoms posted:Madfire ash. Spellbound creatures who eat madfire ash immediately attack anyone around them. The victim tries to cast a spell every round and is unable to distinguish between friend and foe. She attempts to burn everything to the ground. Each round, a new Strength vs. Quality check is applicable. Fixers can choose talents that are shadow or social, but must always have at least one shadow talent. Next up: CLASSES (NOBLES, PRIESTS, COURTESANS, COURTIERS, ROGUES AND ASSASSINS)
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Apr 20, 2016 13:40
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I need to post the texts of a couple more of those Wonders, you guys. They're so good.Spellbound Kingdoms posted:Doomsday device. A doomsday device always operates mechanically or alchemically, though many believe it uses magic to draw strength from the Inspiration of its creator. The device can have many forms: an explosive mine dam holding back lava that will divert and engulf a city, or an earthquake projector the size of Koshtra Noln, or a toxin in the rats of a city that is released upon reaching critical mass. A dooms-day device always takes from one season to one year from its setting to its triggering. During this time, the city, council, region, or any other single-entity target knows that a Doomsday device has been triggered, usually through rumors from laborers who worked for the engineer while constructing the device. Even if there were no such laborers, somehow, word always leaks out when a doomsday device is counting down; perhaps that is another part of the device that blurs the boundary between magic and engineering. If the device is not stopped, then it utterly destroys the target. What is a plot hook for the party at lower levels becomes a legit thing that the party Engineer can poo poo out if you have a real beef with someone. Spellbound Kingdoms posted:Giant. This colossal statue towers over your city. You choose its likeness, pose, and import; through this choice you can assign a Reputation 20, positive or negative, to any individual that you like. The reputation cannot be brought below 10 while the Giant yet stands. Furthermore, the Giant can animate in defense of your city if it is fed the proper takings: the Love of a Maid, the Rage of a savage, the Hope of a Child, and the Wrath of a Father. When these takings are poured out on the Giant's feet, it animates for one season in defense of its city (see Colossus, p. 170). You can build giant robots in this Renaissance-era fantasy game.
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Apr 20, 2016 16:26
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Any fantasy game can only be improved with the inclusion of giant robots.
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Apr 20, 2016 16:56
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I think the Giant may be more like Talos from Greek myth/the original Clash of the Titans. Giant robots work well, too.
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Apr 20, 2016 17:34
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Tasoth posted:I think the Giant may be more like Talos from Greek myth/the original Clash of the Titans. Giant robots work well, too. Really any sort of golem is perfect for a giant fantasy robot.
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Apr 20, 2016 17:51
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 Reign is, at its simplest, a very well made fantasy RPG based on Greg Stolze’s One Roll Engine, which also powers Monsters and Other Childish Things, Wild Talents, Godlike, and Better Angels. Reign runs off of a simplified version of those engines that works well as a “base” to build off of. If you want just the engine and don’t care about the built in setting of the game, that’s no problem: You just have to get Reign Enchiridion which is just the mechanics, and is a very good affordable game for only $10 for the PDF. But we’re covering the original book, because I do want to tell you about the setting. About the nations, the geography, the magic good god the magic. I also want to talk about the mechanics, how it streamlines the stuff nobody cares about while giving goodly content for the stuff people do. The biggest selling point is that this is a game built around being Important. Being big, powerful, and mighty, but not how most RPGs handle it: Nowhere in this game are there rules for becoming a god, the greatest of spells can be foiled by a bowman with good aim, and the greatest weapon in the world is a competent officer corps. This is a game of Lords and Leaders. Now, lone heroes are a great, and truly can change the world on their own, but this is a game that assumes your end goal isn’t a Sword of Lightning Stroke, or to master the Cataclysmic Transformation, it’s to rule the world. To be a power of your own, to wear the crown and bear the sceptre and control the lives of millions. So, welcome to Reign. quote:By my words, cities burn.
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Apr 20, 2016 18:26
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It's nice to see the F&F thread go on a streak of good games for a while.
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Apr 20, 2016 18:30
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I have some issues with ORE's mechanics but Reign has great fluff.
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Apr 20, 2016 18:34
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PEOPLE, PART 9  The Romanian Police Inspector Nicu Anghelescu.Joined the Criminal Investigations Department after his father's disappearance in 1985, works a lot of old cases. Potential ally. Asset: Secretly working with Edom or the CIA, does support and cleanup for assassinations on Romanian soil. Minion: Similar, but working as a cleaner to hide evidence of vampire attacks.  The Smuggler Otto Skinsky. "Courier" whose merchandise happens to be a little illegal sometimes, adrenaline junkie. One of his ancestores died mysteriously at the Fortified Monastery of St. Peter. Asset: Doesn't know what Edom is, but they pay him well to bring things into or out of Romania without asking too many questions - Flattery or Flirting gets him to lower his guard. Minion: The Slovak river clans have always worked for Dracula, he's definitely a Renfield or a dhampir.  The Sniper Goes by 'Firîste', Kurdish for 'angel'. Iraq vet who kills bad people for ideals or for money. Can be hired if the party has excessive funds. One of the other female NPCs could be a cover identity for Firîste - The Bookseller, The Dissident, The Journalist, just about anyone. Asset: Has worked at some point for most agencies listed in this book - let the party know she exists, then sic her on them later from any of a dozen backers. Minion: She's a knight of Lilith, choosing her own targets based on who opposes her queen's cause.  The SRI Agent in Charge Captain Mihai Florescu. Works with foreign intelligence in whatever county the agents first encounter the SRI, building his own personal empire within the secret police. He's reporting on the party's actions to his superiors, which means he's probably reporting to Dracula whether he knows it or not. Asset: Edom offered him a shortcut to moving up and replacing the old guard, works with Hound. Minion: Florescu is Dracula's early warning system for foreign spies in Romania.  The Syrian General Yousef Allam. Has a lot of leverage the party could use, but it'll cost them. Doesn't have a horse in the vampire-human conflict, he just worries about what's going on immediately in the present. Asset: Allam also has contacts in the al-Nusra Front, which puts him on Edom's kill list. Minion: Allam defected to the Conspiracy after seeing what happens to al-Quaeda at the Master's hands.  The Tabloid Journalist Angela Holcriss. Freelance political journalist for various right-wing publications, very anti-immigration. Can provide gossip on any number of public figures. Asset: ex-MI6, worked at Station Bucharest, does favors on a quid pro quo basis. Minion: Her husband's family has served Dracula for generations. Or maybe her 'husband' is actually Dracula himself.  The Tour Guide János Ujvary. Does tourist trips to Cachtice Castle, expert on local folklore and history. Asset: He's working for the BND, might be keeping an eye on the Castle for a German vampire program. Minion: Countess Bathory's majordomo.  The Turkish Agent Cingöz Recai. Elite operator for Turkish intelligence, undercover in Romania. Has an incomplete picture of Operation Edom, still thinking it's a mundane threat. Innocent: Recai is actually the businessperson he claims to be, and his false name is for some other reason - tax evasion, cheating on his wife, threats from paramilitary death squads. Minion: Dracula has Recai's sister, and leverages her to use him like a puppet.  The Volcanologist Francesca Collins. PhD in volcanology, setting up monitoring stations in the Carpathians, fascinated by the strange geology of Transylvania. Asset: Daughter of CIA, might be spying on the Petroleum Executive. Might be the Sniper's cover identity. Minion: Turned by Dracula while trying to cross the Borgo Pass at night. AND THAT'S IT FOR THE NPCS. Next: Conspiracy nodes!
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Apr 20, 2016 18:34
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quote:Nowhere in this game are there rules for becoming a god, the greatest of spells can be foiled by a bowman with good aim, and the greatest weapon in the world is a competent officer corps. This right here is my favorite thing about REIGN, the way that magic is actually balanced against martial abilities. The worst nightmare for a mage isn't an equally powerful sorcerer who will duel them in a battle of world-shaking power, it's a single guy in good armor with a tower shield and a bunch of dice in Counterspell. For everything you can exploit to become individually powerful, there's something in the game that will bring you back down to earth.
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Apr 20, 2016 19:03
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Yayy, someone picked up Reign after my abortive attempt last time, where I stalled out on the Company rules because I didn't feel like I could do them justice.
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Apr 20, 2016 19:08
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 quote:“The hand is my sword,” the martial expert explained. The One Roll Engine This part will go quick: There’s no need to over explain and the ORE is shockingly quick and simple to learn, so let’s just jump into it! Basic Resolution All rolls are made with d10s only. When you make a roll you grab as many dice as are in your pool for that roll, generally this is your Skill+Stat, plus any bonuses you get from items, magic, special abilities, etc. For a simple example: Most combat is done with a roll of the Body Stat (General physical might and fitness) plus the Fight Skill (General combat ability). If your character has Body 3 and Fight 4, then you would roll 7 dice in your pool, notated as 7d. Once you roll you look for sets, multiple die with the same result. Any dice that are not part of a set are called Waste Die. Normally they do nothing, but there are spells or special techniques or items that can make them matter. Sets are read as Width x Height. Width is how many dice are in the set, and Height is what number that set’s die show. A set of 3x8 is three 8’s, 4x2 is four 2’s, 2x10 is two 10’s, etc. Higher and Wider are both good, but sometimes you have to pick between multiple sets for a roll, and when that happens the differences between Height and Width come into play. Width determines, in general, speed. The Wider a roll, the faster it is. It determines what order people go in combat, how fast you climb a tree, how long it takes to forge that sword, if the haggling session takes 3 minutes or 30, etc. Height is quality, how well you did the thing. Where your axe blow lands on their body, how sharp that sword is, how big a discount you get from that merchant, etc. So, if time matters, wider is better, if time is no issue, higher is better. But ideally you want to roll sets that are both wide AND high. Types of Rolls This is pretty standard stuff, no surprises which isn’t bad: Don’t fix what ain’t broken. There’s three kinds of general rolls you’ll make, Static, Dynamic, and Opposed. Static is simple: Roll Pool, if you get any sets the thing succeeds. If the GM thinks that’s too easy, he can add a difficulty or penalty. Difficulty is a minimum Height you have to roll to succeed: Difficulty 3 means you got to have a set of 3 or higher to win. Penalties mean you have less die in your pool, simple. These are for when a PC wants to do something hard or dangerous or difficult, but there isn’t something or someone else involved to compete with, just the situation. Dynamic rolls are for when two or more people want to do something, but not all of them can succeed. Debates, competitions, races, that sort of thing. Importantly, this is for two people trying to do the same thing, but not in opposition to each other. This kind is also dirt simple: everybody rolls their pools, whoever gets the best set wins. The GM decides whether Height or Width decides based on the contest. The final kind is Opposed, which is for when one person wants to do something, and the other wants to stop them. Both characters roll their pools, which can differ: Attacking with a mace might be Body+Fight, while the target might try and stop it with Coordination+Dodge to avoid the blow. If the active character, the person doing the thing, fails he fails and the blocker’s roll doesn’t matter: That mace blow didn’t even come close to hitting. If the active succeeds and the blocker gets no successes, the active… succeeds. The blocker’s attempt just flat does nothing or doesn’t work. If they both succeed though, then the blocker’s pool becomes [/b]Gobble Dice[/b]. Each Gobble Die can counteract and eliminate a die from the active character’s set, as long as that die is of equal or lesser value. Once you lower a set to a single die, it’s no longer valid. But, Gobble Die have to be used before the active person can do their thing, so they also have to have a higher width. So, to successfully oppose another's roll, the blocker has to roll a set at least as wide and high as the active character’s. Mind, the width only matters if time is a concern, if time isn’t an object then only Hight matters. Game Terms This is a section for some miscellaneous game terms that are needed to understand later parts of the book, so I’ll just hit the important ones.
That’s it for basic mechanics! There’s more detail in the Combat and Magic chapters, as you’d expect, but for now that’s enough to let you move on to Character Creation! Which we’ll cover next time. quote:“Now you kill us for them. Is that a better peace?”
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Apr 20, 2016 19:49
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Rolls is where my problems with ORE lie. Well, rolls and dicepool sizes. Due to the way rolls work, large pools are important - dicepools below 5 are unlikely to have any matches at all, while those above 7 almost never fail. There is a very, very small sweet spot of competence.
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Apr 20, 2016 20:00
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Well, the game doesn't hide that at all. There's a chart right in the book that flat tells you the odds of getting a match with each dice pool size: It isn't obscured at all, and in fact it's way easier to get a match. Expert Die only cost 1xp. The game is not really about getting matches, sets are common and getting a roll with no sets at all is meant to be a rare occurrence. It's built more around getting better sets as the ideal not just sets at all. Also, it's easy as poo poo to get up to pools over 5 for whatever you want your character to be good at, and it's perfectly reasonable for a starting character to have 7d or 8d in their important pools and 5d in most others. Reign is built around the idea that characters flat failing rolls should be rare, instead most issues come from being beaten at a roll by other things, or failing because of penalties or difficulty.
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Apr 20, 2016 20:12
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Mors Rattus posted:Rolls is where my problems with ORE lie. Well, rolls and dicepool sizes. Due to the way rolls work, large pools are important - dicepools below 5 are unlikely to have any matches at all, while those above 7 almost never fail. There is a very, very small sweet spot of competence. It's true that having greater than 7d pretty much guarantees success, but that's not really the point; having 7-10d in a pool isn't so much about getting a success as it is being able to absorb penalties from special moves and still get a success. If you have 10d, you can drop up to 3d from your pool to go for things like multiple actions or inclement conditions and still have a 93% chance of at least getting something done. Conversely, you only need 4d to have even odds of getting a success, which is extremely easy to get. All characters have at least 1d in all their stats, so you only need to add 3d (and in ORE, having 2d in a Stat or Skill is considered baseline competence).
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Apr 20, 2016 20:12
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My experience playing ORE is what makes me speak up - I found it actually rather difficult to have good pools for everything I wanted, while the poo poo I did end up good at I was often godlike at. It was a very strict dichotomy, and one which I found rather unfun. A coinflip is absolutely not what I want my baseline 'poo poo I am not terrible at but not focused in' to be.
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Apr 20, 2016 20:16
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Valor - The Heroic Roleplay System Sample Campaign  In case of a zombie apocalypse, stay with the bare-knuckle school girl and the hobby occultist. You know how some games include an introductory adventure or two in their corebook? Valor takes this a step further and includes an entire sample campaign called... Sample Campaign that takes a party through their first Season (levels 1-5) in 29 scenes and almost 40 pages. The layout of Combat Scenes is rather D&D4e-ish, with an overview of the battlefield and enemy positions. Enemy statblocks take up very little space, though noticably more space is dedicated to describing their Techniques and summarizing the effects of their defining Skills and Flaws. An example of how this looks can be seen in this free adventure on Valor's homepage here. Something I don't quite like about the way the enemies are formatted is that their Techniques only describe their effect, not the Cores, Modifiers and Limits that went into making them. Then again this game isn't really HERO System, and passing familiarity with the Technique chapter should make it pretty easy to reverse-engineer these Techniques while reading their description. Anyhow, onwards with the campaign: The example setting is Valor City, located somewhere on the east coast of New Jersey. The players take on the role of Sighted, who have the ability to sense the Other Side, a parallel world of myth and legend. It's pretty much Urban Arcana, right down to how ordinary people perceive demi-humans as normal dudes. To deal with the Other Side, the Sighted have founded five factions, which are best explained rigt along with the example characters aka Valor's iconics, as each of them belongs to one. So going from left to right on the above picture, we have: Gun-toting Shuuichi is a member of the Supernatural Suppression Unit, because these types of urban fantasy always need a secret government agency dealing with vampires and evil wizards. Aside from his guns, he also uses bombs (both of which have a limited supply per battle) and can also use knives for some crazy melee stunts. Gabrielle is an Otherkin, aka a Since they're essentially a bunch of Sorcerers and Tiefling-analogues, the whole faction is a bit chaotic and poorly organized. Hiiro is a Freelancer, which is really just a general term for a new Sighted who has yet to join a faction, or a Sighted who doesn't care about factions at all. If his name and weapon of choice wans't any indication, he is the main shounen character type, combining powerful sword strikes with flame attacks. Muranaka works for the British Order of Magi, a bunch of bookworm wizards with their origins in Great Britain. He's the go-to character for Mind-based AoE attacks and healing spells. Tora is a member of the Fist of Susano'o, a secret order of monks who make sure that the Other Side doesn't try anything funny and kick rear end for (Each of these iconics no tonly come with a complete character sheets, but also guidelines on how to advanced them during the campaign if you're unsure what to do.) Now the campaign doesn't waste time to have everyone meet in a bar or something. Instead, they all start with beating up zombies that have appeared in Valor City. Beating them up reveals that they are no ordinary zombies: Each of them has a strange gemstone implanted that not only radiates with a lot of necromantic energy, but also seems to slowly regenerate the defeated zombies. To find out who is behind this super zombie incident, the PCs will have to contact various factions and NPCs and deal with more undead, cultists, a biker gang, and more undead. All in all a good mix of combat and investigation, with a healthy variation on undead critters to beat up. I certainly approve of this, but then again I'm a sucker for undead (thanks, Harryhausen).  Meet this campaign's recurring boss. If I had to critize one thing, I'd say it's that there doesn't seem to be a lot of focus on the actual main bad guys. There are plenty of little tidbits about various NPCs, but the main villains themselves don't really get a backstory, or cheesy one-liners like in Double Cross. Then again they only appear towards the end and I suppose by then the GM will have a clear view on his (and the party's) interpretation of the whole events. And there you have it. Valor - if you ever wanted D&D 4e to ditch most D&Disms for Final Fantasy and Anime. I don't know about you, but I'll definitely be using it for a Monster Hunter conversion. This game just screams "Action RPG" and "Tactical RPG" to me. Next Time: I won't spoil anything, but the next one's going to be a lot crunchier. With giant robots. Doresh fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Apr 20, 2016 |
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Apr 20, 2016 20:56
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Last comment for the writeup: Our art for the rulebook uses a consistent set of ten characters (one villain and one hero for each attribute), with different versions of them for past/present/future settings. This guy is Carlo, the agility villain, and literally everyone involved in Valor's creation hates him. Almost every image of him in the book is looking like an insufferable shitbag, getting owned by other characters, or both. It kind of became a running gag. (Our favorite is generally Tora, the guts hero who punched Carlo through a wall in one of the earlier images Doresh included.)
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Apr 20, 2016 21:02
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quote:Reign and Spellbound Kingdoms Goddamn these are two of my top four favourite games. I'll apologise to Nifara and Wapole Languray now if I can't stop talking about these games while they're trying to do F&Fs. Spellbound is my favourite fantasy game about playing awesome, larger-than-life heroes where there is lots of high adventure, derring-do and emotion. Reign is my favourite fantasy game about playing hardcore down-to-earth motherfuckers who have an agenda and the will to fulfill it by any means necessary. The combat is brutal and unforgiving, but still allows kek murderers with expensive equipment to scythe their way through hordes of lesser foes. The Esoteric Disciplines make "skill monkey" characters incredibly powerful and compelling, giving them lots of weird tricks that other characters probably haven't even heard of. Magic is, as previously mentioned, one of the highlights of the game: balanced, powerful and fun to use. It's not without its flaws (some of them serious) but I love it to bits.
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Apr 21, 2016 00:28
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Doresh posted:Valor - The Heroic Roleplay System Thanks for the awesome writeup! And yes, everyone hates Carlo. We live to make him suffer.
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Apr 21, 2016 00:38
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ProfessorProf posted:
I hate for my first comment on this to be superficial, but wow, that piece of art The art for this section looks like it's a weird thing where it feels like they're photoreferencing the face and then drawing more roughly around it, it's a little odd. I don' t know if that's the case but it looks like something is accidentally or deliberately amiss about it.
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Apr 21, 2016 01:02
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Doresh posted:Next Time: I won't spoil anything, but the next one's going to be a lot crunchier. With giant robots. Calling it now: Battle Century G.
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Apr 21, 2016 01:03
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