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Just started reading this thread, and I'm really sad about how much of s poo poo-show it seems that Mage 20 is. Mage was my game back when I was in my teens/early twenties.
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Mar 23, 2016 16:38
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Doresh posted:Add in critters from New Zealand, and I would totally go for a kiwi henge. There are zoos. You could have Henge that help around the zoo?
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Apr 3, 2016 17:33
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How fate-like? Fate and I aren't friends
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Jan 27, 2017 15:41
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Simian_Prime posted:Looking forward to seeing the threads in 6 months when every goon's mind changes from "Godbound is a solid, fun game" to "Godbound is a horrible train wreck of a system that broke every goon's heart." Yeah, that's a good idea.
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Mar 25, 2017 19:56
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I'm not planning to do a full write up of any games, but I'm going back to an old project which was to create characters for every game I own, which will also include a brief overview of the game in question; I've just completed the write up for Crypts and Things. (image is linked from my own domain) Crypts and things is a retro-clone based on Swords and Wizardry, with a strong Swords and Sorcery, doomed world, weird fantasy theme. Unlike a lot of other OSR games with the same themes it stays away from inappropriately creepy fetish fuel – the worst I can find is a personality type for henchmen is “Pervert – A depraved excuse of a human being”, and one evil sorcerer who it mentions degrades his apprentices in especially humiliating ways. Crucially that’s about all the detail it goes into, and the GM advice chapter specifically states that you should respect your player’s comfort levels. The system is based on D&D with a few tweaks – for example, the plethora of saves are replaced by a Fighting Fantasy style Luck stat, which can also be tested for other effects such as doing maximum damage on an attack, not losing a spell after you’ve cast it, or just happening to have a useful bit of equipment with you. Characters in Crypts and Things are a bit tougher than their D&D equivalents – HP represent superficial damage, and once a character is down to 0 HP they have a penalty to Attack Rolls and Skill Tests; further damage is taken against their Constitution with a Luck test required to stay conscious after each blow (or optionally a roll on the Dangerous Wounds table with results ranging from Winded to Heroic Impalement – take one point more damage and get a free attack against your attacker.) Once per day a C&T character can restore 1d4 HP by having a stiff drink. There are no Clerics; healing magic is the domain of Sorcerers instead. Magic is divided into White, Grey and Black magic. Of the three, only Grey Magic is mostly safe to cast, White magic can draw the attention of nearby Undead or Others (malevolent entities from outside the world), and Black Magic causes corruption. Combat is mostly free form, notable rules are that anyone can Back stab, you generally can’t decide who to hit if you’re firing into melee, Initiative is round to round rather than per engagement, and spells are declared before Initiative is rolled. The world of C&T hits all the standard Sword and Sorcery tropes – jungles full of Snake-Men, Ice wastes, decadent empires, pirate ports, ruins of past civilisations all over the place and so on. Some of the location names are a bit on the nose – Death Wind Steppe or the Terror Lizard Run, anyone? On the whole there’s enough interesting stuff that it’s not a total write-off, and the write-ups both have a sense of enthusiasm about them and are useful for gaming purposes. Most locations are given a brief overview, a couple of adventure hooks and an encounter table. Port Blackmire is an exception – a pirate and demon controlled city detailed at the District and Landmark level, which feels quite inspired by Fighting Fantasy’s Port Blacksand. (The Fighting Fantasy series and 80s UK fantasy gets a callout in the inspirations section, and I can definitely see a lot of the influences.) ---- Character Creation The Core classes are Barbarian, Fighter, Thief and Sorcerer. Optional classes are Beast Hybrid (descendants of people experimented on by Serpent Men, with the ability to shift into a bestial form), Disciples (Your fantasy warrior monk), Elementalists (Followers of the four elemental lords), Lizard People (One of the last surviving Elder races, relatively peaceful), Serpent Noble (A Serpent Man noble who can take human form). It’s up to the GM whether they want to allow players to pick anything except the Core classes. C&T uses the standard six ability scores – Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma. The Implication is 3d6 down the line, so that’s what we’ll do. quote:14, 10, 10, 16, 12, 10 The character would be reasonable as either a Fighter, Sorcerer or Elementalist. I’m going to skip ahead to the Life Events section and make my choice based on what I roll there. The character originates on the Reapers Sea, giving them a +1 to Strength or Dexterity, and was born into the family of a Captain, gaining +1 Intelligence. We’re going to put that +1 in Strength, and then become a Sorcerer. A roll on the Sorcerer Life event gives me ‘Ship wrecked on the isle of skulls’, which grants me Curse, Magic Missile and Wailing Lament as bonus starting spells. quote:Strength 15 – +1 to hit and Damage quote:Luck 11 quote:Skill 15 quote:Sanity 12 A level 1 Sorcerer has 6 HP, can memorise 1 spell, and starts knowing three first level and one second level spell. They also get a +3 bonus to Skill checks related to Reading Arcane languages, and detecting magic in the area. You can select spells from any of the three colours of magic, in this case I go for Sleep, Divination, Cure Light Wounds, and Bless You start with 3d6 x 10 gold to spend on equipment, with an equipment list straight out of D&D. I’ve rolled 110 gold and spend it on Leather Armour, a Scimitar (there'll be a one point penalty to damage which is offset by the Strength score), 2 daggers, a Backpack, Bedroll, Fishing net, grappling hook, 50’ of silk rope, a hooded lantern, 10 pints of oil, a tent, a waterskin, 7 days of dried rations, A heavy crossbow, and 20 bolts. We’re also going to generate a Henchman to accompany our Sorcerer on their first adventure. Henchmen are rolled on 5 tables to determine their Speciality, Personality, how they want paying, how they’ll take revenge if they don’t get paid and how they’re armed. quote:Skill: Performer; Personality: Pervert; Want: Revenge – they want someone killed or harmed in exchange for the work; Revenge: Backstab; Weapon: Shortbow and dagger Henchmen all have the same stats which may be adjusted by their Speciality. In this case our rather horrible bowman has AC 12 (leather Armour), a d8 HD, Move 12, Attack 1, Damage 1d6 or 1d4. Each character can potentially have a Companion – an NPC friend, someone who actually likes the character and can be trusted. Some life path events give you companion, and NPCs that you befriend in play might become one. Companions have stats that increase as you level and a cut down version of a class’s abilities. They controlled by the player. The downside is that if they die your character may take a sanity hit and will spend some time in mourning. --- Are people interested in seeing more of these quick looks with a focus on character generation? I'm also planning to, where there is a sample adventure included, run the characters through it, but that feels very outside the scope of this thread. Angrymog fucked around with this message at 13:37 on May 2, 2017 |
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May 2, 2017 09:48
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ZorajitZorajit posted:Hey, bud, can you reformat this please? The code blocks hate don't wrap lines so much. Didn't realise, sorry.
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May 2, 2017 13:37
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Halloween Jack posted:Crypts & Things falls at the right point on the spectrum for me where it adds enough to White Box D&D to be interesting, but the mechanics don't feel random, finicky, and tacked-on. Played a short PbP of it once - was okay, but nothing special? The characters were all pretty distinct, but the system itself wasn't very interesting.
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May 2, 2017 21:06
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Wapole Languray posted:Uluka (Sorry) The owl people do look cool.
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May 4, 2017 07:03
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Following on from my character creation walkthrough for Crypts and Things, I've run the created character through the sample adventure, using the solo hero rules from Scarlet Heroes by Kevin Crawford as an overlay on the base C&T rules. Part one can be read here - https://moggynomates.angrymog.com/2017/05/17/crypts-things-the-halls-of-nizar-thun/ If people want to see these and would rather they be posted, I can oblige, but this does feel out of the remit of the thread.
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May 17, 2017 07:31
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 Scarlet Heroes Published by Sine Nomine Publishing, Scarlet Heroes is an OSR game intend for lone player characters rather than the usual party. Whilst the standard assumption is for the usual GM and Player setup, the book also contains oracles and systems for three types of solo adventure – the Dungeon Crawl, an Urban Investigation and finally a Wilderness Trek. The setting of Scarlet Heroes is Asian-themed post-apocalyptic fantasy. Most of the world has been consumed by something called the Red Tide, an alien horror that takes the form of a crimson mist, able to corrupt and consume both physically and through dreams. The remaining population of the world fled to the Sunset Isles, where, after driving the native Shou (who replace Orcs, Goblins, Bugbears and Hobgoblins) into the wilderness they settled and formed new kingdoms. Kingdoms of the Sunset Isles There are four majour kingdoms in the setting – the failing Mandarinate of Xian, once the ruler of the entire island, the Hellsworn Shogunate of the North, the decadent Magocracy of Tien Lung, and finally the hard-working and faithful monotheistic Hohnberg Pact, the lone European-flavoured country in the setting. People of the Sunset isles Humans come in six ethnicities and generalised cultures which are found across the nations, though some are more homogenous than others – e.g. the majority of the citizens of the Hohnberg pact are Eirengarders, whilst the Kueh make up the main population of the Shogunate. Mechanically all humans are the same, getting two free trait points to spend during character creation. The non-humans have a couple of twists from their standard D&D cousins – Dwarves collect gold as an act of piety so that they can take its spirit into the afterlife; elves are literally immortal as a result of a botched immortality ritual – when one dies, they reincarnate into an elven infant. Halflings are the usual peaceful, quiet, homebodies. They’re also utterly fearless – not stupidly – they’re capable of recognising risks and danger, they’re just not afraid, nor can they be intimidated or panicked. Their other notable feature is that they have a ‘strange solidity about them’ – they’re capable of wielding large weapons – e.g. 2 handed swords, with no issues at all. The last race are the Shou and the Shou-blooded, which fill the role of the humanoid monsters in the setting, though unlike their traditional variations, many Shou could pass for humans if they wanted to and didn’t go whole hog with tribal scarification and tattoos. The main feature of the Shou is that they’re naturally resistant to the corruption of the Red Tide. Character creation The beats of character creation should be familiar to anyone who’s played a D&D based game. Roll you attributes, pick your race, class, buy stuff, pick spells and play. Attributes are rolled on 4d6, drop the lowest, arrange to suit, and if you haven’t rolled at least one 16 or greater, set an attribute to 16 – every hero is good at something. The classes are Clerics, Fighters, Magic Users and Thieves. Your class informs your hitpoints (a set amount per level rather than rolled), attack bonus, fray die (automatic damage you do each turn to enemies of equal or lesser strength), what armour you can use, what the maximum damage you can do with a weapon is – clerics 1d6, fighters unlimited, magic users 1d4, and thieves 1d8. Finally Magic users, clerics and thieves all have special abilities above and beyond straight numbers. Clerics can cast spells and turn undead. Magic users can cast spells, additionally their fray die is capable of affecting all enemies, not just those weaker than themselves. Thieves can backstab, and gain a free 3-point trait in their Archetype – i.e. what sort of thief they are, which increases by one every time they level – the normal maximum for a trait is 3. Classes are race limited – only Humans and Shou blooded can be Clerics, and Dwarves and Halflings can’t be Magic Users either. Finally you pick some traits for your character – Mostly a combination of Background and Skill system, Traits are also where you’ll find most racial special abilities. Equipment and spells There aren’t really any surprises here, though the spells have flowery names rather than the standard utilitarian D&D ones. Weapons are divided by a generalised type - two-handed weapons, one-handed weapons, light weapons, etc. with all weapons in a class using the same damage dice and Attribute modifier for attacks - rather than there being a long and detailed list of almost identical weapons. System There are 5 core mechanics to Scarlet Heroes, of which two are specifically designed to allow a lone hero to face a party’s worth of adventure. Checks When a character is trying some task of personal prowess or skill that might reasonably tax a hero, roll a check. The difficulty ranges from 9 to 17, and is rolled on 2d8 adding the relevant attribute modifier and their highest relevant trait. Saving throws Rolled to avoid traps, magical attacks and other attempts to harm the character, saves have a difficulty of 9 + the HD or Threat of the attacker, and are rolled exactly as Checks are, but adding the character’s level to the result too, meaning you roll 2d8 + level + attribute + highest relevant trait. Attack rolls A rolled on 1d20 plus the character’s attack bonus, relevant attribute and the enemy’s armour class. A result of 20 or greater is a hit. Damage rolls This is the core of what makes Scarlet Heroes work for a single player whilst otherwise leaving the maths and numbers of enemies unchanged. Instead of reading damage dice straight, damage is read as follows. code:With the exception of a Thief’s ambush damage, overflow damage is applied to the next enemy; a character fighting a group of skeletons rolls 4 damage – four of the skeletons go down. The Fray die that heroes get is read just like a standard damage dice, and can be applied to any qualifying enemy that the character could reach. The fray die is rolled even if the character isn’t declaring an attack that round. The end result of all this is to allow a single character to face down threats that would normally require a full party, and to enable the use of pre-written modules without having to re-jig all the encounters. Defying Death If a hero is about to die or encounters an obstacle they just can’t get around, they may attempt to defy death. This is done by rolling 1d4 for each of their levels and applying the result as damage. If they’re still standing they survive the threat or get around the obstacle. If they drop to zero, they’re reduced to 1hp and have failed. Each time the character tries to defy death during an adventure the dice step up by one size, to a maximum size of d12. Bestiary The bestiary has a combination of old favourites – Bears, Giant Spiders, Skeletons, and new and exotic horrors such as Centipede Women, Horse-headed demons, Leaping Vampires, and Ash Basilisks. Angrymog fucked around with this message at 14:58 on May 27, 2017 |
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May 27, 2017 07:16
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marshmallow creep posted:How immediate is that "reincarnate as an infant" thing? Because i love the idea of the family getting ready for granddad's passing by stocking on diapers and baby formula. "I know you're not a young man anymore, so here, I got you a new jumper and booties." In the full setting book, Red Tide (written for Labyrinth Lord) there's a class called the Scion, which is what happens when an Elven soul ends up in a human body - they get strange reality warping powers as a result of the conflicting energies.
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May 27, 2017 14:49
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Character creation I’m going to be following the quick character creation rules, which start by rolling for your Race and Class (1d20, 1d8). code:code:Our character will be a Kueh woman. Consulting the random name tables I get Kasumi Tanaka. Next attributes are rolled - 4d6, drop the lowest, assign as you see fit. code:code:Clerics get 6 hit points, modified to 7 by our Con, start with an Attack Bonus of +1, and can cast one Level 1 spell a day. We get a total of 5 trait points – 3 as standard and another two for being Human – I’m putting 2 into Warrior Monk, 1 into Helped a Skilled Lawyer and 2 into Bursts of Strength. Shopping is the usual 3d6 x 10 gold to spend, and we end up with 70 gold and an equipment list as follows. Short spear (Light weapon - +1/1d6+1), Leather Armour (AC 7), Shield (+1 AC bonus), Sling (+1/1d4+1), Backpack, Camping Gear, Healer’s Bag, Scribe’s tools, Local Map, 2 sets of common clothes With all that done, we’re ready to start adventuring Completed character Kasumi Tanaka 1st level Cleric code:HP: 7 AC: 6 (5 with shield) Fray die: 1d6 Traits Warrior Monk: 2 Bursts of Strength: 2 Helped a Skilled Lawyer: 1 Spells Hand of Merciful Succour (heal 2 + 2d6 damage) Weapons Short spear (+2/1d6+1), Sling (+2/1d4+1) Armour Leather (AC7) Other equipment Backpack, Camping Gear, Healer’s Bag, Scribe’s tools, Local Map, 2 sets of common clothes Money 5 gold Character creation is quick - the most time consuming part would probably be coming up with your traits, but fortunately there's a handy table to provide inspiration if you're stuck.
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May 27, 2017 15:06
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theironjef posted:Hello folks, who likes Nexus: The Infinite City? We sorta did. I do. Never ran it, but I always thought it was a cool setting. Mechanics are the ancestor of Fengshui's system iirc.
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Jun 6, 2017 06:30
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Night10194 posted:My first ever exposure to Steampunk was Arcanum. Man, did that ever give me the wrong idea about the genre. I actually thought the whole thing was about being in a liminal period in history between two eras where the old fantasy and the coming industrialism conflict, and the ancient horrors and fresh injustices of the two compete to bring down the world as the better natures of both seek to win out. The problem with steampunk is that everyone cosplays the elite.
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Jun 13, 2017 19:59
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ZorajitZorajit posted:Counterpoint, those statues look way better in the plain white marble, because they were painted in like this:
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Jun 13, 2017 20:02
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Cythereal posted:Note the "punk" in the genre name. Originally, it wasn't about being The Man. The genre got started as a rough and tumble genre involving poorhouses, debtors' prisons, smog-choked cities, children selling matchsticks on the street or sweeping chimneys or working in horribly dangerous factories while the clean, fancy dressed elite look down at everyone from their airships. Exactly. An actual steampunk game would be from that angle, not gallivanting around the world in your airship. (Unless it was an airship you stole from The Man, I guess)
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Jun 13, 2017 21:17
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Cassa posted:Yes hi hello I would like to know more of this game and all games with good dog representation. It's kind of poo poo, IIRC. System is hilariously awful. This is from an old character generation write up. I call the system a bit odd, but in retrospect it's more a case of WTF. The core dice mechanic The system is a bit odd, in that a skill check requires two dice rolls. First, you roll your Potential vs. your skill rating. E.g. if Joe above was trying to fish he’d roll 3 dice (Knowledge – I’ve decided that success in fishing is down to knowing how to do it.) vs. a rating of 2. I roll 8,4 and 1, giving 1 success die. The success dice are then rolled against a difficulty number set by the GM. Any that roll equal to or below the difficulty are counted at their full value, any that roll above count as a one. In our fishing example we’ll say that it’s a fairly good patch of water, so it’s not difficult to get a bite, and set the difficulty at 7. Rolling our one successful trial die results in a 5. As this is below 7 it counts as a 5 point success. Good fishing for Joe.
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Jul 3, 2017 04:40
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Cassa posted:Well crap As a followup, a starting character can't have a skill of greater than 6 and having that is going to leave you with a scattershot selection of really bad skills, as you have to have a minimum of 15 skills and have 40 points to spend.
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Jul 3, 2017 09:34
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Anguille is Eel.
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Jul 27, 2017 16:07
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Night10194 posted:The Duke of Couronne is also King of Bretonnia. I have to wonder if Louen's detractors (he's got to have a few) ever make note of the fact that he rides a bird-cat (Hippogriff) into battle rather than a proper Couronnian warhorse. It's actually a horse-bird, rather than a bird-cat.
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Jul 28, 2017 18:25
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So I'm guessing that you had all the demons drop dead because they didn't list HP totals for them; is there a way in the book to calculate what those HP totals should be? Are the HP totals listed in the main bestiary and just left out of the adventure stats?
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Jul 30, 2017 10:30
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Night10194 posted:Next Time: Bretonnian Careers and Character Rules What happened to quote:Next Time: Mousillon, the land of black knights, snails, frogs, and sadness.
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Aug 5, 2017 14:04
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Night10194 posted:The actual city of Mousillon is weird as hell. It has no local economy for the necessities, but somehow carts and ships arrive with food and other basics nearly daily. Meanwhile, the shops of the town are almost exclusively sellers of forbidden books, cult gear, poison, cruel and outlawed weaponry, and all manner of exotic tools for evildoers and evil henchmen. There are taverns and fighting pits, but no tailors or bakers. It's a mystery how anyone can stay fed in such a place, but it's hardly the strangest thing about the cursed duchy. PCs from Mousillon can choose to take a random serious penalty from the local deformities and troubles (usually a full -10 to a stat!) in return for an extra fate point, but this is a bad idea. The economy of the small villages relies on snailing, frogging, and other swamp-work. Peat is one of the few exports. Mousillon is a miserable place and any PC who can leave, generally does. Is the wierdness of the city called out, or is that your own observation?
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Aug 5, 2017 17:06
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Hostile V posted:If the Horror dies, its Death Slithers in its guts will land in the water and lurk with invisibility to pop out and bite at the party. One of them will accidentally get sucked down a drain and disappear. Of course, even if G-Unit was foolish enough to ignore the warnings of the addict, the fight would go smoothly enough in their favor what with the Engorged Horror immediately keeling over and dying.
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Aug 11, 2017 21:45
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I just realised that that Engorged horror is basically The Covetous Demon from Dark Souls 2. When was this written? How feasible would it be for grabbed people to get out of the grab? Your sacrificial squad has three less prowess than it, but doesn't seem impossible that they could get away before being chomped on?
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Aug 12, 2017 09:21
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Bieeardo posted:I was going to ask what kind of stupid, fuckass, shithead thought process was involved in THAT, but then I remembered the tweet I saw earlier tonight. What was the 'Fight in spirit' rule again?
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Aug 20, 2017 06:16
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The write up was interesting and appreciated, but the whole 'and then drop dead' gimmick got a bit tired after the first couple of times.
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Aug 23, 2017 16:48
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Rigged Death Trap posted:Nah It did put in hit points for human characters iirc. Just the demons that missed them because they were at the bottom of the Mental traits stack.
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Aug 23, 2017 21:50
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Here's a brief overview of Agon, a competitive RPG. Agon is a game where you play ancient Greek heroes completing quests given to them by the gods. You’re working together, but also competing in order to be the Best Hero ™ and ensure that your name echoes down the ages. Agon translates as ‘struggle’ and this is reflected in the game mechanics – anything significant the heroes wish to achieve will require a die roll. Even resting requires a contest between the heroes to get full benefit. Character creation Character creation starts with your hero’s name – both their personal one, and their lineage. You may choose to be the child of a god, in which case your Name die (which is included in every roll) is larger, but your fate track starts half filled. Next you pick your Heroic Trait – are you Wise-Eyed? Perhaps Fleet-footed? Or known as a Monster or Man slayer? Then it’s time to assign scores to the 16 abilities; each starts with a d6, and you can raise one in a category to a d8 by reducing another in the same category to a d4. You also get two free dice to assign as you wish. No ability can start with a rating greater than 10. Once your ability scores are decided it’s time to decide which god your character reveres above the rest; it is to this god that your character will dedicate sacrifices. Each god favours three Abilities, and it is these which are used when performing a sacrifice, so it’s a good idea to have at least a couple of them highly rated. Then decide on your armour and weapons; you may have a Javelin or a Bow, pick three out of Sword, Shield, and Spear, and finally decide which (if any) items you want out of Helmet, Breastplate, and Greaves – each increases your armour die by a level, but inflicts a minor penalty on a type of Battle roll; e.g. Greaves cause a -1 penalty on positioning. The final part of character creation are your Achievements; little vignettes that show off an instant in your heroes life and build up a starting web of Oaths with the other heroes. Adventure creation and GM support Agon quests are presented in blocks of three; the characters make landfall on an island, three gods make their wishes known. At the top level these quests take the form of $God requires you to do $action to $subject, for instance, Lord Hades requires you to save the Bronze Bull. The primary objective of each quest will be solved by a Battle, but first the GM has to create some secondary objectives and their associated challenges for the characters to face. The expected outcome is that most if not all of the secondary objectives must be completed before the characters can face the primary challenge. To aid the GM there are tables to provide an overview of the inhabitants of the island, what’s happening when the characters arrive, and what the gods want. Once the quest is outlined, the GM builds any NPCs and obstacles using a pool of Strife, the amount of which is determined by the number of heroes and the number of secondary objectives in their quest. The GM gets additional strife points during play when the heroes stop to rest or suffer a significant setback. The advice is to spend half your strife on pre-game prep, and the other half during the game to create or toughen obstacles on the fly. Mechanics The basic roll in Agon is your Name die plus an ability die; the highest number rolled is the final result. If you want extra dice you can add other skills to the dice pool, which are then Impaired (reduced down a die-size) regardless of the result of the test, or you can call in Oaths for assistance. Divine Favour can also be spent to change the behaviour of the dice – adding more dice, allowing dice to explode, or allowing re-rolls. Meta-currencies One of the key mechanics and meta-game currency of Agon is the Oath – a favour owed to a hero by another, or by an NPC (mortal or God). You gain an oath from someone by assisting them un-asked, or by bargaining with them – the examples given mirror the actions that Oaths can be spent on, but more or less any agreed on action could be cause for the collection of an Oath. Oaths are spent to gain helping dice, make another hero heal you during an Interlude, or follow your instructions during the positioning phase of battle. The other three meta currencies are Glory – experience; which is both experience and a measure of how remembered they are when they finally meet their fate; Fate – used to avoid damage and restore Impairment of abilities, Fate also ticks up automatically when you complete quests, get defeated or attempt to challenge the will of the Gods. The final meta-currency is Divine favour, which can be spent for varieties of rerolls, bonus dice, or having the gods bless your weapon. Glory is gained by being Best Hero ™ - winning contests, dealing the largest wound to an enemy, defeating minions, and so on. Fate as mentioned ticks up automatically as the game progresses, and Divine Favour improves as you complete tasks for the gods. The GM (Antagonist) has their own meta-currency, Strife, which is used to build hostile NPCs and challenges. The initial amount is set by the number of Heroes and subtasks in the quest they're doing, with more becoming available when the heroes rest or fail at contests. Contests and Battles Contests come in two forms; the simple Contest, which is resolved by a simple opposed die roll and the Battle, which is resolved on a round by round basis. The Battle doesn’t have to be violent in nature; a contest of poetry can be resolved just as easily as a clash of spears. Once a simple contest has been rolled, any player may invoke Hubris and turn it into a battle instead; the losing side will start the battle having already taken a wound each. By default the GM rolls 2d6 for Contests, but may buy them up with Strife. The GM can also declare a challenge to be Harmful – the characters will take Wounds rather than simply suffering an Impairment, or that it’s an Obstacle which means that even if the characters fail, they move on past it, just battered and bruised, and without having gained any advantages or additional knowledge. A contest is a high-level overview of an attempted action; in contrast, a battle zooms in to the action, covering each exchange of blows (or words, or stages in a race – as noted above, a battle doesn’t have to be physical) In a physical battle, the characters weapons provide dice for them to use, which are split into left and right hand dice; the Name die and one weapon ability die are added to these pools. E.g. A character with a spear and a shield would put 1d8 (the shield) into their left hand, and 1d8 + 1d6 into their right hand. Into either of these they add their name die and the ability die from Spear or Shield. The first stage of a battle is positioning; order is determined by the results of a Name + Athletics roll, when it’s your turn to position yourself, you can either move yourself on the range strip, or anyone who has not positioned themselves yet. Once positioning is completed, attacks happen; the order is based on your weapon used and the range you’ll be fighting at; Swords go first, and in that group the Swords who’re at range 1 go first, followed by those at range 2 and so-on. There are a few special manoeuvres that you take in place of an attack; most of these apply a penalty to the next roll by the targeted enemy, but you may also attempt a disarm or to make an attack with your left-handed weapon. In a non-physical battle each side picks an Ability appropriate to the contest from the list of Sports and Craft abilities. For example, when trying to persuade an NPC to allow you access to a sacred grove, your Hero may pick the Orate ability, and the NPC the Lore. Each Craft or Sport ability lists a pair of Arete abilities as weapons for attack and defence, and a different ability in its own category as armour; Lore uses Insight for attack, Spirit for defence and Music as armour. A sample of the book which includes positioning and battle examples can be downloaded from the game’s website at http://www.agon-rpg.com/resources.html Create a character We’ll be creating three characters in order to build up a network of Oaths around them. Damia the Monster-Slayer, daughter of Ares Far-Reaching Nikaie, daughter of Scylax Fleet-footed Maeon, son of Arion Damia the Monster-Slayer With Damia we’ve put our two free dice into the combat abilities, and lowered Aim too, which allows us to have a Spear rating of 1d10 to start with. We’ve also boosted Athletics at the cost of Wrestling to help her with positioning in Battles. Heroic trait bonus +1 damage to monsters, +2 positioning when fighting monsters Name 1d8 Arete Insight d6, Grace d6, Might d8, Spirit d4 Craft Heal d6, Lore d6, Music d6, Orate d6 Sport Athletics d8, Hunt d6, Cunning d6, Wrestle d4 Battle Aim d4, Spear d10, Shield d8, Sword d6 Favoured God Athena – at no point does it say that a child of a god has to favour that god Insight, Lore and Spear Weapons Shield (1d8), Spear (2,1d8+1d4), Sword (1,2d6) Armor d8 – Greaves (-1 positioning), Helmet (-1 missile attack), Brestplate (-1 melee) Divine favour 7 Fate 8 Far-Reaching Nikaie, daughter of Scylax We haven’t double dipped the free dice and the weapon bonuses with Nikaie, and two of her d8 skill match those of her god, which gives her slightly broader options for when she wants to perform a sacrifice. Heroic trait bonus +1 range for melee weapons, +2 positioning when fighting inside Name 1d6 Arete Insight d4, Grace d8, Might d6, Spirit d6 Craft Heal d6, Lore d8, Music d6, Orate d4 Sport Athletics d6, Hunt d6, Cunning d8, Wrestle d6 Battle Aim d4, Spear d6, Shield d8, Sword d8 Favoured God Hermes – Athletics, Grace, and Sword Weapons Shield (1d8), Sword (1-2,2d6), Sword (1-2,2d6) Armour D6 – Greaves (-1 positioning), Helmet (-1 missile attack) Divine favour 7 Fate 0 Fleet-footed Maeon, son of Arion We’ve been liberal with the d8s again, with both the free ones going into Craft; both Music and Heal are useful during Interludes, and should be good for building up a few oaths from the others. Heroic trait bonus +2 to athletics, +2 to positioning when fighting outside Name 1d6 Arete Insight d4, Grace d6, Might d6, Spirit d8 Craft Heal d8, Lore d6, Music d8, Orate d6 Sport Athletics d6, Hunt d4, Cunning d8, Wrestle d6 Battle Aim d8, Spear d6, Shield d6, Sword d4 Favoured God Hera – Cunning, Spirit, Aim Weapons Shield (1d8), Spear (2, 1d8+1d4), Bow (5-6, 1d8+1) Armour D6 – Greaves (-1 positioning), Breastplate (-1 melee attack) Divine favour 7 Fate 0 Achievements With the characters created, we need to see who owes whom. Featured Hero: Damia Scene: Maeon is about to meet his end under the claws of the Silver Lion of Kyra Skill: Spear Winner: Damia Backed up against a cliff, Maeon braces for a last pounce by the mighty Silver Lion. A pounce that never lands as Damia interposes herself between the Lion and Maeon, spearing it through the throat. Featured Hero: Damia Scene: Damia is climbing down a cliff to steal a harpy’s eggs Skill: Athletics Winner: Nikaie So intent is Damia on her prize that she's oblivious of the harpies preparing to strike. It is Nikaie who distracts the murderous creatures with well thrown rocks, allowing Damia to steal the egg. The same process is repeated with Nikaie and Maeon challenging each other, with the following results Nikaie vs. Maeon, Grace: Victory Maeon Nikaie vs. Damia, Lore: Victory Nikae Maeon vs. Damia, Spirit: Victory Damia Maeon vs. Nikaie, Aim: Victory Nikae Maeon’s attempt to be clever and target abilities where the others only had d4s has backfired somewhat due to bad luck on the dice. Once all the Achievements are rolled and described the final starting Oaths look like this Damia Nikaie 0, Maeon 2 Nikaie Damia 2, Maeon 1 Maeon Damia 0, Nikae 1 Create an Island The book provides a list of fairly simple tables to roll on for inspiration and a large list of names. Each island should have at least one human community on it, and will have the attention of three gods, each of which will assign the heroes a quest when they make landfall. We will be creating the Island of Saria Terrain: Scrub-brush plains and dusty plateaus Settlement: Prosperous trading port - a mix of many cultures, and a small fishing village Event: The port is constructing a great monument, whilst the fishing village is celebrating a harvest (fishing?) festival Gods: Dionysus, Apollo, and Athena Dionysus wants the heroes to destroy the River Dancers, a mysterious magical sect, Apollo tasks them with stealing the Silver Horse of Saria, and finally Athena wants them to restore the war gear of Aktor Interesting things Three of our interesting things have been decided by the quests, but let’s add another two or three to give the heroes more things to play with. The plains of Saria are home to Copper Beetles, whilst the plateaus host a large flock of Harpies. On the far side of the island, the Hundred Swords, a mercenary army have made camp. --- I haven't yet had a chance to run this in person (my group voted for Owl Hoot Trail when I offered a one shot game), but it seems solid enough. I'll be taking the three characters above through the quest to Steal the Silver Horse. It isn't quite a Zero-prep game as you'll need to at least have your quests outlined, and whilst NPC creation is pretty quick, it would probably be best to have the final challenge stated out before you start so that you don't go over your strife budge in the lead up to the final confrontation. Angrymog fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Sep 1, 2017 |
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Sep 1, 2017 18:48
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Snorb posted:Hey, I never thought I'd see Agon show up in this thread! No, you only get to use one Ability die in combat each exchange, so either your Shield die, or your Spear Ability die, but yeah, you're right - you do split the spear's d8 and d6 between hands and can decide the order. I'd allow a shield bash too - I don't see any reason why you can't do that. Yeah, I was disappointed to see that the FAQ had gone missing, but it also seems that Evil Hat are backing a second edition of the game. Angrymog fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Sep 2, 2017 |
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Sep 2, 2017 03:07
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LongDarkNight posted:[quote="Angrymog" post="475974853"] A sort of episodic campaign I guess? There are rules for replacing your hero when you fill up your Fate track (a mortal has 16 blocks to fill, and you automatically get one when you finish a quest, when you're defeated (fill up the 6th wound level) or attempt to Defy the Gods. You can choose to gain a fate in order to avoid all damage from an attack, or to remove 4 levels of impairement.
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Sep 3, 2017 18:41
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PurpleXVI posted:I have to admit I was incredibly tempted to back Invisible Sun just so I could have it to review, because there's literally NO WAY it isn't a massive, pretentious shitfest. I'd be willing to bet money on it.
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Sep 19, 2017 16:02
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DalaranJ posted:I would be interested in shelling out some to get Invisible Sun for a DM. But I need a promise that they are willing to both do a full F&F of it, and a YouTube unboxing video where they explain in detail why each of the components is dumb. I'm tempted to take you up on that, but am in the UK, so shipping would be even more stupid.
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Sep 19, 2017 18:10
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Barudak posted:I was prepared to rip TLE apart mechanically which, oh my god wait until we talk about the system mechanics because holy poo poo did they forget to tell you something critically important, but I'm finishing the metaplot write-up right now and there are several parts where its obvious that nobody involved thought for two seconds what the implication of their edgelording meant. I actually have a copy of this, bought at one of the last UK Gencons. I have no idea what I was thinking when I bought it.
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Oct 16, 2017 07:22
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Bieeardo posted:Oh god, I just found my box of those stupid things the other day. Same! Though I might have volume 2.
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Oct 17, 2017 20:05
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Nessus posted:Some of this is probably typesetting and layout. The 2E PHB did not meaningfully change content but it was re-laid out and produced a longer book between "the one with a charging cavalier on the cover" and "the one with a barbarian kicking open a door on the cover." Def. I sold my Green Reprints because of how ugly the insides were compared to the old ones. Also the old ones had far more female characters in them - you have to go to page 130 in the 1995 PHB to find a female character; there's two by page 7 of the 1989 books.
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Oct 19, 2017 06:25
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Night10194 posted:There's really not that much to know. If Warhammer Fantasy is 'fantasy cliches and historical analogues bounce off one another with fun twists', Golarion is '*D&D* cliches and historical analogues bounce off one another, completely straight faced and with no twist.' There's one neat thing in Golarion - the soul stealing guillotines in Revolutionary-France land. The Drift in Starfinder is just a rubbish version of The Bleed from the Wildstorm superhero universe though, or maybe the warp. Angrymog fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Oct 21, 2017 |
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Oct 21, 2017 22:41
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Davin Valkri posted:Do you think that other game lines do this "more gracefully", as it were? The only one that comes to mind is Ashen Stars and its Bogey Conundrum--how does that compare to Starfinder's Gap? Stars Without Number has 'The Scream', a psychic event that shattered the star-spanning human civilisation, and forced planets that survived it to start making their own way back into space. Said human civilisation was well on the way to amusing itself to death before The Scream happened.
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Oct 23, 2017 23:09
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Echo Cian posted:I dare them to point to what was inspired by the Broken Earth series. They've probably got an unstable planet, or some mages that are bred/created deliberately or something. Or some stone people. That's close enough, right?
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Oct 25, 2017 05:51
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Dallbun posted:First, you must declare how many cards you intend to draw from
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Oct 29, 2017 14:09
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