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Oh hey, this thing. A few years ago, I remember Soto posting that picture with the witch standing on the melty head (on Facebook, I think) and saying it was for a game that was basically WGA with adult witches in a post-apocalyptic setting. (Knowing how Harris' and Soto's witches operate, they probably somehow caused said apocalypse and blamed the various mundane world governments on it.) As far as I know, there were no mentions of it being a feminist revenge fantasy whatsoever. I guess she discovered that getting mad over social justice issues gets you page views these days and changed it. quote:Coming Full Circe I know the game has bigger problems than this, but this title is annoying the poo poo out of me. There's nothing I can find that indicates that the name Circe either means "circle" or is pronounced even remotely similarly to it. They just look similar if you use the English spelling of it. So if she's going for a play on the phrase "coming full circle", it doesn't work at all. The phrase itself would also imply that Soto's self-insert Mary Sue lost her powers at one point and got them back. Or her mom was a Maga that had a fall from grace of sorts. You know, something that implies things have gone back to how they used to be. Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 07:59 on Feb 24, 2016 |
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Feb 24, 2016 07:22
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Kurieg posted:More ore less yes? The character designs are all "grown up" Versions of the witch girls with crazy hair colors and "plus sized" Figures, and there's an entire branch of transformation spells attributed to a "Ms Sadie". The fact that the previously asian genki girl got turned into a hispanic death witch is not addressed. Soto probably figured that there weren't a lot of Japanese people in El Paso. Interestingly, Minerva also is/was a character in WGA. At least for sample character sheet purposes.   (Arm...) This version probably just killed the guys who tried to rape her by turning them into cigarettes and smoking them, and threatened to do the same to the administrators who told her that they were not going to stop the entire school just so she could give a valedictorian speech when she graduated early. Also, "Digahol", Minerva's cartoonishly right-wing hometown, is also a town in WGA. (One of the Willow-Mistt characters is from there. Her father worked with the police in some capacity.) But it's in Idaho, not Iowa. At least when it was in Idaho, it rhymed... Soto and Harris seem to love taking ideas from each other.
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Feb 24, 2016 22:07
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 Malcolm Harris posted:Nothing is perfect, We all make mistakes and despite everything nothing created is flawless. Witch Girls Adventures: Respelled (or Witch Girls: Respelled depending on whether you go by the cover or the DrivethruRPG page) is the “2nd edition” of Witch Girls Adventures, an indie game for tween to teenage girls created by the barely functioning (and possibly law-skirting at this point) Channel M Publishing. WGA is a game where you play a (usually) tween witch who goes to magic school and does all the things that tweenage girls with near absolute control over the fabric of reality do. It was also written by someone with a transformation fetish and is based on stories from an old Geocities ezine for said fetish. Along with whatever stories the game’s creator, Malcolm Harris, and his unofficial partner-in-crime, Abigail “Abby” Soto, come up with when they need to get their rocks off, presumably. Roughly 4 years ago, over the course of two previous FATAL & Friends threads, FourmyleCircus and I did write-ups of nearly all of the then available books published for the game. You can read those here, here, and here. If you don’t want to read all of those words (and aren't just reading these one after another on inklesspen's site) and have no idea what WGA’s myriad problems are… well, you’re gonna have to for reasons that will become apparent soon. But here’s some cliff notes:
  Back in March 2012, Channel M created a Kickstarter asking for $2,000 to make a second version of WGA, then titled Witch Girls: Book of Shadows. It succeeded and managed to raise $8,717 with nearly 170 backers. The book’s original release date was set for Halloween 2012… then March 2013… then a nebulous “when it’s ready”. Months turned into years and eventually, Channel M’s original site went down and Harris went silent. Many of the book’s backers contacted Harris through email, Facebook, and Kickstarter about receiving a refund, only to get brushed off or ignored. At one point, Harris came back to announce that he was going to sue Disney for having a witch named Lucinda in one of their TV shows. Then went silent again when I assume it failed because no one outside of a niche sub-culture has heard of his and Soto's lovely character. On March 26, 2015, the book, now with its current title, was released on DriveThruRPG and Lulu with no fanfare and no download codes for the backers. In the year that followed, Harris also released 10 supplement books for it. No, they weren’t offered to the backers. (He has offered to give people refunds, but from the looks of things, most people haven’t received them.) So after four years and almost $9,000, what do we got? Well for starters, as Harris himself points out in the quote above, the book is not a traditional standalone 2nd edition. I would describe it as a glorified errata book, since it is meant to be used in conjunction with the original core. Though it’s pretty much the core book with most of the setting fluff taken out of it (and in some cases, put into the supplements instead). So it could also be a 2nd ed core, I guess? (It also costs $10 as a PDF. Backers of the Kickstarter had to pay $20 to receive a PDF copy.) (There’s also a “Director’s Cit” of the original core that doesn’t seem to be available anymore. I don’t know how much of it is identical to this book. (Though it seems like a lot of it is.) System Mastery has an episode on it if you want to know more.) As you can probably guess, a lot of the stuff promised in the Kickstarter is not in the book. This includes the promises made about the intro comic. quote:Printing cost for a full color book: Like the original that would include a comic book style intro but instead of being ten pages, it’ll be 22 pages. The comic is “The New Girl”, the 12 page continuation from the original WGA opening comic that Harris offered for free along with the first part on his Facebook one Free Comic Day several years ago. Unfortunately, that link doesn’t seem to work anymore. So here’s a summary. (By the way, I came across this Tumblr post from “Phuong Hong Au Nguyen", the artist of this comic and the one in the WGA core. Apparently, Channel M were the ones who did the wonky lettering and were bad communicators all around.) The comic picks up with Rosa Montoya arriving at Willow-Mistt. (Rosa, if you remember, is a late bloomer of a witch that the headmistress of Willow-Mistt sent the main NPCs cross country to pick up instead of an adult staff member because shut up.) Almost immediately after she sets foot on campus, the headmistress, Amora Mistt, pops the gently caress out of nowhere and scares the poo poo out of her.  I assume she just came from her office. Mistt acts coy and showoff-y as Rosa talks about believing magic and “brujas” were fairy tales and that the other girls made Mistt out to be a hellspawn demon. Mistt goes through the expected pleasantries and hopes that she will eventually feel at home at the school. And just when you thought things were gonna be okay, Lucinda shows up.  So teleporting around isn't allowed while all other forms of magic are apparently allowed on the front lawn.  I guess that unspoken rule from the core about not doing magic on the first floor of the main building, lest any mundanes show up and see it, doesn’t apply outside. (My high school Spanish is incredibly rusty, but I’m going to guess that Spanish from Rosa has something wrong with it.) Headmistress Mistt explains that, per school tradition, the last new student serves as the current new student’s guide. So Lucinda will be the one showing her around the school. What happens at the start of the school year when they presumably get a bunch of six-year-olds from magical families who know what’s up? Who knows. She leaves Rosa at the mercy of Lucinda, who immediately gets pissed off over being told what to do.  Yeah right, like you study. Your sheet says you’re better than most adults at magic. She teleports them to Rosa’s dorm room, which turns out to also be the room of Circe Woodsworth, the Draco Malfoy of the school because Lucinda doesn’t actually fill that role on paper. Circe gets pissy because she was told she would have a room to herself that semester due to there being an odd number of students enrolled. Then gets pissy when Rosa tells her that she’s new to the whole magic thing. This allows Lucinda to explain the various Cliques.  Circe confirms that she thinks she’s better than Rosa and chides Lucinda for hanging out with the riff-raff. (“And to think, I used to be ever so slightly envious of your position and power.”) Rosa tries to attack her and gets her bones turned into jelly, because we’ve gone 4 pages without someone getting mutilated by magic.  Lucinda demands that Circe change Rosa back, then does it herself when she refuses. It’s not because Rosa is her friend, you see, but because she made a promise to show her around the school, and Lucinda takes her promises seriously in this story. The fact that Rosa stood up for the little puke is a bonus too. Then Lucinda turns Circe into a cigarette and smokes her, because Witch Girls.  There’s a crash from outside. Lucinda and Rosa go to a window to see that someone hosed up a spell during a class and summoned a bunch of lesser flying monkeys. Lucinda wonders aloud how many students they’ll eat before the teachers step in. Rosa insists that they go out to help, but Lucinda finds the whole situation amusing. Plus, Rosa doesn’t know any magic. But she heads out anyway. Outside, Amber, Amy, Lillian, and Monica fight the monkeys with various spells with stupid-sounding chants. Rosa makes up for her lack of magical knowledge by just trying to beat the poo poo out of them. Presumably realizing that Rosa might die during the fight, Lucinda comes out and turns the monkeys into snails and Circe into a legless pile of embers.  The fight over, Monica wonders why none of the teachers showed up to help them. It turns out the reason why was because they decided to teach the students a lesson about cleaning up their own messes. They even had a betting pool going to see who would deal with it.  Remember that these monkeys are capable of killing the students, if Lucinda is to be believed. So in this case, no, Tandy. It's not. Circe, now fully formed thanks to healing magic from Amber, threatens to get them all shipped off to the Dwarven cold iron mines and berates Lucinda again for her taste in allies. Lucinda says that she only calls the other girls her friends because it pisses Circe off. None of the other girls have a problem with this because that’s just how Lucinda do. On the title page, Harris is credited for everything except for the art, playtesting, and the Assistant Editor position; a one Marcus Harris. He’s just as bad at editing as Emily Foster, who seems to have vanished from Channel M’s roster. Soto is still on art duty, but nearly all of the art is done by other people. So the book isn’t full of ugly traces of celebrities smashed together to look like witches murdering people. Which is nice. (Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the supplements.) Next: Rules Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Mar 2, 2016 |
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Mar 2, 2016 21:08
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 Witch Girls Adventures: Respelled: Part 2: Gameplay Rules The book has six chapters, all of which deal with different mechanic systems. There’s no chapter opening bits of fluff. Though they do have a new chapter cover that I think looks kind of nice, compression artifacts aside.  For your nitpicking convenience, the stuff written around the design (from the top going clockwise) is "Vexx, Hexx, Wrexx"; "Hexa Sunt Omnia"; "Mea Est Voluntas Tua Veritas"; "Quod Genus Sunt Tibi Pythonissam"; "Life Death Fire Water Air Earth Life Death Order Chaos Stagnation Change"; and "Mass X En-". The first chapter goes over various gameplay rules. If you’re wondering why this chapter is first and not the stuff addressing character creation like in the first book, Harris explains it’s so they can save the “cool stuff” for later. WGAR posted:The rules of play have been altered and hopefully improved enough to a allow for easier entertaining play . Also we decided to do this first and save the cool things like improved cliques ad more for later.[sic] With no setting and NPC sections in the back, I assume it’s also to make sure the book doesn’t end on a “boring” note. First up: Skill checks. Skill checks are still made using the Attribute die + Skill rank pool. (Ties are a success.) But now there’s a new mechanic where if the maximum amount on a die is rolled and the check is still a failure, the player has a choice of spending either Zap points or a new mechanic called “Adventure Points” to buff up the roll result so that it does succeed. There seems to be no cap on what you can spend, so you can just burn the Zap as long as you’ve got it. Adventure points are not explained or brought up again. The example given for this is someone with a D4 in Body and no points in the Fighting skill trying to punch a monster with a Reflex of 12. They roll a 4 and obviously, the check fails. With this new rule, that player can spend 8 of their Zap to make the roll a success. Standard starting characters, without stat modifications, have a Zap pool of 16. So this hypothetical player just spent half of their magic to succeed on a roll that, odds are, they would have just failed. The better option would have been just to get the physical character in the group to deal with it… or cast a spell, which they probably would have had an easier time doing. Not to mention with higher dies, this is less likely to come up as an option. (Though you probably won’t need it if you have a bigger die. Or, you know, are playing to your character’s strengths and not wasting actions in the hope of getting the chance to change a failed roll.) Next is the Difficulty Ranks chart and Contested Rolls rules and chart. Both are unchanged. So I’m going to skip them. Next is Combat. First is Surprise Rolls, which are the same save for the clarification that it’s a Hide roll versus the resisting character’s Senses. As before, it gives the surpriser a free action and the surprised a -2 penalty to combat rolls and spells. Speaking of actions, new to the system is the Action attribute. This determines how many actions a character can take during a combat round. According to the book, most characters have one, but can gain more through athletic and combat skills. The book points the reader to the Appendix for more information. (Why is it not at the front where it’s being explained? Witch Girls.) There, it explains that the number of Actions a character has, like their Initiative, is determined by their Reflex stat.  Characters can hold actions and go later in the Initiative list with the caveats that they use all of their actions before the end of the combat round and that they go after characters who are taking their actions normally. (e.g. Someone who has Reflex 7 gets to go before someone who decides to go on 7. A character with Reflex 15 with 3 Actions can go at 15, 13, and 9 if they so choose.) Back at the front of book is a list of things that are considered Actions, which are pretty much the same from the previous version. Unlike the previous version (where you got one attack and one non-attack), there’s only one type of Action. So skill rolls, moving, and talking all draw from the same Action point pool as physical attacks, casting, and preparing spells (which gives you a +1 to the Casting roll). So if you’ve only got one Action point and you want to taunt someone during combat, you’ve got to make a choice, my friend. Casting more than one spell in a combat scene also adds a cumulative penalty to each additional spell roll. (-1 for the second spell, -2 for the third, and so on.) I want to say that that’s a typo and Harris meant “round”, but who knows. I also can’t really make out the rules for Move actions, which are copy/pasted from the original. WGAR posted:Move: A character can move 20 ft in a scene on foot, 10 ft in a scene in water, and 50 ft in a scene per calculated 100 mph of flight.  There’s nothing about armor under that bolded armor. It’s after that damage chart which, aside for the first part about unarmed damage, a note that every 3 ranks of Fighting adds +1 to damage dealt (instead of a static +2) and the exclusion of how much damage being unprotected in outer space does, is also copy/pasted from the original, typos and all. (But how will I know how quickly launching Lucinda into space will kill her in this new version?!) In Armor news: Immortals now have 5 points of natural armor instead of “1 to 2”, and there is now a chart for various types of armor.  Also new is non-lethal combat. If you want to knock someone out without killing them, have the target make a Body + Armor vs Damage taken roll. The first successful attack staggers them and gives them a -1 penalty to rolls. The second increases the penalty to -2. The third knocks them out for a D4 roll's worth of combat rounds or minutes if knocking them out will end combat. While knocked out, the only thing a target can do is roll to resist damage. Knocked out characters can wake up with a Hard Tough (which is a talent, not a skill) or Will roll, or an Easy one if they can regenerate. The section on life points begins with a small blurb pointing out that the rules were changed to help make more detailed Immortals in supplements. There’s no supplement dedicated to Immortals yet. (Though there are a couple of character sheets for Immortals scattered about. Though at least one of the supplement books I have was written with the old rules in mind. As much as characters who are made outside of the character creation rules can be. So...  )Humans no longer straight up die when they hit 0 Life and can roll (Hard Body) to stabilize themselves like the supernaturals can. Instead of lowering the Body die, all characters just die if they are not stabilized in 3 rounds. Any additional damage that penetrates their armor while they’re down will kill them. Along with an ally healing them and the Body roll, witches and other otherkin now have the option of spending 5 Zap points to stabilize themselves. Once stabilized, a character can roll to resist damage. No telling if any damage getting through still kills them though. At the end of combat rounds, everyone involved regains a life point. Instead of being tied to the Body die, mortals and the different otherkin all have separate rolls when regaining life points while resting.  Characters with the First Aid skill can make a Difficult skill check to heal themselves and others out of combat. This heals a D4 roll’s worth of health. Healing rates are still doubled when a character is receiving medical care. New with inanimate objects, any object that takes its life points or more in damage from one attack is considered “Devastated” and is damaged beyond repair. Then it shows the Inanimate Object Armor chart from the core. Next is flight rules. You still need the same rolls to fly. The rolls chart for doing different maneuvers is the same one from the core. The rules are completely copy/pasted from the core. Moving on… Experience points are still represented and given out as voodollars. Most of this section is, again, copied word-for-word, with typos, from the original book. The only differences are that the recommended number of voodollars per player per episode has been lowered from 15 to 10, and some entries on the purchase chart (which no longer has the wrong title) have been changed. The required amount of dollars for purchases have been, on a whole, significantly lowered.  The book stresses, however, that All About the Voodollars is still the definitive source for all things voodollars. So if you still want to force your players to make Witch Girls blogs and fansites, you still have a suggested voodollar amount you can pay them. (And presumably potions still cost around $600 for three doses in-verse.) And that’s it for this chapter. There isn’t a lot of art in this book, and some of it is just reused pictures from the core (in color). So there won’t be much material for a horrible picture round-up. Occasionally, however, the book does sneak in a new piece of someone transforming someone. You can probably guess who is featured in them.  Next: Character Creation
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Mar 3, 2016 21:54
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Witch Girls Adventures: Respelled: Part 3: Character Creation I hope you weren’t waiting for the rules on how to play something other than a witch like the Kickstarter promises. There’s nothing of the sort in this book. You’re probably also wondering by now if Harris fixed that whole “a D12+7 in an attribute is worse than a D20” thing. No. No, he didn’t.  Attributes, both primary and secondary, are unchanged. (Save for the mentioned addition of Reflex determining how many Actions per round a character gets. Actions is considered a secondary attribute.) As is how many points can be allocated to skills and magic ranks. (No more than 6 and no more than 3 (unless you have a clique bonus), respectively, for a standard character.) If you’re assuming their descriptions have been copy/pasted from the other book, you are right. The 5 original Cliques are still available. However, Respelled introduces, by “popular demand”, a brand new Clique: Techies. Techies are exactly what they sound like: Witches who are really into mundane technology and adding magic to it. However, as you’ll see in a bit, the book portrays them as being more fandom/Internet nerds than technology nerds. So now we have witches who have spent most of their lives in the mundane world, ones who spent their lives in the magical world, ones that have spent it in both, country folk, goths, and fandom weirdos. (Monica, if you care, is now considered a Techie. Her picture is used on the page for it.) All cliques now have the same starting pool of dice to assign to their attributes: a D4, a D8, three D6s, with a D8 for Magic. Starting skill points have increased all across the board: Gothiques, Rustics, and Sorceresses get 15 Mundane and 15 Magical; Insiders and Techies 20/15; and Outsiders 25/10. Starting magic ranks have been bumped up to 10 for most cliques, with Sorceresses getting 12 and Outsiders getting 8. Each clique now gets two bonuses instead of one. Sometimes three. Gothique: A free rank in either Curse or Necromancy and +1 bonus to rolls and damage when dealing with ghosts and the undead. Insider: A free rank in two mundane skills (up from one), a free rank in Mysticism, and the ability to instantly tell if someone is a supernatural. Outsider: +1 to all rolls when dealing with mundanes and +1 die type to any of their primary attributes except Magic. Rustic: A free rank in Elementalism or Divination and 2 free ranks of Survival, which doesn’t exist, and Track. Sorceress: +1 to all rolls dealing with non-mundanes, 2 ranks in Cryptozoology and Mysticism, and 1 free rank in Casting. (No, no free ranks in Alteration!) I don’t think the skill rank choices (aside for Casting) fits all that well. Techie: Two ranks in Build/Repair and Computer and the ability to talk to machines. (No, no free rank in Cybermancy.) Another big change to the character creation rules is the addition of an optional feature called Niches. Niches are basically character ideas with point bonuses tied to them. Each clique has 5 niches. Starting characters can only pick one and can’t gain more. Gothiques: Creep Out: The character is creepy and no one likes being around them. Can spend 1 Zap to give people -1 to their rolls for a minute out of combat and for an entire combat scene, at the cost of -2 to all of the character’s rolls. Eclectic: Learned how to do magic from reading comics, researching UFOs, and other weird poo poo like that. It doesn’t specifically make reference to Harry Potter, but I imagine learning magic through that is one of the things you can do with this Niche. -1 Resist to witches you cast spells on and a free rank in Mythology and Pop Culture. Princess of Darkness: The character loving loves Necromancy and dealing with dead stuff. +1 to manipulating and controlling the undead, vampires (doesn’t say if half-vampires count) and ghosts. -2 penalty to all undead dealing with the characters. Rebel: A loose cannon who don’t play by anyone’s rules… except maybe the weird subculture’s they subscribe to because you know how kids are. Can spend a Zap to remove any spells controlling you, and +1 to rolls when standing up to authority.’ Shadow Mistress: The character loving loves Necromancy and dealing with shadows. +1 to attributes and rolls to deal with shadows and darkness and the ability to see in total darkness. Insider: Bridge between Worlds: The character has a room that can connect to another place in the magical world. The location of the connecting doors can be changed once a week for 5 Zap. Diplomat: +2 to rolls when leading mundanes and otherkin and trying to get them to cooperate, and 1 free rank in the Charm and Leader skills. Personal MAC: AKA “Secret Keeper” due to non-editing. They have a naturally occurring Mundane Avoidance Charm on them that gives a -2 penalty to people trying to figure out if the magical fuckery going on around them is the character’s fault. Strange Relations: Call for help from family members with a skill roll. Which skill? Use your imagination. They get a +5 to the skill roll. Spy: The character is a spy for the Witches World Council tasked with keeping an eye on either the Argus Society, Project Stormwall, or witchspiracy.com. (Keep in mind that last one is run by one paranoid guy in Seattle that no one takes seriously.) 1 free rank in Mundane Athletics (or rather, just Athletics), Etiquette (or rather, Mundane Etiquette), and Hide (which has had a name change). Outsider: Blind Luck: Spend 2 Zap to add +1 to any roll, but only if that bonus will make the roll a success. Lame. Elite Born: The character comes from a family of humans whose stats are slightly less lovely when compared to other humans. Not from a family of rich and/or influential people like the name would imply. +1 to their Body and Mine dies. Heroine: Can give themselves a bonus on any Body die roll; up to +3 max, by spending Zap. Metamor-force: The character is a magical girl. They don’t say that exactly, but that’s what this niche turns your character into. Character creation makes their magical form. Their human form has D6 Magic and can’t use their magical skills, but others have a -2 to identify them as magical and they have their normal Resist Magic attribute for resisting spells. Savant: The character is self-taught and didn’t use UFO articles or copies of Harry Potter to learn how to use magic. Can use an attribute other than Magic for Casting rolls and calculating their Resist Magic. This is the basis for System Mastery’s infamous “Punch Witch” build. So remember: if you want to make a little witch Saitama, follow these instructions:
Rustic: Archer: The character can put spells on arrows, making them unblockable, undodgeable, and use Reflex as the stat for resisting the spell. At the cost of an extra Zap point to the spell. This is apparently something few witches are capable of doing. Feral: Spend 2 Zap to enter Feral Mode. Feral Mode gives the character +1 to Body and Senses rolls and +2 damage to scratching and biting attacks. Demeter: Immunity to plant-based poisons and the ability to regain a Zap point from plants over 3 feet tall. Rugged: Can give themselves up to a +6 bonus on Body based rolls at a rate of 2 Zap for every point. Storm Singer: Strom Singers can call a slight breeze with a Zap point, gain +1 to all of their rolls during natural storms, and know when storms are coming. I was sort of expecting a rip-off of Storm from X-Men. Sorceress: Interestingly, none of the niches for this clique involve Alteration. I think at some point while writing this Harris got the hint that mentioning and showing people getting turned into poo poo constantly made people suspicious. But don’t worry, there’s still the supplements… Combat Witch: +1 to Casting when dueling with another witch and +2 to rolls to block and dispel spells during regular combat. Floater: The character is always flying. Because their feet are almost always a few inches off the ground, they don’t taking falling damage and only take half if they’re forced to the ground. (If you all can fly, what’s the point of having brooms?) Forbidden Knowledge: A free rank in Leyology, Naming (which doesn’t exist), Rites, and Mysticism. +1 to rolls for discovering magical traps and new magical knowledge. Merchant: +1 to rolls to find out information about happenings in the magical world, and all purchases cost 1 Wealth rank less. (Can’t be lowered to 0.) Royal: Can spend up to 3 Zap to add a +1 (+3 max) bonus to their social rolls. Techie: Cosplayer: Can spend a Zap to make their aura appear as another type of being’s and gain the appropriate outfit to match. Cyber Star: +1 to spells cast on computers and can spend a Zap to use the Computer skill in place of the Casting skill for a roll. Does not make the character an internet celebrity like the name would imply. Gamer: A free rank in Games, +1 to rolls and damage dealt when “using tactics”, and “can use a Power up from Equipment-Computers for free” once a day. I assume by “Power Up” it means “Add-Ons”, which are a feature detailed in the Equipment section. Larper: A free rank of Fighting and a magic weapon that costs 5 points or less. The niche explains that they get these because they are “trained” LARPers. Obviously, it’s talking about boffer LARP and not White Wolf style “have real life meltdowns over fake politics and try to get laid” LARP. Steampunker: Can declare any equipment they have to be “steampunk”, which makes it unusable to everyone but themselves and other steampunkers. So if you want to be cheeky, just slap a bronze-colored gear on everything you buy. Now no one can use it. The next section details the brand new Class system. WGAR posted:Class replaces the wealth concept with Wealth. Class, along with the associated Wealth stat, expands on the Allowance system from the core and allows it to be used with adult characters. It also gives a better idea of the kind of lifestyle a character has outside of school. Along with determining a character’s starting wealth (and in turn, how much starting equipment they can buy), different classes also give different stat and roll bonuses. So yes, while there is nothing stopping you from doing so, there is some incentive to make your character something other than the magical spawn of the 1%. There are six classes: Vagabond, From the Block, Country Girl, City Slicker, Well-to-do, and Rich; from lowest wealth (1/10) to highest (5/50). Country Girl and City Slicker have the same wealth. (2/20) For bonuses, we have… Vagabond and From the Block: +2 Life, +1 Reflex, a free rank in three (two for FTB) of either Fighting, Hide, Streetwise, or Urchin. Country Girl: +2 to Life and Zap and a free rank in two of either Fighting, Track, Herbalism, or Cryptozoology. City Slicker: +1 to Life and Zap and a free rank in two mundane skills. Well-to-do: A free rank in two Social skills. Rich: 2 free ranks in either Charm or Mundane Etiquette. Last for this chapter is the optional character age rules. There are now rules for playing characters anywhere from ages 6 to 22. It also fixes the issue from the core where the cap on Magic ranks didn’t scale with a character’s age. (They increase and decrease by 1 with each age group. So a starting 18 to 22 year old can have up to 5 in a Magic type.) Older characters are also able to take more Talents, Heritages, and Knacks (a new stat) at creation. Skill ranks and die types (one for each step) are increased or decreased depending on the age range. Next: Skills Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Mar 5, 2016 |
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Mar 5, 2016 03:50
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Robindaybird posted:I'm trying to figure out how declaring something Steampunk makes it unusable to everyone else. Everything else had a weird logic, but that one. WGAR posted:Such equipment defy modern science and standard magic[sic] So basically, "they just can't now shut up". Dr. Demon posted:It's not that other people can't use their stuff - they just don't want to use it because that steampunk poo poo is embarrassing. Or this. 
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Mar 5, 2016 05:49
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Doresh posted:EDIT: And I've just listened to the System Mastery episode of the WGA Director's Cit [sic] again. Seems a lot of the 1.5 edition stuff was already there (techies, extra turns, unified stat array...). No wonder that book is no longer available... I assume the reason is "I'm $9,000 in the hole and I need money". Hence why Book of Shadows still doesn't exist, yet there's 10 supplements for sale on Drivethru. Though I've seen people who were commissioned to do work for the original book mention that they weren't paid in full... Alien Rope Burn posted:Yeah, this sounds a little more like Princess than I was hoping for. I'd like to see a straightforward magical girl game without any swerves, but I guess this isn't it. That "magical girls are ageless" bit seems more like someone trying to answer a question no one asked than someone trying to make the game more grimdark to me. "But how do the Pretty Cure crossovers work if some of the characters were made a decade ago?! They still look like they're in middle school!  "But I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.
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Mar 7, 2016 18:42
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Witch Girls Adventures: Respelled: Part 4: Skills WGAR posted:Skills received a large enough overhaul to require a near complete rewrite. Most of the Skills chapter is copied word-for-word from the original book. There’s even still a line pointing readers to the Director 101 section, which doesn’t exist in this version. Surprise surprise. The basic rules for skills are still the same: Skill ranks can go from 0 to 10. There are separate pools of points for Mundane and Magical skills. You can only put a maximum of 6 in any given skill at character creation. (7 if you have a bonus from your clique and niche.) Every skill’s got an attribute die associated with it that is used for skill checks. Rolling for skills that you don’t have ranks in now requires you to make a Mind + Basics roll with a -2 penalty instead of whatever skill the roll is for. (The original version made you do the original roll with a -1 penalty.) To make it even less likely that you’ll have to do a roll with a 0, all characters automatically get 3 ranks of Basics for free at character creation. Along with a free rank of Casting. So disregard the example for the Maximum Roll rule at the start because even that gets the math wrong.  You can’t do this for magical skill checks. There isn't even a separate rule for doing it with those skills.There are a couple of changes to mundane skills. “Fix-Electronic”, “Fix-Mechanical”, “Garden”, “Hear”, and “Look” are gone. “Build/Repair”, “Charm”, “Hiding” (renamed from “Hide”), “Investigate”, “Languages”, and “Riding” are new. Some skills have also had tiny tweaks to their stat bonuses. Most of these come in the form of clarifying that any skill that gives a bonus to stat gives it at a rate of 1 for every 3 ranks in the skill. Build/Repair: Ranks in this skill let you build and repair loving EVERYTHING; from electronics to houses to planes to whatever that doesn’t involve magic and isn’t a computer. (Those are covered under the Computer skill.) Characters can take a specialization in this that gives them a +1 to build and repair that specific type of thing while getting a -1 to all other things. Thankfully, the wording makes this out to be an optional thing. So feel free to not use it and be an omnicrafter. Under the skill explanation is the rules for building and repairing items. The difficulty and time needed to build an object is based on its cost. Here, have a chart.  The cost to build an item is half its cost “if purchased of a shelf”. The difficulty of repairing an item is also determined by a difficulty roll.  I would think rebuilding something from near scratch would require more than a day. Also, wouldn’t that count as being “devastated”? You can also decrease the time needed to build or repair something by making a higher difficulty roll. The example given is making a Hard item completable in 1 day by making a Very Hard roll. WGAR posted:Failing a Build Repair rolls means the Build or repair fails. Thanks, WGA. I never would’ve figured that. Failure also means that half of the materials used are rendered useless. Charm: A Social skill; the ability to use charisma to control and negotiate your way into getting people on your side. Resisted with Will. The book points out that this isn’t the same as using Mentalism to just mind control people, in case you are an idiot and confusing the two. Charming groups is done by making a difficulty roll of Hard or higher. Computers: Pretty much the same as before (in that if you can use an operating system, you can also build websites and hack the Gibson), except now there’s a new set of rules on hacking computers and servers.  (Hacking a government computer is listed as one of the examples for Extreme on the normal difficulty chart back in the first chapter. So which is it, Harris?) Naturally, this chart doesn’t account for human error or the idiot companies that still have “password” as their network password. I guess witchspiracy.com also has excellent security. Making a hacking roll at a higher difficulty from what it would normally be also decreases the time needed to complete the hack. Failure allows the DM the option of planting a virus or making the character traceable. Fighting: Along with granting a +1 damage for every 2 ranks, characters with ranks in Fighting also now get a +1 to Life points and Reflex for every 3 ranks they have. A system for combat maneuvers has also been added to the system.  Using individual maneuvers costs an Action point each. Some also grant minor abilities if they land. Most of the ones that do are not on the chart. Grappling: The target can't move. Requires either a Grapple vs Grapple or Body vs Grapple if they have no points in Fighting. The wording makes it sound like Grappling is a separate skill you can put points in. There's no mention of having to put points in the separate maneuvers to be able to use them. Knockdown: Target has to spend an Action to get back up. Parry: No damage is taken from an attack. Can be used for arrows as well as hand-held and thrown weapons. (Unless it’s an arrow with a spell on it. Then you’re SOL, I guess.) Stagger: Target takes a -1 to their next roll. First Aid: Different medical maneuvers and their difficulties now have a chart dedicated to them.  Investigate: A Senses skill used to analyze information about people and places. Difficulty ratings are given to the clues and pieces of information to be deciphered. Hide: According to the blurb, this is still resisted with the Hearing and Look skills. Both, according to the chart at the top of the chapter, no longer exist. Languages: Every rank in this skill makes you fluent in one language. In addition to regular languages, you can also take a host of new otherkin based ones. The ones given are Dragoon (spoken by dragons  ), Pix (fae ), Runic (giants and dwarves), Thul (vampires and creatures of shadow), and Whyck (“the ancient language of witches”).Look: Despite supposedly no longer existing, its blurb is still in the book. Riding: A Body skill that covers maneuvering and staying on mundane horses, donkeys, and the like. I guess all of those endangered unicorns that witches use fall under another skill. Resisted with Will. In magical skills, “Broom Riding”, “Magical Etiquette”, and “Spell Breaker” have been replaced with “Flying”, “Leyology”, and “Rites”. Casting: Spell Breaker is now a part of the Casting skill which, like Fighting, now has a bunch of sub-Actions. Detect Magic: Make a Senses roll to detect magic and magical beings within 10 feet, or 20 at the cost of a Zap point. Prep a Spell: Spend 2 Zap to cast a spell as if it were one magic rank higher. Spell Breaker: Casting vs Casting result. Win and you gently caress up a person’s spell. Cryptozoology: The Social roll bonus has been removed. However, if you make a Hard Crypto roll during combat, you can do +2 damage and ignore 3 points of their armor. Enchantment: Build/Repair for magical items. Uses the same rules. Flying: Same as Broom Flying from the core. Focus: Also has a chart associated with it now.  Herbalism: An added bonus of +1 to any Casting roll for spells that involve plants in some way. Leyology: A Mind skill; the study of ley lines and magical places. With this new skill comes a list of the different types of magical places. Dead Zone: There ain’t no magic in these places. Spells might not work. Creatures that rely on magic to live stop existing. -4 to all magical skill rolls, regenerating isn’t allowed, and Zap pools are halved. Haunting: Places with spooky ghosts in them. +1 Casting bonus and -1 Zap cost to all Necromancy rolls and ghosts get +1 to their Body die and all of their rolls. Minor Place of Magic: Magical towns and constructs usually fall into this category. +1 to Casting rolls. Major Place of Magic: Places that are fed by many ley lines and produce their own magical energy. Useful for rites. Usually regulated by the Witches World Council. +2 to Casting, +1 to Magic die types, -2 to spell costs, and… WGAR posted:spells that would normally cost 0 zap points no longer cost 1 zap point but instead cost zero zap points. Potions: Now gives +1 to rolls to resist the negative effects of potions. Rites: The ability to organize and cast group spells. This is rolled in place of Casting when used. All rites are led by an appointed leader, whose magical knowledge limits what spells can be cast. Leaders always make the first roll of a rite, and if they fail it, the others can’t make their rolls. If any of the other characters’ rolls fail, the whole rite fails. The difficulty of their individual rolls is determined by the action that they’re trying to do. This can be lowering the cost of the spell by 1 (Easy); adding a rank to the spell’s range, size, or defense (Hard); or adding a rank to its duration, number of targets, or damage (Very Hard). A rite’s spell cost is basically whatever the spell would normally cost, with the Zap cost divided up among everyone. The time it takes to do a rite is determined by the spell’s magic rank.  And that’s it for skills. Have another new picture.  Of course Lucinda and Circe will play chess together despite hating each other's guts. Consistency in characterization is optional in the WGAverse. Next: Traits (By the way, here's the other commissioned artist that I found. The one that didn't get paid in full.) Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Mar 7, 2016 |
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Mar 7, 2016 20:47
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Witch Girls Adventures: Respelled: Part 5: Traits The Traits chapter starts off with a list of all the different types of advantages they can give a character. One of them is this: WGAR posted:Attribute Bonus: A bonus to an attribute making it one die higher (still cannot exceed D12). Now in a better game, this would probably put a damper on the Punch Witch build. (Though a D12 is still pretty good.) However, another explanation in the same section uses changing a die to a D12+2 as an example. So… use whatever rule you like if you find yourself playing this, I guess. Anyway… WGAR posted:What makes a character unique more than anything else is her Traits. The original traits offered unique roll and role-playing aspects that fans loved and we're trying to improve here. Traits work pretty much the same way they did in the original: standard characters get 2 Talents and 1 Heritage, which give them bonuses and penalties to different things as well as give the character's character traits. The biggest changes are that Talents can no longer be bought with EXP after creation, Heritages, for the most part, no longer give disadvantages, and there is now a new trait called Knacks. More on those when we get to them. The only major changes to the Talents list is that “Rich”, due to the new Class system, is now gone, and there are two new ones: “Sassy” and “Witty”. A bunch of talents also have additional bonuses on top of or in place of the ones they have in the core. Actually, traits on a whole have had more of an overhaul than skills have. I don’t know why the rewrite mention isn’t in the little blurb for this section. Though I've noticed that the design goal for Traits seems to have been “make everything more powerful”. Brave: Now gives a +1 to all rolls when the character is up against enemies more powerful than them. You still don’t have to really declare what kind of spells you’re scared of. So you can just say “everything” and always get the bonuses. Calm: Now gets a free rank of Focus. Creepy: Gives a -1 penalty to “weaker characters” when they roll against the character. What is considered weaker? Who knows. Devious: A free rank in Liar, which doesn’t exist. Presumably, it means “Fib”. Drama Queen: A free rank in Acting. Eccentric: +1 to resist Illusion spells for… some reason. Entertainer: Instead of a +1 to performing rolls, they get a free rank to either Acting, Instrument, or Singing, and can cast spells with a musical instrument or by singing. This costs a Zap and increases the MTR of the spell by 1. Friendly: The bonus for inspiring someone has increased to +2. Geek: Instead of the bonus to dealing to geek stuff, you get a free rank in Science or Pop Culture and “+1 to a roll in a situation that resembles one that appears in comic book or si-fi [sic]/ fantasy movie, game, or book." Considering this whole setting is based on a comic book… Goody-Goody +1 to resist harmful spells. Gloomy: The weirdly worded bonus/penalty has been increased to -2. Green Thumb: The First Aid bonus is gone and has been replaced with a +1 to resist… stuff when dealing with plants. Jaded: +1 to resist harmful spells that have been used on them in the last 24 hours. Lackey: In addition to the other bonus, lackeys can take an action to take a hit for someone in the party within 20 feet of them. Mary Sue: Instead of the old bonus, Mary Sues can now gain 3 ranks in a skill they don’t have once a day and spend a Zap to gain a +1 to any die except Magic for an hour. Definitely fits better than its old bonus. Unfortunately, it still seems to be applied to characters who are just massive narcissists and not, say, capable of murdering people seconds after their birth and getting away with murder every goddamn day of their lives and still have people who actually want to be their friend because they like them and not because they’re terrified of what will happen to them and their families if they don’t… Meek: A free rank in Hiding plus the old bonus. Mysterious: The old bonus has been done away with in favor of a +1 to resist any rolls from someone trying to figure out anything about them, and can spend a zap to make people forget a bit of information about them. So if they succeed on the first roll, use the second option. Queen Bee: A free rank in Leader and the ability to summon a Rank 1 NPC for an hour. Ruffian: A free rank to Urchin and Streetwise. Rural: Can now ignore penalties caused by rough terrain or weather along with the original bonus. Sassy: Your character is the embodiment of  . There’s even a picture of Amber under the description to drive this point home. They can spend a zap to draw attention to themselves. This can be used to either give themselves a +1 to Social rolls or to make enemies target them on their next turn in combat. Ever wanted to tank enemies by sassing at them? Here you go.Temper: Can now spend a zap to gain +1 to rolls and damage while they beat the gently caress out of whoever pissed them off. They also ignore a point of damage when doing so. Tinkerer: A free rank in either Build/Repair or Enchantment. Building and repairing times are halved. Tough: +1 to Resist Magic and the character always ignores 2 points of damage. Trickster: Can ignore a harmful spell, harmful effect, or attack once per day along with the original bonus. Urban: Can spend a zap to know the location of any building in any city. Warrior: Can ignore a point of armor, a free rank in Fighting, and +1 to unarmed melee damage. Wicked: Along with the original bonus, all of their spells are treated as being 1 magic type rank higher in either their range, duration, or damage when they’re using them to be an rear end in a top hat to others. Witty: This type of character always has a comeback or quip at the ready. They get a free rank of Charm, which they can also use once per target per day to make up a joke or insult with a Hard difficulty roll. Jokes give “+1Life Points of Zap points” while insults give a -1 to rolls. Zap Happy: Can now instantly gain a zap point once per day on top of their other bonus. The Heritages list has gotten 9 new entries: “Alchemist”, “Amazon”, “Crystal Gazer”, “Dreamer”, “Elementalist”, “Godmother”, “Martial Artist”, “Melodious”, and “Summoner”. "Attuned" is now "Arcane Aptitude". "Zappy Fingers" is now "Zapper". “Hex Breaker”, “Mystic Void”, and “Twitch Witch” are gone. While heritages no longer give disadvantages on a whole, some still do come with minor ones. (Which are shoved in-between the Advantage bullet points in the book.) Alchemist: Pretty much the Alchemist heritage from All About the Voodollars, right down to some of the wording being the same. They get 2 free ranks of Herbalism along with the ones for Potions and the ability to bottle and throw spells at people; can identify a potion by smell, taste, or color with an Easy roll; can add an additional dose to every potion they make (or as the book puts it “all Potions a Potion make…”); can change the resist attribute of a potion with an Easy roll and D12 minutes of work; can combine two potions into one with a Hard roll, and can alter a potion when it’s made to look like another. Those are all under 3 bullet points, by the way. Amazon: The character is a member of a group of misandrist Arcane Aptitude: “Arcane Aptitude to the forces of magic” among other things that basically say “you can use your energy to do magic”. Can spend a zap to add +1 to mundane skill rolls; 2 zap to add +1 to magical rolls or their Resist Magic; and can spend a zap to add a rank to a spell’s range, duration, or damage. Crystal Gazer: The character uses crystals in their spellcasting. No, not crystal balls. These crystals cannot be purchased and must be found and processed. They start the game with a crystal wand (a standard wand with +1 to rolls to find crystals), a large crystal, and 3 small ones. They get +2 to skill rolls involving crystals, can store spells and zap (which an ally can use) in their crystals, get +1 to the duration of Divination spells, and restore +2 health with Healing spells. Conjurer: The free rank is gone, but the size and duration of spells is one rank higher, spells cost a zap less, and they gain a +2 Casting to mess with other Conjuration spells. Dreamer: The character has the ability to enter and control dreams. Can spend a zap to get a full night’s rest (with dreams, natch), can spend 2 zap to give a person nightmares (and a -1 penalty to all rolls the next day), and can spend 5 zap to summon a Guardian. To enter and mess with people’s dreams, they spend a zap and have to succeed a Will vs Will roll. To change dreams and communicate with the dreamer, they need to succeed on a Hard Will roll. Elementalist: The character has an affinity with one of the classical elements, Light, or Dark. +1 to spells based on their chosen element, ignore 2 points of damage from the element, can do an attack for 2 zap that causes 10 damage and can go up to 50 feet, and can spend a zap to travel up to 50 mph for an hour using the element. Evil Eye: They can still fire rainbow beams from their eyes to cast spells, but the Senses boost is gone and they take a -2 penalty to their starting zap pool. Their beam spells have +1 range and they can spend a zap to use their eye beams as a normal attack. (Which does 5 damage or gives a -2 to Resist for an hour. It has a magic type rank of 3.) Godmother: Doesn’t have a blurb. So use your imagination. Hag’s Syndrome: Characters with Hag’s Syndrome now no longer need to eat or drink and don’t take damage from water because reasons. They get +1 to Magic and a +2 to resist Alteration spells. The other benefits have been removed. Half-Otherkin: Here, have a cute picture of a catgirl.  No, you can’t play a catgirl. The four choices for this heritage are still the same. (“Dwitches” from Voodollars weren’t brought over with the Alchemist heritage.) Fae: Everything but the bonus to Illusion magic is still around. As is the weakness to iron and “still”. (+2 damage. What happens when they’re binded in it isn’t mentioned.) They can also spend 2 zap to instantly teleport up to 20 feet away. Immortal: Still have doubled speed and +1 to their Body die. But they now heal twice as fast, ignore 3 points of damage, and must make a Hard Will roll to break an oath or lie. Werewolf: They still get a bonus to their Senses die and can turn into a wolf. The bonus to Body rolls is gone. They regain health at a rate 1 life per hour out of combat, and they take +2 damage to silver weapons. Vampire: They still ignore 1 point of damage and get +2 to rolls at night. They now also get a -1 to rolls during the day, can grow fangs or claws for a zap (+2 damage, lasts a minute), and “can at night up to 50 mph”. Healer: This one has been completely rewritten. Healers now get a free rank of Healing magic, 2 free ranks of First Aid and Herbalism, heal +2 more Life, and can stabilize people by touching them. Hexer: Along with the other advantages, +1 to casting curses, can spend 2 zap to only give another person -2 to all of their rolls, and WGAR posted:All bonuses of minuses to rolls granted by Curse Spells cast by the Hexer are +1 or -1 respectively. Hypnotic: No longer get a free rank of Mentalism, but still get +1 Casting to such spells and the range of such spells is treated as being a rank higher. They can spend a zap to gain a +1 bonus to Social rolls (up to 3), and anyone under their Mentalism spells is at a -1 to their Mind or Will rolls. Jinx: +1 to Casting, but all of the character’s spells usually gently caress up in some weird fashion. (The example given is if they conjure a cheeseburger, they might get a rubber squeak toy looking cheeseburger that tastes like a cheeseburger.) Casting a spell on them forces the caster to roll a D4. If they roll a 4, the spell harms them in "some non permanent , non-deadly but and humorous manner". Legacy: Along with the +2 to keep them alive, they get a +2 to resist permanent spells, spells cast on them have a -1 rank to their duration, and they can gain either +5 to a roll or straight up ignore a harmful spell or damage. Martial Artist: The character has training in a martial art, be it formal or not. (“The School of Hard Knocks” is mentioned.) +1 to Fighting, +2 to damage, +1 to Reflex, ignores 1 damage, and can spend a zap to add a point of damage to their punches and kicks. (Up to 3.) Meditative: Along with the +1 to their Will die, zap regained by using the Focus skill is doubled, they can spend a zap to gain +2 to resist “magical poison disease and harmful potions”, (I’m assuming it’s talking about magical diseases because witches are immune to lovely mundane ones.) two free ranks in Focus, and the ability to regain health at the same rate as their zap. Melodious: The character casts their spells by singing or playing an instrument. This type of casting is referred to as “the music of the spheres”. It has nothing to do with the actual concept. They get 3 ranks they can divide up among Instrument or Singing; gain +1 to either the range, duration, or targets of the spell for every 3 ranks of whichever skill has the most points in it; the range is also their line of sight or the range of the music (it’s not exactly clear, they may also need to spend a zap for it); they get a free instrument if their casting is based on one, which acts like a standard wand; and they can spend a Zap to give either a +1 or -1 to others’ rolls for a minute. Oracle: 5 ranks to spend on any magic skill except Casting, can spend a Zap to gain +1 to Mind based magic skill rolls (up to 3), +1 to their Mind die, and can use the Mind + Basics rolls for magical skills (except Casting, Leyology, Naming (which doesn’t exist in this book), and Rites). Persephone: -1 Zap and +1 to Casting Necromancy spells; can see, hear, and touch ghosts and spirits without any special rolls; +1 to rolls when dealing with vampires, ghosts, and undead creatures and -2 to resist the effects of such creatures. Prodigy: 5 free ranks in any magic skill except Casting, +2 to Zap, an extra magic type rank, an extra signature spell, and +1 to their Magic die. Protected: Ignores 3 points of damage, +2 Reflex, +2 to Resist Magic, and the damage and duration of any harmful spell cast on them has a -1 MTR. Shamaness: -1 Zap and +1 to casting Elementalism spells, can talk to plants and animals without a spell, +2 to social rolls when dealing with animals and chimera, and can spend a zap to hide in trees and bushes, making her invisible but unable to use magic. The Sight: -1 Zap and +1 to casting Divination spells, +2 to resist surprise rolls and +2 to Reflex to avoid surprise attacks, and the GM can give them visions of the future (which are rare). Summoner: A witch that specializes in conjuring and summoning monsters. +1 to casting rolls to summon monsters, creatures stay under their control for one scene or the spell’s duration, they can communicate telepathically with them at any range, and the cratures get +2 to their life points. Transmuter: -1 Zap and +1 casting to Alteration spells, the spells have a +1 rank to their duration and size, and they can spend 2 Zap to make a spell permanent. Those spells are +1 to resist. Twenty-First Century Digital Witch: -1 Zap and +1 to casting Cybermancy spells, a free rank of Build/Repair, can spend a zap to instantly repair any electronic device they own, can spend a Zap to become invisible to electronic devices for an hour, and can speak that 1337 language that isn’t mentioned anywhere in the fluff. Wand Waver: +1 to casting when using a wand and a -2 when they’re not using one, can call their wand from up to 30 feet away, the wand can repair itself by 1 Life every minute, the wand can be used as a flashlight for free, and the character gets 20 free Wealth points to build a custom wand with at creation. Warder: -1 to Zap and +1 to casting Protection spells, can spend a Zap to ignore a point of damage or add a +1 to resist a spell, their protection spells’ defense is 1 MTR higher. Warper: -1 to Zap and +1 to casting Time and Space spells, can replay a minute of combat or a combat scene once a day, and “None Warper cast Time in space spells are -2 to casting when used with 20 feet of a Warper". Zapper: Still called “Zappy Fingers” in its blurb. -1 Zap and +1 to casting Offensive spells, such spells have a +1 to their damage and range MTR, and “1 Zap point the character can spend two zap points to hit two targets instead of one with their Offense spells”. Knacks are basically Talents, except you get 3 of them at creation and can gain more with experience points. However, there are negative knacks as well as positive ones, and you have to take an equal amount of each. How you’re supposed to do that at creation or any other time you have an odd number of them is anyone’s guess. Also, for some reason, there are more negative knacks than positive ones. Which makes me think this used to be just a section full of flaws you had to take. Positive Knacks Big Bank: The character has acquired more money than most, either through savings, business ventures, or illegal means. +1 Wealth. Book Worm: 5 free skill ranks to use on Mind skills. Broom Talker: Can spend a zap to call their broom to them and give it simple instructions. Chanter: +1 to rolls if they chant and spend more time on a task (usually an hour or an action). Fast Healer: Regains an extra Life every hour. Fast Energizer: Regains an extra Zap every hour. Ghost Magnet: +2 to rolls when dealing with all types of ghosts. Can also hear and speak to ghosts without a spell. Instant Karma: Instantly knows when someone’s doing something wrong and gets +1 MTR to any spells used to teach them a lesson. Lucky: Can spend a Zap to get +1 to any roll (to a max of 2). Magician: The character can make their magic look like stage magic. Anyone who wants to figure out that it isn’t has to make a Hard Mind roll. Natural Telekinetic: Can spend a Zap to move objects up to 5 pounds a maximum of 20 feet with their mind. Natural Telepath: Can spend a Zap to telepathically communicate with a person up to a mile away for an hour. Power Word: The character’s signature spell cost -1 Zap and can be cast with a single word. Wards: Ignores 2 points of damage. Wireless: The character can magically send messages via talking, text, or email to any phone or computer within a mile that they know of for a Zap point. Negative Knacks: Animal Hate: Animals hate the character. -2 to social rolls when dealing with them. Attitude: A vague catch-all trait for any personality quirk that people might not like, be it shyness, being a thrill-seeker, having low self-esteem, or being prejudiced towards a certain group of people. -1 to social rolls in situations decided on by the player and DM. This can be taken multiple times for different quirks. Backfire: The character takes a point of damage when a spell fails. The damage cannot be removed or blocked. Bad Luck: -1 to any roll the DM feels like slapping it onto. Chubby: -2 to Reflex during Initiative rolls. Dark Destiny: Doesn’t regain life or Zap during sleep due to nightmares of their horrible future destiny. Deadpan: -1 to the Social die. Diabolic: -1 to casting rolls for non-malicious spells. Ditz: -1 to the Mind die. Fragile: -2 Life. Flammable: +2 damage from fire. Only one point can be removed via armor or other means of reducing it. (Also, isn’t everyone flammable?) Four-eyes: -2 to all sight rolls when they’re not wearing their glasses. Godmother Apprentice: -1 to spells that are malicious. Doesn’t mean you’re actually an apprentice in the Godmother’s Guild. Jinx: The character must spend a Zap every scene and combat scene, and all of the other characters have a -1 to their rolls. Taking the Jinx heritage is not required. Yes, someone would probably get these two confused with each other. Late Start: The character is a late bloomer when it comes to magic. -1 to their Magic die. Light Blind: For whatever reason, the character cannot see well in daylight or brightly lit areas. -2 to sight rolls in such areas. Magiphobia: Player picks one type of magic their character would never learn and, along with never being able to put points into it, have a -1 to any skill rolls that deal with it. Monster Blood: Due to someone in their family line boning a monster, the character has a deformity. (e.g. Reptilian eyes or skin, horns, and so on.) They have to hide this from humans and have a -1 to any social rolls when dealing with other magical folk. Naïve: -1 to the Will die. One-Trick-Witch: -2 to casting rolls for any spell that isn’t their signature one. Pacifist: -2 to all combat rolls. Phobia: Players must succeed on a Very Hard Will roll when faced with their chosen phobia or they will run away from it. If running away is impossible, they take a -2 to all of their rolls instead. Razzle Dazzle: -1 to rolls when trying to hide or explain a display of their magic. Short: The character is either a little person or just very short. (2 to 4 ½ feet). Halved movement speed. Sweet Tooth: If the character doesn’t eat something sweet every hour, they “lose Zap that will not return till after 8 hours of sleep.” I’m not sure if that means they lose it at set increments or if they just can’t regenerate it through other means. Shallow: -1 Wealth at creation due to the fact that they spend a ton of money on looking good. Sun Allergy: 1 damage for every hour the character is in direct sunlight. Tall: -2 to hide rolls. Water Allergy: 1 damage for every minute of exposure to moving water and -2 from a “steady stream” or still water. (Or as the book puts it: “lunch dunking”.) Wanted: A more powerful character or group wants this character dead. Makes the DM give you a personal plot enemy. Willowy: -2 to Body rolls. Chapter’s over. Have some pictures.   Yeah, I know that’s Circe, but it’s a witch being a dick to someone. Still counts.  There’s nothing wrong with this one. I just wanted to share it with you all. Next: Magic.
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Mar 11, 2016 23:26
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Witch Girls Adventures: Respelled: Part 6: Magic WGAR posted:The magic system for Witch Girls Adventure is unique. It's also something we're really proud of. Still it had some issues and fans for some reason really wanted a more.... Interesting way to show spell failure. Most of the basic rules in the magic system are the same. Non-contested spell rolls are now a Hard difficulty roll instead of an Easy one if you go by the first mention of the rule. The charts are copy-pasted from the core. Characters can regain zap both at a rate of the max of their Magic die for every full night’s rest, or one for every not full night of rest. Starting characters get a signature spell for every 3 ranks they have in a magic type. (And the example implies that they must be of that school of magic.) As the opening blurb implies, there is also a mechanic for when spells fail now. It’s basically Paradox from Mage.  I’m just going to post the blurb for it because I can’t wrap my head around it. WGAR posted:A spell can fail in many ways. If the Caster rolls a 1 on their Casting roll Die, If they don't make the easy casting roll or they roll less than a targets resist magic. I spent several minutes trying to write an explanation for why I think this mechanic is weird for this game. (It runs counter to the “consequences = not fun” philosophy, there’s nothing in-verse that makes magic something unnatural or fails for non-comedic reasons or that young witches have nothing but near complete control over what magic they know, this isn’t a universe where turning people into things is a risky venture and has the potential to gently caress up reality… And what are the odds this will even come up? It seems like the system is trying its best to make sure people don’t fail rolls.) But then I remember what kind of writer I’m dealing with and realize that trying to figure it out is probably pointless. Spell Augmentations are now limited based on the type of spell being cast, increase the cost of a spell by different amounts, and add penalties to the casting roll. (Usually by 1 or 2 points.) The book encourages DMs and players to come up with their own, but provides some examples. Alter Resistance: Can change the attribute used to resist the spell from a choice of either Body, Mind, or Will. It may also add a +3 to the target number needed to resist? The wording is weird. WGAR posted:Body, Will and Mind are the available alternative resistance making the resistance roll 3+ the maximum attribute roll for that attribute. It only costs a zap and a -1 Casting to do this and can be used for everything. Alter Thought: Changes the mind of a person transformed so that they think they’re that thing. In the case of zombies, it makes them forget their old lives. Multi Effect: Does 2 or more effects to the same target. The example given is a “fire-frost ball”. Permanente:[sic?] Makes a spell permanent until the caster decides to dispel it. Can’t be used with healing and attack spells. Program: Gives a summoned entity a set of tasks to perform until it is either dismissed or destroyed. Has nothing to do with Cybermancy. Pushed: Increases the MTR of a spell’s duration, damage, range, range, or size by 1. Set: The spell only goes off if certain conditions are met. Trap: Put a spell on a place or a thing, and it triggers if someone enters or uses it. Ward: A Protection spell stays on a person until it’s hit by the thing it’s protecting from… I guess? This is another one with awkward wording. WGAR posted:The protection spell stays on the person its cast upon till it's actually used/activated by damage or whatever the ward is protecting against. Activated it lasts for its duration then vanishes. Zap-less: A misnomer since it only lowers the cost of a spell by one and does not work if it will lower it to 0. This is at the cost of a -2 to the roll. The rest of the chapter is just a list of spell effects for each school of magic. Gone are the actual spell examples. In place of the spells is a list similar to the ones I made in my last write-up to get out of having to write out every single spell description.  Yeah, this chapter is the height of  . I wonder if Harris read my write-up and one of the few things he took from it was "just making a list of spell effects is faster".Anyway, unlike the old book, there are examples that go up to rank 9 now; no longer leaving everything above Rank 6 to be world-destroying mysteries. I’m only going to list a couple from each list. If there’s only one, then that is probably the only effect listed for that rank. Alteration: Rank 1: Look at the picture. Rank 2: Turn a person into another person, remove limbs and create deformities in animals, turn an animal into an object of smaller size and vice versa, give minor physical boosts, and make a barrage of arrows a bunch of useless items. (Doesn’t say if spell-loaded ones apply.) Rank 3: Turn a person into an animal of the same size or smaller and vice versa, meld two things together, and turn an item into a more complex one (e.g. a book into a computer). Rank 4: Turn a person or an animal into another one larger than them or a Rank 1-3 monster, grant up to two non-Magic attribute bonuses, and turn a person into an object of similar or smaller size. Rank 5: Turn animals and people into rank 4-5 monsters, turn objects into rank 1-3 monsters, turn people into objects larger than them, and do damage with your Alteration spells. Rank 6: Turn animals and people into Rank 6 monsters and objects into Rank 4-5 monsters. Rank 7: Instantly destroy a target, and turn images of things into real objects. Rank 8: Can turn targets into beings “existing only in story”. Conjuration: Rank 1: Create a handful of food, create a fragile wrapping (like paper) around an object, create smoke, and create palm-sized items worth 1-2 Wealth. Rank 2: Create a full meal, a 3-4 Wealth harmless mundane object, small hand-sized animals, and uncreate conjured objects. Rank 3: Can create a Guardian, harmless mundane objects worth 5-6 Wealth, objects powered by electricity, and metallic or stone binding around an object. Rank 4: Create multiple mundane items at once, a temporary Rank 3-4 monster or Imaginary, clones, and stuff that does damage on contact. Rank 5: Create a Rank 5 monster, a copy of an enchanted item, or stuff within targets. (Summon frogs in someone’s stomach, I guess.) Rank 6: Create Rank 6 monsters, “light stuff”, copies of enchanted items, and complex structures. Rank 7: Create a dose of a potion, multiple rank 1-3 monsters, complex landscapes and lifeforms, and clones of historical figures. Rank 8: Create Rank 9: Create small pocket dimensions and clones of fictional characters. Curse: Rank 1: Create minor blemishes like acne and warts, bad hair days, make people speak gibberish, and force people to reroll rolls. Rank 2: Cause machines to malfunction, minor physical problems like “bad gas of sneezing”, grant a bonus or penalty of 1 to other’s rolls. Rank 3: Can cause non-lethal diseases, increase damage on attacks, and create magical charms that give +1 to Wealth and rolls. Rank 4: Alter a person’s finances, increase a person’s Reflex, and make sure a person who is needed is nearby. Rank 5: Completely destroy an inanimate object, cause a target to come back as a ghost upon death, and directly damage a target. Rank 6: Control the luck of multiple targets, “curse the target into an animal for half-normal duration”, and cause a person to instantly die. Rank 7: Curse an entire party of enemies, curse an area or place, and turn a person into a vampire or shapeshifter. Rank 8: Curse someone and all of their family members at the same time, alter a person’s past, and alter reality to change the outcome of a personal event. Rank 9: Alter reality to change the future of an area. Cybermancy: Rank 1: Copy files from one computer to another, get an internet connection anywhere, and place spells on emails. Basically anything you can do manually with a computer, but refuse to do it that way because using your hands is for mundanes. Rank 2: Use magic to augment hacking attempts, instantly create a computer program, phone app, or virus with your mind, create holograms, shoot electromagnetic pulses, and control multiple devices at once. Rank 3: Make electronics explode, make sapient AI, create a firewall that blocks all mundane malware ever, download information onto non-electronic objects, and travel along networks as data. Rank 4: Make a sapient AI physical as a “ball-like companion”, download information to your mind, and create a holographic 3D clone of yourself. Rank 5: Download someone or something onto an electronic device, and make random illusions. Rank 6: Bring digital characters to life as hard light constructs, turn illusions solid. Rank 7: Download people and things into active apps and programs and teleport through electronic screens. Rank 8: Create digital clones of yourself that will take over upon your death. Rank 9: Create an alternate reality that can be traveled to. Divination: Rank 1: Give a nebulous bonus to Mind skill rolls, sense danger or lies, and see magic. Rank 2: Prevent magical scrying, make magical energy visible, find items, and can scry up to however many ranks of Divination you have in miles. Rank 3: Determine the abilities, skills, and powers of a target, look into the recent past of a target, make those scrying on them show incorrect images, and gain temporary ranks in skills they don’t have. Rank 4: Can see the near future of a target, can cast spells on scrying targets, know the weaknesses of a target, and look into the far past fo a target. Rank 5: Scry anywhere on a continent, can see 1 decade per MTR into the past and future, and temporarily give targets skills they don't have. Rank 6: Scry from anywhere on the planet, can see a century per MTR into the past or future, and "the Casters for duration can gain skills they don't have as needed". Rank 7: Scry from anywhere in their current reality, and can see a millennia per MTR into the past or future. Rank 8: Can scry "anywhere". Rank 9: Can scry into different timelines. Elementalism: Rank 1: Detect elements "at range", create small amounts of water and fire, produce fog or drizzle, talk to plants and animals, and change temperatures by 20 degrees. Rank 2: Cause minor changes in elements, fly on a broom, change plant growth rates, and slightly alter the weather. Rank 3: Change weather "for the better", cause damage with air or earth, control animals, and shape the different elements. Rank 4: Change weather "for the worse", make it rain small animals and other "rare" occurrences, hit targets with lightning, and evolve animals and plants. Rank 5: Control electromagnetism and devolve humanoid beings (including witches and other otherkin). Rank 6: Control gravity and attack with electromagnetism. Rank 7: Change people into animals and vice versa and attack wtih gravity. (So what happens if you increase the gravity in a room to lethal levels with the Rank 6 version? Does it just not kill everyone?) Rank 8: Create and attack with radiation. Rank 9: Damage multiple targets in a nebulous radius with radiation, electromagnetism, and gravity. More magic later.
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Mar 17, 2016 19:27
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Witch Girls Adventures: Respelled: Part 7: More Magic Here is the rest of the thrilling spell effects lists. As you can probably tell, this entire chapter is low effort stream-of-consciousness gibberish that only exists to get words on pages.  I don’t think there’s anything I can do to make it any more interesting. I wish I could just post pictures of the pages. It really just speaks for itself.Healing: Rank 1: Clean and/or sanitize someone, heal 1 HP per rank, repair a simple object with no moving or electrical parts, purify food and water, and stabilize targets. Rank 2: Heal 2 HP per rank, repair mechanical objects, remove the effects of poisons, diseases, and mental illnesses for a time, and make a person "looks their best possible self". Rank 3: Illuminate and repel undead creatures with pure light, heal 5 HP per rank, repair electrical objects, completely cure mundane diseases and poisons, and restore transformed people and animals. Rank 4: Regrow limbs and organs, heal 10 HP per rank, repair minor magical items, completely cure magical diseases and poisons, and revive people who have recently died from electrocution or drowning. Rank 5: Fire a beam of light that damages undead and shadow creatures, heal 20 HP per rank, remove mind control effects, and repair "powerful" magical items. Rank 6: Make people immune to mundane poisons, damage multiple undead and shadow creatures, and revive people who have recently died from spells. Rank 7: Grant full immunity to mundane diseases and revive people who have recently died from mundane causes. Rank 8: Make people completely immune to magical maladies and full heal the dead instead of just stabilizing them at 1 Life. Rank 9: Grant eternal youth and revive dead people while curing them of whatever killed them. Illusion: Rank 1: Can create annoying auditory, olfactory, and visual illusions, can make sounds and smells appear to come from somewhere else. Rank 2: Create a single "realistic" visual illusion, continuous and realistic sounds, smells, and tastes, and destroy illusions and "illusion like" creations. Rank 3: Create a small illusion that affects two senses, make illusions that are indistinguishable from their real counterparts and make them move, and turn someone invisible to one sense. Rank 4: Create illusions that affect multiple senses, people and animals that act like real ones on their own, make multiple people invisible to a single sense, and create illusionary wounds that do damage. Rank 5: Create multiple illusions, magical and "special senses" (e.g. infrared) ones, and ones that affect all of the non-magical senses. Rank 6: Can remove a single sense from a target, place illusions on an area, project images into a target's mind, and make an area or multiple people invisible. Rank 7: Create illusions of time changing, that can do damage, and can be solid for half of their duration. Rank 8: Create illusions that are solid. Rank 9: Create illusions over a large area as well as illusionary worlds "a target's mind". Mentalism: Rank 1: Lower or raise the next skill roll of a target by one, can find minds within a range, levitate up to 10 pounds per rank, raise their Mind die by 1 per rank, and instantly learn a language. Rank 2: Levitate items up to 20 pounds per rank, "Non Physical Mentalism effect spirits", block mind effecting abilities and magic, fly at 25 mph per rank, make targets sleep or wake up, and read surface thoughts. (What does flying have to do with Mentalism? Is it like levitating? If so, then based on the other abilities, that shouldn't be possible at this rank.) Rank 3: Levitate objects up to 50 pounds per rank, read someone's mind to know what they did that day, push objects up to 5 feet per rank, make targets do anything that doesn't harm them or is against their moral code, and remove the effect of a psychic or Mentalism effect. Rank 4: Alter people's minds when they're awake or dreaming, make people do things that go against their morals, change a person's personality, "Levitate, Push and relate movement powers now affects maximum MTR targets", and link two minds together. Rank 5: Switch two people's minds, astrally project, and erase a person's mind for a "standard duration". Rank 6: Alter or erase everyone within MTR range's thoughts, levitate up to 100 pounds per rank and do damage, make people hurt themselves when they're mind controlled, and completely change a person's personality, memories, and skills. Rank 7: Direct mental attacks do damage, and the caster can send a person's mind into the spirit world. Rank 8: Can use Mentalism abilities on minds in the spirit world. Rank 9: Can levitate up to 1,000 pounds per rank. Necromancy: Rank 1: Make open wounds heal at half the normal rate, play dead, damage spirits and shadow creatures for 1 damage per rank, prevent spirits from going into an area, and see and speak to spirits. Rank 2: Damage spirits for 2 damage per rank, call the spirits of someone whose name they know, raise animals as zombies, and send spirits to the afterlife. Rank 3: Raise people as zombies, make spirits summoned answer all questions truthfully, trap spirits in items, and turn oneself into a spirit. Rank 4: Can make spirits appear in the real world, can suck out people's lifeforce, fire a bolt of shadow that does standard damage, and make spirits do things that go against their moral code. Rank 5: All spirits and undead can be made to hurt themselves without the chance to resist, spirits and undead can be destroyed with a single spell, characters can possess dead bodies and raise them as zombies, and can pull people's spirits out of their bodies, turning them into ghosts. Rank 6: Characters can strike a living target dead with a spell while turning their body into dust or severing their soul, can turn people into vampires, and zombies created have a +1 to Body, a point of armor, and normal speed. Rank 7: Can turn vampires human and summon Rank 5-6 shadow creatures. Rank 8: Can turn targets into a nebulous creature of shadow that can only be destroyed by pure light. Rank 9: Characters can completely destroy a target's spirit. Offense: Rank 1: Stagger targets, do 2 points of damage, knock things out of character's hands, and remove a point of armor. Rank 2: Do standard MTR damage, make inanimate mundane objects with less than 5 HP explode and damage everyone around them. Rank 3: "Spells that do one or two points per offense rank can be made either unstoppable (always doing one point of damageor do damage to ghosts, spirits and shadow stuff creatures", crush targets, and give -1 to a target's Body. Rank 4: Drain a target of one zap, give -1 to all rolls per rank in exchange for half damage... or something to that effect. Rank 5: Can drain 2 points of zap, "spells can do half damage but continue doing damage once a combat round for 1 round per rank of Offense. The effect causes the target to be obliterated and die die." Rank 6: Can drain 3 points of zap, "spells that do damage can be made to do half damage each round for the spells duration". Rank 7: Link four spells together and alter Offense spells to be resisted by Body. Rank 8: make a spell do double damage at the cost of 2 zap. Rank 9: Make spells do triple damage. Rank 10: Blow up the world. This isn't on the list, but it is mentioned at the top of the chapter. Protection: Rank 1: Double the HP of an inanimate object, grant a target a point of armor, Resist Magic, or willpower, which doesn't exist. Rank 2: Increase armor to MTR defense, "attacks up to 2 points per rank pf Protection can be reflected back at the attacker". Rank 3: Give 1 person "per up to the Protection maximum MTR target" armor, reflect spells back at the caster, and "the effect causes people not to notice what's going on in the area or even noticing the area is there." Rank 4: Put up a 5 by 5 foot per rank barrier and put different effects on it. Rank 5: Put up a 5 by 5 foot per rank barrier that reflects attacks. Rank 6: Create a nearly unbreakable shield with 100 life points and standard defense around the caster that makes them immune to pretty much everything for a minute. Rank 7: Place up to 4 effects on a single shield. "Unbreakable Shield Defenses is now standard duration." Rank 8: Place up to 5 effects on a single shield. Characters can also make themselves immune to all physical damage. Rank 9: "Cast a spell rendering immune to all but one common type of attack". (Jesus, what a terrible list…) Time and Space: Rank 1: Warp space inside a container so that it's bigger on the inside, reduce the time it takes to travel somewhere by half, see a minute into the past per rank. Rank 2: Perform an extra action in a combat round by stopping time and get a +5 bonus to do it, perform skills in half the time, double the distance between two points, and see up to an hour into the past. Rank 3: See up to a day into the past, teleport within MTR range, turn invisible (by stepping out of time and space), and shrink or flatten yourself. Rank 4: See up to a month into the past (or a day depending on which sentence you go by); teleport with "extreme" MTR range; and shrink, flatten, and turn other people invisible. Rank 5: See up to a year into the past (or a month depending on yadda yadda yadda); teleport to any place you have been to; teleport multiple people at a time. Rank 6: See up to a decade into the past, time travel up to a day either forwards or backwards, make a time travel portal, make a singularity, and teleport to other dimensions. Ranks 7 through 9 (and presumably 10): "Unknown or Erased fro existence [sic]" because Harris got bored and wanted to get this chapter done. Part of nearly $9,000 went into writing this. There isn’t even any new pictures that I can show you. gently caress. Next: Equipment, and hopefully something more interesting
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Mar 19, 2016 22:40
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Witch Girls Adventures: Respelled: Part 8: Equipment The equipment chapter starts off with an explanation of the Wealth stat. It works in pretty much the same ways as the Allowance stat: Your savings determines your starting pool of points to buy equipment with at creation (which does not carry over when the game starts), while you get however many points of wealth you have a week in-verse.  Wealth is directly tied to a character’s lifestyle, which is explained in fluff charts that tell the players that if they’re playing an orphan who lives on the streets, their character probably doesn’t have a winter home in Cancun, among other things. New to the equipment system is “Add-Ons”: properties that can be put on items to customize them while increasing their cost, in place of a list of individual items. The amount of add-on points a character can have on something is limited by their age. Standard starting characters can put a maximum of 15 points worth of add-ons onto an item. The rest of the chapter, as you’ve probably already guessed, is a list of the different categories of items and the various add-ons that go on them. Bah… Basic Supplies: Regular clothes, electronics, and a month’s worth hobby supplies/manga. Doesn’t have any add-ons and is bought at a rate of 3 pieces to 1 point. The only interesting bits is that the list of clothes includes an entry for a “formal Immortal kilt”, and you can buy up to 5 video game systems for 2 points. Armor: Your basic suits of armor, from leather to “moon metal”. Comes with a note mentioning that it’s considered rude to wear armor in the magical world. Add-ons include:
Clothing: Regular clothes that might have enchantments on them. Tops and bottoms cost 1 while most accessories cost 2 for some reason. Add-ons include:
Electronics: Electronics that can have add-ons on them. Chart includes listings for generic “mini”, “small”, and “large” gadgets. The former two cost more than the latter.  Add-ons include:
Eyewear: Glasses and goggles. Nearly all of the add-ons involve adding the ability to see different things like magic, ghosts, in the dark, and incoming punches (to give an excuse for some Reflex bonuses). Foci: The term “foci” is now used as a catch-all term for anything that is used to cast spells, including wands. All foci reduce the zap cost of spells by 1, can levitate a pound of stuff up to 20 feet at the cost of a zap per minute, ignore 5 points of damage, and have 10 life points. Characters can only own one primary foci. Along with stuff that have the “Foci” add-on available, they can choose between either a wand, a cane, a staff, or an umbrella. Also… WGAR posted:Characters with the magic ability cannot purchase Foci. The add-ons list is mostly just the custom wand stuff from the core chopped up. The only thing that the four main types of foci are required to have now is a Material. (Which are halfway through the list due to it being in alphabetical order.) Add-ons include:
Instruments: Musical instruments for characters who study music or use music when casting magic. These can have the Foci add-on applied to them and the item chart includes entries for drum sets and pianos. I like this section only because it gives me a host of amusing mental images of witches casting spells with gongs, keytars, and theremin. The image also includes an axe guitar, because of course it does.  (One of the first images that pop up in Google Image Search for “axe guitar”...) Add-ons include:
Jewelry: There’s no longer a limit on how many pieces of jewelry you can have. Tiaras and crowns are an option if you want to play princess, and amulets/necklaces cost the same as a cello, a smart phone, and a desktop computer. Can have the Foci add-on applied to them. Other add-ons include:
Magic Consumables: Includes makeup, candy, candles, and potions. All consumables cost no zap to use and have a D8+4 Casting roll to activate whatever power they have on them. Candles may or may not have to be eaten, however…  Add-ons include:
Miscellaneous Items: Any magical bric-a-brac that doesn’t fall into any of the other categories. That is to say, books (including e-readers), hobby kits, and trinkets (items less than a foot tall and wide and weigh less than a pound), since that’s what the chart for this section has listed. Add-ons include:
Pets: This is just an expanded version of the Pets/Familiars section from the core. Many of the stat spreads for the different pets you can have are the same. There are some new types of pets you can have, however. These are aracsi (foot long and tall spiders with an ability called “Does Whatever A Spider Can”), lesser chimera (who can actually choose their abilities from a list), dragonlings (tiny dragons that can talk and don’t really see themselves as pets), horses, and generic reptiles. Fish have been removed from the list for some reason. Furballs (mice, gerbils, hamsters, hedgehogs, etc.) cannot be owned by mortals for some reason. None of the other animal types have that restriction. So while chinchillas and the like are verboten, you’re free to own a loving lesser chimera even if you don't have a drop of magic in you. Also, the picture for this section depicts the most fake looking unicorn ever.  Add-ons include:
Transports: Brooms, bikes, cars, scooters, motorcycles, flying umbrellas, flying surfboards, and other things used for transportation. Each has a different max speed and amount of life points listed. Add-ons include:
Weapons: Generic weapons are divided up into various types which have different sets of life points, damage modifiers, and costs.  This is added on to your base damage, which is whatever your normal hand-to-hand damage is. Things like Hyper Strength, which doesn’t exist, also affect how much damage a character does. Weapons can be made into Foci. So your Punch Witch can have a set of magical brass knuckles to cast her spells with. Add-ons include:
Guns: The blurb emphasizes that guns may not be the best fit for your campaign, but witch hunters and quirky witches with a steampunk or zeerust bent use them. So the rules have to be in the book. Guns are divided up into three types: Pistols, Rifles, and Ray Guns. Rifles are the best choice, but the most expensive. (They cost as much as a muscle car. 8 points.) Ray guns can be used as foci. Add-ons include:
We’re done with this chapter. Have a terrible picture.  Next: The Appendix. Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Mar 25, 2016 |
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Mar 25, 2016 15:08
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Witch Girls Adventures: Respelled: Part 9: Pre-Generated Characters and Other Loose Ends The lone appendix in this book is just the dumping ground for gameplay rules that weren’t put up front for some reason. Along with some pre-generated PCs and their sheets. Along with the rules regarding actions, this is how much characters can lift…  (Missing a zero on that last one...) …and this is how fast they can go if you use the optional move speed rules.  And now, some pre-generated characters. If you were sad about the lack of truly terrible art in this book, don’t worry. Soto did the portraits for these characters. And because they were obviously traced from poser models, they all have the same lovely dead-behind-the-eyes stare and arthritic hands.  Ami Cutter On the outside, Ami is an “overly dramatic” girl from a “good” magical family who is concerned with fitting in. On the inside, she feels the need for speed and wants to be a broom racer. They don’t give a reason for why she would want to hide this desire or why it would be in any way unacceptable. Probably has something to do with her family. Her sheet describes her as being a middle class girl who is “human-shy and deadpan”. She has the Drama Queen and Flier talents, the Oracle heritage, and the Book-Worm and Broom Talker knacks. Nearly all of her skills have a +6 in them. (None of them have less than a +4.) In fact, she has a ridiculous amount of skill points for a starting character (24 Mundane and 35 Magical), and at least 4 of the points are unaccounted. One of which is the free rank in Acting she should have from the Drama Queen talent. Her magic and skill spread makes her out to be more of a monster hunter than an aspiring broom racer.  Angela Saint-John Angela discovered magic through her love of music. As a result, she had an easier time adjusting to the magical world than most, and has come to love the adventure of it all. She meets every new challenge with grace, a smile, and a song. Angela has the Outsider Savant niche and uses her Social die to cast spells. She has the Brave and Calm talents, the Melodious heritage, and the Magician and Naive knacks. She has a violin as her foci, which she’s tuned to give her a bonus to Mentalism spells. This allows her to do things like her signature spell, “Puppet”, a Mentalism 3 spell that lets her mind control people. 7 of her Mundane skill points (which include a lot of +5s) are unaccounted for, including the free rank of Focus she should have for having the Calm talent.  Jessica Chimere Jessica fixates on the fact that she and her parents are from another dimension. They won’t tell her anything about the dead world they’re from for some reason, so she spends her time studying up on the multiverse. The only hints about her origins are that she has the Half-Immortal heritage and she uses chakrams as a weapon. Also, her picture creeps me out. Jessica is a Gothique with the Eclectic niche. She has the Goody-Goody talent, but she also has the Instant Karma knack and her signature spell is an Alteration 3 spell that shrinks people. So you can imagine what she’s supposed to do in a lot of situations. She has the right amount of skill ranks, but she’s missing a free rank of Curse. She also has the Chubby knack, if you couldn't tell, along with the Urban talent.  Laura Vivo Laura’s divorced parents spoiled the poo poo out of her and always told her how beautiful and special she was. Yes, you guessed it, she has the Mary Sue talent. That’s pretty much it. Laura is an Insider with the Strange Relations niche. She has the Eccentric talent along with the Mary Sue one, the Dreamer heritage, and the Lucky and Attitude: Scatterbrained knacks. 2 of her mundane skill points are unaccounted for.  Nana Muraille Remember when I mentioned that Harris had just got into Doctor Who when he wrote this? This character proves that. She is the former companion of “Professor Clue”, the main character of the in-verse TV show of the same name that turned out to be real. (Complete with a pulsing magical machine and a sharp wit.) She met him when she was loving around with a program that could let her see into other dimensions, and accidentally summoned some sort of nasty. Since then, she’s been trying to find him again. Nana is a Techie with the Cosplayer niche. She has the Geek and Witty talents, the Warper heritage, and the Big Bank, Wards, and Attitude: Curious and Short Attention Span knacks. Her signature spells are a Time and Space 2 spell that stops time and a Cybermancy 3 spell that lets her teleport through electrical currents. She has the right amount of mundane skill points and has an unaccounted for magical skill point.  Rosie Flowers Raised in a hippie commune in New York, Rosie is probably the sweetest witch you will ever meet, which runs counter to the typical stereotype of witches with Hag’s Syndrome being evil. Not that you can tell when every witch in this setting is some flavor of rear end in a top hat. She loves the outdoors, her “shadow-glider” (and familiar) Mr. Chippers, and hates violence. Rosie is a Rustic with the Demeter niche. One of her signature spells is an Alteration 3 spell that turns people into animals. So despite being the sweetest witch in the world, she will probably still turn you into an animal if you annoy her. (Her other signature spell, an Elementalism 2 spell called “Green Thumb”, isn’t explained.) She has the Rural and Trickster talents and the Ghost Magnet, Natural Telepath, Pacifist, and Flammable knacks. She’s also got an unaccounted for magical skill point. And that’s it! The book is over! The only things left are a blank character sheet and advertisements for all of the other wonderful supplements you can buy for this game, including one for this very book.  Next Book: The Official Guide to Coventry School for Girls, wherein Witch Girls goes back to its claimed roots, we learn about the best magic school in the multiverse, find out where some of the Shrinking Sorceress characters have been hiding, meet Diet Lucinda, and gawk at one of Harris’ self-inserts: the most inept immortal ever. Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Mar 26, 2016 |
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Mar 26, 2016 03:03
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drat...  Pretty sure Endora hated Darrin because he was a mortal who was boning her daughter, not because he was a man. So... good job on your fantasy racism t-shirt, I guess. quote:Also: there's an entire spell school called Mrs Sadie's Sorcery. I can't quite remember but I'm reasonably certain Sadie is a character from Witch Girl Adventures. I haven't seen her. That looks like one of Soto's original characters.
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Mar 28, 2016 08:30
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 Part 1: Background, Intro Comic, and Credits The Official Guide to Coventry School for Girls is one of the two supplements that was released on the same day as Respelled on DriveThruRPG. Again, free copies of it were not offered to the backers of the Book of Shadows Kickstarter. In order to get the most out of this book, we will need to look a little at Original Witch Girls, the comic book that it's based on.  (Teeth...) As its title implies, the book follows the group of characters that came before Lucinda and Co. and the tabletop game. The title may also be a stab at the Italian comic series W.I.T.C.H., which has nothing in common with Witch Girls other than that the protagonists are a group of middle school-aged girls with a similar ethnic lineup and it has the word “witch” in its title. (The characters are not witches.) There has been talk that Harris took offense at that and might have tried to sue Disney (its publisher) over it. The book is typical Witch Girls and contains all of the elements you've come to expect from it. Nearly all of the stories are the same: A witch with inconsistent characterization, sometimes multiple witches, gets mad and turns people into poo poo. About half of the stories don’t even feature the child characters; most of the characters on that cover only show up once or twice in the background. Many of the minor fluff elements from the core (unicorns being endangered beasts of burden, several NPCs like Deacon Silas Black, freelance witch hunters being inept, etc.) come from the stories in the book. At some point, Harris was able to hold Paul Dini (whom he claims to have worked freelance for doing 3D models) hostage and make him read the comics. There’s a quote from him on the back of the OWG book praising it.  That quote is apparently from another version of the book where he did an entire foreword for it. (That version seems to have vanished into the ether.) Another choice quote from it is him saying that it makes Harry Potter look like Sesame Street. When I saw this book, my first thought was “this is just the Coventry section from the Original Witch Girls comic book, isn’t it?” And guess what? I was right. It’s the exact same book minus most of the comic stories and “fanart”. (I’m guessing they’re all just commissions.) Seriously, there was nearly no editing done to it. Despite being released along with a revamped rules system, the rules and character sheets in the book were not updated to reflect that. So feel free to ignore all of the new mechanics I was talking about in my last posts. Like a lot of Witch Girls books, this one starts off with a comic. It doesn’t have a title in this version, but the OWG version calls it “Janette’s Story”. It begins with a Coventry student moaning about how boring her life has been while trying to write an autobiography for grammar class.  This, as you can deduce from the speech bubble, is Janette Deville. She is the main child character of this section of the WGA universe and the designated “good witch” of this group of characters. While tossing another draft onto the pile, one of her friends walks up to her.  This is Pru Duncan. That thing in her arms is her pet platypus, Socrates. He quacks despite the fact that platypus do not. When she brings up her troubles, Pru tells Janette that she thinks that her life being different from the other students’ makes it unique, and that it can’t be as boring as Janette thinks it is. This half-assed bit of encouragement gives Janette the push to give it another go. On Pru’s suggestion, she decides to start with when she first discovered her powers. When she was 6, Janette lived with her mundane parents and older brother, Charles, in Salem, Massachusetts, because of course. Every week, Charles would torture her by trying to rip her hair out of her skull, presumably.  There’s a reason why hanging from your hair is a circus act… One night while hiding in the attic, she came across a book with a fairy in it. When she asked the fairy what her name was, the fairy refused to give it, saying that names have power.  Charles barged in soon after. Janette took the book and ran past him, only to be tripped. He took the book from her and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. She then accidentally used magic to fly up and grab it out of his hand. The fairy, book, and that nebulous “destiny” line never come up again in the comics. The next Saturday, she headed downstairs to find her maternal aunt, Helena, arguing with her parents about her budding powers. Helena told them that she needed to be trained and offered to teach her magic on weekends at her home. Her mom was only confused since she assumed the witch gene skipped a generation. (Even though her sister is a witch and so is her mother. So… it didn’t.) Her father, on the other hand, was adamant that no daughter of his was going to become some magic-using freak. Can you guess what Helena’s response to that was?   (Helena's last name is also Deville. If Janette's mom is her sister, wouldn't Janette have a different last name? She's not a witch. So she can't do the whole "take my last name or I'll loving murder you with magic" routine, and there's no mention of them doing it to be progressive or because they preferred it.) Both eventually relented and let Helena teach her. After a while, they decided that it would be better if Janette just lived with her because she wouldn’t stop magically torturing her brother.  At this point, Pru asks Janette when it was that her cousin, Annabelle, showed up. This summons an annoyed Annabelle. When they’ve convinced her Janette is not writing anything bad about her, she sits down to listen to the rest of the story, vaguely threatening Janette to keep it exciting, or else.  Say hello to Annabelle Deville, or as I like to call her, “Diet Lucinda”. She is basically the same character except not as powerful, not as rich, a bit more pompous, and, due to shoddy writing, occasionally forgets that she’s suppose to be an evil little poo poo. The Coventry girls also seem to be a little less tolerant of her bullshit than the Willow-Mistt girls are of Lucinda’s. We will be seeing more of her soon. A little while after Janette moved in with Helena, Annabelle also moved in due to a nebulous “accident” that her parents got into. She immediately went to work transforming and torturing the household staff.    Annabelle claims that it’s all lies to cover up how jealous Janette is of her. Janette claims that she was scared for the lives of everyone in the house. More of their friends show up. Annabelle turns one of them into a pile of ashes.  Eventually, the two came to something of a truce. That is to say, they haven’t tried to kill each other in nearly a year. (“The year isn’t over yet, cousin.”) The two started attending a regular school and made two mundane friends, Kamesha and Donny. Donny has a crush on Annabelle for some reason. Probably because he has a transformation fetish. Janette was happy with all this until she and her friends got a new history teacher, Harlan Macbeth.  Hmm… H.M.… M.H.… bald, kinda heavy set, black, later revealed to be a massive comic nerd despite being nearly 400 years old...  I see what you did there, Harris. Also, wouldn’t the countries Rome conquered be part of the unit before the one about its fall? Like the above panel says, there was no reason for Janette to not like him. But she got a bad feeling about him anyway. Him and Helena also had some sort of thing going on, which also didn’t sit right with her and Annabelle. When they confronted him, he revealed that he knew they were witches. They chained him up, turned him into a statue, and tossed him into the ocean.   It turned out that Harlan was an Immortal and Helena’s boyfriend. Pru thinks the two of them are just jealous of the attention Helena is giving him.  It turned out that having Harlan around was a good thing, since sometime after that, he saved them and Helena from Silas Black and the Malleus Maleficarum. This, despite being the entire reason why they’re even at Coventry, is completely summed up in one panel. It is also the only useful thing he does in any of his appearances that I’ve seen. Helena also turned a bunch of Black’s soldiers into frogs. Because Witch Girls.  Janette decides to end the autobiography on that note. As they all walk off, Mako reminds Annabelle that she’s a ninja. The others assume she’s subtly threatening to kick her rear end. On the title page, Harris is credited as the sole writer, while Soto and two others are credited for doing the art. (However, Soto’s usual “poser model/Frankensteined picture of celebrity with Photoshop filters” style is completely absent from the book.) Soto is also on Layout duty, which pretty much means a lot of jpg artifacts around words and page numbers being unaligned.   Also, here's a terrifying piece of fanart from the comic.  Next: Intro odds and ends. Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Mar 29, 2016 |
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Mar 28, 2016 23:26
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 Part 2: Being the Best Character from the Best School RocknRollaAyatollah posted:
Well, that's explains it. The book starts off with all of the bonuses characters get for being a Coventry student. The reasons given are that Coventry students are just more powerful due to having a better education and, in some cases, are handpicked for being prodigies. On top of the usual starting stuff, they get 10 extra skill points (5 mundane, 5 magical), 3 extra magic ranks, +3 to their Basic and Mysticism skills, can put up to 4 ranks in their magic skills, and 20 points to put towards a custom wand. The book also introduces two new Talents: Humanity (+1 to mundane skill rolls and +1 to rolls when helping mundanes with magical issues) and Titled (+1 Allowance, +2 to social rolls when dealing with people from the country the character has a noble or royal title in). After that is an “Abilities” section. They are the Knacks from Respelled except they use older rules (characters get 1 at creation and can buy more with 15 voodollars) and there are no negative ones. Some of them were even copy-pasted from here. The new ones are Bargain Hunter (-2 to item cost), Caller (send telepathic messages for free), Highbinder (+1 to Casting on mundanes, +1 to Social rolls with people in positions of power), Natural (+2 to Social rolls with animals), Quick Zap (signature spells automatically work on targets with Resist Magic 9 or less and only cost a zap), Ricochet Spell (spend a zap to bounce spells off of solid objects), and Sympathetic Magic (make a voodoo doll with someone’s personal effects, cast spells on it for one extra zap, have it affect them). To get into Coventry, a witch either has to be discovered by a staff member or have a former student, usually a family member, put in a recommendation for them. Once that happens, a staff member secretly observes them for a month to see if they have the “greatest potential for academic and magical success”. If they pass the inspection, they then take several placement tests to evaluate their knowledge on basic academics and 9 different magical subjects. Failure of less than half of the tests means taking remedial classes on the failed subjects. Failing more than half of them gets the student bumped down a grade. (e.g. An Initiate that fails enough tests will get put in with the elementary school kids in the Neophytes class.) Students coming in from another magical school who have good enough grades don’t have to test. In game terms, you have to succeed on a Hard Basic roll, a Hard Mysticism roll, get an 8 or better on an Enchantment roll (the test is to make a simple wand) and a Potions roll (make a love potion for a hamster and a parakeet), and whatever the DM comes up with for the 6 magic skill tests because those aren’t given specified rolls. Cheating is possible, but no one has successfully done so in the history of the school. The section on it suggests either putting a cheater in a class they’re not ready for or having them let in on probation with the caveat that they have to take the tests again under a truth spell. As you can tell, the odds of getting in are against Outsiders and anyone else who hasn’t been involved with the magical world since they were very young. And the character section does reflect this; nearly all of the students are Insiders. (Though that could also be a case of on Harris’ part.) Though their emphasis on taking only the best and brightest does make me wonder why Lucinda, with her godlike competency in several schools of magic, isn’t a student here.Next is a list of supplies students can bring and get from the school. It’s roughly the same as the one for Willow-Mistt. Though students get access to 20x10 foot walk-in closets, are allowed to bring any captured fairies or humans that they have (but are responsible if they end up escaping and dying), and aren’t allowed to bring alcohol and tobacco products. (Even though the book admits that witches are immune to the effects of both.) Everyone who isn’t a Neophyte shares a 40x40 foot dorm room with another person complete with the closet, a bathroom, and one double wall socket. Wireless internet is available in the main hall and the dorm, but cable, cell signal, and satellite reception is nonexistent. The book doesn’t point out that that would probably not stop a student with a decent command of Cybermancy from finding a way around that. When new students arrive, they are given a guide among the students close to them in age who has been there for a year or more. The guide stays with them for a week. If the new student gets disciplined for any reason, the guide gets in trouble as well. The Code of Conduct is just the Willow-Mistt one copy-pasted from the core with a few added rules: no talking in class, no leaving the school grounds without written permission from a staff member, and no yelling in the main hall’s corridors. I’m sure they all get ignored for the sake of adventure just as much as the Willow-Mistt ones. Coventry also uses the same Demerit system of punishment that Willow-Mistt does. (Though Willow-Mistt probably copied all of this stuff from Coventry in-verse.) Except instead of kicking a student out for a semester if they earn a demerit while on probation, they are put on trial in a special school court with the headmistress as the judge and a random sampling of 5 teachers as the jury. Students can either represent themselves or have someone who isn’t a staff member do it for them. Coventry posted:Some students have summoned brainwashed, mortal attorneys and even fictional ones to help them get off. “Members of the court, I’d like to introduce my attorney, Saul Goodman.” “Sabrina, you’re 10 years old. Are your parents letting you watch Breaking Bad?” “They do it if they don’t want to have their bodies turned inside-out... biznatch.” Winning the trial puts the student back on another month of probation. If they gently caress up again or fail a class during this probation period, they get expelled. They can petition the Headmistress to be readmitted after a year as gone by. Healthcare is provided by a six bed medical clinic staffed by the Healing teacher Sunshine Moonglow (yes, really), an Intern student with advanced knowledge of healing spells and curse-breaking, and any students who happen to be working off demerits. Ms. Moonglow is capable of bringing students back from the dead provided there’s at least a small body part left and not a lot of time has passed. If someone was injured because they were being a dumbass, she will usually let them heal at the normal mundane rate. However, the section does point out that witches are usually smart enough to avoid getting injured. Students are expected take at least two mundane and three magical classes every semester. Classes are held Monday through Friday with the occasional optional Saturday class. Schedules are divided up between Monday/Wednesday/Friday and Tuesday/Thursday classes, with M-W-F classes being 1 and a half hours long and Tu-Th classes being 2 and a half. The school day starts at 9 and the last classes of the day end at 6:30 with lunch happening from 11:30 to 1:30. (The book itself doesn’t recommend taking a full schedule during your first year.) There are also the occasional 4 hour long lectures that last from 9 to 1 in the afternoon. The blurb for “Typical Mundane Classes” was accidentally replaced with a repeat of a useless one about how students, when they’re not in class, do things that aren’t homework related. Here’s the list of mundane subjects Coventry students can take classes in.  Those of you who have been following Kurieg’s Bellum Maga writeup probably noticed that a “Ms. South” teaches History. It turns out that I was wrong. Sadie (Jo) South, the acolyte or whatever of Circe who is responsible for the horrific-looking Alteration spells in that game is a character in this one too. Unfortunately, most of the teachers do not have character sheets. (Cause it's not like people who would want to run a game at Coventry would need to know about the teachers.) So the name might be where the similarities end. (There is another NPC that Sadie’s whole look seems to be based off of. More on that later.) And here’s the magical class list. Again, most of the teachers on this list do not have sheets.  Remember Ms. Sinclair, the Alteration teacher. We will be seeing more of her later. Students who are an Initiate or higher and have acceptable grades can participate in the many extracurricular activities the school has. These are: Softball: Held in the spring; usually plays teams from mundane private schools in the east coast of the US. Their coach is Carl "Wild Cat" Jones, the ghost of a former player in the American Negro League. Soccer: Held in the fall; plays against both mundane and magical European schools. Their coach is the ghost of a Brazilian soccer star named Domingo Ibanez. He probably gets confused with the saint. Ariel Expertice:[sic] “Broom Rodeo”. Wakenda Nightwoman, the Elementalism teacher, teaches the flying team, with the headmistress giving some coaching every so often to show off some of the stuff she learned while fighting in World War II. Spelling Bee: It’s like a spelling bee, except you turn people into things for points. Anansi Batu coaches the team. Cyber-Zone: The school-sanctioned competitive gaming team. Plays everything from first-person shooters to MMORPGs. Is probably full of the most obnoxious players and sore losers on the planet. Coached by Emily Foster. Yes, that is who you think it is. Gourmet Group: The cooking club. Competes in competitions throughout Europe. Coached by Ms. Bole. Choir: Coached by Ms. Diva, who is a gorgon. It’s won awards. That’s it. Orchestra: Is one of the best youth concert groups in the world. Ms. Diva coaches this along with the ghost of Mozart. Highbinders: The half-assed Death Eaters youth group. Minerva Stone, who is a Highbinder and wrote the Mysticism textbook from the core, sponsors it. Witches Helping Against Malice (W.H.A.M.) Created in response to the witch supremacist group that’s allowed on campus by Emily Foster. Fun Fact: The name of this group comes from one of the OWG comics. In it, Janette and the girls try to set a group of mundanes who have been captured to be used as subjects for an Alteration class free. Janette eventually comes to the conclusion that a lot of the humans getting captured are annoying and not worth the effort.  Hex Scouts: The Girl Scouts with less cookies and more crimes against humanity. Helena, despite not being a staff member, is the “Hex Mother” for the school’s troop. Godmother’s Guild: For aspiring godmothers, which is apparently an ancient tradition among witches. Sunshine Moonglow, who is a part-time godmother, sponsors the group. There's an unfinished comic about the girls being roped into the club. It goes just as well as you'd expect.  Daughters of Secrets: A group of students that spends its time researching ancient witches, magic, and magic sites. Sadie South is their sponsor. Cryptozoology Rescue Team: A group for learning how to care for and preserve magical creatures. Sponsored by Artemis Olympia, the Cryptozoology teacher. Mishaps and Misuse Mechanics: AKA “Triple M”. This is the training branch of an elite organization put together by the Witches World Council that takes care of all of the bigger Masquerade breaches. (Some notable incidents include the time the Queen of England was turned into a rabbit and when some rear end in a top hat shrunk New York City, put it in a jar, and toured Europe with it.) Ms. Frost and Ms. Juarez sponsor this along with the student’s trainers, presumably. That’s all for now. Have some pictures.     (I really don’t like this art style. It makes everyone look like they’re 6.) Next: The school’s grounds, history, and whatever else. There are no proper chapters in this book. Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Mar 30, 2016 |
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Mar 30, 2016 22:43
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Hostile V posted:Wait so what exactly is WHAM? From the core writeup: quote:Witches Helping Against Malice (WHAM) - The newest group on this list and the polar opposite of the Highbinders. These witches think that mundanes should be treated as equals and go around undoing the damage that other witches cause. They are allies with the Godmother's Guild and "the nicer Lilians" and the Highbinders and Shadow Spells hate them, natch. Members get a +1 bonus to detect and undo evil spells. Either it went global or it's just the school's branch. Who knows.
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Mar 30, 2016 22:54
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Part 3: History, Campus, and Characters As it’s been stated, Coventry’s campus is located on the Isle of Avalon, the former home of the Fae, located somewhere off the northwestern coast of Ireland. Titania Morganne, the current and only headmistress Coventry has ever had, chose Avalon as the site for the school because she is half-fae and it’s not like they were using it anyway. The book states that the school was founded in 845 AD when Morganne, then the Director of Education for the WWC, decided that the then current crop of magic schools were not “progressive” enough, quit her job, and started her own. What exactly did she have a problem with and what did she do differently? Coventry posted:After 200 years at the job, Titania noticed that though most of the schools were up to current standards, they all held to cultural view on history, magic, and the witches' place in the world. I’m going to guess that she doesn’t have a problem with witch supremacy, seeing as there’s a Highbinders youth branch on campus that’s visible enough for another teacher to create a club in response. That or there's Highbinders on the WWC's Council of 13 pulling some strings. After building the main areas and bringing all of the exotic magical beasts on the island to heel, she gathered a staff of 13 teachers and opened the school’s doors to a class of 30 students, most of whom were from England. By the way, the writeup says that the school opened its doors in 1046. The little blurb at the front of the book and in the core say 900. So pick whichever date sounds good to you. The school expanded in the 1500s when the Age of Exploration… caused a lot of people to look outside of the other 19 schools that were around at the time, creating an increase in the number of requests for enrollment. …Okay. Around this time, Red Mulligan, a famous pirate, and his crew invaded the island looking to steal the school’s wealth. The staff turned them into statues that still stand in the woods in the present day.  This picture looks like it had a hasty censor job done to it. Those shirts make no sense to me. After decades of expansion, the next major event in Coventry’s history came during World War I. Coventry posted:during World War I, it was discovered that many of the students had grown strong political views involving the war. This lead to many problems and the eventual expulsion of ten students. I don’t think Harris knew (or knows) a drat thing about World War I because that’s literally all of the explanation given. So there’s no telling if students from opposing countries were fighting each other, if the troublemakers were Yugoslav nationalists, if they just thought the whole thing was a stupid clusterfuck and tried to cast a spell to stop the war, or something else. When World War II broke out, a bunch of German witches tried, and failed, to convince Morganne to let Germany use the island as an air base. In response, she sealed the island off from the rest of the world, making the staff members the only people allowed to come and go freely. In 1941, German forces opened a portal to the island and stormed it, forcing the students to be evacuated either to their homes or to the Cryptozoology preserve on the other side of the island. The battle lasted three weeks and it took a joint effort of the school’s staff, council forces, immortals, and mundanes to push the Germans back. The school was closed for the rest of the war while the teachers went to help the war effort in various countries. When the war was over, Coventry reopened with an “even more diverse student body”. This was apparently an issue, because it was over the next few decades that their “prodigies and legacies only” policy started. The last event of note is during the 1960s, when Sunshine Moonglow and several students cast a spell that started the Flower Power Movement. Next is a rundown of all of the buildings on campus. Here, have a map.  If you look closely, you can see the lines of the graph paper it was drawn on. Main Hall: Has 50 “spacious” classrooms, labs, and lecture halls. As well as the teacher’s meeting room and the offices. Baba Yaga Memorial Hall/Dormitory: (There are only a few sentences between the name change.) The dorm. Its namesake is a famous Russian sorceress. The first floor is the common room, the Neophytes room, a guest suite, and the Dorm Mother’s suite. Second floor is the Initiates’ dorm. Third is the Apprentices’. Fourth is the Interns’. While it doesn’t look like it, the dorms are divided up into halls based on the cardinal directions. There are rivalries between them. Library: Run by Sadie South and Athena Olympia, the library boasts a “near infinite” amount of texts ranging from modern books to ancient scrolls. (Including “The Scrolls of Circe”, because of course. Also “The Musings of Media” and “The Questions of the Queen of Sheba”.) Kinderalla: The Neophyte classroom. Way back when I was confused when it said that a Coventry student had to pick someone to do their internship with. Well, it turns out that the title “Intern” is literal. The Neophyte teaching duties are almost the sole responsibility of the Intern students. Which I’m sure is the case to allow for Harris and other DMs to come up with all sorts of magical shenanigans and get some use out of that babysitting section in 13 Magazine. Of course, this section is so poorly edited that not even that is completely clear. Coventry posted:There the students are taught by Interns and not actual instructors, including teachers assistants. Ms. South and Ms. Athena Olympia are officially the staff in charge and spend time overseeing many of the classes, as well as instructing the actual students. Either way, I doubt kids who are still students themselves are capable of giving even younger students the best education in all of the multiverse. Garden: It’s quiet, students like to eat lunch in it, and the Herbalism class takes place in it. Next. Teacher Bungalows: Where the teachers live during the school year. Going into one without permission from a staff member will get you instantly expelled. (By the way, the font becomes thinner on this page.) Sports Field: Used for sports as well as performances from the orchestra, “student pop/rock band”, and the drama club, which is suddenly a thing. Cryptozoology Preserve: The world’s largest preserve and hospital for legendary creatures, run by Artemis Olympia. Again, students aren’t allowed on it without staff permission. The next and final section of the book is the character sheets. As stated before, most of the staff do not have sheets. Instead, it’s just a section for all of the OWG characters, including ones that have absolutely nothing to do with the school. I’m going to be using the pictures from the OWG book for this section because, due to lovely printing, the ones in the Coventry book look like muddy rear end. Like so:   Janette Deville (13) The main character of OWG and the designated “good witch”. Due to being raised in the mundane world and attending a regular school until her run-in with Deacon Black, Janette is a bit more grounded and less “uppity” than the typical Coventry student. Thus, she spends a lot of her time teaching her fellow students the “true value of humanity”. In practice, she’s just as horrible as any other character in this setting. Piss her off and all of that respect for humanity goes right out the window, along with the target’s humanity. There’s even an entire story about this in OWG wherein she goes into a witch themed store with Annabelle and punishes a bunch of kids because they insulted her shoes.   This is, of course, at odds with her Dislikes, which are “Witch Snobbery” and “Mean People”. Also, the comics say she’s 11 while her bio says she’s 13. Janette is an Insider with the Friendly and Humanity talents, the Legacy heritage, and the Instant Karma and Natural abilities. She’s got D6s and D8s in all of her attributes, 41 mundane skill points, 26 magical skill points, and 22 magic ranks. (Her highest is a 4 in both Alteration and Mentalism.) Her signature spell is Levitation, a Mentalism 1 spell that does exactly what it sounds like. She’s got a Bigger Bag, a Black Racer Broom, a Mona Lisa Drive Computer, and a custom wand that gives a +1 to Mentalism spells and general MTR and can levitate 20 pounds worth of stuff.  Annabelle Deville (13) Annabelle was born in Portland, Maine to mundane parents. When her powers manifested, she was immediately sent to Coventry. Unfortunately, being around witch society turned her into the evil little poo poo that she is. For reasons unknown, she was sent back to her parents a few years later. She turned them into toads, which is why she was sent to live with Helena. When she was sent back to Coventry due to being attacked by Deacon Black, she was welcomed “with open arms despite her past”. Despite her bio claiming that she’s been tempered somewhat by Janette’s goodness, she spends her days trying to become a powerful and widely feared witch and tormenting her cousin. She also likes Donny. Though she won’t admit it. Annabelle is an Insider with the Snob and Wicked talents, the Attuned heritage, and the Quick Spell ability. She has a D4 in Body, a D6 in Senses, a D10 in Magic, and D8s in everything else. She’s has 29 mundane skill points, 23 magical skill points, and 23 magic ranks. (Her highest is a 5 in, you guessed it, Alteration.) Her signature spell is “Toad”, an Alteration 3 spell that turns people in toads, which she loves doing. She’s got a Bigger Bag, a mini magical mirror, a silver streak broom, and a custom wand that gives her a +1 to Alteration spells, +1 to the duration MTR of spells, and gives targets a -1 Resist Magic penalty.  Helena Deville (50) Helena was the first witch born into the Deville family in the 20th century, according to her bio. (Her brother and sister were not so lucky and I imagine had a hellish life living with a witch mother and sister.) After graduating from Coventry, she became a spiritual adviser and seller of youth and vitality potions to rich and famous people. She has never been married and taking care of Janette and Annabelle is her first foray in child-rearing. For some reason, she hates the WWC. She also hates bullies, even though her skill spread includes a lot of abilities that are used for bullying people. Helena is an Insider with the Beautiful and Rich talents, the Hexer heritage, and the Instant Karma and Ward abilities. She has a D6 in Senses, a D10 in Mind, a D12+4 in Magic, and a D8 in everything else. She has 47 mundane skill points, 53 magical skill points, and 50 magic ranks. (Highest being Curses (7), Alteration (6), and Time and Space (6).) Her signature spell is “Fools Luck”, a Curses 2 spell that gives its target +5 to all rolls while the spell lasts. She has a Crimson Teardrop, a “Heaven’s Harpies” broom, and a mansion that gives her +2 to Casting while in it.  Donny Owens (13) Donny is a mundane. He enjoys comic books, role-playing, and anime and is Annabelle’s unofficial boyfriend, who he also lives in fear of. That’s pretty much it. Here’s a weird picture of him eating ice cream.  Donny has no clique, no magic, no abilities, no equipment, and no heritage. He has the Geek and Meek talents though. He has a D8 Mind, D6 Senses, and D4 everything else. For skills, he has 37 mundane skill points and 3 magical (2 in Cryptozoology and 1 in Mysticism).  Kamesha Washington (13) Kamesha is also a mundane. She doesn’t fear Janette and Annabelle like Donny does and doesn’t have a problem telling them off when they’re being shits. Not that she ever really gets a chance to do so since she’s barely featured in the comics. She is part of one thing of note though that will be explained in the next post. Her bio spells Janette’s name wrong. Kamesha has a D8+1 Mind, D4 Magic, and D6 everything else. She has 30 mundane skill points and no magical skills. Like Donny, she has no magic, equipment, abilities, or heritage. She has the Brainiac and Jock talents. Her bio says that she wants to be a doctor, but she has no points in First Aid.  Millie LeRouche (75) Helena’s head maid. Her family, despite being nothing but mundanes, has always known about magic because . Her motivation is Donny’s accidentally copy-pasted. (“To have fun and become a Writer.”)Millie’s a mundane, save for a spell that makes her age at half the rate of normal humans. So you know the drill. No heritage, no magic, no abilities save for the longevity spell, and no equipment. D8 Senses with D4 Magic and D6 everything else, 41 mundane skill points with a 4 in Mysticism, Calm and Friendly talents.  Harlan Macbeth Harlan, not his real name, was born 393 years ago near Mt. Kilimanjaro in either what is now Tanzania or Kenya. (Or, as his bio puts it, just “West Africa”. Tanzania, Kenya, and Kilimanjaro are very much on the eastern part of the continent.) For centuries, he was part of a mercenary band of immortals who won the wars of whoever gave them the most money. Now, he’s a history teacher at Thomas Jefferson Middle School. He’s also boning Helena, who he’s slowly revealing his checkered past to. Also, his best friend according to the sheet is Robin Locksley. That all sounds mildly impressive, but in practice, Harlan is probably the most inept immortal in existence. Aside for one panel where he punches Deacon Black, he doesn’t do much heroing and his few attempts to do so end in failure. So what is his main purpose in the comics, you ask? Why, being the butt monkey and getting transformed into stuff, of course!         Keep in mind this is probably Harris’ self-insert. Harlan is an Atlasian immortal with the Brainiac and Jock talents and “standard immortal abilities” for abilities. He’s got a D6 Social, D10 Body and Magic, and D8 everything else. He’s got 59 mundane skill points and 10 magical ones. (7 in Cryptozoology and 3 in Mysticism. There are no history based skills. The closest thing he has is a 7 in Mythology and a 4 in Basics.) For magic, he has Elementalism 3 (presumably with a focus on earth spells due to his heritage). For equipment, he has a pet Bargeist hound named Mangler (or, as the sheet spells it, “Masngler”) who has lion stats. Next: The rest of the character sheets
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Apr 5, 2016 04:20
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Doresh posted:Clearly, rhythmic gymnastics is the most fiendish tool of the Serpent. The rope and the ribbon are obvious symbols of his. I was about to say, where does the whole "sportsball is a tool of the Serpent" leave things like figure-skating, gymnastics, competitive dance, competitive cheerleading, and all of the various women's leagues? (Though cheerleading is probably also a construct of the Serpent because "cheerleaders are all snobby bimbos who made fun of me in high school just like in the movies and TV".) Hell, for all its flaws, WGA is a more feminist game than Bellum Maga, which makes sense since BM is just Witch Girls with TERFness, misandry, more horrific body horror art, and Soto's possible weird grade school baggage. (Which becomes even more pathetic when you realize that Soto is in her 40s.) So if you really wanted to play a "feminist" game with a broken as gently caress untested system, the option is already available.
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Apr 7, 2016 19:28
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Even before all of the stuff about how bad the game's writing is came to light, my first reaction to it as a whole was "Uhh, okay... Isn't playing a monster something you can already do in every other game in the line?" It sounded incredibly generic and like they were just scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas.
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Apr 9, 2016 18:57
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Part 4: And the rest  Lady Allison Chaucer (13) “Ally” was born somewhere in Wiltshire to English nobility. She’s super rich and could have easily been one of the most popular girls in Coventry if it weren’t for the fact that she loves gossip and rumors. This trait is not displayed in the comics. There’s no explanation for why her hair is so violently anime. Ally is an Insider with the Busy Body and Titled talents, the The Sight heritage, and the Natural Telepath ability. She’s has a D4 Body, a D10 Magic, and a D8 everything else with 26 mundane points (some of which are missing because her Garden bonus wasn’t printed on accident), 21 magical points, and 20 magic ranks. (Highest is Divination and Time and Space with 4.) Her signature spell, Spy, is a Divination 2 spell that lets her watch people through her magic mirror, which gives her +1 to Divination spells, can shrink to pocket size, and has a spirit with Mysticism 7 in it. She also has a silver streak broom and a custom gold wand that gives her +1 to Time and Space spells and can store 2 zap.  Prudence Duncan (13) Born in Kokabrah, Australia (which is not a real place) to ranchers, “Pru” lived a very sheltered life before coming to Coventry. As a result, Janette and Co are her first friends. She is known as the “smart” kid in the school and the person you want to go to if you need help with assignments. She’s also kind of naïve. She hates not having homework. Pru is, you guessed it, an Insider with the Brainiac and Goody-Goody talents, the Oracle heritage, and the Natural and Chanter abilities. She has a D6 Social, D8 Will, D10+1Mind, D10 Magic, and D4 Body and Senses. For skills she has 31 mundane, 37 magical, and 24 magic ranks. (She has 2s and 3s in everything.) Her signature spell is a Healing 3 one that heals 10 points of damage. She has a “bewitched basic” broom, a book of knowledge that can give a +1 to any roll but Casting when used, a custom rustic wand that gives +1 to Elementalism spells and +1 to “MTR range, light, comucopia (sic)”, and Socrates. When he’s nearby, she gets a +1 to Social and Cryptozoology rolls.  Princess Nephra Batu (13) Nephra, if you remember, was mentioned in passing on her mom, Queen Zuri of Wanobi’s, sheet in the core. Now we get one for her. Her bio isn’t all that extensive: she’s a princess, she’s spoiled and expects the best, nearly everyone shuts up when she’s pissed, but she’s loyal to her friends and will back you up and all of the other things people add to character bios when they need to fill space and let people know that a character is a good person. Nephra is a Sorceress with the Drama Queen and Titled talents, the Hexer heritage, and the Caller ability. She has a D6 Body, D10 Magic, and D8 everything else. For skills, she has 31 mundane, 36 magical, and 29 magic ranks. (Her highest is Curse with 4.) Her signature spell, “Grandmother’s Curse”, is a spell of an unknown type that gives the target a -4 penalty to all rolls and slowly does 15 damage to them. (It is never fatal, however.) She has a magic carpet, a sun king amulet (spend a zap to summon her guardian), and an ebony hoop wand (“grants Nephra social rolls”, +1 Elementalism, +1 to duration and damage).  Miako/Mako Matsu (13) Miako is a “majo” (sic), one of the witches who has served her Tokyo-based family’s ninja clan for centuries. Unfortunately, a rival clan killed hers, leaving her in the care of her older witch sister. For her safety and to keep her from trying to get revenge, her sister sent her to Coventry when she was 10. Unfortunately, she still wants to do it and is just biding her time before she can get back and start slicing heads. (She has no ranks in Alteration so she can’t really do it the typical Witch Girls way.) She likes anime and Pocky, because of course. She would fit right in in a bad Naruto fanfic. Miako is an Insider with the Calm and Warrior talents, the “Medative” heritage, and no abilities. For attributes, she has a D6 Social, D10 Will and Magic, and D8 everything else. For skills, she has 62 mundane (!!!), 17 magical, and 28 magic ranks. (Highest is Illusion with 4.) Her signature spell is “Ninja Vanish”, an Illusion 4 spell that lets her hide from all senses and is probably the only reason why Illusion is her highest magic type. For equipment, she has a jade necklace (+1 to Resist Magic and lets her ignore 2 points of damage) and a “magic girl” wand, which, along with giving her +1 to spell damage, lets her change her outfit into her ninja one and turns into a “ninja sword” (presumably a ninjato, but considering how the rest of the character is, I imagine Harris was thinking of a katana) that does “+4 damage (a total of 11 damage in the hand of Miako).  Denora Desade (50) Oh, hello there. Denora is one of the characters from The Shrinking Sorceress, the transformation Geocities ezine that the game is based on. In the game, she is the major antagonist for this section of the setting; always trying to gently caress with Helena and her family because she’s evil and the two were roommates at Coventry, which she is now a Board of Trustees member of. She is also the Great High Witch of the western United States and a high-ranking member of the Highbinders, earning her the nickname " the Wicked Witch of the West Coast”. (Great High Witches, if you remember, are elected by the WWC’s Council of 13. Which should tell you a lot about how they all lean politically.) There’s some other things to her background too, but they’re not in this book. Her character motivation is Allison’s copy-pasted. (“Get all the juicy gossip and make her family proud of her”.) A couple of the comics in the book are entirely about her. They are basically her arguing with Helena and owning mundane men in various ways. One of which includes, to add some variety to things, turning a guy into a match to light her cigar.   She also set a guy’s car on fire while his family was still inside because he dared to ask her for her insurance info when she ran into him.  That guy will come up later. Denora is an Outsider (though she’ll claim she’s a Sorceress if you ask) with the Queen Bee and Wicked talents, the Transmuter heritage, and the Highbinder and Wards abilities. (I’m starting to suspect that Coventry is not a good environment for kids with ego issues. This is the second evil character it’s churned out.) For attributes, she has a D8 Will, D12+5 Magic, D10 Mind and Social, and D6 Body and Senses. For skills, she has 49 mundane, 52 magical, and 40 magic ranks. (Highest is Alteration with 7, of course.) Her signature spell is “Cigar”. It’s Alteration 4. Guess what it does. Her equipment includes a car that can turn into a credit card and never needs fuel or maintenance, and a cigar holder that acts as her wand and gives her +1 to damage, duration, and range MTR and targets -1 to Resist Magic.  Claudia Desade (13) Yes, someone, willingly or not, had his dick inside Denora long enough for her to fall pregnant with this little hellspawn. Claudia is also a former Shrinking Sorceress character. (Though back then, she had Janette’s look.) As you’d expect, she is basically a mini version of her mother. Who, thanks to her position on the Board of Trustees, was able to get Claudia enrolled into Coventry when she was only 3 years old (and became an Initiate at 9). Far younger than the usual starting age of 6. Because of her young age, Claudia had to constantly prove herself and was picked on, leading her to become a very driven person and the self-appointed wicked witch of her dorm hall. (Her mom probably encouraged this too.) She stood unopposed for 3 years until Janette came and refused to take her bullshit. Despite being a year away from high school, she dresses like I did back in Kindergarten when my mother picked my clothes, short hair and all. (By the way, Coventry does have uniforms. But the main characters usually aren’t wearing them in the art.) Claudia is an Insider with the Queen Bee and Temper talents, the Prodigy heritage, and the Caller and Highbinder abilities. For attributes, she has a D4 Body, D6 Senses, D10 Mind, D12 Magic, and D8 Will and Social. For skills, she has 36 mundane, 27 magical, and 35 magic ranks. Her signature spell is “Monster Maker”, a Conjuration 3 spells that lets her create 1 to 2 foot monsters that do her bidding. (This is something of a hobby of hers, if the comic is to be believed.) For equipment, she has a Black Racer broom, a bigger bag, and a custom magician wand that gives her +1 to Casting Alteration and Conjuration spells and +1 to range MTR. In terms of pure numbers, she’s on par with Lucinda. Though Lucinda’s bullshit rule-ignoring items probably still have her beat.  Jennifer Beaudeux (13) Born in New Orleans, Jennifer is a tomboy bully who likes B-movies and is friends with Claudia. That’s it. Her hair is also violently anime. She looks like she should be fighting saiyans. Jennifer is a Gothique with the Lacky and Urchin talents, the Zappy Fingers heritage, and no abilities. Her attritubes are an equal spread of D6s (Mind, Will, and Social) and D8s. She has 41 mundane skill points (with a lot of 3s), only 8 magical skill ones (a 5 in Casting and a 3 in Mysticism), and 13 magic ranks. (Highest is Offense with 4.) Her signature spell is “Boomer”, an Offense 4 ball of green energy that does “up to 15 points of damage to some or all targets in range or .” For equipment, she has a Bewitched Basic broom and a black crystal wand.  Pavari Suraiya (13) Pavari was born to poor mundane parents in the poorest part of New Deli (sic), India where she had to steal and beg for a living because poor. Despite being only 13, her powers manifested when she was 17, which caused her parents to sell her to the local sorceress because poor. The witch took pity on her and sent her to Coventry. She hangs out with Claudia and Jennifer and wants to be the most popular girl in school. Her roommate is Illyanna Alexandra, who does not have a sheet. Pavari is an Outsider with the Entertainer and Busy Body talents, the Conjurer heritage, and no abilities. She has a D10 in Magic, D8s in Mind and Social, and D6s (with a D6+1 in Senses) in everything else. She has 38 mundane skill points (again, with a lot of 3s), 8 magical points (5 in Casting, 3 in Mysticism like Jennifer), and 17 magic ranks (highest is Conjuration and Mentalism with 4). Her signature spell is “Mists of Fear”, an Illusion 3 spell that creates an area that manifests anyone who walks into its worst fears as an illusion. For equipment, she has a flying carpet and a standard wand.  Titania Morganne (1,532) Titania has been known as many figures in Irish and Arthurian mythology, including Morgan Le Fey, “Morganna”, and “The Morgan” (sic). Despite being vilified by a bunch of loving stupid mundanes who are stupid, she has actually been working to improve the lives of them and otherkin. “The Camelot Experiment”, which includes working with the immortal Merlin to make her brother, Arthur, the king of England through some convoluted scheme that involves a sword in a stone, is somehow one of these actions and totally not just an attempt to rule England through a puppet ruler like it sounds like. Creating Coventry, it turns out, was actually an attempt to create a magical school that embraced all magical traditions. (None of which are shown anywhere in the book.) Why you would restrict access when you’d want these ideas to spread and why letting Highbinders near it is supposed to help this cause is yet to be explained. Avalon is her birthplace. Titania is a Sorceress with the Queen Bee and Unshakable talents; the Half-Fae Otherkin heritage; and the Natural Telepath, Natural Telekinetic, Richochet spell, and Wards abilities. (If her mother was full fae, then where did she get the witch gene from?) She has D6 Senses, D8 Body, D12 Social, D12+7 Magic, and D10 Mind and Will. She has 87 mundane skill points (with Games listed twice with two different values and an unknown number of ranks in Gossip), 97 magical skill points (with 10s in pretty much everything), and 89 magic ranks. (Highest is Mentalism with 9, though none of her types are below 6. Most are at 8.) Her signature spell is “Global Command”, a Metanlism 9 spell that lets her alter the memories and minds of everyone on the planet at the same time. Don’t know if she gets much use out of it though. For equipment, she has her Arcane Ace broom from her WW2 days (+2 to Broom Riding, lets her ignore 4 points of damage, and has triple the speed of a normal broom), a 1foot wide crystal orb called the Eye of Morganna (+2 MTR of Divination spells and lets her control the weather on Avalon for 1 zap), and she gets +2 to all of her rolls while she’s on the island.  Anansia/Anansi Batu (1,148) Nephra’s aunt, Queen Zuri’s older sister, Vice-Headmistress, and the Time and Space instructor. She’s also part-spider. Coventry posted:A Daughter of Anansi the greatest of all Animal Paragon Spiders and the first Queen of Wanobi she wanted to a life away from her parents watchful eyes. Like many other witch NPCs, including her younger sister, she traveled the world because she got wanderlust and being a princess is hard. She spent several centuries being a courtesan and thespian in Europe before she decided she had enough and wanted to meet and teach people from around the world. So she started teaching at Coventry. Around other teachers, she’s a laid back prankster. Around students, she’s a strict rear end in a top hat who gives a lot of homework and makes “flamboyant gestures”. Anansia is a Sorceress with the Queen Bee and Unshakable talents, the Half Fae heritage (because this is probably just copy-pasted from Titania’s sheet), and the Caller, Natural Telepath, Natural Telekinetic, Natural, and Wards abilities. She has D12+7 Magic, D8 Body and Senses, and D10 everything else. She has 125 mundane skill points, 91 magical skill points, and 84 magic ranks. (Highest is Time and Space with 10.) Her signature spell is “Perfect Time Line”, a Time and Space 10 spell that lets her change a past event in her timeline without affecting anything that she doesn’t want it affecting in the present. Her only piece of equipment is a gold amulet that summons Lady Spider, her giant spider guardian for 1 zap. Those two are probably the most powerful legal NPCs in the game. (Circe’s probably up there. But a lot of her magical skills go beyond 10 without roll and skill bonuses, so she doesn’t count.) Which, considering there’s probably more witches on their level in the world, it makes me wonder why they bothered with the whole flying witch brigade thing and didn’t just give every single Axis allied person a heart attack all at the same time. Or even just pop into Hitler’s bedroom and turn him into something, alter his mind, or change his past so that he got into that art college. Ingrid Frieze, the Axis’ top witch backer, has no levels in Healing and less ranks in both Mentalism and Alteration than these two. So she wouldn’t be able to do much about it. I imagine the reasons are “because gently caress humans they’re all racist and oppress us” and “because it sounds cool, stop thinking about it”.  Elsa Harkens (300) Oh, come the gently caress on. Really? Elsa is the school’s Dorm Mother, head of security, and Enchantment teacher. Unlike most German witches, because of course she’s German, she was not accepted into Reinhexxen because her father is an immortal, because of course most German witches are evil and went to the evil school. (Reinhexxen doesn't seem to have a problem hiring ghosts. But seeing as they're the evil school, they probably just torture them if they refuse to teach.) Her parents homeschooled her instead (couldn’t they have just sent her somewhere else?). She eventually worked her way up to becoming the head magistrate of Germany. Titania then stole her from them so she could be the head of security. You can imagine what her personality is like. I bet she sounds angry all the time, has no indoor voice, and her closet makes her look like she shops at BDSM dungeons. Elsa is an Insider with the Jade and Touch talents; the Half-Immortal heritage; and the Natural Telepath, Richochet spell, Wards, Legendary Strength 1 (+1 to damage and Strength rolls), and Tough Skin (ignores 1 damage) abilities. For abilities, she has a D12+5 in Magic, a D12 in Social, D10s in Body and Will, and somehow D9s in Mind and Senses. For skills, she has 117 mundane points, 79 magical points, and 50 magic ranks. (Highest is Protection with 7, followed by Offense with 6.) Her signature spell is “Time Out”, a Time and Space 5 spell that sends unruly students into some sort of hell dimension where they can’t talk, can’t move, and every hour in the real world seems like a year. Her sole piece of equipment is a riding crop (really?) that acts as her wand and  Emily Foster (30) Yes, we’re finally introduced to the core’s lovely editor’s oft-mentioned self-insert. Emily, if you remember, is the world master of Cybermancy who is the best at it and all of the little witch geeks want to be just like her. A literal manic pixie dream girl, Emily is the school’s youngest teacher and was the most disrespected by older teachers until she downloaded the main building onto a flash drive. As you can imagine, she is one of the most popular teachers in the school. She was born on the Kansas side of Kansas City, which is probably where the real Emily Foster is from. She also has the ability to turn mundane girls into witches, as she does to Kamesha in one of the comic’s stories.  So… this creates a lot of questions. Why don’t people do this more often? Why isn’t there some sort of small industry of witch mothers trying to get this spell applied permanently to their mundane daughters? Does it work on guys too? Has anyone thought about going on a crusade to make every single person on the planet magical? Why am I still putting more thought into this than anyone who had a hand in this game did combined?  Emily is an Outsider with the Geek and Friendly talents, the Half-Fae heritage, and the Natural Telekinetic (how many drat psychics are there in this school?) and Wireless abilities. She has a D12+4 in Magic, a D12 in Mind, a D8 in Will, a D4 in Senses, and D6s in Body and Social. She has 60 mundane skill points, 63 magical skill points, and 48 magic ranks. (Highest is, of course, Cybermancy with 10. The rest are mostly 3s. Her Alteration is only 3.) Her signature spell is "Rewrite the Net", a Divination 10 spell according to the book (she only has a 3 in Divination) that lets her add and remove information from the Internet at will. They meant Cybermancy, I'm sure. For equipment, she has a nameless pet monkey that gives her +2 to Reflex and can enter cyberspace and turn into any kind of virus, a Vespa Flyer with no writeup, and the original Ghost Top computer. It is literally the best. Coventry posted:This Ghost top computer grants the user +3 to computer rolls has limitless access to computer accessories no matter the distance, can instantly upload and download anything and is -10 to rolls to hack it.  Sunshine Moonglow (902) Another witch who, once they came of age, left to see the world. (Which the fairies and fey of Avalon did instead of loving off to some other dimension.) She claims that she was the fairy godmother of several fairy tales, including Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. (Though there is no hard proof.) She was recruited by Titania, her old friend, sometime in the 1400s because apparently the school had a problem where the students were afraid of all of the teachers. She’s the Healing teacher, the school nurse, and the guidance counseler. Sunshine is an Insider with the Friendly and Goody-Goody talents, the Half Fairy heritage (which may or may not be different from the Half-Fae one and also not available to PCs), and the Caller and Instant Karma abilities. She has a D12+5 in Magic, a D10 in Mind, D4 in Senses, D6 in Body, and D8s in Will and Social. She has 76 mundane skill points (including another double entry for Games), 53 magical skill points, and 57 magic ranks. (Highest is Healing with 9. Most have 7s and 4s.) Her signature spell is “Loom of Fate”, a Divination spell that lets her and others see the possible futures of a person, place, or thing. Her sole possession is a Silver Star wand that gives her +1 to casting rolls, duration, and range MTR of spells that are helpful or grant wishes. As well as gives a +1 to casting Healing spells and +5 to the total amount of damage they heal.And this book’s done. Were you hoping to hear a little more about the staff that aren't featured in the comics? Maybe a little about Coventry's supposed rivalry with the Garden of Mu? More character sheets for students? Well, gently caress you. You're not getting it because this book is full of . Have a picture of another one of the designated good characters transforming someone. Next Book: Annabelle Deville’s guide to mystical mayhem Wicked Ways (sic), wherein Harris tries clumsily to make wickedness a sort of grey morality, we learn about the WWC’s probably extremely underused criminal justice system, learn about the lone reformatory school for witches, get some copy-pasted character sheets with Soto art, and watch Annabelle morph into Lucinda’s clonebestiefriend. Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Apr 10, 2016 |
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Apr 9, 2016 22:41
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 Part 1: Building a Better Villain With Lists (Fun Fact: That might not be Annabelle on the cover. It might be an older version of Monica. It appears to be art left over from another aborted movie project. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Who knows.) Annabelle Deville posted:First, lets put it out there shall we? I'm not the villain of the story. No one is. That's how mortals thing, very black and white, very good vs. evil, very childish. One of the complaints I and others have about Witch Girls is that when a witch does something bad to someone, usually a mortal who can’t defend themselves, they are usually not punished for it. And when it happens, it rarely amounts to more than a light slap on the wrist. Many of these characters also just seem to be evil for the sake of being evil and do not have reasons behind the way they are. (Though we all know the real, unspoken answer is “because fetish”.) Presumably, Annabelle Deville’s guide to mystical mayhem Wicked Ways was written in part to fix that. It was released along with Respelled and Coventry. Unlike Coventry, it seems to have incorporated the new rules. Like the other two, the book starts off with a comic. It’s about Lucinda and Annabelle meeting up at Not!Starbucks after meeting each other on a social networking site for witches. They bond over their mutual interest in turning people into things and possibly destroy an entire city. I’m not going to write a long summary of it because I don’t need to write one. That’s literally all the comic is. Instead, have a series of pictures.            By the way, Monica and Janette were the ones that encouraged the two to sign up for the site. (“Monica said I should make a magic friend account I thought it was another of her silly attempts to "help me out of shell." [sic]) So aside for Helena and Millicent’s lovely parenting, those two are to blame. Also, aside for one comic that Harris didn’t see the need to publish with full pages (thus making it nearly unreadable), this is the first time Annabelle is seen smoking. It will come as no surprise to anyone that Soto wrote the comic. Harris is on solo writing duty again, along with editing and, interestingly, the cover art which I don’t believe for a second. If he can draw that well, why does he bother commissioning people who are worse than him? (It would definitely save him money in the long run.) Soto is on graphic design, typesetting, layout (none of the page numbers are in the space where they should be, and I hope you like burnt orange with neon green accents), and proofreading, as well as art duty with four other people. A “Deborah ‘Yankee Diva’ Dodge” is listed as the book’s “Muse”. Dodge is/was Harris’ S.O. and Denora Desade may be her self-insert. (That, or Harris went out of his way to find a girlfriend who looks like her and has the same initials. Also, why was I able to find a wiki page for her?) According to the table of contents, there should be a foreword from Brooke Horn, the actress who was going to play Annabelle in one of the umpteenth aborted Witch Girls movies, before the rest of the book. There is no foreword. (There is a blank space next to the Table of Contents and disclaimers (“Don’t smoke or drink if you’re underage. Don’t be wicked.”) where it probably should be though.) Unless it’s talking about the quote at the top. That quote is one of many from Annabelle scattered around the book. The book starts off by trying to emphasize that they’re going for cartoon style villainy, not real world style tragedies. Wicked Ways posted:We say wicked and not evil as we're covering more standard story book villainy and not real world style madness and atrocities. This is just a game after all. It then explains that the main purpose of the book is to help Directors and players build better, more rounded villains and morally dubious characters for their games. (Along with helping directors run “wicked” games.) Which is fine. But unfortunately, it feels like hollow lip service compared to what is actually shown from the NPCs’s actions. Hell, you don’t need to look any further than the opening comic for this very book to find a contradiction. There’s no reason for most of those transformations other than “that sounds like fun”. And while there are updated character sheets for some of the designated villains here and in later books with some token attempts at giving them some motivations behind their shittiness, they don’t really do much and again, feel incredibly hollow. Especially considering that there is nothing indicating that Harris is really trying to distance the game from its older materials and fluff. A new version would have been a great opportunity for him to completely overhaul the fluff. But again, that would require .There’s also the fact that designated good characters like to indulge in some of the same actions as the designated villains. I also don’t think that Annabelle would endorse a book that implies that she’s anything less than a powerful sorceress capable of destroying you with a pointed look with no deep insecurities or issues fueling her actions. Anyway, this chapter is mostly just lists of ideas for reasons, means, and goals for wicked characters. They’re all valid reasons, but the way nearly all of them are written seem to have at least one thing that seems… off to me in their reasoning. First up is Catalysts: reasons why a character would decide to be wicked. These are:
Annabelle Deville posted:...my cousin Janette once tried to use silly mortal psychology to figure out "what's wrong me" The only thing she discovered that me imploding her bedroom was a far larger issue than my personal ones. When I said the comics tend to forget that Annabelle is evil, I mean it. The two get along really well in the comics and rarely raise a spell on each other. She probably got the idea to do that from Lucinda. She does make everyone around her worse. Next is a list of possible goals that wicked characters might have.
Annabelle Deville posted:... Most people don't understand the burden of being better than everyone else. In fact most people live a life with little r no meaning. Even among my own kind many are just satisfied with being a face in the crowd. Next is the methods that wicked characters use to achieve their goals (or, as the book calls them, “methods of the madness”). A lot of these are just the Seven Deadly Sins and some don’t really fit with their category name.
Wicked Ways posted:The key to a good wicked characters are the key to making any kind of character and not falling into the same cliches that are common to villainous persona. This comes after a bit that talks about villains who might do long winded monologues. Such characters have a time and a place. And honestly, if you’re going for more cartoon style villainy, this might be the place for them. Also, what do clichés have to do with villains who are villains 24/7? Up next:  : Witch Edition
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Apr 14, 2016 07:35
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Doresh posted:I wonder what kind of lung cancer you can get from smoking people. Does your lung slowly turn into Belial from Basket Case? Witch Girls witches are immune to all mundane diseases and aren't affected by (I assume only the bad effects) of tobacco and alcohol. So all the little witch kids can smoke 10 packs a day of people cigarettes and drink nothing but 40s and never have any health problems. I assume it's specifically there to take out the "smoking is bad for you" reason when someone objects to Lucinda smoking. Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Apr 14, 2016 |
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Apr 14, 2016 19:32
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 Part 2: How to Get Away with Murder by Using Lists It’s been established that the Witches World Council doesn’t give a poo poo about much. They do, however, care about two things when it comes to magical crime: Curses and spells that remove a person’s free will, both of which are considered to be a form of assault. Other lesser crimes, like using your magic maliciously or stealing, are just “frowned upon”. Of course, because this is Witch Girls, this section goes on to mention all of the ways witches get around being punished these crimes: claiming they were acts of self-defense, having the injured party ignore them out of fear of their powers or losing their social standing (guess there’s a “snitches get stitches” aspect to their culture), or just being really powerful and living in a Highbinder controlled area. Wicked Ways posted:Otherkin and mortals living in the magical world know that depending on the local magistrate and government their rights may or may not be guaranteed. Then why live there? Thankfully, both immortals and vampires have started their own organizations of magistrates that make it their job to go out and punish witches who aren’t getting punished by the local law or the WWC for their crimes. The WWC probably isn’t happy about this, but they go over the other governments all the time so gently caress them. Now for the highlight of this chapter: What happens when the WWC actually gets off its rear end and punishes people for being lovely. If a witch is caught by a WWC magistrate (which might not happen depending on where they are), they usually get hit with one of three punishments: a fine, community service, or binding. There is no trial. The magistrate has the final call and Lilith help you if you get someone who is a wicked rear end in a top hat themselves. Binding is usually reserved for repeat offenders whose crimes include mass destruction and death, and is the most feared of the punishments, natch. Here, have a chart.  As the term suggests, binding turns magical beings into mundanes. They can’t cast magic, lose all of their immunities, and age normally. (So if their sentence is long enough, it is theoretically possible for a witch to die of old age.) For witches, this is “a fate worse than death” and many will try to get an alternate punishment. (Which the magistrates or WWC, if it’s a major world-threatening crime, have the final say on as well.) These are usually one of the following:
Because this is Witch Girls, and because this was written in one go and Harris forgot that he already talked about some of these things, the book goes into more detail about all of the ways one can get out of being punished for a crime.
Of course, if crimes are committed in the mundane world, the magistrates don’t give a poo poo unless it’s something major. The next paragraph is so badly worded that sounds like it end up meaning the opposite of what it should mean. Wicked Ways posted:The magical world is ill prepared for dealing with Wicked witches in an official capacity. With the exception for a few small "fringe' agencies magic is something mortals do acknowledge as a real thing. Next is a rundown of all of the mortal societies dedicated to protecting mundanes from the witch menace. Some of them are repeats. (The section on freelance hunters includes a mention that 90% of them die on their first mission.) In terms of new agencies, we have:
Annabelle Deville posted:Heroes? Bah, more like delusional busy bodies out to force their morality on others. Silas Black did nothing wrong. The “organized villainy” section is the same as the heroes one. For new entries, we’ve got:
The last section is just about how evil witches see killing as unoriginal and boring and prefer to do things like torture, transform, drive insane, and bind the powers of their targets. Chapter’s over. Have some pictures.  That guy doesn't look like he's bothered by his predicament.    There's nothing really wrong with this one (other than the Wingdings name tag). I just like the penguin's expression. Up next: New character creation options Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Apr 18, 2016 |
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Apr 18, 2016 19:48
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Halloween Jack posted:Regarding Wicked Ways, this is reaching back a few updates but...am I the only one who noticed that the Japanese witch is a ninja, the Indian one is a snake charmer, and the African teacher is based on the only African myth every white kids learns about in elementary school? If a witch isn't white she's probably barefoot in a stereotypical ethnic costume. It's more like every character that isn't white or black and from America is some sort of stereotype. There's also the weird undercurrent of all German witches being evil or mean-looking. In Harris' defense, the Coventry stuff is obviously older than everything else. Though the bad characterization still pops up here and there. Simian_Prime posted:How does WGA keep having supplements published? I've literally never heard of it outside of this forum. My guess is a combination of Harris being bad with money and not knowing when to stop spending it (and then putting out more half-assed rambling supplements or splitting up existing books to make it up); him getting cheap as free art from Soto, putting Photoshop filters on stock photos, and taking advantage of Deviantart's users' bad tendency of devaluing commissions and not paying them in full; and possibly having a dedicated core of defenders. (I know there's some people on TV Tropes who are really into it.) After a point, the credits for the supplements are pretty much just Harris, Soto, and the handful of people they could scrap together for extra art and "playtesting". I also spent money on these. So that probably helps too. :\ Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Apr 19, 2016 |
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Apr 18, 2016 20:35
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hyphz posted:My understanding is that the current round of supplements were all funded by a Kickstarter for a mega-huge book called Witch Girls: Book of Shadows which was going to include almost all the material from the current supplements, including Respelled, Cryptonomicon, Wicked Ways and so on. Which was seriously postponed when for some reason Harris decided to sue Disney (!!!) for putting a witch called Lucinda in an episode of Sofia the First. I know. I mentioned it at the top of the first book's writeup. Hence the "bad with money" part. Also just bad at running a business in general.
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Apr 18, 2016 21:26
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Part 3: How to Play a Wicked Character Using Charts Annabelle Deville posted:To be wicked, you must commit yourself to being twice the witch as everyone else. A wicked witch who isn't up to that usually doesn't last or worse turns into a Hench-Witch (which to me is a faith worse than binding.) Meanwhile, Lucinda probably already has her pegged as her top Hench-Witch. Wicked Ways posted:Supplements not only add new information but no rules , abilities, cliques and more to the game for Stars and Directors. This book is about as long as the Respelled one and this chapter and the fourth one are why. It’s a poo poo ton of new character creation options. It also has this lovely picture right at the start.  Yes, I’m pretty sure that is Harris and Soto getting transformed into furniture by their underage NPCs. First up is the new cliques. As to be expected, they are all different archetypes of wicked characters. Brat  Annabelle Deville posted:...Witches like Lucinda Nightbane do not care about your rules. She has the power and right to do as she pleases and cares not how others view her. She is the princess and everyone else is just peasants shuddering in her presence. Brats are ignorant little shits who think all of the bad things they do are normal, and ignore everyone who says otherwise. They also tend to have goals behind their wickedness and are loyal to their friends because Lucinda is obviously part of this clique and they need to say something positive about her. Even though her old skill block shows that she definitely knows that what she’s doing is wrong and just doesn’t give a gently caress. Their starting bonuses are Tantrum (+1 to rolls against the first target that hits her in combat while losing 2 points in Reflex) and Wicked Wonder. (+1 to rolls when doing wicked deeds. If it’s a spell, they can spend a zap point to do +5 damage or make the spell permanent.) Bully  Annabelle Deville posted:Jennifer Beaudeux loves to intimidate and threaten and knows that her "attitude" can get almost as much due as her magic. I don’t know if I prefer the cotton candy swirl or the anime hair on her… Bullies like to establish a natural pecking order by making others fear them. Also “many are brave to the point of foolhardy knowing seeking weakness as the greatest weakness”, whatever that means. Their starting bonuses are The Glare (targets get a -1 to all rolls against them for D6 minutes and cannot take any actions against them if they fail a Will vs Will roll. This has a range of 30 feet and costs 1 zap.) and Wicked Rage (+1 to rolls to do wicked actions and wicked attacks cause +D6 damage and ignore D6 points of armor). Imp  Annabelle Deville posted:Olivia Saks is a wild child of a witch who sees the world as her personally play ground. Imps like to make chaos reign (which is apparently the new raison d'être of all witches) and show others how to have fun. That latter aspect tends to make them a lot of friends. Their starting bonuses are Wild Magic (can mimic a spell from a type she doesn’t know once a day at the cost of double zap and with the restriction that it can’t be of a rank higher than her highest one) and Twisted Wicked. (+1 to rolls to do wicked actions, successful and funny actions make the target lose their next action. This only works once per target per combat scene.) Prima-Donna  Annabelle Deville posted:It goes without saying I'm perfect. It's a known fact that others should just accept. Prima-Donnas think they’re perfect and get frustrated when others don’t acknowledge their perfection. On the plus side, they tend to make others want to be more confident… somehow. Their starting bonuses are Ego-defense (Can spend a zap to add her Social die to rolls to resist damage) and Wicked and Right. (+1 to rolls to do wicked actions, +2 if they’re Will or Social rolls.) Ringleader  Annabelle Deville posted:Claudia Deville [sic], Daughter of the Wicked Witch of the West Coast, Denora Deville is for lack of a better my frenemy. Ringleaders use minions to get things done and are well known for their excellent organizational skills. Their starting bonuses are Minions (10 starting allowance points to spend on minions) and Wicked with a Plan (+1 to rolls to do wicked actions; minions and allies helping her get the bonus as well). The book says that they are slightly more powerful than the vanilla ones from Respelled, but starting stats wise, they’re pretty much on par with the standard cliques. All of the new cliques get 10 starting Magic ranks; D8s or 10s for their Magic die; a die spread of either a D4, three D6s, and a D8; or a D4 and four D6s; and either 15/15 starting skill points or a 12/18 or vice versa spread. None of them have Niches. Next is a rundown on 3 new Classes: Nobility (Wealth 4; +1 to Social; a free rank of Charm, Gossip, and Leader), Traveler (Wealth 2; +1 to Body; 2 free ranks in Language, Hide, and/or (due to a missing word) Streetwise), and Underworld (character’s family is an organized crime group; Wealth 3, +1 to Will, 2 free ranks in Streetwise and Urchin). None of them are higher than Rich, but Rich doesn’t get a bonus in one of its attributes. So there’s something of a fair tradeoff now, I guess. Next is Skills. There’s only one new skill: Insult. The rest is just a rundown of all the ways you can be an rear end in a top hat using some of the existing ones. As for the other ones… Fib has a difficulty chart and is contested by Will.  Leadership has a new “Supervise” action that lets them give +1 roll bonuses to another person for a minute or combat scene if they succeed on an Easy roll for one person, or a Hard one for a group. They also have a “Tactics” action, which comes with another big old chart.  If they fail the roll, everyone involved gets -2 Reflex to dodge attacks and -3 Armor. Tactics can be resisted with Mind + Tactics... even though it’s not a separate skill. Leadership is also either a Mind skill or a Social skill depending on whether you go by the chart at the top of the section or the blurb for it. Scare can be used to “Intimidate” (-1 to rolls against them with a successful Scare vs Will or Plucky roll) and “Break” (three successful Intimidate rolls in a row makes them obedient to you if they fail an Easy roll to resist for an hour) targets. Urchin now has a roll chart for picking different types of locks…  …and can be used to pick pockets by rolling it against the target’s Mind or Senses. Insult is a mundane Social skill that determines how well you can verbally poo poo on a person. It has two sub-actions: "Belittle" (give a target a -1 penalty to rolls with a successful Insult vs Will or Plucky roll) and "Taunt" (Belittle, except it also forces the target to attack them until they are either defeated or resist the insult with an Easy Will roll). On the magical side, here are two new skills: Naming and Sympathetic Magic (which was an ability/knack in Coventry). Unlike other skills, they have prerequisites. Naming requires Casting 4 and Mysticism 3 before you can use it, and Sympathetic Magic requires Casting, Craft (which isn’t a skill), and Curse 2. There's no mention of what happens when you fulfill the requirements. Do you get a rank automatically? Do you have to put points into them? Naming is a system developed by the Fae that is used to augment spells and dig up info on other people. It requires learning a person’s true name. For mundanes, it’s just their full name. For inanimate objects and animals, it’s just a generic name that is commonly known. For magical people, it’s more complicated. Wicked Ways posted:Magical people know this all if not most have a true name they keep hidden. This name is usually known only to the magical person and possibly a close friend or parent. A powerful enough name (What masters of naming call themselves) can also change a person's true name once they know the original true name. In doing so they can even change their personality or even their form ) I should point out that up until now, there has been no mention of this true names stuff or witches taking on alias to prevent this from happening. Every witch NPC that’s been introduced goes by the name their parents gave them. So I’m going to guess Harris saw the shadow name/true name stuff from Changeling or Mage and thought it would be cool to add it in despite the fact that there’s no in-verse justification for it. To discover a true name, you need to do a series of Impossible rolls or ask the DM to run a personal campaign for you. Wicked Ways posted:Finding a person's true name is near impossible (Literally taking a successive with out fail Impossible Gossip, Mysticism and Naming roll over the course of D12+8 days of research to succeed.) The best way to find a true name is either ask or through an adventure courtesy of a director. If you recall, an Impossible check requires rolling an 18-22. Once a person’s name is discovered, the namer has to spend 2 zap and succeed on a Magic vs Magic roll against them. The namee knows instantly when it is happening. Failure means they can never use that name again. Succeeding lets the namer use the person’s name do all of this crap.  People who have had their names used like this can resist their tormentor’s spells by spending the same amount of zap points spent on the spell and succeeding on a Hard Will or Spell Breaking roll. Sympathetic Magic is the art of using voodoo dolls, called “poppets” here. Doing this lets you get around the range limits of spells. To make one, you get a bit from the person or thing, spend 5 zap, make a Hard Sympathetic magic roll, and wait the target’s Resist Magic score in hours, or 3 + D4 hours for non-magical items. If the target has a higher Resist Magic than the creator, they can’t make a poppet for them. When using one, you add 2 to the zap cost and can do all of this stuff.  Witches who suspect that someone has made a poppet of them can do an Easy roll to find it. Wicked Ways posted:Witches suspecting poppet use can use Sympathetic magic , Curse or Divination magic to Find a poppet. This takes an easy Sympathetic magic or Casting roll and like a poppet has a limit range to determine the location of the poppet. To demonstrate one of the many ways a poppet can be used, here's a picture of Lucinda drowning someone.  (By the way, Lucinda doesn't have all of the requirements to use sympathetic magic.) Next: More wicked character creation crap. Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Apr 24, 2016 |
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Apr 23, 2016 08:08
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Part 4: Lists of Wicked Traits and Magic Wicked Ways posted:The wicked talented a given for wicked characters which is why it's built into the new wicked cliques. New traits, y’all. Talents Ambitious: Spend a zap to add a +1 to magic or combat rolls if the one point will make it a success. Cold:  . +2 to resist things that alter their emotions.Critical: Wicked Ways posted:The Critical person sees the flaw in everything and the weaknesses in everyone. To them the world is flawed and it’s her job to let everyone know it. Can spend an action to get a +1 to rolls against a target and ignore a point of their armor. Cruel: Likes to see people in pain. +1 to rolls against targets they’ve already caused pain to or humiliated. Liar: A free rank of Fib and can spend a zap to “remove the minus to a fib that show its difficulty”. Larcenous: A free rank of Urchin and Wealth. Narcissistic: “The character’s confidence about themselves gives others confidence in them.” Can spend a zap to declare a roll a success once per day. Snarky: A free rank of Insult and “all minuses caused by her insults are improved by 1”. Which basically looks like it adds an extra point to any penalties Insults cause. Sneaky: A free rank of Hide and gain a +1 to damage dealt when they’re behind cover. Whimsical: +2 to see through illusions and resist damage from them. Heritages Circeress: Wicked Ways posted:When you cross a Circeress, (Or just happen to be around when she’s bored) you might as well be saying “I want to be a toad, or a squid or a two headed cabybara . A Circeress go to spell is to turn the target into an animal be it a person, a thing or another animal. Of course this list starts off with the pre-requisite bonuses for Alteration users. Circeresses get a free rank in Alteration, can make a spell to turn someone into an animal permanent for 1 zap and -1 to the Casting roll, and can spend an extra 2 zap to add the Lingering augmentation to an animal transformation. Commander: +2 ranks to Leader, all of the maneuver bonuses are doubled, the character starts with 10 Allowance points to allocate towards minions, (It doesn’t say whether or not it stacks with the 10 you get for being a Ringleader.) +2 to rolls to see through disguises and hidden characters, and gets a +2 to attacks and damage against a target after a successful attack. If the character is a Ringleader, they should probably take this. Enchantress: A free rank in Mentalism, Charm, and Scare; mind control and altering spells always use the lowest either the target’s Magic or Will to calculate resistance; and +1 to their Social die. Echidnist: Wants to awaken Echidna; too insane to realize that they’re just being used by her. Not that this matters because Echidna seems like she should be the last of anyone’s worries in this setting. +2 to rolls when dealing with monsters and non-witch echidnists, can speak the secret language of Echidna which makes them immune to negative uses of her name and something called the “Gibbering of Echidna”, can spend 2 zap and speak the language to give people within 10 feet a -1 penalty to all rolls for a minute if they fail a Hard Will roll, +1 to Casting when invoking the name of Echidna, +2 if the spell causes misery. Ghulvin: Ghulvins are descendants of Echidna who need to eat other witches, otherkin, and/or humans to heal and regain zap (up to their maximum amount). The favored method of consumption is turning people into foodstuffs, though some go the Hansel & Gretel route and just chuck people into ovens. The WWC officially says they’re a myth while unofficially condemning them, while Highbinders loving love them when they exclusively eat humans. They gain +1 to their Magic die and can spend 2 zap to give themselves a rank of Legendary Strength, Fitness, or Speed (with a max of three, if you can find the rules for the last two) for a minute. Hate-Blood: Witches who are part Hate, the primordial beings that Echidna made vampires, Ghulvins, and shapeshifters out of. They look normal until they feel any negative emotion, then they gain dark hair, blue or dark purple skin, bat wings, and turn into violent assholes. In this form, they also get a +1 to their Body. In and out of those forms, they also gain night vision, get +1 to resist darkness and shadow spells, can spend a zap to use their wings to fly at 50 mph, and spend a zap to gain talons that let them do +2 damage. Highbinder: +2 to Casting against mortals, +1 to Casting against “lower class” witches and otherkin, +1 to Magic and Social dies, and can recognize other Highbinders by sight somehow. Nobility: The Titled talent from Coventry in heritage form. Applies to nobles and royals in power and exile. The blurb suggests that you consult with the DM before taking this since it might affect the other players and game. They get +1 Wealth and 5 extra skill points at creation, get an additional +1 Wealth and +2 to all of their Social rolls when they’re in their homeland, and gain +3 to any roll once per day as they call on contacts from their land. Shadowmancer: A free rank of Shadow magic, which is explained further in the chapter, and +1 to rolls when using it; +2 to resist shadow magic; can see in the dark; +1 to social rolls with shadow creatures; and “-1 to Casting and +1 to zap” when adding the shadow advantage to spells. Terror:  The Creepy Kid clique from 13 Magazine in heritage form for witches over the age of 11. Usually unnervingly calm and have a deadpan voice. In other words, they’re Wednesday Addams. They get 2 free ranks of Scare, all of the penalties when they scare someone are doubled; they themselves are immune to fear-causing actions; and when someone is frightened by them, they can spend a zap to either make them lose an action or get a “-1 to casting and +1 to zap” to spells against them. For new Knacks, we have… Positive Claws - +2 to damage when using their freakishly thick nails. Coquette - +1 to social rolls when interacting with people she’s attracted to. Can only be taken by witch girls tween and up. Crazy Eyes - -1 to Initiative to one target. Envious – Can spend a zap to gain +1 to their next roll when a friend succeeds on a roll. Gluttonous - -2 to resist magical poisons and harmful potions. Infamous - +2 to social rolls when dealing with other wicked characters. Monster Whisperer - +2 to social rolls with monsters. Night Vision – Self-explanatory, but also gets weird-looking eyes. Pointed Ears - +2 to Senses rolls when hearing. Screech – Spend a zap and an action to screech. If targets fail an Easy Will roll, they get a -1 to their next roll. Negative: Arch Enemy – Must make a Hard Will roll to harm the person they considered to be their arch. Because they define themselves through them and want to keep them around, you see. Bad Habit - -1 to Life points due to an unhealthy habit like eating only sweets or smoking “despite [witches] being magical”. Yes, it’s been mentioned multiple times that smoking doesn’t harm witches. This knack is an exception because reasons. Clothes Horse - -1 to Initiative because they spend so much time picking out their outfits and sometimes wear cumbersome ones. Itchy Spell Finger – When someone annoys them, they have to succeed on a Hard Will roll to not lash out at them magically. Hater – Wicked Ways posted:The character loves putting those in positions or regard and popularity down. Being a known hater means the character is -1 when dealing with the rich, powerful and famous. Maniacal – Succeeding on two rolls in a row forces the character to make a Hard Will roll. If they fail, they start laughing and acting wildly, reveling in their own greatness. Plotter - -2 to resist being surprised, since they spend a lot of time thinking up plans. Softy - -1 to rolls against children, animals, and the elderly. Sun Shy - -1 to rolls in direct sunlight. Can be avoided with an umbrella. Annabelle Deville posted:Magic is power and in the end that's what it's all about... POWER! The Magic section begins with that and the note that the only thing really stopping witches from destroying whole cities with a wiggle of their finger and having them stay destroyed is the WWC. Lovely. A lot of the new advantages/augmentations have “Alter Resistance” under their title for some reason. Addictive: Makes the target addicted to the caster and their magic. -1 to resist the caster’s Social rolls, which can be increased to -3 with each subsequent hit in an hour. Last D6 hours. Dark: Can be applied to damage-dealing spells to make the target lose a D6’s worth of zap per hit. Grinding: Will make harmful spells stay on a target and increase the duration and damage MTR of the spell by 1 per round, up to a max of 3. Horrific: Makes the target make a Hard Will roll. If they fail, they get a -2 to all rolls against the caster and will try to flee from them. Lasts D6 combat rounds or minutes. Knockback: Targets hit by the spell must make a Body or Athletics (probably the latter since that adds the Body die) vs the spell’s rank + 3. Failure gets them knocked back D4*5 feet. Hitting something makes them take half falling damage. Works on inanimate objects as large as a car as well. Lingering: Lets the caster recast the spell if it fails a round later instantly at no extra cost. Subtle: -2 to detection rolls and the spell doesn’t have any visual effects. Tagging: The spell tags the target, letting them know where they are from up to 50 miles away. Unstoppable: The spell partly ignore resistance and armor and always does 1 point of damage for 5 dealt normally. Weakening: The target makes a Hard Magic roll. If they fail, they get a -1 to their Body die for an hour. If it drops to less than 0, they will die in D4 minutes. Like the Skills section, the Magic section introduces two new types of magic powers: Binding and Shadow. (The book also mentions that they will be similar to the powers that will be explained in the “upcoming” Otherkin book. This book is over a year old and, as of this writing, said Otherkin book has not materialized.) Unlike other types of magic, these types only give one kind of ability per rank. Binding is a rare, secret art that is difficult to learn and supposedly kept secret from the general witch pop, even though it’s one of the WWC’s primary ways of punishing criminals. Only witches can learn how to do it, and it requires having Curse 6, Healing 3, and Mentalism 3 to do so. Binding people without the WWC’s permission will get you bound or exiled, and undoing a binding notifies everyone involved in the binding. (In case you’re wondering, Millicent, Lucinda’s older sister, can’t bind her. She doesn’t have the required Curse score.) Rank 1: Can sense if people in the area are bound witches. Rank 2: Can see the face of the person who bound the person when touching them. Rank 3: Knows the reasons why a person was bound. Rank 4: Can actually bind people. This is a Rite roll and can only be done to people with a lower Magic die than the rite leader’s. Rank 5: Can undo bindings. Also a Rite roll. Shadow is Obtenebration from oWoD Vampire with different abilities and without the weird focus on tentacles. It gives you night vision for free and replaces all of the shadow abilities that were previously covered by Necromancy. There are no prerequisites listed for it. Rank 1: Can cover a 5 by 5 foot area per rank in shadows, giving anyone without night vision a -2 +1 per rank penalty to sight rolls. Rank 2: Can create a hand-to-hand or melee weapon out of shadow. +1 to attack rolls per rank, 5+1 damage per rank, and lasts for a minute per rank. Rank 3: Can bind a target in shadow, creating a prison of 3 HP and 2 Armor per rank that must be destroyed to free the person. Rank 4: Fire a blast of shadows that does standard MTR damage. Successful hits cause the target to succeed on a Hard Will roll or get a -2 to all of their rolls for D4 minutes. Rank 5: Teleport from one shadow to another. Rank 6: Can turn into a shadow and move as a 2D image along surfaces at double speed. It’s a -4 to detect them and they’re immune to mundane attacks. Next: Another big equipment section. Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Apr 28, 2016 |
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Apr 28, 2016 00:55
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Part 5: Lists for Minions and Sanctums The equipment section in this book introduces two new systems: Minions and Sanctums. Along with the usual stat block, minions have an extra attribute, Loyalty. Whenever they are told to do something, their Loyalty score is added to a roll of their Will die to determine whether or not they’re willing to do it. The blurb implies that it’s a die, but the stat blocks have it as a static number. Have a chart.  If/When they die, minions can be replaced by spending 10 voodollars. This will give you a new one with the same stat block and abilities. (Which the book refers to as a “new hire”.) The stat blocks are always the same and can only be changed through add-ons. The book doesn’t entertain the notion of someone going out of their way to bring a minion back from the dead or undoing an ailment with their magic. If it’s good enough for Channel M’s villains, it’s good enough for you. For minion types, we have Assistant: Runs errands, does research, anything that doesn’t require actual combat. Costs 5 points, has a Loyalty of 3, and has a stat block of D4s and 6s. Their special ability lets a character spend a zap to have them instantly be nearby. Brute: Dumb muscle that is only good for kicking someone’s teeth in. Costs 8 points, has a Loyalty of 2, and has a stat block of mostly D4s with a D6 in Senses and a D6+1 in Body. Their special ability gives them a +1 to resist diseases and harmful potions and poisons, and they ignore 2 points of damage. They can be outfitted with 5 points worth of weapons and armor. Lackey: Used for menial jobs that even the assistant is too good to do. Cost 3 points, has a Loyalty of 5, and has a stat block of D2s and 4s. They don’t have a special ability. Ninja: Deadly, stealthy assassins. Costs 10 points, has a Loyalty of 4, and has a stat block of D6s, some D4s, and a D2 in Social. They have two (actually three) special abilities: a -2 to be seen and hit in dim light or darkness, move twice as fast, and have a +2 to Initiative and Dodge rolls. They can have 5 points worth of weapons. Pawn: Inside agents in positions of power. Costs 6 points, has no Loyalty stat, and a stat block of D4s with a D6 in Mind and a 2 in Magic. Their special ability gives them a +2 to social rolls when dealing with their superiors. Spy: Acquires info and items. Costs 10 points, has no Loyalty stat, and a stat block of D6s in everything except Magic, which is a D2. They can be equipped with 5 points worth of weapons. After picking a template, you can spend points to add stuff from a list of minion add-ons. Right on down the line, we’ve got Bodyguard: (Costs 3 wealth) Can spend a zap to automatically take a hit for the character. Homunculus: (4) The minions has spare clones of themselves. When they die, it only takes 2 zap and 5 voodollars and they keep all of their memories. Hyper Reflexes: (7 per rank, up to 3 ranks) +1 Reflex, agility, and dexterity. The latter two don’t exist, so just Reflex. Hyper Stamina: (5 per rank, up to 3) +2 life points, +1 to resist disease and poison, and halves the amount of rest the character needs. Hyper Strength: (5 per rank, up to 3) Oh hey, finally some god drat rules for this thing! +1 to Strength based Body rolls, +2 to hand-to-hand damage, +10 feet to jump distances, and can lift +1,000 pounds. Loyal: (1 per rank, up to 3) +1 to Loyalty. Magic Resistant: (5 per rank) +1 to Resist Magic against everyone but their boss. Monster: (7) The minion is one of the following:
Skilled: (“1 3 skill points ((Maximum 3 ranks)” “A Minion is limited to have 5 ranks in any one skill.” Quantity: (2 per minion, up to three) Get more minions. The extras have a -1 to their Body and Mind dice. Shrinkable: (3) The witch in charge of the minion can shrink them down to 6 inches or less for 1 zap. The minion cannot resist the spell. Blah. Annabelle Deville posted:I feel having a place to yourself is important for witches like us. So Titania Morganne, the headmistress of the best magic school in the multiverse and the former director of education for the WWC, is evil now? Sanctums are places witches have set up for themselves where they can go and do magic in private. The only requirement in terms of location for one is that it must belong to the witch. (This means that bedrooms in parents’ houses are okay, but dorm rooms are not. Even though children technically do not own their bedrooms any more than a college student owns their dorm room.) Standard sanctums cost 10 points, are 50x50x10 feet, and have 10 life points and 5 armor. While in their sanctums, witches have a +1 to all of their rolls, a -1 to the zap cost of spells, and automatically stabilize if they get knocked out in it. The witch can spend a zap to change the color of the walls and anyone trying to find it has a -2 penalty. All other features require buying an add-on. Architectural Control: (3) Spend a zap and change the walls, floors, furniture, whatever to anything. Bigger on the Inside: (3) Turns it into a TARDIS without the time travel abilities. Death Ward: (7) Prevents the owner from dying if they’re in the sanctum. They may need to be healed to full first before they’ll reform though. Maybe. The blurb is a bit confusing. Dungeon: (7) The sanctum has a dungeon for keeping prisoners. Has 20 life points and +4 armor. Needs to be taken multiple times to have more than one cell. Guardian: (7) The sanctum either has a physical being protecting it or the sanctum itself is partly sentient and can defend itself from intruders. The stat block for all types of guardians is 12 life, 3 Armor, 10 Reflex, 9 Resist Magic, D6+4 Fighting, D6+4 Scare, and 1 Action. Their special abilities are Illusion Body (Makes them immune to Mentalism spells, lets them camouflage themselves as anything, and lets them reform in the sanctum if they die if the owner spends 5 zap.) and Attack (does 10 damage and lets the guardian attack from anywhere in the sanctum). Increased Size: (4 per rank) Doubles the size of the sanctum for every rank taken, along with adding 10 life and a point of armor each. Has a note telling directors to make sure players don’t ruin the game by making their sanctums the size of whole towns. This and “Bigger on the Inside” could probably be used as a workaround for people who don’t want to go through the effort of making a pocket dimension. Increase Alignment: (10 per rank, max 3) Adds an additional +1 to the owner’s rolls, while adding a -1 to other witches in it. Off the Grid: (3) All of the appliances and doodads in the sanctum are powered by magic. Place of Peace: (5) To heal, the owner only needs half the amount of sleep and gains +2 to Focus rolls. Place of Power: (5) The owner regenerates zap at twice the rate and always has at least one zap. Recall Door: (4) Lets the owner access her sanctum from any entrance way. Doesn’t work as an exit. Self Repair: (10) The sanctum and objects in it repair themselves at D4 life points a day. Spectral Servant: (3 per) Hires ghosts that take care of the sanctum’s upkeep. Must have a designated job. Traveler’s Door: (5 each) Let’s the owner place multiple entrances in multiple locations to their sanctum. The final section of this chapter is an overview of character creation. It is focused on this lovely individual.  Bad copy-paste or a wig? You decide. This is Maggie Root, a Snarky Ghulvin with a lovely Temper. She’s a member of the Imp clique and has “Shrink Person” as one of her signature spells. Despite not having the requirements for them, she has a +4 and +6 in Naming and Sympathetic Magic, respectively, and uses the latter frequently for pranks. Annabelle doesn’t like ghulvins. Annabelle Deville posted:I'm not a big fan of Ghulvin, but as they go Maggie isn't a bad one if you can get past her persist sarcasm and her looking at people you like a potential snack when she thinks your not looking. And now, pictures.  Oh look, Lucinda just assaulted the (arguably) most visible and important mundane on the planet. Also, this totally won’t date this book in a few months.  One thing I've started to notice is that Harris likes to reuse the “fanart” that other people made for him. Usually by editing the pictures into new pieces.     Next: Why is there a write up for the Underworld in the chapter about game themes?
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May 11, 2016 20:13
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Kaza42 posted:These are WG fans, though. It's entirely possible they volunteered it, or gave permission for free. Which you shouldn't do, as it devalues everyone else's art, but I can see it happening. I have a hunch that some or all of these pieces of fanart are just commissions, hence the quotes around the word. Of course, if he didn't get permission to alter the images, it's still lovely.
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May 11, 2016 22:03
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Part 6: I Don’t Know What Moods and Themes Are. Also, the Underworld. Wicked Ways posted:Game building for wicked Star-characters isn't something that should be considered lightly. The chapter starts with a list of possible moods. All of which are actually genres. It stresses that having a consistent mood is important because otherwise, the game will either devolve into slapstick silliness or get so dark that it becomes unplayable. Adventure: The easiest one to run. More exciting than one with a cast of characters that aren’t assholes. How? Use your imagination. Comedy: Take a lot of effort. Best used as satire. Drama: Lets you focus on the repercussions and consequences of when a character “breaks bad”. Horror: Seems easy until you realize that the logistics of the main characters being the hellspawn causing the horror can be tricky to figure out. Instead, it might be better if the game was about them dealing with the hellspawn they unleashed. That’s their words, not mine. Mystery: Characters with questionable moral codes are great for mystery stories. You could also put a twist on it and have them trying to frame someone else. Romance: Bad girls need love too. Totally done all the time in trashy paperback novels and soaps. Considering the characters in this book do not like being told “no”; kidnap, torture, and kill people on the regular; and are stupid kids either on the cusp of or going through puberty, I can only imagine what would happen to the people who catch these assholes’ eyes and don’t just conveniently happen to have a transformation fetish. For potential themes, we have Anti-Hero: Beat up Highbinders and hunters while being just as much of a dick as they are. Good for people who want to be good and bad. Caper: The characters break into places and steal poo poo. Takes players and a DM that are willing to do a lot of roleplay, but can lead into more capers if you want to make a long-term game. On the Run: Play a game where the characters are accused of and possibly did commit a crime. Good for globe-trotting games that keep things exciting by putting them in different locales. Raising Echidna: Echidna is totally still a thing that’s relevant, you guys. Why not run a game where the characters actually awaken her? The conflict is they have to do it in a way that won’t make her just murder them when she wakes up. Super villain: Superheroes! Fight the WWC and hunters in silly costumes with grandiose plans! Doesn’t make mention of the next supplement and the game it’s tied to, oddly enough. The Game: Game of Thrones with witch and otherkin families. It even mentions weddings going wrong. Wicked Ways posted:One aspect of " the Game" should be building emotional attachment and not being afraid to do away with characters. Emotional attachment to a character is usually what keeps people from being willing to kill them off. I bet that if you put Lucinda or any of the other obvious creator darlings in this type of game, Harris would probably throw a fit and make up some bullshit excuse as to why they don’t die. World Domination: Can be worked into other themes. Players fight against the DM to take over the world. Can be fun for everyone. Harris was out of ideas at this point. The last part of this chapter is a very barebones write up of a pocket realm simply called “The Underworld”. It sits between the Witch Girls World and another realm called The Shadow. It was founded in 10,081 BC and is ruled by an individual named Lord Hades P. Anubis, who is assisted by an “undercouncil” of criminal guild leaders. The next chapter has character sheets and bios for NPCs. He and the other NPCs in this section don’t get one. It’s very obvious that this was just shoehorned into this chapter at the last second for… some reason. Anyway, Anubis is actually a fusion of three different people. The first is a man named Hades who came into the then empty Underworld when his “dimensional barge fuel” ran out and the ship destroyed by “outriders” when he was in the Shadow. He eventually came across two alternate dimensional versions of himself, Pluto and Anubis. The two of them, both lacking the power to escape the Underworld on their own, worked on a ritual to combine their powers. Somehow, Hades knew that the ritual would combine the three of them together and leave him as the dominant personality. So he tricked them into doing it. When they merged, he realized that he could just stay and turn the realm into his own personal kingdom/criminal refuge. So he did just that. Now it’s a thriving place full of zombie farms, night metal mines, and where anyone can find anything for a price. If any of that doesn’t make sense, don’t worry. That write up is just as half-assed as it is in the book. While in the Underworld, characters only regain their zap at a rate of D4 points a day instead of whatever their Magic die is, and Necromancy and Shadow spell rolls and MTR get a +1. Getting into the realm without a Toll Portal requires Time and Space 4 and a -4 penalty to the Casting roll. If you fail you get teleported to The Labyrinth. As the rule implies, access to the realm is regulated by Toll Portals, which require going through immigration bullshit and giving the guards either 5 zap or an item of value. Portal agents can find people who need their services and arrange passage into the realm. The portals always dump travelers into the station in New Hades, the largest town in the realm, where all the immigration and travel regulation nonsense takes place. Surrounding New Hades and something called “the night land” is The Labyrinth, a maze of caverns and cliffs separating the town from the rest of the Underworld. As mentioned, people unsuccessfully trying to get in without a toll portal get dumped here. Though it can be entered normally from entrances around the Underworld. Flying and teleporting out are impossible due to “alterations in reality”. To get out, a character either needs to hire a guide (who may or may not actually guide you) or get successes on 24 Impossible Mind or Games rolls. (Remember: An Impossible roll requires at least an 18 to succeed.) Getting out of the Labyrinth takes, on average, a month, an dumps you out into someplace called “the river bad lands”. The landscape of the Underworld is nothing but black stone and infertile dirt broken up by hills, valleys, and the river Styx. The sky is a red haze during the day. Nothing grows naturally in the Underworld, so the main economy outside of criminal enterprises is zombie farms and night metal mining. In the middle of the Underworld is Hades City, which may or may not be New Hades. Despite being run by conmen and bribes are required for any sort of peacekeeping, it’s a very orderly city. There’s socio-economic issues among the populus, but this entire realm is full of criminals so who gives a poo poo. Anubis’s palace sits in the center of the city. He never leaves its throne room. Wicked Ways posted:Hades himself hardly every leaves the council, most thinks its because he has all he needs there, but the truth is his Throne is literally the center of the Underworld and its from there he can shape poo poo and view it with impunity. Uh oh, looks like little Makaylah and Addysyn just got exposed to a swear word in this children’s game for children. (To be fair though, tweens probably hear worse in school all the time.) Turns out the source of Hades’s power is his throne. If anyone sat in it, they could take control. Where did it come from when he found out he could just stay and make the realm? Who knows. Other places of note include: The river Styx: Tastes like rotten flesh so everyone has to purify it with magic or import bottled water. Despite this, most of the townships are right by it. Also it’s poisonous so you couldn’t even drink it if you got past the taste. Despite this, it’s a tourist attraction. Wicked Ways posted:While poisonous the Styx is still beloved by tourist and those in the city. Taking tours across it or dipping children in it in hopes of making them invincible (that's just a myth of a myth and doesn't work and children usually just throw up and cry after being dunked) are near pastimes in parts of the city. Repeatedly making your children violently ill: a national pastime. The Necroworks: The largest employer in the Underworld. Augments zombies. Run by a witch named Lilia Adams that is plotting to overthrow Hades and take over the underworld and her family. Is the second largest polluter in the realm next to… The Nightmetal Refinery: Owned by Hades. Does exactly what you think it does. Under Market: A market run by the “under guild” that deals in forbidden magical goods. Trades in either other goods or Joss, crystals of pure magical energy. After this is a very short rundown of notable NPCs. They only get a paragraph each. The ones for Hades and Lilia tell you everything I’ve already said other than that Hades still has multiple personalities due to the other two dudes in him despite the fact that it said Hades is the one controlling them. The other two are Anna Ranne: The high priestess of the Temple of Echidna that’s in the underworld. Has written books on how great Echidna is and attracts tons of pilgrims. Also wants to overthrow Hades. Boss Rogon: The current leader of the Under-guild and former resident of some place called Farsia. Doesn’t want to overthrow Hades because he realizes that making himself the center of attention is bad for his business. That’s it. Are you wondering why Hades is immortal despite the fact that it never says what he is exactly? Wondering where the whole throne thing came from? Wondering why the gently caress anyone who isn’t a criminal that would shiv the first person who tries to make them a slave would live there? gently caress you. The book doesn’t say. Up next: NPC character bios, some of them repeats with Soto art. One of them would probably piss Tumblr off. Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 05:00 on May 23, 2016 |
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May 23, 2016 00:25
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You know, I've always wondered what Harris thinks of my WGA write ups. Now I have an idea.Malcolm Harris posted:The Geeksiah Speaks- "Haters hate me cuz they ain't me. Also, I break people who disagree with me." Okay, buddy. Also, not quite sure how I feel about the people who went up to this guy at a convention and tried to fight him.
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May 24, 2016 19:43
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SirPhoebos posted:"Someone was saying my game sucks but a Marine came and punched him out." Actually, according to a comment, he just stands up and the naysayers run away in fear. Some guy posted:I picture some little guy ranting and raving at your booth until you stand up and look at him irritated, then they feel about an inch tall and cower back. Malcolm Harris posted:That's usually how it works. No mention of everyone around the booth clapping and cheering though.
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May 24, 2016 20:59
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Way, way back, but...LongDarkNight posted:Shrinking fetish, it checks out. Sounds more like he's just a big dude and is using that to intimidate them. Pretty sure the cigar just a cigar in this case.
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May 25, 2016 16:12
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To chime in on the lack of feedback thing, that was part of the reason why I stopped my two non-Witch Girls write-ups. (After a while, I worried I was doing something wrong in the oWoD Demon one.) WGA at least stays bad in enough interesting ways to keep my attention and want to share it with others. And I hope it's that way for others and not just a minor version of Beast chat.
Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Jun 4, 2016 |
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Jun 4, 2016 01:12
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Part 7: A List of Redundant Character Sheets – A to J I just realized something while I was writing this part: If the WWC considers Curse and some Mentalism spells to be a form of assault, why do all of the WWC accredited schools that have write ups have courses on them? There’s no indication they’re “Defense Against the Dark Arts” types of classes. Anyway… Annabelle Deville posted:Wickedness is a life style choice and along with it comes the dangers of rivals and heroes. The last chapter is just a bunch of NPC character bios. There’s a blurb before everything starts about making villains for your game. It’s just basic common sense stuff and “don’t make the same character over and over”. I’ve noticed going through these character bios that, while they’re mostly just copy-pasted from the core, some of the more questionable bits have been removed and some things have been added in an attempt to make the characters a bit more fleshed out. So there is some indication that Harris has caught on to some of the problems with the game and made some attempt to fix them. Or at least paid lip-service to them.  Captain Alphonse de Oso Alphonse is your generic dashing rogue type of pirate who does it because it’s fun and exciting. He probably talks like Jack Sparrow. Like Boss Rogon, he comes from Farsia, a magical steampunk version of Earth that was constantly at war with the lovely evil empire that Lucinda is from before heroes killed her parents. During the confusion caused by the Nightbanes’s deaths, he stole one of their “dimensional galleons”, hired a crew (that is completely loyal to him so don’t even try to incite a mutiny), and now travels the multiverse looking for adventure and treasure. His first stop was Oz. Yes, that Oz. He tried to raid the Emerald City, but failed. Then stole a magical artifact from an almost magically dead world after almost getting stuck on it and jumped to the Underworld. Then he pissed off Hades by stealing 3,000 Joss and his favorite coat. He’s been traveling the multiverse for 2 years. Most of the allies he has in Farsia assume he’s dead. Some of the plot ideas for him include him disguising himself as a teacher to get at something, and wanting help activating an artifact called the “Eye of Echidna”, because you’d definitely want the help of a bunch of 12-year-olds and not a grown adult expert in such things. Then again, stat blocks being the way they are in this game… Alphonse is credited to someone named Kalen S. Lewis. Based on a quick Google search, he looks like a self-insert. Or Soto assumed he was and just based him on the dude’s pictures. Who knows. Alphonse is a Rank 3 NPC. He is a “Mortal-Charmer” with the Entertaining (the Entertainer talent without the ability to add MTR bonuses to spells) and Witty (can use Joke or Insult with Charm; completely different from the version in Respelled) talents, the Farsian heritage (free ranks of Mysticism and Crytozoology, can purchase magic items, can have Farsian occupations, and get a nebulous bonus to Magic), and no Knacks. He has a D10 Social, D8 Body and Mind, and D6 everything else (with a +1 in Magic). He has 95 mundane and 11 magical skill points. His clique gives him a +2 to resist fear-inducing skills, abilities, and spells, and let him spend a zap (up to 3) to add a +1 to a roll or resistance or ignore damage. These are not the abilities that are given to the Mortal-Charmer template that shows up in a later supplement. Per his heritage, Alphonse gets to have an occupation. His is a “Performer (Rank 5)”, which gives him the “Maestro” ability, which lets him regain a zap point with a successful Hard Singing roll. His other abilities are “Calming Song” (spend a zap and roll Singing vs Resist Magic to give people within earshot a -5 to all of their rolls), “Ballad” (spend a zap, sing about a person or group, Singing vs Resist Magic or the targets get a -3 to resist Social rolls and a -1 Hit or Dodge from the subject of the song,), and “Glib Tongue” (+2 to Fib rolls against a specific target for 6 hours if they succeed on a Fib roll beforehand). Along with the galleon, his equipment includes a crew of 12 lackeys and a night metal cutlass (which inflicts wounds that can only be healed magically and drains a zap from the target when it hits). No, his bio doesn’t mention anything about him being a singer before he took up piracy.  Anna Raj Anna has the same bio from the core. The only difference is she was born 421 years ago instead of 406. That is still long before the British Empire had any control over India. So the part about her family living under their rule and wanting to raise her as a proper British lady still makes no sense. She also hangs out with Harris’s second self-insert and helps his organization out on the weeks when she decides to play Robin Hood. For stats, Anna is now a Rank 3 NPC instead of a Rank 4 one. The Urchin talent from her other sheet has been replaced with Trickster. Her Magic die has been bumped down to a D8+1 (instead of a D12+2). She’s gained ranks in Divination and Offense and lost two in Protection. Her illegal ability to turn into a snake with only Alteration 1 has been replaced with proper signature spells. These are “Danger Sense” (Divination 1; senses traps and gives a +4 against them), “Fumble” (Curse 1; makes target drop carried objects), “Invisibility” (Illusion 3; makes character invisible to one sense), and “Forget” (Mentalism 3; makes person forget up to a day’s worth of events). For new equipment, she has a Bag of Holding and a cobra familiar that can turn invisible and is either named “Djinn” or is part-djinn. It just has “(Djinn)” next to it. No explanation given.  Argus Society Member Like minions, Argus Society members are given a set stat block (with D6s and D6 +1s in everything) that is added on to by assigning them a role. They’re just the specialties from 13 Magazine with the Techie renamed to “Engineer”. Each specialty gives a +1 to an attribute die, 3 ranks in 4 skills, and a special ability, which are copy/pasted from 13 Magazine, typos and all. While they can pick their Talents, all members have the same heritage that gives them a nebulous bonus to Magic, lets them see ghosts and magical stuff, and makes them immune to mortal avoidance charms.  Arthur Pendragon: There’s nothing new in Arthur’s bio. It’s just the one from the core. Though Silas Black and various Echidnists want to get their hands on Excalibur now. The former because he thinks it’s the greatest witch-killing weapon, and the latter because they think it prevents Echidna from awakening somehow. Arthur is an “Immortal-Leader”. The Otherkin book is not out at the time of this writing. So if you’re not Harris or Soto, have fun trying to figure out what that means. His attribute dice have been lowered; D8s in everything except Social (D10) and Senses (D6). His weird unusable “Warrior: Righteous” trait has been replaced with the Brave talent and a heritage called “Ancient Item”, which gives Excalibur and himself extra points of armor and lets him spend a zap to know where it is. Along with all the buffs to his physical stats, he also has the ability to heal people and remove poisons and diseases by spending a zap and touching them. He doesn’t have Excalibur’s scabbard anymore, and the sword itself still has its crazy portal-making abilities, damage buffs, and magical immunities.  Denora Desade Denora’s bio is more fleshed out in this book. She was born 75 years ago in Nice (spelled “Niece” in Coventry), France. (Presumably. This bio just says “somewhere in France.) Her parents owned a “small and struggling” winery. Somehow, they didn’t equate having a good product with making more money, so they used her as slave labor and I guess tried a bunch of crazy schemes that didn’t involve making wine or… something. When she was 11, the staff of Coventry discovered her and brought her to the school. The power and wealth on display turned her into an evil poo poo. She dropped her accent, learned English, and started pretending to be a “posh” British sorceress. (Which brings up another question: What does Coventry do about the whole language barrier thing with students from non-English speaking countries?) After school, she moved to Los Angeles and helped prop up the elite of Hollywood. Then she became the Great High Witch and moved to San Francisco. Naturally, being evil, she wants to become the Exalted Enchantress. Witch hunters on the east coast, not the west, want to kill her, and while she has allies among the Highbinders, she herself is not officially one. Right. One of her plot hooks is forcing the player characters to be friends with Claudia. Helena was still her roommate, but Denora’s age has been bumped up by 25 years. So unless Harris bumped up Helena’s age and didn’t see the need to point that out anywhere, Denora was still in Coventry at 25 and rooming with an exceptionally talented fetus. Denora is a rank 5 NPC. She’s now a member of the Brat clique with the Narcissistic and Sneaky talents and the Enchantress heritage. The blurb for Enchantress doesn’t mention some of the stuff she should be getting. Her Mind and Will dice have gone down a size (D8 and D6) and her Magic is now down to a D10+1 (from a D12+5). She now has 60 mundane, 56 magical, and 25 magic ranks. (Highest is still Alteration, but it’s gone down to 5. She also has points in Sympathetic Magic. Which she can’t have if you assume that by “Craft”, they meant “Build/Repair”, which she has no points in.) Along with “Cigar” (which is now an Alteration 5 spell), her signature spells now include “Denora is Always Right” (Mentalism 4; target has to obey Denora and not do stuff she hates), “Improve Life” (Curse 5; improve a person’s life for a week), and “Time Edit” (Time and Space 4; can make a small change to a person’s past a day before). She also gets 5 free points of armor because gently caress you. Along with her cigarette holder wand and car, she has a Purse of Holding and a penthouse apartment that serves as a sanctum.  Dracula Dracula’s bio’s been tweaked a little bit; Him and Echidna are now lovers (Cthulhus need love too, I guess), and it implies that he was the historic Vlad the Impaler. Near the end of World War II, his sense of duty to “what was once his people” made him betray Ingrid Frieze and the Nazis. (Presumably, this would have been around the time Romania had that coup and switched sides to the Allies.) She tried to kill him with a spell, but thanks to one of his caskets, it just put him in hibernation for 50 years. Now he’s back and plotting to resurrect Echidna with that three keys thing that never comes up. He’s prone to monologing and generally a good dude to women and children that aren’t trying to screw him over. Dracula is now a rank 7 NPC. His clique is just “Vampire”, his talents are “Cold” and “Jaded”, and his heritage is a new one called “Dabbler”. It gives him the ability to cast spells, free ranks in Casting and Mysticism, and a nebulous boost to his Magic attribute. His attribute dice have been lowered to D8s (Body, Mind, and Senses) and D10s (Will, Social, and Magic). Thanks to his heritage, he has 14 ranks in magic; highest being Shadow. He has a bunch of stat bonus for being a vampire, a vulnerability to gold and haloium weapons, and gets a free rank of “Hyper Movement Flight” and a +1 to rolls against vampires that aren’t part of the Dracul bloodline. He also has 10 points of armor that works against all kinds of damage… because. For equipment, he has 30 points worth of minions (and can use 6 of them to make them a vampire), 5 magical caskets (one in the Underworld) that make him immune to Divination magic and let him reform in them when he dies, and “The True Castle Dracula” that acts as his sanctum.  Echidnists Echidnists are handled in the same way as Argus Society members. (While an Echidnist can be any kind of witch beforehand, they always have these templates.) Their base stats are D6s in everything but Social (D4) and Magic (D8), 28 pre-selected mundane skill points, 21 magical skill points, and a heritage that is a little hard to decipher due to no editing and bad image layering.  For equipment, all Echidnists get a Twisted Wand and a Every different type of Echidnist gets a +1 to a attribute die, 3 free ranks in two skills, 2 or 3 ranks in four different Magic types, and a special ability. For types, we have:
 Gary Reed Gary still believes in the Witchspiracy and is still a lovely human. Except now, he has more money and equipment thanks to Harris’s second self-insert buying out his tabloid and giving him money. Even he wonders why someone is willing to give him so much money, seeing as he has never found hard proof of the Witchspiracy. Oddly enough, the WWC protects him because they think his presence keeps witches on their toes. The WWC is just trolling everyone now, really. Gary’s been bumped down to Rank 2. His attributes and traits are the same except for his heritage, “Detective”, which give him a Senses die boost, a +2 to solving puzzles, +1 to find traps, and can make a roll to see if someone is telling the truth. For equipment, he has a car, a camera the size of a matchbox, and a Smart Phone that has a -3 to hack it.  Ingrid Frieze Witch Hitler no longer killed her parents, and the thing about her only getting ousted from her job as a Magistrate because she killed the wrong person has been changed to her just leaving after realizing that she didn’t believe in the WWC’s policy when it came to mortals. (She is still a student of Reinhexxen though.) The WWC bound her when they caught her during World War II. Since then, she’s been trying to build up her forces in any way that she can. Everyone except the Highbinders, Echidnists, alternate versions of herself, and Queen Gothel want her dead. So she has the distinction of being the one person in this universe that nearly everyone looks at and goes “gently caress that bitch”. Ingrid is now a Rank 7 NPC. She is a Ringleader with the Critical and Cold talents and the Amazon heritage, despite the fact that her bio makes no mention of her actually being one. She’s got 82 mundane skill points, 46 magical skill points, and 43 magic ranks. (Highest is Alteration, Curses, Offense, and Necromancy with 6. Her Mentalism has been brought down to 4.) Her signature spells are “Bend” (Time and Space 3; -3 to hit her), “Disintegrate” (Offense 5; completely destroys a target), “Ghost Army” (Necromancy 6; calls D4 wraiths), “Hounds of War” (Alteration 6; turns a person into a bull sized wolf that she can control, kind of terrifying), and “Lightning Bolt” (Elementalism 3; does 20 points of damage). She also has 5 points of armor thanks to wards. Along with the soul-sucking ring, she has a hidden sanctum base and thousands of minions, 60 points of which are available at any given moment.  Jezebel Wilkins Jezebel is 1,638 years old, so her bio about being the daughter of Swedish immigrants from Kansas makes no sense now. I think that might have supposed to have been the year she was born, but that still doesn’t make sense since a lot of the original 13 colonies and the Louisiana territory weren’t even established then. The part about her trying to protect the family cattle from the local native tribe has been changed to her meeting a medicine woman who was just hanging out somewhere outside of her family’s farm. “Jez”’s Social and Magic dice have gone down to a D8 and a D10 +1, respectively. Her heritage has been changed to “Arcane Aptitude”. She has 64 mundane skill points, 40 magical points, and 34 magic ranks. (Highest is still Divination with 6.) Her signature spells are “Brambles” (Elementalism 3; doesn’t 10 points of damage if you try to escape them), “Cuff” (Conjuration 2; creates handcuffs), “Forget” (Mentalism 3; makes the target forget a day’s worth of events), “Jezzy Sense” (Divination 4; knows if a witch is breaking the law “witin a vitithin a away”), “Reflect” (Protection 3; does what it says), “Six Shooter” (Offense 4; turns her hand into a gun and does 15 damage), and “Silence” (Alteration 2; remove’s the target’s mouth and vocal cords). She also has 5 points of armor on her thanks to wards. Her equipment is her motocycle, her magistrate “bade”, and 20 points of worth of potion pellets. More characters later.
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Jun 4, 2016 04:50
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Part 8: A List of Redundant Character Sheets – M to S  Mcdonald/Macdonald Hartman Meet Malcolm Harris Self-Insert #2. He is the head of Maximum Institute/Incorporated. He first discovered witches when he was 12, when his homemade miniature radio telescope caught sight of a girl flying around on a broom. Eight years, several homemade computers, and an ion-engine flight pack later, he finally caught up with her again. His bio doesn’t say what happened between them, but all of his homemade inventions made him a lot of money and turned him into the WGA World’s Tony Stark, complete with the power suits, but not the alcoholism, womanizing, morally questionable defense contracts, or stint as a terrorist group’s hostage. (He also created the setting’s most popular video game console because why not?) Two years ago, he discovered Trinity Valley, a pocket dimension in the Dallas area, with a miniature black hole. Somehow, that black hole didn’t destroy both dimensions. Instead, this and not the witch chick he met when he was 20, introduced him to the WWC and the rest of the magical world in general. He kept the discovery to himself and his inner circle of friends and uses his company’s immense wealth to go on magical time and space adventures. He’s allies with Arthur and Gary, Silas really loving wants one of his power suits, and the plot hooks section is borderline gibberish.  Macdonald is a Rank 5 NPC. He is a “Mortal-Adventurer”, something that is not in any of the books, with the “Brainiac” and “Jock” talents and a custom heritage called “Gadgeteer”. This halves the time it takes him to build and repair devices, let him instantly figure out how something works for one zap, and “spend a zap point to make a one use mundane device instantly from available supplies device". (I guess that means he can MacGuyver things.) His attributes are D10s in Body and Mind, D8s in Will and Social, and D6s in Senses and Magic. For skills, he has 118 mundane skill points and a 3 in Mysticism. (Fun Fact: He’s fluent in 8 languages.) Most of his skills are at a 6 or higher. For equipment, he has a smart phone with ultraviolet and infrared cameras, the Maximum Inc. compound as a sanctum, and the Gladius Armor Mark 2.  Someone with a high enough MTR in Alteration can get around all of that in one action. Then again, someone with a high enough MTR in Alteration can instantly win nearly every fight if no one’s immune to it.  Malleus Maleficarum Trooper Rank 2, D6s and D8s in attributes, 51 pre-determined mundane skills (not including points in Computer that aren’t listed), 9 pre-determined magical skills, +2 to resist things that induce fear, can add +1 to rolls for a zap, works the same way as Echidnists and Argus Society members. Their heritage gives them a +2 to resist mind control abilities, +1 to rolls if they’re working in a group, and +2 damage against witches. For specialties, we have
 Maximum Inc. Member Instead of going through the various types of Maximum Inc. employees, the specialties section just runs down the members of Macdonald’s special world-saving inner circle of friends. All of them, save for one, is a Rank 4 NPC with D6s and D8s in their attributes and 44 predetermined mundane skill points with a 4 in Cryptozoology and a 5 in Mysticism, and the same “clique bonuses” as MM troops.
I see we’re backsliding into the “NPCs have things PCs can’t get” thing again with the custom heritages… Oh, and here’s the stats for the Gladius Mark 1.   Olivia Maxis Way back in the original core, there was a mention of West Grove, the Grecian magic school run by Hestia Maxis that’s gone to poo poo because her sister’s been funneling money from it into her own projects. Say hello to that sister. Their mother was a famous Greek actress, and Olivia wanted nothing more than to follow in her mother’s footsteps. She would have been able to do it if the assholes at Coventry hadn’t dragged her to the school. (There are mentions of witches being homeschooled. Why couldn’t they have just done that with her? Child actors are homeschooled and have on-set tutors all the time.) She resented no longer being the special snowflake of her social circle and immediately used her powers to regain her fame when she finished school, along with starting her production company, Maxis Studios. (No relation to Will Wright’s game studio, of course.) The company is now the most successful film studio in the Mediterranean. She used her money to modernize West Grove and set her younger sister up as its headmistress. She frequently uses the school to mine for new talent. Not anyone that outshines her though, because she’ll crush you if you’re more popular than her. The WWC is worried that she’ll take over the AAN, Macdonald and her had “sparks” when they met, Denora was a schoolmate of hers and hates her, and Queen Gothel wants to be her ally. Olivia is a Rank 4 NPC. She’s a Prima-Donna with the Ambitious and Mary Sue talents and the Hypnotic heritage. She has D8+1s in Social and Magic, D8s in Mind and Will, and D6s in Body and Senses. She has 74 mundane skill points (and speaks 6 languages), 38 magical skill points, and 16 magic ranks. (Highest is Mentalism with 4.) Her signature spells are “Hideous” (Alteration 3; makes the target ugly and gives them -3 to Social rolls), “Mesmerize” (Mentalism 2; +3 to Social rolls), “Perfect Lighting” (Illusion 2; +3 to Social rolls under the light), and “Talentless” (Curse 3; -3 to all performance based and art rolls for a day). For equipment, she has her golden feather headpiece that gives her 5 points of armor and lets her ignore damage from falls, 60 points of minions, one of the 7 “great magic mirrors” that gives her bonuses to Divination spells and lets her view people for a zap, and her villa sanctum.  Pay-Back/Payback Remember the guy who had his family set on fire by Denora because he asked for her insurance info after a fender-bender? This is him. Dan Glover is a sergeant and member of the U.S. Special Forces who had just come back from the Middle East when Denora murdered his wife and children. The event broke him mentally, causing him to start referring to himself in the third person and narrate his life. He spent a year in a mental hospital before being dumped onto the streets, homeless and penniless. (You know, like a cartoon and not real life.) Thankfully, he was found by one of the employees of a person named Mr. F. After some time, Mr. F revealed himself to him.  No, Denora didn’t do that to him. It was another interchangeable sexy wicked witch that he accidentally annoyed. He used Mr. F’s vast fortune to buy some witch-hunting equipment and went after Denora. The second he got to her house, Claudia turned him into a rabbit.  He obviously got better though, and he’s been spending his time hunting wicked witches in order to build himself up for another encounter with Denora. Highbinders and Echidnists want him dead, while Denora doesn’t seem to give a poo poo since it doesn’t mention her being one of his enemies. Him and Gary are friends, but Gary thinks he’s weird. Payback is a Rank 3 NPC with the Brave and Unshakable talents and a custom heritage called “Hunter”. (+2 to recognize witches, ignores 2 points of damage from witches, does +2 damage to witches, +1 to resist spells.) He has D6s and D8s in everything (with a D8+1 in Body) with 57 mundane skill points (with an unlisted amount of points in Computer again) and 9 magical skill points. For equipment, he has binoculars, body armor that lets him ignore 5 points of damage, a crossbow with cold iron arrow tips that does 10 damage, flash bang grenades that can deafen a target for D4 minutes, a katana that does 13 damage, a motorcycle, a smart phone, a pair of shades that give him immunity to bright light bursts, and a taser that makes the target unable to move for a minute, then staggered for D6 minutes.  Project Stormwall Agents Exactly what you’d expect. Rank 1 NPCs with set attributes (D6s and D8s), skills (41 mundane, 9 magical), and heritage (Detective).
 Puck I… Hmm… I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and don’t automatically assume that everyone that does something that could be even slightly perceived as problematic is a Secret Turbo Hitler, but this is… Also, they somehow managed to make Anderson Cooper look like absolute rear end. I didn’t think that was possible. Anyway, Puck. He’s an unseelie fae who is super old and no one really knows anything about him because he’s so hard to pin down. He might be one of Mab’s sons or grandsons. He’s played pranks on a lot of the characters in this chapter. (Silas Black kicked his rear end when he tried and now wants to kill him.) Young witches and fae think he’s hot and will sometimes summon him just to meet him. He’s friends with Alphonse and Loki, who is an Immortal and doesn’t have a sheet. Puck is a Rank 5 NPC with the Snarky and Trickster talents and a custom heritage called “Shifter” (+2 Reflex, can alter his shape to twice his size or half as small and has a -1 zap cost to do it). Because he’s fae, he can spend a zap to turn into a human; alter his shape, voice and clothing; and he’s vulnerable to both regular iron and cold iron. For attributes, he has D6s in Body and Senses, D8s in Social and Will, and D10s in Mind and Magic. For skills, he has 68 mundane, 10 magical, and 7 magic ranks. (Illusion 4 and Mentalism 3) He can fly up to 160 MPH, stretch his limbs, and has a pair of “7 League Boots” that let him teleport up to 100 feet away for a zap.  Queen Gothel The evil queen and fairy from every Brothers Grimm story ever and the headmistress of Reinhexxen, the Evil School. Gothel was born to mundane parents and lived as one until adulthood, until a local witch decided to point out that she was one and oopsie, because she didn’t know that until then, her magic was almost gone. Thankfully, she got so pissed off that she reawakened her powers through sheer force of will. She went on to turn her husband into a toad (but it’s okay because he was an abusive shithead) and took over the German town she lived in and the nearby Black Forest. After several centuries of terrorizing mundanes, she tried to stage a coup of the WWC, failed, and only got a slap on the wrist, it seems, since she still has all of her powers. She eventually reappeared and opened Reinhexxen. She’s using the school and its students to try to take over the world again. The WWC has her under surveillance, but they still accredited her school and let her run it, so they must not have that much of a problem with her. I refuse to believe they don’t have someone as powerful as her that they can throw at her. Gothel is a Rank 4 NPC. She’s a member of the Imp clique with the Cruel and Whimsical talents and the Nobility heritage. She’s got a D12 in Magic, D10s in Social and Will, a D8 in Mind, and D6s in Body and Senses. For skills, she has 76 mundane skill points (and speaks 6 languages fluently despite having only 4 points in Languages), 78 magical skill points (with an 8 in nearly everything she has points in, and a 7 in the ones she doesn’t), and 96 magic ranks (with an 8 in everything except Protection (9) and Time and Space (7)). Her signature spells was “Contract” (Curse 5; target gets +2 Social, but Gothel can leech their HP and zap forever), “Go Away” (Time and Space 5; sends the target to a random dimension), “New Life” (Mentalism 5; replaces a person’s entire identity, memories, and skills and makes them completely loyal to her; makes the plot hook where she tries everything in her power to make the PCs to join her kind of pointless), “Toad/Frog” (Alteration 3), and “Warped Witch” (Conjuration 6; creates an item the target wants that lets Gothel see through it). She also ignores 15 points of damage because of wards. For equipment, she has 50 points worth of magical artifacts, 60 points worth of minions, a menagerie of monsters of all ranks, another of the magic mirrors that Olivia has, and Castle Gothel, her sanctum that she can control the architecture of and can defend itself. If you need any more evidence that NPC rank is a pointless stat that means nothing, it’s the fact that Gothel, with her ridiculous amount of near GM fiat “I snap my fingers and win” abilities, is a rank lower than Macdonald.  Silas Black The only thing that’s changed in Silas’s bio is a paragraph that adds that he took a break from witch-hunting to help the Allies’ magical community during World War II. To make up for the dreaded crime of not murdering witches on sight, he killed the ones he worked with when the war ended. Wicked Ways posted:In the 1940's he did take a break from hunting to deal help the allies fight the axis in the secret magic war, there he fought alongside witches until the war was won. For that "sin" he slaughtered over a dozen witches he was with at the end of the war. As subtle as a sledgehammer to the face. Silas Black still did nothing wrong. Silas is a Rank 7 NPC. He’s a Brawny Immortal, whatever that means, with the Cold and Relentless (“+1 to rolls at half Life o points and +2 to rolls at 1/4 life points”) talents and the Promethean heritage (gives him control of fire). He’s got D10s in everything except Mind (D8) and Magic (D12) with 90 mundane skill points and 31 magical skill points (he knows Leyology). Along with ranks in the various hyper movement abilities and 10 points of armor, he has 9 ranks in something called “Fire Control”, which lets him control, sling, and turn into fire. For 8 zap, he can throw a fireball that does 50 damage. For 3 zap, he can cover himself in fire and do 16 damage to anyone that touches him. For an additional 2 zap, he can add a caveat that the fire from any of his abilities can only be extinguished with magic. He also has a communicator, minions in the form of MM troops, and a sanctum in Ireland.  Shadow Kin Shadow kin are the descendants of humans and otherkin that ended up in the Shadow for whatever reason. They hate light and creatures of light, don’t have much in the way of technology, and can be hired for the right price. They’re mostly nomadic and evil. Shadow kin are Rank 2 NPCs. They have D6s in everything except Social (D8), 41 mundane skill points (with 3 points in language with no free point for their native language like other characters have had), 9 magical skill points, variable talents, and no heritage. They can see in the dark, get 2 free ranks of Shadow magic, are immune to said Shadow magic, take -4 damage from light attacks, -1 to all attributes when they’re in a well-lit area, and take a point of damage every minute when they’re in said areas. Shadow kin are divided up into clans, which determine their attribute and skill bonuses and special ability. All of the names of the clans are awful.
For equipment, which can be assigned and added to however the DM sees fit, include night metal arrows that do 10 damage that can only be healed with magic; night metal swords that do 13 damage that can only be healed by magic; and little squid-like creatures called Shadowsite that gives the person they’re attached to 5 points of armor, +5 HP, and +1 Body in return for -1 Magic. Up next: The appendix, with stuff about Saint Joan’s Reformatory and more character sheets. Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Jun 8, 2016 |
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Jun 7, 2016 22:32
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Part 9: The Reform School is Run By Awful People  The write-up for Saint Joan’s Reformatory was, at one point, posted on Facebook. I made a post about it way back when. (A lot of the stuff from that post has been scattered around the various supplements.) It’s been reprinted nearly word-for-word in Wicked Ways. So you can just go to that link and read it yourself. But if you can’t or don’t want to do that, here’s another one. Saint Joan’s was created in Antarctica in 1789 to contain and reform minor witches (12 to 18 years old) who have a history of committing crimes. For some reason, the WWC treated it as a “dirty little secret”, because punishing repeat criminals is bad somehow. If you’re at Saint Joan’s, you are one crime away from having your magic bound for life. The living conditions are cold, cramped, drab, and grey. Students’ magic is not bound, but they have to keep their hands visible at all times, and it will be bound for up to several weeks if they end up in a “gulag”, which is basically solitary confinement. The write-up stresses that the school is not for typical witches who like to occasionally turn people who annoy them into things or shoplift. Wicked Ways posted:Directors should keep in mind Saint Joan’s isn’t for witches who use magic to steal trinkets from a magical store or turn a mundane neighbor into a toad. Those kind of crimes if discovered would most likely end in a fine or at most a few days binding of magic by a magistrate. The girls of Saint Joan's are dangerous or at least believed to be so (There are most likely a few innocent girls railroaded by powerful enemies or who ‘s crime was an accident). Witches who have destroyed entire cities, raised Zombie armies to attack enemies or who have cast curses so heinous that they defy description are the kind of inmates found at the school. Along with the write-up is profiles for three of the 15 staff members (divided up between 30 to 50 students the school has at any given time).  Paulette “The Stone” Stonebriar I see Agatha Trunchbull is still getting work. Paulette is the first and only headmistress Saint Joan’s has ever had. A Norwegian ghulvin, she was originally one of the cruelest magistrates ever employed by the WWC before they sent her to the school as both a form of punishment and as a promotion. No, I don’t know how that works either. She hated it until she realized that she could eat the occasional student, teacher, and wayward explorer and no one would give a poo poo. (She likes to turn them into mice and swallow them whole.) She likes making her students miserable. Paulette is a Bully with the Cold and Cruel talents and the Ghulvin heritage. She has D6s in Mind and Social; D8s in Body, Will, and Senses; and a D10 in Magic. For skills, she has 33 mundane skill points, 18 magical skill points, and 20 magic ranks (with 4s in everything except Necromancy, which doesn’t have its score listed). There are no signature spells are listed for her, but I imagine the Alteration move to turn people into mice so she can eat them is one. For equipment, she has wards that let her ignore 5 points of damage and minions in the form of reanimated zombies of corpses that died of exposure.  Marceline Swenson Marceline is the half-witch daughter of Olaf the Blue, a giant chieftain. (Who is apparently a Marvel style Jötunn.) When she was 18, she stole one of his boats, got lost on Earth, and ended up at Saint Joan’s. Stonebriar needed a Crytozoology teacher to replace the one she had secretly eaten, so she gave Marceline the job. She also teaches Elementalism. Marceline is an Imp with the Friendly and Whimsical talents and the custom Half-Giant heritage. It doesn’t say what the heritage gives her exactly, probably the ranks of the various hyper movements, the 5 free points of armor, and the bonuses (+1 to Casting and MTR) to ice spells that she has. She has a D10 in Body; D8s in Senses, Social, and Magic; and a D6 in Mind. For skills, she has 38 mundane skill points, 16 magical skill points, and 12 magic ranks. (Highest is Elementalism with 4). She doesn’t have any signature spells or equipment listed.  Nora Vanderhoven Nora is a former Saint Joan’s inmate (one of the first), a classical pianist, and the one bright spot that the school has. She was sent to the school when she enslaved most of her hometown of Boston at the tender age of 15. At the school, she did the unimaginable for a wicked witch in this setting: she realized that what she did was wrong. (Though she probably still casts malicious spells on people who annoy her like all the other designated good characters in this setting. She has ranks in Alteration, after all.) The fact that Paulette ate one of her friends (she has no proof that she did it) probably had something to do with it too. One of her likes is pissing off Paulette, so her decision to give up her “luxurious life” to come teach music to the students was probably to spite her for doing that. Either way, crimes committed by former students have gone down by half thanks to her. Nora is an Insider with the Friendly and Entertainer talents and the Melodious heritage. She has a D10 in Magic; D8s in Mind, Will, and Social, and a D6 in Body. For skills, she has 35 mundane skill points, 12 magical skill points, and 31 magic ranks (with an unlisted amount for Necromancy). (Highest is Mentalism with 6.) She has no signature spells and uses pianos as her foci. These characters all seem under powered for their age. Either the WWC doesn’t see the need to put competent witches at Saint Joan’s, or it’s to deliberately make a “breakout” story easier. (Probably the latter.) Considering how the headmistress acts, the book does heavily imply that’s what the setting is for. The last section is, you guessed it, more character sheets. This time for characters players can use.  Princess Dominique Opal Dominique (or Opal as the write-up calls her) is the youngest child of Glyndora’s ruling family. She’s secretly plotting to bump off the 8+ people in front of her in the line of succession and take over the island kingdom. How precious. Her character model looks incredibly familiar to me, but I can’t put my finger on who she is. I’m getting tired of summarizing the character sheets, so this batch is just getting screenshots.  Imagine these sheets as massive columns of words. That’s what I’m trying to transcribe most of the time. Maggie Root Yes, you can play the awful sample character! Maggie hails from Noir Aubrey, Louisiana. Her mother and aunts are also equally terrible ghulvins that the rest of the town blames for all of the awful poo poo that happens there. Half of which they’re actually responsible for. Maggie’s just fine with this and wants to live up to their legacy.   Miranda Contessa Malderojo Nice lips. Miranda is the descendant of an infamous family of wicked witches that terrorized Spain, Mexico, and the Philippines. Her mother, a member of the Godmother’s Guild, wants to get away from that legacy. When she’s not around, Miranda is an awful little poo poo that terrorizes mundanes.   Roxie Kildare Roxie’s family is boring. She doesn’t want to be boring. So she's decided to be a punk rocker. She also has lesbian parents thanks to what is probably a typo. Wicked Ways posted:A Dentist mother and tax accountant mother Roxie’s model is very obviously Pizzazz from Jem. (Her name is from Roxy, another Jem character.) There’s a picture of The Misfits casting Bellum Maga style Alteration spells on the Holograms on Soto’s Deviantart. So she’s probably got into the show and suggested that Harris put this character in. Considering how The Misfits act like spoiled children in the cartoon (and rarely suffer major, career-destroying consequences for it), they’re kind of a perfect fit for this setting. Links!   Sarah Austin/Kay Sarah lives in the shadow of her older sister, Kay. (Who will not come up for another book or two.) To separate herself from the bookish Kay, she became a hacker. That seems like a lateral move to me, but okay. Her style makes me think the one Bellum Maga Alteration expert is based on her.  It’s over! But I’m not done with this book yet! Up next: A bonus post. Just how much punishment is Lucinda dodging by being a writer darling, and why even the in-verse justifications for why it happens don't work. Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Jun 9, 2016 |
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Jun 9, 2016 20:08
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Part 10: Killing Channel M’s Darling I’m sorry. This post is incredibly pointless and assumes that the WGA universe operates under real world logic in any way. Just humor me please. So Witch Girls has now outlined just what exactly is supposed to happen when witches go around turning defenseless mundanes into poo poo and breaking the masquerade wide open on the regular. So now I get to do something I’ve been wanting to do since I discovered this supplement: If Channel M wasn’t so dead set on making sure that Lucinda never faces any sort of serious consequences for her crimes against humanity, just what kind of stuff would she be charged with and how long would her punishment be? (I was going to include Annabelle in this too, but she’s small potatoes compared to Lucinda. Also, the fire-breathing grasshoppers destroying a city should have sent her straight to Saint Joan’s. She doesn’t have an in-verse “Get Out of Jail Free” card like Lucinda does. As we’ll see in a second.) Now, to start off with, there are now two “Extenuating Circumstances” that keep Lucinda from getting her powers bound. The first one is “Youth”. This one’s pretty easy to excuse. Even in this fake universe with its questionably effectual government, the excuse of “kids will be kids and don’t know better” has its limits, as seen by the existence of Saint Joan’s. In the real world, if a 12-year-old child acted the way Lucinda does, ignorant or not, they would be facing years of criminal charges and/or extensive therapy sessions. (Not to mention probably not living with a family member that just lets them do whatever and has to get their permission to go out with friends.) Want some proof? Here’s a 14-year-old who got life for killing someone. Here’s an 11-year-old who served 12 years for killing two toddlers. Here’s the two idiot 12-year-olds that tried to kill someone in the name of Slender Man. Now, I’m sure Channel M will argue that no one Lucinda transformed was killed. But considering there’s mentions that little crimes like this get ignored all the time, we’ve been told that Lucinda gives no fucks about mundane fee-fees, and in one version of her sheet, making spells permanent is free for her, do you really think she changes these people back when she’s done having her “fun”? The second circumstance, and the one that was probably solely added in so she could walk free, is one that hasn’t been mentioned yet. According to her character sheet in another supplement, Lucinda has “Diplomatic Immunity”. The Principia Permutationis, page 45 posted:The WWC upon discovering Lucinda and her Sister was prepared to deport them to another realm or realm in fear Lucinda frequent uses of magic would reveal them to the mortal world. However a forgotten treaty between WWC Earth and the Empire granted both princesses diplomatic immunity. The WWC, and possibly Willow-Mistt’s staff, won’t punish Lucinda because of some previously forgotten treaty that says they can’t touch her. Unfortunately, diplomatic immunity laws can be that lovely. Multiple people have gotten away with rape and slavery, among other things, thanks to it. So as awful as it is, it is a valid excuse. However, there’s one big problem with that excuse: Lucinda and Millicent are not royalty. They are political refugees. Same Book posted:Before [Lucinda’s parents] were executed for various crimes against the people of their land Lucinda’s parents were the evil rulers of the Empire of 12 Worlds (or whatever it’s called on any given day). They were overthrown by some heroes and that is why she and Millicent are on Earth to begin with. Multiple books state that the coup was successful and that their parents are now dead. The monarchy, at least with the Nightbanes at its head, no longer exists. Ergo, the Empire as an entity, and presumably the individuals responsible for that treaty, no longer exist. And if the Nightbanes were as lovely as they supposedly were, I really doubt that many people are going to be willing to acknowledge Lucinda or Millicent’s claim to the throne if they ever return. I’m willing to bet that the heroes involved in the Nightbanes’ demise are probably looking for Millicent and Lucinda right now to prevent one of them from reestablishing the family’s rule. Something Lucinda would definitely do if given the chance, whether by herself or through Millicent. And if there’s some “no take-backsies” clause in the treaty, well I’m sure it would be no trouble for the WWC to contact the new rulers and have it voided, or just have it voided with the argument that there is no certainty in the Empire even having a functioning government at this point if they can’t get in contact for whatever reason. I mean, they have no problem undermining other otherkin governments. That shouldn’t be an issue for them. So despite what Lucinda might think and insist, she is not a princess anymore. And refugees don’t get special rules that make them exempt from the laws of another country. If this were written by better people, the WWC would have just laughed in Lucinda’s face when she threatened to turn them into cigarettes or whatever and told Millicent to either send her somewhere else or hit the road. (Lucinda or Millicent could probably try to pay off people too. But taking all of that into account, what’s to stop the WWC from just taking the money and running? No one’s morals are really static in this universe. It’s plausible.) (Also, if the WWC sees the Nightbanes’s titles as legitimate even after the Empire has fallen, that’s just more proof that the WWC is a bunch of assholes who shouldn’t be governing anyone.) So now Lucinda is a normal citizen subject to all of the WWC’s rules and restrictions. So over the course of the source books she’s in, how many demerits and years of binding would she rack up if she didn’t have writer’s favorite immunity. If you remember, Willow-Mistt runs on a demerit system of punishment. WGA Core, page 147 posted:Staff members can give [demerits] for bad behavior, low marks, or rule breaking. Usually, a student gains one demerit at a time, but for severe rule breaking or dangerous activity, up to 4 may be given. For general crimes, I’m going by the binding time chart. Along with this mention that, when minor crimes like toading one person are caught, they usually get a few days binding. Wicked Ways posted:Directors should keep in mind Saint Joan’s isn’t for witches who use magic to steal trinkets from a magical store or turn a mundane neighbor into a toad. Those kind of crimes if discovered would most likely end in a fine or at most a few days binding of magic by a magistrate. For that, I’ll go with 3 days for a single person who doesn’t get killed. 3 seems like a good number. Now, if you’ll notice, there are no static sentences for any crime, the examples on the Binding Time Chart are kind of vague, and the punishment often depends on the temperament of the magistrate that catches it. So there may be some fudging here or there. I generally assumed that the Willow-Mistt staff doesn’t care much about minor crimes outside of Willow-Brook, that they care more about mundanes seeing magic than having it cast on them, and that Lucinda never works off her demerits. Whether or not someone is dead permanently after being killed is a crapshoot too, since death is cheap in this universe, allowing a lot of witches to avoid the 1 to 10 year binding sentence, I imagine. This also doesn’t include instances outside of the books because gently caress it.
Total: A lot. You get the point. Let's move on. Next Book: Magical Minutia #3: “Crossover”, wherein I go over a 37 page advertisement that came out nearly a year ago for a superhero game that isn’t out yet. Also, comic book multiverse shenanigans. Adnachiel fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Jun 12, 2016 |
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Jun 10, 2016 23:47
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As for Demon, I only just got around to reading it the other day and I've liked what I've seen so far. Though I sort of miss the obvious opportunities to explore organized religion, faith, and how humanity expresses such things that Fallen had. Not that I've ever had to opportunity to play it. It's one of the WoD games no one gives a poo poo about.
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Jun 10, 2016 23:52
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