Here are the short descriptions of the major factions of the city. It's at this point where I usually start to get a bit dissatisfied with my setting creation. Once you start taking theme and ideas and giving them form holes in logic become more possible. I start second-guessing myself and usually quit. What's that saying, "'perfect' is the enemy of 'done'"?
Anyhow, feel free to ask any questions or make any comments. It will help me shore up any inconsistencies, and it's my fear of inconsistency that paralyzes me from writing and running games.
Government
Lord Edric Carroy
Technically lord of the city but most of the power lies in the various guilds and organizations of the city. He's attracted to the allure of the political intrigue of the city and tries to insert himself into it. He's horrible at it, however, and is often used as a pawn. For Edric the title of Lord is little more than that. A more authoritarian successor would still find it incredibly difficult to wrest the practical power of the city back into the hands of the nobility.
The Arkanika
Dedicated to the proliferation of the Arkanik as a means to "improve" life in Andport, The Arkanika supplies men and organizations of means magical alternatives to achieve productivity. Their work is custom made to suit the needs of their customers. Although nobody knows their secrets, what is notoriously common knowledge is the faint purple glow of their devices.
House D'eatre
D'eatre is an old money house that has yet to be given official title. Their primary source of income/power is in private security forces. Though given no official sponsorship from the lordship, those serving D'eatre can often be seen (or not seen as the case often is) in parts of town where there is something that can't be trusted to the joke that is the city guard. Merchant ships will often hire D'eatre just to be afforded the luxury of flying the colors of the House. More than one pirate organization has come to a grizzly end after interfering with the business of those under D'eatre's protection.
Traders' Guild
Unlike in the northern part of the kingdom the traders of Andport have a strong say in their fate with their collective commonly referred to as the Guild. The Guild is quite protectionist, no merchant would think to set up shop in Andport without first joining. It's rare to even find a traveling merchant in the city that hasn't at least collected a temporary pass from the group first. At one point there were several guilds each one overseeing specific trades. Eventually the began merging as it became obvious the power the groups could have in the city if they were united.
The Jade Eye
The Jade Eye is the most prominent underworld organization in the city. Of course, nobody can prove its existence but you'll have a hard time finding anyone to call D'eatre liars for saying so. If it did exist though (and it totally does) they would specialize in the dirty jobs that people couldn't be caught doing themselves. Of course nobody from the Jade Eye has been caught either, but conventional wisdom says no job is too big for them, but they are above petty crimes.
Albionus' School for Gifted Youngsters
The name is a bit of a misnomer, people of all ages attend this school for those gifted enough to bend reality to their whim. Initially it was setup to help younger people cope with their abilities, but as time went by it was used to train the gifted in using their abilities for good. Despite this they are often maligned. More than one student has left the school practicing philosophies differing from those taught there.
The Thieves' Syndicate
While not nearly on par with the acts of the Jade Eye, the Syndicate does specialize in the criminal, specifically stealing. Everyone from the cutpurses to home robbers checks in with the Syndicate. They are particularly ruthless towards those who have not acquired passage to operate in the city.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Andport: Savage Magic, Part II
So I got a comment about my previous article on what types of magic I'd be using for the Andport campaign. It caused me to consider something about Miracles that hadn't really crossed my mind. Based on the notion that I didn't have any concrete deities for my world yet, the suggestion was to allow the PCs to champion a cause and their faith in that cause or ideal would be sufficient to grant them the Arcane Background (AB) of Miracles.
I remember when I played 3.5 how clerics where allowed to be a believer in the cause of a domain without following a dogma, and I really like that idea. I like the story possibilities that could come with that. When people can have enough faith in an abstract concept that it provides them with the same amounts of power as those who are imbued by a deity, what message does that deliver to the laymen? It definitely calls into question the sovereignty of the gods. In a fantasy setting faith in gods isn't so much a requirement, they are proved to be real. You could argue that faith in a cause would be stronger because it can't be personified.
Which leads to another thing that was brought up in that reply. He referred to these Miracle-wielding idealists as "avatars". I think there is potential there, great potential. Being a voice on the material plane for your god is one thing. Embodying an ideal is something else entirely. I really, really like the idea but I think it gets a little too heady for what I'm going for with Andport. I do reserve the right to hold onto it though. Andport is part of a larger world, one that I intend to fill out with time and necessity.
I remember when I played 3.5 how clerics where allowed to be a believer in the cause of a domain without following a dogma, and I really like that idea. I like the story possibilities that could come with that. When people can have enough faith in an abstract concept that it provides them with the same amounts of power as those who are imbued by a deity, what message does that deliver to the laymen? It definitely calls into question the sovereignty of the gods. In a fantasy setting faith in gods isn't so much a requirement, they are proved to be real. You could argue that faith in a cause would be stronger because it can't be personified.
Which leads to another thing that was brought up in that reply. He referred to these Miracle-wielding idealists as "avatars". I think there is potential there, great potential. Being a voice on the material plane for your god is one thing. Embodying an ideal is something else entirely. I really, really like the idea but I think it gets a little too heady for what I'm going for with Andport. I do reserve the right to hold onto it though. Andport is part of a larger world, one that I intend to fill out with time and necessity.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Andport: Savage Magic
As I mentioned previously, I decided to use Savage Worlds for my Andport pbp. And if I didn't mention it previously I'm mentioning it now.
Like many "generic" RPGs out there Savage Worlds allows for modularity in what kinds of magic a GM will allow for his setting. Other games, like D&D for example, are written under the assumption that certain forms of magic are ubiquitous from setting to setting. The basic assumption of Savage Worlds is that all forms of magic will have access to the same list of powers on a meta-game level, but in the world these powers will take on different skins, or "trappings". The "armor" spell may appear in the form of the symbol of a priest's god when cast by someone with the Arcane Background: Miracles. That same "armor" spell may appear in the form of dead bone, muscle, and sinew when cast by a necromancer with the Arcane Background: Magic.
I came into setting creation with only two preconceptions of magic:
1) There would be some kind of divine magic. For some reason I just feel naked thinking about a fantasy world without divine magic. As of yet I don't have a list of deities that those native to Andport worship (and the other free cities it shares the peninsula with), so I'm not exactly sure how this is going to be expressed in the world. But Arcane Background: Miracles is definitely in.
2) Arcane magic cannot be learned. It's an idea that I'm kind of fascinated with, magic being something that's in you, a part of you. It's not that unlike the Jedi but their powers feeling more like fantasy magic and also without all of their philosophy. The innate magic found in Arcane Background: Sorcery (in the Fantasy Companion) was a perfect match for this.
Even after pinning down mechanics for those two ideals for magic I felt something missing. It was the phantom limb where you can usually find wizards in a setting. But with the rule of "arcane magic cannot be learned" there was some difficulty in filling that void. Well, in doing the basic overview write-ups for the factions it hit me. Gadgets.
I quickly decided that there is a rare element in the world, probably not even native, that can be manipulated and worked into devices that can emulate magical powers. Arcane Background: Weird Science, anyone?
This does a few things for me. First and most obvious, it brings back a theme of the wizard that with proper knowledge you can access a powerful supernatural effect. It differs from the wizard in that it's not true magic. Even the trained lose access to the powers if they can't access their devices. The second thing it does is create a new dynamic by introducing this powerful resource.
So with my forms of magic chosen I wrapped up the search. I actually settled on magic in the middle of coming up with factions for Andport. Which I did before even coming up with a map, contrary to pretty much every piece of advice I've read. I found that by doing it this way the city already has tons of character before it has form. I'm looking forward to seeing how it progresses.
Like many "generic" RPGs out there Savage Worlds allows for modularity in what kinds of magic a GM will allow for his setting. Other games, like D&D for example, are written under the assumption that certain forms of magic are ubiquitous from setting to setting. The basic assumption of Savage Worlds is that all forms of magic will have access to the same list of powers on a meta-game level, but in the world these powers will take on different skins, or "trappings". The "armor" spell may appear in the form of the symbol of a priest's god when cast by someone with the Arcane Background: Miracles. That same "armor" spell may appear in the form of dead bone, muscle, and sinew when cast by a necromancer with the Arcane Background: Magic.
I came into setting creation with only two preconceptions of magic:
1) There would be some kind of divine magic. For some reason I just feel naked thinking about a fantasy world without divine magic. As of yet I don't have a list of deities that those native to Andport worship (and the other free cities it shares the peninsula with), so I'm not exactly sure how this is going to be expressed in the world. But Arcane Background: Miracles is definitely in.
2) Arcane magic cannot be learned. It's an idea that I'm kind of fascinated with, magic being something that's in you, a part of you. It's not that unlike the Jedi but their powers feeling more like fantasy magic and also without all of their philosophy. The innate magic found in Arcane Background: Sorcery (in the Fantasy Companion) was a perfect match for this.
Even after pinning down mechanics for those two ideals for magic I felt something missing. It was the phantom limb where you can usually find wizards in a setting. But with the rule of "arcane magic cannot be learned" there was some difficulty in filling that void. Well, in doing the basic overview write-ups for the factions it hit me. Gadgets.
I quickly decided that there is a rare element in the world, probably not even native, that can be manipulated and worked into devices that can emulate magical powers. Arcane Background: Weird Science, anyone?
This does a few things for me. First and most obvious, it brings back a theme of the wizard that with proper knowledge you can access a powerful supernatural effect. It differs from the wizard in that it's not true magic. Even the trained lose access to the powers if they can't access their devices. The second thing it does is create a new dynamic by introducing this powerful resource.
So with my forms of magic chosen I wrapped up the search. I actually settled on magic in the middle of coming up with factions for Andport. Which I did before even coming up with a map, contrary to pretty much every piece of advice I've read. I found that by doing it this way the city already has tons of character before it has form. I'm looking forward to seeing how it progresses.
Andport: Establishing an Urban Campaign
So I've been doing prep for a campaign I'm going to run over both the table and some PbP. We decided early on that in order for it to really be viable as a PbP (at least the way we would want to see it) it needs to have a heavy sandbox element to it. There will be some sources of conflict inherent in the setting, but ultimately it will be up to the PCs to decide how, or even if, they want to address them.
I felt like having an urban setting would be the best for this kind of game for several reasons. With much of the game being held in PbP I want to encourage the idea that most of the play will be held in dialogue or in characters following their own individual pursuits, and not so much an "adventure". If the sandbox is confined to a single city that helps to give a finite geographical definition within which the characters concerns are located. I'm calling that city Andport.
Another reason for wanting to keep the game in a city was so that I can try something I've wanted to try for a while, which is to model a fantasy game after structures I found interesting in Vampire: The Requiem. I didn't want to model the feel and the themes of that game though. I wanted something distinctly fantasy.
What I did want to capture was the idea that there are all of these organizations in the city working to their own ends. Sometimes a faction will have an agenda that works at cross purposes to another faction (or factions). Other times, or maybe even simultaneously, that same faction will have other priorities that those same factions would be sympathetic to, or even outright support. This web of intrigue inherent to Vampire is what I wanted to emulate.
While everything important to this campaign will be in the city, not everything important to the city will be found within its walls. Due largely to my belief that fantasy roleplaying owes more to the myths of ancient Greece than it does to medieval European or Arthurian legend, I tend to favor borrowing more from that period for fantasy games. So Andport is part of a confederation of independent cities that occupy a peninsula in a particularly well-traveled sea.
Andport's incredibly defensible position has allowed for it to maintain its independence for many hundreds of years while providing a central location for honest traders and travelers. This has caused it to become something of a cultural mish-mash, with both the best and the worst of all peoples being represented. There's a chaotic sense of freedom in Andport which is about the extent of a unique identity for the city. With so many different races and cultures present it's really hard to pin down anything outside of dialect and accent that is distinctly Andportian.
This is, I hope, just the first in a series of articles with which I'll detail the city of Andport.
I felt like having an urban setting would be the best for this kind of game for several reasons. With much of the game being held in PbP I want to encourage the idea that most of the play will be held in dialogue or in characters following their own individual pursuits, and not so much an "adventure". If the sandbox is confined to a single city that helps to give a finite geographical definition within which the characters concerns are located. I'm calling that city Andport.
Another reason for wanting to keep the game in a city was so that I can try something I've wanted to try for a while, which is to model a fantasy game after structures I found interesting in Vampire: The Requiem. I didn't want to model the feel and the themes of that game though. I wanted something distinctly fantasy.
What I did want to capture was the idea that there are all of these organizations in the city working to their own ends. Sometimes a faction will have an agenda that works at cross purposes to another faction (or factions). Other times, or maybe even simultaneously, that same faction will have other priorities that those same factions would be sympathetic to, or even outright support. This web of intrigue inherent to Vampire is what I wanted to emulate.
While everything important to this campaign will be in the city, not everything important to the city will be found within its walls. Due largely to my belief that fantasy roleplaying owes more to the myths of ancient Greece than it does to medieval European or Arthurian legend, I tend to favor borrowing more from that period for fantasy games. So Andport is part of a confederation of independent cities that occupy a peninsula in a particularly well-traveled sea.
Andport's incredibly defensible position has allowed for it to maintain its independence for many hundreds of years while providing a central location for honest traders and travelers. This has caused it to become something of a cultural mish-mash, with both the best and the worst of all peoples being represented. There's a chaotic sense of freedom in Andport which is about the extent of a unique identity for the city. With so many different races and cultures present it's really hard to pin down anything outside of dialect and accent that is distinctly Andportian.
This is, I hope, just the first in a series of articles with which I'll detail the city of Andport.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
It's a troll with an explative bazooka!
So I got my first chance to use Captain Gunnbjorn in a game of Hordes MKII. He's one of the GenCon pre-release models. He really helps to fill a gap that the Trollbloods had from a lack of ranged support from a warlock.
His spell Guided Fire gives all models in his battlegroup an autoboost to ranged attack rolls. That's super sweet with a couple of Impalers who get a critical knockdown effect. It also gives Gunnbjorn the autoboost which is really sweet with the critical effect on his bazooka. It tosses anyone under its 3" AoE back a number of inches equal to a roll of a d6. It's great against infantry, which is exactly what my first oppenent was running the first time I played Gunnbjorn. Unfortunately attrition was his plan. I lost.
Anyhow, I bought this model primarily because it's a troll with a bazooka. The imagery is just awesome. I really like his spell list but his feat is gaysauce. The only other real complaint I have is that he has zero by way of melee support. He's a total one trick pony, but that one trick is so much fun.
His spell Guided Fire gives all models in his battlegroup an autoboost to ranged attack rolls. That's super sweet with a couple of Impalers who get a critical knockdown effect. It also gives Gunnbjorn the autoboost which is really sweet with the critical effect on his bazooka. It tosses anyone under its 3" AoE back a number of inches equal to a roll of a d6. It's great against infantry, which is exactly what my first oppenent was running the first time I played Gunnbjorn. Unfortunately attrition was his plan. I lost.
Anyhow, I bought this model primarily because it's a troll with a bazooka. The imagery is just awesome. I really like his spell list but his feat is gaysauce. The only other real complaint I have is that he has zero by way of melee support. He's a total one trick pony, but that one trick is so much fun.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
GenCon 2010: Part I
Well, GenCon has been over for almost a week now and I'm just getting around to writing about it. For me this year was balls to the wall from the word "go" and you know what, I loved every minute of it.
It started Wednesday evening as we met up with my friends over at Fear the Boot. We shared a hotel room with them so we got the keys and unloaded all of our stuff. Then we headed out to World Wide Wing Night (which I'm reasonably certain was only recognized in Indy). Our party was placed out on the patio where the Booters where occupying several tables even before we arrived. As luck would have it the rain began as soon as we got there. The wait staff was very accommodating and found us space in the restaurant in good time. Several of us went out to the bar after that. We didn't get back to the room until 3am. That would prove to be a theme of the week.
Thursday morning we woke up at 6am, not by choice but Chris, Chad, and Wayne wanted to get their GenCon press passes good and early so they could get into the dealer's hall before it opened to the public. Dave and I couldn't get back to sleep after that. So we putzed around the hotel room and with three hours of sleep I felt like total crap already. That's a great way to start the con.
Our first stop was the board game library where we played Memoir '44. I own BattleLore and Battle of Westeros (FFG's new BattleLore game based on A Song of Ice and Fire) so Memoir had tons of elements that were familiar to me. I think out of all three Command and Colors games that I've played I like BattleLore the best.
When we were done with that it was just about time for the dealer's hall to open and with that...so did my wallet. Within the first...I don't know, 20 minutes of my being in the hall I bought a ton of cool pastic terrain for Warmachine and then I made a beeline for Luke Crane's booth. I picked up the brand new Adventure Burner and the two printed BW settings, Jihad, and The Blossoms are Falling.
After lunch I got a hold of my fellow TOFtBCHs (The Official Fear the Boot Communications Hub), Dan (grungydan), and Christian (zeikecoppereyes) back in the dealer hall, where we made a far more thorough go of it. We stopped and talked to Bob Arens for a bit, who was organizing demos for Wildfire games. It didn't take much convincing for me to pick up Poo. It's the game of competitive monky-feces slinging. It's pretty fun, very light...very.
After a bit more walking around we found Arc Dream Publishing's booth where I chatted with Shane Ivey for a bit. I had spoken with him over email a bit earlier in the year. He was gracious enough to donate prize support to a contest I was working on with Fear the Boot for the March of Dimes (yes, this GenCon will be very FtB heavy). I picked up Reign from their booth. I wish I had picked up a couple of their other games as well.
Then I went to the Red Dragon Inn which is the restaurant/bar on the ground floor of the Marriot hotel. They retheme it for GenCon. I met up with Dan, Pat, and John G. for a while there. Dan and I went back to Arc Dream's booth to talk to Shane again only this time we were there for a lot longer. I can't call myself a fanboy (yet), but I dig the ideas they build their games off of and (again), Shane's a great guy. I hope this company does well.
Eventually we end up at dinner at Alcatraz steak house. It's comparable to Applebee's in menu selection, price, and quality. We head back to the room, play some Poo, and then my friends from Michigan (who had arrived in time for dinner) head back to their hotel room some 20 minutes out of downtown. At this point I head down to the FtB beer tasting where we more or less hung out until 3am again. Had a nice little chat about the state of the industry with Chad on the way back to the room. I go to bed...exhausted.
It started Wednesday evening as we met up with my friends over at Fear the Boot. We shared a hotel room with them so we got the keys and unloaded all of our stuff. Then we headed out to World Wide Wing Night (which I'm reasonably certain was only recognized in Indy). Our party was placed out on the patio where the Booters where occupying several tables even before we arrived. As luck would have it the rain began as soon as we got there. The wait staff was very accommodating and found us space in the restaurant in good time. Several of us went out to the bar after that. We didn't get back to the room until 3am. That would prove to be a theme of the week.
Thursday morning we woke up at 6am, not by choice but Chris, Chad, and Wayne wanted to get their GenCon press passes good and early so they could get into the dealer's hall before it opened to the public. Dave and I couldn't get back to sleep after that. So we putzed around the hotel room and with three hours of sleep I felt like total crap already. That's a great way to start the con.
Our first stop was the board game library where we played Memoir '44. I own BattleLore and Battle of Westeros (FFG's new BattleLore game based on A Song of Ice and Fire) so Memoir had tons of elements that were familiar to me. I think out of all three Command and Colors games that I've played I like BattleLore the best.
When we were done with that it was just about time for the dealer's hall to open and with that...so did my wallet. Within the first...I don't know, 20 minutes of my being in the hall I bought a ton of cool pastic terrain for Warmachine and then I made a beeline for Luke Crane's booth. I picked up the brand new Adventure Burner and the two printed BW settings, Jihad, and The Blossoms are Falling.
After lunch I got a hold of my fellow TOFtBCHs (The Official Fear the Boot Communications Hub), Dan (grungydan), and Christian (zeikecoppereyes) back in the dealer hall, where we made a far more thorough go of it. We stopped and talked to Bob Arens for a bit, who was organizing demos for Wildfire games. It didn't take much convincing for me to pick up Poo. It's the game of competitive monky-feces slinging. It's pretty fun, very light...very.
After a bit more walking around we found Arc Dream Publishing's booth where I chatted with Shane Ivey for a bit. I had spoken with him over email a bit earlier in the year. He was gracious enough to donate prize support to a contest I was working on with Fear the Boot for the March of Dimes (yes, this GenCon will be very FtB heavy). I picked up Reign from their booth. I wish I had picked up a couple of their other games as well.
Then I went to the Red Dragon Inn which is the restaurant/bar on the ground floor of the Marriot hotel. They retheme it for GenCon. I met up with Dan, Pat, and John G. for a while there. Dan and I went back to Arc Dream's booth to talk to Shane again only this time we were there for a lot longer. I can't call myself a fanboy (yet), but I dig the ideas they build their games off of and (again), Shane's a great guy. I hope this company does well.
Eventually we end up at dinner at Alcatraz steak house. It's comparable to Applebee's in menu selection, price, and quality. We head back to the room, play some Poo, and then my friends from Michigan (who had arrived in time for dinner) head back to their hotel room some 20 minutes out of downtown. At this point I head down to the FtB beer tasting where we more or less hung out until 3am again. Had a nice little chat about the state of the industry with Chad on the way back to the room. I go to bed...exhausted.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Failing Up
A few days after posting it I realized that my last substantial post was far more of a vent against D&D then I originally intended for it to be. From now on I'm going to do my best to focus on the things in gaming that I like or just find interesting. I'd rather not turn this into a rant against things I don't care for. So now that we've got that out of the way...
Why does the notion of failure in RPGs engender such a negative reaction? It's a response that doesn't even require any thought. Do you like bad things to happen to your character? Unless you've thought about the topic you will probably say no. I think the reasons are rooted in a few things. First of all I wonder how often we treat our characters as our Mary Sues. How often do we make avatars and not characters? How many times have I been guilty of playing in campaigns where I just followed the most obvious course of action to further the plot instead of trying to explore facets of my character? That is an entirely different topic for another time, but one worth mentioning for the purpose of this discussion.
Secondly, we want to be badass in ways that we just aren't in real life. I can't find fault in this either. I've been known to try and incorporate wuxia (before I even knew the term) into my combat descriptions. This usually occurred in systems that didn't support the notion and I ended up incurring tons of negative modifiers for my efforts. But I wanted to be cool.
People don't like downers. But there are exceptions to this. In action/adventure failure can be fun. Look at Harrison Ford's two most popular characters; Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Their roads to victory are paved with stones of failure. How much more awesome is Empire with Han being duped by Lando in being sold out to the Empire, being tortured, and frozen in carbonite? If that were an RPG Han's player probably would have been pissed.
In a much more dramatic take, what would we remember of Romeo and Juliet if they both hadn't rolled that critical failure in the end and killed themselves? What about Oedipus Rex? That story is full of tragic drama. The first failure belongs to the parents. They try to avert a prophecy, but they fail. Oedipus unknowingly fails, kills his dad, gets with his mom. It's a family full of failure. Both of these stories have no reason to be told if they don't end in abject tragedy and failure. This tone may be far more excessive than people are willing to play out at their table. My question is "why?"
RPGs are a structured method of communal storytelling. It's through our characters that we impact the direction of these stories. I believe that when we try to protect our characters and when we, as players, are working towards lollipops and candy canes as the end of these stories we are hamstringing the potential of many of these stories. We place priority on our character over the story. I'd like to start accepting more dramatic and appropriate failure, not just failure for failure's sake.
I'm about to tell a gaming story. Our current campaign is D&D. In this game I'm playing a warlock that sold his soul to the world's version of Satan. It wasn't one of those deals where now he belongs to the Void Lord for all time. The Void Lord got what he needed from the soul and created a Dark Age, my character got some power and we went our separate ways. My character realized that he screwed up and begins the work to undo the deal he made. As a bitter and hateful Arrodehn (my character) sets out to reestablish the order that the Void Lord had undone using my character's soul, he is approached by Etaj. Etaj is the closest thing to absolute omnipotence in this world. He's not quite there, but close. He gives Arrodehn a legendary sword that was only ever wielded by very few in history.
Despite the fact that Arrodehn has directed all of his hate towards the Void Lord, he is still harboring this poisonous emotion and that alone makes him evil. Etaj, realizing the potential Arrodehn has to do good things, decided to aid him despite this. Arrodehn struggled with the weight of the conflict of good and evil, too stubborn to give in to good. He didn't want to change because that's what everyone around him was pressuring him to do. At one point he returned the sword. It was a very poignant scene and a very pivotal one as well. From the outside this looked like failure. The other characters had assumed that he had just given up entirely with his struggle, that he would just stay dark. He hadn't. He had chosen a third option.
The sword had come with assumptions and baggage. That sword had become a crutch for his hatred. He turned to knowledge and discovery over the approach of direct violence. In looking back, though, I think there was failure in that decision. He failed at achieving his maximum potential as a paragon for good. Is he good now as opposed to evil before? Absolutely. But he's still horribly flawed and that, to me, is far more interesting than if he had just accepted a "righteous" path. There's depth in his character where there wouldn't have been before because he failed. This was a player decision to fail though. One I made purposefully. What about smaller failures? What can they do to add to the overall fun of a game?
In Burning Wheel before you test your skill you declare the task and your intent, the action you're about to take and what you hope comes of it. It's something that, on it's surface, illicits a "duh", but a few pages later it becomes clear why this becomes important to the game's philosophy. The player makes a two-part presentation. The first part is the action he wants his character to take. The second part is the player's control over the outcome of a successful role. At this point the GM starts playing Let's Make A Deal. He'll challenge the player with terms of failure. If the player cannot accept the terms that the GM has provided then no role is made. The fact that testing your skills is the method to increasing them makes this risk one often worth taking.
One of the core conceits of Burning Wheel is that the story goes somewhere if the dice are rolled. Period. Failing a skill test will not result in the players waiting for a few more minutes to try again (in fact there are rules to prevent just that). When you fail the dynamic of the scene, maybe even the story, changes.
Admittedly, I've only played the game twice and both of those were a demo scenario. I don't know how this works out practically, but I love the idea of a player willing to accept and even offer up ideas for failure for the sake of making the story more interesting. Do I want control over my character? Yes. But I want the story I'm taking part in to be a roller-coaster ride of awesome and I don't think that failure and an awesome narrative are mutually exclusive.
Why does the notion of failure in RPGs engender such a negative reaction? It's a response that doesn't even require any thought. Do you like bad things to happen to your character? Unless you've thought about the topic you will probably say no. I think the reasons are rooted in a few things. First of all I wonder how often we treat our characters as our Mary Sues. How often do we make avatars and not characters? How many times have I been guilty of playing in campaigns where I just followed the most obvious course of action to further the plot instead of trying to explore facets of my character? That is an entirely different topic for another time, but one worth mentioning for the purpose of this discussion.
Secondly, we want to be badass in ways that we just aren't in real life. I can't find fault in this either. I've been known to try and incorporate wuxia (before I even knew the term) into my combat descriptions. This usually occurred in systems that didn't support the notion and I ended up incurring tons of negative modifiers for my efforts. But I wanted to be cool.
People don't like downers. But there are exceptions to this. In action/adventure failure can be fun. Look at Harrison Ford's two most popular characters; Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Their roads to victory are paved with stones of failure. How much more awesome is Empire with Han being duped by Lando in being sold out to the Empire, being tortured, and frozen in carbonite? If that were an RPG Han's player probably would have been pissed.
In a much more dramatic take, what would we remember of Romeo and Juliet if they both hadn't rolled that critical failure in the end and killed themselves? What about Oedipus Rex? That story is full of tragic drama. The first failure belongs to the parents. They try to avert a prophecy, but they fail. Oedipus unknowingly fails, kills his dad, gets with his mom. It's a family full of failure. Both of these stories have no reason to be told if they don't end in abject tragedy and failure. This tone may be far more excessive than people are willing to play out at their table. My question is "why?"
RPGs are a structured method of communal storytelling. It's through our characters that we impact the direction of these stories. I believe that when we try to protect our characters and when we, as players, are working towards lollipops and candy canes as the end of these stories we are hamstringing the potential of many of these stories. We place priority on our character over the story. I'd like to start accepting more dramatic and appropriate failure, not just failure for failure's sake.
I'm about to tell a gaming story. Our current campaign is D&D. In this game I'm playing a warlock that sold his soul to the world's version of Satan. It wasn't one of those deals where now he belongs to the Void Lord for all time. The Void Lord got what he needed from the soul and created a Dark Age, my character got some power and we went our separate ways. My character realized that he screwed up and begins the work to undo the deal he made. As a bitter and hateful Arrodehn (my character) sets out to reestablish the order that the Void Lord had undone using my character's soul, he is approached by Etaj. Etaj is the closest thing to absolute omnipotence in this world. He's not quite there, but close. He gives Arrodehn a legendary sword that was only ever wielded by very few in history.
Despite the fact that Arrodehn has directed all of his hate towards the Void Lord, he is still harboring this poisonous emotion and that alone makes him evil. Etaj, realizing the potential Arrodehn has to do good things, decided to aid him despite this. Arrodehn struggled with the weight of the conflict of good and evil, too stubborn to give in to good. He didn't want to change because that's what everyone around him was pressuring him to do. At one point he returned the sword. It was a very poignant scene and a very pivotal one as well. From the outside this looked like failure. The other characters had assumed that he had just given up entirely with his struggle, that he would just stay dark. He hadn't. He had chosen a third option.
The sword had come with assumptions and baggage. That sword had become a crutch for his hatred. He turned to knowledge and discovery over the approach of direct violence. In looking back, though, I think there was failure in that decision. He failed at achieving his maximum potential as a paragon for good. Is he good now as opposed to evil before? Absolutely. But he's still horribly flawed and that, to me, is far more interesting than if he had just accepted a "righteous" path. There's depth in his character where there wouldn't have been before because he failed. This was a player decision to fail though. One I made purposefully. What about smaller failures? What can they do to add to the overall fun of a game?
In Burning Wheel before you test your skill you declare the task and your intent, the action you're about to take and what you hope comes of it. It's something that, on it's surface, illicits a "duh", but a few pages later it becomes clear why this becomes important to the game's philosophy. The player makes a two-part presentation. The first part is the action he wants his character to take. The second part is the player's control over the outcome of a successful role. At this point the GM starts playing Let's Make A Deal. He'll challenge the player with terms of failure. If the player cannot accept the terms that the GM has provided then no role is made. The fact that testing your skills is the method to increasing them makes this risk one often worth taking.
One of the core conceits of Burning Wheel is that the story goes somewhere if the dice are rolled. Period. Failing a skill test will not result in the players waiting for a few more minutes to try again (in fact there are rules to prevent just that). When you fail the dynamic of the scene, maybe even the story, changes.
Admittedly, I've only played the game twice and both of those were a demo scenario. I don't know how this works out practically, but I love the idea of a player willing to accept and even offer up ideas for failure for the sake of making the story more interesting. Do I want control over my character? Yes. But I want the story I'm taking part in to be a roller-coaster ride of awesome and I don't think that failure and an awesome narrative are mutually exclusive.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
My Podcasting Debut
I did some bumper music as a joke for the podcast Fear the Boot. In the latest episode, 196, it was used to humorous effect. So there, my podcast cherry has been popped.
Linky:
http://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/index.php/archives/1602
Linky:
http://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/index.php/archives/1602
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
I Guess I'm Not a Classy Guy
The year was 2008. The place, Indianpolis...GenCon. I was listening to a panel from WotC fielding questions from the audience concerning D&D 4E (some of them a bit hostile). The game had only been out a few short months at that time and the Edition Wars were not quite over yet.
When the line of questions got to me I asked of the panel if there was any intent of ever publishing any sort of powers that would aid in non-combat situations. Bill Slavicsek very staunchly held the opinion that between Utility Powers and Rituals everything outside of combat could be covered. Admittedly, I think Rituals are awesome. When we play 4E I tend to care far, far less about what gear I get than I do my ability to buy new Rituals. In that regard I think Slavicsek was right. But let's pretend for a second Utility Powers weren't primarily intended to let the character do stuff other than damage while in combat. Let's pretend that their original intent was for non-combat use. Now, welcome back to the real world.
I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that the PHB 3 was going to have a new kind of power, the Skill Power. For the most part I think that Skill Powers are a large step forward in how the game mechanics approach non-combat situations. Does it fix the issues I currently have with the system? Not really. Initially I thought the system was awesome. Holding the opinion that I'd held for a long time, I felt that system wasn't a requirement for RP. 4E provided rules for combat and that's all it needed to do because we could RP without rules. True? Absolutely.
In the course of the Q&A Slavicsek responded to a question about crafting skills. It was his position that people don't really want crafting skills they just *think* they want crafting skills. If someone wants to be the best smith in the city just call him the best smith in the city, you don't need rules for that. If I were on top of it at that moment I would have asked him why we'd need rules to make someone the best fighter in the city. What does D&D provide the player that wants to player a character that has taken oaths of non-violence, that has never done anything in their life that would cause them to know anything resembling a power? Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking D&D as though it's impossible to RP using those rules. That system just makes certain demands of its players to tell certain kinds of stories.
Every system implies, by virtue of its rules, what kind of stories are going to be told with that system. It's also going to inform how the players are going to play their character. D&D doesn't reward, by virtue of its stated mechanics, playing your character honestly unless that is solely done in the realm of defeating challenges. This can be remedies with house rules (which my group has done) and this is fine. However, what you have after doing so is your character become more deadly and badass as a matter of playing out the things that are important to him. "We secured supplies supplies for the floundering orphanage we were raised in by making a special deal with a guy at the meat market." Congrats. Here, as a reward your Base Attack Bonus goes up or, depending on your flavor, you get a new daily combat power.
I'm doing an unfair amount of picking on D&D here. I think this is a drawback (or failure, pick your poison) of most, if not all class-based systems that I've seen. You are free to define your character as long as it's within a more strict set of parameters. And those parameters exist within words like fighter, wizard, rogue, and in doing so I think it's far easier to limit who a character is by giving a mechanical title to what that character is. What's the combat bonus to the penitent class, or the intellectual class?
And I'm sorry for the bad pun.
When the line of questions got to me I asked of the panel if there was any intent of ever publishing any sort of powers that would aid in non-combat situations. Bill Slavicsek very staunchly held the opinion that between Utility Powers and Rituals everything outside of combat could be covered. Admittedly, I think Rituals are awesome. When we play 4E I tend to care far, far less about what gear I get than I do my ability to buy new Rituals. In that regard I think Slavicsek was right. But let's pretend for a second Utility Powers weren't primarily intended to let the character do stuff other than damage while in combat. Let's pretend that their original intent was for non-combat use. Now, welcome back to the real world.
I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that the PHB 3 was going to have a new kind of power, the Skill Power. For the most part I think that Skill Powers are a large step forward in how the game mechanics approach non-combat situations. Does it fix the issues I currently have with the system? Not really. Initially I thought the system was awesome. Holding the opinion that I'd held for a long time, I felt that system wasn't a requirement for RP. 4E provided rules for combat and that's all it needed to do because we could RP without rules. True? Absolutely.
In the course of the Q&A Slavicsek responded to a question about crafting skills. It was his position that people don't really want crafting skills they just *think* they want crafting skills. If someone wants to be the best smith in the city just call him the best smith in the city, you don't need rules for that. If I were on top of it at that moment I would have asked him why we'd need rules to make someone the best fighter in the city. What does D&D provide the player that wants to player a character that has taken oaths of non-violence, that has never done anything in their life that would cause them to know anything resembling a power? Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking D&D as though it's impossible to RP using those rules. That system just makes certain demands of its players to tell certain kinds of stories.
Every system implies, by virtue of its rules, what kind of stories are going to be told with that system. It's also going to inform how the players are going to play their character. D&D doesn't reward, by virtue of its stated mechanics, playing your character honestly unless that is solely done in the realm of defeating challenges. This can be remedies with house rules (which my group has done) and this is fine. However, what you have after doing so is your character become more deadly and badass as a matter of playing out the things that are important to him. "We secured supplies supplies for the floundering orphanage we were raised in by making a special deal with a guy at the meat market." Congrats. Here, as a reward your Base Attack Bonus goes up or, depending on your flavor, you get a new daily combat power.
I'm doing an unfair amount of picking on D&D here. I think this is a drawback (or failure, pick your poison) of most, if not all class-based systems that I've seen. You are free to define your character as long as it's within a more strict set of parameters. And those parameters exist within words like fighter, wizard, rogue, and in doing so I think it's far easier to limit who a character is by giving a mechanical title to what that character is. What's the combat bonus to the penitent class, or the intellectual class?
And I'm sorry for the bad pun.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Necreviews: Leverage: The Quickstart Job, Part 3
Timed Actions, Combat, and Puttin' Her to Bed
Timed Actions and combat are, in my opinion, awesome. They really sound like they will convey the feel of the series. They both operate in vague units of time called Beats. The time a Beat is measured in is as long as the action taken during that Beat takes to accomplish. It'll make more sense in an example.
Timed Actions are those actions taken when a PC is under the gun and only has a few moments to do it in. I'll take an example from The Quickstart Job so here's your fair warning. I'm going to make it as plotless as possible so that if you ever play the module this shouldn't spoil anything for you.
The team has coaxed the target out of his office for a few moments giving Parker (the hottie thief) a small window inside which she's going to try and get into a safe. I hesitate to call this a spoiler because if you've ever watched the show you can rightly assume that Parker is going to try and get into a safe on any given day. Anyhow, getting into this safe is a three step process; Getting past the motion sensor, getting past the laser crosswire, and cracking the lock. It's going to take her three Beats to get this job done.
The number of Beats she'll actually have to do the job in the session will largely depend on factors that will be determined through play. For our purposes we're going to give her exactly the number she needs...three. For each step in the process Parker is going to roll her Agility + Thief + any other benefits she might get vs. the GM's d8 + d8 (again, I'm guessing there are steps from which the system derives these numbers but they didn't reveal those in this Job). If Parker succeeds then the action only takes 1 Beat. If she scores an Extraordinary Success (a success in which she out-rolls the GM by 5 or more) she finds a shortcut and the action didn't take any Beats at all. A failure will actually cost her 2 Beats, cutting her time short.
If it's obvious that Parker isn't going to have enough time to get into the safe the rest of the crew can attempt to buy her some time. Distracting the target is going to be the most obvious way of buying time. The crewmember will roll against the NPC, with a success Parker gets an extra Beat to try and get into the safe. With an Extraordinary Success she'll get two extra beats. If the crewmember fails then no extra Beats are gained and the failing crewmember can't make any more attempts to buy time. If she runs out of time then other options open up. They won't be total victory and may involve getting caught, but that is outside of the realm of this review. In this regard I think Beats do really well to mechanize that countdown clock, adding tension to the scene. It's kinda like Leverage that way.
Combat works in a very similar fashion. Fighting in this game is very "cinematic" and there is no real tactical element to it whatsoever. At the start of each fight the players involved determine the Endurance for their PC. Again they didn't provide the mechanics and just gave the final number, also NPCs are figured differently. It all seems arbitrary in the module but I'm sure the full rules will provide context. For now we know that Eliot's Endurance is 6 and the group of NPCs come to Endurance of 5. The target and his three guards all count as one for the purpose of this fight. It's an abstraction of how difficult overall it will be for Eliot to overcome.
Combat, like Timed Actions, takes place in Beats. For each Beat all participants in the fight describe their Fight Action. Then they roll their Strength (or maybe Agility if the argument can be made) + Hitter + other factors. Highest roll wins the Beat. Extraordinary Successes count as two Beats. When one side has won as many Beats as their opponent has Endurance then the opponent is Taken Down. When Taken Down a character is incapacitated in some way and, in the case of PCs, unable to participate with the rest of the Job. There is a way out, however.
Giving, crying uncle, general pansiness. You can quit the fight. Doing so lets you walk away and gives you a Plot Point. The tradeoff is that you get a Complication and your friends get to make fun of you.
You can also gain a second wind by spend a Plot Point (I'm not sure I can bring myself to call them PPs). This will add one to your Endurance.
Now comes time for the Flashbacks. In the series they will reveal to the viewer (and usually the target) one thing that each crewmember did prior to the Job to help set them up for success. In the game this manifests in each player adding to the story one thing that their character did prior to the Job to help set them up for success. This is the part where the players are given some narrative control. Each player will make a roll and if they succeed Nate gains bonuses to his Wrap Up roll which will determine just how successful they were in taking care of the target.
Overall I think this game is going to have tons of potential for fun. If the overall rules are as they are depicted in the demo then I think it will make for a great episodic or one-shot games. It's probably designed to follow the show in that regard. If a GM was really intent on making a deeper, more serialized campaign out of it I don't think it will be that hard, but that's only a guess. I think that this game has really nailed the feel of the show, at least on paper. I can't wait to try this out on my friends.
Timed Actions and combat are, in my opinion, awesome. They really sound like they will convey the feel of the series. They both operate in vague units of time called Beats. The time a Beat is measured in is as long as the action taken during that Beat takes to accomplish. It'll make more sense in an example.
Timed Actions are those actions taken when a PC is under the gun and only has a few moments to do it in. I'll take an example from The Quickstart Job so here's your fair warning. I'm going to make it as plotless as possible so that if you ever play the module this shouldn't spoil anything for you.
The team has coaxed the target out of his office for a few moments giving Parker (the hottie thief) a small window inside which she's going to try and get into a safe. I hesitate to call this a spoiler because if you've ever watched the show you can rightly assume that Parker is going to try and get into a safe on any given day. Anyhow, getting into this safe is a three step process; Getting past the motion sensor, getting past the laser crosswire, and cracking the lock. It's going to take her three Beats to get this job done.
The number of Beats she'll actually have to do the job in the session will largely depend on factors that will be determined through play. For our purposes we're going to give her exactly the number she needs...three. For each step in the process Parker is going to roll her Agility + Thief + any other benefits she might get vs. the GM's d8 + d8 (again, I'm guessing there are steps from which the system derives these numbers but they didn't reveal those in this Job). If Parker succeeds then the action only takes 1 Beat. If she scores an Extraordinary Success (a success in which she out-rolls the GM by 5 or more) she finds a shortcut and the action didn't take any Beats at all. A failure will actually cost her 2 Beats, cutting her time short.
If it's obvious that Parker isn't going to have enough time to get into the safe the rest of the crew can attempt to buy her some time. Distracting the target is going to be the most obvious way of buying time. The crewmember will roll against the NPC, with a success Parker gets an extra Beat to try and get into the safe. With an Extraordinary Success she'll get two extra beats. If the crewmember fails then no extra Beats are gained and the failing crewmember can't make any more attempts to buy time. If she runs out of time then other options open up. They won't be total victory and may involve getting caught, but that is outside of the realm of this review. In this regard I think Beats do really well to mechanize that countdown clock, adding tension to the scene. It's kinda like Leverage that way.
Combat works in a very similar fashion. Fighting in this game is very "cinematic" and there is no real tactical element to it whatsoever. At the start of each fight the players involved determine the Endurance for their PC. Again they didn't provide the mechanics and just gave the final number, also NPCs are figured differently. It all seems arbitrary in the module but I'm sure the full rules will provide context. For now we know that Eliot's Endurance is 6 and the group of NPCs come to Endurance of 5. The target and his three guards all count as one for the purpose of this fight. It's an abstraction of how difficult overall it will be for Eliot to overcome.
Combat, like Timed Actions, takes place in Beats. For each Beat all participants in the fight describe their Fight Action. Then they roll their Strength (or maybe Agility if the argument can be made) + Hitter + other factors. Highest roll wins the Beat. Extraordinary Successes count as two Beats. When one side has won as many Beats as their opponent has Endurance then the opponent is Taken Down. When Taken Down a character is incapacitated in some way and, in the case of PCs, unable to participate with the rest of the Job. There is a way out, however.
Giving, crying uncle, general pansiness. You can quit the fight. Doing so lets you walk away and gives you a Plot Point. The tradeoff is that you get a Complication and your friends get to make fun of you.
You can also gain a second wind by spend a Plot Point (I'm not sure I can bring myself to call them PPs). This will add one to your Endurance.
Now comes time for the Flashbacks. In the series they will reveal to the viewer (and usually the target) one thing that each crewmember did prior to the Job to help set them up for success. In the game this manifests in each player adding to the story one thing that their character did prior to the Job to help set them up for success. This is the part where the players are given some narrative control. Each player will make a roll and if they succeed Nate gains bonuses to his Wrap Up roll which will determine just how successful they were in taking care of the target.
Overall I think this game is going to have tons of potential for fun. If the overall rules are as they are depicted in the demo then I think it will make for a great episodic or one-shot games. It's probably designed to follow the show in that regard. If a GM was really intent on making a deeper, more serialized campaign out of it I don't think it will be that hard, but that's only a guess. I think that this game has really nailed the feel of the show, at least on paper. I can't wait to try this out on my friends.
Necreviews: Leverage: The Quickstart Job, Part 2
Last time on Necreviews: Leverage: The Quickstart Job, Part 1...
"Traits? Assets? Complications? WTF are you talking about? That'll be in Part 2."
Traits are defining characteristics of a character that are used to encourage the player to roleplay the character. You gain additional dice to your rolls for roleplaying those traits into the situation you are rolling for. Additionally, the GM can tell you that your Traits might be problematic for the situation you are in and you gain a lesser die to your pool and gain a Plot Point for every Trait used and roleplayed to the detriment of your character. I'm still not certain why you are gaining any additional dice to your die pool when your traits are a problem. If the situation is harder for the PC then it would make sense that the GM gets the bonus dice and the player still gets the Plot Points for the RP. But this is a demo, maybe the full rules will make that clearer.
We'll continue using Eliot the Hitter as our example. His Traits are Bad Boy, Mysterious History, and Smarter Than He Looks. Let's say he needs to get passed a receptionist in order to get into a backroom to steal a security uniform. The receptionist is an attractive young woman who's obviously attracted to him. He's gonna try to sweet-talk his way past her. He'll roll his Intelligence + Grifter but wants to bring Bad Boy into the roll so he'll mention his Harley Davidson, which will grant him an extra d8, bringing his total dice pool to 2d6+d8.
Let's take that same situation only the receptionist is an older, no-nonsense woman. She is not impressed with his Harley. In fact she dislikes his whole Bad Boy routine. Eliot's dice pool is now 2d6 + d4 and he gets a Plot Point. Again, why he's getting the bonus d4 and not the taciturn receptionist, I do not know.
Complications arise when wins a roll but one of his dice came up a "1". At this point a new element is introduced to the Job that...complicates the situation for the crew. These manifest mechanically as en extra die for the GM in any instance that the complication can be attributed. Complications always start as a d6 bonus for the GM, but they can escalate if more Complications are rolled. This also grants the PC a Plot Point, which we'll get to later.
Again with Eliot. he smooth talks the receptionist but rolls that "1". Not only does she let him through, but she's smitten and every time she sees him she makes him obvious by trying to get his attention. This will add a d6 to the GM's dice pool in every situation applicable. If he rolls another Complication it can escalate to a d8 and can do so up to d12.
Assets work very similarly to Complications but where Complications earn the player Plot Points, Assets will cost the player Plot Points. Assets are player-created exploits in the scene. They add a d6 to the player's dice pool for as long as that Asset is relevant. Standard Assets only last until the part of the Job in which they are created is over.
It is possible for a player to create a permanent Asset by spending the Plot Point right after the GM rolls a "1" in a player's scene. Like Complications, these Assets can be escalated through play to provide a greater benefit to the player.
Plot Points are the game's currency, earned through Complications. Assets are only one of the benefits they can buy. Plot points also allow players to add additional dice to the number of dice counted for their roll. If we continue with the example of Eliot and the attractive receptionist, his dice pool was was 2d6 + d8. Eliot's player decides he doesn't want to mess this up. The player gets a 2, 4, and 5. Typically Eliot would have had a total of 9 for that roll, but because he spent the Plot Point he was allowed to add the third die to come up with a total of 11. In cases where the PC is rolling more than three dice that Plot Point will allow you to include the next highest die into your total.
Talents are the final character mechanic presented in The Quickstart Job. These are more specific in function than Traits. For instance one of Nate Ford's talents, Archangel, allows any member of the team to spend Plot Points to give dice to any other team member assuming Ford is in contact with the team. Sophie's Talent, Slip of the Tongue, allows her player to ask the GM a question concerning the NPC that the GM was rolling for if the GM rolls a "1". This question must be answered even if that answer is vague.
In the third and final installment I'll go over timing and combat. It's pretty sweet.
"Traits? Assets? Complications? WTF are you talking about? That'll be in Part 2."
Traits are defining characteristics of a character that are used to encourage the player to roleplay the character. You gain additional dice to your rolls for roleplaying those traits into the situation you are rolling for. Additionally, the GM can tell you that your Traits might be problematic for the situation you are in and you gain a lesser die to your pool and gain a Plot Point for every Trait used and roleplayed to the detriment of your character. I'm still not certain why you are gaining any additional dice to your die pool when your traits are a problem. If the situation is harder for the PC then it would make sense that the GM gets the bonus dice and the player still gets the Plot Points for the RP. But this is a demo, maybe the full rules will make that clearer.
We'll continue using Eliot the Hitter as our example. His Traits are Bad Boy, Mysterious History, and Smarter Than He Looks. Let's say he needs to get passed a receptionist in order to get into a backroom to steal a security uniform. The receptionist is an attractive young woman who's obviously attracted to him. He's gonna try to sweet-talk his way past her. He'll roll his Intelligence + Grifter but wants to bring Bad Boy into the roll so he'll mention his Harley Davidson, which will grant him an extra d8, bringing his total dice pool to 2d6+d8.
Let's take that same situation only the receptionist is an older, no-nonsense woman. She is not impressed with his Harley. In fact she dislikes his whole Bad Boy routine. Eliot's dice pool is now 2d6 + d4 and he gets a Plot Point. Again, why he's getting the bonus d4 and not the taciturn receptionist, I do not know.
Complications arise when wins a roll but one of his dice came up a "1". At this point a new element is introduced to the Job that...complicates the situation for the crew. These manifest mechanically as en extra die for the GM in any instance that the complication can be attributed. Complications always start as a d6 bonus for the GM, but they can escalate if more Complications are rolled. This also grants the PC a Plot Point, which we'll get to later.
Again with Eliot. he smooth talks the receptionist but rolls that "1". Not only does she let him through, but she's smitten and every time she sees him she makes him obvious by trying to get his attention. This will add a d6 to the GM's dice pool in every situation applicable. If he rolls another Complication it can escalate to a d8 and can do so up to d12.
Assets work very similarly to Complications but where Complications earn the player Plot Points, Assets will cost the player Plot Points. Assets are player-created exploits in the scene. They add a d6 to the player's dice pool for as long as that Asset is relevant. Standard Assets only last until the part of the Job in which they are created is over.
It is possible for a player to create a permanent Asset by spending the Plot Point right after the GM rolls a "1" in a player's scene. Like Complications, these Assets can be escalated through play to provide a greater benefit to the player.
Plot Points are the game's currency, earned through Complications. Assets are only one of the benefits they can buy. Plot points also allow players to add additional dice to the number of dice counted for their roll. If we continue with the example of Eliot and the attractive receptionist, his dice pool was was 2d6 + d8. Eliot's player decides he doesn't want to mess this up. The player gets a 2, 4, and 5. Typically Eliot would have had a total of 9 for that roll, but because he spent the Plot Point he was allowed to add the third die to come up with a total of 11. In cases where the PC is rolling more than three dice that Plot Point will allow you to include the next highest die into your total.
Talents are the final character mechanic presented in The Quickstart Job. These are more specific in function than Traits. For instance one of Nate Ford's talents, Archangel, allows any member of the team to spend Plot Points to give dice to any other team member assuming Ford is in contact with the team. Sophie's Talent, Slip of the Tongue, allows her player to ask the GM a question concerning the NPC that the GM was rolling for if the GM rolls a "1". This question must be answered even if that answer is vague.
In the third and final installment I'll go over timing and combat. It's pretty sweet.
Necreviews: Leverage: The Quickstart Job, Part 1
I'm going to start this off by admitting that this is the first time I've reviewed anything. Let me know what you liked or didn't like, if it helped you or not.
I've been a fan of Leverage since just about the beginning. I started watching it probably within the first episodes. I'm a sucker for the genre. And it wasn't a couple of days after it crossed my mind to set up some kind of Leverage inspired Savage Worlds game that I found this pdf on DriveThruRPG. Sure it took me a couple of months to actually buy it, and sure the full rules will be available in a matter of weeks but it was on sale for $1.99.
The Quickstart Job is my first experience with the Cortex System and so far I like what I see, although I hear that the system was heavily modified for this game. The die mechanics are simple and the timing/combat mechanics seem like they'll deliver an experience that will build tension without escalating situations to the point of fatality. In that regard it emulates the show very well.
The PCs for this module (the Leverage crew from the series) have six standard attributes which will each range from a d4 to d12. There are five skills in this game, each one reflecting a heist archetype. Eliot the Hitter, for example, has a d10 in his Hitter skill, d4's in Thief and Hacker, d6 in Grifter, and d8 in Mastermind.
The die mechanics, as I said earlier, are pretty simple. You roll attribute + skill + any addition dice from Traits and/or Assets. The GM rolls the appropriate dice and adds any Complications. Both parties add the two highest rolls together. High roller wins. I will note that it's difficult to tell exactly how the GM will conclude what his die pool will be in the final version although I don't think it's a stretch to conclude that it will be NPCs' attribute + skill + any applicable complications. This demo gives you predetermined die pools.
Traits? Assets? Complications? WTF are you talking about? That'll be in Part 2.
I've been a fan of Leverage since just about the beginning. I started watching it probably within the first episodes. I'm a sucker for the genre. And it wasn't a couple of days after it crossed my mind to set up some kind of Leverage inspired Savage Worlds game that I found this pdf on DriveThruRPG. Sure it took me a couple of months to actually buy it, and sure the full rules will be available in a matter of weeks but it was on sale for $1.99.
The Quickstart Job is my first experience with the Cortex System and so far I like what I see, although I hear that the system was heavily modified for this game. The die mechanics are simple and the timing/combat mechanics seem like they'll deliver an experience that will build tension without escalating situations to the point of fatality. In that regard it emulates the show very well.
The PCs for this module (the Leverage crew from the series) have six standard attributes which will each range from a d4 to d12. There are five skills in this game, each one reflecting a heist archetype. Eliot the Hitter, for example, has a d10 in his Hitter skill, d4's in Thief and Hacker, d6 in Grifter, and d8 in Mastermind.
The die mechanics, as I said earlier, are pretty simple. You roll attribute + skill + any addition dice from Traits and/or Assets. The GM rolls the appropriate dice and adds any Complications. Both parties add the two highest rolls together. High roller wins. I will note that it's difficult to tell exactly how the GM will conclude what his die pool will be in the final version although I don't think it's a stretch to conclude that it will be NPCs' attribute + skill + any applicable complications. This demo gives you predetermined die pools.
Traits? Assets? Complications? WTF are you talking about? That'll be in Part 2.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Too Many Games, So Little Time
I blame podcasts. I used to only really concern myself with whatever system we were using to play the campaigns we always played. Historically my main group (my and a few of my cousins) have played the same system for every campaign we'd play. First it was Rolemaster, then it was a homebrew system heavily based on World of Darkness, then it was Exalted (after brushing off all of the fluff), 3.5, and now 4E. Every time we'd stumble on a system we liked we'd just convert every campaign over and approximate character creation in the spirit of the character.
Did I mention that I blame podcasts?
I stumbled upon Dragon's Landing Inn sometime in early 2008. I hadn't listened to any podcasts before so I didn't know exactly what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised at what I had heard. It was a fun show hosted by guys that just loved their hobby. That was the gateway drug.
From there I started trying out just about every gaming podcast I could find. The more I listened the more I began to realize how much was being offered in RPGs. So I've been picking them up here and there, most have gone unplayed. Burning Wheel, Houses of the Blooded, I just wasn't used to these kinds of things and though I still haven't played them I love the game theory that's behind them.
I think some credit has to go to the OGL for these types of games. It dominated the third-party RPG industry for most of the aughts and that created a vaccum. I'm sure that the Luke Cranes, John Wicks, and Fred Hicks of the world didn't need such a vaccum to exist to make the games they wanted to make. Now that d20's heyday is behind us we are left with tons of great designs that are getting all kinds of credit.
I understand, however, that I took my red pill into the gaming industry about 8 months after WotC announced that 4E would be comming. The d20 bubble was already gone by the time I had started taking part in the wider internet gaming community. It's likely that all this stuff was already just as popular and that I was just begining to hear about it (history doesn't begin the moment you first realize what's going on). Although in the last year I have seen my FLGS (The Griffon, South Bend, IN unsolicited props) carry more and more games that might cater to the more experimental gamer.
I think it's time to get the second gaming group around and start getting a feel for what else is out there.
Did I mention that I blame podcasts?
I stumbled upon Dragon's Landing Inn sometime in early 2008. I hadn't listened to any podcasts before so I didn't know exactly what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised at what I had heard. It was a fun show hosted by guys that just loved their hobby. That was the gateway drug.
From there I started trying out just about every gaming podcast I could find. The more I listened the more I began to realize how much was being offered in RPGs. So I've been picking them up here and there, most have gone unplayed. Burning Wheel, Houses of the Blooded, I just wasn't used to these kinds of things and though I still haven't played them I love the game theory that's behind them.
I think some credit has to go to the OGL for these types of games. It dominated the third-party RPG industry for most of the aughts and that created a vaccum. I'm sure that the Luke Cranes, John Wicks, and Fred Hicks of the world didn't need such a vaccum to exist to make the games they wanted to make. Now that d20's heyday is behind us we are left with tons of great designs that are getting all kinds of credit.
I understand, however, that I took my red pill into the gaming industry about 8 months after WotC announced that 4E would be comming. The d20 bubble was already gone by the time I had started taking part in the wider internet gaming community. It's likely that all this stuff was already just as popular and that I was just begining to hear about it (history doesn't begin the moment you first realize what's going on). Although in the last year I have seen my FLGS (The Griffon, South Bend, IN unsolicited props) carry more and more games that might cater to the more experimental gamer.
I think it's time to get the second gaming group around and start getting a feel for what else is out there.
Thanks for stopping by.
Hey all. My name is Necronomitron and you've stumbled upon my new gaming blog. Perhaps you've seen me around the internet on various gaming forums, most probably the Fear the Boot forums.
I love gaming. Time doesn't permit gaming much like it used to. I find myself talking about it and thinking about it more than actually doing it. So I figured I'd start a blog and submit my thoughts in written form for the harshest of critics; gamers.
What can you expect from this blog? I'm going to be talking about everything game related. Sometimes I'm going to yap about World of Warcraft, and others I'll talk about RPGs. I'm certain I'll post pics of my Warmachine or Hordes models, too. I also love board games and card games. So if you like games and an amatuer writing style, congratulations! Your standards are low enough to appreciate this blog.
I love gaming. Time doesn't permit gaming much like it used to. I find myself talking about it and thinking about it more than actually doing it. So I figured I'd start a blog and submit my thoughts in written form for the harshest of critics; gamers.
What can you expect from this blog? I'm going to be talking about everything game related. Sometimes I'm going to yap about World of Warcraft, and others I'll talk about RPGs. I'm certain I'll post pics of my Warmachine or Hordes models, too. I also love board games and card games. So if you like games and an amatuer writing style, congratulations! Your standards are low enough to appreciate this blog.
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