Spaz In Games

Dresden Role Playing - The Sandman

2011-01-27T19:11:00.000-08:00

I'm Running a Dresden Files Roleplaying game, and one of my players wanted to play "The Sandman". So, I designed a template for him, and decided to share it.

So here is the Template [And it Document form]

Sandman [-5 Template]

You are the sandman responsible for the sleep of thousands. You represent mortal creativity and dreams. While there are elements of the fey about you, you are not one of the Shidhe, and are sometimes considered anathema in their court.

Duty [Modified Feeding Dependency] +1

As a Sandman your duty is to put people to their peaceful sleep. The Sandbag that you have been entrusted with weighs with the sleeping sand of those in your care. As such your power stems from the completion of this.

You have an additional stress track called Duty. Discipline determines its length, exactly like Endurance or Conviction. Unlike other stress tracks, the Duty track does not clear at the end of a scene.

At the end of a scene in which you have heavily taxed your supernatural power, you make a defense test with Discipline; failure incurs a stress hit like an attack. If you are taken out on your Duty track, you are temporarily disconnected from some of your powers until you have a chance to fulfill your duty.

Immortality [Modified Wizards Constitution] +0

Glamours -2

Sandbag -4

Item of Power +1

Incite Sleep [Modified Incite Emotion] -2 : Uses Deceit

[-1]

-Lasting “Sleep” -1

Dreamwalker -3

You have the ability to step sideways from the world, on the periphery and just beyond human perception. This grants ability to step through walls and solid objects, to enter the homes of would-be sleepers with ease. You are still blocked by powerful wards, and certain thresholds, but may pass freely into any home in which sleep is desired or welcomed.

You can normally not interact with the physical world in any but the most minor of ways while dreamwalking, however you can still Incite Sleep. Additionally you gain the Potent “Sleep” Addition, granting a total +4 Stress bonus on Incite Sleep rolls.

While Dreamwalking you are invulnerable to mortal weapons (Physical Immunity with a catch), but are venerable to hand blown glass. You have heard rumors that you are also especially vulnerable certain fey weapons that are strongly tied to the dreams of mortals.

Also while Dreamwalking you may enter the NeverNever in places strongly associated with sleep or from the homes of strong and creative dreamers.

EndGame MiniCon – Fiasco Report

2010-04-05T22:53:00.000-07:00

I had a great time at the EndGame MiniCon Last Saturday (2010/04/03). I will try and get a full review of the Con going soon, but I wanted to gush on my new Game De Jour, Fiasco.

First let’s talk about what happened at my table.

We played the Gangster London play set, and had a very West London Underground experience that could be the pitch for a Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels sequel. The aspects defined by those adjacent to me were (left) Relationship - Odd: Alcoholics Anonymous and Location: The Pub “The Crown and Anchor”; (right) Relationship – Friends: “That bloke down the pub”, and Object – Valuables: An arse load of diamonds. Looking at these relationships I didn’t know how the Diamonds worked in yet, but from the other connections I inferred that I was the Irish owner of “The Crown and Anchor” one of the last British pubs in West London, surrounded by Tea Houses and Curry Shops. The three other characters were a pair of east Indian Curry Shop Owners who were secretly gay (relationship: secrete romance). One of whom (to my left) had hidden drinking problem (the AA connection), and the other (across the table from me) was a criminal boss using the Curry shop as a front; on the reverse wall from our Curry shop was my characters Pub. The player to my right was a down on his luck bigoted crime flunky who in desperation was working for this “Pakie” (Relationship - Crime: Boss and Lackey).

Our basic setup was this story about a large package of stolen diamonds that our lackey tries to hide away from his boss, hoping to skip town and run out on his Foreigner boss. Mean-while, my Pub Owner is informed that his daughter had been murdered (in association with the diamond theft, but only us as the audience knew) and I was expecting a huge insurance disbursement. This was happening the same time that our Indian Crime Boss was arranging a large shipment of “Special Curry Powder”; which was code for large shipment of money to be laundered through the curry shop. Our twist came shortly after our other younger Indian Shop owner was seen embracing another man by our crime lackey (who of course informed his boss that his partner was “A Fairy”).

Our twist came in the form of “Someone’s not so innocent after all” and “A Stupid plan goes horribly right”

We develop our younger Indian shop owner as being “not so innocent” and connecting him to the diamond theft in flashbacks. We ride the second act hard; having our Lackey turn into an informant against in Foreigner boss, while his diamonds are safely in the cooler of the Pub next door. His failed sting attempt leaves the money from the sting operation also in the cooler (next to the diamonds). Our Indian Crime boss flees the failed sting operation and goes and murders the man he thinks his lover was cheating on him with. We end with an arrest of the Lackey informant, who leads the police back to his boss (who is still covered in blood from his murder); and my pub owner finding the diamonds and sting money in his cooler, in addition to thinking he is still getting the insurance wind fall.

In the closing montage, the Lackey “comes out clean”, the second owner “is fairly well off”, and both the Crime Boss and my Pub owner are “In the Deep shit”. I narrate myself as being found by my police blokes while counting the money and diamonds, getting arrested and convicted of embezzlement and insurance fraud, and winding up in prison. Our Crime Boss ends up in a Prison with very white inmates. Our second Curry Owner ends up with both the Curry Shop and my Pub, and our Lackey ends up escaping and getting free of his criminal past.

Now let’s talk about the game.

The Good!

I really liked how the scene economy worked, it made this GM-less game really sing. You could either choose to narrate how your scene starts OR decide how (good or bad) the scene affects your character. I had a little confusion about who had retained narrative control at the end of the scene; Was it the person narrating from the start, or was it the player. We figured it out after the game. But even so, it did not impede our game play at all.

I loved the way that you set up the situation and relationships based on some dice rolls and some charts. It allowed people to choose things that were interesting to them, but also confined the players to using things that were very evocative for the play set. I can see how that REALLY shines when playing this game for slightly different flavors of this type of genre play.

Our facilitator, Chris “That’s My Leopard” Bennett, said that when the game works well it is because of the cooperation of all the players at the table. I have to agree, I need to thank the rest of the players, Matt “Matt’thulhu” Steel, and Noam “I’ll play the Dead Girl” Rosen; you guys made that game so awesome.

The Bad!

The only part of the game that did not resonate with me was the end game mechanics. The way it was described was that the players with more positive scene endings (white dice) had bad endings, while those with more negative endings (black dice) had good endings. While I like the idea that the end montage can throw additional character twists (sudden windfalls, or rapid descent into shit) that help capture the genre, it doesn’t feel like it adds to the story or rhythm that was built at the table. It will need some more exploration in both text and play, but I didn’t like the taste it left in my mouth. Overall it was not enough to dampen this excellent session in the slightest, but was the most detracting aspect.

The Ugly!

I blew my creative wad on this game. My second session was awesome but I could feel myself dragging through it, and I didn’t want to over-extend myself because I was running a MouseGuard game in the final slot of the day. But I think it was worth it. Fiasco was Awesome!

DunDraCon 2010 - In Review

2010-02-15T15:36:00.000-08:00

This was the first year in many that I was able to go as ‘just a player’. I was only able to make it Saturday and Sunday, but I was determined to make the most of it.

I heard some stories of misfortune, players and games getting messed around because of some fault of the randomizer. Alas I must admit that I had a perfect weekend. I Registered for three sessions of games, and got into my first choice in everyone, I even bowed out of (did not show for) my Sunday Morning game.

Let’s start with Saturday Morning.

I convinced a few friends to join me in the Ars Magica (GMFiat) game “Draconis et Carcares ('The Dungeons and the Dragon')”. It was presented as a wizard’s tournament, four invitations were sent to four powerful magi and were then allowed to form teams and participate in 3 rounds (7 events) of the tournament. The Prize was to be 30 Vis, and other less know prizes (joining the Cult, and the ownership rights of the host covenant). Underlying the events of the tournament was a murder of one of the hosts, and invasion of demonic influences into the events. I was playing a German Artificer, with powers over flora and terra (Wood, Plants, Earth and Metals), in the end I accomplished my goals, not by winning the tournament, but by being useful in stopping the end of the world and a demon lord (al la Dragon). I enjoyed my character, and the plot, and the other characters, the basics of the GMFiat system; over all a lot of fun.

I had an interlude problem where I thought I had lost my badge, after getting our dinner. I ended up buying a replacement badge. Funny thing is after unpacking my backpack Monday afternoon; I found my original badge hiding in my snack bag with my cliff bars and peanuts.

My evening game was with Rich and his Mage the Awakening game. Rich used a antagonist I had read out of “Intruders”, but done so subtly we were in the final stages of the story before I actually knew what exactly we were up against. A sleep walker was infected by an abyssal parasite, and then transferred it to one of the PC’s. It was a complex situation involving a Vampire’s Domination side effects, and a previous victim’s intentions to spread the parasite to better hosts. In the end we tracked down the Vampire, kicked in the door with guns blazing. I enjoyed the game, but it suffered from two problems; the first is a group of players whose enthusiasm was very vocal, often out voicing the GM and making it hard to remain focused on the game; the second was several of the players were suffering from early stages of ConBrain, making bickering and analysis-paralysis more common as the evening drew on. But for these issues the game would have been outstanding. I enjoyed the story and the characters regardless, Rich is an excellent GM.

The next morning I was signed up for Paul Strack’s Prime Time Adventures Game, however like many of my previous Sunday Morning games, I did not make it, allowing for sleep to be my primary concern. I arrived back at the Con just after noon with Lesley In-Tow, and proceeded to do a great deal of socializing, followed by making final notes and prep work for my Geist game “DeadLock”.

My game went very well, mostly due to my excellent group of players. Rich and Kevin W were first at my table, then my recent friend Tracy, two other players who I had not met before, and then Eric L rounded out the table with the last open seat as a drop-in. My plot was simple(ish). The Krew were summoned to Undercliff, a domain of the Underworld, with Idyllic sensibilities. All of the Sin-Eater’s Geist’s had made a deal with the lords of the Domain (previous to them being bound to the PC’s) and the PC’s were thus called to mediate a dispute between the two Deathlords involved. Both sides wanted the other to leave the domain forever (or be destroyed, whatever was most convenient). This established they released the PC’s to discover what could be done to solve the problem, only to discover that the best way to find lost answers was to visit another Underworld Domain, Athenaeum, The Realm of Dead Knowledge. They found a guide, ventured fourth, and discovered a vast repository of knowledge. They figured out lots of fact’s which lead them to picking between ‘Rock and Hard place’ to save their own “Souls”. Some clever questions and outstanding rolls allowed them to solve the situation without mass death or abductions. The only part about this game that I wish I could have improved was my content pacing; I had too much content for my 6 hour slot. The players were having a lot of fun interacting with the setting and shiny bits; allowing them the freedom to discover at their own pace left us strapped for time near the end (and going over by about an hour). If I had time I knew I could have benefited from a Play test, but alas, maybe in the future.

My DunDraCon was very good, mostly because of the awesome games, but also because I was able to enjoy the con not as a Dealer, but as a participant.

Gamers Helping Haiti $20 Donation with Coupon

2010-01-20T11:52:00.000-08:00

The Short Version is the DriveThruRPG (OneBookShelf) and various publishers are offering free downloads of their PDF books for a $20 donation (made through DriveThruRPG) to the Doctors Without Boarders Haiti Relief Fund. The offer is going until the End of January.

More Detailed information can be found here (Fred Hicks Blog), and here (PurplePawn), and of course Here (DriveThruRPG).

Some of the Highlight Products that caught my eye were:

· Beast Hunters RPG

· Castles & Crusades Arms and Armor

· Chronica Feudalis

· Classic Spycraft: Spycraft Espionage Handbook

· Colonial Gothic: Secrets

· Cortex System Role Playing Game

· Full Light, Full Steam

· Hollow Earth Expedition Earth Drill

· Kobold Quarterly 11

· Piledrivers and Powerbombs: Chokeslam of Darkness Edition

· Reign of Discordia (Traveller Edition)

· Roma Imperious

· Serenity Role Playing Game

· Shrouded Agendas for D&D 4E: The Purifiers

· Spirit of the Season

· Thousand Suns: Foundation Transmissions

· Three Sixteen

· Thrilling Tales 2nd Edition (Savage Worlds)

· Trail of Cthulhu Player’s Guide

So take some time, donate a little, and get lots of cool stuff for doing so.

DunDraCon Event

2009-12-09T14:16:00.000-08:00

I will likely not be running a booth at DunDraCon (Cross fingers that it changes). So to ensure that I have a badge, I will be running a Game of Geist: The Sin-Eaters at the Show.

Event: Deadlock (AGOP)
RPG – 6 Hours – 6 Players
Preferred time: Sunday Morning or Evening

Short Description:
Life is over, you’re dead. You struck a bargain, now your back, alive and well; but something’s wrong, the deals not done. Clearly you’ve reached a Deadlock. [Good Omens Productions]

Web Description:
Your Life is over. You saw the car coming, the machine exploding, the water above your head; you are dead, or at least you were. You struck a bargain from beyond the veil of death, and now you back. But something is clearly wrong; you’re on borrowed time; and the voice in the back of your head says that “This isn’t right; you should be back in the land of the living.” You have this feeling that the deal isn’t done, and if you and your other half want to see the land of the living again you will need to work with the other Bound and escape this Deadlock.

A Good Omens Production

Geist: the Sin-Eaters is a game about second chances, set in the World of Darkness. You play a mortal who died, but who’s will to live attracted a Geist (an archetype of death), who wants to be alive again as much as you do. You join together, in symbiosis, and return to the land of the living. But now you can see ghost and other manifestations of death, and feel an obligation to send the restless shades on their way, to whatever lies beyond.

See you at the show!

Dresden Files Target Date Annouced

2009-10-31T14:10:00.001-07:00

Today is Holloween, also the Birthday of one of my favorite fictional characters, Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. For his birthday the guys over at Evil Hat have announced the release of the Dresden Files RPG, which is just going into it's final Development and Editing cycle.

Take a look at their release info here.

Ascension Reloaded

2009-10-09T12:17:00.000-07:00

I haven't been blogging much recently. Mostly I have been busy moving, getting settled in a new city, and gaming.
I promise to do an update later but for know I want to show off the fruit of my labor.

This is a Mage the Ascension rules document that adapts that setting for the New World of Darkness core system, and also re-envisions those rules to make them more usable.

Anyone who wants to give me feedback can do so in any of the ways outlined on this Blog or in the document.

Ascension: Reloaded

DFRPG AP Recordings, Renewed Interest

2009-05-27T14:18:00.000-07:00

There has been some comments, and emails.

Some people are asking for access to the DFRPG AP recordings again, and back by popular demand.

Direct download isn't an option this time around.

Here is the Torrent for the files.

Review - Dresden Files, Turn Coat

2009-05-08T17:41:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Dresden Files - Turn Coat. I am very impressed with the book overall.

I started reading the hardback version, lent by a friend, and then I received my Audio Book from Buzzy Multimedia. I have really enjoyed the Audio Books for the Dresden Files; Buzzy does an excellent job with the quality, and James Marsters is now the only voice of Harry Dresden that I can accept.

The story itself is up to snuff with the rest of the series, I was not expecting the book to build as much as it did, this was defiantly intended to be the first of the new arc, and from what I have heard from other sources, Book 12 will take The Dresden Files to places It has not been before. Book 11 did a lot of transitions, and building great expectations for the rest of this arc. I am waiting with great anticipation for the next Dresden files book, and the companion audio books.

As a side note, Books 1 - 4, 8 -11 can be found at Buzzy in audio form. Looking forward to Book 5 Coming this Fall (November 09).

Reflection on 4E Skill Challenges

2009-01-20T21:16:00.001-08:00

Reflections on 4E Skill Challenges

By Michael ParkerSpaz.Jedi@gmail.com

I have been playing a lot of D&D 4E over the last 7 Months. Since it came out I have been running one game a week and playing one game a week. In that time I have come to adore skill challenges. The aspect I enjoy the most is their modular nature; this can also be a pitfall to using them. To overcome this point I have developed three aspects of the use of Skill Challenges, and what purpose or roll they serve during play. These aspects are: Extended Skill Checks, Normal Skill Challenges, and Skill Scenes.

Extended Skill Checks are most often seen in combination encounters. During combat there is a trap that can be disabled, or a hazard that can be permanently overcome. A relevant skill (usually thievery) is used and a number of successes are required. I have used these sparingly and usually multiple skills can apply in my encounters to allow them to be overcome quickly, or at least by multiple party members. The specific downfall to using this type of skill challenge is that requiring disabling a trap or hazard can be boring to overcome. Using a standard action (particularly for the rouge) can allow a character to spend his turn not doing anything cool. The “Something cool to do every round” design mantra’s was one that I latched onto at the outset of 4^th Ed. As such I have been toying around with how to better use the idea of an Extended Skill Check without compromising other elements during play. Thus far nothing concrete has become apparent in my ideas.The reward for this type of skill challenge is implicit in the trap or hazard, accounted for in the XP budget when the encounter is designed; therefore no additional XP is required after the encounter is complete; this is different that the rest of the skill challenge designs and rewards.

Normal Skill Challenges are the skill challenge as written and expressly explained in the DMG; a specific goal that can be accomplished with particular grouping of skills. They provide
challenges that come with risk and reward. I see them as having three divisions, making them tricky to employ but very useful during a game. The first two challenge types serve a duality; I refer to them as Carrot and Stick challenges.

Common stick encounters involve overcoming a threat specifically to bypass a hazardous situation if successful then dealing with another encounter if failed. The Reward for Stick encounters is the normal Skill challenge XP and the XP of any subsequent encounters due to failure.
Example Situation: To stop a host of Orcs from invading the region the intrepid adventures must get to the Orc Leader’s Tent in the middle of an Orc Encampment, preferably unseen. Skill Challenge Success - Bypass the sentries of the camp, thus saving the party resources for the fight with the Orc leader. Skill Challenge Failure – An encounter with lesser orcs, to bloody the noses of the PC’s and diminishes their resources.
Common Carrot encounters work from the opposite direction, encouraging players to pass the skill challenge in order to gain a significant advantage (other than bypassing an inconvenience). Rewards for this challenge include normal skill challenge XP and whatever MacGuffin or
benefit gained through the success of the challenge; future encounters have rewards of their own.

Example Situation: A Party of adventurers knows they are their main villain is a powerful undead Vampire, and Consult the library of the local church for information. Skill Challenge Success covey’s a +1 bonus to attack rolls and a +1 bonus to saves verses ongoing effects from the Vampires powers.

The third type of normal Skill Challenge usually is a skill challenge given in response to character actions or ideas, the skill challenge is a great medium for enacting hair-brained PC schemes. Usually this has less consequence for failure. Possible rewards can include any of the following; normal skill challenge XP based on complexity, either of the intrinsic rewards of the carrot or stick challenges (gaining bonuses or bypassing hazards), and often successes can be it’s own reward for this type of challenge. I use my discretion if alternate rewards are more fulfilling for player desires.
Example Situation: A party has just slew an evil dragon, guarding a lair to an ancient evil. The Party’s Ranger, being an expert trapper and taxidermist, wants to strip the dragon of its valuable scales to sell or make powerful armor later. A skill challenge is joined. Success leads to the valuable scales desired, and failure leads to the lost of that substance.

Skill Scenes have different trappings altogether. The objective of the Skill Scene framework is to allow for maximum interaction with the fiction and setting while transitioning from one challenge to another. The Characters must move from one point to another along a story, and the PC’s are going to succeeded (it’s really boring for them not too), but the interesting part of the skill scene is how they succeed. Most characters are going to use skills they are best at, which is good and encourages creativity. It’s up to the DM and the players if the outcome is predetermined or reached organically, as best serves the groups desires and fits best for your
narrative. Skill scenes can work by answering some questions to focus the actions of players. Possible questions: What the victory conditions are, what they get when they win, and what happens if they fail? Determine the complexity based on how long the scene should last.
Example Situation: After their last adventure, a group of adventures wants to learn more about an artifact that they found, The Blade of the Outer Worlds. The party is not sure what information they ultimately want to find, So they start the skill scene without a victory outcome. During the first round of rolls, the party’s warlock uncovers the name of the previous wielder of the blade, and that his history parallels the adventures own. The Party decides that the rest of the scene is about finding out this long dead adventurers resting place, to explore it and find more information. The Party then uses a combination of streetwise, history, and arcane to find out all the information they need to find the tomb. The game is on!

Find this article shared here, on Google Docs

**EDIT** 1/21/09

I updated the document based on some inital revisions, mostly copy edit work. I am not updating the post (Because formating it is a bitch). I may also update the document later if I get enough feedback.

DFRPG AP Recordings - Fixed now... Honestly

2008-12-14T16:24:00.000-08:00

Okay, for sure this time, I sware I have it working....

Torrent Link

The Advarsary System

2008-12-09T19:33:00.001-08:00

Just because I felt like it, I decided to post my final critical thinking essay here on my blog, to see if it warrants any notice.

Michael Parker
Philosophy 130
12/9/08

Adversarial Justice System

Two Primary system of law are currently in practice across the world, the Inquisitorial System and the Adversarial System. An inquisitorial system is a legal system where the court is actively involved in determining the facts of the case. The Adversarial System works under the assumption that having two equally vigorous lawyers will distil the truth in a fair court of law; like a crucible, melting away all impurities and leaving nothing but the truth. Both systems have their merits, and both systems have their flaws. My understanding is limited in the area of law practices, but being an understanding critical thinker, I have taken the information I have found and come to a conclusion; the Adversarial System, I think, has more strong merits than flaws, with one primary exception exception, the jury. A jury involved in an adversarial case only muddies the waters, allowing for more confusing the truth rather than distilling it.
The ideals of the jury system have a lot of merit. It is easy to understand wanting to remove more power from a cabal of individuals in a legal preceding. The Inquisitorial System allows a judge, or judges, to take part in the investigation, sometimes being allowed to question witnesses. Imagining corruption or misconduct is easy. Relying on the jury is a way of placing the burden of conviction on a (supposedly) impartial source, outside of the legal system, as opposed to leaving everything to those involved with a case. But that distance from the process is also part of the problem.
Our Adversarial system has evolved to a process of appealing to the juries more than distilling the truth. Both prosecution and defense lawyers both use social acumen, public speaking techniques, and a persuasive presence to lure jurors in supporting their arguments. Evidence and the facts of the case are presented and explained, but often many of the legal aspects of any given case are passing above the head of the common juror. This lack of understanding of the legal proceedings can justify lawyers appealing more to the jury than to the justice of the court.
The average familiarity of the court system is slight; most people just don’t fully understand what happens in a court room. This included process and technicalities of the court. A piece of information is stricken from the record, most people don’t have the training or understanding to disregard information once it has come into the open. In addition the ramifications of a particular crime and case play into the minds of jurors. In the Leroy Reed Case, his initial guilt was not in question, but the nature of the Reeds punishment allowed many jurors to justify giving a verdict of not guilty, not wanting to send a fairly complacent man to prison for a crime that he himself did not fully understand. These inabilities in the average juror could be corrected in the selection process, but this would compromise the system of jury of peers; leaving only those who had a firm understanding of both their roll and the court process. And if we are selecting people for those skills in particular why not make that just as much of the court process as the lawyers, the judge, and the bailiffs. Add a designated juror who understands all of the rules of court and what the court needs from them.
We, as a republic with democratic leanings, elect public officials every election. We choose people with more training and expertise to make decisions that don’t fully understand, or to perform jobs we can not or do not want to do. Therefore could we not logically have elected and volunteer officials that perform the same function as a juror, but are already integrated to and familiar with the legal system. They could be in the same way, with random summoning and interrogative selection process. This idea has some issues to resolve before it can fully be considered.
Corruption and prejudice could still be a problem. A smaller group of individuals could be easier to influence than a group which is randomly determined a month in advance. However, the same could be said of an individual with no attachment to the legal process, easily corrupted because of his apathy on a matter. These theoretical professional jurors would also have professional ethics to consider as well as just personal moral code. Prejudice might be less of a problem, when jurors are selected lawyers on both sides question potential jurors to see if they are able to serve on any given trial based on background and attitude. A similar system could be applied to these professional jurors, on top of that it could be made more efficient, because they are continually sitting on cases, when they are disqualified for a type of case, they could be flagged not to be called for another crime of the same type, thus saving time.
While the Adversary System has its flaws, its alternatives are not exempt from criticism. A Common Law practice in the Inquisitorial System does not allow for a guilty plea, requiring a trial to determine guilt even with a confession. While this might cut down on false confessions gained through coercion, it also wastes time with trials that don’t need to be performed. Furthermore, the rules of admissibility of evidence allows judges to act more like an enquirer than an arbiter of justice, mixing the roles that a judge plays in the justice process, expanding the responsibilities rather than defusing them. These aspects of the process show that it is not without its faults.
Mixing the two systems might be the best alternative for those who see the merits and flaws of each without wanting to commit strictly to one. We see that in our current systems already, some Common Law countries have a form of adversary trials with a tribunal. And several bureaucratic administrations have a tribunal for deciding menial matters, such as traffic violations in New York. And eliminating the jury from our adversary system is just an extension of that, not quite switching to an Inquisitorial System, but incorporation and extrapolation of the concepts that work.

Dresden Files RPG, AP Recordings, 2nd Try

2008-12-05T13:26:00.000-08:00

Okay, so some technical issues were brought to my attention for that last torrent I posted.

Here is another Torrent Link, hopefuly this one works right, otherwise let me know.

Dresden Feedback

2008-12-04T16:49:00.000-08:00

This is my feedback for our Dresden Files Play Testing Process. If you read closley you can glean some usful information from it.

We finished our Dresden play test a few weeks ago on the 15th of December. I have been keeping a lot of my commentary quiet to allow those who know and read my blog and are engaged in the Burning Alpha wouldn’t get tainted information before they finished their test process.

I am going to be recounting most of this from the audio recordings which are posted on my blog.

City Creation –
We took a style for city creation of picking a distant place, London, which we all knew equally little about. We all threw around ideas, then did research, came back and built the city sheet.
The commentary on the text of city creation was fairly short, we liked what the chapter said, but not how it said to do it. The formula of the chapter didn’t appeal to us, but we used all of the components just in a different order and in different ways. The Five Question to define a city were really helpful to us, and I was happy to see that they had not changed. Suggestions would be to include a follow along example of city building within the text; and/or a sidebar describing how all of the pieces of city creation don’t need to follow a special order, “do what feels right”.

See the Post of City creation in my blog.

Cast of Characters:
Warden Soloman Guardrake – A New Warden of the White council, whose family leave very strong ghost echoes, and is a distant relative of Jack the Ripper.
Chip Stone – Floridian Changeling who is a Bastard Son of the Earlking. Chip is a Rock Metal performer who also specializes in mosh-pit fighting
Mark How - A Scion son of the Monkey King from the Celestial bureaucracy, and orphan from Hong Kong. He has wondered much of the former British empire hoping to get away from his fathers influence, trying to not relive his fathers stories, for fear that he will one day become him.

Things to note: we started playing around with the as written refresh and skills, but found that it did not feel Dresden enough, we ended up going back to the 10 refresh and 35 Skill points, it hit the sweet spot really well for what felt like Dresden.

First Play Session
Good!:
The Flow of the game, and the pace set by Fate for Dresden works well.
The Way that Fate controls the story works well of the feeling for Dresden
City Creation & Character creation create a perfect play environment.
Fate is Awesome, the way refresh allows for power and limits fate points works well. (This mostly from people who were not involved in the first test).

Improvement:
The flow of the game feels different than SotC, those coming directly from spirit feel the growing pains of the more robust system.
Self Compels should have some highlight to them in the text. Perhaps in the How to play chapter, or a sidebar in Aspects to give it it’s own section, some of my players did not get that on their interpretation of the text.

Second and Third Play Session
Good!: Supernatural Stunts were reorganized well, organization of the chapters was more clear. Spell casting was clearer than the previous test.

Improvement: Section on Supernatural Stunts toolkit, sidebar or section rules on how to make supernatural stunts.
We encountered a lot of confusion with consequences, in how quickly they refresh, and how more specifically how players need to think about consequences as both story devices and currency simultaneously. Possible sidebar or something like that.

Magic notes: As I understood the thaumaturgy, our wizard (Discipline 5, Conviction 4) could not fail a thaumaturgy rote (he could always generate positive shift) unless I compelled him to a -6 on the roll. Is this Appropriate?
We think that Discipline might be overused in the new text. We didn’t come up with specifics (sorry); it just felt like it was used for more of the calculations than in the previous used magic system.

Final Play Session

Good:
Stress Tracks felt much better, based on their description in the how to play chapter.
The City Creation Chapter worked very well, if felt wonderful during the creation, during play, and looking at it after the fact.

Improvements:
See previous notes for City Building improvement.
(reiterated notes from other sessions)
Mortal Stunts are great, but everyone should make up their own. It was not emphasized enough that one character had 4 mortal stunts, and only the one he made got used in play.

Magic:
Law breaker stunts felt very right, they worked much smother than last time.

From Leonard Balsera -
* Do you feel that mortal stunts provide enough bang for buck to be
worth the investment in refresh? Why or why not?

Yes, they worked well, they gave that extra kick in the butt some characters needed to feel unique. As well as helped people feel better about not taking various skills.

* How does wizard output feel (I'm thinking mainly of evocation here,
but interpret this however you want), *specifically* as compared to
what we've seen Harry do in the books? What are some glaring
differences you notice that make the experience of the game different
from the books?

At low starting points building the wizard felt off, it wasn’t quite Dresden, but very close. The High Refresh and beyond felt VERY Dresden, Evocation was simple enough to encompass everything, but more examples of Evocations would be helpful for getting everyone on the same page.

* How have the new concession rules affected the way fate points flow in your game, if at all? Have they reduced your dependence on compels?
Increased it?

I think the concession rules work very well for the points of tension in the stories we played. Conflicts we engaged in were brutal and the option to concede and get rewarded allowed characters can choose something more important later to succeed at. We didn’t notice that option affected our compel actions, so I would judge it’s tuned fairly well.

DFRPG - City Creation: London

2008-12-02T12:02:00.000-08:00

Here is our city information for our latest Play Test of the DFRPG.

London
Aspects:

Something Old, Something New, Something Grounded, Somewhat True
Ride Between the Lines
Great White Rave
Jack of All Shades
City by the Fae
Immortal Athority

The Olde Cavendish Club

The Five Questions

Who Cares About the City?
The White Council – Center of Culture
Everyone, Neutral Ground
The Kingdom of Ghosts, Ground Echos
The White Court, Electronicica Raves
The Courts of the Fae, and the Wyld Fae, they were here first
The City of London Corperation, “are they sure they were here first?”

The City of London for several centuries has been a place of neutrality; some say that the latest revisions of the Unseelie Accords were drafted within the cities confines. As a place of neutrality everyone has an interest in keeping the status quo, but a few groups have emerged as being central to London’s Survival.
London has been a bastion of the White Council for as long as it as stood as a city. The “Recent” Neutralizing of the territory through the accords has only helped them solidify there power in the UK and Northern Europe.
A minor branch of the White Court of Vampires keeps residence in London, they have lost a lot of face within the last century and as such are off a lot of people’s radar; despite the fact that they are the closest to the mortal community through the counter culture movement among London youth.
London is a city of Ghosts, ghosts that leave stronger echoes than in the rest of the world, and as such they have devolved an autonomy from their lack of existence. This “Kingdom of Ghost” makes primary use of unused subway system tunnels, and for those in the know is lead by Jack the Ripper the most powerful shade to be known in London.
The courts of Fae often feel like they are looking in through a window to their own house, they had been in control of most of the UK for centuries, and now they find themselves troubled to even enter the City of London proper.
The City of London has always had the City of London Corporation, a governing body that sees to the municipal needs of the city, why the greater London area is covered by the metropolitan police. For those paying attention, the Corperation takes an interest in affairs not entirely natural, while no one can say who gives the orders for these interferences, no one should mess with Corporation.

Who Keeps the Peace?
The wardens, Members of “The Olde Cavendish Club”
The London Corporation, The Faceless Immortal
Individual Groups Policing to not get “The Wizard Hammer”

The City of London Corporation handles some of the supernatural incidents, despite the fact that it always is filed as mundane occurrences. But the real peacekeeping comes from the Wardens of the White council newly officiated Wardens in Europe often train in London for a time, and as such several wardens are on hand for any such event. The mere threat of so many wardens keeps many problems from starting by itself.

How do Mortals Cope?
Old - Introverted personality, the home of the frumpy dullards
New – They Embrace the Weird, not the supernatural, but the expresion of new ideas, and British Humor and Idioms.
The Law – The London Corporation “covers-up” a lot of things that might reach the media.

Mortals cope in two ways, depending on what generation there a part of. The older generation still coming down from a very conservative era are very introverted and not looking around in the dark for things that go bump. The newer generation know that London is just weird and has a lot of weird people, some act like vampires, some act queer, just part of the makeup of the city. For things that might make the morning news the city of London corporation often steps in and takes care of “Upsetting News”

What kind of supernatural community is there in town?
Minh’s Bistro – local supernatural hang out.
Jack the Ripper, and his following fiendish shades
Sir Giles Cavendish and “The Old Cavendish Club”
Crash, Local Watering Hole (and rave spot) for the White Court, and Mortal Counter Culture, Kyle’s DJ SO
The Lord Mayor Eternal of London, Jon Doe

Minh’s Bistro is the small out of the way hangout for many of the smaller players in London. Minh herself is a user of magic for divination, and as such know when to act. And when to lie low. A fellow by the name of Jack wants to be helpful and hangs around many of the supernatural hangouts, those in the know again know that jack surrounds himself with fiendish shades, ghost who might be more horrible, but not more powerful, than himself. Sir Giles Cavendish is the Regional Commander of the Wardens for Northern Europe, and often makes his office in the Old Cavendish club that his family started centuries ago for the Wizardly Gentleman. The White Court of Vampires and the counter culture youth make there home away from home at CRASH, a converted where house for industrial, metal, techno and whatever else makes that noise. It’s interesting to note that no deaths have occurred at the hands of a white court vampire since crash has opened.

What interests a supernatural tourist?
Neutralizing Ground
The Society of Ghosts
Just Plain History
Melding pot of Supernatural rejects.
Rail System, Nye impervious to Hexing

London is neutral not just for it’s geographic status, but because of circumstances that leave many parts of London with a natural threshold, diminishing the power of wizards and beings of the NeverNever equally. This puts everyone on even footing for matters of importance. It’s not everywhere in the city and it’s getting weaker lately, but if you not careful you’ll step into a “cold zone” and be unable to use any mojo. The natural threshold is thought to be the reason that the ghosts are heavier here than elsewhere. Another aspect of the threshold is the beings it draws, beings who wants to get away from the supernatural might come to London just to lock themselves away in a Cold Zone, denying that part of them.

Dresden Burning Alpha AP Recordings

2008-12-02T11:27:00.000-08:00

So here are my Actual Play Recordings for the Second Alpha Test for The Dresden Files Role Playing Game.

I am posting a Torrent of all of the audio files, it summs up to 930 Megs, and is almost a compleate day of Dresden Files roleplaying at 23 hours.

If you wanna download them idividually or just Download Direct, you can find them uploaded to the intertubes here.

We had a total of 9 Sessions, 8 of which were captured on audio. One of our prepsessions were not captured because it was just book keeping and catching up a player who had missed the last previous two sessions.

The City Creation and Character Creation "Prep" Sessions were really interesting to participate in, but I don't think there the most useful to listen to. Our play sessions were much more entertaining.

Cast of Players:
Mike - The GM
Jared E - Warden Soloman Gaurdrake
Jarys M - Mark How
Kyle T - Chip Stone

Session 4 Track 1 has a summery of each of the characters. Also ther will be a detailed sumery of the cast of characters in my Feedback Writeup which I hope to have out later today or tomorrow.

**Edit**

I posted an additional Torrent Link, hopefully that will fix the problems.
Also the last track ends abruptly, I lost a track some where.... Hopfully I will find it.

Simply Odd

2008-09-04T23:30:00.000-07:00

What...? Must know More...

Google Chrome

2008-09-03T16:07:00.000-07:00

Google Chrome, a New Web Brwoser by Google.

I am a fan of most of Googles products and have done many of their open beta test products.

I am still figuring out how this one works under the hood but It as me very impressed from the start.

http://www.google.com/chrome

Round Two DING DING

2008-08-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

My group has signed up to continue in the next phase of the Dresden Files Alpha Playtest. Now I'm burning for the DFRPG!
So if you have been following my blog at all for Dresden Files Actual Play or Play Test Repots, fear not for the love will continue for the next few months.

Good Omens Con

2008-07-14T12:10:00.001-07:00

Saturday was the Second Good Omens Con (GO Con II).
It went exceptionally well. I ran a Scion game but with a super hero setting as opposed to the base setting. I also drifted in some elements from one of my favorite games, Spirit of the Century. It was a complete success. The players and I got into a very good rhythm of give and take from a story perspective.

It was kind of a testing ground for a major game hack I am working on; adapting Mage the Ascension, from the Old World of Darkness, into the nWoD System, adapting some very smooth mechanics from Mage the Awakening. In addition I am trying to work out a way to add aspects to those Characters, Some of the elements have been carrying over well, and some of them still need work.
I am working on this project with a couple of friends, and hopefully by the end of the summer it will hammered out enough to run a game.

More later…

D&D 4th Edition, The DMG, and starting a new game

2008-06-17T11:32:00.000-07:00

I have, like many other people gotten on the D&D 4th Edition Bandwagon. But to be fair, I was leading the wagon train long before the books came out, I was hooked when the put out the Wizards of the Coast Presents Races and Classes, and Worlds and Monsters. I have joined an ongoing 4th Edition game, and am running a short term 4th Edition game to get the feel for it.

I find it interesting that during the past few months that I have been trying to raise my gaming to be much more story driven is the time when I am playing more D&D than ever.

I was never really a fan of 3.5, as a system it really didn’t strike me as anything special or even fun to play. Class abilities were dull, combat was cumbersome in a way that didn’t make sense. Many of the rules were nonsensical.

An unusual thing I have been noticing with the new D&D books is that everyone has been saying how the DMG for the new set is worthless. While, from a 3.5 perspective I can understand how someone could think that because the book does not contain any hard rules examples till chapter 4 (which starts with how environments and terrain might affect and encounter) the book continues in this fashion and does not actually affect the game. Personally I devour the sections of “How to GM this game” in any game system. Within the past three or four years there have really been some strong improvements on these sections; game designers have been explaining what a game is supposed to accomplish, how it’s going to accomplish it, and how you (the GM) can make it do the thing it’s supposed to do.

The DMG outlines Combat Encounters, Non-Combat Encounters, and mixed encounters. The best part is that there are now design rules and XP rules for skill encounter called Skill Challenges.

I started my 4th Ed D&D Game last week. I started with a very generic question sheet, a town name, and a region name. After three hours we had a very fleshed out local to play our game in and a very strong “In media res” relationships for plot.

The funny part is I have 7+ people trying to get into my game. I was originally thinking that we were going to scrounge for players.

Kubla

2008-05-27T22:15:00.001-07:00

My Kubla this year was fun, but not over the top.

It started when we got to the hotel. My group of friends (the people sharing my hotel room) spent most of the afternoon working out what they were going to sign up for. I had done that the previous week with the online shuffler.
There wasn’t much in the 3:30 Friday games I wanted to crash, so I hung around with people in our room until they decided that they were ready to Sign up for stuff.

Then Jarys, Lesley, Sean N, and I went to Sizzler. It was okay, I wasn’t that hungry so I just nibbled off of Lesley’s Salad Bar. We also sat Next to my friend Neil, John, his wife Janelle, and Kat. Overall it was okay.

I got into Carl Rigny’s Don’t Rest Your Head game. I got the PDF a little while ago and was interested, and have been looking it over for a few weeks now, looking for a very surreal experience. Carl did not disappoint. I started out as a convict who was convicted for a murder he didn’t commit. At the Bazaar I sold my First Name, a savage beating, my cousin’s drugs, and some rage, for the knowledge between right and wrong, and some faith, and some coins. In turn, by the end of the night, I had sold out a friend to gain some happiness in the Mad City. I became the War Master for the Wax King, the “Titan of Chaos”, destroying all the clockworks in the Mad City. It was awesome and I will defiantly be picking this one up soon.

The next morning I played in Kevin’s Scion Hero game. It was awesome, with the only downside being that we ran out of time. Tear! But it was a lot of fun. I played a daughter of Odin, and Man if it didn’t emphasis why I like Scion. I got to play in machinations between gods, and the entire plot boiled down to Odin and Zeus having a pissing contest over Pandora’s Box; which I found hilarious.

I ran my game that night and it went much better than I expected. There was only a single person in my game that I had not played with before. My plot went fairly timely, we ended a little after 1 AM with the game scheduled for 2. The mystery unfolded organically, and I really got to try out some of my experiments for satisfying spontaneous characters. I laid out skeleton character and made the players fill in the important stuff, drives, names, and Pillars of sanity. Then everyone made a strong connection between two of the other characters, the PC’s sitting to their left and right. Man, I am going to do this every time that I think I can get away with it.

On Sunday we slept in, checked out of our room and just hung out and around with people. I was chilling with the hosts of This Modern Death, and they decided that they were going to get an interview with Good Omens, and 4 other GM’s showed up and game a wonderful show. There interview is up now for listening.

Over all not a Fantastic Con, but very enjoyable.

New Actual Play - Final Session and EndGame Demo

2008-04-29T22:21:00.000-07:00

So here is the last of the AP Recordings.

Third Session from my normal group.

Part 1
Part 2
and the break down sessions

Then the EndGame Demo
Part 1
Part 2

If any of the links don't work, try again after a little while, these are being hosted on a personal file server. If I linked any of them wrong let me know and I will fix them.

Dresden - The Frist Round Bell

2008-04-29T21:43:00.000-07:00

We finished with our play test sessions for the Dresden Files RPG. I am reporting here the same stuff I am providing to Evil Hat, and the rest of the alpha gamers. If your interested getting more explanation on what I am talking about feel free to open dialog. Some of our comments may be glazed over, only because they have been expressed by many of those playing the game.

This Marks the end of the first phase of the process.

Post game brake down.
The Positives

The System, overall, is a good match for the source material.
Our first time player enjoyed the system.

It needs to be expressed more concisely that some (if not all) Aspects need to be much Broader in scope, particularly when people come from Spirit of the Century.

Personal Novel needs some more detail, to highlight other elements that come up easily during play.

We liked how all the conflict types were broken down and handled with skills, all using the same rules but all possessing their own flavor.

Consequences really add to the system, and the feel of the Dresden universe. Elements of Noir, where conflict continues to keep you down.

The Comments of improvement

One thought was to try to try and create a template formula, like the Novel skeleton For Personal Struggle. Some kind of Conundrum that is with you, always; we need a better way to explain with text. Also a note that sometimes Personal Struggle needs to be timely, "Sacrificing the awesome tag to move on to other aspects of Char Gen."

Much of the text was daunting to our new player, Harry's World was possibly too much. A really good index for the setting material might be needed.

Character Creation Steps were "out of order" felt like they needed to be done differently.
Character creation was better in the doing, than the reading. Character Creation was a longer process that in Spirit, to really make that sweet spot of character.
Layout, for rules specifically, is not organized well enough to relate rules to one another. Example, the rules for Character Generation and Spell Casting which broke down all the steps with examples, but the summaries were not concise.

Players felt that once they were out of fate points for a scene they were going to get shafted. So, for those who are uninitiated in FATE, more emphasis needs to be placed on how the characters beg for compels.

A Strange thing that we ran across in our break down was that we did not feel that exchanges lasted all that long. Social and Mental exchanges did not last long, often with people declaring the terms of defeat because they no longer wanted to risk stress and consequences. And in more physical exchanges they did not meet the expectation of back and fourth that get with scenes in the book.
Something that we thought of for this would be to start with more base consequences; possibly having two starting slots for Mild and Moderate, and then one for Severe and Extreme. Another (very high powered thought) was to have a pyramid of Consequences, Four Mild, Three Moderate, Two Severe, One Extreme; with the addition that you cannot combine consequences of the same level. We thought that this would solve both of the problems that we mention. And lead to more interesting exchanges.

We also talk about the problems with mooks. Some thoughts lead to "Mooks" being NPC with a starting Refresh of 5 as opposed to 10. For monsters this would make them easier to bring down to negatives. And for goons it would reduce free will if they have stunts.
Also, if the Consequence idea is implemented in any way, limiting how many consequences "Mook" NPC's have.

All of the players, our Wizard in particular, loved the feel of the spell casting system, and our Focused Practitioner magic loved the way his permission allowed him to perform magic. But, everyone feels it was the biggest perpetrator of text that did not flow or correlate well.
It is expressed that Evocation's Categories need to be made broader, including the elements, as well as possibly "Mind" and "Life/Plant"; this could also be just an issue of cleaning up the "Make your own elements" Sidebar to better say 'This is not all the categories, start making them up'.
Thaumaturgy in the same way needs to have those types of limitations, like Evocation's Element categories, if the magic system is going to remain crunchier.

If given the oppurtunity down the line I expect that I would want to help out with the Beta Process and see all the shiny improvemetns that get made.

I also have the AP for the last session, the break down, and a Demo I did at EndGame in Oakland California. I will post those up soon.

Nerdly Beach Party

2008-04-15T19:23:00.001-07:00

This last weekend I took a trip down to SoCal to participate in the Nerdly Beach Party.
Part of the weekend was to celebrate my girlfriend’s birthday, and she had a good time; so I am calling it a successful weekend on that end. I got interested in going by my Friend Ryan (That's Ryan Macklin of the Master Plan Podcast). When I asked my girlfriend if she would be interested in going, she literally said "BEACH! OCEAN! AWESOME!” This was a very positive remark, and allowed me to justify going all the way to San Simian. The weekend ended up costing me a little more than I intended, but some of it was investments for the future, and next time we will know what to do better; and believe me there will be a next time.

But enough about the logistics, lets talk about the gaming.

Friday: I facilitated a Game of The Shab-al-Hiri Roach, which I love because I am a glutton for punishment. We played with the Darker University Expansion from The Roach Returns, I got to pick up a copy of that as well which includes another alternate setting, Overlord, the Roach in WWII. I am very excited to try that out.

Saturday: In the Morning I got to play Sons of Liberty, with the Designer, Josh Roby. I was awesome; the setting is Steampunk Pulp Revolutionary War; Full of Win. I played Samuel Adams. I was able to by Josh's only copy that he brought for the weekend, and I am very excited about trying it out with other people.

In the afternoon I opted to spend some time with the GF on the beach, we walked along the coast line; got a little wet and overall had a lot of fun, we were one of the few people to take advantage that we were 200 yards away from the Pacific.

In the evening we played a round of 1001 Nights, the game of Middle Eastern story telling. I was a lot of fun I just wanted it to last longer. It’s really a great game for people who are into verbal story tradition; which I am.

Sunday Morning: We got to play in a game of Inspectors, which we just had a good fun zany time. Our supernatural threat was sentient gumball aliens. It was fun, with a lot of Futurama references.

After lunch we headed home and stopped by our weekly mage game on our way back up to the Bay Area. It was the first session in a major plot twist. An antagonist NPC tried to summon up a greater being of the Abyss, and now has altered the world in significant ways because of it. It’s going to be a lot of fun to explore the changes to the world, both to the setting world and to the metaphysics of magic.

Overall I had a lot of fun, it was one of the best weekends of gaming I have had in a while. I got to talk with a few friends I knew and got to meet others which I look forward to talking with again.

AP Recordings / Master of the internets

2008-04-09T21:17:00.000-07:00

With the help of a friend of mine, I was able to figure out how to turn my unix server (mostly a fileserver) into a small web Server. It took a few hours and mostly painless...

You can direct Download all of my AP Recordings now.
I however will warn people, these are unedited, and not of great quality. They should be 94 kbps MP3 Fikes. I claim no responcibility for things said in these recordings.

City Generation Session:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Session 1
Part 1
Part 2

Session 2
Part 1
Part 2
Let me know if things are not right with the uploads.

Play Test Report -Dresden

2008-04-09T20:02:00.001-07:00

I am not directly posting the information I am providing the developers, however I am using it as a template, if you see terms that don’t make a lot of sense it’s probably a game term. I am not going to explain them all but I will try and make this report interesting to those not yet involved with the project.

See Cast of Characters from the Previous Post to understand who I am talking about in some of the synoposis. I have AP recordings of this as well and will try and post those up.

Character Creation Notes:
It took far longer to make characters for Dresden than for SotC. It was really worth the time we put into it but it was more than I was expecting.
I noticed as well that there was a slight disconnect between the phased of character creation and the Stats Section. High Concept (Character Archetype) is the first thing that is done. Beyond that it became a lot more amorphous. We did it in phases; however we often times needed to jump ahead to stunts to make sure people were on the right path; which meant a lot of checking and rephrasing of stunts to incorporate what archetypes people grew into. I also found that personal Conflict was the hardest aspect to pin down, and often times came near the end. It all worked in the end but there was a bit of floundering.

Session Notes:
We started the evening with some compels, hooking our monster hunter into a murder trail. After other characters were called in, magic was first used by our wizard.
Magic was interesting. We didn't experience the power house that has already been commented on by a lot of people, but we had some interesting thaumaturgy; namely putting a group of guarding Reinfeilds to sleep. I know that the discussion of what to do with thaumaturgy is still up in the air, but the rules for using Thaum for maneuvers works well from a story perspective, and a mechanically. This leads to a murder site in an abandoned naval base, and a scourge of black court vampires, who loose the fight be beat up the PC's badly.
Later that evening, and on our second night of play, the Triad leader calls two of the characters into chat with him, and tells them to not involve his Tiffany in these affairs. She disobeys her uncle's orders, and follows along while Jesus and Silas follow up on a witches Coven. The evening is ended with breaking through a ward to scry on the witches, identifies one of them and sets a trap to follow the identified girl to question their activities.

Feelings about magic:
(from the player of our wizard) Magic, while awesome, is too unlimited. He was racking his brain trying to think of a way to accomplish it, and didn't come up with much.
After thinking about it myself, I compared it to focused practitioner, which works beautifully. And the answer, granularity. While obviously you can't include every type of magic in a document or describe something along these lines:

A practiced discipline is a category of magic that encompasses both similarity of casting and belief in achievement. A Wizard may have a number of practiced disciplines of magic equal to his lore score. A wizard with a good lore might have Divination, Summoning, and Alchemy as practiced disciplines. These disciplines function like normal from the spell casting chapter, Thaumaturgy spells that do not fall under the purview of on of the practiced disciplines casts these spells at some kind of disadvantage; thus, it can be accomplished with careful planning but nearly impossible to do on the fly.

Magic needs some balance for cost. I can’t really go into more detail here other than the cost of performing magic still needs fine tuning, but is much closer than it was originally.

Physical Conflict:
Fights are vicious; we were using the normal stress progression and all us were feeling the pain of being fairly fragile.

The situation was thus; four characters, tracking down a stolen artifact and murder trail, find a scourge of black court vampires. They are loading up a boat on the pier with crates and about to leave doc with two vamps staying behind (intended threat). Our monster hunter leaps onto the boat and finds that back handing vamps is easy [Great Fists + Inhuman Speed & Strength + Mundane Stunts]. Meanwhile our three other heroes, including a wizard, eventually defeat the two vamps on the pier with lighting, Stakes, and garlic sauce; with the Wizard and the Diviner taking a severe consequence each.

Thus this was the problem with the situation, how to create a physical conflict involving the entire group, with a character who can perform well against a threat that will kill the other PCs if people aren't careful. This really creates different playing fields among supernatural threats, and even among the PC's.
Canonically there really isn't anything wrong with this; characters that can appropriately handle a conflict like this (Harry, Thomas and Michael) take center stage, while Molly or Murphy (unprepared) recedes to the background. In a RPG, running a combat with one or two characters is difficult to do while keeping the other players attention.
This might not be something that needs changing as much as it needs to have some explanations; if you're planning on playing a group who gets in as much trouble as Harry, the players might want to think about how they are going to handle it.

On a side note a section titled "Taking it like Harry Dresden" would be amusing by itself.

Synopsis: Fighting is lethal.

Social Conflict:
Our second session saw some investigation and social conflict. We found that while not nearly as fragile as fighting vampires, it still has the potential to be devastating to the consequence tracks. Often times the terms of defeat were used early in some of the social conflicts; leading to the phrase "I better not take that social consequence I might get shot tonight." Which while funny shows how if you really want to throw down with social hot shots it can hurt you nearly as much as vampires. I think an emphasis on the terms of defeat need to be included when the rules go into social and mental conflict, just to show the speed at which some of those conflicts can end and why some people roll over in an argument and why some take it to the last word, or consequence.

Overall we are all happy with the way things are shaping up. And growing pains, both from the rawness of the rules, and getting into the core FATE system are working themselves out.

More on Dresden

2008-04-08T12:02:00.000-07:00

My Group for DFRPG Alpha is finally getting its feet off the ground. After about four weeks of work, we have our city done. Which we did a little off btw; it’s supposed to look more like this:

Aspects:
Treaty of the Summer of Love
-Summer Court Seat of Power
-Bastion of the White Court

It's Chinatown
-Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow
-Hung Moon Ghee Kong Tong

Mystic Denominations
-Lines of Power
-Black Moon Rising
-Fortunes told and made

You can find it here
-The Sword and the Rose
-Lost Treasures
-Open Your Mind

Where Air and Water Embrace, Where Earth and Fire Rage
-As the Fog Creeps in
-The Tide of the Water of Life
-Burning Passions
-Breaking New Ground

Prison of the Damned
-Empty Graves
-Voices of the Past

The Gay Mecca

You can checkout anytime you like, but can never leave
-The Bag Man
-Shadow Play
-Beneath Notice

The sections of text remain the same.

We also after two weeks of floundering finally got character generation out the door. Our character spread looks good, and thus far sentiments from character generation are positive. There were a few hiccups but that was primarily attributed to my group being unfamiliar with Fate in a more serious context. While all of them have played at least a game or two of SotC, none have played a more serious version of Fate. I am eager to try out the conflict system and the magic system, from the responses from other people it needs some work but everyone loves the feel of it.

Incase anyone is wondering the cast of characters looks like this:

Jesus, a wizard of the white council. Grew up on the streets of SF and was taken care of by the Bag Man until he was found by a wizard, warden of the council, of Toltec decent and beliefs (Native Central American Tribe). When returns to the city of his birth, he finds his former friend and guardian The Bag Man might be breaking the Laws of Magic that he has now sworn to protect.

Bart, a former slave of the white court; during his time with the succubae he was driven to suicide and attempted to take his own life by leaping off of the Golden Gate Bridge. A spirit of vengeance, in the guise of a hawk saved him from his death; it then merged with his tattered soul to produce an avenging dervish, who now hunts the monsters of the night, feeding the spirit within him. Now a single question haunts him, when do the humans end, and the monsters start.

Tiffany, after her patents death she was taken in by her father close friend and boss Raymond Chow. Uncle Chow has taken it upon himself to protect her surrogate daughter, primarily by informing her of the supernatural around town, and how to avoid it. Now she seeks more meaning in the strange town of SF, looking for clues to her parents death.

Silas, a practiced diviner, was astringed from his family who would not handle Silas’ new devolving talents for magic. He found a need to fill in the occult underworld, running packages and finding and delivering reagents for rituals. He now struggles with the desire to keep a good business going, and the knowledge that he is not always doing the right thing by giving power to some of his clients.

I have some AP Recordings of our character generation, and our city creation, and will upload them somewhere if people are interested (and I am allowed to…).

We just had our first two real game sessions over the weekend and I will be posting our responces to it shortly.

[City Creation] San Francisco

2008-03-08T14:35:00.000-08:00

My Group met to finish Our city Project ofr DFRPG, and start character generation, we finished the city, but did not get as far as I wanted on character generation. But I am really excited to really tear into the system and get into play.

San Francisco

Aspects:
Summer Court Seat of Power
Bastion of the White Court
Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow
The Bag Man
Shadow Play
Beneath Notice
Treaty of the Summer of Love
It's Chinatown
Mystic Denominations
Lines of Power
Black Moon Rising
Fortunes told and made
The Sword and the Rose
You can find it here
Lost Treasures
Open Your Mind
Where Air and Water Embrace, Where Earth and Fire Rage
As the Fog Creeps in
The Tide of the Water of Life
Burning Passions
Breaking New Ground
Prison of the Damned
Empty Graves
Voices of the Past
The Gay Mecca
You can checkout anytime you like, but can never leave

Who cares about this city?
The Summer Court of the Fey and the White Court of Vampires are the big power players in San Francisco these days. The Summer Court has always been influential here, and unlike other places, this only increased when people started settling the area in droves. The White Court took over once San Francisco from the Reds after it became "Civilized in the late 19th Century and have been around ever since. In addition to these to behemoths; the Wo Hop To Triad have a big stake in S.F. They are the biggest organized crime group in the city after the SF Mafia was defunct in the 1980's. They are led by Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, who also runs a Fraternal Organization, The Hung Moon Ghee Kong Tong. Chow is a minor supernatural player, having a dangerous awareness of the things happening around him, it is rumored that he might have some control of the Chinese mystic martial arts. Underneath all this, the homeless of SF know more than one might think, anyone in the know understands that the homeless are everywhere, and see almost everything that might go on in the streets. The Homeless pay reverence to one of their own, someone known as "The Bag Man", who is defiantly more than he appears. And to keep adding to the list, you can't have Summers power without Winters token appearance. There is a small thriving community of Winters Court in the Bay and in the Ocean surrounding S.F.; trying to keep the Power of Summer contained, not allowing it to grow outside.

Who keeps the peace?
The Treaty of the Summer of Love, signed by the Prince of Summer and the Duchess of the White Court, is a document making S.F. a common ground for the Summer Court of the Fey, and the White Court of Vampires. During the 1960's, at the apex of the Height Ashbury movement, the two powers came into an agreement that both entities could thrive if a peace was kept between them. Now it is the combined might of these two groups (or the fear of it) that keeps major incursions to a minimum. In Chinatown, however it's the Wo Hop To, protecting the Chinese population that keeps it one of the safest places (supernaturally speaking) in the city.

How do mortals cope?
There are two primary ways the normal population copes in S.F. It's a weird town, with Gay Pride Parades, the Folsom St. BDSM Festival, and Vampire Clubs across the city. This leads to a desensitization of the populous. They are likely to write-off anything they see to "Just another bunch of weirdoes", and not see the predators lurking in the shadows for what they are. Secondly, for communities that still have a handle on tradition, such as behind the scenes in Chinatown, they keep to those beliefs to explain the tings they occasionally see moving through the night.

What kind of supernatural communities are in town?
Aside from the Summer and White Presence; the city is littered with small mystical denomination. From Small Black Magic Cults that grow and die in a few years, to Feng Shui Artists, Wicca Covens, Hermetic Circles, Religious Organizations. SF draws many mortals with minor power into its grasp, and communities form because of it. In a more business perspective, The Sword and The Rose is the shop where you can find almost anything of supernatural significance. It fronts itself as a curiosity occult shop, but actually caters greatly to many major players across the globe. The owner of the shop buys and sells mystical trinkets, reagents, tombs, and information to anyone… for the right price of course. The Oracle of Embarcadero has one of the greatest precognitive gifts in the world, and often times, continually tolerated only because of her tight lips. However she has been known to give the right tidbit, or hint to the right person at the right time. The Hung Moon Ghee Kong Tong is rumored to practice ritual magic, much like their freemason counterparts; being lead by Shrimp Boy Chow, no one is sure what to think of the rumor. The Bag Man and his impossibly complex network of homeless allies, are said to protect the city itself, and possibly are the keepers of antiquities lost to the ages, such as Sir. Francis Drake's plaque, and Emperor Norton's Mantel of Power… but who would believe that…

What interests a supernatural tourist?
Aside from the numerous interests people might have with the various supernatural powers within the city; San Francisco is a maelstrom of mixing energies. It has four classical elements in constant contest for dominance; Air, Water, Earth, and Fire. Each element has it's own place in S.F. and resurges frequently. Air and Water are represented by the Sky Scrapers, the Bay, and the fog. Fire is found in the burning passions of SF's residents, and in the disasters incinerate parts of the city. The Earth is always shaking, shown in the progress center of S.F. and in the shattering events that come from the fault lines laced around the city. For those who wish to see a fifth element represented, the spirits of the dead more than represent the void. Ghosts have been haunting SF since it was first settled, graveyards which were moved in the early 20th century to make room for land development have left shades stranded allover land developments scattered across SF; from the Art Institute's ghost teacher, to haunted hotels on Nob Hill. Then we come to the grand daddy of them all. Alcatraz, The Rock, the Prison of the Damned and Hopeless; haunted by a population of ghosts that outnumber most rural communities, and none of them are very friendly. Many who visit Alcatraz feel the thinness of the boarder to the Nevernever. The Flow of mystical energy flows strongly in the City by the Bay. Much of the power flows from the south and pools over SF and its immediate outlying communities. It has a strange vortex effect, a magnetism that many people who enter within its boundaries for long periods of time find it hard or sometimes impossible to leave. Many psychological analysts have related these cases with security issues or acrophobia, but those with a nose to the mystical know that the flow of energy keep them people here, for better or worse "You can checkout anytime you like, but can never leave"

Refection on the process:
The City Creation Chapter is like I have said before pure gold. The only issue that we had when finishing it up as a group was page 11 the explanation of the city sheet. None of the people in my group understood what it was about. What we ended up doing, Elements directly to aspects and skipping the "Context", cutting out the middle man. A lot of our conversations over email after our initial research looked like this:

[Posted by Mike]
Chinatown
- Gangs of Chinatown; Wo Hop To (Chinese Triad)
- Commerce; shopping you can find anything
- Eastern Religion, Philosophy, Mysticism
Possible Aspects: Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, Hung Moon Ghee Kong Tong (a fraternal association), It's Chinatown, You can find anything you could want to buy, A new era to New Age.

[Posted by Jarys]
Chinatown
-old center or racial conflict becomes hollowed tourist attraction
-many old temples, chance houses, and secret societies
-San Francisco fortune cookie company
-Possible Aspects
"Big Trouble in Little China" "Jade Court Outpost" "Tradition demands it" "Like a Jewesh delicatessen in Chinatown" "Tongs Live" "tourists!"

Response Mike: I think every major city has tourists, not really something that makes it special. I like the idea of having a little bit of the Jade court in SF though
Response Jarys: Well I meant the exclamation mark to make the tourists kind of a curse. People over here seem to treat tourists with the same disdain tourists treat the homeless. I have heard people state that if they ever went crazy; they would gun for tourists only. Every city does have tourists, but SF tourists have a character, given to them by the inhabitants of the city.
Response Mike: Interesting... We should defiantly talk more about this tonight.

I thought this was close to the spirit of what you guys were shooting for and I hope the examples help explain what I am trying to say, however words are currently failing me. Feel free to prod me more with questions to try and get more out of me.

I think there needs to be some kind of Big Sidebar indicating that this should be considered being done before character generation, the response from my group was very positive; everyone enjoyed doing the research, and creating the aspects and relationships within the city, and it really jumpstarted character generation afterward, because people had some color in the city to sink their teeth into, instantly latching onto elements and NPC's defined in the process.

Pen & Paper

2008-02-28T19:07:00.000-08:00

There is something very soothing and relaxing sitting in front of a notebook full of blank paper and starting some new role playing project. Earlier today I was working on DFRPG, and I was just relaxing working out some character information, and then fidgeting with the character powers.

I don’t particularly like D&D v3.5, I ran it for about 5 months to give it another chance and getting a big d20 modification bug out of my system. However, my game sparked my roommate into running a game of his own after mine finished. I am free Friday Mornings (when he is most available to run a game) and I am playing a wizard for the first time. I didn’t care much for most of CharGen (although I did drift some of my favorite feats from Mutants and Masterminds to get some neat buff effects). But I found myself enjoying pouring over the books for spells and making notes in my character notebook.

Just goes to show some of the simple joys someone can find in life.

D&D Buyers; Catch 22

2008-02-28T19:00:00.000-08:00

Working in a game store I have two very interesting perspectives into the gaming community, I see it from a business and a social perspective.
I noticed something interesting today about Dungeons and Dragons, and assumptions people have when looking at the “Ending” 3.5 line. Many customers walk over to our D&D rack, and while there have not been any new books, they are looking to see if we are abandoning our retail stock with some form of sale on anything that will be obsolete in four months.
Thinking about it if they are looking for a 3.5 sale, it means that they still want to buy those books (and being shrewd gamers for the cheapest price possible), but if they still want to buy the books there will never be a sale because a sale is usually an indication of either:
a)A product line that is being discontinued (for various reasons).
b)A line that is being slimed down by the store (usually due to dead product).
or
c)Used to create traffic in unfrequented area’s (geographically or in-store).
And while v3.5 has stopped releasing new products, it by no means is going away tomorrow. The product will probably sell into May. With people dribbling off near the end close to the release though probably to save up money for the new books as opposed to wanting to stop buying there beloved “Fantasy Dungeon Diving Gamer Crack”.

DFRPG - Launch Sequence Engaged

2008-02-25T19:34:00.000-08:00

I’ve finally been able to get some times to put all my ducks in a row for the Dresden Files RPG Alpha test. I have my group of players for the initial, continuous game. And we have a time and a place. Now all that’s left is finishing the reading (and to some extent, download the rest of the reading to read…).

Scion: Hero; Embrace The EPIC!

2008-02-13T13:06:00.000-08:00

I started a Scion game a few about a month ago, and we just finished our first story arc, and thus far, everyone has been really enjoying the setting, the system and the characters they have made. I must admit, I knew I would enjoy the game, but it surprised me how much it resonated with my storytelling instincts.

Our first story took place in Southern California, East of bakers field. Where after fighting “The Horsemen” also dubbed Mototaurs in our game half men – half Harley-Davidson, Aeolus (son of Poseidon) informed the Hero’s of a nefarious plot by the titans. Ixerus had stolen the West Wind, Zepherous, in the hopes of creating some half man – half flying machine. Zepherous was imprisoned in a Hollywood Wind tunnel generator. After a shattering earthquake created by the magician; it ended with a gift from the west wind, a powerful air current contained in a cheap motor fan.

Looking forward to more Epic adventures in the world of the gods after the convention this weekend.

City's "Dresdenfied"

2008-02-13T12:51:00.000-08:00

The Dresden Files RPG Alpha Test is going very well. There are a lot of dedicated people out there trying to take the system to the limit. In addition there are a lot of great conversations going on behind the scenes exploring what the text is trying to do at the table.
I have been trying to play catch-up for the last two weeks but have finally gotten back into a regular routine with at least some free time if not a whole lot.

I dug my teeth into a section that was all about creating city’s in the Dresdenverse, making them spooky, creepy, an chalk full of seeding plot waiting to leap out from the darkness at an unsuspecting PC.

The outline of the chapter includes efficient ways to get a lot of information about a city, focusing almost exclusively on things that will be interesting for a game of modern fantasy. I am still in the compiling phase of the game, trying to get everything down on paper.

But from a first glance it really shows that with a little effort the way the Fate system can really throw it’s weight around with game elements.

More will come when I have a city straight out of the Dresden universe.
You may see San Francisco and Los Angeles coming up.

Time; Now with Ass Kicking!

2008-02-13T11:51:00.000-08:00

Time has really been against me for the last few weeks. I have had just enough time to get a minimum amount of things done all around, but not enough to finish everything I want to…
I suppose that’s just how things work.

I have been working very busy weekends since the start of the month, which has really worn me out afterward. School has been taking up my time with tests, papers, and projects, and I am not even to midterms yet… I hope it does not get too much worse.

I finished up my ongoing D&D Game last week. There were some high points to the game, but once again I am glad that I don’t play d20 exclusively. If it’s one thing that I have now learned, is that prepping for D&D is long and slightly painful. But the effort was fairly worth it to make sure that my encounters worked well, threatening in a balanced way, and involved for all characters.
My roommate has decided on taking the slot of time I had been running my D&D game and running his won campaign, a last taste of 3.5 before 4th Edition comes out (which I am really looking forward to).

My mage game is going well; my girlfriend decided she wanted to have some of the fun that I was having. So she made a character and has been coming for the last month or so. I recently acquired a legacy called “The Brotherhood of the Ebon Steel” a Mastigos, Adamantine Arrow legacy that deals with shadows, death, and killing. We cleared out a temple dedicated to my legacy, recovered some artifacts (some of which are really nice) and are now discovering that a prophecy linked to us through fate is about to come to fruition.
I am looking forward to what is going to come of this plot line, but unfortunately were going to be on a break for the next two weeks.

DunDraCon is this upcoming weekend, normally I look forward to the convention, but I am working the con for the Store I am working for, and because of that, I am mostly going to be in the dealers room. I have the evenings free to try and enjoy the convention, I just hope I am not too worn out from selling things to enjoy myself at least a little.
I am sharing a room with my girlfriend and my friend Jarys. It should be an interesting weekend.

Dunwitch Horror; back in print

2008-01-16T18:36:00.000-08:00

BDG just got restock on Dunwitch Horror expansion for Arkahm Horror. I have been looking forward to trying this aspect of the game for a while, because I have heard a lot of good things about the game play.

Really looking forward to it.

Hunter: The Vigle [WoD Game 6]

2008-01-15T20:17:00.000-08:00

The 6th game for the World of Darkness line was officially announced, and in addition, was given a proper WoD name;
Hunter: The Vigil
I actually am fairly excited about this game in concept. I really enjoyed a lot of the concepts from Hunter: The Reckoning (then again there were some things that really didn’t work about that game). I really could get behind this game; I eagerly await the Quickstart that is going to be part of Free RPG day.

Here is some additional info I got from the White-Wolf Wikia

A press release on January 2, 2008, revealed that the new game's title is Hunter: The Vigil, and that quickstart rules for the game would be released by White Wolf as part of Free RPG Day on June 21, 2008. This confirms long-standing speculation that the game would be a re-invention of the old World of Darkness's Hunter: The Reckoning, though White Wolf staff are on record saying that the game's concept is very different from that of the previous Hunter game.

The Hunter: The Vigil rulebook is scheduled for release in August 2008, with five supplements to follow, one supplement a month for the next five months. Three of the supplements will be crossover books, each looking at one of the three 'main' World of Darkness games - Vampire, Werewolf, and Mage. A fourth supplement will be called Slasher. There are as yet no details on the final supplement.

My Awesome Secrete Project

2008-01-14T20:01:00.000-08:00

A few months ago I went to the EndGame 10th anniversary party. While there I met someone of which I am a huge fan, Fred Hicks. I talked with him and some other associates of mine, Ryan Macklin from The Master Plan Podcast, and Jeremy Tidwell. One of the topics discussed was the Dresden Files RPG (much to Fred’s dismay, having been asked about it all weekend, and for that matter all the time…). During the conversation, another guy, who’s name I don’t recall, asked if there was a way to get into the exclusive alpha group for testing the game. Fred said that there was, to send an email to Evil Hat proclaiming our association with Fred at various events. I did in fact proclaim my association to Fred at the EndGame Anniversary, and recalling my fondness for justice and Pants (which was a SotC story that made its way back to him form an EndGame MiniCon).
As a result when they sent out their call for Alpha Testers, I was contacted.
I am now a Dresden Files Role Playing Game play tester. If you’re doing an internet search and found my Blog, congratulations. You can look back to this blog for more information about my experiences with the game.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-14T16:00:00.000-08:00

Another year has passed. I have not posted in a while, but then again once a month is about my average.

My Werewolf game has come and gone. I think in the future any game I run in the winter “holiday” months. Schedule conflicts happen so often that it is almost not really worth working on a game, or at least trying one that is trying to capture a form of depth. I think that next year I am going to have a repeat of my “One-Shot extravaganza” which I did during the summer. It will probably work better for a winter schedule.

In other news, my Girlfriend and I are doing very well. The fall semester went well overall, and the spring semester is really close (classes start tomorrow).

I am in a very unusual floundering state as far as my gaming, focusing on my GMing. I have players who are willing to play, but few who are willing to commit to anything yet. I have been having some ideas battering around on my player mailing list. Most of the focus has been on Burning Wheel and Conspiracy X. Both games have come up for different reasons. I have two distinct groups for gaming, guys who are interested more in modern, action, horror; and a group that is leaning to character focused fantasy. And then again there is some crossover.
I still want to run two games a week. Sometimes I think that running three games would work well; one game being once a week, and another two games running on alternating bi-monthly schedules.

I am still involved in my Mage: The Awakening game down in Fremont. I have been enjoying that. We are getting back into the swing of the game with a couple of skipped games during December. My Career Criminal has been slowly expanding his influence, both mundanely through The Mob and a new Yakuza alternate identity. It is all part of my devious plan to convince the Yakuza to eliminate the leaders of the other criminal organizations, and then rise to ultimate power and then kill all the Yakuza; genius, pure genius. I am only finding that I never have enough experience to work on all the projects that I want.

I am running a D&D Campaign, as mentioned in previous posts. The non-conventional way I have characters build really flavors up the game. We had a new player during the last session, a friend of mine from DVC named Jacob. He pulled a character trait known as “Family Heirloom” which is supposed to refer to a magic item the character starts off with. He asked for a Family Inherited Familiar. He got a Bronze Dragon. I thought it was a great addition to the game. He started out with a Dragon Egg in his character background, and during the first few scenes of the game it hatched revealing his “betrothed” (a slip of the tongue for bequeathed, but he’s running with it).
I have set up the final plot arc. Some of the basic framework was laid during the last session, the major NPC were introduced. And much of my prep work has already been done.

Also, more about my secret offer in an upcoming post.

Dresden Files, Who are You?

2007-11-28T15:29:00.001-08:00

I am Michael Carpenter.

I am one of those honored by God to serve His Will as a Knight of the Cross. My faith is strong, unshakeable -- and deadly to the truly evil. It's my job to seek them out, to get them to change if I can, and to stop them if I must.

And I am not alone in this. Never alone. God watches over me and sees that I am sent where I am most needed. I carry the holy sword Amoracchius at my side -- that nail you see in the hilt came from the Cross. The other Knights stand by me. My wife and children are just as fierce as I am -- God help you should you try to find out if it's otherwise. And there are others.

Together we all stand, shoulder to shoulder, against the darkness. Our faith has been tried, tested, and proven resolute. No matter the cost, no matter how bloodied you might make us, we will not bow, and we cannot fail. God's Will be done -- on Earth, by our hands.

Who are you? Take the quiz!

Work is fun

2007-09-15T13:48:00.001-07:00

Once again it has been a while since posting. But what the hay!

I have been working at Black Diamond for about 2 weeks now and I must say I enjoy it much more than any other job that I have worked in the past. And to add to it I am really good at working here. I have been running myself a little ragged helping for the move and put the new store together but it's worth it cause it looks awesome.

If you have not been following along with the move process, go here. http://www.blackdiamondgames.blogspot.com/

I have just started up a Werewolf the Forsaken game. I think it is going to be fun, I have a good mix of characters and provided that everyone likes he game after the first couple sessions I think it could be as fun as my mage game that ended before the summer.

Also I have been bitten by a Dungeons and Dragons Bug, I want to play however I am not going to violate my own rules for playing D&D to run a generic game; as easy as it would be...
I am making some heavy modifications to the character generation system, as well as I am using a lot of variant house rules from Arcana Unearthed. Which has become one of my favorite books, cause it outlines great ways to make the system your own. The Setting I have so far is kinda a splice of the Twin Crowns Campaign Setting and Some Elements from GRRM A Game of Thrones (Big surprise), specifically the setting and circumstances of "The Wall" and the Nights Watch. The Twin Crowns setting is interesting and I would never run the core game, but I picked up a city book for it called "The Streets of Silver" which is basically pre-renaissances Venice in a fantasy setting, which really appeals to me so there will be a lot of heavy Italian influence in the flavor of the game. So Far I am really liking the book, despite the fact that the majority of the stats are 3.0 and not related to my house rules and variants. so anything that I use from the book system wise is going to be hit or miss without prior modification.
Things to pick-up prior to running this game:
ReInstall Etools on my computer and Laptop,
Edit etools for house rules and modifications,
Get Italian to English Dictionary,
Brush up on Italian Mythology.

Change is Fun!

2007-08-24T11:01:00.000-07:00

So been a while since my last post, which again is fine cause I don't think anyone reads this. But anyway, I have been on the move onward if not upward.

I am changing jobs. at the end of the month (in one week) I leave the software company that I have been working at for the last year+ to work for Black Diamond Games, my local gaming store which is moving to a larger location and even closer to my home. I am going to be working for Gary as a normal floor assistant and working mostly closing shifts.

I have started school for the semester and doing okay thus far. The only gripe I have about it is that many of my classes not only “require” a book but also an online account so that they might track my homework easier. The book and account are sold new, but once the account code has been used, it is used for good. So used books are basically worthless, because you need to buy the accounts separately. $65 Book + Account, new OR $40 used, +$30 account online. It sucks for a budget student. Luckily my girlfriend is working at a publishing house, and her boss has friends that are getting some of our books for free. Every little bit helps.

GenCon just past, I didn’t go cause I’m poor but I know several people who went and said good things about it. I wanna go one of these days, probably when I actually have a job that makes me decent money or I find a cheaper place to live… either work.
However several fun things happened at GenCon and I am finding out about them slowly.
The Biggest thing is that D&D 4th Edition was announced to be coming out next May, 2008. I am actually kind of excited about this. I am not the biggest D&D (d20) fan for the most part, however one of the things that I have realized the more I think about it is that if you get past a lot of the convolved mechanics I like a lot of what can be done with an OGL. It makes it very simple to take the game and tweak it to exactly what you want your game to be. And while I think there are some major problems with d20 out of the books, I can see it being a bigger part of my gaming life in the future when the base rule set streamlines enough for me to stand it. It’s not that I don’t like a thick rules set. New World of Darkness is fairly in depth, however it took many large steps forward from previous editions and turned it into something easier to play with some hidden layers of complexity and still free enough to mess around with the system. I can see myself following 4th edition I like the feel of classic Dungeons and Dragons, and I respect DM’s who accurately portray the feel of the game. Far too often I find DM’s who play straight out of the book, where there is no setting information. Overall I am happy with the way that WotC is moving forward.

Shards of the Titans [Revised Game Notes]

2007-07-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

I met Ryan Macklin, of the MasterPlan PodCast, at the EndGame MiniCon this last weekend. Talking with him has lit a fire under my butt and I am once again designing and editing the Shards of the Titans.

Shards of the Titans

SETTING:

Before we knew the sky, before we could touch the sea, before man was King… Titans battled for the cosmos…
Now, they come again.

Some of us remember, we remember the fight at the dawn of time. We know why our homelands have become a bitter battle field. At the start of creation, Titans battled for dominance of the cosmos. They engaged in fierce and violent war with everyone and no one. Allies were forged, rivals were made. And in the end there was only one.

Humanity was once a mighty titan. Humanity was different than the rest, more cunning, more resourceful. When the War of the Titans ended, it alone was able to make creation. All we see, all the people we know are the makings of that great titan.

However all of the energy all the essence of the other titans was not lost, it was suffused into all of creation, remade into the stuff we see around us. Then there was peace. For what man kind called war was nothing in comparison to what was fought at the dawn of creation.

The Chrysalis; it changed the world, within a short amount of time; the world went from a normal place, to overfilled with monsters and super powered people and beasts. They roam the country side, the mountains and lakes. Many of them walk down our streets; hiding among us for protection, or prowling our homes for their own agendas.

Imagine the 19th century, either in our own world or another, it does not matter. People walk the streets in urban English cities. Or wander the country side in Europe; or battle in a Wild West. These are tales and battles of the Shards of the Titans. Mythic beings returned to this realm due to the percolating energies of their progenitors. Choose a battle ground; choose a goal you wish to have seen threw

SYSTEM:

BASICS:

This game is about Conflict, primarily combat. And all Rolls come down to a roll between opponents.

Every obstacle, event, opponent has the power to stop your character or group from completing their goals, and all are defeated in the same way. All Characters, Goals, and forces of opposition have a Power Track; the larger the track, the tougher the obstacle.

Example: All Starting Shards start with a Power Track of 3; Humans only have 1; A Small Goals would have 5; Large Goal might have 8; and a Group Goal might have 10 or 15. Events that drive the conflict might pose anywhere from 4 – 10 on their power track.

To tackle these obstacles all characters have Offense and Defense values for three categories; Physical, Mental, and Spiritual.
All of these scores range from 1 to 20.

Rolls start with a pool of 3d10, they add their appropriate trait to the roll. The Offence stat verses the defending stat.
Each offensive maneuver is defended with the appropriate stat to the effect. If the Defender is inflicted with physical harm it is Physical. If his mind is being broken or resisting intimidation, then it is Mental. If his soul or magical power is being threatened then it is spirit.
Be aware that any offensive action can damage your Power Track. The Swing of a sword or the shattering of wills can defeat opponents and obstacles just the same.

After the dice are rolled, the two highest dice are added together with the stat and then compared with the opposing highest two dice and stat. Ties go to the Defender.

If the offensive action won assign Power Track damage. For every increment of 5 that offender beat the defenders score, increase the Power Track damage by 1.

Two complementary character abilities to the basic stats are knacks and characteristics.

Knacks and Characteristics each add one die to your pool. Knacks describe an aptitude; either an action or a skill. Characteristics describe how your character does things.

Example: Master Swordsman would be a knack that adds to dice pools. Silver Tongue would be for manipulation through speech.

GOALS:

In addition to Supernatural Conflict, this game is about accomplishing things. As said before each Goal has a Power Track as well. That is your guide to how close you are to accomplishing the goal.

However, things will stand in your way, people, beasts, situations, and events. For Every conflict you finish, the Power track is hurt by an appropriate amount. If you simply vanquished one foe, the Power tack will only go down by one. If you defeat an army, 2 or 3 might be more appropriate. The Game Master has the final say about what each conflict damages any Power Track.

So to Accomplish any goal, you must find, beat, survive, and become victorious of other conflicts relating to your goal.

CHARACTER CREATION:

Now we have the basics of the system. Lets see how it applies to making characters. Characters cannot be made alone; they are made with in a group.

Start by handing everyone 5 Tokens. It does not matter what kind. These tokens are their biding power for the creation of characters and the scenario. When they want to purpose something to the group, they push forward a token and tell the idea to the group. If no one objects, the idea is not part of the game. If someone disagrees with this idea, they may choose to push forward a token to counter the idea. This form of bidding is supposed to make sure that everyone has an equal amount of say and veto power with the designee of the game session.

Step One:
As a group, all the players choose what kind of Supernatural beings are going to be played. Kick around ideas until you have one that sparks interest for everyone.

Examples: A group can play any of the following ideas; Spirits of Fire or Ice, Vampires, Werewolves, Wizards, Elves, Minators, Goblins, Dryads, Dragons.

Once the Group has Chosen their Shard Type, they must design the patron Titan. From his power all of the characters come. They all share some of his characteristics, and a fraction of his power.
Four things are defined about your Titan
A) Name
B) Rival Titan
C) Weakness
D) Essence Drive

A)
The Name is easy; this is just what you will refer to your Titan as.
Examples: Baron Fire breather, Grix, Dragon Lord, Winter, Father of Might.

B)
Your Titan had an Enemy, someone who betrayed him in the battle before time, or who he just hated through instinct. The Shards of this Titan are your worst enemies. Define the type of Creature of your Titans Rival.
Examples: Vampires And Werewolves have been enemies, they are each others rivals. Spirits of Ice and Fire are opposites in all ways, they are also each other rivals.
The Merfolk of the seas hate the Elves of the Forest, the Elves of the Forest hate the Goblins of the Mountains, The Goblins in turn hate the Merfolk. This is a Triangle of Rivalry.
(Note: You need not associate your rivals like the examples, you don’t need to define their rivals. You only need to pick them.)

C)
Your Titan had a bane, and it works on you as well. Perhaps it was wielded by your Rival, perhaps it is now just a common element in the current world. It could just be a shortcoming Shards of your Titan have.
Examples: Vampires have Sunlight and to a lesser extent fire, they are the bane of Vampires. Werewolves have silver. Some Wizards have the drawback that their spells require ritual and hours of meditation. Some Wizards have the drawback of needing to sacrifice their wellbeing in order to cast spells.

D)
The Essence of the Titans flows through everything. It powers your quest, it sooths your wounds. Fate has seen to it that you can acquire it though one other mean than slaying other Shards. Choose how you can draw on the ambient energy that pools around you.
Examples: Vampires can draw essence by drinking the blood of mortals, Werewolves similarly by eating mortal flesh. Wizards can do so though long meditation and Daemons by draining the souls of men. Elementals gain it by consuming and being surrounded by their element.

Step Two:
Characters can now be created, the group has a generic theme and character ideas. After step one, have everyone discuss ideas for the rest of the game. In no particular order decide on the following, and don’t forget to use the tokens to voice opinions.
• Character Concepts
• Group Goals
• Setting / Place

Character Concepts should be approved by everyone at the table. Ideas should be shared and discussed for a short amount of time.

Example: Our Group decided were going to be Elementals of Ice. Character concepts for our group included the embodiment of Avalanches, a Demon born from Ice, and The embodiment of blizzards. The group decides that the Demon is not quite appropriate. The player chooses a new concept but similar concept, an Ice Giant. Everyone agrees that this idea fits with the group.

Setting is where your game will take place, or at least start. The First thing about setting the group wants to decide is whether to play in the real world or in some fantasy world. Games In the modern world of the 19th century will usually take on a darker feeling (although not always). Games in a fantasy setting usually take on a more epic feeling. Ultimately it’s the Groups Job to make those things happen.

Example: The Group Decides to set the game in the real world, starting in Northern Scotland, During a Harsh winter.

The Group Goal is what ties the group together; this should also be decided as a group. It should be ambitious but not over the top. It should also be able to be accomplished in a session or two.

Example: Our Ice Elementals decide that their ultimate goal is to turn England into a frozen wasteland. They choose London as their conclusion for this goal.
GROUP GOAL: To see London and the rest of England become a Frozen Wasteland

Once everyone is happy with the setting, goal, and character concepts you can move onto step three.

Step Three:
Generation of Characters is the final step before play beguines.

All Characters Get 60 Points to place in all of the basic stats, this pool decides both Offence and Defense. No stat may start higher than 15 or less than 5.

Example: Kyle is playing the Ice Giant. He decides that he would like his starting stats to look like this: Physical Offence: 14; Physical Defense: 10; Mental Offence: 8; Mental Defense: 8; Spiritual Offence: 10; Spiritual Defense: 10.

Each player chooses to have either 2 Characteristics and 3 Knacks, or 3 Characteristics and 2 Knacks.

Example: Kyle Chooses 3 Characteristics and 2 Knacks.
Characteristics: Slow witted, Brutal, Cold Blooded.
Knacks: Good with a club, Fearsome to look at.

Then each player pick three supernatural powers. The powers are free form. There are no lists of powers, or power sets. They are made up. They should loosely fit whatever myth you are portraying.
Mechanically, Powers can do thee things. They can augment abilities, bend the rules, or give the character tricks that have narrative effects.

Bending the rules happens when you augmenting mundane traits, or give the character a advantage. You augment traits can be done either by increasing a modifier by 2 or by adding 1 die to a particular pool. You can bend the rules with powers by modifying your sheet.

Tricks are easy, they can fly, they breath fire, control the weather.
When Contested, either by a opponent or the environment, a trick power is tested by rolling the spirit attribute + essence.

Power examples include:
(Augmenting) Super strength Adds 1 die to all might related rolls.

(Bending the Rules) The Giant Power adds 1 to the characters Power Track.

(Trick) Fire Breathing is a trick, it can be an attack that is supernatural as opposed to physical or mental. As well as involving fire when necessary; fire breath sets things on fire, it has logical flavor and consequences in the narration.
(Trick) Flying is a trick, attacking you is harder because your in the air, your opponents must use ranged weapons, throw things, or start flying themselves in order to get you.
(Tricks) Burrowing in the earth is a trick, you can hide yourself, move through the ground unseen.
Powers do not grow by themselves. They have the capacity to do earth shattering things when rolled for well. Essence grows as does Spirit.

STARTING PLAY:

Games start play with the first scene. It should set some of the tone for the rest of the game. It does not matter who starts it but everyone should be able to contribute to the idea if they want.
If someone has a good idea they may spend some tokens to try and buy the narration to set the first scene.

Once play begins it is the player’s job to try and drive hard to their goals, and to do so creatively.

It is the Game Masters job to put forward conflict, reward the end of conflicts with crystals, and to lower the power track to appropriate goals that were pushed one step further with the conflict.

NOTES TO THE GAME MASTER:

As the game master you have the responsibilities listed above. Here is some help from behind the scenes.

Shards of the Titans should be played with Three to Six players total (including the Game Master) so a game should not have more than 5 characters. This helps keep things easy on the GM. When More players are added to the table, it becomes harder for the GM to make difficult conflicts, and throws off the amount of Crystal Shards, which is the games experience.

The experience of the Game is in Crystal Shards. They are gained when either the group or an individual defeats another Shard.

The equation I have in my head goes something like this

Add double the Power Track of all the Combatants together, and then add 1d10 to the total. Give this many Crystal Shards to the entire group and have them divide it amongst themselves.

Example: The Ice Elementals are fighting 3 Angels; all with Power Track of 3 (standard shard PT). When they are vanquished, 24 Crystal Shards (CS) are given to the victors. [2(3)+2(3)+2(3)+ 1d10] or [6+6+6+6]

These are used to improve their character.
Costs are as follows
2 CS per stat point
5 CS to buy a new Characteristic, Knack, or Power

When thinking of conflicts. Try and keep in mind that this is a game about action and conflict. Also keep in mind the Titans Rival, they should defiantly play a part of the game at some point.

Every Shard can notice and sense another Shard on site. This is a little like the Quickening from Highlander. It help keep confusion to a minimum on who the characters are supposed to fight and when. Cause the answer will always be the same. That Guy, and NOW!.

EndGame Mini-Con July

2007-07-19T12:22:00.001-07:00

I had a great day yesterday at the EndGame Minicon. I was only in two games, the morning slot and the one I ran that lasted 6 hours.

In the morning slot I was in Brian Isikoff’s Transhuman Space game under the SotC engine. Orbital Decay was sort of a standard adventure. Brian likes taking pregen scenarios and letting the players run with it. It was a lot of fun. This was my first look at Transhuman Space, and it is defiantly an interesting setting. It was a lot like many other future Terra-based space games I have seen with a definite cyberpunk streak running right down the middle. We had the a-typical group of freelance troubleshooters, The Doctor was the founding member, with a former gunjin (private cop), bounty hunter, computer specialist, Dancing Robot Martial artist, a “floater” space construction worker, and a “former thief”. I was playing the gunjin, who I decided was a clone, with a little too much genetic drift, and had some chemical imbalances, a little hot-headed. The Game was fun overall, if only a little lacking in the story / plot department.

The second was the Spirit of the Century Game I ran. It was supposed to be 6 hours and actually lasted 7. I was full character Gen which took 2 ½ hours (about 30 min quicker than the game I ran at Kubla, Getting better). I was a lot of fun. I had some overflow from a Star Wars Saga game that did not get any players so the GM joined my game. I had 7 players. A wide spread of Pulp Heroes; with descriptions and hilarity involved and to lengthy to mention here. The story was entirely based on the pulp novels that the crew had been created. With some twists that every poorly edited pulp novel should have.

Despite the fact that the games awesome and fun, I don’t think I am going to be running another game like it. I was very disappointed by not being able to play in the evening slot. So I am trying to think and find games that can work in a 4 hour time slot but have the same kind of player buy in as SotC. I picked up Primetime Adventures and have been reading it this week, I think that might be a good fit for that type of thing.

Overall a fun day, but I wanted more.

I Voted!

2007-07-19T10:11:00.000-07:00

I voted for RPG's at GenCon...

You can Vote too...

Good Omens Con - Review

2007-06-27T13:04:00.000-07:00

I had a great time at Good Omens con this last Saturday, and I really think that the whole thing went off rather well. After some last minuet cancellations and pickups (we love you Rich thanks for helping us). Everything ran fairly smoothly the day of.

I was in charge of Scheduling, so I was pretty hip to what games were open and full. Kevin F, Matt E, and I were interchangeable in helping people explain what Good Omens was, and what games were open for both for the morning and evening games. My girlfriend came to the event. She played in Megan’s 7th Sea game, and she is a fan of swashbuckling pirates. She had a great time in that game. I played in Catharine’s Godlike game, with the WWI alternate setting. I have apologize to Catharine I was hopping up and down, leaving the game to do announcements, help someone sign up, or explaining stuff to passersby, so I was not as involved in the game as many of the other players. I thought the game went well and everyone at the table seamed to have a good time.

Playing godlike for the first time I thought the system overall left something to be desired for mundane activities, however I really like the way Powers worked. I played a hapless reporter, and I apparently did very well in the field of battle, only failing one roll in more than an hour. By the time I had my powers things were winding down for the morning slot and I was up and down more than I would have liked so I didn’t participate much in the final conflict.

I also got to pick up the Changeling: the Lost Demo and thumb threw that, looks interesting, but only time will tell. Yay Free RPG Day!

I didn’t think there was nearly enough time to go out for dinner with anyone, so a quick run to Berger king and back to run my game.

I ran my game, “Keeping it in the Family”, in the evening slot. It was a mundane (non-supernatural) crime fiction game of modern Mafia politics, underworld intrigue, and Mafia justice. At the start of the game I explained the events of the last two weeks, in which all the members of the inner council of one of the two most powerful Mafia Families died save for the Don. I then explained the crime, and the possible culprits, and then all the players voted by secret ballot, and I spun a web of deceit off of who the players thought was behind this smug to their family honor.
As a side note, I knew I was not going to decide who the culprit was before the fact, however this idea for a secret vote struck me spur of the moment and it really turned out well… I think I am going to run more games where the outcome is decided by player’s votes.
The game went very well, swearing and racial slurs were the mood of the evening, and everyone trying to do their best Joe Pesci, Marlin Brando, Martin Scorsese impressions. In the end, the Columbians were in bed with the Tong, and both of them were puppets of the Yakuza. Then a public assassination and a warehouse explosion left everyone feeling like they had a good sense of mob justice.

Things I would want to improve for next year (time).
I would personally love a 1 1/2 hour meal break in between game slots, and add a half hour into the morning slot for a lunch break around 1. This would give everyone more time to get the food they want, and more time to socialize over food which is one of my favorite parts of these one day conventions.
I have some other ideas, but they are more of a discussion point than easily purposed.

I had a great time and I know that everyone I talked to after the fact had a great time too.

Shards of the Titans, new game concept

2007-06-13T13:18:00.000-07:00

This is a working run of my notes in what I hope is an organized fassion. it is not complete, and I am working on it a bit at a time. but I hope to add it all very soon... or at least what would be considered a rough draft.

Shards of the Titans is about two things, Gaining Power, and Fighting Other Supernatural Beings to gain and keep that power. With that in mind it is also a game about changing the world.

Setting (teaser)

Before we knew the sky, before we could touch the sea, before man was King… Titans battled for the cosmos…
Now, they come again.

Some of us remember, we remember the fight at the dawn of time. We know why our homelands have become a bitter battle field. At the start of creation, Titans battled for dominance of the cosmos. They engaged in fierce and violent war with everyone and no one. Allies were forged, rivals were made. And in the end there was only one.

Humanity was once a mighty titan. Humanity was different than the rest, more cunning, more resourceful. When the War of the Titans ended, it alone was able to make creation. All we see, all the people we know are the makings of that great titan.

However all of the energy all the essence of the other titans was not lost, it was suffused into all of creation, remade into the stuff we see around us. Then there was peace. For what man kind called war was nothing in comparison to what was fought at the dawn of creation.

The Chrysalis; it changed the world, within a short amount of time; the world went from a normal place, to overfilled with monsters and super powered people and beasts. They roam the country side, the mountains and lakes. Many of them walk down our streets; hiding among us for protection, or prowling our homes for their own agendas.

System (working ideas)

Edited 6/20/2007
It has a blend of task based resolution with a sprinkling system. This is to keep players focused on how they get to their goals rather than focusing on the goal itself.

The basics of the system revolve around rolling a pool of d10’s and taking the two highest, adding them together, and then adding a modifier (talent + attribute). Talents and Attributes both range from one to ten, thus the maximum modifier you can have is 20. The starting pool is 3d10.

For every roll, one of four difficulties are assigned to the task by the GM; Easy (20), Moderate (25), Hard (30), Insane (35). Thus for the most difficult tasks both the modifier to the roll and the dice pool need to be augmented.

Every dice roll should be pusing toward a goal, and any players has a few goal at any given time. sometimes these goals

I tried to make skills fairly simple, the list has 14.

Athletics
Awareness
Brawling
Deception
Endurance
Expression
Knowledge
Larceny
Marksmanship
Socialize
Stealth
Survival
Throwing
Weapons

Augmenting Rolls; Game Fiat:
A player may invoke traits (knacks) and can spend game fiat (narration dice) to add dice to the dice pool. This fiat also lends a degree of narrative control, much like shifts in Spirit of the Century. This makes the likelihood of getting a high roll better.

The only way to augment Modifiers is to spend a second type of Game Fiat, Crystal points. If spent before a roll, these each give a +2 to the modifier, if spent after the roll each only gives a +1 to the roll.
Crystal Points are also the fiat spent to improve and advance characters.

Play
The Play of the game breaks down to three aspects:
1) Game and character generation
2) Accumulation of Power
3) Accomplishing goals

In many cases, Accumulation of Power and Accomplishing Goals will crisscross.

1) Part One
Much of the Initial Game focuses on Character Generation and Game construction which go hand in hand

That part of the game goes like this.

a. Start Play; decide on a supernatural creature type.
b. Design patron titan;
    i. Titan Name
    ii. Supernatural Weakness
    iii. Titan Rival
c. Develop character concepts.
d. Design a group goal.
e. Design characters;
    i. Choose priority of mundane statistics: Attributes, Talents, Knacks.
    ii. Fill in mundane stats.
    iii. Choose Powers.
    iv. Add Titan information.
    v. Add Essence Drive.
f. Frame the first scene.
g. Choose small and big goal.

Start Play:
To start play, the first thing that needs to be decided on (as a group) is what kind of supernatural beings that are going to be played. The only requirements are that everyone needs to play a being of the type (or themed) type of mythic entity.
Design patron titan:
In the creation story, titans clashed at the dawn of creation, all characters are made from the essence and power of those fallen Titans. Thus the players need to design who this being was.
They only need to define three things about your titan
I. Its Name, give it a name, this has no mechanical baring but is fun and allows everyone to know what your talking about when talking about the being you all come from.
II. Its weakness, like humans, no titan was perfect, they had strong points and weak points. This is where you design the draw back for being what you are. These can range from a mage becoming weak after casting spells, to the Vampires weakness to the sun and fire.
III. Your Titan Hates some other titan with a fiery passion. Chose this entity, what titan are you in opposition to, and what to encounter along the way to completing your goals.

Develop your concepts:
This is where you start talking about the game you want to play, the characters your want to play, and the things that should and should not be in your game.
There is no real mechanical effect to this step, but it should get ideas rolling. You should not move on from this step until everyone either has a concept for themselves or has contributed something to the game setting.

Design characters:
Now the crunchy part of the game;

The Image here is a smaller version of the character sheet. To quickly familiarize you with character generation we refer to the sheet.

Step one: Sheet Areas 1, 2, and 3
Prioritize your Mundane stats; Attributes, Talents, and Knacks.
Attributes add to your modifier for well rounded tasks, talents make you better at specific tasks, and knacks make you more likely to produce a higher roll with a given task.

Stat / Points Primary Secondary Tertiary
Attributes 20 15 10
Talents 30 20 10
Knacks 4 3 2

With these number sets, you will be good at your primary choice, be average at your secondary, and be hurting on your Tertiary

Step two: Sheet area 4
You have three powers as a starting character. This is standard across the board for all characters. The Powers are Free Form. There are no lists of powers, or power sets. They are made up. They should loosely fit whatever myth you are portraying.
Mechanically, Powers can do two things. They can bend the rules, or give the character tricks that have narrative effects.

Bending the rules happens when you augmenting mundane traits, or give the character a advantage. You augment traits can be done either by increasing a modifier by 2 or by adding 1 die to a particular pool. You can bend the rules with powers by modifying your sheet.

Tricks are easy, they can fly, they breath fire, control the weather.
When Contested, either by a opponent or the environment, a trick power is tested by rolling the spirit attribute + essence.

Power examples include:
(Augmenting traits)Super strength Adds 1 die to all might related rolls (or adds 2 to the modifier)

(Bending the Rules) The Giant Power gives the shard an extra health box.

(Trick) Fire Breathing is a trick, it can be an attack that is supernatural as opposed to physical or mental. As well as involving fire when necessary; fire breath sets things on fire, it has logical flavor and consequences in the narration.
(Trick) Flying is a trick, attacking you is harder because your in the air, your opponents must use ranged weapons, throw things, or start flying themselves in order to get you.
(Tricks) Burrowing in the earth is a trick, you can hide yourself, move through the ground unseen.
Powers do not grow by themselves. They have the capacity to do earth shattering things when rolled for well. Essence grows as does Spirit.

Step Three: Sheet area 5

The Next step is filling in your patron titans information and then picking an essence drive, this is a way in which you generate essence without defeating another shard.
Not everyone needs to have the same essence drive, but it should remain thematic to the myth and legend you are trying to play.

Examples include: a Vampire feeding on mortal blood, a werewolf eating mortal flesh, a mage meditating, a demon draining the soul of a human, or an angel saving peoples lives.

Edited on 6/20/2007

2) Accomplishing goals / Building Conflict
Conflict:
Because the games focus is finding and defeating other supernatural monsters, I found that a quick resolution to combat and a slightly extended resolution of the same system for goals.
Every shard has 4 health boxes. Most Humans only have 1. Powerful Humans have 2. When you are engaged in combat with another shard you have a chance of dying, if you are not alone your chances of survival increase, if you are out numbered you might be screwed.
To hit someone in combat is a Moderate (Diff 25) task. If you hit then you inflict one health box of damage. For every increment of 5 you beat your difficulty by you inflict an additional health box of damage. Thus the most damage you can inflict on anyone at once is 3 health boxes. No shard can be killed in one hit without powers or using a weakness. If a source or weakness is being used in an attack, that inflicts additional health box.
Mental attacks, that are not intended to damage an opponent primarily forfeit the targets their action. This would be like hypnotism, distraction, intimidation.

KUBLA!! The Khan of Cons

2007-05-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

This last weekend I indulged in going to KublaCon in San Francisco.
Friday
I was planning on leaving around 12:30 on Friday to get to the Convention early (very early) but do to a combination of things (Mostly Stupid Gas stations that don’t accept credit cards) I was just on time to start the check in process and get to my first game. I decided that I wanted to run two games this convention. The first was on Friday at 4:00 – 8:00 (I let everyone out about 15 before that just to get everything together for the 8 o’clock set).

My Game ran very well, I was a little thrown off because of the difficult time I had in leaving the concord area, but I got things started and moving. For those who are unfamiliar, Spirit of the Century is a Pulp Action game, a system that accurately emulates Pulp Radio, Comics and Novels. My first Game “To the Ends of the Earth” was about Pulp Heroes going to the South Pole to find and rescue scientists and research teams. And because it was pulp not was as it seams villains of various Pulp heroes were also at the South Pole plotting various nefarious ways to trap and defeat their Heroic Rivals.
By about 7:20 the Climax of the story was in full swing, everyone who had a nemesis was fighting ‘em. At 7:40 we had a wrap up, everyone had a great time playing pulp heroes. I know for a fact that several of the players went and bought the game after the fact (one of my players got it for here husband, a guy I played Deadlands with on Sunday… Small world).

After Spirit I had not signed up for any games (being that I was late and not able to get to the computer). Which was not that bad overall, my Girlfriend was with us for Friday only, so for a little while we wondered around showing he the various stuff at kubla, then we played cards with one of my hotel mates Jarys; waiting for the Flee Market to open. Why were we waiting you might ask… well the reason was because I had left all my nerd games at my home, I had none with me, All I had were four decks of normal playing cards. Which we used and played Rummy before the flee market. We picked up some cools stuff, I always like the flee market.

Saturday
I ran my second game Saturday morning. Despite taking my turn on sleeping on the floor Friday I woke up with a surprising freshness for my game, a quick shower and I was off to the game.
Two of the players from my Friday night spirit game were in the line up for my “Spirit of the 24th Century” game. This game was pure space pulp, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Dark side of the sun. all great examples of the genre I was trying to emulate.
I had a Legendary [+9] group of players. Everyone seamed to click very quickly on what was needed for the game, the aspects took the longest and are the most fun. They describe your character and are taken two at a time for all of the phases in your life (child hood, The Great War, pulp novel, and two guest star roles).
The Cast kept giving me great fuel for the game I had a few villains to work with, as well as a nefarious organization or two. And eventually we had an alternate reality that needed to be shattered, as everyone wound up in the Phantom Zone.
The More I play Spirit the better I get at playing off of players wants, aspects and rolling with the heroic dynamic of the game. I have come up with a few variations and house rules for the game, but they seam minor and made sense to everyone and made play run more smoothly and more entertaining for all.

Then I qickly rushed from my spirit game to a shadowrun 4th ed game that I had gotten into, this was my first game in the convention as a player.

[On a side note I had been hearing people all weekend rip on the Kubla Shuffle system and how they had only gotten into 1 game by Sunday night. I on the other hand got into almost all of my first choice slots… just makes we wonder what kind of weight factors GM’s get and what happens to others…]

The shadowrun game was done well, it was not the best game I had ever been in but it was interesting enough to keep me involved I think that it would have been run better as a 6 hour game but we had fun, I don’t think it was a very a typical look into the Shadowrun universe (of which I am just initiating myself in the secrets) but if was a nice taste and the prep work and props for the game made up for some of the lack of time that we had.

After that I got ready Chad’s CoC Live LARP. I was playing an NPC “Ulf the Mad Viking” the only survivor of the Viking Ship, The Sea Bitch. I did not come into the game until about an hour and a half into the game but when I came in I knew that things were getting good.
After about another half hour of being sulking and nearly insane, I lost it and had to be restrained… I spent the rest of the night tied up and crying out for someone to let me go throw me outside and let the Cthulian have their way with me, all in order to save the kingdom…. Yeah right…
The Game ended when Father Dagon rushed into the Room made a B-Line for Ulf, killed him and then was destroyed by the fearless Viking berserkers. Great game and I would be willing to help out with anymore LARPS that Good Omens does.

I then played a “quick” game of Catan before I left it in order to sleep.

Sunday
I slept in on Sunday, I was in the Ars magica game, but decided that sleep was better.
I got up at 11:00 AM, showered, and then wondered around for a good hour until I decided to break out the board game. We played Planet Busters and then Betrayal at the House on the Hill. I played board games until 7:15 when the evening list was posted, and I got into Matt’s Deadlands Game.
Matt’s game was good, and it ran late, and by the end of it we were all calling for the comfort of our pillows. It was an 8 player game, with a nice player spread, a huckster, mad scientist, man in black, chi master, a preacher, Mexican gun slinger, a plucky kid, and a nun. I played the smartass huckster. It was a fun Game.

Monday
On Monday I was in a Paranoia game, but decided (retroactively) to sleep instead.
Which was a good thing, not only was I ready to vacate my room by 10:30 I was invited to a pickup Changeling: The Dreaming game. This was a continuing game, set in Santa Cruz, this was the continuation of the “Summer Dreams” game at DundraCon. I had a lot of fun with this game, I was very glad that I stuck around for this, then at 4:00 PM I was on the road back home.

I think that Kubla has given me the want to go to Conquest, which I am trying to come up with a game for.

Overall this was by best year at KublaCon.

My Mage Game, the end.

2007-05-29T15:50:00.000-07:00

I am writing this a little after the fact (and in fact I am sleep deprived while writing this) but I want to get it off my chest.

I finished my Mage: The Awakening Plot Arc. This signifies too things, one that I have run a 6 month Mage Game, which is cool, and second that I am kicking off my June, Shotgun Game Month. I don’t know what I am running yet… or When, but it should be Awesome.

After My game I had a rap up session with the players, and then I had a further session of Role Playing Desirers and Expectation with the players that did not have to leave. I found out that some of my players are really on the same page with me about wanting a fresh set of ideas, and ways of playing games.
Most of the talk revolved around ideas that have been battering around in my head, mostly Social Contracts, campaign design, and character interaction.

I think I am going to change up my game play activities after June just a little… We will see what comes of my diabolical schemes.

Down and Dirty

2007-04-20T14:59:00.000-07:00

I forgot that I had more to say today…

I recently finished the Book "Play Dirty" by John Wick, who has done a lot of work for various large name RPG’s, 7th Sea among them. Play Dirty is a collection of John Wick’s work form Pyramid Magazine, and it shows, it has not been edited very much for the printed version, so it’s more of a compilation than a new book. After Reading this I have a better understanding of how to manipulate players; and have a great appreciation for the kind of psychology that is used to give a very “Down and Dirty” experience to the players.

There are a lot of good tips and anecdotes in this book. I really enjoyed it. I have a collection of Game Mastering text, and this one quickly made it to one of my favorites.

I highly recommend this book.

New Games, New Semester, Some Crazy Ideas

2007-04-19T15:27:00.000-07:00

I have not posted in a while, and I don't think to many people (if any) see this blog, so it really should not matter much. My Deadlands game has been over for some time now. I have run a Sprit of the Century Game, and started and am in Full swing of a Mage: The Awakening Game.

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I have also joined a Mage: The Awakening Game. The game is set in Shady Cove, a distant town subordinate to Boston. There are 12 Wealthy Families of Mages who are all in charge of Shady Cove and grudgingly accept the servitude of Boston. I am playing an identical twin, one of the Other players is playing the other twin. We are children of the current ruling family, The Mitchell family has always been in charge of the Shady Cove Consilium. Our Cabal was designed to be rebellious, and trying to change things… or at least we are unhappy with how things are run now, we really don’t agree as to what we are changing the order of things too…

I am playing a twin, as I have said, were taking a kind of “Good Twin, Bad Twin” thing. I am playing a Career Criminal, with romantic aspirations of the Mafioso lifestyle. The Family is primarily Oberimos, and I am a Mastigose. I am playing a Guardian of the Veil, who is an enforcer and an acquirer more than a spy or PR veil.

We have had three games playing so far, which have been a lot of fun, to start off, we are going though the Original Mage Demo, for kicks while the Characters and GM get used to the game and characters.

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In my Mage game I have the players dealing with a Court of spirits who have suddenly gained a great deal of power; and are now jumping into the Real world to embody/possess people. The Trick with the Spirit Court is that they are spirits of Tarot cards. It’s been about 5 weeks in the making of the story so far and they are coming up near the end of what I have planed.

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I have been busy with this last semester of school, and barley enough time for two games a week, which for me is not enough, or at least I have not had time for all the gaming I want to do…
I would like to be able to do more but I am not sure if I will ever get to as much gaming as I want.

However I have a plan for getting some of the desire out of my system. I am going to be running two games a week, or at least I would like to, currently one of the options will be my current Mage game, but if that does not last (which it might, or it might just take a pause… I am not quite sure)
I am going to run games twice a week, and I am going to run a whole bunch of different systems.
The systems include:

Shadowrun
Star Wars (in some system)
Call of Cthulhu
Paranoia
The Sab-Alheri Roach
Dogs in the Vineyard
Super Heroes Game (Either Aberrant, or Mutants and Masterminds, or something…)

After that I think that a good reflection of those games and a discussion of what game to run long term.

I think I will post again soon, but I am not sure when, I might have started this long endevor before I post agian.

Deadlands... From the Beguining

2006-12-06T13:22:00.000-08:00

I must say that I really like many aspects of the new system, however for Deadlands: Reloaded specifically things I thought they could have done better converting some of the things that I found essential for the feel of the game. I thought that Shamans got a short end of the stick in Reloaded, and that there casting was nothing reminiscent of what it was in Classic; that and many combat maneuvers that I thought gave a great many flavors to combat have been omitted, but hey... that's what house rules are for anyway... aren't they.
Things that I liked about the system changes, Blessed have a great deal of more versatility now that they have no spell list, and that they can preform them all spells naturally. Hucksters have an option not to draw for there spells however they will almost always do so eventually, at least this way they can have a little micromanagement with the ability to soak backlash. I can't decide whether I like what they did with Mad Science or not, but it works for now so I decided to leave it. Chi Mastering works so much smother than before and that makes me happy. I enjoy the Streamlinedness of the conflict system and how much quicker combat has become.

I started this Deadlands game as a One Shot I was running for a friend of mine who was in town from Washington. Mike Introduced me to Deadlands Classic and I thought it fitting that I run a game for him of the New Version Deadlands Reloaded, which I had picked up about a month previous.
I started the Game with four characters; Texas Ranger Duke Bronson, Chi Master Die Hu Sung, European Chemist (Mad Scientist) Deter Sprocket, and Ecuadorian Hexslinger Pancho Esperanto.

During the first game, set in Dodge City, the Texas Ranger Duke was asked to pick up a bush waker and Deliver him to Tombstone. All of the characters have just gotten into Dodge. Die was a Buddhist monk on a quest to destroy dark chi artifact, The Belt of the Monkey God, which was a powerful Kung Fu tool, but with dark effects (Yay Relics). The Mad Scientist was on a mission from Wealthy European backers to find lots of Ghost Rock. The Hexslinger was running from Salvadorian authorities, and not doing much better with American authorities.

More on our first session later...

Another Day

2006-12-04T16:47:00.001-08:00

So, A basic update for my life.

I am REALLY looking forward to the end of my current semester. I am doing well enough in my classes, but can not wait to be done with my Trig and CompSci Class....
that is all I really want to talk about my school.

My Gaming Life is going well, I have my weekly Deadlands Game, which I hope to be posting Summaries of sometime in the near future. and a Quasi Mage: The Ascension Game run by a friend of mine.

I have been going out with the girl from the last post for about a month now and it has been going very well. I am very happy and it is nice to be in a relationship with more commonality than my last few relationships.

I had a Good Omens holiday party yesterday, it was fun and I am excited about many of the thigns that we as a group are going to be doing over the next year. I am going to be part of a seminar at DunDraCon this Feb, and may be part of a Good Omens PodCast.

End of my Week, Fate

2006-10-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

I have had a long week, and a nice confirmation that fate still works, and still in my favor. My faith in fate had been slowly waning, but it comes rushing back with full vigor.
On Tuesday my classes were canceled, due to a bomb threat at my college, and I was not scheduled for work that day, so I found my self with very little to do. Naturally I was sitting in front of my computer, not really doing anything, when a female friend of mine came online in IM and we started chatting, she was in the same predicament was myself, no class and nothing to do, so we decide to hang out. I have been crushing on her for a couple of months now, but have not put much wait into it.

We hung out and played Lego Star Wars, mostly just passing time, and when we got board we both sat on my bed, which is the best position to watch movies from my computer, and watched old episodes of Nero Wolfe. During on of the first episodes our feet brushed against one another's and a short game of footsie ensued. That childish game of flirtation was absolutely what I needed, the realization that I was not the only one crushing between the two of us was an absolute buzz. Before I really realized it we had started to snuggle up together and cuddle. It was a really comfortable position, she laid her head on my chest and I warped my arms around her. I was supposed to give her a ride home, however we both fell asleep like that and had a lovely time sleeping snuggled together. Then I needed to go to work and I gave her that ride home, about 7 hours latter than we both expected...

The next day, I gushed to her that I was interested in something more and asked her on a date Friday, She accepted and that is how I am spending my evening tonight. A bomb threat at my school leaves me with a new blooming relationship, why can't more scare disasters work like that...

Weekend of Gaming, Endgame Mini-Con

2006-10-23T22:45:00.000-07:00

I had an excellent weekend of gaming and I wasn't even running most of the games I was involved in, I was actually playing, very different and I liked it.

It started with Friday, after work when my friend Jarys crashed at my house and started to run his nanopunk home brew, loosely using the Mage: The Ascension 3rd Ed rules. I finished my character and decided to play a theologian, based loosely on the Celestial Chorus. After we finished the game, I convinced Jarys to crash at my place so he could get to the mini-con the next day.

This was my first Endgame con experience, and it was worth it. In short, I had a blast. It was my first game running as a Good Omens Game Master… even if I was not in the program as such, so it was a little exciting for me.

It started out like most of my life, with me running late; BART in concord was running late, and had no train in sight for twenty minuets. But when I finally got to Endgame the fun started right away. I signed up for Catherine Klikoff's Feng Shui game, unfortunately she had did not show up (I did not find out what happened to her… any one know?). However, I did get to jump into a game of Dog's in the Vineyard.

(Game 1)

I must say that it was one of the best new game experiences I have ever had. I fell in love with the conflict resolution system and the game setting was very good as well, being the fan of cowboys I am. Dog's in the Vineyard, run by Carl Rigney, it was fantastic. He ran just the sample town out of the book and I had a blast. I went downstairs after the game looked at the light price of the book ($22) and was sold, and bought it on the spot. I am usually a very cheap guy, and buying things on the spot (especially when I am on budget like I have been over the last few months) is very odd for me. But the game was so good and I really want to run it and see how much fun I can have with the system and setting.

(Game 2)

I had no plan for the second session for the con, myself and my friend Jarys went and got some food at a decent crepe place that I know in City Center in Oakland. But after I got my food, I sat down at a table that did not have a full game and was just eating my food. The game at the table was The Mountain Witch, and was scheduled for an eight hour slot, which I would not be able to do, running a game at 8 pm myself. However the game only had two players, so the GM decided to cut his game down to four hours, the table jumped to full rather quickly.
The game itself was good, as a system to be designed as a one shot the conflict resolution system was very simple, involving a single d6. The game focused on character interaction and was much like a Japanese Drama Tragedy. Each character had a random dark fate, which must be made public by the end of story. The range of dark fates were revenge, betrayal, secrete love, dark secrete ect. It was actually really fun; I enjoyed myself very much in this game. It was not as astounding as Dog’s in the Vineyard but it was good none the less.

(Dinner)

With some of the other Good Omens members went to food, at a bar and grill just down the street from Endgame. We were a little strapped for time, so we asked if our food could be made in forty minuets, they said yes, so we sat down, and waited… and waited… and waited. We had good conversation, and it was fun everyone sitting around the table. But our food did not come by eight o’clock. So those of us who needed to be there post hast, al la me, we ran back to Endgame and the other brought our food, I was just astounded that it took more than forty minutes to make my salad

(Game 3, My game)

During the next session, I ran my Illuminati game. The Game had a simple premise; all of the characters are agents of the Illuminated Order of Bavaria, exploring an alternate dimension, where the laws of reality don’t make sense. The characters had various backgrounds and skill sets, ranging form Men in Black, Occultist magic user, Cyborg assassin. However my true reason for running the game was to have a group of semi serious characters fight Michael Jackson mid thriller music video, and later fight Samuel L. Jackson from his Pulp Fiction role. With some of the music that I used for ambiance and the continuous action of the adventure made the zany plot work. All of the characters were high powered and all of the players felt good about the high amount of action. Players were laughing all night, and everyone had fun at the end of the night. My game ended with fifteen minutes to spare.

Sunday

On Sunday I slept in and recovered from the high amount of energy spent at the con. And around one o’clock my players for my weekly Deadlands: Reloaded game showed and we started playing. After the last player showed up at half passed two, we played a round of poker and then got into what I called Halloween in Deadlands. The Posse, which is going from Denver to Tombstone, came to a fairly large trail town just after the Colorado River, which was being riddled with scarecrow problems, and the posse was asked to fix the problem before a Hallows Eve hoedown to celebrate the anniversary of the town. A good time was had by all my players even though they only got though about half of what I had planed, so there is a Hallows Eve part II coming next week, which is closer to Halloween anyway….

That was the awesome weekend of gaming that I had, and I don’t suspect I will have a comparable weekend until DunDraCon, But I could be surprised and hope that I will be.

Me, Games, and getting on the band wagon

2006-10-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

I have been hesetent to blog in the past, mainly because I don't think I can commit to posting frequently. But I have recently been listening to some of the podcasters in my area, Endgame's 2d6 Feet in a random direction, and Have Games, Will Travel, and thus have decided to jump on the band wagon of blogging to see if it fits with me.

Anywho, a bit about me. I live in Concord Ca, (East Bay Area) and the majority of my life happens in my house or in Oakland (my job and some fun people and places I know there).
I am into computers and my primary hobby is gaming. I started on CCG's way back when in grade school. I played a little bit of AD&D in middle school (very slight), and then really got into role playing in High School by being introduced to Mage: The Acenscion by White Wolf (part of the Old World of Darkness line now...). It was love at first roll, and I was hooked. Several hundreds of dollors later I am still high on gaming and continue to play and run games as offten as I can.

When I am not engaged in work or role playing, I am still a student (and I wish I was a student more so I could hurry up and finish). I am attending Diablo Valley College, a JC in Contra Costa County. Primarally gaining a ton of Undergrad and General Credits to transfer to another college (where I will start the whole thing again...). I am focusing on Computer Science (hoping like crazy I don't have to be a programer), or might very soon change to Buisness administration, just so I don't have to be a code monkey.

I work in Oakland for a company called Redi2, which is a finace mangaement, software developent company. I work as QA and customer service, and it is boring, but it's stable work in which I spend most of my time infront of a computer. I can listen to music and audio book, I more or less make my own hours, and everyone is really nice. it's a good enough job... (it could be a lot worse).

That's me in a nut shell