Let's enjoy blogging together.

It's been a while.

Last week, I volunteered to help edit a friend's blog. While going over their draft, I was struck by how much I missed writing in a longer format than Tweets and Instagram updates. This will be my attempt at rectifying that.

The good ship Terribad Ideas is getting relaunched. All my old content, for better or worse, is going to stay up. Don't worry. That one RPG group in Argentina that's using my Mass Effect rules for Cortex+ isn't going to lose access. My grimdarke nonsense isn't going anywhere. It's part of who I am and serves as a reminder that even if I think my writing is garbage, someone out there likes it.

With that in mind, what am I going to be posting here? Game stuff, mental health stuff, travel stuff. Maybe, after I've worked at it for a while, this place will eventually congeal into an understandable theme.  Probably not, but there's always a chance.

Where do we start? I guess we'll do a bit of catching-up with what's been going on in my life.

Since last we talked, I've:

- Taken another trip to Japan.
- Ran a successful D&D game to completion, without scheduling or drama tearing the group apart.
- Hosted a D&D fundraiser (JephCon) on Twitch that raised $3,300+ for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
- Visited my Homeland. A topic for another day.
- Struggled through a two-year battle with a very severe bout of depression.
- Started streaming on Twitch, albeit irregularly.
- Wrote a bunch of homebrew content for both 4th and 5th edition D&D. A lot of which I'll be posting here over the next few months.
- Started a YouTube channel with my wife about our travels.
- Began a combination art project / protest over on Instagram.
- Survived the wait for Mass Effect: Andromeda.
- Crafted several cosplays.
- Wrote and recorded the first two episodes of three different podcasts, none of which were ever posted publicly.
- Successfully completed all three good Persona games.
- Continued to be gainfully employed.
- Backed a whole lot of Kickstarter projects.
- Called my Representative and both Senators every work day for the past 4 months.
- And a whole lot of other stuff that I can't remember at the moment due to lack of sleep and stress.

A good number of those experiences will be posts in the future, but for now I feel I should leave y'all with some new content. Below is the second draft of my Downtime rules for my upcoming D&D campaign. It details the stuff characters can do when they aren't out doing Adventure Things.

Town Phase:

1. Lifestyle Costs: For each day spent in Eternal Bedrock, each PC must pay Lifestyle Costs as a way of abstracting the individual costs of lodging and food. Provided below are a series of possible scenarios and their associated costs.
1. Sleeping in the Adventurer Tent City (Basically Homelessness):
1. Food is basic (bread, water, bean paste), provided free of charge by the Cathedral of Pelor. Characters must furnish their own bedroll and tent.
2. Benefits: -1d4 on Carouse and Fellowship checks.
3. Daily Cost: 0 GP.
2. Staying at Novagen’s Economy Lodge (Low Quality Inn):
1. Food is simple (porridge, fruit, water, eggs), provided as part of your daily cost.
2. Benefits: None.
3. Daily Cost: 1 GP.
3. Staying at Erathis’s Smile (Average Quality Inn):
1. Food is acceptable (bread, meat, cheese, fruit, ale), provided as part of your daily cost.
2. Benefits: +1d4 on Carouse checks.
3. Daily Cost: 3 GP.
4. Staying at Three Stars (High Quality Inn):
1. Food is good (pastries, meat, cheese, eggs, fruit, wine), provided as part of your daily cost.
2. Benefits: +1d6 on Carouse checks.
3. Daily Cost: 5 GP.

5. Staying at Twin Drakes (Exceptional Quality Inn):
1. Food is grand (full buffet for each meal, along with beverages of choice), provided as part of your daily cost.
2. Benefits: +1d8 on Carouse and Fellowship checks.
3. Daily Cost: 10 GP.
6. Staying at The Cockatrice and Medusa (Fantastic Quality Inn):
1. Food is grand (full buffet for each meal, along with beverages of choice), provided as part of your daily cost.
2. Benefits: +1d8 on Carouse checks.
3. Daily Cost: 50 GP.
5. Downtime: Players may spend as much or as little time in Eternal Bedrock between adventures as they want. For each day the characters pay Lifestyle Costs, they gain one Downtime Day to spend as they wish on the options below. Downtime Days may not be earned or spent while Adventuring. (Note: While other options are possible, these broad-reaching examples cover 90% of downtime activities available to PCs.)
6. Carousing: Adventurers can spend downtime and GP to gather information, hear rumors, or find quests in addition to those listed on The Board. For each Downtime Day spent, the player rolls a hard Streetwise check (with a possible bonus or penalty from lodging and a +1 bonus per 10 GP spent on carousing). Depending on the result, the Character chooses one from the appropriate list.
1. On a success, the Character:
1. Learns a useful rumor.
2. Finds a lead on an otherwise hard to acquire Magic Item.
3. Gains access to an otherwise secret quest.
2. On a failure, the Character:
1. Learns a rumor which gains them no useful information.
2. Runs afoul of The Law.
7. Shopping: Adventurers can spend downtime shopping for new or replacement gear. For each Downtime Day spent, the player may purchase any number of pieces of non-magical equipment with GP or a single piece of magical equipment (Note: Purchases subject to rarity and availability.)
8. Religious Services: Adventurers can spend downtime to attend or perform religious services and rites for 5 GP. For each Downtime Day spent, the player may gain Advantage on one roll during the next Adventuring Phase,
9. Equipment Upkeep: Adventurers may spend downtime to maintain their equipment. For each downtime day spent, one piece of equipment does not have to make the Saving Throw at the end of the month. (See the Equipment Upkeep rules in the Adventuring Phase section below.)
10. Fellowship: Adventurers can spend downtime to build bonds with other characters. (Note: Both characters must spend a Downtime Day on the same day for the Fellowship action to add to their Social Link.) See the Social Links section at the end of this document for more information.

Thanks for hanging out with me so far. It's been fun. We'll have to do this again sometime.

The Black Swordsman

So yeah... it's been a while. Between the last update and this one, a lot of major stuff has happened in my life which has caused me to take a protracted break. Positives: I got married in early June, bought a house in September, traveled Japan for two and a half weeks in October. Negatives: My brother took his own life in late June. Needless to say, lots of stressing stuff took away my will to write. I'm dragging myself back into it, though. I will persevere.

On to my new project. I'd talked about doing an Avatar: The Legend of Aang/Korra hack at one point, but it hasn't really jumped out at me as a thing that I need to do at this point. I'm not really feeling it, as it were. What has my attention lately is an anime series called Sword Art Online. It's amazing, seriously. It's got my friend Chris (who, incidentally, has hated all things related to anime for over 20 years now) interested, so it must be amazing. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out. Most of the first season is available on Crunchyroll right now for streaming.

With that in mind, I've got basic stats for the protagonist, Kirito. The only real departure from standard MHR is the adjusted Solo/Party/Guild in place of Solo/Buddy/Team. Solo works as normal. Party is for any group of 4 or less, and Guild is for groups of 5 or more. In a world where the majority of groups are 5+, it made sense to change the divisions a bit.

Here's Kirito, just after his first duel with the leader of the Knights of the Blood Oath. As always, I welcome your commentary.

Kirito, The Black Swordsman

Solo d10, Party d8, Guild d6
Legendary Beater, Heart of Gold, Guildless

Black Swordsman’s Arsenal
Elucidator (Weapon d10), Dark Repulsor (Weapon d10), Swordsman’s Coat (Armor d8), Red Potion (Healing d8), Teleport Crystal (Teleportation d6).
SFX: Dual-wielding. You may use Elucidator and Dark Repulsor in the same die pool by stepping down both weapons -1 step.
SFX: Disarm. Step your effect die when you attack an opponent’s Weapon trait.
Limit: Gear. Shutdown a Black Swordsman’s Arsenal power and gain 1 PP. Take an action vs. the Doom pool to recover that power.

Virtual Kendo
Superhuman Reflexes d10, Superhuman Speed d10, Enhanced Stamina d8, Enhanced Durability d8.
SFX: “You’re Level 16, I’m Level 86.”  Spend 1 PP to step back physical trauma by -1 and remove all physical stress.
SFX: Versatility. Replace any Virtual Kendo power’s die with two stepped down dice.
SFX: Whirlwind Attack. Target multiple opponents. For each additional target, add a d6 to your die pool and keep +1 effect die.
Limit: Exhausted. Shutdown any Virtual Kendo power to gain 1 PP. Recover by activating an opportunity or during a transition scene.

Specialties
Combat Master d10, Psych Expert d8, Acrobatic Expert d8, Menace Expert d8, Tech Expert d8

Milestones
Alone Against the World
1xp: When you defend a weaker character against a non-minion opponent.
3xp: When you aid a stressed-out character in recovery.
10xp: When you lose a friend by refusing a guild invitation OR join a guild and accept a position of leadership.

Clueless Teenager
1xp: When another character expresses romantic interest in you, but you are oblivious.
3xp: When you take emotional stress from someone who’s expressed romantic interest in you.
10xp: When you declare your mutual affection to someone who’s expressed romantic interest in you, despite the risks OR when you sever all ties to save them.
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-J

D&D 5e Playtest: Combat 1

Yes, I realize that the working title is *still* D&D Next. Yes, I realize that D&D Next sounds like NewCoke or Crystal Pepsi. That's why I don't use it. And technically, if we're counting all of the editions, we're on D&D 10e or something. Meanwhile, here comes the playtesting. (Obviously, spoilers abound for the playtest adventure.)

So let me set the scene. Five players, me in the DM's chair (well, I stand for the entirety of the game, but I think DM's chair is more a figure of speech anyway). First, a little more about the players.

Vicki - Playing the Elf Wizard. Her experience with D&D amounts to two sessions of Pathfinder.
Adam - Playing the Human Cleric. Adam doesn't generally play spellcasters, but really likes this Cleric.
Heather - Playing the Dwarf Fighter. Usually plays fighters. Refuses to play spellcasters.
Mary - Playing the Dwarf Cleric. Has some experience with meaty, hammer-wielding nonsense.
Joe - Playing the Halfling Rogue for two reasons: 1) Everyone else picked their characters first. 2) Joe somehow always ends up playing Rogues.

The session started out with Our Heroes leaving Castellan Keep for the Caves of Chaos. As the PCs crested a small hill, the full majesty and terror of the Caves of Chaos came into view. The party, having been sent to the caves for several different (but complimentary) reasons, set off for the cave entrances.

Adam, being the voice of Cleric, decided that they should go into the cave at the far West end of this tier of the complex. His rationale was that the path to it was lit by the Undying Light of Pelor and therefor nothing bad could possibly go wrong.

In that cave, the party found an Owlbear. Something bad had gone wrong.

The halfling hid, the dwarves tried to sneak into melee, and the other two stayed outside the entrance hoping to blast the hapless monster with lasers. Initiative was rolled and off we went.

Joe, having advantage over the poor giant magical monstrosity, decided to start pelting it with rocks from his sling. A well placed shot and the monster was injured. Cheers around the table.

Heather charged in, Greataxe in slaughtering mode. She swung and missed. A collective "aww" was uttered. That is, until I reminded her that even on a miss she does damage. Cheers again.

Mary carefully positioned herself to better harm the beastie. She swung and connected with her warhammer.

It was the owlbear's turn. Yay. Claw, Claw, Bite. All directed at Heather. All misses.

Adam cast a Radiant Lance at the owlbear, searing off some of its fur.

Vicki cast Magic Missile, because she'd always wanted to do that.

Joe hid again to regain advantage. Heather swung and hit with her axe. Mary cast Crusader's Strike on her warhammer, turning it into Warhammer 40k. The owlbear hit Heather for a grand total of 6 damage. Adam cast Searing Light on the owlbear, doing significant damage. Vicki tried to cast Ray of Frost, but missed the attack roll.

The combat went on for another three rounds, with the PCs emerging victorious. I let them know that the Owlbear was supposed to be sort of a sub-boss for this complex and they'd gone in a totally different direction than the module designers had planned. Most of the players thought this was bad game design, but Joe and I countered that they probably just used the original Caves of Chaos/Keep on the Borderlands adventure with updated monsters. That means random crap happens. I'm not sure how much I like that, but the point of the playtest isn't to check for story.

High Points/Things We Liked: Overall simplicity, the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic, and at-will spells for the Wizard/Clerics. All of the fire-and-forget spells seemed to really be worth casting. Spell descriptions were to the point and simple enough for a complete newbie to understand on first read-through.

Low Points/Things We Disliked: The fighter seems a bit too simple compared to the other classes. Not enough options for Heather during a round. Also, our dice didn't want to roll well all night. I don't think the playtest will address that particular issue. Monster design is rather basic, hopefully there'll be a fix to that during the next round.

So far, D&D 5e is looking pretty sharp. 4 / 5 d20s. Later today (or possibly tomorrow), I'll have more on our playtest for your reading enjoyment.

Medical supplies for some, mutiny for others.

Our second session of Mass Effect Heroic descended into madness. Well, madness might be a strong word. More like ridiculosity.

A third player joined us this week, who coincidentally also decided to play a Human Engineer. Thankfully, they chose entirely different Human powers (one has Enhanced Intellect d6, Enhanced Reflexes d8; the other has Enhanced Stamina d8, Enhanced Strength d6) and different Bonus Engineer Powers (one has a Machine Pistol d6, the other has a Combat Drone d6). Last week's Engineer will be referred to as The Hacker and this week's new Engineer will be referred to as The Mechanic.

Given the choice between three basic scenarios (go to the Citadel and dick around, hijack a medical supply ship and sell it on the black market, or smuggle some civilians off of a war-torn planet) they choose to be pirates. This seems to be a running theme with games in which two of these players play. I don't really see a problem with this.

So the MSV Triton sets off towards the Aralakh System. Upon their arrival, the Mechanic wants to try to dampen the ship's heat output so their approach will be stealthier. He rolls and gets a 10 with a d8 effect die, but with 2 Opportunities. The target ship is aware of them, but believes them to be a small shuttle instead of a freighter. The Mechanic launches a pair of docking cables and attaches their ship to their target. The Hacker gets the door open through a rather amazing roll (16 with a d10 effect die) against the Doom Pool (4 with a d6) so the door slides effortlessly open. Unfortunately for our heroes (I guess protagonists works better, as they're not as much Heroes as they are Pirates), there are some armed guards waiting for them in the entry hall.

Our Drell spots an overhead conduit and tells the Hacker to close the door after he fires a shot. The Drell's sniper rifle punctures a hole in the conduit, causing a power overload. The Drell's player spends a Plot Point to change the weapon that one of the guards is carrying into a Flame Thrower. The power overload arcs to the guard with the flamethrower, which has the predictable result of exploding rather violently. Thankfully, the Hacker has there wherewithal to get the door closed before the explosion engulfs Our Protagonists.

After a few moments, the fire suppression systems turn off and our protagonists are free to explore a bit more. The Hacker seals downloads a schematic of the ship to his Omnitool while the Mechanic starts unlocking doors. They decide to make their way through the sterile hallways to Engineering, because it'll be easier for them to override the Autopilot than it will be for them to take control of the ship via the cockpit.

The door to Engineering is locked down tight (Deadlock d10, Hardened Metal Door d10) and neither the Hacker or the Mechanic can seem to bypass it. Meanwhile, the Drell has found an access point to the ventilation system (this guy loves dropping Plot Points) and shimmied his way through to the other side of the door. He drops down into a creepily darkened Engineering and unlocks the door for his companions.

Upon further examination, it appears that the ship is on Autopilot, heading for a spatial anomaly which used to be a moon orbiting the third planet of the system. No craft or probe or other thing that's gone into the anomaly has come back out. Some say it's a doorway to another dimension, others say it's a quantum schism which turns reality into candy, still others believe it to be the doorway to Heaven/Hell/Purgatory/Alien analog of one of those things. Whatever it is, it is not a place that one wants their newly acquired ship and treasure to go.

It also appears that the Autopilot is on lockdown, with only the captain's command key to override it. So our protagonists decide to hoof it to the captain's quarters. As the first of their group sets a foot outside engineering, the lights go dead. The Mechanic scans the area with his Omnitool and realizes that Life Support has failed as well. The group puts on their helmets and flashlights, continuing towards the captain's quarters.

Along the way, the Hacker's flashlight illuminates a door with large dents protruding from it. Something on the other side is trying to get out. Cue dramatic music as a Very Angry Yahg bursts through the door. (At this point, I admit I may be overusing the Yahg in my examples, but who cares?) Combat starts.

Combat seems slow and ponderous until I realize I was doing Stress entirely wrong. Apparently getting 2 hours of sleep the night before a game and then working for 10 hours tends to make people forget some basic rules. After I adjusted for previous results that should have been successes, the Yahg was rather badly injured. Fortunately for the Huge Lumbering Ragebeast, the protagonists had generated quite a few Opportunities along the way and the Doom Pool was at 3d6+2d8+2d10. The Yahg picked up one of our protagonists' security escorts (whom they'd retconned, via some plot points, into existence after the lights went out) and threw him at the Hacker. I rolled exceptionally well (17 with a d12 effect die from the Yahg's Enhanced Strength) and nearly stressed out the poor, hapless Hacker.

The Mechanic stunned the Yahg with a conveniently placed Shotgun blast and the Drell finished it off with a pair of bullets to the eyes. As it turns out, Yahg are weak to Bullets-in-the-Eyes.

The protagonists carried on, their security escorts having all been rended into tiny bits by the previous encounter, towards the captain's quarters. A little Omnitool work and the door was open.

The room was in a rather bad state, clothes and supplies thrown everywhere. They stumbled across an audiolog from the captain, describing an attack by pirates and many of his crew being killed before they knew what was happening. Our protagonists thought pretty well of their success, until they realized that the timestamp on the audiolog made it clear that the recording had been made six hours before they arrived. The guards they'd killed on the way in? They were the last of the previous boarding party, left behind by their compatriots for some reason (justified or not) when they sent the ship towards the rift.

A rather frantic search through the quarters and the command key was found. The group nearly sprinted the entire way to Engineering. Upon their arrival, the Mechanic used the command key and a lot of elbow grease to disengage the Autopilot. Not a moment too soon, either. Had they waited another few minutes, the ship would have been past the event horizon of the anomaly; potentially lost forever to whatever hell dimension or Whimsyshire lay on the other side of it.

The protagonists reset the Autopilot to take the ship to the scrap yards, as was the original stipulation of the mission. In the meantime, Datok (their ship's captain and their boss) revealed that the reason they'd taken the mission is because he *knew* that the ship had been taken by pirates, so it should have been easy pickings. Unless, of course, the pirates had still been aboard or there was a muderous ragebeast being transported from its homeworld to a Salarian research outpost. Or the ship had been set on a suicide course into an unknown anomaly.

With that, the talk of mutiny began. Several quick conversations and everyone on board was convinced that their captain was a jerkface and needed to be spaced. And so, they did. Right out the airlock.

Next time, on Mass Effect. Who will step up to fill our Volus Captain's tiny shoes?

Avatar: The Legend of Heroism

More hacks incoming, farcical aquatic readers!  Starting work on Avatar: (The Last Airbender/The Legend of Aang/The Legend of Korra) for Marvel Heroic this weekend. You have been warned.

Legend of the Five Rings: Heroic Edition

Legend of the Five Rings is my favorite setting. Unfortunately, that amazing setting comes coupled with one of my least favorite rule sets. Time to get that fixed.

Click here for the fix. Cortex+, fixing awkward mechanics since 2010.

(Edit: Based on feedback from a few associates and random internet people, there's a huge revision going on at the moment. Should be finished tonight.)
-J

Reverb Gamers Again

Since it's been a bit since the last time I answered more questions, here we go again.

Prompt 6: Describe your all-time favorite character to play. What was it about him/her/it that you enjoyed so much?

Captain Aratradeon "Trade" Nydal. My group at the time was being run through the Savage Tide Adventure Path and I, being the fifth wheel and latest addition to the group, was left with the leeway to make basically anything at all. The other players were a Dwarf Fighter/Barbarian, a Dragonborn Dragon Shaman, a Catfolk Ranger, and a Human Warmage. I decided to take my love of playing Support Characters to its logical extreme and make the best passive buff character possible. When the campaign came to a screeching halt due to our DM flipping out and having a nervous breakdown, Trade was a Warlock 1 / Marshal 1 / Dragon Shaman 1 / Half-Elf Paragon 3 / Human Paragon 3 . His actions were spent each turn giving the other players Aid Another bonuses or burning his Standard Actions to give everyone else Move actions for better positioning. I also had a bunch of passive auras that gave everyone: +6 Initiative, +6 to all Dexterity based skills, +2 to hit, +4 to damage, DR 1/-, Fast Healing 2 (so long as they were under 50% HP), and some other incidental bonuses. Combine this with wands of Legion's Snake's Swiftness and the various flavors of Celerity and my character basically stood in one place making everyone else impossibly awesome.

Oh, and I had something like a +49 to Diplomacy at level 9. The DM hated that. A lot. There was a bit where we had to try to talk an Ancient Dragon Turtle down so that he wouldn't destroy a small town we'd been trying to set up. The AP had designed it to be nearly impossible. I, being the face of the party, went to greet the Dragon Turtle. The DM called for a Diplomacy check. I rolled, got a 3. My DM got that big rat bastard smirk on his face until I informed him I got a 52; then I proceeded to use my reroll from Sociable Personality, got a 16 + 49 = 65. Out of spite, I used my daily Heroic Destiny +1d6, got a 5 for a total of 70.

Maybe the fact that my favorite character of all time was basically a tool for me to grief a DM who hated playing-by-the-rules says more about my personality than I meant it to.

Prompt 7: How do you pick names for your characters?

First, I write up the character mechanically. Then, I write up a backstory. Sometime during that process, a name flits into my brain. They just kind of emerge as I'm writing. Sorry, I don't really have any other methodology. :S

Prompt 8: What's the one gaming accessory (lucky dice, soundtrack, etc.) you just can't do without? Why?

I don't believe I have one, actually. I'm rather fond of using my smart phone (or tablet) for my character sheet and rules reference. It's a thing that I've wanted since I was a smallish child.

I guess the truest answer would be: some sort of electronic device on which I can store a shittonne of PDFs and character stuff so that I don't have to lug around a billionty books or deal with my abysmal handwriting.

Prompt 9: Have you ever played a character of the opposite sex. Why or why not? If yes, how did the other players react?

As I stated back during Prompt 7, I do mechanics first, then write a story to describe those mechanics. Sometimes, the description comes out female. There's no real ulterior motive. Some characters are male, some are female. I counted up about a year ago and out of the 60ish characters I've played, around 20 have been female.

The other players in my games don't generally care much about my transgender gaming. They do have trouble using the correct pronouns sometimes, but I've never been called out by another player for my portrayal of a female character. And it's not that my fellow gamers wouldn't call me out if I did it wrong. Believe me, I've seen it happen where a guy will play a female character and get nothing but grief about it. For some reason, people either overlook my foibles or I'm doing something right.

Prompt 10: Have you ever played a character originally from a book/TV/movie? How did the character change from the original as you played? If not, who would you most like to play?

As a player? No. As a DM? Oh, yes.

In my L5R game, I often portrayed characters who were part of the established lore. In my Forgotten Realms and Eberron campaign, I did the same thing but in a totally different way.

In L5R, I most often played the part of Kuni Daigo. Daigo was a badass. He wore it on his no-sleeves. He has teeth filed to points so that if he is ever disarmed and out of spells, he can bite his enemies to death. I played him like a combination of Toph (from Avatar: The Legend of Aang) and Urdnot Wrex (from Mass Effect). He's barely described in the fiction, but I don't see this as too radical of a departure as he's a Crab and a Badass.

In the Forgotten Realms, I usually just made fun of Drizzt Do'douchebag. I had him show up with a name tag proclaiming him to be "Mary Sue Do'Urden". I hate that dark elf bastard. Last year at GenCon, I tweeted new names for his swords. They are, now and forever, Twilight Sparkle and Apple Jack. Suck it, you Menzoberranzan-born bastard. (I hate myself for being able to spell that correctly without having to look it up. :S)

In Eberron, one of my recurring NPCs was Baron Merrix d'Cannith. In the lore, he's a Lawful Evil man who's obsessed with constructs and artifice (as befits a man in charge of the Dragonmarked House of Artifice). In my campaign, he was a drooling madman in a rainbow clown wig and an "I <3 Warforged" shirt who babbled about the Mournlands incessantly. His lackeys had to translate his ramblings into something cogent for the PCs to understand.

I think that, if I was to play a character based on a TV/novel/movie character, it'd have to be The Doctor; if only because it wouldn't be that difficult for me to act like him.

Prompt 11: Have you ever played a character that was morally gray, or actually evil? Why or why not? If yes, did you enjoy it?

Hang on a second. Ah-hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaha~!

Okay, composure regained.

Of course. The majority of characters I've played over the years have been morally grey at best. And one of my most memorable PCs was a Lawful Evil wizard.

Being morally grey is so much better than being Good or Evil; they're just so restrictive.

Prompt 12: Do prefer collaborative or competitive games? What do you think that says about you?

Collaborative, definitely.

I think it shows that I'm a leader of men (and women) and not some maladjusted manchild that gets his kicks by humiliating his friends at card/dice games.

I've never been good at Smirk and Dagger style games, because I unfairly pick on the people who I like less in real life.

Prompt 13: Who's the best GM/storyteller/party leader you've ever had? What made him/her so great?

The best GM I ever had the pleasure of playing with was Chris Stone. He had a knowledge of the world, a great grasp of the rules, and was generally a really creative dude. I didn't play with him for as long as I'd've liked, but that was a problem of geography. Driving 60ish miles each way for a game just wasn't financially prudent. I miss that group, even though they aren't gaming together anymore.

Prompt 14: What kinds of adventures do you enjoy most? Dungeon crawls, mysteries, freeform roleplaying, or something else? What do you think that says about you?

I really like Adventure Paths. Most of the ones that Paizo has done are really great, simply because they give you a good mix of Social, Mental, and Combat challenges. I think this says that I'm indecisive.

I generally hate mysteries that rely on Player Skill to solve. If our Barbarian's player doesn't have to learn to properly swing a Greataxe and the Rogue's player doesn't have to physically disarm traps, why the hell do I have to solve riddles out-of-character? My wizard has an intelligence of 24. Mine is 14 at best. He's literally several orders of magnitude more intelligent than I am, so why can't I just roll some dice and move on?

This is equally true of Social Encounters. A lot of the GMs that I've played with over the years have enforced a "what you say is what your character actually says" rule. So my Bard, with 26 Charisma and 18 ranks of Diplomacy doesn't know how to convince people any better than I do in real life? Again I default back to the Rogue/Barbarian example in the previous paragraph. Requiring the player to give a vague idea of what they want to say is one thing, but "I explain that it'd be a good idea for him to help us out" then rolling Diplomacy should be sufficient. Otherwise, the charismatic people might as well just use charisma as a dump stat and roleplay it all out so that they don't have to waste skill points on things that aren't useful.

Prompt 15: People often talk about the divide between what happens "in game" and "in real life." Do you maintain that divide in your own play, or do you tend to take what happens to your character personally? Why?

Things only go from The Game to Real Life (or vice-versa) if someone else instigates it. If someone has out-of-character resentment or anger towards me, and they're too cowardly to bring it up to my face, and brings it up in game by having their character do stuff to inconvenience my character then there may be issues. I'd like to think I'm a better person than that, but I'm not. I've, on more than one occasion, manipulated the group into ousting a player because they were a dick for no reason.

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-J

The Reaper Pool and the Loyalty Pool

Last night, I was talking with my buddies Joe and Adam about how to mechanically handle the complex relationships of the Mass Effect universe. One of them contended that the Solo/Buddy/Team dynamic didn't really mirror the structure of the game very well. The other brought up the idea of using Relationships as a modifier for the Solo/Buddy/Team dynamic. On the long drive home from gaming, I was thinking (as often happens on moderately long car rides one takes by one's self) and came up with a little sub-game for the game.

First, though, we go to the Bad Guys. In most Marvel-based games, there's a mechanic called The Doom Pool which represents most of the adversity which the players will encounter. The Doom Pool is a great mechanic for showing the ever-growing threat that the Reapers possess, but with it being reset after each encounter it doesn't have quite the same inexorable menace attached. With that in mind, I'd like to introduce you to The Reaper Pool.

It really is just what it says on the tin: a giant pile (or jar or whathaveyou) of dice representing the strength of the Reapers. The number of dice in the Reaper Pool depend on the game you're wanting to mimic. For a ME1 game; the Reaper Pool is set rather low at around 25d12. For ME2, where the Reapers are a more credible threat; the Reaper Pool is set at a moderate 75d12. For ME3, where the Reapers are friggin' everywhere and we're all boned; the Reaper Pool is set to a cataclysmic 150d12. This pool can increase or decrease, depending on the actions of the PCs.

So, you're probably wondering how this Reaper Pool interacts with the Doom Pool. Lets look at an example:

Our heroes are on Intai'sei, in the Phoenix System of the Argos Rho cluster, trying to break into a Cerberus facility which has been using Reaper technology to indoctrinate a small army of abducted Yahg. The players are doing well, having successfully broken through the door's encryption and battled their way through the docking bay. They stand at a heavy blast door, when there is an explosion on the far side. The group's Drell Engineer finally hacks the door open, revealing a warehouse full of stasis pods. In each, a dormant Yahg is slowly corrupted by the Reaper tech which Cerberus has harvested over the years.

In the middle of the massive room, a section of the stasis pods have ruptured due to an inconvenient explosion. Standing in the center of the room are about a dozen Indoctrinated Yahg. The Storyteller has the Doom Pool for this bit of the adventure set at 3d6 + 2d8 + 1d10; a challenging, but not insurmountable, scene. The PCs, through some quick thinking and good use of Plot Points, reduce the Yahg to paste. Not wanting the PCs to get too full of themselves, the Storyteller lets the players know that they can hear the sounds of dozens of other stasis pods opening. As the PCs look around, the hundreds of pods surrounding them are all activating. The PCs, knowing they're outgunned, flee back to their shuttle. The Storyteller describes their flight back to their primary ship.

"As your shuttle docs with the MSV Hawke, a bright flash of light crests the planetary horizon. A Reaper has dropped from FTL just inside the atmosphere, igniting a small portion of it in a demonstrative fireball. Sensors show that its trajectory will lead it directly to the Cerberus Base."

At this point, the PCs have a choice; fight or flight. The PCs, being pragmatists, know that they have no chance of beating a Reaper and one hundred (or more) Indoctrinated Yahg. They advance in the opposite direction, towards safer ports. The Storyteller writes "Indoctrinated Yahg - 2d12" on a card and adds 2d12 to the Reaper Pool. Their enemies have grown stronger.

All of that is all well and good, but of what use is the Reaper Pool? During the primary game, not a lot. It sits there as more of a psychological tool for the Storyteller than anything else.

The PCs need a way to combat the Reaper Pool, of course, and that's where the Loyalty Pool comes into play. The Loyalty Pool starts the game with d12 in it for each PC. Not a lot of a chance against the unflinching destruction that is the Reaper Pool. Just like in the various Mass Effect titles, they're going to have to make friends and influence people in order to stop the imminent destructive hugeness of the Reaper Pool.

During any scene in which an Asset is created, a PC may spend 2 Plot Points to remove the Asset and create a Loyalty out of it instead. For instance, continuing the example from above: our PCs reach the Citadel to speak with their contacts. Not many of them are willing to help out, because organics are generally selfish to the core. The group's Turian Biotic decides to try to call in a favor with his cousin Barran who works for C-Sec. There's a rather intense social scene, but at the end Barran decides to help out as much as he can.

The player writes "Barran - C-Sec Officer - d8 Asset" on a card. The Turian Biotic's player can then decide whether he wants this Asset to be of use during the game itself OR in the meta-game. Being prudent, he spends the 2 Plot Points to add Barran to the Loyalty Pool. Barran's card is added to the Loyalty Pool stack. If the PCs wanted to cultivate their relationship with Barran, they can spend XP to increase his Loyalty value. If our Turian Biotic spent some time in a transitional scene working with Barran to maintain surveillance on a known criminal, he could spend 2 XP to increase Barran's value to a d10. (Preliminary costs are: d6 to d8 - 1XP, d8 to d10 - 2XP, d10 to d12 - 4XP.)

When the players reach a Final Mission scenario, the dice in each pool are up-converted to d12s (for example, if there are 32d6, 24d8, 20d10, and 6d12 in the Loyalty Pool, that converts to 26d12). The Reaper Pool stands at 80d12 (this being a ME2 style game and the PCs having fled the confrontation on Intai'sei, as well as a few other times the Reapers gained ground) versus the Loyalty Pool of 26d12. The difference of 54d12 are added to the Doom Pool for the Final Mission. The PCs are pretty boned. Had they spent more time cultivating their Relationships, they'd've actually stood a chance. As it looks now, they've got very little chance of making it out of their Final Mission alive.

Thoughts?

-J

Blasto, the first Hanar Spectre.

So, it's come to this...

Blasto - Hanar Spectre
Affiliations: Solo d10, Buddy d8, Team d6

Distinctions: Spectre Training, This One is a Loose Cannon, Harbinger of the Hanar
Morality Distinction: Renegade

Hanar Powerset:
Levitation d6, Neurotoxin d6, Shields d10
SFX: Grapple. Add a d6 and step up effect die +1 when inflicting a complication on a target.
SFX: Enkindler’s Touch. Spend 1 PP to step up Neurotoxin to d10, then step down to 2d4 for subsequent actions. Recover by activating an opportunity or during a transition scene.
Limit: Mass Effect Field Dependent. While Stressed Out, Asleep, or Unconscious, shutdown Levitation and Shields from the Hanar Powerset. Recover them when you recover that stress or wake up. If you take mental trauma, shut down Levitation and Shields from the Hanar Powerset until you recover that trauma.

Vanguard Powerset:
Barrier d8, Modified M5 Heavy Pistol d12, Shockwave d8, Geth Plasma Shotgun d10
SFX: Charge. Split any Vanguard power into two stepped-down dice.
Limit: Exhausted. Shut down any Vanguard power to gain 1 PP. Recover on Opportunity.

Specialties: Biotic Expert, Combat Expert, Cosmic Expert, Diplomacy Expert, Menace Master, Psych Expert

Milestones:
First of His Kind

1 XP the first time each scene that you defeat a non-minion enemy.
3 XP whenever you capture a criminal who is wanted by the Citadel Council.
10 XP when you convince the Council that the Hanar race deserves a seat OR you cause a more powerful race to declare war on the Hanar.

Bound by no Rulebook

1 XP when you flaunt your Spectre status to gain an advantage over someone.
3 XP when your overconfidence helps you succeed at a mission, or causes it to fail spectacularly.
10 XP when you cause trauma to a helpless opponent in order to gain information vital to the success of a priority mission.

-------------------

This one thinks that even the Enkindlers would fear Blasto.

-J

Weapons and Ammo Powers and Upgrades! Woo!

A poster on EN World brought a couple of points to my attention regarding things-not-well-detailed. His post has been reproduced here for completeness.

SilverKeyMan writes:

"This morning I had the idea of writing up Mass Effect using Marvel Heroic, but being lazy and all, I decided on checking to see if anyone else already had.

I must say, it looks amazing. I really like the idea of rescaling the d6-d12 for physical attributes, so even a base human can have a d8 strength.Excellent work! I do have a question about weapons, however. In Mass Effect, part of the character customization (especially in ME3 multiplayer) revolves around weapon customization. Any plans for this, perhaps as additional power sets?

Additionally, how does a Class go about getting additional weapons? For example, it doesn't look like it is possible for an Engineer to use anything except a Shotgun, and the Sentinel doesn't get anything at all.

Cheers! -SKM"

Skill customization could pretty easily be done through adding new SFX to them. For example, someone playing an Engineer may want to upgrade their Drone to one of those Exploding Drones from ME3. I'd probably write the SFX for that like: "SFX: Step up or double Combat Drone (1 PP for both) on your next roll, then shut down Combat Drone. Recover on an Opportunity or during a Transition Scene.". Such an SFX would cost a character 10XP.

As for changing out weapons, if it's a simple matter like "I don't see my Engineer using Shotguns, but she's pretty likely to use a Sniper Rifle instead." then talking to the Storyteller would be the easiest way to go about it. If you're wanting to upgrade, then paying the XP to permanently step up the die related to the weapon or adding an SFX would work well. The Ammo Powers could pretty easily be mirrored with an SFX like: "Custom Ammo: When using (Weapon) in a die pool, you may add another power from the (Class) skill set. Both of these dice are at -1 step for this die pool." I wouldn't recommend using an SFX like that until your non-weapon powers are at a d8 or higher, since adding a d4 is usually more of a liability than a help.

I'll see about writing these things up in a more coherent manner and adding them to the MEHR document after I get off work tonight.

Thanks for the feedback, SKM. And thanks for the feedback from those who've emailed me as well. I'm gonna make this thing playable if it's at all possible.

-J

Reverb Gamers? Okay, I'll bite.

I had planned on doing this back in January, but as I'm easily distracted by shiny things it got swept up into the ether until now. Q2 is still something resembling the beginning of the year, right?

Anyway, over at Atlas Games, there was a challenge thrown down. You can see the full list of questions HERE. It's my goal to answer a few of these at sporadic intervals before the end of the month. Woo! Progress! (Trigger Warning: There's a fucktonne of cursing in one of my answers.)


Prompt 1: What was your first roleplaying experience? Who introduced you to it? How did that introduction shape the gamer you've become?

The year was... well... I don't rightly remember. 1992, maybe. I was either in fourth or fifth grade. My friend Christian said he found this really cool book in a box in his attic. It had a demon on it and it was full of ridiculous, nonsensical maths. We used both recesses every day for a month trying to puzzle out how the hell this made any sense at all. Finally, during a sleep-over, we explored the attic and found a companion book with a big bronze-y statue with glowing eyes. It still didn't make any sense, but we were closer to figuring things out.

Since we were both completely inexperienced with the game and had no idea what any of this odd notation meant, we just decided to play. Since it was Christian's Dad's book, he decided that he should be DM. I played a Human Thief named Dek. The game started off, like a lot of games did back then, with my character trapped in a prison. I made my way out, and was accosted by guards. This is where things got a bit squiffy.

We had no idea what the crap 1d2 or 1d4 meant. We juggled it back and forth before coming to the obvious conclusion that d must be shorthand for divided-by. So a punch did 1 divided-by 2 damage. A dagger did 1 divided-by 4 damage. Why a fist did twice as much damage as a knife, we had no idea. The bad guys stats said they were armed with a Club (1 - 6 damage). This made even less sense. How did they do negative 5 damage per hit? Were they magical clubs of healing? Dek made it out that dungeon alive after about three weeks of playing five days/week.

Then, as happened a lot in those days, I stayed over at Christian's house again. He'd finally figured it out, with the help of his dad. 1d4 meant a four-sided die. The eureka moment. Everything else basically clicked from there. No wonder those Longswords did so little damage in that prison.

I think those first few months shaped me quite a lot. They made me that-guy-who-figures-out-new-systems. It also left me very naive compared to a lot of my fellow gamers. I had no idea there was a demonic stigma against gamers until I got to High School.

Prompt 2: What is it about gaming that you enjoy the most? Why do you game? Is it the adrenaline rush, the social aspect, or something else?

I enjoy clubbing the rules over the head and taking them home. I enjoy figuring out new ways that rules interact that the designers didn't intend. I'm that guy that every player loves to have on their side, because I can usually help everyone squeeze out that last bit of efficiency.

It's also a good excuse for me to hang out with my friends. Say what you want about shared tragedy or sports camaraderie; people who game together learn more about each other than they'd ever hoped (or ever wanted to, really).

Prompt 3: What kind of gamer are you? Rules Lawyer, Munchkin/Power Gamer, Lurker, Storyteller/Method Actor, or something else? (Search "types of gamer" for more ideas!) How does this affect the kinds of games you play? For example, maybe you prefer crunchy rules-heavy systems to more theatrical rules-light ones.

I'm a Rules Lawyer, through an through. I commit the rules to memory, I roll them around in my head, and I use them to the advantage of my fellow players (as well as the DM; I can't begin to count the number of times that one of my DMs has asked me how a rules subsystem works when they're unsure). Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of Those Guys. I don't beat people over the head with the rules. Never will you hear me utter things like "You can't DO that! The Rules say X!".

What you will hear me say are things like "Oh! Awesome idea! Let's see how we can make that happen. I think I remember a Skill Perk and an Alternate Class Feature that'll let you accomplish that much easier than the build you've currently put together. Hand me that Advanced Player's Guide...". I can make the Rules sing like a virtuoso.

On the other side of the coin, I'm also a Storyteller. I love to make up complicated backstories and improvisational stuff while DMing. Unlike a lot of Storytellers, though, I don't disregard the rules when they become inconvenient. Working my masterpiece story into the rules is part of the fun.

I'll play anything, but I do tend to prefer modular games like the various flavors of d20 System. I've also found a recent liking for more Rules Medium games like Marvel Heroic Roleplay, if only because it gives me a lot of room to stretch my creative muscles while at the same time figuring out which power sets, limits, etc. are best used to describe a particular character.

Prompt 4: Are you a "closet gamer?" Have you ever hidden the fact that you're a gamer from your co-workers, friends, family, or significant other? Why or why not? How did they react if they found out?

Oh, closet gamers. I really am trying to write this paragraph without vitriol, but closet gamers piss me right the hell off. It seems antithetical to the spirit of the hobby in general. I can't think that there's ever been a point in my life (after I started gaming, at least) that I hid my hobby from those around me; especially those I care about. That just... I don't... What kind of irrational thought process is that? "Oh, I'm a gamer, but people will judge me for it. Oh woe! Oh sorrow!" What the fuck, man? Seriously? We're *still* having this conversation?

I hear from a lot of people that they can't out themselves as gamers because of their job or their religion or their whateverbullshitexcuse. I can't abide that. Being a gamer isn't like being a part of the Tea Party or the Young Republicans or some other thing one should be ashamed to belong to. It's like being Agnostic. Anyone who is going to judge me for my choice to be a gamer can fuck right the hell off anyway. I don't need that kind of stress.

It's twenty-fucking-twelve. If people have a problem with you rolling dice in your dining room, then they need to grow the hell up and learn to stay out of your damn business. Maybe they shouldn't spend every Sunday drinking cheap-ass beer and watching grown men have a sissy slap-fight over a piece of pig leather.

Now that my rage has subsided, let's continue.

Prompt 5: Have you ever introduced a child to gaming, or played a game with a young person? How is gaming with kids different than gaming with adults?

A married couple I'm friends with has a son named Brezlin. I first ran a game including him back in 2007. He was 7 years old. I made a rules-light version of D&D 4E based on Star Wars Saga edition and whatever little tid-bits had been released to the public at that point (read: not a lot). He played a Barbarian. Very simple, very visceral, very childlike.

There were four other players. One, Brezlin's mother, was stressed out due to two of the other players. We'll call them Nichelle and Nike. Nichelle hated kids, but generally tolerated their presence. Nike was a curmudgeon. He didn't like a lot of people. The other player was a happy-go-lucky guy who is probably one of the best dad's you'll ever meet.

Anyway, gaming with kids isn't very different from gaming with adults; only that the subject matter shouldn't be quite as dark and the rules should be slightly less archaic. Games with dice pools seem to be a bad idea, but then again kids love rolling a lot of dice. So long as they can do calculations rather speedily, it's all good.

The trick seems to be that, when gaming with kids, make sure that the rest of the people in the group aren't anti-children. If they can adopt a light-hearted mindset like they had at that age, the game goes much smoother.

I've played in games with Brezlin every few years since then. He and his parents are regular players in my Dark Sun game. Now that he's into the Tween years, he's starting to get a better grasp on the slightly more complex rules systems. It's been an interesting journey.

He still likes Barbarians, though. I blame Adventure Time.

Well, that's all for this time, cohorts. Tune in sometime later this week when I'll probably be stream-of-consciousnessing at you some more. Woo!

-J