On D&D and the Freedom of Epiphany

I've been playing tabletop roleplaying games since my age was measured in single digits. It's been an integral part of my identity for 75+% of the time I've been alive. Despite all of this, I often feel left out when it comes to people discussing their D&D Epiphanies. Those "this game is so amazing, how did I live my entire life without it" moments that people who took up the game as adults get to experience. That sense of eye-opening wonder that seems to permeate every new player post on Reddit. I never got to feel that, because I found D&D as a child who had just begun to really possess abstract thought. There was no Eureka moment. It's always just been there.

I assume this is how people with famous siblings feel. To those folks, their siblings are just their siblings. For the most part, at least. People making a big deal out of it, like "Oh my G-d, your sister is the lead singer of Muscle Wizard? That's so fucking awesome!". Yeah, I know. She also beat me up when I was 12 for listening to an N*Sync CD, so... not that awesome.

I'm exceptionally envious of people who get to experience this novelty at an age when they can appreciate it. It's actively difficult to not be dismissive when I hear stories about people in their early 30s discovering D&D. Hearing about how it's opened their eyes to a fanciful world of magic and all that. People who got to avoid the social negatives of the game. Folks who get to dodge the worry of getting beat up for carrying a weird book to school. It's self centered and ludicrous and stupid for me to feel this way, but that doesn't make me feel that way any less. The spiteful hipster gene in my blood is far, far too strong.

It's probably the same for anyone who got into a particular fandom early. Those people who watched Firefly religiously while it was live on TV. The folks who were *really* into Euro-style boardgames back in the 80s when the only way to get them was to get someone on Usenet to mail you a copy and (if you were super lucky) provide translations into your native language. Or people who traded bootleg VHS tapes of anime at swap meets and flea markets back in the 90s. Folks who pronounce the initialism of All Terrain Armored Transport "@@", because that's how the Kenner Toys commercial pronounced it back in 1981.

With all that said, I'm overjoyed that people continue to discover tabletop roleplaying games in general and D&D in specific. I'm super happy that they get to have those epiphanies. It's miraculous and wonderful and magicaltastic.

That doesn't make me any less envious, though.

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.

It's all about the galleons, baby.

Lets talk about Assassins Creed 3. Specially the ship to ship combat sections.

How did Ubisoft manage to make the most engaging pre-industrial naval combat simulation ever as a throw away minigame in a game about jumping out of trees to kill rabbits?

Everything from the cannon arcs to the rigging speeds to reinforcement is insanely fun. It's making me want to run a privateer campaign in Fate Core in a few months.

Speaking of Fate Core, go kickstarter it if you already haven't. It's that good.

Meanwhile, I'm currently running the anniversary edition of Rise of the Runelords for my casual group. We've got a horrifically unbalanced party, but that makes things seem more dangerous.

So I've stolen a rule from D&D4:

Second Wind. Once per encounter, use a standard action to recover one half your maximum hit points.

This may seem a bit overpowered, but in a group of six with no healer it's almost necessary.

Also, next week I'm starting another diversion project; this one for one of my favorite adventure paths of all time: The Key of Destiny.

Stay tuned for more awesome.

-J

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.
---------

-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?

A Turian, a Drell, and a Human Walk Into a Bar on Palaven...

After quite a long time of trying to get a group together, I finally got to test out my Mass Effect hack last night. It was a real proud papa type moment for me, as this is the first hack I've put enough effort into for it to actually get to a playable state.

We started off with group character creation. Our team came together as a Human Engineer, a Drell Infiltrator, and a Turian Sentinel. Character creation, including the Relationship Map that I borrowed from Smallville, took up about two hours. Once that was done, the group named their ship (the MSV Triton) and decided to play a Privateer style game; starting out with a janky old ship, working their way up from the bottom. We decide to play in the post-First Contact War / pre-Mass Effect 1 era. None of them have decided on names yet, so I'll refer to them by their race for the time being.

As with all great stories this one starts out in a bar on Palaven, waiting for laborers to finish loading cargo onto the ship. The PCs order drinks and engage in some chitchat with each other. I have them all roll a notice roll against the Doom Pool (a piddly 2d6, since this is a dive bar in a minor port city). All three players succeed at noticing a pair of Turians looking to start a fight with the only Krogan in the bar. They know things like this tend to get ugly and quick, so they decide to GTFO. I throw them each a plot point and tell them that both doors are blocked by the Turians' friends. The Drell decided to sneak up and try to knock out one of the attacking Turians. The Human sent his Combat Drone out the front door to alert the authorities. Our Turian simply sat at the bar, enjoying her drink.

The Drell dropped a Plot Point to create a Stunt off his Sniper Rifle, a hidden stun gun inside the stock. The prongs just happen to extend out the butt of the gun. He rolls, gets a 14 with a d10 effect die. The Turian is reeling, but still up. Meanwhile, the Combat Drone finds a pair of policetypes walking down the street nearby. The Human rolls a convince-the-cops-to-help-out roll, getting a 12 with a d8 effect die. He tells the cops that there's a Krogan starting a fight in the bar and that he will probably end up killing two or more civilians if they don't hurry. The cops follow his Drone back to the scene of the crime. I write Palaven Police Patrol D8 on a notecard and hand it to the player. The Combat Drone leads the cops into the bar.

Bad Guys' turn. The Turians both pull knives, slashing at the Krogan. The Krogan activates his Fortification and headbutts the uninjured Turian.

Top of the order, the Drell declares that he's going to try to talk the Injured Turian into standing down. The Human hands him the D8 Police asset, under the auspices of them helping with his Menace roll. He rolls, gets a 12 with a d10 effect die. The player has a bright idea. He hands me a Plot Point and says that he wants to convert the Mental Stress into Physical Stress. It turns out that the Turian was goaded into attacking instead of standing down and the police shot him. I like it. The Turian drops.

The Krogan interrupts the Human, so the Human's player gets a Plot Point. The afore mentioned Krogan decides to completely punk the remaining Turian. A headbutt from an armored Krogan Helmet is enough to knock the Turian not unconsciousness. At this point, the remaining bar patrons riot. Our PCs decide that now is the time to beat a hasty retreat back to the Triton.

Through the back alleys, they're chased by a small mob of bar patrons. The PCs use their acrobatics (and a few conveniently placed crates to get back to the ship ahead of the baddies. Their captain, a Volus named Datok, gives them a bunch of crap for bringing the fury of the locals down on their heads, but luckily the cargo is loaded and they can get off this rock.

The session ended there. Overall, everyone had fun. Going from a very restrictive game like L5R run by a very restrictive GM to seeming cinematic like Marvel Heroic was a bit of a system shock at first, but ey seemed to get it really well by the end of the session.


High Points: The chase sequence and the bar fight.

Low Points: It took me quite a while to make characters and figure out how their characters were involved with each other. I think this goes back to the last game we played with out old GM. He ran a very "you have limited options and can only do things for which I have prepared" game. It was rather difficult to deal with.

I'm really looking forward to next week.

-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 beginnings of my RPG project.

I was at GenCon Indy this summer (as I am every year) and signed up for random events (as I do every year). One of which was a game from Spartacus Publishing (http://spartacuspublishing.com/) called Luchador: Way of the Mask. The basic premise is that the characters are stereotypical Mexican Wrestlers in the vein of those ridiculous Luchador movies from the 1970s and 80s. My fiancee, Angie, really took a shining to the game ("One of us, one of us!") so we headed to the Spartacus booth and purchased it. She kept commenting on how it all "just made sense" and how the rules "weren't stupid". This brought back a tiny idea that'd been sitting in my brainmeats for many a'year.

One of the focuses of this Internets Blag'o Thing is to help me with development of that tiny idea. It doesn't yet have a name or a setting or anything; it's just a set of mechanics that I'm trying to suss out into something that isn't terrible. If I happen to make the next Fudge or d20 or Storyteller System, that'd be gravy. Right now, I just want to get something made that isn't utterly horrible so that I can feel like I'm contributing to the sum total of humanity. I'm getting tired of feeling like someone who just burns things/people down instead of trying to build them up.

The central idea of the system is the Attribute Matrix. Each character has six Attributes which determine how they're able to interact with the world around them. These Attributes are arranged into two groups; Category 1 (Mental/Physical/Social) and Category 2 (Finesse/Force/Fortitude). When resolving a challenge the player will (roll dice, use cards, some sort of randomization mechanic), multiply their Attribute Matrix Total (one from Category 1 + one from Category 2), and add their Skill/Trait/Perk/Feat/Whatever bonus.

For example; your character has (Mental 3, Physical 1, Social 2) and (Finesse 1, Force 2, and Fortitude 3). In tests which require a lot of agility/dexterity, your character would be rather un-apt (Physical Finesse score of 1); whereas in tests which require a lot of willpower, he would be rather skilled (Mental Fortitude score of 9).

Everything is contested rolls; there aren't any real static Difficulty Class/Target Number mechanics. Actually, that idea is still in flux. It may go the exact opposite way and have the Aggressor always roll and the Defender always have a static number. I'm not sure yet.

I'm still working on skills, but it's looking like a Macro-skill system. Here's an example:

You want your character to be Athletic. So you put three points into the Athletics macro skill. Since you envision your character as more of a Free-Runner than a Martial Artist, you put two points into Athletics [Affects Self] and one point into Athletics [Affects Others]. Affects Self covers things like Running, Jumping, Climbing, and Swimming; while Affects Others would cover things like Grab, Throw, Escape, and Ride.

An example of a total check. Your character is in a foot race with another entity over a short distance. The GM tells you to roll Physical Force + Athletics [Affects Self]. You get a 3 on the randomization agent, add your Physical Force score (1x2=2), and add your Athletics [Affects Self] score (2) to get a total of 7. Not a great result. Better hope that your opponent isn't a great sprinter or you'll be doomed to be enslaved by the Vespiloid Conglomerates of Sigma Mu XIX.

I hope what I'm writing down makes sense to someone other than myself. I'll eventually post more of this once I get it worked out.

As always, your thoughts or suggestions or hatefilled rants are encouraged.

-JL

Introductions always seem forced.

If you're reading this, it means you've probably read several blogs in the past and can tell by the pixels that introductory statements are forced as fuck. You hate it, I hate it, so lets just hold hands and get through the boring bit as fast as possible.

I'm Jeph. I'm horrible at writing. I play games. I'm trying to write games. You can see how this could be a problem. This is mostly a blog about gaming; past, present, and future. I guess I should probably elaborate on what I mean by that.

- Gaming Past: Posts with the gaming-past tag are stories about games I've been involved in that are now over (Games from college, games from Boy Scouts, games from now defunct groups, games from current groups which we've finished, etc.).

- Gaming Present: Posts with the gaming-present tag are either stories about games I'm playing/running currently OR games that are out and in print nowish.

- Gaming Future: Posts with the gaming-future tag are about games that either I or my friends are in the process of developing.

I'm also prone to self-aggrandizing posts about how awesome I am. These could be personal anecdotes from ages gone by, things that happened in my daily life, or stuff that's yet to happen (but will probably be awesome, simply because I'm somehow tangentially involved).

Now that I've wasted all of your time, I'll get to the business of actually creating something.

-JL