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.

Punk's Been Dead Since '79: A 500 Word RPG

A few years back (more like half a decade, but time is meaningless in this sort of Cat & Squid game), my friend Joe got challenged by Ryan Macklin to write a functional RPG in less than 500 words. That challenge turned into Dime Stories, an RPG about cowboy gunfights and cartoon villains in Spaaaaaaace. It got me my second RPG writing credit (after the... underutilized Red Dragon Inn Appetizer) and I've had the chance to run it at GenCon for the last 4 years. Dime Stories has been good to me.

I went through a pretty severe depressive episode over the past week. An utter loss of motivation, a huge upswing in disassociation, and a tsunami of existential dread. I'm sure part of this was triggered by editing some very personal blog entries for a friend, but I knew that going in to the project. Usually, when I'm going in to these sorts of episodes, I focus on the things that make me happy. I talk to my wife, I play with my cats, I read upbeat books, I listen to fast music. None of that really worked well this time around. Eventually, my mind wandered back to my last year of high school and my first year of college. The age when I started going to punk shows.

Punk shows, in that era and in that part of Ohio, were a really weird thing. They usually took place in VFW halls or in someone's barn, because that's where the available space was. There were a lot of skinheads, because it was Ohio and Ohio has a higher than acceptable percentage of racist assholes. There were a lot of shitty bands, because it was Ohio and Ohio's music education programs are about as robust as our Ski Rescue programs. There were a lot of great memories, because it was my first real experience getting out into (what I though, at the time, was) the wider world.

Half-remembered concerts, fistfights, and nights at Tom's Donuts (ordering only a drink and eating Day Old Donuts that were 50c a piece, for five hours, while my friends chain-smoked a pack and a half each) flooded back to mind. Inspired by Quinn Murphy's excellent game Five Fires, I felt the need to put my experience into a cohesive form. I jammed out a bunch of words and something resembling Punk's Been Dead Since '79 happened. It was only afterwards that I decided to try to fit it into the 500 Words framework. (Note: I am aware of the newer 200 Word challenge, but I can't be arsed to edit this down to that level.)

In PBDS79, you're a member of the punk community in the space between cities in the (Late 90s / Early 00s). Your goals? Go to shows, find a place to belong, seek an outlet for your feelings, look for companionship, or just break everything. It's based loosely on the (Apocalypse World / Dungeon World / Monsterhearts) games, because they're fast and easy and full of raw emotion.

Check it out.

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Follow this link to Punk's Been Dead Since '79 for complete rules.

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.

League of Legends

I really don't understand LoL.

On a long and lonesome highway, east of Omaha...

Preface: This is another one of those not-at-all-related-to-gaming posts. So if you come here for those, you'll be disappointed. I seem to be doing that a lot lately; disappointing people that is.

Since I was young, probably 11 or 12, I've had panic attacks. My brother also suffered from them, though his started when he was around 16 if I remember correctly. It always seemed like our shared terrifying experience. After I moved out, whenever I was having one, I would call him. Just hearing him tell me that everything was okay seemed to get me to calm down. He'd do the same when he was having one. We had a decent system.

That all changed this summer. When I heard the news of his death, I had a panic attack that lasted for the better part of an hour. I was curled on the floor, shaking uncontrollably, sweating profusely, and I think I may have blacked out at one point. The worst part was, I reflexively picked up my phone and started to dial his number. I couldn't imagine dealing with this without him.

Since then, I hadn't had any panic attacks. I'm not sure if I'd developed some sort of psychological coping mechanism to keep me safe or if it was some sort of empathic thing with him. Last night, I had my first panic attack since last June. It was just as terrifying as usual. And just like I'd done since I was 18, my hand went to my phone and started to dial. When I realized what I was doing, it just made the situation worse. I was shaking and sobbing like a 4 year old. All around me was darkness, and not just because it was midnight and I didn't have any lights on in the house. The only thing that brought me out of it was my contempt for myself. I knew I was stronger than this; I wasn't some lost kitten in the woods. I refused to be a blubbering mess on the floor. My rage burned back the darkness long enough for me to get my bearings again. Eventually, it passed.

I have people I could call. I know that. I have people that care about me, who don't want to see me like this. I also can't bring myself to bother any of them with this sort of thing. I refuse to be a burden on them any more than I already am. I'll figure out a new way to cope; a new way to deal with the panic and dread.

I will stand against the darkness. I will not let it win. I will endure. That much, I can promise myself.

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

But, I wear long pants...

Taking a break from my normal nonsense related to gaming to talk about my actual life nonsense. If you're only here for the gaming, this update may not be all that interesting for you. Then again, it might be, maybe you'll learn smethng about yourself. Maybe you'll not. Only the Shadow knows.

As I discussed in a previous post, this year has been frought with ridiculousness. I've traveled to the other side of the planet, bought a house, got married, and started a new job. I've also watched my mom and stepdad get divorced, lost dozens of friends due to me being an insufferable assshole, and lost my brother due to.... well, mostly due to his lifelong battle with depression. The depression thing wasn't exactly a perfect unknown, but not something you can ever prepare for.

I've always taken suicide far more seriously than I thought I should. Now that I've been confronted by it face to face, I can see that I didn't treat it seriously enough. If anyone reading this ever, ever, ever even remotely considers taking their own life: don't. Email me. Text me. Call me. Whatever you need to do. I can't watch another family go through the hellscape that my family has endured over the past six months. I promise you that whatever you're going through will pass. You can make it through, even if I have to drag you through against your will.

My family takes solace in the fact that my brother is "with G-d now". I have no such comfort. The days of my belief in an almighty grandpa in the clouds are as gone as my days of belief in a magical sleighriding madman from the North Pole who distributes presents. I don't discount the possibility of their being an omnipotent overbeing who watches over all, but I also don't discount the possibility of their being an indestructible teakettle orbiting the third moon of Jupiter. Just because I can't disprove it doesn't mean it exists. My brother held similar beliefs. He wore the guise of Christendom, but from our many long discussions on the topic over the years, it was clear that his faith had dried up entirely.

They tell me that he's in a better place, but I cannot fathom nonexistence being superior to existence.  That ideology is so alien to me that I cannot even begin to comprehend it.

This life is all we have. That's why there's generally such a low incidence of Atheists and Agnostics killing themselves; if this is all we have, why would we ever voluntarily give that up? That's also why most spree killers profess some sort of religious faith; they believe that their faith will either protect them or reward them for their actions. They think that they can be forgiven by G-d for their transessions, so they have no mortal law or repurcussions to fear. That is the true danger of zealots.

I know this has been rambling and only semi sensible, but it's just a bunch of words that were clogging up my head. Thanks for reading this far.

Oh, and I meant that bit earlier about the contacting me in the event of thinking about considering suicide. Seriously. I'm right here.

-J

Snowmapocalypsageddonclysm

It's all sorts of fun out on the streets today. Slip, slidin' away like I'm Mario vs some Pengins.

Today, a new Pathfinder feat for your usage in coldness themed campaigns.

Fires of Permafrost [General]
Requirements: Ability to cast spells with the Cold descriptor OR the Cold subtype.
Benefit: As a swift action, you may choose to ignore Cold resistance or immunity when you cast a Cold spell or spell-like ablity. Targets effected by this ability may are immune to its effects for 24 hours.


-J

The Colors of Magic and Specializations

Anyone who's played MtG knows that certain colors are better at certain schools/specializations of magic than others. White provides the best Protection, Blue provides the best Counterspells, Black provides the best Curses, Green provides the best Enhancement, and Red provides the best Elemental Damage. In that vein, which Affinity you choose to add to your dice pool can have an effect on your Specialization dice.

If you use a Specialization which is one of the Linked Specializations with the Affinity you use in your die pool, step up that Specialization die. There's no penalty for out-of-color magic, because that makes things less Epic and that's the whole point, right? (Editor's Note: I may make it so that if you're using one of the enemy colors of a specific effect [using Red or Green for Counterspell], it'll step-down the Specialization die. We'll see how each plays during the next playtest.)

White: Protection
Green: Summoning
Red: Elemental Damage
Black: Curse
Blue: Counterspell

The other specializations fall in to more than one color, so they've got no specific bonuses.

So, taking from last week's character creation example:

Uriel is stalking the streets of Mercadia, hunting down a criminal. He corner's the poor sod and gives him a chance to surrender. Being a nonsensical criminal scum, he draws a knife. Uriel reaches deep into his magical reserves to Justice the wretch into ashes.

Uriel's die pool is as follows:

Red Magic (d10) - Affinity.
Elemental Damage (d8) - Specialization.
"Burn with me!" (d8) - Characteristic.

Since the Specialization matches the Affinity, it is stepped up to a d10. Uriel's final die pool is two d10s and one d8.

If he had, instead, tried to restrain the criminal, his die pool would look more like:

d10 (Red Magic) + d6 (Domination) + d6 (Heart of Darksteel). Since Domination is a non-color tied effect (being historicall used by White, Blue, Black, and Red), he gets no bonus step-up.

I've got a second playtest this Friday, so I'm sure there'll be more changes coming down the pipe.

Dice and Dice and Dice and Dice.

Today, we look at two ways you can make a Pathfinder game more enjoyable. These houserules/hacks have been shamelessly stolen from other systems. Viewer discretion is advised.

1) The Escalation Die (13th Age). Grab the biggest d6 you can find. Huge novelty ones are the best. At the beginning of each round of combat, the Escalation Die goes up by one. All PCs gain a bonus to hit and damage equal to the number showing on the Escalation Die (to a maximum of 6, obviously) to symbolize the PCs learning the enemy forces' tactics and weaknesses. This makes combat go a lot quicker, especially against a solo enemy. I've had only one player complain about it, because he thought it was unfair that the PCs got bonuses but the enemies didn't. Needless to say, he was ignored.

2) Plot Points (Cortex+). The same basic uses as they have in the Cortex system (add a d8 to your roll, create a resource which can be passed around, change some scene details, etc.), but with the added ability to reroll a die pool. I've found that allowing the PCs to be more heroic and less... shall we say "lame-ass newbies" has the effect of making the players have more fun and be more engaged.

Use these tips. They'll make PFRPG even better, I guarantee it.

-J

Glo.ri.ous.

I should probably get to work on clarifying that MtG:PtC hack from Monday.

The idea behind the hack is rather basic. Everyone who's tried to make a MtG RPG in the past has erred on the side of Look-at-All-My-Rules. I've seen D&D 3.5 hacks that take up hundreds of pages. That's insanity. Sure, I'm sure someone likes things like that, but I'd rather be able to hand my players a sheet of rules and say "make anything in the multiverse".

Character Creation:

- Make up a concept. One would hope that this would be an obvious first step, but you'd be surprised. For the purposes of this example, our concept will be Former Drill Sergeant Turned Pyromancer.

- Choose Three Characteristics. These are the qualities which define your character's mentality. They also provide bonuses or hinderances to your dice pools, as you can choose to roll them as a d6 or as a d4. If you choose d4, you also get a Plot Point. For FDSTP, I've chosen the following: Heart of Darksteel, Military Bearing, and "Burn with me!".

- Choose an Affinity Array. Affinities relate directly to the five colors of magic. You can choose to be Monocolored or Dual Colored. Monocolored Planeswalkers have a single higher die and the rest are lower. Dual Colored Planeswalkers have two higher dice (though not as high as the Monocolored's prime affinity) and the rest are lower. (d10, d6, d6, d4, d4) vs (d8, d8, d6, d4, d4). FDSTP chooses Monocolored, with the following array: White d6, Green d6, Red d10, Black d4, Blue d4.

- Choose one Specialty at a d8. This is the type of spellcasting you're best at. Since we're making a Pyromancer, Elemental Damage is an obvious choice.

- Choose two Specialties at d6. These are your secondary spell types. Since FDSTP was formerly a drill sergeant, we'll pick out Enhancement and Domination.

- Design Limits. For the purposes of this, all Planeswalkers have the following limits.

Limit - Mana Burn: Shut down any one Affinity to gain 1 plot point. Recover on during a transition scene.
Limit - Mental Misstep: Shut down any one Specialization to gain 1 plot point. Recover on an Opportunity.

- Design Milestones: These are personal. Follow the general guidelines in the MHR book.

And now, the finished product.


Uriel Dastar

Heart of Darksteel, Military Bearing, "Burn with me!"

White d6, Green d6, Red d10, Black d4, Blue d4

Elemental Damage d8, Enhancement d6, Domination d6
 Limit - Mana Burn: Shut down any one Affinity to gain 1 plot point. Recover on during a transition scene.
Limit - Mental Misstep: Shut down any one Specialization to gain 1 plot point. Recover on an Opportunity.




-J

MtG: Planeswalking the Cortex

I bashed out a really rough Magic the Gathering hack for Cortex+ at lunch today, based on some ideas that Cam Banks and some of his followers were having on Google+.

Here's the link. Remember, this is a work in progress and it's really really basic. Feedback is appreciated. Thanks!

-J

New Year's Failings

I promised myself I'd write something on this blog every week. I have failed miserably. So, in the spirit of the world being a dark and monster-filled place, I've decided to make it three times every week. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Starting today. It may not be a lot of content, but it's content none-the-less.

Without further rambling of the waxing or whatever you hep cats are saying these days, here's a quick trait for Pathfinder.

Mineral Blooded
Prerequisite: Gnome, Svirfneblin, Duergar, Drow, or (those Earth elemental humanoid blokes whose names I cannot for the life of me remember).
Benefit: Your blood is extremely thick, due to higher-than-normal concentrations of heavy minerals. You only take bleed damage every other round, instead of ever round. You also receive a +1 trait bonus on Fortitude saves against bleed effects.

Well, that was terrible. I'll do better next time, promise.

-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?

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

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