Never See the Light of Play

Human Occupied Landfill

2012-02-29T05:34:00.002-08:00

Game Premise

In the incredibly distant future, space has been colonised and all inhabited planets are ruled by the Confederation of Worlds (C.O.W), an empire presided over by Emperor Rupert and the Church ™. It's treason to suggest that life in COW is anything less than perfect and the people who rule it fair and awesome, so I'm not going to do so.

Of course even the most enlightened empire needs a place to store its refuse, whether that refuse consists of snack wrappers and used diapers or criminals and political prison...er, 'social deviants'. Thus, a small world on the very distant edge of the Confederation has been designated the one-stop dumping ground for trash, dubbed Human Occupied Landfill or H.O.L for short. It is on this ~~garbage filled crapheap~~ world of intrigue our i~~nsane rant about a bunch of weirdos with a penchant for violence~~ epic tale of heroism takes place.

Game Overview

If you want a serious game about mature themes that is easy to read and presents information in a clear and concise manner, this is not the game for you. Human Occupied Landfill is written for comedy as much as it is playability, so it's presented in a handwritten format that crams text into every corner and the writing is full to the brim with tangents and intentionally sloppy editing. The art is very much reminiscent of the Tank Girl comics and the humour is the kind that doesn't just reach for low-hanging fruit but would quite eagerly leap on the chance to make a crude quip about low hanging fruit.

The mechanics are fairly simple, roll 2d6, add modifiers and check the chart. If you roll a 15 or more then it's a success. If you roll snake eyes (pair of ones) you automatically fail (and the GM is encouraged to make your failure as painful as possible) and if you roll boxcars (pair of sixes) you get to roll again and add.

Technically there aren't character creation rules in the corebook. The idea is that you're supposed to play as one of the characters presented, ranging from parodies of Dirty Harry and the Hulk to oblivious nerds to killer clowns to paedophile priests (yes, really). If you want to make your own you're supposed to just work out something reasonable with the GM. The rules I will be using here were presented in the game's first and only supplement, BUTTery HOLsomeness, although since that book adds extra characters that include a murderous, cannibalistic potato and the goddamn Pope you might just pass over it altogether.

The Character

Step 1) Pick a Totem

Your Totem, despite being named after an animal and having an astrology-style psychoanalysis of your character, merely serves as the base template. It determines your starting Stats, which in HOL are Meat (brawn and toughness), Mouth (charm and social ability), Feets (moving fast and kicking things), Nuts (courage and guts) and Greymatta (general smarts). It also determines your starting kudos, which are the resource I'll be spending to roll on the tables which make up the bulk of character creation.

Technically I could choose my totem here, but I'm going to roll randomly on the chart, just to get into the spirit of things. Turns out my character has a Platypus totem, apparently meaning that they like randomness in all things and derive most of their joy from schadenfruede. It also means that all of my starting stats are at 1 and I get 20 kudos to spend later.

Step 2) Early You

Where you come from is important, so in this step we're going to determine what Homeworld my character originated from and what their favourite Pudding flavour is (just because). This could net me a small boost to my stats, a few more kudos or even a free roll on one of the charts.

Rolling on the Homeworld chart, my character originally came from Orlando IV, the retirement planet. This will net me 100 Chits (currency) for every chart I roll on, and I get two free rolls on the Galactic Shopping Network chart before I start! Sweet, I'm loaded. I'm going to be greedy and assume my two free rolls will net me 200 chits. My two rolls net me one weapon of the GM's choice and 5000 chits. For the weapon, since I have no GM to supervise me I'm going to take an offshoot of The Harbinger of the Void, the custom plasma weapon wielded by Led Pighp, a small boy and the game's mascot. It has an Attack of 20, which is added to my attack roll to determine the Anguish Factor which will cause the weapons Damage of 6 to be multiplied by a certain amount. Without even rolling I can do 24 damage with this bad boy and everyone, everyone has 20 hit points, so my opponents had better hope either I roll poorly or they have a lot of armour. Super loaded and super equipped already, a great start.

On the Pudding chart I discover a weakness for Chocolate (seems fair). This will net me an extra 4 kudos.

Step 3) Charts Up the Ass

Yes, that's what this step is called. No, they aren't kidding, this is going to be lengthy. Basically, I begin rolling on charts. Every result will lead me to more charts. Most charts will require me to spend Kudos to keep rolling, and I can also spend kudos to either roll on the Chart Chart to even more to go to a specific table. I'll keep doing this until I run out of Kudos. Once I get below 6 kudos, however, I have to make a Gump Roll, rolling a d6 equal to or under my remaining kudos. Fail to do so and I have to go straight to the HOL Chart, which will end my rolling spree. When I've finished, any remaining kudos I have may either be spent to increase my stats on a one for one basis or my Skills on a five for one basis.

I have 24 kudos to blow, so let's get started! My first roll on the Chart Chart puts me on the Soap opera chart, a good source of drama. This chart won't cost me any kudos. Rolling here it turns out my character has royal blood, which may come in handy but also means my Meat is reduced by 1.

This takes me to the Loinage chart, the chart of auspicious lineage and costs me 1 kudo. I'm the Seventh son of the seven sons of some pop culture reference I don't recognise, meaning once per game I may spend one Gift of God point (a point that usually lets you ignore a very messy death) to essentially change the narrative how I please.

This in turn would take me to the Ham chart, the chart of ham, but a quick view of the possible results sees that unlike actual ham everything is pretty dire. I'm going to spend 2 kudos to go back to the Chart Chart, which in turn will get me to the Mentor chart, costing me 1 kudos. I was trained up by some kind of asteroid cowboy, which lets me shoot twice per round every second turn.

Now the Technology chart, 1 kudos again. Turns out my character has the Turn Radios into Howitzers skill at 4 (the general McGuyvering skill).

This brings me to the All You Can Eat chart (I'm down to 19 kudos presently). Turns out I really love pudding, letting me choose my own favourite pudding flavour. I'm going to switch Chocolate to Indian, which reduces my kudos by 4 but gives me +2 to Greymatta. Oh, it also gives me Spot Watsit (a dangerous looking critter that resembles a squashes marshmallow) at 5.

Parental Misunderstandings, a free chart! Because of my parents' hedonistic lifestyle, I turned to the church. I will go out of my way to help the church and get free lunch at the Church and Munch on my birthday.

Yay, back to the Galactic Shopping Network! I get another 5000 credits for this roll. Hell, I love this chart so much I'm going to spend 4 kudos to roll on it again. I get a set of limited edition commemorative plates that will go up in value 100 chits every game session.

Hhhmm, my stats aren't amazing, so I'm going to spend another 4 kudos to go straight to the Stat Gain chart. This result nets me an extra 4 meat.

The Bad Monkey chart seems ominous, so I'm going to spend 2 kudos to avoid it. However, that means I have to make a Gump roll. Unfortunately, I fail. This will take me straight to the HOL chart. However, turns out I avoided HOL for my first crime and go to the Stat Gain chart again, nabbing myself another 3 meat in the process!

I fail the Gump roll again, so back to the HOL chart. This time I don't avoid the planet, get +1 kudos and am done rolling.

I'm going to put the remaining 3 kudos I have into 10 points in Shooting Symbols of Divine Right and 5 into Get Someone to Do What You Want By Droning Endlessly About the Obligations of Serfs. Both of these are actual skills, albeit renamed to suit the character, something the rules encourage. Oh, I should also tally up the chits I received from my charts, for another 1,100 credits.

Step 4) Make Sense of This Mess

This isn't an official step, but what the heck I might as well get a coherent concept out of this. So, my character is a member of the royal bloodline, can alter reality (sort of) and is filthy rich. He's quite brawny and moderately smart. OK, so, a small corner of HOL is packed with scions of Emperor Rupert's bloodline. They think that they've been sent to tame the planet's miscreants and win favour in the court. In fact, they've been sent there to die messily, their every move entertainment for the court. Algernon VIII, not quite as inbred as the rest of them, has kind of realised this, and that's why he's decided to find folks to team up with instead of taking on his various cousins solo and getting himself killed.

The Finished Product

Algernon VIII

Greymatta: 4

Mouth: 1

Meat: 8

Feets: 1

Nuts: 1

Skills (stats already factored in)

Get Someone to Do What You Want By Droning Endlessly About the Obligations of Serfs 6

Shooting Symbols of Divine Right 11

Turn Toasters into Howitzers 8

Total Armour: 8

Bent: Fucked up and not enough branches in his family tree

Oldness: Around about the time Duchess Beatrice became the star of 'Tipsy and Titled in Tijuana', most watched program among college teens that decade.

Sex: Not unless you're from the right family (probably his)

Gear

Excaliblowdicus (20/6), Commemorative plate of birth (current value 100 chits), 2,100 chits, royal finery of sorts.

How I'd Run It

The characters you create by randomly rolling tend to fall on the lame side, so I might just have players pick from the books or come up with an appropriately fucked up concept. I actually wouldn't mind doing some kind of extension of what I've come up with for Algernon, have all the characters embroiled in the Royal Heir deathmatch in some fashion. Heck, one of the characters in the book is a gameshow host, I could have the party be members of the production team, making events interesting and occasionally stepping in to royally wreck some snotty Marquis' offspring like the house robots in RoboWars.

Hollowpoint

2012-02-25T23:21:00.004-08:00

Game Premise

Bad people killing bad people for bad reasons.

“The name's Bond. James Bond.” - James Bond

“Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.”- Ash, the Evil Dead

“I can kill you with my brain” - River Tam, Firefly

“Those of you lucky enough to have your lives, take them with you. However, leave the limbs you've lost. They belong to me now. “ - The Bride, Kill Bill Vol. 1

“At the end of the day, as long as there's two people left on the planet, someone is going to want someone dead.” - The Sniper, Meet the Sniper

Game Overview

RPGs are a fairly violent medium in terms of subject matter. Hollowpoint is a celebration of that violence, specifically the kind where the people indulging in it look awesome doing so. It's a tribute to the action heroes who make us wish that we too could be idolised for having pack-a-day smoking habits and triple figure body counts instead of seen as dangers to society that need to be put down. It doesn't really have a default setting premise (apart from a loose idea of 'the agency', a group of modern agents who keep the world's biggest illicit organisations in check) thus the use of quotes in the beginning.

One thing I quite like about how Hollowpoint approaches genre emulation (or probably more accurately 'concept emulation') is that is acknowledges the difficulty of reconciling what appears to be a cool idea for a game on paper while noting disconnects with the realities of gaming. In terms of source material it points out that the overwhelmingly vast majority of stone-cold badasses work far better alone, while teams of ultra-competent professionals don't quite have that lust for the kill. Considering that RPGs are by-and-large co-operative this is an important point to address. Honestly, my go-to example would be the bad guys in Metal Gear Solid, the teams like FOXHOUND and COBRA could be perfectly modelled for games like this.

Hollowpoint's system is actually very much like ORE's system, using d6s instead of d10s. You will have a set of dice, roll the set and look for matches, the more dice in the set and the higher the number the better. The general aim is to wipe out your opponent's sets and have at least one set break through to damage them. Do that twice and you've taken them out of the encounter. This might be killing or wounding them, successfully browbeating them or exposing their shady dealings to the media.

If you look at the tags you'll notice that Hollowpoint is the first Voluntary Death game I've covered. This means that a character can't be taken out of the game without the player's express permission. They can be temporarily removed from the action, but they'll always come back unless you say so. This is to help create the right atmosphere with the game, having your character not be taken out like a chump until the right dramatic moment.

The Character

Step 1) Rank

I'm going to be making my character within the context of the very loose default setting. So, my character is an operative of The Agency, a shadowy conspiracy that keeps the world's biggest and potentially most destructive criminal groups, warlords and terrorist organisations in check.

Characters all start off at the rank of Agent, which means they don't have any rank-based special abilities. Later they might become Operatives or Handlers, but starting characters are always agents.

Step 2) Skills

These are the only hard mechanical stats your agent will have. They're actions you will be able to perform and your rank in them is how many dice you get to your pool while performing those actions. The default six are Kill, used when straight up murdering dudes, Take, used for stealing things, Terror, used for putting the fear of you into folks, Con, used to tricking people, Dig, used for finding info and finally Cool, used for pure awesome things like disarming a bomb at the last second or walking away from explosions.

You can add skills to the game or even replace them outright, depending on what you want the game to do. So, a game might have Seduction where that sort of thing is important or Magic in some kind of fantasy setting.

I have a 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and 0 to assign to each of these stats. I want my character to be the ultimate master of disguise, on the level of Metal Gear Solid's Decoy Octopus. This suggests my highest skill should be Con, so I'll put the 5 there. Dig and Take should probably come next, since being able to get into places is fairly handy, so 4 and 3 there. Kill will be next for 2 and Terror will be where the 1 goes. As saddened as I am by this, I'm going to put the 0 in Cool, because while my character is awesome it's the subtle kind of awesome that doesn't lend itself to mind-blowing bravado. Don't worry, having a 0 doesn't mean you'll always fail as there are a couple of other ways to grab dice, one of which I'll address below.

Step 3) Name

Apparently if I haven't given my character a name I'll do so here. So, my character is always in disguise and no one bar maybe one or two folks actual knows their name or even their original appearance. Thus, my character's best-known pseudonym is KC, the initials of their call sign, Karma Chameleon.

Step 4) Traits

Every character gets five Traits, items, skills, attributes or anecdotes that make your character stand out amongst the riff-raff. In game, these traits can be sacrificed in order to give you an extra two dice to a pool or protect you from a successful hit. You have to explain how it relates in order for it to apply. In the case of a physical thing, like a favourite hat or a gadget, that thing has been used or destroyed. In the case of something like an anecdote or a scar, you're 'using up' the moment, because let's face it, nobody wants to hear the same story about how you got that scar twice. You get new traits to replace used ones every session.

The usual way in which a characters generate their traits for the first session is by answering five questions. I've done so below, with my answers/traits bolded.

1. I wear a black suit over a clean white shirt and a skinny black tie. No hat and well groomed. Nothing to make me stand out except chewing gum

2. I don't have a lot of scruples but I would never hurt children

3. That one time in Utah I took a souvenir. It was a monogrammed lighter

4. This is a hard job, but I love it because I'm the last person you expect.

5. I'm a pro and I know I'm a pro because I always have a cover story

Step 5) Complications

You might choose to have a Complication that ties your character into the story. Something like being related to the crime boss you're supposed to be taking down, or having massive gambling debts that the stash you guys are going to take sure would help fix. Generally these should be mission specific and can be vetoed by the GM.

For KC, I think a good, mission-neutral one would be My lost twin is working with the bad guys. Turns out there are two masters of disguise out there and considering no-one can tell them apart, having one of them secretly insert themselves into the team while KC is out performing a mission could be good drama.

The Finished Product

KC, Agent

Kill 2

Take 3

Terror 1

Con 5

Dig 4

Cool 0

Traits:

Chewing Gum

Never Hurt Children

Monogrammed Lighter

I'm the Last Person You Expect

Have a Cover Story

Complications

KC's evil twin is working with the enemy.

How I'd Run It

This concept I'm giving the working title 'Music to Die to'. Step 1: Come up with a stock set of pre-generated PCs with basic stats and personalities (the mysterious loner, the hotheaded youngster on a quest for vengeance, the joker who enjoys this whole killing business way too much) and two or three basic scenario outlines and major NPCs. Step 2: Find an interesting song. Step 3: Tailor the setting, genre and all the other scenario colour based so that if the game were a movie or TV series then you could use that song as the opening theme or trailer soundtrack.

I've been thinking a lot about music in gaming and how it can be used as a tool to both evoke and inspire. There are a few approaches where the steps I've outlined above could work, but I particularly like applying it to Hollowpoint because the basic idea of 'killing lots of people and looking awesome while doing it' is about as setting and genre neutral as you can get. Besides, any good action movie or TV series needs a great soundtrack. Imagine the difference between a game that opened with the Beastie Boys' Sabotage, Nero's Doomsday, Nine Inch Nails' Just Like You Imagined or Adele's Rolling in the Deep.

Starchildren: The Velvet Generation

2012-02-20T01:44:00.003-08:00

Game Premise

The game of rock and roll revolution

When we started transmitting radio waves out into the universe it was theorised that it might eventually lead to contact with extraterrestrial life but we had no idea how profound it would be. An alien race heard our transmissions, specifically the music of the 70s, and it changed everything for them. It inspired them to take a generations-long pilgrimage to our world. They even changed their physical appearance to more resemble us. They were the Starchildren and they came to rock.

But the world they arrived to was changed. Reactionary forces had declared certain cultural forces to be corrupting influences on society. In the 2070s, the Ministries clamp down on all those forms of entertainment that might elicit emotions deemed too powerful, positive or negative. Rock and roll has been outlawed. Instead of coming to a world that would accept them with open arms, the Starchildren have been forced into hiding. They will not stand for it and more and more they're becoming not just the new faces of the underground rock and roll movement, but the spirit of a revolution to take back society.

Game Overview

Rock and revolution are two themes that go together like chocolate and peanut butter and Starchildren is the RPG that focuses on the glam rock angle of such a premise. It is essentially the game where you play as Ziggy Stardust, only this time he brought along Maxwell Dean and a few thousand of his friends and they're the faces of a revolution. Of course, there's nothing that forces you to overthrow society and one of the things I like about this game is you could just throw away the aliens and futuristic dystopia and have a game about a band's ascension to rock fame and inevitable spiral into decline and hedonistic self-destruction.

It's one of those games which gives you exactly what you need to run with the premise and not a single bit more, which I kind of love. All the necessary fluff to run a game about a rock and roll revolution, starring extraterrestrials is there, with the only bit of fat being the Granger Society, a terrorist movement aimed at bringing down literary censorship. However, they do serve as the inspiration for the Blue Army, the Velvet Underground's more violent sister movement, and an army of book-loving anarchists is a pretty great.

Starchildren uses a card-based mechanic requiring a pair of full decks, jokers included. Each of your Stats and Skill is tied to a suit in the cards. You will have a hand of cards and when you need to determine the outcome of an action you place forward a card against one the GM draws. If the card's suit matches the suit your Attribute or Skill is tied to, you get the full Rank of the Attribute or Skill. Anything else will get you the Rank minus three. Highest rank wins. Face cards are worth the most and Aces are worth the least.

One thing I have to say I absolutely love is the system for gigs. The idea is that the band sets the difficulty of each song and how much Awe your band earns depends on both passing the song and how difficult the song was. The amount of Awe you have at the end of the show helps determine how much Fame you will get, which in turn can get you better gigs and possibly earn the interest of both the fuzz and the Velvet Underground. So, trying to pull off that show-stopper may be risky but it can be worth it in the long run!

The Character

Step 1) Descent

The first decision I have to make is whether my character is going to be a Starchild or an Earthling. Starchildren are prettier than people and have special alien powers, but they're also a bit flimsier (there's a lot of references to how they're in awe of our tolerance for drugs, alcohol and other toxins). Needless to say, I don't think I'm going to pass up an opportunity to be a glam rock alien, so my character will be a Starchild.

Having said that, I want to try being something slightly different. Just because my character is glam rock doesn't mean she has to be a glam rocker (and yeah, I'll put her down as a she). My character tried the whole musician scene and it didn't hit off for her, eventually realising she preferred to work in the background. From there on, Deetz King set forth to become the ultimate roadie, the go-to lady for making great performances out of merely good bands.

Step 2) Backgrounds

People go through a variety of experiences, jobs and roles in their lives and Starchildren reflects this through your Backgrounds. The main effect of backgrounds is to give you a list of 3-5 Skills which will be given rankings later. Earthlings get four backgrounds, while Starchildren only get three to reflect their limited time here on this planet.

I think Deetz started out as a Frontman, trying her time as a singer for a while before realising her true calling. This gives her access to Compose, Fashion, Impress, Lyrics and Vocals. Then she becomes a Technician in her goal to be the supreme roadie, giving her the Alertness, Computer, Drive, Knowledge (Journalism) and Repair (Instruments) skills. Finally, I see her as a bit of a Badass, a glare and a few stern words getting compliance out of the biggest wannabe rockstar so she can get the job done. This will give her Endure, Guts, Impress. Intimidate and Negotiate.

Step 3) Skills

Now that we know what skills Deetz has we can determine how good she is at each of them!With each set of skills for each background, I can assign one a Rank of nine, two a rank of seven and the final two a rank of five. Every skill has a corresponding suit and as long as I play a card of said suit when checking the skill, I get the skill's full rank.

For her Frontman skills, I'm going to give the nine to Fashion (I need a good rank in this skill to help out the band's singer), the pair of sevens to Impress and Lyrics (helps with making a good impression on behalf of herself and the band respectively) and the fives to Compose and Vocals (these are the more direct skills required to be a good singer, not quite her forte). For Technician, the nine is going straight into Repair (Instruments), the sevens into Computers and Drive (helping out the keyboard players and getting the band around) and the fives into Alertness and Knowledge (Journalism) (these skills mainly reflect her general 'knows what is going on' ability).

Finally, the Badass skills. You'll note we have an overlapping skill, Impress. I'm going to assign it one of the sevens and then combine it with my previous seven to bump it up one rank to 8. The nine is going to go into Intimidate and the other seven will go into Negotiate, reflecting her talents for dealing with bands the easy and hard ways. Finally, the fives go into Endure and Guts.

Step 4) Attributes

Y'know, this may be the first system I've ever had where your character's general Attributes are worked out after you figure out their skills or proficiencies. Interesting side note.

Anyway, Starchildren has eight of these, four physical/mental pairs. Presence is your overt personality and charisma, while Appearance is how damn good you look and they're tied to the Diamond suit. Wit is your general cleverness and Speed how fast you are and are tied to Hearts. Perception is how good you are at noticing the world around you and Agility how good you are at reacting to it and are the attributes tied to Spades. Finally, the Clubs attributes, Will and Body are reflections of your mental and physical strength/fortitude receptively.

Every skill is tied to an attribute, so when testing for that skill (or just plain checking against the attribute, such as using Body to lift something) I can use the attribute's rank if I have the card of the appropriate suit.

For ranks I have a Jack, a ten, an eight, three sevens, a six and a five to assign. Straight off the bat, my Jack is going into Wit, which helps with a whole bunch of skills that are really important for Deetz, including the ones she uses to fix up the band's stuff for gigs. Next up the ten is going into Perception and the eight into Presence, which pretty much covers all the areas I want her to be good at. So, she's smart, aware and forceful with her words. The three sevens are going to go into Body, Will and Appearance, indicating that she's reasonably tough and bound to occasionally turn heads. That leaves the six, which can go into Speed and the five for Agility. The way Deetz figures it, if you're good enough at whatever it is you do then lightning-fast reflexes aren't going to be something you need much of.

Finally, I have to alter a couple of these on account of being a Starchild. Starchildren have this otherwordly awesomeness and inhuman beauty to them, which is reflected by increasing my ranks in Presence and Appearance twice each to 10 and 9 respectively. However, as I indicated above they're also fragile and a tad addled from space travel, which sees my Body and Will dropping to five.

Step 5) Secondary Attributes

Now that I've worked out my main attributes, I have a few Secondary Attributes to work out.

The first are my Action Cards. In combat you have an action deck comprised solely of everyone's action cards and a couple of Jokers. Whenever one of your action cards is drawn, you get an action and when the second Joker is drawn the round is over. The number of action cards I get are determined by my Speed and a Speed of six gets me two action cards. Which cards they are don't really matter, but I call dibs on the Ace of Spades and Jack of Hearts, just because.

Next up is Movement. Interestingly, I can't seem to work out what unit of measurement the number is supposed to correspond to here. Ah well. This attribute is also derived from my Speed, which gives Deetz a Walking Distance of 4 and a Running Distance of 8.

Finally there are my Damage Thresholds, how many points of damage one can take before suffering various penalties. Violence is actually quite brutal in Starchildren and if someone pulls a gun there's a good chance someone is going to end up dead or at least brutally maimed in a round or two. This one is worked out from my Body. Deetz will be suffering from Trauma if she has taken 9 points of damage, Injury if she has taken 11, Blackout if it's 27 and Overkill if she takes 42. To put that in perspective, a knife will deal 15 points of damage with a single attack.

Step 6) Edges and Flaws

Here we have the game's misc advantages and disadvantages. Like skills and attributes, each is assigned a rank. In order to get an Edge, you either need to trade in a skill or pick up a Flaw of the equivalent rank.

There are really only two Edges I want here. The first is Feared. This lets me pick a skill and gives me an Advantage Card whenever a use it, a free card draw that I may add to bolster my chances with the skill. I'm going to pick up the Rank 5 version for the Impress skill. Deetz' rep precedes her, leaving many fledgling rockers a bit in awe of her. The second Edge I'm going to pick up is Velvet Membership. This gives me access to the rock underground movement, which I can exploit in various ways once per session.

Now, I need to pay those off. I'm going to start by trading in my Alertness rank. My Perception attribute is high enough that I should be OK without it. Then I'll grab the Hunted Flaw at Rank 5. Organised crime has sadly got a lot of sticky fingers in the rock scene what with both being illegal and Deetz has earned the ire of one or two local bosses by telling them exactly where they can stick it when offered business opportunities.

Step 7) Getting Equipped

Starting characters have $5000 to spend on various bits and pieces. Sadly, the one bit of gear I do want, a toolkit to fix stuff up for shows, is not listed in the equipment tables despite being something the example character in the book possesses! Ah well, I'll just say she has the necessary equipment and more money for me. While certainly not much of a fighter, Deezt doesn't want to be caught completely unprepared, so I'm going to equip her with some Heavy Boots (good for kicking) for $50 and some Padded Clothes for $300.

Also, screw it, I'm spending $50 to get 100 condoms, because Deetz is a champ. “I keep every bit of this band in working order, including the performers, savvy?”.

The leaves me with $4100 in spare cash. Hell, I'll be generous to the book and deduct $1000 from that for various tech gear.

The Finished Product

Deetz King

Presence 10 (Fashion 9, Impress 8, Intimidate 7, Vocals 5) Appearance 9

Wit Jack (Computers 7, Knowledge (Journalism) 5, Lyrics 7, Repair (Instruments) 9) Speed 6

Perception 10 (Compose 5, Drive 7) Agility 5

Will 5 (Guts 5, Negotiate 7) Body 5 (Endurance 5)

Edges: Feared (Impress) 5, Velvet Membership

Flaws: Hunted (Organised Crime) 5

Action cards: Ace of Spades, Jack of Hearts

Movement rate: 4/8

Damage Threshold: 9/11/27/42

Gear: 100 Condoms, Heavy Boots, Padded Clothing, Tech Gear, $3100

How I'd Run It

A lot of the game fiction is in the form of interviews and historical texts covering the early 2070s from later decades, where it's obvious that the Velvet Revolution was successful, the Ministries have been overthrown, the Starchildren have revealed themselves to the world and everything is back to the not quite perfect but still rocking normal. I want to run a game that takes this perspective, a get-together special, series of interviews or perhaps a 'Behind the Music' style documentary about one of the bands that took part in the Velvet Underground, that comprised of the PCs, obviously. Each session would start with a sort of 'let me tell you about the time when...' and then examine various highlights, starting with the band getting together.

Dungeons and Dragons 4E

2012-02-03T02:25:00.000-08:00

Game Overview

Apologies, this section will be short and the previous section was omitted entirely because by and large Dungeons and Dragons 4E is the same game as 3.5. I'll be making a lot of references to my previous post, especially in regards to mechanics. Released in 2008, the (not exactly) fourth edition of the world's most popular roleplaying game was and still is the subject of much contention.

Probably its most notable feature was the focus on balance. As great as 3^rd edition was, the sheer volume of rules material meant a lot of unintentional disparity in power between classes. I saw this crop up from time to time in my own games. In an effort to fix this, 4^th edition attempted to ensure that all classes could contribute to most challenges. In my opinion they succeeded quite admirably. There are many who feel that in an attempt to ensure no class would outshine the others that a lot of creative spark was lost. The other major aspect is the addition of much tactical depth to the combat system. The language of the rules, particularly the use of Squares as a measure of distance was also a way of pushing people towards using a battlemat and miniatures (although it is quite simple to run the game without either), another turn off for many.

There are people who claim that 4^th edition is a miniatures boardgame with roleplaying rules, that it is a game of combat, all combat and nothing but combat or nothing more than a tabletop iteration of World of Warcraft. I'm going to be generous and call these people misinformed. 4^th edition is a perfectly serviceable RPG, one that I enjoyed playing and no doubt will enjoy playing on occasion in the many years to come.

The Character

Step 1) Choose Race

Race in 4^th edition follows a far more standardised template. They'll get a +2 to two different Ability Scores (racial penalties have been done away with entirely), +2 to two different Skills, some kind of Racial Power and a few extra misc bonuses. All of the mainstays are here, although Elves have been conceptually split into two different races, with the race bearing that name being your typical tree-hugging archers and the Eladrin as immortal, otherworldly mages.

I'm going to create a Dragonborn, because I absolutely adore them. Why did it take so long for an edition of D&D to let you play a dragon person from day one. Dragonborn are big, strong, honourable. In the default setting (which doesn't have an official name, but has been nicknamed Points of Light or PoLand) they once controlled a gigantic empire which feel into decline after an extended war with the Tiefling empire, a race of humans who sold their souls to infernal beings for power. They're now mostly nomadic wanderers who serve as swords for hire. I'll cover most of their bonuses in the following steps, but I will note that they get a +1 to all attack rolls when they are Bloodied (when they have lost at least half their Hit Points) and they get to add the Constitution modifier to their Healing Surge Value (which I'll get to later).

Step 2) Choose Class

Once again, your Class is your professional adventuring role. 4^th edition brought back all the previous classes (although some, like the Druid and Monk, were left out of the core game and introduced in source books) as well as introducing the Warlord (tactical commander who motivates and inspires) and the Warlock (person who has made bargains with supernatural entities for arcane power). I think, just like my previous character, I'm going to play against type and make my dragonborn a Rogue. After all, who would expect a member of a big-strong warrior race to be a cutpurse? Rogues are good at sneaking about, stealing everything that isn't nailed down and dealing with traps. In fights they tend to lurk in the shadows, looking for a good opportunity to stick a dagger in an enemy's back.

Each of the classes has both a Power Source and a Role. The power source serves no real mechanical purpose but gives you an idea of how the class does what it does, be it power from the gods, nature, magic or pure skill. In my case, the rogue's power source is Martial., meaning that my powers and abilities are all the result of intense training and skill rather than some supernatural force.

The Role of a class helps explain what kind of ways the character excels in a combat situation. It bears some similarities to terms like Tank or DPS in MMORPGs, although they function a bit differently. Rogues are Strikers meaning they concentrate their attacks on big single targets. In the rogue's case, this is achieved through the use of their Sneak Attack ability, which lets them do extra damage when they have Combat Advantage against an opponent. Combat Advantage is obtained in a number of ways, such as when your opponent has been Flanked or has been knocked Prone off their feet and normally only give a +2 to attacks against them.

I should also note here that Rogues get the First Strike ability, which means they automatically get combat advantage when attacking any opponent who hasn't acted yet in the fight and Rogue Weapon Talent, which gives me a +1 to attack rolls with Daggers and increases the damage of Shuriken (ninjas stars) to 1d6.

One last thing I need to do here is pick which Rogue Tactic I use. Rogues fall into one of two broad types (at least in the core), Artful Dodgers, who tend to be dashing, swashbuckler types and Brutal Scoundrels who are more like back alley thugs. I figure being a big, hulking dragon person lends itself well to the latter, so that's what I'll pick. The benefit here is that I get to add my strength modifier to damage whenever I sneak attack and I may get some added bonuses to certain powers later!

Step 3) Determine Ability Scores

Ability Scores haven't changed in 4E the old six are still there, performing the same function. While we rolled last time, in this iteration Point Buy is the standard method, so we'll be using that. I start off with the scores 10,10,10,10,10 and 8 and have 22 points to improve them.

Rogues really want a good Dexterity score, so I'm going to spend 16 of my points straight out of the gate to improve that to 18. As a Brutal Scoundrel I also want a decent Strength score, so I'll spend a further 2 points to up that to 12. I'd also like my character to have a good force of personality, so I'm going to put 2 points into Charisma, upping that to 12 as well. I don't really want a penalty anywhere, so I'm going to put the final 2 points into that 8, which ups it to a score of 10, which means 10s for my Constitution, Intelligence and Wisdom scores.

Dragonborn are both hulking reptilians and also confident and assertive. This is reflected in their +2 bonuses to Strength and Charisma, which means my total for those score goes up to 14 each.

Step 4) Choose Skills

How Skills work tends to change from edition to edition. Not only did 4E consolidate a lot of skills from 3.5 (for example, Swim, Climb and Jump are now all functions of the Athletics skill), skill ranks are gone completely. Instead, characters in 4E are simply Trained or not, with training giving you a +5 in the skill and making you eligible for certain Feats and exclusive functions of the skill.

One thing that hasn't changed is that rogues get more skills than anyone else. I automatically get training in Stealth (sneaking about) and Thievery (all purpose larceny from picking locks to disabling traps to picking pockets). I then get training in four more skills from the list. I want my dragon person to be more of a 'member of society's criminal underbelly' rogue than 'dungeoneering trapsmith' rogue, so I'm going to pick Streetwise (getting info off the streets and general city knowledge) and Intimidate. I'm also going to grab Athletics and Perception, to ensure that he's alert and ready for anything. I'm also going to note here that as a Dragonborn my character gets a +2 to History and Intimidate.

Step 5) Select Feats

Feats haven't really changed since the previous edition, although characters do get a lot more of them (one every couple of levels). I'm going to take Dragonborn Senses, which along with giving me a +1 to Perception checks also gives me Low-Light Vision,.which lets me see twice and far as a human in conditions of low-light, like torches or moonlight.

Step 6) Choose Powers

Every class gives your character a selection of Powers, abilities that are primarily certain combat maneuvers but can also be used elsewhere. Powers come in four categories, depending on how often they can be used, At-Wills, which can be used all the time, Encounter, which can be used once within an abstract, self-contained conflict or challenge like a fight, chase scene or negotiation, Daily, which can only be used once before a six-hour rest is required and Utility, which is not time dependant but is a non-combat ability. What your powers are depends on class, although this is just assistance for visualising them rather than having any mechanical effect. Martial classes, for example, get Maneuvers, Arcane classes Spells and Divine classes Prayers

At first level I get two at-will powers, an encounter and a daily. Because I'm a rogue, all my combat powers will get to add my Dexterity bonus of+4 to attack rolls and will get to add my weapon's Proficiency Bonus. For my at-wills, I am going to pick Riposte Strike, which not only damages my opponent but lets me perform a brutal counter-attack if they attack me before my next turn and Sly Flourish, an attack that adds my considerable Charisma bonus to damage. For my encounter power I'm going to pick Dazing Strike, which Dazes my opponent for a single turn, letting them only perform a move or attack action (normally they could take one of each). Finally, my daily power will be Easy Target, which not only does considerable damage, but means that my opponent grants combat advantage and Slows them, reducing their movement speed to 10ft per round until they successfully Save. Unlike the previous edition, saves this game are a flat 10 or more on a d20 roll which are made at the end of each turn.

Finally, I'll note here my racial power, Dragonbreath. This power, which can be used on an encounter basis, lets me breathe a gout of some kind of elemental energy that damages a bunch of people. I have to decide what ability score I use with this power, in this case Dexterity. I also have to pick what kind of damage it does and I'm going to choose Acid. I like the image of my dragon person spraying a gout of melting acid at opponents, Jurassic park style.

Step 7) Purchase Equipment

Every character in 4E starts off with 100gp to spend on starting equipment. Right off the bat, I'm going to be grabbing my rogue a Short Sword for 10gp. Because I'm proficient with it, it gives me +3 to all attacks, it deals 1d6 points of damage and as a Light Blade can be used with all my rogue powers. Next up I'll grab a suit of Leather Armour for 25gp, which gives me a +2 to my Ar4mour Class. As a rogue, I'll definitely need a set of Thieves Tools fir another 20gp. Finally, I take a Standard Adventurer's Kit for 15gp, which includes all the basics I'll list later. That leaves me with 30gp to spend on sundries later.

Step 8) Fill in the Numbers

In this step we work out all my character's combat statistics.

First, let's tackle Hit Points. Characters in 4E have more hit points than ever before, but then again, so do monster. As a rogue, I start off with 12 hp plus my constitution score, for a total of 22.

The main way characters recover hit points is by expending Healing Surges. Since hit points are an abstract mechanic of your fighting readiness, healing surges are a measure of your inner reserves and spending them allows you to gain hit points. This can be done once per combat independently, but surges may also be spent through use of abilities like a cleric's spells or a warlord's motivation. I get a number of healing surges per day equal to 6 plus my constitution modifier, so 6. My Surge Value, the number of hit points I regain by spending a surge, are equal to half my bloodied value (remember, that's half my total hit points), rounded down, for a total of 5. As a dragonborn I would normally get to add my Constitution modifier, but that's +0, so no chance.

In 4E, the previous edition's Armour Class and Saves have been rolled into a standard statistic called Defenses. When an opponent rolls an attack against you, it targets the appropriate defense. Like AC, defenses start off at 10 and then get to add appropriate modifiers. Armour gets to add the higher of dexterity and intelligence as well as my armour bonus, for a total of 16. Fortitude adds the higher of Strength and Constitution, for a total of 12. Reflex adds the higher of Dexterity and Intelligence, not to mention the +2 I get from being a rogue, for 16. Finally, Will gets the higher of Wisdom or Charisma, for 12 again.

Last bit, Initiative. Nothing special here, it's equal to my Dexterity bonus of +4.

Step 9) Roleplaying Character Details

So, I know my character is a sneaky, street-smart dragon person, but who do I actually want them to be. Well, I've decided that my character comes from a large city, the Greyhawk, Sharn or Lankhmar of whatever world the game would be set in. His parents (yeah, I've decided it's a he) are accomplished adventurers. They decided that when they had their clutch they'd leave the eggs in the care of old adventuring contacts and associates around the city, leave them to fend for themselves and see how they turned out. My dragon dude was given to their rogue buddy and thus was pretty much destined for a life of shady doings. He mostly works as a strongman for legit gigs, but he's not afraid of helping out a protection racket or tomb robbing here and there.

In terms of appearance, he's a bit skinny for a dragonborn, but he still easily tops 6.5 ft. He's covered in glistening black scales and his 'hair' (they're a bit closer to those things an axolotl has) is a murky brown. His snout and claws are oddly elongated for a member of his species. He quite likes dressing up in understated clothes that manage a nice contrast with his scales.

Oh, I should probably give him a name. Looking at the example names in the book, I'll go with Balasar. Let's add an honorific, he's known as Balasar of the Biting Wit, a coy reference to his acid breath. He's a bit of a smart-ass and

Alignment in 4E has been stripped down to five points, doing away with Chaotic Good, Lawful Evil and all Neutral alignments, replacing them with Unaligned. That's the one I'm picking for Balasar. He's not particularly fussed about helping people or hurting them, just enriching himself off rubes.

Balasar worships Erathis, goddess of civilisation. This is because he's a creature of civilisation and even sees crime as a natural part of the city ecosystem. Why he wouldn't call himself religious, he's weirdly philosophical about this sort of thing, a by-product of many debates with a cleric of the goddess who tried to push him and other young vagabonds towards the straight and narrow.

The Finished Product

Balasar of the Biting Wit

Level 1 Dragonborn Rogue; Unaligned

Strength 14 Dexterity 18 Constitution 10 Intelligence 10 Wisdom 10 Charisma 14

HP:22 Healing Surges:6 Surge Value:5

Armour Class:16 Fortitude:12 Reflex:16 Will:12

Skills: Athletics +7, History +2, Perception +6, Intimidate +9, Stealth +9, Streetwise +7, Thievery +9

Feats: Dragonborn Senses

Powers

At Will: Riposte Strike (+7; 16d+4, if opponent attacks, immediate interrupt +5 1d6+4), Sly Flourish (+7; 1d6+6)

Encounter: Dazing Strike (+7; 1d6+4, opponent dazed until end of next turn)

Daily: Easy Target (+7; 2d6+4 opponent grants combat advantage and is slowed (save ends))

Equipment: Short Sword, Leather Armour, Backpack, Bedroll, Flint and Steel, Pouch, 10xTrail Rations, 50ft Rope, 2x Sunrods, Waterskin, 30gp

Languages: Common, Draconic

How I'd Run It

I guess I should elaborate on that whole kaiju idea I briefly mentioned way back when I started this blog. So, 4E's tactical combat element as well as the fan community's penchant for reskinning (that is, using the mechanics and changing the fluff, for example saying a crossbow is a gun or dwarves are mole people or what have you) made me think it would be perfect for a game about giant monsters messing up each other's shit and causing a lot of collateral damage. The game, titled Kaiju Megateam Go! would be about a United Nations team of government controlled monsters who are deployed against similarly sized threats, alongside Kamijira, the king of lizards, who isn't controlled but shows up anyway (in mechanics terms, he's a dragonborn sorcerer). Instead of treasure, monsters get Infamy, which is gained by beating giant monsters and “accidentally” destroying important structures. I'm still working out the kinks, but I think the idea has potential.

Also, while I'd use 3.5 to run the Xcrawl idea in my last post, for running that setting straight I'd definitely use 4E. The tactical depth of combat would allow for some amazing set piece encounters. Monsters being built as individuals works well too. In what other edition would a troll wrapped in barbed wire with the ability 'Give me a V!' work so well?

Finally, I promised my best friend when 4E came out I'd run a campaign for him. I still haven't fulfilled that promise. Maybe I'll get around to running a straight fantasy game with it. Or, maybe I can just make the same promise with the next edition and hope I can get away with it then as well. ;)

Dungeons and Dragons 3.5

2012-01-25T08:00:00.000-08:00

Game Premise

Battle hordes of monsters. Explore forgotten ruins, vast wilderness, bustling cities and even the multiverse of planes. Learn secrets of eldritch magic and call upon the power of the Gods themselves. Adventure for wealth, glory and destiny.

It's the game of the Temple of Elemental Evil, Barrier Peaks, the Abyss, the Tomb of Horrors, the Keep on the Borderlands. It's the worlds of Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Ravenloft, Planescape and countless others. It's the game of rust monsters, beholders, kobolds, the tarrasque and flumphs.

This is the game that started it all. It's about exploring a living, breathing fantasy world. It's about the story of a group of wanderers plying their trade with sword, skill and spell. It's about killing things and taking their stuff. It's Dungeons and Dragons.

Game Overview

If you know what a roleplaying game is, then you know what Dungeons and Dragons is. Played by millions worldwide for almost 40 years, it was the brainchild of a pair of miniatures gamers, the late Gary Gygax and David Arenson. They combined minis gaming, sword and sorcery fantasy and in the words of one of their players 'some shit we thought would be fun' and in doing so founded this wonderful hobby. Without it, this hobby would not exist, nor would any of the games I have covered. It's the standard in fantasy RPGs, yet undeniably its own thing. D&D is quite often inspired by D&D, which kind of makes it difficult to explain adequately in this section. Fortunately, being the world's most popular RPG it's not like finding out more about it is hard.

Dungeons and Dragons has gone through many revisions and edition changes in its almost 40 years of existence, the most current being Dungeons and Dragons 4^th edition, released in 2008. Despite its name it is not the fourth iteration of the game and I'm not even going to try and list all the versions. My experience has mainly been with both that edition and the one I'm covering in this post, 3^rd edition (OK, technically 3.5), although I have played a few sessions of Advanced Dungeons &Dragons. Third edition was the first developed by the IP's current owner, Wizards of the Coast. It introduced a bunch of new concepts to the game, including the D20 system and the idea that any Race could be any Class. It's also known for the OGL, a licensing agreement that allowed other companies to use material from the game's System Reference Document in their own games. While the vast majority of material published using this was of...dubious quality, it did lead to some real gems in the gaming world including the superhero system Mutants and Masterminds and Pathfinder, a revision of 3.5 that has sky-rocketed in popularity to become the number two dog in the gaming world.

While every edition of D&D has a few similarities, 3^rd edition was the first to use the D20 system, standardising the rules around a core 20-sided die mechanic. Roll your d20, add modifiers, beat a target number, simple as that.

Allow me to go on a bit of a tangential rant for a second. Wizards of the Coast have recently announced a new edition of the game is in development stages, creating waves of speculation and discussion all over the internet. It's also seen a resurgence in edition warring, where gamers with far too much time on their hands condemn others for the rules iteration they use to play elven make-believe. Yes, that sounded condescending, but the entire enterprise is more than a tad ridiculous. I've enjoyed every version of the game I've played. They all have their quirks, their problems and their glowing gems. If the new edition appeals to me, awesome, I'll play it. If it doesn't, then I have several versions I do enjoy, not to mention the scores of other games at my disposal. Your favourite version of D&D isn't going to go away. The world would be a better place if we spent less time arguing about games and more time playing them.

The Character

Step 1) Check With Your Dungeon Master

D&D is going to be different with every Dungeon Master you play it with. Each campaign will have its own rules variants and party dynamics. This is the step where you check with them, both to make sure you conform with the rules and also to have a look at what other players are making to ensure you aren't treading on anyone's toes. For obvious reasons, I don't really have to worry about this step.

Step 2) Roll Ability Scores

These are the original six Ability Scores and thus every game with an equivalent stat will resemble these six in some way, covering similar areas even if the names differ. There's Strength (physical power), Dexterity (agility, reflexes and hand-eye co-ordination), Constitution (toughness), Intelligence (knowledge, memory and reasoning skills), Wisdom (sensory perception and empathy) and Charisma (social skills).

A 10 or 11 is average, with anything higher giving you a bonus and anything lower giving you a penalty. 18 is considered to be the human maximum, Charles Atlas strength and Einstein levels of intelligence. The shorthand way of working this out is to subtract 10 from the score if it's even, 11 if it's odd and divide by two for the modifier. So a 12 or 13 will give you a +1 bonus, a 16 or 17 +3, an 8 or 9 -1.

There are a few different methods by which you can generate your ability scores. The traditional method is Random Rolling of some description, usually either 3d6 added together or 4d6 with the lowest score dropped. There are also set Arrays of stats (so you could assign, for example, a 15,14,13,12,10 and 8 among your scores) or Point Buy, which gives you a certain amount of points to purchase abilities with higher scores costing more points.

I'm going to go with random rolling, the latter of the two methods I listed. I'm also going to roll them in order, rather than just rolling the numbers and assigning them to stats afterwards. This is because I'd like to develop a concept as I go along.

So, after rolling, my scores are thus: Strength 13, Dexterity 11, Constitution 11, Intelligence 16, Wisdom 7, Charisma 13. That's not too terrible. Mostly above average, a quite nice Intelligence score and only one penalty in the form of Wisdom (albeit a -2 penalty). So, our character is physically fit, incredibly smart and personable, but a bit absent minded and rash.

Step 3) Choose Your Class and Race

These are the two central building block of your character. Your Class is your character's profession, with all the fantasy staples like Fighters (skilled warriors), Wizards (practitioners of arcane magic), Rogues (thieves and dungeoneering experts and Clerics (servants of divine forces) as well as some more offbeat stuff like Monks (martial arts experts), Paladins (holy warriors) and Bards (performers and jacks-of-all-trades). Your Race is your fantasy species, all of whom should be recognisable to anyone even passingly familiar with generic fantasy, including Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Halflings, Half-Elves and Half-Orcs.

I'm a little bit pigeonholed when it comes to my class choices, due to my ability score rolls. While having a good score in a Class' primary ability is not 100% essential to a good character, it certainly helps. Fighters want a decent strength score, rogues need to be dexterous and sorcerers charismatic. While Intelligence is helpful for everyone, because it gives you extra Skill Points, the Wizard is the only class that primarily relies on it. So y'know what, I think I'm going to go with that.

Now for Race. Each Race modifies your ability scores somewhat and come with a bunch of small bonuses and features. None of them have a bonus to intelligence, although Half-Orcs get a penalty so I think I'll avoid them. I'm going to go for a somewhat non-standard choice and make a Dwarf Wizard. Dwarves tend to be a bit distrustful of arcane magic, so my character will be something of an oddity. But what adventurer isn't odd?

Step 4) Assign and Adjust Ability Scores

If I hadn't already assigned my ability scores, this is where I would do that. I will now factor in the ability score adjustments I get from my race. Dwarves are hardy and stout but also gruff and standoffish, so they get a +2 to Constitution and a -2 to Charisma. This changes my scores of 13 and 11 respectively, a good trade-off considering wizards are a bit fragile and don't necessarily need to be all that personable.

Step 5) Review the Starting Package

One thing 3.5 does to help new players is list a series of Starting Packages, pre-made selections of character types for people who don't want to mess about with character creation. For obvious reasons this step doesn't apply to me, but good to know it's there!

Step 6) Record Racial and Class Features

Like I said, each race and class has its own features, known as Racial Features and Class Features respectively. Racial Features tend to be smaller bonuses like a +2 on saves against Fear Effects or Low-light Vision, while class features are abilities and maneuvers that the entire concept can hinge around like a Barbarian Rage or the Druid's ability to Wildshape.

Dwarves get a seriously massive number of Racial Features, it's a bit ridiculous. Starting with the standard stuff everyone gets, Dwarves are Medium Size, which doesn't give them any bonuses or penalties. They move at a Speed of 20ft per round, which is slower than most medium creatures, but they are on the short and stocky side. On the other hand, unlike other races that speed isn't reduced when they're wearing Heavy Armour or carrying lots of stuff. They get Darkvision, a nice little ability that lets them see in the dark up to 60ft. Stonecunning is another nifty bonus, giving me +2 to pretty much every check to do with stone, because dwarves are awesome at stone like that, as well as a free check to spot any unusual stone feature like a secret door. This is on top of their +2 to Appraise and Craft checks involving stone or metal. They get a +1 to attack Orcs and Goblinoids, as well as a +4 bonus to avoid getting hit by creatures with the Giant type, because yay racism! They get a +2 on saves against poisons, diseases and spells because they're tough as rocks. Finally, because of their stockiness they get a +4 against attempts to trip them or send them flying.

I also have to pick what Languages my character knows here. You get a couple of defaults, plus an extra bonus language for every +1 you have to intelligence, in my case three. I start off automatically knowing the Common tongue and Dwarven. I'm also going to grab Giant, Gnome and finally Undercommon, the language spoken by intelligent creatures that live underground.

Right, now onto Class Features. First we have Weapon Proficiencies, which dictates which weapons a class can use without a penalty to attack rolls right off the bat. Wizards aren't exactly meant to be slugging it out in hand-to hand, so their list is short, consisting of the Club, Dagger, Dart, Quarterstaff, Sling and all members of the Crossbow family except the Hand Crossbow. Wizards aren't much for armour either, not only am I not proficient in any (meaning if I wore any the Armour Penalties would be doubled) but I also suffer a chance of Spell Failure if I wear it, a straight chance for any spell I cast to just fizzle out.

Now for the stuff unique to being a Wizard. The big, obvious one here is Spells. Wizards are one of the classes that get them. The spell system is based roughly on a system called Vancian Magic (based off the magic in the books of Jack Vance), where you 'memorise' spells at the beginning of the day and once you cast it you are temporarily unable to use it again until your next preparation period. Every class capable of casting spells has their own rules governing them, from how many they know and can cast per day to the spell lists they get to choose from. As a wizard, pretty much all mechanical effects, from how hard they are to resist (you need to beat 10+ the spell's level+ relevant ability bonus) to how many bonus spells I know hinge off intelligence. I get a Spell book, which contains all the spells I know and from these I can prepare spells each day. I can cast three 0-level spells and one 1st-level spell, plus an extra one from my high intelligence.

Hmmm, time to do a bit of character background developing. My dwarf wizard is part of a special corps in his home clan's military. This group of warriors sneaks in behind enemy lines underground and then wrecks the enemy's stuff (particularly equipment) before running away. Let's see if I can't hinge my spell list around that. I begin play with my spell book containing all 0-level spells and three 1st-level spells plus an extra spell per point of intelligence bonus for a total of three. Looking at the list, I'm going to pick Magic Missile (a D&D mainstay, a bolt of energy unerringly strikes your target), Obscuring Mist (creates a fog that surrounds you and obscures vision), Enlarge Person (makes one person Large Size, with a corresponding increase in strength), Sleep (puts creatures to sleep), Hold Portal (holds doors shut against all force) and Feather Fall (reduces rate of falling so no damage is taken). Most of these spells would help my wizard's unit get into and out of places, with enlarge person and magic missile being ways to assist in the rare event of a drawn-out fight.

Apart from spells I get a couple of other bits and pieces. I get the Scribe Scroll Feat for free, letting me craft Scrolls, which are kind of one-use versions of my spells that anyone who can read and understand arcane magic can use. I also may obtain the services of a Familiar, a mundane animal imbued with magic and basic intelligence that serves as a companion, assistant and guardian. I'm actually going to decline that for now, my character would probably see a small animal as more of a liability on the battlefield.

Step 7) Select Skills

In 3.5, all classes will receive a certain number of Skill Points that they will use to purchase ranks in Skills. How much these ranks cost depends on whether that skill is a Class Skill or not, with the former costing 1 point per rank and the latter 2 points per rank. You can have as many ranks in a class skill equal to your level+3 (in my case 4) or half that for cross-class skills. Each rank gives you a +1 bonus to rolls with the skill and you also get to add the skill's relevant ability.

As a wizard, I get a number of points equal to 2+my intelligence bonus, and these are quadrupled at first level, so I have 24 points to spend all up. I'm going to start by putting 4 points each into Hide and Move Silently, which are both going to be important if my character was a guerilla warrior. Likewise, it seems that Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering) would come in handy, so 4 points for 4 ranks of that. Spellcraft, which lets me identify spell effects, Concentration, which lets me cast spells in distracting circumstances and Knowledge (Arcana) are all standard parts of a wizard's arsenal, so I'll put 4 points into each of those as well.

Step 8) Select a Feat

Feats are minor little boons that your character can get, giving them bonuses to skills, the ability to craft certain items and so on. Every character gets one of these at first level, an additional one at level three and one every third level thereafter. I've already obtained Scribe Scroll due to being a wizard. I'm also going to grab the feat Stealthy, which gives me a +2 to hide and move silently checks.

Step 9) Review Description Chapter

This is the bit where we take a step back and consider the character's fluff and background details. Most of these have no in-game effect except for Alignment, which affects play in several ways. Your alignment is a broad way of classification your character's moral and ethical outlook. It operates on two scales, the Ethical one which divides characters into :Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic and the moral one which divides them into Good, Neutral and Evil. These combine to allow you to fit into one of the nine alignments, which can render you vulnerable to certain spells, prevent you from gaining levels in certain classes (all Monks have to be lawful, for example) and can change during play depending on your actions. Alignment is, to say the least, controversial and there are countless debates about when a character's alignment should change, whether it defines a character or their actions define it, what alignment various fictional entities belong to and so on. I like to play fast and loose with it, because limiting someone's moral and ethical outlook to one of nine different slots doesn't seem terribly constructive. I'm going to make my character Lawful Good, which generally means they care about others, obey the law when it's right and strive for justice and equality. Your standard goody-two-shoes stuff.

Rolling randomly for gender, my dwarf war wizard is going to be Male. Heck, while we're figuring out these kinds of details I'll roll randomly for height and weight, which results in him being 4'1'' and 149lbs. A bit on the short and stocky side, even for a dwarf. I'll also roll on the age table, with my character being 75, on the more mature side for an adventuring dwarf.

I think I'll settle on a Name here as well. Taking a look at the typical dwarven names, I'm going to take Ulfgar Rumenheim and heck, I'll add the title Corporal. He was in the army, after all.

On a final note I'm going to pick which deity my character worships from the list. The game's default gods are based on the campaign world of Greyhawk, one of the most popular and long-lived campaign settings in D&D. I'm briefly tempted to take Boccob, god of magic as my patron, but I figure as an army man he's a bit of a patriot so I'll take Moradin, god of dwarves.

Step 10) Select Equipment

Before I can start buying stuff I need to see how much Starting Gold I get. Rolling under wizard on the Starting Gold Table, turns out I have 70gp to play with. Considering your avergae commoner earns a single Silver Piece (10sp= 1gp) daily, that's not a bad sum. Plus, it's not like I have to buy a bunch of weapons and armour. Having said that I will certainly grab a Dagger for 2gp and because I don't want to be naked, a Traveller's Outfit for 1gp. I also want to have a nice amount of self-sufficient adventuring gear, so I'm going to pick up a Backpack, Waterskin, 3 day's trail rations, Bedroll, Flint and Tinder. I'll also need my Spellbook, a Spell Component Pouch for carrying my eye of newt and whatnot and some Ink and an Inkpen. Totalling the cost of all that I'm left with 49 gp and 4 sp, which could come in handy later.

Step 11) Record Combat Numbers

Now it's time to work out all those derived statistics that come up in combat.

Your Hit Points (how much damage you can take) are largely derived from your class, plus you get to add your constitution modifier each level. Each class has a different sized Hit Die, which is the die type they roll to determine how many hit points they get each level, for example Fighters get to roll a d10. As a wizard I'm fairly fragile, only getting a d40. Fortunately that's maximized at first level, so all up I'll have 7hp.

Your Armour Class is the number enemies have to roll to hit you. Normally your AC is equal to 10+ your Dexterity bonus+armour bonuses+any other misc bonuses you may have. Not having much of any armour, my AC is a flimsy 10.

Initiative is the bonus you add to a d20 roll to determine combat order, usually your Dexterity bonus. Once again, a boring +0 for me.

Attack Bonuses are what you get to add to your D20 rolls to hit. This usually includes your Base Attack Bonus, which differs from class to class and is in my case +0 (generally it's warrior types who have a bonus at this level). I also get to add my Strength bonus and Dexterity bonus to melee and ranged attacks respectively, for a total of +1 and +0 respectively.

Finally, Saving Throws are what you roll to avoid the nasty effects of things like spells, poison, dragon breath and so on. Each class gets varying bonuses to these as well as an applicable ability score modifier. Fortitude Save, which is used to resist physical effects like poison, disease or a medusa's stone gaze gets a base of +0 for being a wizard and +1 from my Constitution bonus. Reflex Saves, used for getting out of the way of things like dragon breath, spear traps or a wizard's fireball, gets again a +0 and +0 from my Dexterity Modifier. At first you'd think things would pick up as wizards get a +2 to Will Saves, the save for resisting mental attacks, but it's keyed off my Wisdom modifier, which at -2 brings it back down to 0. Good thing I get all those save bonuses from being a dwarf!

Step 12) Details, Details, Details

Right, all the mechanical stuff is done! Now I just need to flesh Ulfgar out. I have his description pretty much down pat and I've identified a few key elements of his background. So, why has he decided to become an adventurer? I think I'll make it a fact-finding mission. See, the region of the world that Ulfgar comes from is home to several dwarven clans who periodically war against each other. These conflicts are fairly small scale border skirmishes and raids with few casualties that help determine that local pecking order among the chiefs, deep kings and thanes. The Rumenheim clan periodically (read: these are dwarves, so every century or so) send out one of their mages out to learn new spells to ensure they maintain an edge on the competition. Ulfgar, who is reasonably personable for a dwarf as well as being a skilled and intelligent caster, has been sent into foreign lands to accumulate knowledge for the glory of his clan.

The Finished Product

Corporal Ulfgar Rumenheim

Level 1 Dwarven Wizard; Lawful Good

Strength 13 Dexterity 11 Constitution 13 Intelligence 16 Wisdom 7 Charisma 11

HP:7 BAB: +0 Init: +0

Fort:+1 Ref:+1 Will:+0

Skills: Concentration+5, Hide+4, Move Silently+4, Knowledge (Arcana)+7, Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering)+9, Spellcraft+7

Feats: Scribe Scroll (B), Stealthy

Spells per day:3/2

Spells Known: 0-Level All; 1^stLevel Enlarge Person, Feather Fall, Hold Portal, Magic Missile, Obscuring Mist, Sleep

Equipment: Backpack, Bedroll, Dagger, Ink Pen, Ink (vial), Spell Book, Spell Component Pouch, Trail Rationsx3, Traveller's Outfit; 49gp, 4sp

Languages: Common, Dwarven, Giant,Gnome, Undercommon

How I'd Run It

I have run a few different campaigns of 3.5 over the years, the main two being a game set in the world of Eberron where the PCs made it into the high teen levels and World's Largest Dungeon, a 3^rd party supplement adventure taking characters from 1^st level to 20^th and featuring (almost) ever monster in the Monster Manual. Sadly, both of these petered out due to real life getting in the way before we could reach a satisfying conclusion.

I do kind of want to go back to WLD, but I want to mix things up a little. There's an absolutely phenomenal setting produced by Goodman Games called Xcrawl: Adventures in the eXtreme Dungeon Crawl League, set in an alternate Earth with magic, monsters and fantasy races where dungeons crawling is one part extreme sport, one part professional wrestling. I want to run a campaign of the World's Largest Dungeon set in that, WXD or World's eXtremest Dungeon. Furthermore, I want to take the 3^rd party wackiness of 3^rd ed and turn that dial to 11. let players use material from basically any supplement they want, go all out. It would not be the most balanced game, but it could be great balls off the wall fun.

Sweet Dreams

2012-01-22T05:09:00.000-08:00

Game Premise

The school is a battleground of teen-angst bullshit, underhanded politics and the supernatural and no one will believe you.

Your high school has a secret. Well, a lot of secrets. You see, some of your classmates, perhaps yourself included, are not what you might call normal. Some are practitioners of the dark arts. Some are inhabitants of the Dream World, disguised as adolescents for various purposes, sinister or otherwise. Some are even robots and aliens. They stick to the shadows, with everyone vaguely aware of their existence but none of it being dealt with in the open. But like I said, chances are you're one of these individuals or at least associate with them, so that should make mundane matters pretty easy to coast through, right?

Hell no, this is high school, remember? A person doesn't need black magic to make your life hell, just a complete lack of concern for the mental, physical and social well-being of others. Even without magic or weird science, the conspiracy is a cut-throat world of social and sometimes physical violence. Add on homework and those strange new feelings you're starting to develop about some of your fellow students and things couldn't be harder to coast through.

Game Overview

Sweet Dreams is a game of dealing with all the usual pressures of high school while also being wrapped in the skulduggery of the conspiracy, the shadow war between students who know about the supernatural world that lurks beneath the surface. PCs might be ordinary high-schoolers (although on the more talented side) or they might be vampires, witches, aliens, mutants, the possessed or any other manner of strangeness trying to fit in. If you read or watch anything in the 'young adult' market, whether or not you're the target audience, you're going to have a point of reference here.

I'm really quite impressed by the array of source material present. Scattered throughout the book are quotes not just from the usual suspects like Buffy and My So-Called Life, but also some lesser known yet no less awesome stuff like Heathers ('My teen-angst bullshit has a body count' is the exact kind of quote you want for a game like this).

While the game doesn't really tackle anything anyone would be unfamiliar with, it still has its own flair with the idea of the Dream World being emphasised quite strongly. The Dream World is where ethereal beings like Faeries and Dreamwalkers come from. They have a strange interest in our world, not to mention elements of our world having an interest in them. I also quite like the Motif element, a signature aesthetic that your character might emphasise in different ways. So, if you're just an ordinary jock and your motif is Football then it just means you're hanging around in your football gear all the time, but if you're some kind of faerie with the motif of Fire, that will colour your magical effects. It really helps emphasise both supernatural elements and the search for a strong identity that is central to every teenager's life.

The basic mechanic is a bell curve, roll 3d6 and add your skill total to beat a target number. The default is 16, apparently set so that your average person will succeed half the time at an average task. Many actions will also require you to take note of your Passing/Failing Grade, the difference between the target number and what you rolled. I was surprised at how mechanically intensive and nuanced the system is, as most games that try to go for romance fall somewhere around the rules-light end of the spectrum. But there are several parallel combat forms, letting you not only break an opponent's body and mind with physical or psychic attacks respectively, but also letting you terrify them, erode their confidence and self-worth and even seduce them until they're willing to go to crazy lengths to gain your approval. You'll also notice the quite large number of steps to go through to make my character (granted, they're fairly small and granular).

One of the things I do quite like about Sweet Dreams is that you could easily strip away the supernatural stuff and run it as a pure high school game. It would be perfect for something along the lines of Rockstar's highly underrated Bully. Heck, thanks to the shockingly brutal mental and social combat rules you could run some kind of exciting homage to the Breakfast Club where possibly for the first time people use attack rolls to work through each other's social issues.

Oh, the editing could definitely have been better, though. Typos everywhere, font alignment issues and one particularly amusing bit of proofread fail where the text for the Carrier flaw has been replaced with an editor's note reading 'WHAT THE FUCK GOES HERE, ALLAN?????v'. That sort of thing isn't really a deal breaker for me, but it definitely takes the polish off. Besides, that flaw had some really interesting implications I'm missing out on!

The Character

Step 0) Create Concept

While the character creation steps for Sweet Dreams are numbered, it has a whole bit about picking out your Concept and a few other associated aspects beforehand so you have a strong idea of what you want going forward. This system is a combination of class template and point buy, so knowing what you want ahead of time is important.

So, let me ask you this: Could Twilight have been a hit if it were about mummies? A couple of webcomic authors seem to think so. And hey, I love the idea. The bad boy that hides himself behind bandages because underneath he's secretly an inhumanly beautiful god-king stuck in perpetual youth. I give you David Kemesiri, eternal Pharaoh turned high school student.

Now I need to pick my Motif. As I explained above, your motif is your character's identity as expressed through aesthetic. I'm kind of tempted to take the lazy route and go with Ancient Egypt, but I'm going to pick Jewels. I'll get more into how this affects him in the later step.

I also need to determine my level of Belief. A lot of odd stuff happens in the world of Sweet Dreams and how open you are to that stuff can make life easier or harder. The default is that you are a Believer in the supernatural and weird, what with potentially being one. But it's quite possible, especially if your character is a Nega-Psychic (has the ability to unconsciously tamper with supernatural powers), that they might be in Denial about the whole thing. This can cause complications for your character but also net them bonus points. I figure an eternally resurrecting god-king of Ancient Egypt isn't really going to have problems dealing with the concept of werewolves and magic, so I'll stick with the default.

Step 1) Choose Caste Template and Record Respectability

Your character can be divided into two distinct elements. The first of these is their Caste, where they belong in the social morass of high school, which clique they are associated with. Whether you're a Jock, Princess, Geek or perhaps even a Traveller in between cliques, this will determine everything from your standing in the social hierarchy to your general skills.

One interesting thing is that you can have a separate Caste Affiliation from your actual caste, meaning that while your stats are largely determined by one caste, how others see you is determined by another. For example, you might be a Brain, all pepped up on book smarts, but you might hang with the Criminals and tend to put those book smarts to shady use. This generally only affects how adults perceive you, Popularity among students is a whole other kettle of fish.

I think I'm going to go with the Loner caste for David. Technically it's not really a caste, but he likes to keep to himself. It's better for brooding and being mysterious. I'll have very few friends, but will also have to deal with less clique bullshit.

Your Respectability determines how well adults will relate to you. They tend to react better to kids who are active participants in school life, be it sport, academia or student politics and are wary of kids who seem like social malcontents. As a Loner, my starting respectability is 9. This gives me a -4 on the use of all Political and Social skills with adults. This is actually fairly common, only older students in certain cliques tend to escape penalties in this area.

Step 2) Attributes

Attributes are your basic stats and Sweet Dreams has seven of them, your starting scores are determined by your Caste. Three is the human average. As a Loner, David is going to start off with a Strength (physical power, athleticism) of 4, and Agility (reflexes and hand-eye coordination) of 4, a Mind (raw intellect) of 4, a Will (self control and determination) of 5, and Appearance (general attractiveness) of 3, a Charisma (social skills) of 3 and a Soul (artistic ability and general purity of spirit nebulousness) of 4. So, not incredibly personable but overall quite decent. I'll get a chance to boost these later.

Step 3) Skill Sets

While Sweet Dreams has Skills like most RPGs, it focuses more on picking them in Sets rather than individually. Each set gives you a bonus in five separate skills and you may get a chance to improve specific skills depending on your caste.

I get a +3 in Adult Skills, which include Area (lets me know my way around the town and surrounds), Bureaucracy, Drive, Life Skills (general day-to-day house maintenance) and Self-Control. All pretty handy to have. On the flip side, I also get +2 in Child Skills, which include Child Culture (knowledge of cartoons, video games etc), Dream (helps me make my way through the dream world), Expression (performance art), Sensitivity (empathy for the plight of others) and hey, once again, Self Control. Unfortunately I only get the higher of the two, so that one is wasted.

I now get to pick between a +1 in either Adventure Skills or Wilderness Skills. I'm going to take the latter, which nets me Athletics, Bully, Perception, Stealth and Survival. All fairly self explanatory.

Finally I get a +1 in any skill of my choice, as long as it doesn't take it above +3. I'm going to put it in the Flirt skill. We're shooting for teen romance, after all!

Step 4) Backgrounds

Your Backgrounds are little side benefits and connections you get from being a member of your caste. They are external things which can potentially be taken away from you.

I have a choice between either a Job at a rank of 3 or a Pet at a rank of 2.I think I'm going to pick the former, an assistant job at the local museum collecting donations and cleaning the place up. I'm going to put two of the points into the Company aspect, making it a Local job which nets me +3 to my respectability, with the last point going into the Trust aspect, meaning I work there about 6 hours per week and get a further +3 to my Respectability.

I also get 5 points in the Privacy aspect, meaning I have a secret place to call my own. I'm going to designate it as a forgotten storeroom under the museum. It has 3 points in Security, which means I have an extra, tiny room (perhaps some kind of sarcophagus) and a secret entrance to the hideout. The other two points go into Space, which means the entire area is about the size of a small apartment.

Finally, I have a single point in the Resources background. This helps determine what kind of stuff I can buy and what stuff I already have access to. At this level I possess one item worth about $500, another at $300, a third at $100 and pretty much as many items as I want at $10 or less. I'll detail those later. Apparently the income from my job doesn't count and instead goes to paying for my future. I actually had a discussion with my girlfriend about this and I think this system does a pretty good job of reflecting how oddly well-off high-school students are in fiction.

Step 5) Equipment

As noted above, your starting Equipment is determined by your level in the resources background. My character has one item worth $500, another worth $300, a third at $100 and myriad $10 items. I actually don't really see anything that I particularly want in the equipment list, apart from a Knife as my $100 item. It's going to be a fancy, jewel encrusted ancient Egyptian knife as well, because why the heck not? I'm going to keep those other items in reserve, don't see why that would do any harm.

I also get a few bits and pieces from my caste. I get a leather jacket, which seems pretty mandatory, as well as school supplies, a pocket knife and a $25 wardrobe (ouch). I then get a choice between Camping Gear and a Computer, I'll go with the former.

Step 6) Caste Subplot

A Sub-plot is a story-based complication that your character has to deal with in the course of play. It might reflect personality traits like Clean Freak, Denial that the supernatural exists or a Feud with another student. Whenever your sub-plot comes up in play, you get Experience,with larger sub-plots potentially gaining you more XP if an entire story revolves around it.

Some castes get to choose their sub-plot, but as a Loner I get Casteless. This 1 point sub-plot reflects my lack of clique affiliation, meaning my character is vulnerable to targeting by bullies and has no one to stick up for him. I'll be picking up a few more sub-plots later.

Step 7) Choose Nature

This is the second major building block of the character, your Nature determines what your character actually is, be it normal human, magical practitioner or some kind of supernatural being. Natures are separated into broad groups, including the Dreamwalkers (inhabitants of the dreamworld possessing a human host), Faeries (pure supernatural constructs that have taken material form, including ghosts, angels and true fae), Humans (average joes who nonetheless deal with the supernatural), Mutants (science based strangeness, including aliens and robots), Mystics (folks empowered by magic, including your Buffy-style slayers), Nega-Psychics (people whose rejection of the supernatural lets them subconsciously wreck it) and last but not least your Vampires and Werewolves, staples who need no elaboration.

Each Nature comes with several Templates which allow you to fast track the creation process. Otherwise, you get 100 points to spend on various powers, bonuses and stat boosts. I'm going to go with the latter option since I think the mummy template is a bit dull and not quite what I'm going for.

As I've said previously, I'm going to be playing a Mummy, which is a Faerie template. The idea is that mummies are lost spirits possessing a physical body. In my case, back in the lost bits of Middle-Eastern history, boy-king Kemesiri II of a now forgotten dynasty of an unknown kingdom was bound into a jaw-droppingly ostentatious statue after his death by a rival throne claimant because destroying a physical body and preventing your enemy reaching the afterlife is a grave insult. David has been around for a long time now (although sometimes he slips into torpor and misses a few odd centuries) and passes the ages by brooding and staying on society's periphery. He was shipped to the States while in one of his slumbering phases by an expedition, eventually broke out and now lurks around the high school, being mysterious and strangely alluring.

Step 8) Attribute Bonuses

Every Nature gets a bonus to one or more specific attributes. Even better, these don't count towards your total score for the purposes of determining the cost of increasing that attribute bonus later (you'll understand better what I mean later on). All Faeries get a +1 Natural Bonus to Appearance, which helps with the whole 'hot mummy' thing I'm going for (be thankful I'm not using the phrase 'yummy mummy'. Don't think I won't).

I also get to spend points here to boost my attributes. Since we're going to for Twilight with mummies, that means I'm going to go hell for leather on my Appearance. Apparently mummies can have a natural maximum of 8 out of 10, so I'm going with that. Raising it for 3 to 4 is going to cost me 5 points. Then we come into contact with Levels. The better your stats get, be they attributes, skills or powers, the more they cost to improve. Levels 1-4 are Low Levels, 5-7 are Mid Levels which are double the cost to improve and 8-10 are the High Levels, which cost x3. Therefore, it'll cost me another 30 points to increase my Appearance to 7, +1 from my Natural Bonus.

That has already taken a fair chunk out of my points, so I'm going to leave this for now. Maybe I'll revisit attributes later when I get some more points to play with.

Step 9) Manna/Science

Manna is a vague measure for how creative and imaginative you are. It's also the fuel for magical powers. While only folks who possess the latter really make use of it, having a good store can be incredibly helpful from a group standpoint. It also makes you alluring to Chimera, the ethereal creatures that waft in from the Dream World. Mutants instead get Science, which seems to be some kind of weird quasi-radioactive energy that fuels their powers.

This is the first thing I have to spend my points on. I don't want to go too overboard here, but I want a good store of Manna to fuel any powers I might get. Therefore, I'm going to buy up 9 points at the cost of 1 per point. A young God-King who has lived for millennia should have a fairly active imagination.

Step 10) Skills

Now to take a look at my skills. I figure a guy who has been around as long as David probably knows a few things, so I'm going to drop 10 points to get +2 to Knowledge Skills, which includes Academics, High Culture, Linguistics, Lore and Research.

Step 11) Skill Bonuses

No joy here. Dreamwalkers, Humans and Nega-Psychics get bonuses to certain skills, not me.

Step 12) Talents

These are relatively cheap extraordinary abilities that people can buy, like Ambidexterity, Speed Reading or being a Good Listener. Most of these have a Soul requirement, because if that ever gets reduced you become more detached from the world. It's also where you pick up Disciplines that allow you to perform Magic, or make strange Inventions.

I'm going to grab one of the slightly more bizarre ones, Past Lives, simulating the fact that David has been around for a long, long time. A number of times per Story equal to my soul, 4, I can get insights into a situation related to my past life, which I have to elaborate on. That will set me back a further 18 points. I'm tempted to grab the True Love talent, but I think that is probably something that should be developed in-story.

Step 13) Backgrounds

This is where I purchase more backgrounds, if desired. Having a look through the list, I'm fairly happy with what I've got. Besides, I'm already running low on points and I haven't even gotten to the supernatural power bits.

Step 14) Powers and Creature Features

Speak of the devil! Whether it's the ability to turn into a wolf, posses a human body, raise the dead, read minds or possess a pair of wings which a certain subgenre of fanfic tells me apparently makes you hideous (as if, wings would make you the coolest person ever), this is the step for that. Sweet Dreams has a fairly comprehensive list of supernatural bits and bobs to choose from in this department, split into two broad categories called Powers, which are intangible abilities, and Creature Features, which are physical. The main difference is that the former tends to require either Manna or Science to use and having too much of the latter will give you levels of the Weird sub-plot, requiring you to hide if you don't want to be outed as a freak.

Before I delve into spending my points, I should note the natural Gifts I get for being a Faerie. Faery Sight means I can always see Chimera (invisible dream inhabitants), as well as their aspects and effects, even when they're disguised. So, even if your faery is disguised as a teenager, I can tell. Thanks to Faery Touch I can also always use my powers and make contact with these immaterial beings. Finally, I can Lucid Dream, meaning I can control what happens in my dreams, an important aspect of a game with a Dream World.

This is where the vast majority of my remaining 28 points are going to go. In fact, all of them. I'm going to buy all three levels in a creature feature called Inert, which costs me 18 points for the first level and another 5 points for the other two, reflecting my golden, jewel encrusted body. This makes me immune to all diseases and toxins, cold, heat, pressure, the vacuum of space and means I don't have to eat, drink or breathe to survive. I don't show up on infra-red and attempts to track me by scent suffer a -6 penalty. On the downside I have to take three levels of Inert Flaws. Flaws are mechanical drawbacks which would normally give me bonus points (we'll get to them later), but in this case I get no freebies. Inert has several flaws, each reflecting a disadvantage of being a non-living material thing. I'm going to grab Heavy, considering I'm essentially a statue, doubling my weight for 1 level, with the other two going into Can't Swim. One important note, normally I'd suffer from 3 levels of the Weird flaw for my levels of Inert, but a Faery's creature features are only visible as part of their Chimerical Aspect. When my magic is disguising me as a strangely attractive, brooding teenager, nobody is any wiser.

Oh no, it appears my points have all been spent! But we still have a few steps to go. Not to worry, there may be opportunities to pick up points later,

Step 15) Natural Sub-plots

Being a vampire, alien or witch sure can be complicated at times. Every Nature comes with at least one Natural Sub-plot, a sub-plot intrinsic to their supernatural condition. In my case I get to choose between two. Either I'm a Changeling, a being substituted for a real child (better not let the parents know) or I'm an Orphan, lacking any kind of family (better not let authority figures know). I'm going to pick the latter, since he lives in the museum by himself and hasn't had a family for a few thousand years now.

I also have a Chimerical Aspect. Every faery is a mystical being of fantastic appearance hiding behind an illusion. It behooves them not to make this known if they wish to blend in. David only appears to be a young man of Middle Eastern appearance with a leather jacket and brooding exterior. In reality he's a spirit possessing a flawless golden body covered with priceless gems and jewels of inestimable worth

Step 16 ) Magic

If I had purchased any of the talents that would let me use powers through some kind of art or device, rather than being an inbuilt ability I possess, here is where I would purchase them. While having some cool Egyptian mystic powers would be awesome I lack the points.

Step 17) Passion

Every teenager gets +1 level in the Passion sub-plot, meaning they like someone (as in like like). Can't have a game about high school without teen romance and I especially can't have this kind of character without the same. In my case, David has his immortal eye on the new girl, a clumsy and relatively bland yet strangely alluring young woman by the name of Mina Robin. He doesn't yet know that Mary is a Nega-Psychic, which is why powers have a hard time affecting her and she kind of sucks just a little bit of colour out of everything, but this mystery only makes her that more intriguing.

Step 18) Nexus

As I've hinted at, dreams and the Dream World play an important part in Sweet Dreams. A Nexus is a place that your character dreams of when they sleep which opens a doorway between their dreams and the dream world. Unsurprisingly I'm going to pick the Ancient Egypt Exhibit at the local museum, particularly the cases that hold the royal artefacts.

Step 19) Traits

In this step I calculate all of David's Traits, attributes derived from previous scores. His Movement (measured in feet you can move per turn) is equal to 10+ Agility for a total of 14. His Confidence, his health that is targeted when someone wants to frighten, bully or seduce him is his (Charisma+Will)x3 for a total of 24. Stamina, his physical health, is (Strength+Will)x3, equalling 27. Focus, his psychic health is equal to (Soul+Will)x3, also 27. Popularity, fairly self explanatory, is (Charisma+Appearance)x3 for a nice total of 33 (sadly still not enough to get him a bonus with other students). This is also where I would normally record Status, a measure of your standing within your Caste, but Loners don't have this.

Step 20) Contacts

If your traits are high enough you may know useful people in various spheres of influence. These can usually be bought as a background, but you may be eligible for free levels of Contacts, with the more levels invested in contacts the better they are. These contacts might be fellow students, adults or even supernatural being.

Having no status score means I have no Caste Contacts. My Popularity of 33 does mean I get three levels of High School Contacts. I'm going to sink all three levels into Yasmina Smith, an up and coming, overachiever sophomore who's a member of the prep caste and the only other student of vaguely middle Eastern appearance. She'll associate with David out of solidarity and may occasionally do him favours among her clique.

I have one level of Adult Contacts thanks to my Respectability score. Rory the Janitor works at the museum and is willing to overlook the young mummy's frequent trespassing onto the property.

I now have three levels of contacts to split between Child and Imaginary Contacts because of my manna score. I'm going to go with two of the latter. Odji is a small dream creature known as a Goblin, looking like a deformed cross between a baboon and a cat. It helps guide David through the Dream World and occasionally pilfers shiny things for him. My 2 level contact Akhom is a serious, eagle-headed Bogeyman, a greater dream inhabitant who claims to have been assigned to guard David while also preventing him from entering the afterlife. He's good for allegorical, cryptic advice, grim stare downs and isn't too bad in a dream fight either.

Step 21) Combat Scores

As Heathers taught us, high schools can be violent places and sometimes you will get hurt, even before you add supernatural weirdness. This bit is going to be a tad boring for me, mainly because I didn't take any combat skills

My Initiative, the score I roll before combat, is equal to my Agility+Mind+any other mods, for a total of 8. Because I lack any combat skills, my Unarmed and Simple Weapon attack bonuses, used in melee, are both +4, using solely my Strength. My Tech Weapon, used with devices, is equal to my Mind of 4. While I don't have any supernatural Powers, my attack with them is also +4, equal to my Mind.

On the defense front, both my Dodge and Block scores are going to be equal to my Agility of +4, which also happens to be the same as my Power Defense. I only get to use these if I see an attack coming. If I don't I switch to my Passive Defense, which, unsurprisingly is +4 for physical attacks thanks to my Strength, but a whopping +5 against psychic attacks thanks to my Will.

Step 22) Flaws

Now here is a chance for me to pick up extra points. Like I said before, Flaws are disadvantages you can take that hinder you in play, but whereas sub-plots give you XP for complicating a story, Flaws give you points now. I can grab up to 5 points of flaws, each of which gives me an extra 6 points to spend on my character. I'm going to milk this for all it's worth.

I'm going to start off by taking 1 point in Faery Weird. A little bit of my weirdness gets through even my glamour that hides my Chimerical aspect. In this case, David's hands and feet both shine with the gold of his body. He hides it by, you guessed it, wrapping them in bandages (he claims it's a skin condition). Next up I'm grabbing the two points Taint flaw. Due to the magic used to bind David to his body, he emanates supernatural evil and characters with the power to sense that sort of thing can spot him in a flash. Finally, I'm going to grab 2 points of the Iron Allergy flaw, thematically appropriate for Faeries. Cold Iron weapons deal extra damage to David and I take three focus damage every Time Phase I am touching Cold Iron.

Step 23) Bonus Points

Right, now to spend those points! First off, for 12 points I'm going to grab the Creature Feature Dark Dependency. I have to spend at least 16 hours in the shadows, but not only can I see in the dark, but David also heals much faster than ordinary people in darkness. He can even regenerate limbs! The other 18 points will go into Armour. Normally a character's Toughness can't be applied to weapons more damaging than fists, but in my case they do and I even get a +1 bonus to it!

Step 24) Extra Sub-plots

I can take extra sub-plots here if I feel like it. They don't give me anything now, but might come up during play. Just for fun, I'm going to take the two points sub-plot Enmity (Werecats). Yeah, turns out the werecats hate mummies. Why? I dunno, some kind of ancient feud, probably.

Step 25) Year and Rank

It turns out the default starting character in Sweet Dreams is a Freshman around the age of 14 (I admit, I find this a tad creepy).If you want to go up grades you can get an extra +160 points, which I find to be a handy way of both having more powerful character (I struggled a bit with my points budget) and dealing with more mature themes in game. As it stands I'm going to leave David where he is.

I should also record David's Rank of 3, which is just an abstract level of power for the GM's benefit. As David gets more experience, he goes up ranks.

The Finished Product

David Kemesiri aka Kemesiri II

Nature: Faery Caste: Loner

Year: Freshman Rank: 3

Attributes: Strength 4, Agility 4, Mind 4, Will 5, Appearance 8, Charisma 3, Will 5

Manna: 9

Confidence 24 Popularity 33 Status n/a Respectability 15 Movement 14 Stamina 27 Focus 27

Initiative +4 Unarmed +4 Simple Weapons +4 Tech Weapons +4 Powers +4

Dodge +4 Block +4 Toughness +5 Resist Power +5

Motif: Jewels Nexus: Ancient Egyptian Exhibit

Gifts: Faery Sight, Faery Touch, Lucid

Skills: +3 Adult, +1 Adventuring +1,+2 Child, +1 Flirt, +2 Knowledge

Sub-plots

Casteless 1

Chimerical Aspect 2: Body of gold and jewels

Enmity 2: Werecats

Orphan 1: No mortal family

Passion 1: Like (Wilhelmina Robin)

Backgrounds

Contacts: Adult Contacts 1 (Rory the Janitor), High School Contacts 3 (Yasmina, Prep Sophomore), Imaginary Contacts 3 (Odji, goblin guide; Akhom, bogeyman warden)

Job 3: Company 2, Trust 1 (Casual museum assistant)

Privacy 5: Security 3, Space 2 (Secret private room under the museum

Resources: 1

Talents/Powers/Features

Armour 1: Add Toughness+1 to damage from lethal attacks

Dark Dependency: Heal 1 time phase faster in darkness, regrow limbs, can see in the dark

Inert: Immune to toxins, diseases, heat, cold, do not need to eat, drink or breathe, does not show up on infra-red

Past Lives: 4/Story, gain insights into situation based on past life.

Flaws

Faery Weird 1: Gold hands and feet show through glamour.

Inert 3: Can't swim, Heavy

Iron Allergy 2: Double damage from cold iron, 3 Focus damage/time phase touching cold iron

Taint 1: Evil aura detectable through magic and ESP.

Equipment: Wardrobe ($25), Camping Gear. Jewelled knife, Leather Jacket, Pocket Knife, School Supplies.

How I'd Run It

I didn't realise this when I purchased it, but Sweet Dreams is a two-book game, meaning that I'll need to purchase the game running guide if I ever want to actually sit down and run this properly one day. I have a feeling I could probably get away with just the Player's Book, especially if I stay away from the freakier dream stuff, but hey, complete is complete.

Were I to go ahead with this, I think I could run it pretty straight, but there are a couple of other ways I'd want to do it that differ from the main premise: The first is that Bully idea I mentioned earlier, the supernatural stuff stripped away. Clique of new kids taking over the school block by bloody block. The second is inspired by another, although quite different game, Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble, which surrounded the meddling antics of a clique at an all-girl's school in the prohibition era. Take that, add supernatural elements and see what happens.

Dinosaurs...In Space!

2012-01-14T23:54:00.002-08:00

Game Premise

There's a big, bold cosmos out there.

We've always suspected that we aren't alone in the universe and while humanity is often wrong about a lot of things in this instance we're oh so right. Aliens have been messing around with Earth here and there for the past few thousand years and this can be seen everywhere from the Easter Island heads to the fact that there are now a bunch of Aztecs with their own space empire. Also, Thetans. Thetans everywhere.

Things really started hotting up in WW2 when the individualism-championing Greys and the stability-seeking Cherraspids decided to get their hands dirty in our politics, secretly backing the Allies and Axis respectively and giving us the secret of space travel. It's now the 1950s and humanity is making its first steps towards the stars, if only to take down that secret Nazi base on the moon. Oh, thanks to them we can do time travel and alternate dimensions, so if throwing a spanner into the works of intergalactic politics isn't enough for you then why not meddle in the time stream or multiverse as well?

Game Overview

Combining satirical, light-hearted 50s sci-fi with rules-light, diceless and narrative driven rules, Dinosaurs...In Spaaace! is a fleshing out, settingwise, of Greg Stolze's free rpg In Spaaace!, which can be found on the same page as the above link. It's melting pot of wacky sci-fi, namely inscrutable aliens with offbeat agendas, time travel, Nazis and of course dinosaurs. The rules of the game take up about 15 pages (with the odd sidebar or two elsewhere), with the rest dedicated to the cosmos, its inhabitants, the consequences and history of time travel and a T-Rex ranch in our asteroid belt. You know, the usual.

As well as the familiar concepts, you've also got a whole bunch of really cool, unique ideas. The Cherraspids, the other major alien race besides the Greys, are the stand-outs. They're sort of buglike and semi-inhabit multiple dimensions at the same time. They also have limited precognition, thanks to their ability to perceive multiple outcomes of every choice they make. Unfortunately this leads to them being incredibly indecisive and valuing stability and conformity in all things, which is why they backed the Nazis. A fair chunk of the book is devoted to explaining how they work but it's an awesome concept. The Sky Aztecs, the descendants of Aztec priests and kings who beat up the peaceful aliens who happened across their empire millennia ago and co-opted their tech to extend their reach to the stars above, are another of my favourites.

Dinosaurs makes use of the Token Effort system, a bidding resolution mechanic. Each player and the GM has a certain number of Plot Points. Whenever you get in a conflict or want to alter the facts of a scenario, you bid tokens. Whoever bids the most wins and gets to determine the outcome, though the GM may require a minimum Ante depending on the plausibility of the scenario. The loser, GM or player, then takes one token from the winner, as well as the ante being paid to the GM if the player won (in the case of a tie, the player gets to narrate but the GM gets all the tokens used). There's also Rule Zero, which is when somebody, player or GM, makes you laugh, you owe that person a token. Humour and light-hearted antics are the name of the game after all.

I have one quibble with this game's setting. It tackles all of the best alien conspiracy theories, from the Easter Island heads to the Greys to Scientology to Aztec 'sky gods'. Yet, no reptoids or anything similar. Look, I understand too many cooks can spoil the broth, but what kind of xenoicious (That's my word, by the way, you can't have it) world do we live in where sinister, cold-blooded shapeshifters from outer space aren't trying to infiltrate our governments? For shame, Mr Stolze, for shame.

The Character

Step 1) Distribute Points Among Traits

Characters in Dinosaurs have exactly one stat, Traits. A trait, which can go no higher than 5, allows you to increase your bid for free when applied to a relevant contest. If I have the trait Cryptographer 3 and I have to decipher some ancient alien inscriptions found in a lost temple I automatically have a bid equal to 3 and can add tokens if I want to be super-sure of success.

I get 4 points to spread across traits, with no starting trait higher than 3 points. And you know what? I'm going to create Elvis Presley.

OK, he's not quite our Elvis Presley. See, the idea I have here is that in an escapade involving aliens from the future a whole bunch of Elvises from alternate universes were brought here and this particular one decided to stay on our Earth to give us a hand. This version of Elvis decided to become a fighter pilot instead of the King and joined his Earth's version of Project MAGNIFICAT (America's primary defense against space threats).

The first trait I'm going to create is Pilot Starships which I'm going to sink 3 points into. If you need a man to get you to Tismo and do a barrel roll on the way then Captain Presley is your man. The second trait I'm going to make is He's Still Elvis and it's going to be a Broad trait. Whereas average traits cover one specific thing, broad traits can cover three general and more broadly useful areas. In this case, despite the fact he's from another timeline, this Elvis can still sing like a leather-jacketed angel, perform mad kung-fu and eat more deep fried mars bars or what have you than a T-Rex on steroids.

That's pretty much it. I might get some Temporary Traits from stuff like Gear later on, but I'm ready to hit the stars.

The Finished Product

Captain Elvis Presley

He's Still Elvis 1

Pilot Starships 3

How I'd Run It

I actually kind of want to run a 'League of Extraordinary Elvises' game now, I think it would make an awesome one-shot. The real question isn't why aliens would gather the King from acorss the multiverse (I have about three different plots in mind for that), it's whether a goatee would suit Evil Elvis or should he have a Fu Manchu or something?

One other thing that really grabbed me as an awesome basis for a campaign is the description of Grey Haven, a possible future Earth where the Grey's plans for us have been fully realised. Thanks to mass advancements in communication, transport and other technological areas in 2151 we've become an overpopulated transhumanist paradise. I envision it as a slightly more optimistic Transmetropolitan. Its focus on gene splicing, one of my favourite aspects of trasnhumanist sci-fi, only endears it to me more. While you could do a few things with such a setting a police procedural game set in a world where the definitions of what is human are blurred at best could be great for a short campaign.

Apocalypse World

2012-01-11T04:27:00.000-08:00

Game Premise

There is something wrong with the world and I don't know what it is.

50 years ago, everything went to hell. Why? How the fuck would I know, do I look that old? One minute, things were great. Food was everywhere, people didn't stab each other over a blanket and I hear some old guys saying they had goddamn boats to put their planes on. Those days are over. Nowadays everyone is cold, starving and pissed off and anyone with a bunch of guns and some walls can call themselves king. Everything has a price and there's always someone who is willing to pay.

And then there's the maelstrom. What is it? Apparently some smart guy said a thing about abysses and how if you look at them, they're going to start looking back at you. The maelstrom is that. Some people use it to get info, some weirdos even worship the damn thing. Mostly it just sits there at the edge of your perceptions like a leaky tap and makes everyone just that little bit crazier.

Maybe things could be better? I don't know, you look like someone who might be able to make something out of this shithole world we now live in. Things weren't always this bad, so maybe we could fix it. So what are you going to do about it?

Game Overview

Apocalypse World, from the twisted and brilliant mind of Vincent Baker, is my new favourite game. Excuse me for being overenthusiastic for a moment, but if I had to describe the game in one word it would be evocative. Everything from the art to the rules to the examples are simple and bare bones yet brimming with ideas and potential. It's one of those games that really emphasises letting the players loose and seeing what happens. The way I'd describe the game in terms of tone and setting is if Sons of Anarchy became the apocalypse out of Book of Eli by way of Children of Men. By which I mean to say that everything is bleak and brutal, but it's done in such an awesome fashion that you don't care.

The game's core mechanic requires two six-sided dice. When using a Move (any action requiring a mechanical resolution) , roll, add or subtract modifiers and find the total. A 10+ means you've succeeded, congrats! A 7-9 is still a success, but often not as good and usually with strings attached. A 6 or less is a miss, which might not necessarily mean you've failed but there will certainly be consequences you have to deal with.

The game really places a lot of focus on the cost of your actions. While everything is more than a little bit bleak, what with the end of civilisation and all, the PCs can make things better. Heck, Retire to Safety is one of the goals you can achieve over the sessions. However, pretty much everything, including pretty much every successful action, has a trade-off. It's not an adversarial game, it's one where the Master of Ceremonies is told to say “Yes, but...” a lot.

I also can't talk about Apocalypse World without mentioning the Playbooks. Part character creation guidelines, part character sheet. They're printed out in a sort of brochure form, called Tri-Form, and have all the info you need to make your character and even have an awesome picture on the front. As well as the 11 found in the book, there are a whole bunch of supplementary ones, some from Vincent Baker and some made by the fan community. Some you can get by backing RPG projects, others trading with fellow fans and some will give them in exchange for tasks, like swapping the Faceless for a photo of you wearing a mask or the Grotesque for doing an act of charity. And hey, if you're a player, you're in luck! Leave a comment on this page or another with your email address and I'll send you a playbook out of my repertoire (I have all the official ones plus a few of the fan made ones like the Juggernaut, Tribal, Witch, Spectacle and so on).

The Character

Step 1) Select a Playbook

In Apocalypse World, each character belongs to a fairly strong archetype, whether they're the guy who is really good at shooting things dead (Gunlugger), the person who runs shit (Hardholder), the person who gets shit done (Operator), the creepy dude with psychic powers (Brainer) and so on. These are the Playbooks that I described above. They contain all the info required to create your character and double as a handy and awesome looking character sheet. Only one member of each playbook can be present in a game.

I'm going to be creating a Savvyhead. Savvyheads are the tinkerers, gadgeteers and tech genius. They're all quite odd people, but in a world where everything is on the verge of breaking all the damn time you're going to want one around.

Step 2) Pick a Name

When I said they contain all the info required to create your character, I wasn't joking. Each playbook has a list of Names you can pick from. If, like me, you're someone who struggles to come up with names for your characters, this is a real godsend. There's obviously nothing stopping you from coming up with your own name, but when you have options like Sundown, Proust and Ada Loveless, why the heck would you want to?

So, looking over the Savvyhead's list of names, I'm going to go with Lemieux. It's French, awesome sounding and has a first name as last name thing going on, which I like.

Step 3) Choose Your Look

They also have a list of things to describe how your character looks! Some of the features depend on the playbook, but there are generally a couple of common characteristics.

First, there's your Gender. What I like about this bit is that Transgressing and Ambiguous are options for all characters. I'm going to be boring, however, and pick Female. Lemieux is going to be a crazy old French lady who is good at fixing things. Well, crazy and middle aged, but looking a lot older than she should.

Next up is her Fashion and I'm picking Utility Wear Plus Tech. Lemieux can never been seen without a harness and baggy overalls with shitloads of pockets.

She also has an Open Face and Calm Eyes, always looking fairly serene for a person living in a post apocalyptic wasteland. She can often be seen staring off into the distance, as if she's not quite there. Don't worry, she's incredibly perceptive and is definitely paying attention to everything around her.

Finally, her body is wiry. She's not particularly muscular, but she doesn't seem to need help lugging her equipment around, despite having the general appearance of a 60-year-old. Her somewhat baggy clothing and plethora of tools can often obscure this.

Step 4) Pick Your Stats

Apocalypse World has five Stats, which are modifiers you use when performing Moves, the game's basic actions. Each stat has one or two moves linked to it. Cool is what you use when Acting Under Fire, which includes performing actions like sneaking into an enemy camp, having a conversation without undesirables overhearing or defusing a bomb. Getting a 7-9 means you either succeed at what you're doing or get away with it, but not both. Hard is what you use when Going Aggro, which is getting people to do what you want by threatening violence (and importantly following through with said threat if they don't do it) and Seize By Force, which is when there's no time for threats and you just want to kill/beat the shit out of/conquer your opponents. Sharp is used for Reading a Sitch and Reading a Person. In both cases, you roll and a success lets you ask the Master of Ceremonies a question from a list about the person or situation like 'What is my enemy's true position?' or 'What does this person really want?'. Hot is what you use to Seduce or Manipulate someone, which means getting them to do something with strings attached. Finally, there's Weird, which you use to Open Your Brain, specifically to the psychic maelstrom. This can provide you insight and new information about the current situation, but it also lets the GM ask you questions that can later come back to haunt you.

Each playbook has an array of four stat combinations, with one stat generally being +2 (the one they're most likely to use) and the rest ranging from +2 to -2. For Lemieux I'm going to pick the following: Cool +1, Hard +1, Hot -1, Sharp =0, Weird +2. All Savvyheads are a little bit weird.

Step 5) Pick Your Moves

The moves I mentioned above are the Basic Moves that every character gets access to. Each playbook also has its own moves, some being simple stat bonuses, others letting you do cool things like read minds, give other characters XP for helping you, having just the right tool for the job or leading a bikie gang.

I get to choose two Savvyhead Moves for Lemieux. The first one is going to be Oftener Right. She's a wise lady and when people come to her for advice and then take said advice, they take +1 Forward, which means they get a +1 bonus to a move later. The second will be Reality's Fraying Edge. A part of her workspace is an antenna to the world's psychic maelstrom and lets her use the Augury ability, available to a few characters. You roll, adding weird and a success can then let you manipulate the maelstrom, pulling, isolating or inserting information. It can backfire quite nastily if you're not careful.

Step 6) Select Your Gear

Every character has a list of Gear they get to pick from. Everyone will have a few Oddments of Barter, bits and pieces of scrounged goods and stuff that serves as an abstract currency. It might be a few pieces of jewellery, some batteries, a bushel of food, pretty much anything you can trade. 1 Barter is about a month's living expenses and usually the going rate for a playbook appropriate job, such as a week's maintenance of fiddly and delicate tech in my case. Lemieux starts off with 3 Barter worth of stuff.

I also get to dictate my personal fashion, which I outlined about in the Look step. Some characters get to have fashion worth 1 or 2 Armour, which obviously reduces damage by the listed amount. 1 armour could be a heavy jacket, armoured corset or anything sturdy, but 2 armour is quite decidedly armour, even if it's made of old street signs. Unfortunately, I don't get any.

I also get to pick three pieces of ordinary gear, specifically weapons. Taking a look at the list, I'm going to grab a Crowbar, which does 2 harm, is a Hand weapon and has the Messy tag, a non-mechanical descriptor meaning it makes a lot of racket and might cause some collateral damage. I'll also pick up a Shotgun, which does 3 harm, is Close in range and also messy.

Step 7) Details

Most characters have some bits and bobs that define them other than their moves and other stuff The Hocus has their cult, the Battlebabe her custom weapons, the Operator a bunch of gigs and so on.

My Savvyhead has a Workspace, which I can use to make new and exciting things. I think I'll set it in the burned out remains of an old mechanic's called Wrenne's Fixins. The way it works is that I tell the Master of Ceremonies what I want to make and they say 'Yes, but...” and create conditions, which could be everything from 'It will be expensive to make' to 'You'll need x character's help' to 'the best you'll be able to make is an unreliable, crappy version'. I also get to select three features of my workspace. The first two are going to be Machining Tools and a Junkyard of Raw Materials. The final feature, A Controlled Growing Environment will be special. It's Lemieux's antenna to the psychic maelstrom, a room that's full of mutated wheat and covered in potted plants. When she walks through it, her hands running over the plants, she can access the maelstrom.

I guess this section would be a good point to mention the Special, a move that every playbook has that involves sleeping with someone, be it NPCs or another character. Everyone gets a different benefit (or in some cases penalty), from the Chopper giving people a greater understanding of who they are to the Driver suffering penalties until they prove they haven't been, like, tied down man. I know some people are leery of this element, but I figure if the actual act is dealt with in a 'fade to black' manner the moves themselves are a great source of story potential, In the Savvyhead's case, she gets to emulate a Savvyhead move Things Speak, which normally works on objects, when she sleeps with someone, PC or NPC. This lets me ask three questions, including what emotions they're feeling and certain elements of their past. Incredibly handy and also good for drama.

Step 8) Work out Hx and Highlight Stats

Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to do this step properly since I would need a group for this. The idea is that all the characters, even if they're not friends, have at least worked together. The Hx stat (it stands for History) determines how well you know another character. Not necessarily like, but know. You can then roll Hx whenever you're trying to help or interfere with that character, giving them a +1 or -2 to their roll respectively if you succeed. Note, that Hx scores can differ between the same characters. I might have a +3 with my friend's Gunlugger, but they might have a -1 with me. These numbers can fluctuate throughout play for a number of reasons, primarily healing or harming the other PCs, both of which gives them a +1 on their Hx towards you (remember, it's not how much they like you, it's how well they know you).

Most characters will probably have a -1 to Hx with Lemieux because she's a bit odd. I also have -1 to whatever anyone else tells me my Hx with them is because Savvyheads are also fairly self-absorbed, the exception being whoever I think is the biggest potential problem with whom I get +1 to whatever number they tell me.

Once you've determined everyone's Hx, you then pick the player of the character with the highest Hx on your sheet and ask them to highlight one of the five stats. You then ask the Master of Ceremonies to highlight another. Whenever you roll either of those stats, you mark experience and when you've marked experience five times you get to choose a new benefit, which includes improving your stats, getting a gang or holding or new moves. This is the main way by which you advance, alongside your Hx with another character reaching + or -4, while some playbooks have moves that help you or others do so as well.

The Finished Product

Lemieux

Cool +1, Hard +1, Hot -1, Sharp =0, Weird +2

Oftener Right, Reality's Fraying Edge

3 Barter, Crowbar (2 harm, Hand, Messy), Shotgun (3 harm, Close, Messy)

Wrenne's Fixins (A Junkyard of Old Materials, Controlled Growing Environment, Machining Tools)

How I'd Run It

I'm hoping to run a campaign of this in the very near future! I'm not doing too much planning because, as I said before, the idea is to come up with a couple of basic ideas, let the players go wild and then run with it.

New Year's Resolutions

2012-01-06T18:08:00.001-08:00

No, this isn't a post on a game about the New Years, although I'm sure there's potential there for a story game (that or a great basis for a session of Baron Munchausen). It's now 2012, I've been at this for a few months and I've looked back at what I've achieved so far. I'm pleasantly surprised with the readership the blog has had, even if you set aside my Song of Ice and Fire entry that a friend linked on Reddit which accumulated several hundred views. For those of you that have commented, thank you so much for your feedback and support. Once again, if you have any criticisms, suggestions, queries or requests, do not hesitate to bring them up.

I have been a bit lax of late. I only managed to get one entry done in the whole month of December and while it was certainly a busy period for me I'd like to prevent that happening again. I also want to try and make things just a teensy bit more polished in general.

With that in mind, here are a few resolutions for Light of Play for the year ahead:

1) At least one new post per week (don't worry, this one doesn't count).
2) Put some kind of link to more information on the game I'm covering in the post. I've retroactively done this for all my past entries.
3) Work on my writing. Glancing back at my work so far I do a fair bit of wincing at some of the errors and redundancies I've missed.

Once again, thank you for reading and I hope you have a wonderful year of gaming ahead!

Fortune's Fool

2012-01-06T04:04:00.000-08:00

Game Premise

Your fate is in the cards.

Finally, the European dark ages are being pushed back by the light of reason and knowledge in an age that would later become known as the Renaissance. From the canals of Venice to the British Isles to the cold plains of Muscovy to the court of the Goblin Sultan in the Middle East, a new thirst for knowledge has taken hold of the continent (or at least a thirst for knowledge how best to defeat your opponent on the battlefield). With the widespread adoption of the firearm destroying the supremacy of the knight on horseback and the new, burgeoning middle-class taking advantage of theirearned monetary power and influence, the medieval social order is falling by the wayside. Even religion isn't immune, with the halfling cleric Martin Luther nailing his famous 95 Theses on the door of a church in Wuttenburg leading to the Protestant Reformation.

However, in this day and age it is not steel, knowledge, sorcery or coin that is the most powerful force, but fortune. Its fickle whims rule all, merchant or noble, commoner or king, priest or sorceror. No matter where you begin in life, you could be destined for greatness or cast aside and forgotten.

Game Overview

Fortune's Fool is a game of Renaissance fantasy set in a Europe filled with fantasy races and just a hint of magic. Despite these changes, history has panned out pretty much the same as in our world, with the one pretty major exception being the sinking of the Greek Peninsula after the Persian Wars (Xerxes was a sore loser). However, while the setting and background are one of the game's two defining features, in this case it's not necessarily the most important one. For mechanical resolution, Fortune's Fool uses a tarot deck instead of dice.

There are several games that use non-die methods of mechanical resolution instead of dice, but as far as I know Fortune's Fool is the first one to use a tarot deck (it's not going to be the only one for long. House of Cards is slated to be coming out this year). The following explanation of the core mechanic is going to be a bit hard if you don't know the ways a tarot deck is different from an ordinary deck of cards, so follow the link for a good explanation. So, the way it works is that you'll have a numerical rating in a skill, let's say 6. You can then succeed in a couple of ways. First, you can draw a Minor Arcana with a number less than or equal to the skill. The suit of the card is very important. If it's one of your Fortune Smiles suits, then you succeed quite solidly. If, on the other hand it's a suit where Fortune Frowns, you only succeed by the skin of your teeth. Then there's the major arcana. Each of these are designated for you as either Fortune Shines or Fortune Weeps. Draw the former, succeed magnificently, draw the latter and you fail with equal magnificence. The cards Tower, Death, Fortune's Wheel and The Fool all have their own special effects.

The one issue I have with this game is that it treads a very fine line in some cases. Pretty much exactly as I expected the stereotypically savage races, the orcs and goblins, are all from the East, originally hailing from Russia and the Middle East respectively. It's also one of the few modern games with gender given a mechanical weighting, with men having slightly better social status but women being more perceptive and lucky. Maybe it's a knee-jerk reaction but I'm always a little leery of gender mechanics.

The Character

Step 1) Choose Your Character's Race

Fortune's Fool's version of Europe is heavily populated by fantasy races. Humans still dominate and the Renaissance is specifically noted as being the age marking their rise after the Empires of the elves (everything went a bit bad for them after an elven governor put this Jewish rabble-rouser to death and a few days later every elf went sterile forever), but dwarves, elves, halflings, goblins and orcs can still be found all over Europe. Race determines your base stats as well as a few starting skills and your religion choices later on.

I'm actually really inspired by the Page of Swords picture on pg 68, so the concept I have in mind is a halfling highlander, large for a person of his kind, big sword in hand. Therefore, my race is going to be Halfling.

Let's take a look at what halflings get. Their base scores are as follows, keeping in mind a 5 is human average: Agility (Reflex/Hand-eye coordination) 6, Body (Physical Strength) 4, Heart (will and discipline) 6, Perception (five senses and insight) 7, Status (Respect within society) 4, Martial (Combat Ability) 0. Don't worry about the low Martial score, it's ranked differently with the maximum possible score being 7 (other abilities can go up to 12) and all races starting out from 0-2.

My race also determines which suits of cards benefit me or ruin me. Fortune Smiles whenever I draw Cups or Swords and Fortune Frowns when I draw Pentacles or Wands.

Next up, time to pick from a list of Skills. Skills give you access to areas of competency. Some will even give you bonuses to later things in the character creation system like determining your wealth. I'm going to pick Culinary Skills, because what good halfling doesn't know their stuff about food, even ones from the British Isles? It's a Heart skill, which means whenever I want to do something using the skill I draw from the deck and hope I beat my Heart score (currently 6).

Apparently halflings have -1 Movement for foot speed purposes only, so I'll note that down.

Step 2) Choose Your Character's Gender

Like I said before, in Fortune's Fool a character's gender has mechanical effects with men having higher Status but women being luckier. My highlander is going to be Male, which right off the bat gives me +1 Status. It also gives me a choice of a skill, I'm going to take Running, which has the side benefit of +1 Movement for foot speed, making me fast for a halfling.

Step 3) Choose Your Character's Size

Now we have a step where our character's Size, relative to the average height of their race, gives us mechanical advantages and disadvantages. I think the relative aspect is a nice touch. Smaller characters are comparatively faster and luckier, with larger characters being stronger. Since my halfling is supposed to be a burly warrior by the standards of his race, I think I'll make him Large, which for a halfling probably puts him somewhere close to 4.5 ft. This reduces my Agility by -1, but also increases my Body by +1. It also gives me my first Fortune Shines arcana. Whenever I make a test, drawing Emperor or Strength is now a good thing for me.

Step 4) Choose Your Character's Age

Once again, Age is a relative stat, what with some races living hundreds of years and others lucky to make it a few decades (elves skip this step, since they're ageless). This step alters our stats, gives out a few fortune shines and also gives a few freebie skills to pick from. I think I want my hafling highlander to have been around for a bit, so I'm making him Middle Aged. This reduces his Agility and Perception by -1 each, but gives him a +1 to Body and Heart and a +2 to Status. I get an additional fortune shines in the form of the Hierophant and later on I'll get 4 Skill Expertise Points to spend.

Step 5) Choose Your Character's Birthright

The Renaissance was a time where the order of your birth had a major effect on the direction you would be pushed in life. Elder siblings got pushed into taking over the family business (whether that was a trade or title), while younger siblings were pushed towards advantageous marriages and diversified jobs like the military or clergy. Being orphaned or a bastard made things incredibly difficult, making you something of a social pariah by default no matter how lordly your origins. I'm going to make my halfling the Eldest Child of five siblings. He gets a +1 to Heart and Martial as well as a +2 to Status, but a -1 to Perception for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. I also get a pick of two skills. The first will be Language (French), picked up from time as a mercenary (although he speaks with an atrocious accent) and the second will be Intimidation. He may be a short man but he's a short man with a lot of presence.

Step 6) Choose Your Character's Native Environment

People tended to stay put those many centuries ago and the kind of environment you grew up in helped determine what kind of skills you possessed. The Scottish highlands sound like the Country to me, which nets me another +1 to Body, the Hermit, Sun and Judgement as fortune shines and the pick of another skill. I'm going to make an unusual pick and go with Demolitions, because a halfling highlander who knows a bit about destroying fortifications with gratuitous amounts of gunpowder could only make the game more fun, right?

Step 7) Choose Your Character's Social Class

Physical mobility was not the only form of mobility that was restricted. If you were rich, you'd stay rich, if you were poor, you were even more certain to stay poor. However, we do see the beginnings of the middle class, skilled professionals who carve out a place in society with cold hard cash. No social glory for me, however, my country halfling hails from the Peasantry. This gives him a +1 to Body but also a -2 to Status. I get fortune shines with The Hanged Man and I'd have also gotten the sun and strength but I already have those. I now get four skill picks. From the first group I'm going to take Driver (can handle a team of horse or oxen) and Swimming and from the second group Climbing and Tracking, a good set of physical skills.

At this stage I think I'll pick a name, since there's no formal step. I dub my highlander Cade McThorngage, a nice Scottish twist on my favourite halfling name from Dungeons and Dragons. The Thorngages have been warriors ever since they raided their way onto the British mainland from Ireland centuries ago.

Step 8) Choose Your Character's Religion

The final big societal pillar of this period was religion. What you worshipped and how could greatly affect your relations with others. This was a time of great religious upheaval thanks to the Protestant reformation and Christianity and Islam are still glaring angrily at each other across the Aegean. Each race has a list of religions they get to pick from and as a halfling I can be Catholic, Jewish, Pagan or Protestant. I'm going to pick the last one because it's the dominant religion of Scotland in the era and also popular with halflings (Martin Luther was one, after all). While other religions give you stat or skill bonuses, all being Protestant gives you is a large number of Fate Twists, four specifically, which I will explain in their own step.

Since I can't get any more fortune shines, I should note at this point everything that isn't a fortune shines is now a fortune weeps for me, which counts for just over half the major arcana.

Step 9) Increase One Selected Primary Statistic

A simple step here, take one of my primary stats and increase by +1 (with the exception of Martial). I'm tempted to increase my Body here, but that's already quite high and my Agility has taken a beating throughout the process, so I'm going to add +1 to that.

Since this is the last step for modifying stats, I'm going to tally up the changes and see what I've ended up with. Agility 5; Body 8; Heart 8; Perception 5; Status 7; Martial 1. A fairly solid array, I'm quite sturdy both physically and mentally, even beyond halfling standards. It's a shame increasing Martial is so difficult.

Step 10) Determine Secondary Statistics

Now, using our primary statistics, we can determine our secondary stats. Dodge (avoiding attacks), is equal to Agility for 5. Hand Attack is equal to half Body plus Martial for 5 and similarly Ranged Attack is half Perception plus Martial (rounded down) for 3. Movement (in this game it represent an abstract number of 'strides') is average of Body and Agility for 6 . Initiative and Stealth are both average of Agility and Perception for 5. Finally, Hit Points are Body tripled plus Heart, giving me a nice, solid total of 32.

Step 11) Calculate Skill Draws and Spend Skill Expertise

This is the bit where I calculate the number I need to draw to succeed of the skills I have picked in the previous steps and then spend the Skill Expertise points I gained back in Step 4 to give bonuses to those skills. I'm not going to bore you with calculating every single skill individually here, so if you want you can just skip ahead to the end to see the values. Most skill draws are either equal to a stat or an average of two stats, so for example my Culinary skill is equal to my Heart score of 8.

Spending my Skill Expertise gives me a +1 to draws per point I sink in. You know what, I'm just going to dump all four points into Demolitions, raising it from 5 (it's based on Perception) to a massive 9. I'm really good with explosives!

Step 12) Determine Your Character Wealth Level

I get to use the Tarot deck for this one! Your Wealth Level is an abstract quality divided into tiers ranging from Destitute to Absurd. Goods and services fit into each of these tiers and if your wealth level is at least that high you can easily afford it. If you're one level lower you might still be able to get it, but not as good a quality.

The way wealth level is determined is by figuring out Cade's modified Status and comparing it to the table. First, we take my Status score of 7. I unfortunately lack any skills that give me a bonus to my wealth level like Forgery, Sailing or Merchant. I then make a Fate test. If I get a fortune smiles or shines, I'll get a bonus, a fortune frowns will stay the same and a fortune weeps will give me a penalty. I draw a 5 of Wands, which is sadly a fortune frowns, so I get no bonus, but on the upside no penalty. With a modified Status of 7, this means Cade's wealth level is Middle Class.

Step 13) Select Martial Skills

I now have to pick a number of Martial Skills equal to my Martial score, bonuses and maneuvers that can be used in combat. Since that's one I only get to pick one. I want to use a Broadsword, but it needs a minimum Martial score of 2 to use effectively. Thus, I'm going to put my skill into Basic Weapon Training (Broadsword), which lets me use it without penalty. I'm a bit sad I can't pick any of the cooler stuff, but that's what I get for picking a race that isn't martially inclined.

Step 14) Determine Your Character's Fate Twists and Starting Fate Pool

Fate Twists are ways I can alter the drawing of the deck during the game. I spend a Fate Point and can then use a number of tricks. The way I determine what twists I have is I draw a number of cards from the deck equal to the fate twists I get from my religion, 4, and if I draw a fortune shines I get to draw an extra one.

My first draw is The Empress, which gives me the fate twist which gives me House of Motherhood, allowing me to spend a fate point, pick either the Empress or High Priestess and have the GM find them and shuffle them into the top five cards. Won't help me, but could be useful for an ally. Next up is the Page of Swords, giving me Ill Omen, which has a similar effect to the previous twist except with the Death card and the top three in the deck. Death is one of the four special cards and when it shows up generally someone is going to meet their maker. 9 of Pentacles is my next draw, giving me Deja Vu, forcing the GM to grab the last discarded card and shuffle it into the top five. Sadly, I also draw the 9 of Cups, netting me no extra twists.

My starting Fate Pool is equal to the number of Fate Twists I was able to draw, in my case 4.

Step 15) Pick Your Character's Gear

Now using my Middle Class wealth level I pick relevant adventuring gear for Cade. He's considered to have the standard trappings and clothing befitting his station. I'm going to grab him a Broadsword and a High Quality Lantern, but apart from that nothing in the equipment section really draws my attention. Shame they have no explosives kit.

Interesting sidenote! If you use equipment from beyond your wealth level, even if it's a gift, all your draws using it become Black Double Draws, meaning you draw two cards and pick the worse one. Fate doesn't like it when you have ideas above your station, it seems.

Step 16) Customise Fortune Structure (Optional)

This one lets me reduce me fate pool to draw new twists and various other things, but I'm happy with all that, so I'll skip this step. And with that we're done!

The Finished Product

Cade McThorngage

Large Male Halfling

Age: Middle Aged

Birthright: Firstborn

Environment: Country

Social Class: Peasantry

Religion: Protestant

Wealth Level: Middle Class

Primary Statistics: Agility 5; Body 8; Heart 8; Perception 5; Status 7; Martial 1

Secondary Statistics: Dodge 5; Hand Attack 5; Ranged Attack 3; Movement 6; Intiative 5; Stealth 5; Hit Points 32

Fortune Smiles: Cups, Swords

Fortune Frowns: Pentacles, Wands

Fortune Shines: Emperor, Hierophant, Hanged Man, Judgement, Hermit, Strength, Sun

Skills: Climbing 7, Culinary 8, Demolitions 9, Driver 6, Intimidation 7, Swimming 7, Tracking 5

Languages: English, French

Literate? No

Fate Twists: Deja Vu, House of Motherhood, Ill Omen

Fate Pool: 4

Gear: Broadsword, High Quality Lantern

How I'd Run It

The game suggests two broad ways to run Fortune's Fool. The first is cleaving to a specific point in history, examining the ramifications of fantastic elements on the Renaissance period. The second is treating it as a big anachronistic melting pot, hi-fiving Shakespeare one session and tagging along for a roadtrip to Jerusalem to beat up the heathens the next. I have to admit, despite history being a thing I know rather well I'm inclined to go with the second option, because all the strongly thematic aspects of this period tend to get represented in quite an ahistorical fashion anyway.