tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39416389428419656642024-03-05T01:33:42.667-08:00Groove PitMatt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-72784702610122200222010-02-17T10:15:00.000-08:002010-02-17T16:35:35.059-08:00Geiger Counter plans for C2E2So, a couple months from now, <a href="http://templaraz.com/">the wife</a> and I have got like four webcomics friends staying with us for Chicago's brand new comics convention, <a href="http://www.c2e2.com/">C2E2</a>. Naturally, a captive audience--especially a bunch of artists--makes me want to do some kind of one-shot RPG thing.<br /><br />Since we're not going to have a lot of time, that means either pre-gen characters or a zero-prep game, and I don't really dig pre-gen. The zero-prep game that immediately came to mind was <a href="http://www.lumpley.com/wicked.html"><em>In a Wicked Age</em></a>--someting I love the hell out of, but have <em>still</em> barely even played--but then I thought of one that I haven't gotten to play at all: Jonathan Walton's <a href="http://bleedingplay.wordpress.com/geiger/"><em>Geiger Counter</em></a>.<br /><br />The deal with <em>Geiger Counter</em> is that it simulates the sort of movie where most of the characters are killed off, one by one, until finally a few survivors maybe escape or defeat the threat. Something like <em>Alien</em> or <em>Nightmare on Elm Street</em>, generally. Maybe it's because a friend of mine has been screening cheesy monster movies for fun and derision, but that just sounds completely awesome, right now.<br /><br />I've got a few plans on how to enhance the game with additional coolness, too.<br /><br />One of the coolest parts of <em>Geiger Counter</em> is the fact that all the players get to come up with the setting, the tone, and--best of all--the monster for their movie. Just in case we need a little inspiration, I grabbed whole mess of plot keywords from <a href="http://www.imdb.com/">IMDB</a>, added some custom stuff, and threw them into <a href="http://www.random-generator.com/">Abulafia</a>. I think the <a href="http://www.random-generator.com/index.php?title=Geiger_Counter_plot_seeds">resulting generator</a> actually works pretty well. Almost every time I hit refresh, this thing suggests a perfectly believable movie to me. Like this:<br /><br />• Africa<br />• Human Sacrifice<br />• Eclipse<br />• Egg<br />• Desert<br />• Space Travel<br /><br />Or this...<br /><br />• Full Moon<br />• Giant Bug<br />• Mental Institution<br />• Surgery<br />• Old West<br />• Whispering<br /><br />Or this!<br /><br />• Serial Killer<br />• Book<br />• Bones<br />• River<br />• Small Town<br />• Exsanguination<br /><br />Anyway, I think I'll only bring this thing out if people are having trouble coming up with an idea by themselves.<br /><br />Another extremely cool aspect of <em>Geiger Counter</em> is the idea that, as you make up characters for your horror movie, you can actually <em>cast</em> them all, choosing Hollywood actors who seem appropriate. I love the hell out of this, and I intend to make it easy by producing a pile of cards with photos of various character actors on them. This will probably be a real pain in the ass to produce, but it's definitely something I could use for a whole lot of different games (<a href="http://www.dog-eared-designs.com/games.html"><em>Primetime Adventures</em></a>, for example!), so I figure it's worthwhile.<br /><br />Finally, I already happen to have an <em>ungodly</em> huge collection of movie soundtracks--with a particular focus on just the kind of movie that <em>Geiger Counter</em> sets out to emulate--so I'd be a fool not to make a quick playlist and just leave iTunes playing the whole time.<br /><br />If all goes as planned, this ought to be pretty cool.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-37379275159154826082010-02-11T21:44:00.000-08:002010-04-14T07:41:35.958-07:00[dream blog] The Hug<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE2E9g9GViZRF7-PuKkM_oWIZmwEqyBcboH47wuwbkqqCju1oHl2evfuqqYhb-ckipU-Vkrj9ZdrfQBfcfukH9X2e7UaFlvkjtoMyXzBo3vmRE2TUGWj64yqt1l2ucJv43lAc4Jz9jyalN/s1600-h/dubai-international-airport.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE2E9g9GViZRF7-PuKkM_oWIZmwEqyBcboH47wuwbkqqCju1oHl2evfuqqYhb-ckipU-Vkrj9ZdrfQBfcfukH9X2e7UaFlvkjtoMyXzBo3vmRE2TUGWj64yqt1l2ucJv43lAc4Jz9jyalN/s320/dubai-international-airport.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5437229214067749474" /></a>I was working in a spacious, swooping, almost airport-like place made of glass and steel. It had workstations for just a few people with no cubicles or walls separating them, just a lot of open space. It was the kind of unreal, inefficient space they use to shoot business-related stock photography. I think it might have been the workspace that came with some kind of hotel suite, rather than a regular office building.<br /><br />The walls were all glass, and I'd been seeing strange vehicles drifting through the sky in the distance. Sci-fi stuff. Big, unwieldy metal things with no obvious means of staying aloft. I couldn't believe it. I kept watching them sail over the city, waiting to wake up or to see the strings or to hear about some movie being filmed, or an advertising stunt. I checked around on the Internet, and all I found was more evidence that these things were new, but completely real.<br /><br />Then there was an explosion outside, and flames in the distant city. One of those air vehicles had crashed, or been shot down, or maybe launched some kind of attack on the city below.<br /><br />Someone told me about a scientist who'd made a prediction years ago that explained all of this. I think I'd heard of it, too, but written it off as crazy futurist stuff, like almost everything said about the "singularity" towards which our technological development is supposedly heading.<br /><br />He called it--and this was probably the name of his book or his Wired article or whatever--"The Hug". This was the phenomenon of a single naturally-occurring machine intelligence--a thing just born out there in the primordial soup of infinite information and escalating computing power--awakening to self awareness and grabbing ahold of every computer into which it can transmit its message.<br /><br />The upshot of all this, or course, was that the entire human race was in a lot of trouble. Maybe not tonight, or even this year, but soon. And things were going to change fast. I wondered if I should unplug all the computers in the office. I wondered if the world was going to turn into that Stephen King movie, <span style="font-style:italic;">Maximum Overdrive</span>, with cars and ATMs rebelling murderously against humanity. I wondered if some of that sci-fi technology that had apparently been released onto the market just ahead of the Hug could be helpful against it. Could I get a ray gun? Would it be effective against killer robots?<br /><br />Surely everything would turn out okay. Surely someone would figure something out.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-25485556798418698772009-06-11T19:59:00.000-07:002009-06-11T20:16:09.779-07:00[RPGs] Judd's "Make Your Own New Crobuzon" memeJudd Karlman had an <a href="http://judd-sonofbert.livejournal.com/464265.html">awesome idea</a> about how to create a <em>D&D</em> setting that attempts to achieve the same kind of polyglot fantasy metropolis weirdness and anthropological complexity of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Mi%C3%A9ville">China Miéville</a>'s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Crobuzon">New Crobuzon</a>. Naturally, being a giant pervert for setting creation, I had to give it a try.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:1.5em;font-weight:bold;">The Maw</span><br /><br />Located on a lush jungle island well-situated near several major trade lanes, the Maw is a vertical city built into the igneous walls of a dead volcano's throat, crossing it in places with spidery bridges. The city extends so deeply that most of it rarely sees sunlight. Its positioning makes it a perfect center of trade between the civilizations of the surface world, and those of the labyrinthine lands beneath. The primary citizen races are humans (ever the most ambitious of the surface races) and dwarves (the subterranean race humans are most comfortable dealing with).<br /><br /><span style="font-size:1.5em;font-weight:bold;">Minor races</span><br /><br /><strong>Goblins</strong> - Most of the local archipelago is controlled by a small empire of jungle goblins. They are confident, organized, and as hairless and brightly-colored as poisonous frogs. All three goblin subraces live and work together with no acknowledged distinctions. The Maw is a completely separate political entity from the goblin empire--the Strand of Jewels--but a large number of goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears have made their home in the city, attracted by the foreign wealth it offers, and eager to wield whatever political and business connections they might have throughout the archipelago to carve themselves a piece of it. For the most part, they've set themselves up as middlemen and facilitators in surface-underworld trade, storing good, changing money, and arranging transport from the island's teeming ports. They also have a substantial stake in local organized crime.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh7BZ-pWIFNl19Ea41nW7iqWwpdxUTkyAGZkO_7aAtibLePTKeQXwR5BQhFF_FJD461dLoApHFRwSmcUcj-xXOFLNA0v8PfSCJcpljLxf4V4iwHSYjSiAfONy8XScTYhuO8QRqsyyYznE0/s1600-h/umberhulk.jpg" class="image"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 280px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh7BZ-pWIFNl19Ea41nW7iqWwpdxUTkyAGZkO_7aAtibLePTKeQXwR5BQhFF_FJD461dLoApHFRwSmcUcj-xXOFLNA0v8PfSCJcpljLxf4V4iwHSYjSiAfONy8XScTYhuO8QRqsyyYznE0/s320/umberhulk.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5346274006042209554" /></a><strong>Umber hulks</strong> - A handful of quasi-civilized umber hulks--the descendants of slaves purchased from the drow and freed upon the death of their owner--live and work in the depths of the Maw. They're only barely sapient, incapable of vocal communication, stunningly dangerous, and subject to a number of repressive ordinances, but their tunneling ability puts even the dwarves to shame, and they've proven to be extremely useful members of the community. They're paid poorly, but as they do a tremendous amount of work and hardly ever seem to actually spend money, it's assumed that they must have a tremendous hoard of it, somewhere. Just what--if anything--they plan to do with it is one of the Maw's most widely speculated-upon mysteries.<br /><br /><strong>Homunculi</strong> - The combination of human arcane experimentation, strange materials from the underworld, and the wealth brought by extensive trade has given rise to generation after generation of increasingly advanced alchemical constructs. The humans purpose-grow them for a wide variety of jobs, from message-carrying and guard duty to bookkeeping and research assistance. While even the most intelligent homunculus cannot legally be a citizen of the Maw--in fact, they technically have fewer rights than the umber hulks--the smarter and more humanoid varieties tend to be considered people by most locals, and are almost universally trusted as honest and incorruptible despite the fact that most technically have free will. As homunculi take on ever-greater roles within the production of more homunculi, it's possible they could become a race in their own right. Some would say they're already there.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:1.5em;font-weight:bold;">Monsters</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPLZV-gBNqafv03dXOd-U8SBY0kSEruePzo5PmAI44iKnvApJ4M8qSkABxXRgXYJKcKC9ZuPZ-UJCrj8DFNFfjozddudC4Pl-ogZfF8qVr-FE2eC9G5qXy_YLv4gifOKnZcnjQcf17dzQq/s1600-h/aboleth.jpg" class="image"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPLZV-gBNqafv03dXOd-U8SBY0kSEruePzo5PmAI44iKnvApJ4M8qSkABxXRgXYJKcKC9ZuPZ-UJCrj8DFNFfjozddudC4Pl-ogZfF8qVr-FE2eC9G5qXy_YLv4gifOKnZcnjQcf17dzQq/s320/aboleth.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5346274570526213906" /></a><strong>Aboleths</strong> - Humans, dwarves, goblins make up the Maw's ruling council, but it's something of an open secret that a group of aboleths are pulling the strings. Just how much of their control is obtained through psychic domination and how much is simply the result of their having some very interesting artifacts to trade is uncertain. But if they have any kind of sinister agenda in mind for the city, it's apparently too slow and long-term for even the dwarves to notice. It's very possible that the whole Maw settlement was their idea in the first place, though, and it's apparent that they've got exactly the right blend of superhuman intelligence and utter ruthlessness to make a city like this work.<br /><br /><strong>Kruthiks</strong> - Several decades back, an incautious tunnel expansion in the depths of the Maw disturbed a massive kruthik hive. The hive was destroyed at great cost to the city's defenders, but more than half of the kruthiks escaped. Ever since, kruthik incursions and infestations have been a regular hazard in the Maw, particularly in the deeper regions. Affected neighborhoods have taken to hanging up kruthik corpses--preferably fresh ones--to ward off attacks. This has given rise to the erroneous belief that even a small part of a kruthik--say, a hatchling's mandible--made into a pendant will protect its wearer from them. In truth, such a small amount of kruthik deathscent is actually much more likely to attract their attention.<br /><br /><strong>The eidolon</strong> - In all of the Maw, the only organized resistance to the aboleths' rule comes from a cult of dwarves and humans who worship a rogue eidolon of tremendous power. This titanic, quasi-divine construct was unearthed in one of the Maw's farthest-reaching tunnel systems, and immediately seized control of the dwarven clan who discovered it. The eidolon is powerful enough to grant divine power to its followers, and to roam through the solid earth at will, avoiding detection by the city's authorities. The cult operates semi-secretly, with most of its members hiding their faith, but a few evangelists work openly to bring converts, in spite of the cult's outlaw status.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-53816590870554719642009-05-01T12:24:00.000-07:002009-06-20T21:07:54.957-07:00[RPGs] Skype SotC planning: Party stuffOkay, so what I'd like to do next is sort out just how the various player characters (or at least the initial group, since more might be showing up later) know each other.<br /><br />Right now, the characters we've got are a gun-slinging flapper, her German archaeologist husband, an educated sasquatch, and a feral swamp boy.<br /><br />My first instinct is to suggest that everybody be members of the Van Helsing Society, which I used in my last <em>SotC</em> game. Here's the quick summary I threw together for it probably over a year ago:<br /><br /><ul><li>founded by the young Quincey Abraham Harker (born between 1890 and 1897, should be in mid-40s in 1937, son of Jonathan and Mina) in honor of the late Abraham Van Helsing</li><br /><li>studies and hunts monsters both supernatural and human (serial killers, cultists)</li><br /><li>Some agents may themselves be touched by the paranormal (psychics, werewolves who've learned to control their curse, practitioners of magic, Tibetan yetis, Children of Set, etc.).</li><br /><li>follow Van Helsing's philosophy of understanding one's enemy</li><br /><li>secretive, believe the supernatural should be hidden from the public</li><br /><li>funded by donations from those they've helped, the personal fortunes of members, and loot taken from destroyed monsters</li><br /><li>recruit from talented people they seek out and from ordinary people who have had brushes with the supernatural in connection with the Society's cases</li><br /><li>headquarters in London, but local chapters based in many nations friendly to the British Empire</li></ul><br /><br />Also, H.P. Lovecraft (who officially died in 1936) is working for the Society's London chapter, researching pre-human civilizations.<br /><br />I think all four PCs could easily belong to the VHS. On the other hand, maybe it's just Sul's married couple who are Van Helsing investigators, and they end up investigating stuff in Hieronymus and Gator Boy's neck of the woods (the Florida Everglades, right?). Or, for that matter, Dagmar and Lee might be investigating on their own, and we could leave the Society out of it completely.<br /><br />The nice thing about having some organization behind the party, though, is that it gives us an easy way to introduce new characters and other handy stuff. Of course, if you guys want to just make up your own organization, that is totally cool.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-32080428987137159922009-04-24T22:15:00.000-07:002009-06-20T21:07:58.934-07:00[RPGs] Skype game character stuff<em>Spirit of the Century</em> is a pulp game. So its protagonists are generally at that pre-superhero level of capability, where they're fantastically capable in some specialized area, maybe even to a level that's effectively superhuman. And of course all kinds of crazy-ass backgrounds are totally possible. You can be an intelligent gorilla or an Atlantean awakened from suspended animation or . . . hell, we could probably figure out a way to do a robot or vampire, even. The game really is very flexible in a loose kinda way.<br /><br />Anyway, the basic component of a <em>SotC</em> character is their skill pyramid. That is, you've got one skill you're <em>really freaking great</em> at (that's the top of the pyramid), two you're just plain great at, and so on down to five that you're just average at (the base of the pyramid). 15 skills in total, chosen from this list:<br /><br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#academics">Academics</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#alertness">Alertness</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#art">Art</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#athletics">Athletics</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#burglary">Burglary</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#contacting">Contacting</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#deceit">Deceit</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#drive">Drive</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#empathy">Empathy</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#endurance">Endurance</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#engineering">Engineering</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#fists">Fists</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#gambling">Gambling</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#guns">Guns</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#intimidation">Intimidation</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#investigation">Investigation</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#leadership">Leadership</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#might">Might</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#mysteries">Mysteries</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#pilot">Pilot</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#rapport">Rapport</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#resolve">Resolve</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#resources">Resources</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#science">Science</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#sleight-of-hand">Sleight of Hand</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#stealth">Stealth</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#survival">Survival</a></li><li><a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#weapons">Weapons</a></li></ul>A few clarifications: "Academics" is a huge catch-all for history, linguistics, and all manner of soft sciences. "Contacting" is generally about who you know, the contacts you've got. "Empathy" is detecting lies and intentions. "Investigation" is searching for clues and doing forensics. "Mysteries" is sort of a catch all for magical stuff, but mostly in a typically pulp-like vein, so it's largely about hypnotic effects. "Rapport" is making friends an influencing people. "Resources" is about how much money or material support you have or can get access to. "Science" covers medicine as well as various research fields. "Survival" is wilderness survival, tracking, riding, stuff like that. "Weapons" means things with a shorter range than guns and arrows, but either throwable or long enough so that they give you some range.<br /><br />So, you can see how picking 15 such broad skills means you can be good at a whole lot of stuff. And <em>really crazy awesome</em> at a narrower bunch of stuff.<br /><br />But where things start getting really awesome, and really coming to life, is with the heart of the <em>Spirit of the Century</em> system: aspects. A character's aspects are basically just a list of ten things about that character. Almost any kind of thing: physical stuff, personality stuff, background stuff, relationships with other characters, signature possessions, running plot shticks, even catch phrases. Here's <a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#even-more-examples">a list of examples</a>, and you can also look at <a href="http://groovepit.blogspot.com/search/label/character">characters I've posted on this blog</a> for more (they're mostly <em>SotC</em> characters, if not all).<br /><br />Aspects make you better at doing whatever they logically suggest you ought to be good at. So if you've got a "Crusty Old Prospector" aspect, you can use that to get bonuses on rolls when you're trying to dig, look for water in the wilderness, appraise gold, and maybe even for stuff like drinking moonshine or driving strangers away from your property. The important limiting factor is that whenever you want an aspect to help you, you have to pay a "fate point".<br /><br />The thing that makes this really cool is where fate points come from: You get them by following your aspects when they lead you into trouble. So if your Crusty Old Prospector pisses off a friend by being cantankerous, or gets distracted by gold, you'd get fate points for your trouble. On the other hand, if you want him to overcome his natural inclinations, you've gotta <em>pay</em> a fate point, instead.<br /><br />So the game really rewards you for playing your character. And it's really important to make an <em>interesting</em> one, with foibles and weaknesses as well as strengths. Not only do they provide fate points, but they can really drive the game's plot.<br /><br />Now, the final element of a <em>SotC</em> character is their <a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html#id12">stunts</a>. These are like the feats of a <em>D&D</em> character: they let you break the rules in little ways, give you bonuses in specific situations, allow one of your skills to do more stuff than it normally does, give you things like allies, vehicles, or weapons, etc.<br /><br />...But the list of available stunts is <em>frigging huge</em>, and it can really bog down character creation. So, personally, I'm kind of leaning towards the idea of just skipping stunts all together, and maybe using <a href="http://evilhat.wikidot.com/stuntless-rules">this stuntless rule variant</a>. It just lets aspects do stunt-like stuff, and aspects are the coolest part of the system, anyway.<br /><br />Anyway, here's where everybody should post ideas and questions about all their character concepts, and we'll figure out a way to get all your dudes tied together.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-35705316577179746512009-04-24T06:30:00.000-07:002009-06-20T21:08:01.400-07:00[RPGs] Skype campaign planning!<img style="float:right; margin:0px 0px 10px 20px;" src="http://i41.tinypic.com/w82t6p.jpg" border="0" alt="Spirit of the Century cover" />Right, so I'm planning to run some kind of game via <a href="http://www.skype.com/">Skype</a> and probably <a href="http://www.rptools.net/">MapTool</a>. Weekends definitely make the most sense, and I'm leaning towards Saturday afternoons/evenings (Chicago time, anyway). The game? <a href="http://www.evilhat.com/home/sotc/"><em>Spirit of the Century</em></a>, because it's a damned great game, easy to learn, and should be very playable via Skype. Best of all, the rules are available <a href="http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html">for free</a>.<br /><br />...But there's a lot of different stuff we can do with <em>SotC</em>. Its default pulp mode is loads of fun, but people have hacked it for space opera, martial arts, and various flavors of fantasy (low magic stuff, generally). I think it could do a hell of a cool horror or post-apocalypse game, too.<br /><br />So here's where I ask my prospective players just what they want to play. (And I'm doing it in public because I don't have everybody's email address.) What are you guys interested in, genre-wise? What you be interested in in doing or being in the game? I'm kind of digging the idea of some sword and sorcery (or sword and planet!) stuff, or maybe a shady-adventurers-and-smugglers-in-a-spaceship thing in the vein of <em>Firefly</em>. Or crazy, cartoonish post-apocalypse like <em>Thundarr the Barbarian</em>, maybe. Something kind of simple is probably best, at least to start with. On the other hand, <em>SotC</em> makes social conflicts just as interesting and complicated as physical ones, so something involving a lot of debate, persuasion, and interrogation would totally work.<br /><br />I'm open to some format gimmicks, too. <em>SotC</em> has some cool stuff for running organizations (gangs, companies, armies, countries, whatever), so if you want to be the leaders of some kind of group or community, that's no problem. Also, if you want to play multiple characters in a troupe-style thing, that's cool, too.<br /><br />Hell, this is getting long. Okay, interested parties, just comment here and let me know what you're interested in doing. Also, what you think of playing on Saturday afternoons/evenings (time zone issues, blah blah)?Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-90236004981307717202009-04-20T10:26:00.000-07:002009-04-20T11:07:03.009-07:00[RPGs] Warriors & Warlocks character: Khal KonosSo lately I'm really excited about a recent <em>Mutants & Masterminds</em> supplement called "Warriors & Warlocks". It's a fairly brilliant guide to repurposing <em>M&M</em> for fantasy campaigns, specifically in the style of those old sword and sorcery comics you don't really see anymore. While, for the most part, you could <em>already</em> do all this with <em>M&M</em> (I've always said it's a generic system masquerading as a superhero game), Warriors & Warlocks offers lots of great suggestions and a few actual rules tweaks.<br /><br />Anyway, inspired largely by fellow <em>M&M</em> fan <a href="http://blog.microlite20.net/">Greywulf</a>, I am driven to create characters just for kicks, and then post them here to justify the time spent.<br /><br />My first W&W character is a semi-corrupted sorcerer antihero I'm calling Khal Konos. All his magic is ritual-based, but he's pretty good at that since he's a friggin genius and also a master of arcane lore. His magic won't help him when bandits ambush him in the night, but if he's got a chance to plan ahead--especially since he's also got the Master Plan feat--he should be pretty terrifyingly effective.<br /><br />He packs a falchion that he's pretty good with, but he mostly does his fighting with the Doom Hand, a taloned glove-thing made out of leather, bone, and volcanic glass. It projects a big, three-dimensional shadow hand that Khal can use to whittle away at his foes' life force (that is, their Constitution) from a short distance away. He also wears a suit of asymmetrical, scavenged-looking studded leather, but he's better at avoiding attacks than withstanding them.<br /><br />Finally, his eyes have been changed, enhanced, and made kind of disturbing lookin by some magical ritual. He can now see and read magical auras, as well as being able to see in the dark. Unfortunately, his eyes are solid black and the skin around them is weirdly scarred, so he normally wears a fierce terracotta mask over the top half of his face. Inevitably, though, either the mask or the eyes are going to make people suspicious and hostile from time to time, which I figure counts as a complication for purposes of picking up Hero Points.<br /><br />Man, I'd love to play this character in an actual game. The possibilities that come with the Ritualist feat are huge, so much so that I don't think you even really need any more magic system than that. Not for a sword and sorcery setting, anyway.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:1.5em;font-weight:bold;">Khal Konos</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:1.25em;font-weight:bold;">Power Level</span><br />Power Level: 6<br />Power Points: 90<br />Max Attack: 4<br />Max Defense: 8<br />Max Save DC: 8<br />Max Toughness: 4<br /><br /><span style="font-size:1.25em;font-weight:bold;">Abilities</span><br />STR: 12 (+1)<br />DEX: 10 (+0)<br />CON: 14 (+2)<br />INT: 20 (+5)<br />WIS: 12 (+1)<br />CHA: 12 (+1)<br /><br /><span style="font-size:1.25em;font-weight:bold;">Combat</span><br />Attack 0 (Melee 4, Ranged 0)<br />Defense 8 (4 flat-footed)<br />Initiative 0<br /><br /><span style="font-size:1.25em;font-weight:bold;">Saves</span><br />Toughness 4<br />Fortitude 5<br />Reflex 3<br />Will 5<br /><br /><span style="font-size:1.25em;font-weight:bold;">Skills</span><br />Bluff 4 (+5)<br />Climb 0 (+1)<br />Concentration 8 (+9)<br />Diplomacy 6 (+7)<br />Disable Device 4 (+9)<br />Disguise 0 (+1)<br />Escape Artist 0 (+0)<br />Gather Info 0 (+1)<br />Handle Animal 0 (+1)<br />Intimidate 0 (+1)<br />Investigate 4 (+9)<br />Knowledge: Arcane Lore 10 (+15)<br />Knowledge: History 6 (+11)<br />Knowledge: Tactics 4 (+9)<br />Medicine 4 (+5)<br />Notice 4 (+5)<br />Ride 6 (+6)<br />Search 6 (+11)<br />Sense Motive 6 (+7)<br />Stealth 4 (+4)<br />Survival 4 (+5)<br />Swim 0 (+1)<br /><br /><span style="font-size:1.25em;font-weight:bold;">Languages</span><br />Common (or whatever), some ancient tongue<br /><br /><span style="font-size:1.25em;font-weight:bold;">Feats</span><br />Attack Focus, Melee (4)<br />Fearless<br />Master Plan<br />Ritualist<br />Second Chance (vs. mind control effects)<br />Trance<br /><br /><span style="font-size:1.25em;font-weight:bold;">Powers</span><br />Super-Senses (detect magic, ranged, accurate, acute)<br />Super-Senses (vision counters darkness)<br />Device, hard to lose: Doom Hand (Drain Constitution +8, slow fade 1, extended reach 1)<br /><br /><span style="font-size:1.25em;font-weight:bold;">Equipment</span><br />studded leather armor (Protection +2)<br />falchion (Damage +4, mighty, improved critical 2)<br /><br /><span style="font-size:1.25em;font-weight:bold;">Complications</span><br />creepy damned eyes<br /><br /><span style="font-size:1.25em;font-weight:bold;">Summary</span><br />Abilities 20 + Skills 20 (80 ranks) + Feats 9 + Powers 15 + Combat 16 + Saves 10 – Drawbacks 0 = 90 / 90Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-18859152651387625172009-04-17T02:25:00.000-07:002009-04-17T02:31:08.793-07:00[RPGs] Campaign idea: War of the Space GodsIn <a href="http://groovepit.blogspot.com/2009/04/rpgs-campaign-idea-alliance.html">my last post</a>, I mentioned how the superhero genre can be a whole lot of different things. One superhero subgenre that I don't think really gets enough representation in games is the Jack Kirby mode.<br /><br />It's a little odd to talk about one dude's work as a subgenre, but when you look at a comic like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B8dland"><em>Gødland</em></a> or that old <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1963_(comics)"><em>1963</em></a> miniseries, it starts to make sense. Kirby had a very distinctive thing going on, and there was more to it than just his art style. The most kirbyesque Kirby works were the ones where he went beyond superheroes and into what I'd describe as sci-fi mythology: the various <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kirby%27s_Fourth_World">Fourth World</a> books, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternals_(comics)"><em>The Eternals</em></a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamandi"><em>Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth</em></a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Man_Army_Corps"><em>OMAC</em></a>, and others.<br /><br />I'd love to run a game sometime that mines that vein for setting material, but doesn't actually reproduce any specific elements. Here's what I've got right now.<br /><center><a href="http://groovepit.blogspot.com/search/label/War of the Space Gods" class="image"><img src="http://www.ironcircus.com/campaigns/logo-War_of_the_Space_Gods.jpg" alt="War of the Space Gods" /></a></center>There are two tiny planets orbiting Earth, each smaller than the Moon, but with as much mass as our own world. And they're both hidden from us. Even their gravity is blocked. The first, Kaliba, is a wild, green planet dotted with soaring white cities. The second, Shath, is a barren, cloud-wrapped world of stony deserts and grim, black cities.<br /><br />Kaliba is inhabited by a race of living gods. They're largely human in appearance, but an idealized kind of human, with a wide range of vivid coloration, sometimes including patterned skin, or even a metallic sheen. Their eyes glow brilliantly, as does their golden blood. They're very nearly immortal: ageless, immune to all disease, astonishingly resilient, and able to regenerate any damage short of the destruction of the brain or heart. What's more, they're invested with a brilliant cosmic energy that they wield to create a variety of effects. Their power is so flexible that they've never developed technology in the sense that we're familiar with. Their cities and clothing are built through the direct application of their strength and energies. They can also invest simple metal and stone tools with some of their power, or use it to change and sculpt living things for their own purposes. They've populated their world with extravagantly modified Earth animals, and are served by semi-sapient worker creatures.<br /><br />Shath is also home to a race of gods, but one for more physiologically diverse than those of Kaliba. While still mostly humanoid, they exhibit monstrous or animalistic features as well. Their coloration is just as unusual as the gods of Kaliba, but less vivid, tending towards, dull, pale, or muddy tones. Their blood is black, with a faint iridescent sheen. They are essentially immortal, with less resilience and more regenerative capability than the Kalibas, but they have a tendency to change gradually over time, becoming ever more inhuman with the centuries. They wield a cosmic power of their own, but theirs is dark and murky, and far better at affecting its wielder than affecting the outside world. The Shathen tend to be gifted with powers of shape-shifting, invisibility, intangibility, and the like. Unlike the gods of Kaliba, they have needed technology. Their machines are in many ways more advanced than those of Earth, but are generally bulky, unsubtle, inefficient, and sometimes dangerous to be around.<br /><br />For reasons that have long since passed beyond memory, the two races of gods have been at war with each other, on and off, for as long as they've been aware of each other. It's a bitter conflict, driven by the same hatred it generates, bereft of ideology or purpose.<br /><br />The planets of the gods are hidden from Earth, but Earth isn't hidden from them. Both races visited our world often our distant past. The Kalibas were called gods, and devils, and fairies. The Shathen were also called these things, as well as dragons, vampires, goblins, and the like. Both races taught, terrorized, enslaved, and enthralled humanity, shaping our history and culture. But, most of all, they fought each other. Sometimes directly in divine battles that scarred the Earth's landscape for millenia, and sometimes by human proxies, through wars and pogroms and myths that we will never truly understand.<br /><br />Now, though, the gods call Earth neutral ground, and their endless, senseless war is in one of its colder phases. Humanity has forgotten them, and both races of gods work to keep it that way, both for our good and their own. In the past, the gods' interactions with mortals had done us much harm. And now, as our technology has grown to rival that of Shath--and shows every sign of surpassing it, someday--it's very possible that humanity could actually threaten the gods to some degree.<br /><br />Of course, by the same token, it's obvious that mankind could be the key to the Kalibas' or the Shathen's final victory, if only they could quietly turn enough of us to their cause. So the war between the gods has become a secret struggle to gain influence on Earth. But, as each side becomes aware of the other's breaches of the treaty, their cold war is heating up.<br /><br />...Okay, so if that's enough setting info, I'll finally talk about just how this could be played. Naturally, I'd use <em>Mutants & Masterminds</em> or some variant of it. Player characters would probably be a mixed group of Kalibas and Shathen, also possibly Kalibas-Shathen hybrids, god-human hybrids, regular humans who've gotten ahold of powerful divine artifacts, or even regular humans who are just <em>really awesome</em> at stuff. Maybe servitor creatures from Kaliba or robots from Shath, too. Just how these people would know each other and why they'd work together--and, yeah, I'd really rather we have that worked out from the very beginning--would depend on just what kind of mix of characters we end up with. I like the idea of the group being centered around young gods from opposite sides of the line who became friends and hope to end the war, or gods and humans who are breaking the rules to learn about each other. And, naturally, some larger external problem would loom before long, forcing the PCs to stand alone between the warring gods against a threat only they are aware of.<br /><br />The whole tone I'd be going for with this game is BIG. Epic, bombastic, mythic stuff. Interplanetary adventure, apocalyptic threats, the discovery of secrets older than mankind, divine tragedy, that kind of thing. Not superheroes. Sci-fi mythology.<br /><br />Would it work? With the right players, hell yes. I can only hope to actually get a chance like that some day.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-81268388215745971202009-04-04T17:08:00.000-07:002009-04-04T21:57:02.747-07:00[RPGs] Campaign idea: The AllianceMy big white whale of RPGs--the thing I <em>think</em> I'm least likely to get to do, anyway--is a superhero game. I think superhero games are especially dependent upon a gaming group's experience with and ideas about the genre. I mean, if five people sit down to play a game, variously expecting it to be like <em>The Tick</em> cartoon, 1980s <em>X-Men</em> comics, Warren Ellis' run on <em>The Authority</em>, the <em>Watchmen</em> movie, and the TV show <em>Heroes</em>, there is going to be some cognitive dissonance. Getting everybody on the same page would be a project in and of itself, and might not even be possible if there isn't enough common ground in the group's experience. My own group ain't really filled with people who read superhero comics, so I'm not sure I'll ever get to do this. But I do like to dream.<br /><br />This is what I've been dreaming about lately.<br /><br /><br /><center><a href="http://groovepit.blogspot.com/search/label/The Alliance" class="image"><img src="http://www.ironcircus.com/campaigns/logo-The_Alliance.png" alt="The Alliance" /></a></center><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyQSEiZw3mpKk2_vKqh9VozB23s5hXWYKdhaU_SgH-egDV7v64NWJcz7ApymJFSEay386IbBHjYpuLzd9s1IMOLx3gz9CpDXtmYCFRrgCEaCuh4W8wZvxiikYD5ZPCHByDwiawzQdn1Zuq/s1600-h/The_Alliance_character_creation_sheet.gif" class="image"><img style="float:right; margin:0px 0px 10px 20px; cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyQSEiZw3mpKk2_vKqh9VozB23s5hXWYKdhaU_SgH-egDV7v64NWJcz7ApymJFSEay386IbBHjYpuLzd9s1IMOLx3gz9CpDXtmYCFRrgCEaCuh4W8wZvxiikYD5ZPCHByDwiawzQdn1Zuq/s320/The_Alliance_character_creation_sheet.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320996028281794754" /></a>The Alliance isn't so much a static superhero team as a loose network of associated superheroes who can contact each other, share resources and information, and work together as circumstances require and their schedules permit. When a case or mission comes up, a team is assembled from the available Alliance members and pointed at the problem.<br /><br />The gimmick here, game-wise, is that the Alliance is a pool of characters that all the players can pull from on a session-by-session basis. No character belongs to any one player; they're all shared equally. So, of course, the characters would all have to be <em>created</em> cooperatively by the players. And that's where the character creation sheet at the right comes in.<br /><br />Actually, though, I'd start by discussing with my players what kind of tone and tropes they're interested in for the game. We'd try to establish a target seriousness level, and come up with some example media. Then we'd talk over the setting a bit, see what kinds of components people are cool with (magic? aliens? time travel?) and just how "superhero-ish" characters should get (costumes? spandex? masks? code names? secret identities?).<br /><br />...And <em>then</em> I'd hand out the character creation sheets, two to a player with a pile of extras. I'd explain all the different bits: "Purpose" could be something along the lines of "glory hound" or "With great power comes great responsibility." "Relationship" could mean a romance or rivalry with another Alliance member, or it could be a civilian NPC friend or family member, or even a recurring arch enemy. "Weakness" might be something like "poisoned by kryptonite," but it could just as easily be "hardened alcoholic" or "dangerously short temper".<br /><br />Anyway, the deal with the character creation sheets is that each player would write <em>something</em> on their sheets, and then pass them off to other players to write some more stuff on, with everybody freely sharing ideas and talking openly about what they're doing. Hopefully, at the end of the session, we'd have at least two filled sheets for each player, and everybody should have some idea about the whole array of characters they'd outlined.<br /><br />Then, I'd before the next session, I'd do the actual game mechanics side of building all the characters. I'd almost certainly use <em>Mutants & Masterminds</em>, in spite of the mention of "aspects" on the character creation sheets. I just really dig aspects, and think they can be imported from Fate into almost any RPG system. Also, I think they could be employed here to encourage the kind of ensemble-cast soap opera effect that tends to arise in long-running superhero team comics.<br /><br />Part of what I'd be hoping to achieve with this kind of character generation is a player mindset that doesn't regard the PCs as representations of the players so much as shared game pieces. As such, they should be easier to sacrifice. Dramatic PC deaths would be a really cool and genre-appropriate thing to work into the game. I'd even like to incorporate some variant of <a href="http://esix.pbwiki.com/f/RaisingtheStakes.pdf">Ryan Stoughton's death flag mechanic</a> to encourage it. (CliffsNotes version: Normally, no PC dies. But you can trade this plot immunity for a temporary powerup, thus very possibly going out in a blaze of glory.)<br /><br />Will I ever actually get to run this game? Dunno. Might not work too well with my local crew, but I'm edging closer and closer to running a Skype game of some kind, and I know I could find the perfect crew for this game once geography isn't a factor. So maybe. Some day.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-82560053761106932112009-03-29T02:13:00.000-07:002009-03-29T02:22:58.959-07:00[dream blog] Summoning at the lakeSomehow, my immediate family--that is, my parents, siblings, and I--had come into possession (perhaps accidentally) of a text outlining some kind of Lovecraftian ritual. We didn't really know what it was supposed to do (I think it was more of a vague evocation of eldritch powers than a specific summoning) or whether or not it would work, but we were going to try it out anyway. As a family. A night of appropriate occult significance was coming up soon, and also we had access to a cabin on a lake which we thought was similarly significant. I had a little more belief that it would work than my family, and a lot less certainty that it would be a good idea, but I was interested and I agreed that the perfect opportunity to try it was going to come and pass soon. And, anyway, I knew they were going to try it, so I felt I'd better be there and try to mitigate whatever damage resulted from it.<br /><br />We arrived at the lake in late evening. We were far from any city lights, and the treeline all around us was a wall of solid black, while the sky was a dark and starless blue. The lake itself was black and calm, but there were subtle lights in there from some bioluminescent life, and a rock dropped into the water triggered more of that phenomenon in a tiny, blue-white explosion at the center of the ripples. The whole lake seemed to strain with potential, like a boulder perched on a cliff.<br /><br />We got to work at once, all of us arrayed across the shore, staggered rather far apart and facing the water, reciting our parts from unbound pages. I don't remember any of what we said. Occasionally, lights and indistinct emanations appeared from the lake at the end of the dock, the point which was the focus of our ceremony. Some of these merely dissipated, while others would stream away from the lake and into one of my family. This had no obvious effect, but still I did my best to prevent it from happening: I held out my hand in a certain gesture, as if in benediction, which--along with proper concentration--pulled the eldritch emanations into that hand, where they apparently dispersed. I felt no adverse effects from doing this, and had no idea just what sort of trouble I was protecting my family from, but by this point I was of the opinion that if we could just get through the ritual with no lasting results whatsoever, I would call it a success. We were getting to see something amazing, and that should be enough.<br /><br />Eventually, the ceremony did come to an end without serious incident. It was then that we found a package addressed to us: a box wrapped in white paper, with a note. It used language that suggested the whole package was put together and sent right after we completed our ritual--even though that had only been moments ago--and said something to the effect that, since our efforts had gained us nothing of value, the sender wanted to provide us with gifts that might placate "those of an acquisitive nature". Within the box were five smaller bundles, each wrapped in more white paper and marked for one of us.<br /><br />In a detached, audience-perspective way, I knew where the package had come from. It hadn't been sent moments ago, but instead was left there before we'd even arrived by the mysterious man who had given us access to the lakeshore cabin. He had known we'd perform our ceremony before finding the box, and also that we'd gain nothing in the attempt. His gifts were chosen to satisfy our individual Faustian desires, and thereby prevent us from ever trying this again, and continuing down what he knew was a dangerous road.<br /><br />Also, I knew that our hidden benefactor was an age-old vampire who had watched over and protected our family.<br /><br />But the whole package was destroyed before we could take the gifts within. I don't remember how, only that it seemed inevitable.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-77051759406283243912009-02-25T20:04:00.000-08:002009-02-25T20:05:22.506-08:00[RPGs] Campaign idea: NecropolisOnce again, my brain is clogged with ideas for campaigns I'd like to run, and I've got to at least type them up here if I'm ever going to be able to think about anything else. So, today, I'd like to show off a concept that's very clearly the result too much <em>Left 4 Dead</em> and <em>Fallout 3</em>.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://groovepit.blogspot.com/search/label/Necropolis" class="image"><img src="http://www.ironcircus.com/campaigns/logo-Necropolis.jpg" alt="Necropolis" /></a></center>I'll come right out and say it: This would be a zombie game. I will shout to the goddamned hilltops that zombies are the most overused trope since pirates and ninjas, but dammit, I think cool stuff can still be done with them. And, since the focus of this game ain't really on the zombies themselves, going with something more original might actually be counterproductive.<br /><br />Anyway, the deal here is that it's two years or so after a plague of zombieism swept across the globe, effectively ending civilization as we know it. Governments and infrastructures fell, countless billions died, etc. You know the drill. I think my zombies will be the result of a macroscopic parasite (something that slithers into a corpse's mouth is a lot more interesting than another invisible virus, in my opinion) of either extraterrestrial, artificial, or antediluvian origins. Infested corpses would become stupid-but-vicious automatons, concerned only with feeding on the fluid contents of any vertebrate life they sense, and then vomiting a black soup of embryonic parasites all over whatever's left. When not in the presence of any acceptable prey, they'd roam for a bit, and eventually fall dormant, waiting. They wouldn't feel fear or pain, and could only be "killed" by the destruction of the parasite within the skull and upper spinal column, but would be (in most cases) somewhat more fragile than a living human, and would assiduously avoid direct sunlight. So what we've got now is a world of dead cities where every shadowy place full of ragged lumps that will immediately lurch to their feet at the slightest sound, chasing down and tearing open any living human they can.<br /><br />Now, as bad as all this sounds, humanity is still hanging on. Even coming back. The zombies are dangerous--and, worse, staggeringly numerous--but they're extremely limited. And once people know their limitations, it's possible to live with the dead.<br /><br />This game would center around a survivor community in the middle of a large city who are managing to do exactly that. While old population centers are now teeming with the undead, large buildings are an effective defense against them. So this settlement would be on the upper floors of a skyscraper, with the lower floors devoted largely to a system of barricades. The inhabitants would subsist on produce grown in rooftop gardens and canned food obtained on daytime expeditions through the perilous city below.<br /><br />Now, the real gimmick here is that the players would actually take on the role of <em>the whole population of the settlement</em>. I'd generate 40 or 50 regular people--including name, sex, age, race, occupation, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator">Myers-Briggs personality type</a>, and simplified Fate system stats--with this insane <a href="http://www.mythosa.net/Utils.html">TableSmith</a> application I've cobbled together, and that would be the whole community. The players would share this whole pool of PCs, playing whoever they want, even controlling multiple characters at once. They could also add to the population by rescuing and incorporating lone survivors and smaller groups.<br /><br />So, like I mentioned, the zombies won't really take center stage in this game. Really, it'd all be about running and improving the community itself. Managing exhaustible resources (including food, medical supplies, and the population itself), setting up things like farms and generators and plumbing, arming the populace and maintaining the settlement's defenses, dealing with other human communities that might have different ideas about how to survive the apocalypse, etc. The zombies themselves would be more of an environmental threat than actual antagonists. You'll have to fight some when you go out on scavenging runs, but it's what you <em>gain</em> (and potentially lose) on those runs--and what use you put it to!--that really matters.<br /><br />System wise, I'd use a hacked, slightly simplified <em>Spirit of the Century</em>. There'd be no stress tracks, so every hit a character takes in a conflict would go straight to Consequences. The skill list would be a bit truncated, and each character would start out with a randomly-generated skill pyramid of variable size (customizable by the players in order to make it fit their generated occupation better than it otherwise might). Each character would get just three Aspects, starting with their occupation and personality type, with an open slot for players to define whenever they feel like. There'd be no Stunts at all, so some Stunt effects would just be folded into skills (medicine and tracking come to mind).<br /><br />Characters wouldn't have Fate Points, but the players would. They'd get a refresh rate of three each. They'd be encouraged to self-compel to pick up Fate Points whenever they can, so saying out of the blue "This guy's an alcoholic, so when he's called to go on this run, he shows up drunk." is a totally legitimate move. What's more, if you voluntarily take a Consequence while attempting an action ("How about this guy twists his angle while climbing through the rubble looking for salvage?"), that'll get you a Fate Point to spend <em>immediately</em> on that same action. Finally, when one of the players' survivor community dies, <em>all</em> players get a Fate Point each.<br /><br />If you're getting the idea that all of this would encourage the players to play the survivors as a bunch of expendable extras who have lots of problems and get hurt a lot, you're catching on.<br /><br />Now, since the community itself it the real focus of the game, I'm thinking it might have stats of its own. Not too certain on this one yet. I <em>really</em> love <a href="http://rob-donoghue.livejournal.com/">Rob Donoghue</a>'s <a href="http://evilhat.wikidot.com/organization-rules">organization rules</a>, but I don't think they're exactly right for this job. A very small post-apocalyptic community should probably be represented much more simply, after all. I'd just need players to roll for stuff like whether or not the barricades are manned properly, or how many people they can muster for a scavenging run. And I'd like to track resources like food, medical supplies, and technical materials, too. Not sure if those should be skills or stress tracks, really.<br /><br />Another thing I want to try would be something like long-term <em>D&D</em>-style skill challenges to handle big community-improvement projects. The players could assign characters to a jobs, and then make daily skill rolls for them, marking off their successes along some kind of progress track. This could be used for stuff like getting the elevators running, teaching all the able-bodied adults how to shoot, building a bridge out to a neighboring building, researching the causes of the zombie outbreak, searching the city for a specific kind of item, or even establishing a system of government.<br /><br />I think another big element of this game would be random generation. I'm already dedicated to randomly-generated PCs, so why not randomly-generated zombie encounters, community problems, and scavenge hauls? Maybe. Maybe.<br /><br />So, anyway, the whole thing is a big, sprawling, unwieldy idea that I'll probably never get to use. But I really love it.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-3770150162002233452009-02-05T05:22:00.000-08:002009-02-05T10:01:05.264-08:00Still thinking about hybrid game systems...<img src="http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/892/productsdndacc217367200ka8.jpg" align="right" style="margin:0px 0px 10px 20px;" alt="d20?"><br />Man, you'd think playing <em>D&D</em> 4e and running <em>Spirit of the Century</em> would have cured me of this, but lately I've gone back to my <em>D&D</em> 3e-esque <a href="http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/glossary/alphabetical/S.html#simulationism">simulationist</a> <a href="http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/glossary/alphabetical/F.html#fantasyheartbreaker">fantasy heartbreaker</a> ideas.<br /><br />Specifically, what I've been thinking about is a shambling hybrid starting from <em>True20</em>'s excellent base, removing character classes completely and replacing them with feats, and replacing <em>True20</em>'s magic system with something based on Monte Cook's 20-level system (from <em>The Book of Experimental Might</em>) and the spellpoint system from <em>Unearthed Arcana</em>.<br /><br />Essentially, what I want is greater flexibility than <em>D&D</em>'s classes-and-Vancian-magic system ever allowed, but to still hold onto the insanely vast body of potential material provided by the whole d20 phenomenon. I don't plan on ever trying to sell this thing, so I'd freely steal from any source I can find.<br /><br />The trouble is, I'm the only dude in my gaming group with enough of a d20 background to easily engage in the whole character-creation-by-catalog-shopping experience that this modular, feat-based paradigm would lead to. So I dunno if there's any point to the whole excercise beyond my amusement.<br /><br />And there's another thing I'm wrestling with at the moment: How many different kind of token pools can your average gamer handle at once? I'm considering replacing attack and defense bonuses with a pool of points that can be shared between the two, and I'd probably represent these through poker chips or something. Also, tracking wounds in a <em>True20</em>-style combat system would be pretty nicely handled by another kind of token. And, naturally, if I'm going to do spell points, I should have tokens to track those. Finally, I really feel like grafting <em>SotC</em>-style Aspects onto everything, and that means yet <em>another</em> kind of token to track fate points...<br /><br />See where this is going? My poor friends, drafted into being guinea pigs for this absurdity, trying to remember which kind of point the red poker chips represent. And even if I use a method that's clear and obvious, like printing up a bunch of cards or something, it'd still potentially be a lot of crap to manage at the table.<br /><br />But is it worse than having to do bookkeeping, instead? I really don't know.<br /><br />Anyway, the whole thing is still far from being any danger to anyone. It's just an idea I like to play with in my Google Noteook space. I oughta see what my group thinks of all this, though...Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-77089204150214003852009-01-14T11:06:00.001-08:002009-04-04T23:55:46.314-07:00A combined resource tracking and random resolution idea for RPGs<img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 20px; width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzs8ZmsAjZTfUnLQKy3pa6q9BphDXTsr3ukO5ghr0PZuOp7I3A4Biv0wVpD89LIj0TVjCSuaPMGFUp6jzN-5vb7lHazsRxO3KCbf_p37TODuZOyyH5v-4VSJfOfQBkR8zRDp-RoTWqy-w0/s400/othello.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5291228463442274402" />Okay, time to take my mind off my tumultuous--but increasingly <em>interesting</em>--employment situation with a little game-related pipedreaming.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universalis"><em>Universalis</em></a> is a fascinating little storytelling toy of a system that I haven't yet gotten a chance to try out. Its central mechanic is the spending of a regularly-refreshed resource called "coins" (although they could certainly be represented by any kind of easily-handled token) to create facts about your shared story. Another thing you can do with coins is buy dice to roll in conflicts against other players when competing over where the storyline should go. Since you buy dice on a one-for-one basis, I realized, you could actually just use dice to represent your coins in the first place. But that'd be a hell of a lot of dice. Some people have that many, sure, but I don't.<br /><br />On the other hand, if you reduced the dice mechanics to a simple 50-50 pass-fail dice pool, you could skip the dice and just use <em>literal</em> coins. That'd be pretty awesome, if only coins weren't just slightly too thin and heavy to handle well, and their heads and tails side were more immediately distinguishable. I mean, flipping a whole handful of pennies, counting out the heads in the result, and then picking them all up again would actually be pretty annoying.<br /><br />So, I've been thinking, what about the lightweight, bi-colored chips from an Othello (a.k.a. Reversi) set? Those would be great for both resource tracking and simple dice pools (better than dice, in fact). So great, in fact, that they'd be worth building a whole system around 'em. Although I'd like them a <em>little</em> smaller, for easier mass-flipping. And I wouldn't want to buy a whole bunch of Othello boards just to get the chips.<br /><br />This stumped me for a while, but I think I've hit on the perfect substitute: <em>buttons</em>. I could buy like 200 or so small, black clothing buttons--they don't even have to all be the same size or shape, really--and just spraypaint one side of 'em white or silver or something. I figure that ought to be just about perfect. They'd be easy to pass around and store in piles or little bowls, and you could shake up a handful, toss them down, count the silvers, and collect them again without even having to think about it. Compare your silver results to your opponent's to see whose decision stands. You've got better chances if you sacrifice a lot of buttons on the contest--and also if other players donate to your cause--but the outcome is still random.<br /><br />I think this could work. I'm not even sure if whatever I'd do with the idea would end up looking like <em>Universalis</em>, but I'd really like to try <em>something</em> along these lines. Maybe I could use it for some kind of group setting-creation session...Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-47465344101868163872008-12-28T21:35:00.000-08:002008-12-28T22:04:47.888-08:00This should exist: Video-sharing chat roomsRight, so while I was helping <a href="http://ironcircus.com/">Charlie</a> host her occasional <a href="http://www.ustream.tv/">Ustream</a> (where she does all the Photoshop work on the next <a href="http://templaraz.com/"><em>Templar, Arizona</em></a> page), I suddenly hit on the idea that it would be awesome to have a chat-room-and-streaming-video thing that could stream from video files on your hard drive instead of just from a webcam.<br /><br />Now, this might already be possible with Ustream and other webcam sites: Charlie has a bit of software that streams video of her desktop while she works, and Ustream doesn't know the difference between that and a cam stream. So maybe all I need is a piece of software that can play an AVI or whatever and turn it into a stream. But, really, I'd much prefer a site that's based around the whole idea of sharing video clips. It'd be especially cool if a room moderator could let <em>other</em> users play their own clips, instead of everything coming from just one person.<br /><br />Maybe everybody who wants to show something just cues up their file, and the server buffers a little bit of video and creates some little thumbnail screenshots from various points in the file. Then the room moderator sees a little "I've got a video to share" icon next to everybody in the chatroom who wants to contribute, and can mouseover each of them to see the video's filename and thumbnails. Then he or she can click something to add the video to the queue or tell it to play immediately (or something to stay "Video rejected; pick something else", of course).<br /><br />I know this kind of thing would be a magnet for porn spam and worse shit, but keeping your room unlisted from any public directory would probably prevent that (or password locking it would <em>definitely</em> work, if that fails). I'm kind of torn about whether I'd want the site to allow totally anonymous contribution or not.<br /><br />So does this exist, already? Anybody know? Because I ain't gonna make it. And I've got a whole pile of animated shorts and other crap I'd love to show off to my Internet friends.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-86514099532456154862008-12-26T15:54:00.000-08:002008-12-29T09:04:49.171-08:00Post-holiday blog post of thanksGod damn, I have much better friends and family than I deserve. Seriously, we had a really great Christmas over here, and we got so many gifts in the mail that I actually kind of feel bad. We received way more than we gave. And it was all such great, well-thought-out stuff, a lot of it made just for us by awesome and talented people.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyaZ25U6Q-938KRYZ9Msk4dPBjSoMkpalEFsTWD10k26ZKn5zQ5Lf2iNVWRO7S4R50lECcWRC32K3GDRvtphz5akZkW-NS14F2J0IgP1ma1V6FrEnBr-sb6_mMyzaFqVXbkYLisswI3w1p/s400/christmas-books.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5284256263781894034" /><br />Books from my parents! I'm really digging this 4e <em>Monster Manual</em>, but now I've gotta finally break down and buy the <em>Player's Handbook</em> and <em>Dungeon Master's Guide</em>...<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxhicP0-ZRva_Xse7mSo7CfZUN-bNWchPC-VicSvMsPTT9LEfBH3QmwLEq1tJz3_a6CWjYSSOZZ29_-nLqBs4OvpDGvPysSt7U5gbIRHx-2zFuX8JtiL0Z7yj6Q67_zBxR23E1OeDEHY-y/s400/christmas-clothes.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5284257870799884114" /><br />Clothes from my parents! All in my usual preferred spectrum of black-gray-blue. This is good, because I almost never buy clothes. Get a load of the <a href="http://www.pandemoniumbooks.com/">Pandemonium Books</a> t-shirt by <a href="http://www.giantitp.com/">Rich Burlew</a>! Really great SF/RPG book shop in the Boston area. Love that joint.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;width: 400px; height: 284px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFwdmYiCkMMcZx4beRSRaIQjG_zpGzvgdfzsOS6DTbmljSU_s6wdLrWLpPt-wTFZbvWcxt8kRnd53OL4mvjCR0F9t14QXkxXVH7G39_gRm4fkckEE79rn5OXbx_oI6vzc4K_KlnDiaZNwU/s400/christmas-ds_games.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5284259007396021922" /><br />My brother Keith got me these DS games, and they've been pretty much occupying all my attention since I opened them. <em>Puzzle Quest</em> is like <em>Bejewelled</em> as an RPG, but that is actually awesome. <em>Megaman ZX Advent</em> has these really embarrassing anime cutscenes, but it's looking like a solid game so far. It's blowing me away how complicated Megaman games have gotten, but that's cool. I like complicated.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;width: 400px; height: 187px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggYJ3dbOL22dCc0KOVyVjGVKscZaj9zzpChlyMmjDO-_zOzYFSVhNAFJNicRuXbpHqhipM7LK6ahDY7gG4f8VQYGheMjghczmg6AlrKix6M2HXMkNGU8vN5xHQ4kR6aN4v6q3ONPuQryRu/s400/christmas-tiny_whatsits.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5284260269611154770" /><br />God, I love these. They were for both <a href="http://ironcircus.com/">my wife</a> and me, made by our incredibly talented friend <a href="http://bzedan.com/">Brenna Zedan</a>. On the left are "The Twins", the mascots for <a href="http://ironcircus.com/phpBB2/">our little Internet forum</a>. In the middle, a reverse griffin (lion head, bird butt and feet, no wings) with a mane of fluffy string. And, on the right, a mummified rat. That one's because <a href="http://www.ironcircus.com/mummification1.php">we mummified our rat</a>. Anyway, Brenna makes loads of cool stuff like this and sell 'em on <a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=30532">Etsy</a>.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;width: 400px; height: 311px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJs8nmvshfO66DhkhMaP_a8SM0iIYGLRwXM7Fc81xppbX4EOHhBOEg12LBGwToi7LFxaxSRoqElithPQ-evIo-sKSeHqRIxGE2dyg23i5CSKzDpeHJtZ35fC5w3YUFBhWthi9yr7Z24m4g/s400/christmas-dolls.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5284264659915830802" /><br />...And another incredibly talented friend of ours, <a href="http://yasei.deviantart.com/">Roxxy Goetz</a> knitted <em>little dolls of us as superheroes</em>. Oh, man, there's a whole bunch of backstory to where these characters came from--I mean forum discussion backstory, not character backstory--and I ain't getting into it now. Also, she made a sweater for our dog. We actually got a bunch of dog clothes this year, and I should probably take some photos of the poor creature all dressed up. (Roxxy, I should also mention, designed the forum mascots shown above. She's really great.)<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;width: 327px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiDQB7gUxa5CkI9I0hNv35A1vsjpw6nADK_PNg8ho4qrw0uDiE6HI9CBkUHS-1eEniiYOKIt0MDJawAZVH8VIpHu0gfNwQ8OeAFfvuDxSujtAJ5qcDNgX_YSf_G9H0gp00V-FM-a9gSJG_/s400/christmas-painting.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5284338783361003314" /><br />I think this one is technically more of a belated birthday gift for my wife, but it's awesome, so I'm posting it anyway. This is a painting of the protagonist from <a href="http://www.templaraz.com/">her comic</a>, done by our buddy <a href="http://www.ninacox.com.br/">Nina</a> (who is once again overhauling her whole website, apparently).<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ5rrNaG_sE15x8CAKAupPagpj0K4EuDw19-6bLPNUTCXUWeDG5MHOQYDRqckks1r8vHKPaZxaJB3jgR3_jNDUYIpQEfIWsIXkPJ66bXiDB_SG_WTgbM8-KchaQgZdvEJBWHJQxyrnk6ki/s400/christmas-chocolate.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5284339956079506178" /><br />Anyway, Nina also sent us fancy Brazilian chocolate-covered biscuit things. They are huge and extremely delicious.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;width: 400px; height: 222px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7EVtH4JW1jkDaBeYNXm4rzv3Zs8I4nEVfxH1oDsMzlWWA7ocLTj27v1FRKMFRQYiWPfgk-jQs6HeWOTnanF2qAX0X7uKgM5ch8MJBxGuYum2ngUqEJ57qdjAKUI0hFydzMtO8vwnjpIyd/s400/christmas-bowls.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5284266233937724242" /><br />My mom has started taking pottery classes, and she sent us the very first bowls she made. They're simple, of course, but they're really beautiful. My poorly-lit photos don't really show off how cool their colors are, but I really dig these things.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;width: 150px; height: 310px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2CMGFES7lIP1G9VqpIL1bmlkOAc8eBKWcCTR6LB8wiXlCYdbj0LSS3jB44OshzT-IszNk-e-LBzibINrtfu_IqH4BBhYo-ZspsmeHDydo5VslWUoa46EfVR_ETqAiLYdVhkGnLagAf_uW/s400/christmas-tranny_santa_candy.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5284267004666657906" /><br />Speaking of candy, my parents sent us marshmallow Santa things with some rather interesting packaging. Santa looks like he's just started <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitioning_(transgender)">transitioning</a>, here. Or maybe it's just Santa Claus crossplay?<br /><br />Man. There's actually a load of other stuff I ought to post, but this is already kind of a huge post. Let me just end by saying <strong>HOLY GOD THANK YOU EVERYBODY</strong>. You're all great folks, and I wish I deserved you. Happy holidays, all.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-17088581198417631392008-12-19T07:15:00.000-08:002008-12-19T16:00:20.170-08:00[IaWA] Clutch Oracle<a href="http://www.random-generator.com/index.php?title=Clutch_Oracle"><img src="http://i41.tinypic.com/2v8ol7l.png" border="0" alt="Clutch logo" style="padding-left:20px;padding-bottom:20px;" align="right" /></a>I don't know if I've mentioned the band here before, but I'm a really huge fan of <a href="http://pro-rock.com/v6/main.html">Clutch</a>. They're pretty much my favorite band. (And <a href="http://ironcircus.com/">Charlie</a>'s, too. We go to basically every show they play in the Chicago area, and she's give the band some art a few times. Last show, we actually got to go backstage and hang out with them a bit. Extremely nice guys.)<br /><br />Anyway, in addition to rocking hard and huge, just about every song they've ever recorded has extremely interesting and evocative lyrics. There are some weird ideas and stories, there, and--inevitably--they tend to make the think about roleplaying games. So I've been playing around on <a href="http://www.random-generator.com/index.php?title=Main_Page">Abulafia</a> again, building a <a href="http://www.random-generator.com/index.php?title=Clutch_Oracle">Clutch Oracle</a> for <a href="http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13669.phtml"><em>In a Wicked Age</em></a>.<br /><br />Who could fail to come up with game ideas given a set of story elements like this?<br /><br /><blockquote>The robot revolution is coming.<br /><br />A homeless hoodoo practitioner sells temporary cures in return for service after death.<br /><br />A young folk healer in Latin America, rejected by her community for offering mercy to a defeated demon.<br /><br />An order of assassins who wield wooden blades, raised from infancy under an oath of silence.</blockquote>Or this?<br /><br /><blockquote>A society of swamp women, drunk and deadly as maenads, armed with shotguns and consorting with boars.<br /><br />A woman storms castles while riding a pterodactyl.<br /><br />A dead cosmonaut contacts Earth to discuss the gluttony of the starving stars.<br /><br />The dread capital ship of Hell's forces, crewed by dog-like demons and bringing its own black ocean with it.</blockquote>To be honest, I'm not sure when or if I'll actually get to <em>use</em> this oracle, as I still haven't even managed to get get people to play regular <em>IaWA</em>. But I dig the idea, so I'm going to keep working on the oracle and adding elements.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-66168177625738867812008-10-04T14:50:00.000-07:002008-10-04T15:14:13.082-07:00Campaign setting/plot generation gimmick<a class="image" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC3rtXww4iLlJUpETBluf_o7K60wjT33j1-N-JGsCxL6lcQx_D6JZwKsLZoBVkFE6mgAMSmtw90UPkUUpUdUNx6zdGaiknsYuOyLRjCqnchjSFHLLLwtutUYHSLAo_a9VUNz_yTs8tsH6q/s1600-h/campaign_generation.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC3rtXww4iLlJUpETBluf_o7K60wjT33j1-N-JGsCxL6lcQx_D6JZwKsLZoBVkFE6mgAMSmtw90UPkUUpUdUNx6zdGaiknsYuOyLRjCqnchjSFHLLLwtutUYHSLAo_a9VUNz_yTs8tsH6q/s200/campaign_generation.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5253421872554092978" /></a>I'm messing around with a simple little idea over the weekend. I was talking to <a href="http://brian-s.livejournal.com/">Brian</a> a little while ago about maybe trying out <em>Dungeons & Dragons</em> 4e, and I've recently been thinking about how <em>Mutants & Masterminds</em> could be used to run a fantasy game, so I've generally had fantasy campaign settings on the brain.<br /><br />So, just for the hell of it, I've been writing various fragmentary campaign setting/plot elements on bits of paper, scattering them randomly on the table, and then arranging bits that seem to work together into rough relationship maps. It works beautifully. I definitely want more setting elements to play with, though. Maybe ones written by other people. The concepts I put together are familiar to me, since they're made up of components that have been rolling around in my head for a while, now. I've gotta try this game with other people, some time. That sounds like a hell of a lot of fun.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-82228662314007385082008-10-03T19:36:00.000-07:002008-10-03T19:46:08.692-07:00Random color selector<a class="image" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Wi1-KtWvsXUbsSQ29IYtpi8LbpPCrcnWxnUzY4Kb5v_ppfHzObs4dRW_Z3EPMwLqGzTEdsfnbKu6y6B3Yq2OafNmOsLFAokmHqRGpkq-g3_9yDWw-i94szJBRhYCqUI5KIAaR7wBbebo/s1600-h/color_generator_demo.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Wi1-KtWvsXUbsSQ29IYtpi8LbpPCrcnWxnUzY4Kb5v_ppfHzObs4dRW_Z3EPMwLqGzTEdsfnbKu6y6B3Yq2OafNmOsLFAokmHqRGpkq-g3_9yDWw-i94szJBRhYCqUI5KIAaR7wBbebo/s200/color_generator_demo.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5253124322333647586" /></a>Over the past couple days, I made a thing over at the completely awesome wiki-based random generator site, <a href="http://www.random-generator.com/index.php?title=Main_Page">Abulafia</a>. It's full of all kinds of RPG-oriented random generation goodness, and one of its coolest features is the fact that a user can build generators that use <em>other</em> generators. So I figured it might be useful to somebody if I created a generator which just picked random colors, and displayed both the color name and a sample of the color itself.<br /><br />Here, <a href="http://www.random-generator.com/index.php?title=Colors">check it out</a>. The example implementation you'll see at that page is really simple: It just pulls three colors from the list of 500 or so that I gave it (taken from Wikipedia, naturally). In theory, though, this bit could be used as part of a larger generator. Like, say, to describe the flag of randomly-generated nation, or the pigmentation of a randomly-generated alien.<br /><br />It's the first thing I've ever made for Abulafia, so I can only hope that I didn't do something drastically wrong.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-34312125141051288132008-09-26T18:44:00.000-07:002008-09-26T18:53:07.345-07:00[dream blog] Outbreak escape<img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXP9GXhimmiJ6QlF1n1EXGoZB36fC2ikfe1KZ_6XLEV74UsrTZAp36-2hrS3goMouI6nM9W2fxe3NPSpcLPbUtjHElgX4FXeoRuCwBMrbg9KKH8qbtGSdH3mKfgN0CrN5RzsUsia_to2sm/s200/stairs.jpg" border="0" alt="stairs" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5250513204731250018" />I was some kind of superhero. One of a team of such. We had a whole variety of individual, maybe somewhat low-level X-Men-ish powers (in fact, some of them might actually have been actual X-Men characters), but few or none of us wore any sort of costume. Most of them looked like regular folks, in fact. (Or television's version of reagular folks, perhaps: unusually young and attractive.) I think I might not have been with the team long--or maybe wasn't even an actual member, but just someone momentarily working with them--because I mostly couldn't really keep track of them as individuals, and didn't even know their names.<br /><br />My power was something about releasing big, very short-range bursts of concussive energy from by whole body. I think there was something else I could do--something more versatile--but I never got a chance to try it.<br /><br />We were all trapped in a huge shopping mall--or maybe it was an airport, or some kind of shopping area attached to a big hotel--a bright, airy place that was all steel and glass. It was empty except for us, and some ill-defined threat that had somehow been unleashed upon the world from somewhere inside or below that building. This threat also looked like a bunch of ordinary humans, and displayed some kind of minor powers. But they also clearly had the ability to either take infest or replace people. They harried us as we tried to find a way out of the mall while keeping them locked in, and gradually they started to take over our members. We couldn't manage to put them down for more than a few moments.<br /><br />I couldn't understand why the rest of the team found blasting their way out of the mall difficult, or why our enemy hadn't already escaped. I decided to just use my concussive powers to bounce myself up out of the enemy's reach and knock out a window, door, wall, or whatever. Some of my team would surely be able to follow, and those who couldn't could probably be carried.<br /><br />Then I was in a different place--maybe part of the same place, possibly the hotel attached to the mall--and I might have been someone different. I definitely wasn't currently superheroing, even if I was the same person. This hotel (or this part of it?) was all dark, wooden walls and smooth marble floors, and it wasn't empty. It seemed to be in ordinary operation. I was wandering through it at a brisk pace, looking for an Internet cafe I'd seen earlier so that I could check my email.<br /><br />I was caught in a small crowd--mostly an Asian tour group, apparently--outside the elevators when an alarm went off. Something bad but unspecified was going on, and the hotel was being evacuated.<br /><br />One of the tour group was telling me, clearly with great worry, that he'd found his room broken into and his computer tampered with shortly after some lesser crisis leading up to this alarm had gone down. He said the log files on his machine showed that a large amount of activity had gone on through that machine while he'd been out of his room, and wanted advice about something relating to the computer's serial number sticker.<br /><br />I was too distracted to be helpful, though. Was this the same problem the superheroes were dealing with? Was this the result of their failure to contain their enemy? Or was that fight in the mall still going on? Or maybe this was happening <em>before</em> that whole scene, and this evacuation would lead to that abandoned mall.<br /><br />At any rate, the elevators were no longer working, so we all consulted an evacuation booklet. It contained needlessly complex blueprints of the hotel, but apparently we were supposed to open up hidden emergency exits and proceed down a tight spiral staircase to safety. The plan was detailed enough that I could see how some landings of the staircase had been badly spaced, making it necessary to actually crawl on one's belly to fit down the stairs at one point.<br /><br />We didn't look at the plans too carefully. We all just wanted to get out of there.<br /><br />I helped open up the exits, and was the first one down. The stairs were gray, unfinished, clearly never used. Worse, they were absurdly claustrophobic. The further down we went, the cruder the stairs got, and there was ever more frequently clumps of dry, gray sea sand scatters over them. Eventually, we came to the place where the blueprints had shown we'd have to crawl, and they certainly proved accurate in that regard. I got through it okay, although I worried about all those behindme.<br /><br />The stairs opened up again after that, but were still tighter than before. A lot of the time, I couldn't stand up all the way. I worried about running into more pinch points. But, as it turned out, that possibility didn't even have a chance to become a problem: The stairs ran straight into a solid layer of sand.<br /><br />The crowd behind me was too frenzied and the confines were too tight to dig, and in any case I didn't believe there was anywhere to dig to. And time, we were all sure, was short. The situation was hopeless.<br /><br />So I decided to wake up.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-81241366523021609302008-09-19T19:19:00.000-07:002008-09-19T19:23:12.268-07:00Meme!I caught a meme off <a href="http://winzig.livejournal.com/178064.html">Mimo</a> of <a href="http://toydivision.transplantcomics.com/"><em>Toy Division</em></a> fame.<br /><br /><img src="http://i37.tinypic.com/mhavs.jpg" alt"" border="" /><br /><br /><strong>Rules:<br />Take a picture of yourself right now.<br />Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.<br />Post that picture with NO editing.<br />Post these instructions with your picture.</strong><br /><br />This is a monitor's eye view from work. In retrospect, I think I should have made a facial expression of some kind.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-13812592021549811632008-09-13T12:06:00.000-07:002008-09-19T07:55:10.165-07:00Dark, part 2<center><a href="http://groovepit.blogspot.com/search/label/Dark" class="image"><img src="http://www.ironcircus.com/campaigns/logo-Dark.jpg" alt="Dark" /></a></center>So, like I mentioned <a href="http://groovepit.blogspot.com/2008/09/dark.html">before</a>, I'd like to try and hack <em>Mutants & Masterminds</em> to run a <em>Doom</em>/<em>Quake</em>-themed survival horror RPG. Maybe I'll call the resulting system "Mutant". Dunno.<br /><br />Anyway, since a big part of beating a four-color superhero RPG into such an unaccustomed shape as this would be just <em>removing</em> material, there's actually good reason not to have the <em>M&M</em> core book on the table at all during play. So this abomination is free to be its own creature, allowing me to make some changes that are more for taste than to fit the specific themes of Dark. The first thing I'd start with would be a minor change to the standard, <em>D&D</em>-inherited ability scores. I'll rename Dexterity and Constitution to Agility and Endurance, and reorganize Wisdom and Charisma into Perception and Willpower. Perception obviously takes over all sensory abilities, but also Initiative checks, while Willpower handles both mental stability and focus, and social abilities.<br /><br />Oh, and I'd ditch the ability <em>scores</em> and use modifiers alone (<em>True 20</em>-style). That should just be standard practice.<br /><br />I'll also get rid of a few skills, introduce a few others from the <em>Mastermind's Manual</em> or elsewhere, and reshuffle some ability score dependencies as seems logical. The result (at the moment) is this:<br /><br /><strong>Strength</strong><br />Climb<br />Jump (separated from Acrobatics)<br />Swim<br /><br /><strong>Agility</strong><br />Acrobatics (loses its jump function)<br />Drive<br />Escape Artist<br />Pilot<br />Sleight of Hand<br />Stealth<br /><br /><strong>Endurance</strong><br />Stamina (similar to <em>D&D</em> 4e's Endurance skill)<br /><br /><strong>Intelligence</strong><br />Chemistry (effectively Craft: Chemicals and Knowledge: Chemistry)<br />Computers<br />Demolition (from <em>Mastermind's Manual</em>)<br />Disable Device<br />Gunsmithing (effectively Craft: Guns)<br />Investigate<br />Knowledge (might divide this into a few specic skills, like Biology, Tactics, etc.)<br />Medicine<br />Repair (from <em>Mastermind's Manual</em>)<br />Trapmaking (effectively Craft: Traps)<br />(Might be a lot of other Craft skills I could adapt...)<br /><br /><strong>Perception</strong><br />Initiative<br />Search<br />Sense Motive<br />Track (the tracking function from Survival, which otherwise doesn't have much use in this game)<br /><br /><strong>Willpower</strong><br />Bluff<br />Concentration<br />Diplomacy<br />Intimidate<br /><br />I've added a few skills here, but I've subtracted a lot more. Since this version of <em>M&M</em> is intended to run a very specific kind of game, things like Disguise and Ride just didn't seem useful. A PC who plays the harmonica can just be admitted as a good harmonica player, with no need for a Perform skill.<br /><br />The other big area I'm changing is saving throws: They can go turn into <em>D&D</em> 4e-style "defenses" quite nicely. I'd also add a passive Perception-based defense--also quite 4e-style--called Alertness. This replaces the Notice skill completely. So we'd have the following defenses:<br /><br /><strong>Reflexes</strong> = 10 + Agility + bonus (costs 1 power point per +1)<br /><strong>Fortitude</strong> = 10 + Endurance + bonus (costs 1 power point per +1)<br /><strong>Alertness</strong> = 10 + Perception + bonus (costs 1 power point per +1)<br /><strong>Resolve</strong> = 10 + Willpower + bonus (costs 1 power point per +1)<br /><strong>Toughness</strong> = 5 + Endurance (These ain't superhuman characters, so they can't increase their Toughness with experience. They have to find some armor.)<br /><br />(Thinking on my feet, here: What if I moved Toughness over to Strength--since it represents sheer beefiness more than Endurance does, and melee damage bonuses don't count much in a gun-focused game--and then made a lie-detecting Insight defense based on Intelligence, replacing the Sense Motive skill? One defense for each ability appeals to my sense of symmetry . . . although I don't believe that kind of symmetry is a worthwhile goal in game design. Might go with it, though.)<br /><br />Now people get to make damage rolls! Damage rolls are fun. And instead of comparing a Toughness save result to a damage DC and then calculating the difference to determine the result, every character can have a series of clear and simple damage thresholds right there on the sheet. So if a character's Toughness is 7, it'll say right there on the sheet that a damage roll of less than 7 has no effect, a roll of 7 to 11 produces an injury, 12 to 16 injures and also stuns, 17 to 21 stuns, staggers, and disables, 22-26 leaves the character unconscious and dying, and 27 or more kills the character outright . . . and messily (because a game like this obviously needs a "gibbed" result).<br /><br />I'm not even going to address non-lethal damage, here, as there isn't really a place for such a thing in this variant.<br /><br />I'm also thinking about removing the possibility of a "no effect" result (since any successful attack roll ought to hurt the target at least a little), but I'm not sure of the balance implications there. Obviously, this game should be grittier than standard <em>Mutants & Masterminds</em>, but I don't want to go too far.<br /><br />Anyway, just to keep the damage threshold on each character sheet simple and static, modifiers from a target's injuries and armor would be applied to <em>the attacker's the damage roll</em> instead of the target's toughness score. So when an attack roll succeeds, the attacker rolls damage, adds the target's injuries and subtracts the target's armor value, then compares the result to the damage threshold track on the target's character sheet. I <em>think</em> this would result in faster combat, but I'd have to try it to be sure. One thing I'd like to do to speed things up is keep track of injuries with tokens (poker chips or similar), to that damage bonuses against injured targets can be tracked without resorting to pencil and paper.<br /><br />I'd also treat Attack and Defense bonuses (maybe I need a different name for Defense, since I turned the Saving Throws into passive "defenses"...) a little bit differently. It's the easiest thing in the world to split Attack into Melee Attack and Ranged Attack. I think, though, that I'd actually have characters pay 2 power points for each point of Ranged bonus, and only 1 for each point of Melee, since ranged weapons will be significantly powerful and plentiful than melee ones. Meanwhile, I can take Defense and the Dodge Focus feat and reverse engineer them into Active Defense and Reflexive Defense: The former costs 1 point per point and is lost when the character is surprised or flat-footed, while the latter costs 2 points per point, can't exceed <em>half</em> of the Active Defense bonus, and works as long as the character can move freely. Strange as it sounds, the costs work out the same as standard <em>M&M</em> Defense and Dodge Focus.<br /><br />One last thing: I believe I'd use 2d10 for the standard die roll in this system, rather than 1d20. I think a probability curve that's actually <em>curved</em>--and thus produces slightly more predictable successes and failures--would fit gritty, cautious, strategic gameplay a lot better than the flat probability curve of a d20 roll.<br /><br />Okay, that's way more than enough for now. I'll probably have more to say later, though. I've been thinking about it enough.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-13717311050268257312008-09-12T17:28:00.000-07:002008-09-13T12:08:09.047-07:00Dark, part 1So a few days ago I found myself reading a thread on <a href="http://www.rpg.net/">RPG.net</a> about <a href="http://www.cthulhutech.com/"><em>CthulhuTech</em></a> when the <em>Quake</em> soundtrack came up in rotation on my MP3 player. It was then that I knew I had to figure out a way to run a sci-fi survival horror / bughunt RPG incorporating themes from both Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos and id Software's <em>Quake</em> and <em>Doom</em> games (as well as other first-person shooters). I don't ever expect to <em>actually</em> run such a game, but I love theorizing about this kind of thing.<br /><br />After much dithering, I'm currently calling it "Dark", largely because first-person shooters of that era tended to have monosyllabic names that didn't really have much to do with their actual content.<br /><center><a href="http://groovepit.blogspot.com/search/label/Dark" class="image"><img src="http://www.ironcircus.com/campaigns/logo-Dark.jpg" alt="Dark" /></a></center>The way I'd set it all up, the player characters would be a small mercenary team in a vaguely-defined future that could be anywhere from <em>Blade Runner</em> to <em>Dune</em>. While it's a big detour from the source material, I think it's important that the characters <em>not</em> be a legitimate military force, since roleplaying proper military discipline and command structure sounds like more hassle than fun, and it gives them a reason for all their equipment and tactics to be individualistic and sub-optimal. If one PC arrives with a flamethrower, it's not because the mission brief said there's a specific need for that weapon here, it's just because <em>he's the dude who likes to use a flamethrower</em>.<br /> <br />Anyway, the PCs' employers would naturally be the weapons R&D branch of some giant megacorporation (not unlike <em>Doom</em>'s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Aerospace_Corporation">UAC</a>) who have hired them to quietly take care of some monstrous fuckup in one of their research facilities. The weapons research angle is important because--in accordance with both first-person shooter and survival horror tropes--the characters <em>must</em> have the opportunity to pick up bigger and better guns in the field than the ones they came in with. The employers' monster-ridden facility naturally has to be a source of both mundane and highly experimental weapons and armor.<br />It also has to be so remote as to be virtually inaccessible. It might be deep underground, underwater, in space, or in another dimension, but for one reason or another, no reinforcements are immediately available, and whatever monsters the corporation has released are (temporarily) contained. The PCs would have only one obvious means of escaping the facility after completing their mission, and that would be whatever conveyance brought them there. For drama's sake, of course, they might lose that option and then have to find another one.<br /> <br />The setting idea I'm really liking, at the moment, would be some space station or or ship that has fallen halfway into another plane of existence through some tear in reality that may or may not have been a naturally-occurring phenomenon. The different physical laws of the other universe--and their applications in weapons development, of course--were the primary subject of the facility's research, but Something Went Wrong, and now the whole thing is sinking inexorably into a dimension inimical to human life.<br /> <br />It also might be fun to have the bulk of the facility be made up of modular cubical sections which have perhaps been rearranged somewhat randomly by a confused or maddened central computer. I dig the idea of actually rolling on a few tables to determine what's behind the next door. (Seriously, in a lot of ways, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_(computer_game)"><em>Rogue</em></a> was the first survival horror game, largely due to its randomness: You could never count on the game's levels to be even remotely fair to you and your dwindling hit points.)<br /> <br />I'm not too sure exactly what kind of swarming, shootable monsters infest the facility, yet. Certainly, a major component of the hordes must be mutated / possessed / infested / mind-controlled humans; the "<a href="http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Former_human">former human</a>" is an important genre cornerstone. They're a great source of weapons and ammo, and just about everything in the players' arsenal works on them. Beyond gun-wielding zombies, though? I'd like to <em>Quake</em>'s fleshy, quasi-Lovecraftian route, but I've got no final ideas about just what the monsters should be like or where they should come from. Maybe I'll draw on <em>CthulhuTech</em> a bit.<br /> <br />There are a few different possible objectives for the PCs' mission. They could be sent in to the facility of its infestation or simply plant a nuke and leave. They might also have to retrieve data or valuable prototypes, or even specimins of the monsters themselves. And I think I'd actually break with genre conventions and make it a rescue mission, we well: For a change, there'd actually be some non-monsterized survivors to save. These NPCs could also provide aid to the PCs, and both exposition and roleplaying opportunities to the players. Not to mention the fun moral issues they might introduce: Do we save the prototype, or the wounded researcher who might be harboring an interdimensional plague? Should we set the self-destruct timer and get out of here, even though we haven't checked every part of the facility for survivors? Are the guys who shot at us possessed by alien parasites, or just scared?<br /><br />So, what system would I use for all this? As far as I'm aware, there is no perfect fit for something like this. There are cases to be made for <em>GURPS</em>, <em>d20 Modern</em>, and <a href="http://gregorhutton.com/boxninja/threesixteen/index.html"><em>3:16 - Carnage Amongst the Stars</em></a>, and of course I really should consider <em>CthulhuTech</em>'s own Framewerk system, but--if only for the purposes of this academic exercise--I want to try hacking my old favorite, <em>Mutants & Masterminds</em>, for the job.<br /><br />On the face of things, <em>M&M</em> is a terrible fit: Its default power levels are high, most of its crunch is devoted to superhero powers, equipment is regarded as part of a character, ammunition--on the rare occasions that guns are addressed--is assumed to be infinite, etc. I'd get around all of this, though, by just using <em>M&M</em> as a construction kit to develop a much slimmer, simplified player's document, which would largely feature modified lists of skills and feats, and a big equipment section. And, because not all players have my burning love for point-based character generation, I'd offer mix-and-match ability, skill, and equipment packages. Equipment--as is appropriate to the survival horror tone--would be expended, destroyed, and replaced with fresh loot constantly (with no regard to <em>M&M</em> character point totals whatsoever), so each piece of gear would have its own card, including both stats and ammo boxes to check off (and maybe an illustration stolen from a computer game).<br /> <br />I've been doing a lot of thinking on what this hybrid mutant system would look like (oh, man, that is a perfect names for it: "Mutant"), but I'll save the big crunch dump for another post.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-39381177544091124872008-08-31T11:00:00.000-07:002008-08-31T12:27:23.184-07:00[comics] Avengers: The Initiative: Is that a jheri curl?<center><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5s0AYWe6C9ibvTVM7XX49wvYmwd0JYKtVGGFkR7YHhPPVvSQUvPCjLhPbF4aCz4MDdFtUSDIa8U-xYZ0pQvllNCB1JjWgDa6DDCZU1urQXTnaaUzYiD-ggWwXf4kVNr8zypDnoyxoJTzD/s400/Ryder_in_1995.jpg" border="0" alt="Ryder in 1995, by Steve Yeowell, from Skrull Kill Krew #1" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5240746710349614546" /> <img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbLzQOEZ371fFfgQjU5G01yGgwnNADvQJcnx_zC-Wi9xCjq8DYoNtHBIOmRcbV9QuzyslY6CrDsA_4_jaQBXmPAKxyAjvLgFLLf6eCL6C0tzCexXsJngPwGxAudHat9Rnk6ejPN5U2exfK/s400/Ryder_in_2008.jpg" border="0" alt="Ryder in 2008, by Stefano Caselli, from Avengers: The Initiative #16" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5240744016177596818" /></center><br />I really love that they brought back <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skrull_Kill_Krew">the Skrull Kill Krew</a> for this whole Secret Invasion thing. And I dig the hell out of Stefano Caselli's art. And I <em>do</em> realize that this character is a shapeshifter.<br /><br />...But, man, it's pretty lame that Ryder has apparently turned himself into a white dude.<br /><br />Right, so the image on the left is from Ryder's initial appearance in <em>Skrull Kill Krew #1</em>. The image on the right is from his reappearance (after 13 years of limbo, far as I'm aware) in <em>Avengers: The Initiative #16</em>. And, to be perfectly fair, I don't really think Caselli actually intended to draw the character as a white guy. The dude is from Italy, and perhaps isn't quite as familiar with what dreadlocks look like as an American artist might be.<br /><br />...And, hell, the dreadlocks / jheri curl confusion has long been a pitfall of some Marvel characters. I think <a href="http://images.google.com/images?q=Bishop%20X-Men&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi">Bishop is an example</a>, although maybe his Rick James hair was totally intentional. Hell if I know. Terrible freakin look, either way.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-31729486052988516312008-08-31T01:37:00.000-07:002008-08-31T11:31:44.239-07:00[comics] Milestone characters joining the DC Universe<center><a class="image" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_FlAoTWsKCJ6iMtPb2h4yJelry6Sl3vCTxtS_YZrk_oGz-rTeZailm0l-6EVNw4zHt6P7UZtJ99ETm1_vJLWP_UXoaaDz7PXEv1DfrKkk2Jf1-b8O4tTYF8As53azTAVwILDhgQiax-B0/s1600-h/SDCC08-DC-static-shock-02.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_FlAoTWsKCJ6iMtPb2h4yJelry6Sl3vCTxtS_YZrk_oGz-rTeZailm0l-6EVNw4zHt6P7UZtJ99ETm1_vJLWP_UXoaaDz7PXEv1DfrKkk2Jf1-b8O4tTYF8As53azTAVwILDhgQiax-B0/s200/SDCC08-DC-static-shock-02.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5240609076981783330" /></a> <a class="image" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYfYTJgerSnTkkAkfCL-6c2stB09NIFiuwCpp607zZxfYhDaBVCqvlB9Gr8j29shf-_LiFCdpQDqyyWG00MNSBetbU-9zpG-9lzXVM-NIva9riWAb6_hRmb2nWcLYWeflNl_vEIGc7Tk3O/s1600-h/SDCC08-JLA-vs-ICON-02.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYfYTJgerSnTkkAkfCL-6c2stB09NIFiuwCpp607zZxfYhDaBVCqvlB9Gr8j29shf-_LiFCdpQDqyyWG00MNSBetbU-9zpG-9lzXVM-NIva9riWAb6_hRmb2nWcLYWeflNl_vEIGc7Tk3O/s200/SDCC08-JLA-vs-ICON-02.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5240608945766000722" /></a></center><br />Yeah, I'm pretty excited about this. <a href="http://www.newsarama.com/comics/080726-comiccon-mileston-DCU.html">According to Newsarama</a>, a few characters from the lamented 1990s comics imprint <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milestone_Media">Milestone</a>--specifically, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icon_(comics)">Icon</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_(comics)">Static</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Cabinet_(comics)">the Shadow Cabinet</a>, I think--will finally be brought back, this time as part of the DC Universe. I heard some theories about exactly this kind of thing happening, back around Milestone's demise in the late '90s. At the time, the idea kind of bugged me, since it had already been established in Milestone continuity that DC's heroes were known in the setting as comic book characters (which made that "Worlds Collide" crossover they did kind of weird), and I was a big continuity purist. Fortunately, I've gotten over caring much about that kind of thing, so I'm totally happy about this.<br /><br />I think the fact that Milestone's beautiful experiment didn't work out back then kind of indicates that I should make a case for why this is awesome. Milestone, sadly, was written off as "DC's hip-hop imprint" by a lot of folks, and generally seen as just another line of superhero comics, except with black characters. The first problem with this perception is the idea that Milestone wasn't black-exclusive at all: The casts of its books were generally very diverse, both ethnically and sexually. The other problem with Milestone's image is that the characters' demographic checkboxes were never really the most important thing about the books: The big draw for me was the fact that they tended to have much smarter writing than the other superhero books of the era.<br /><br />Of course, the writing and the characters are two completely separate components, so I can't really expect that ever DC writer who uses these characters will use them as well as their original books did. But, hell, they've got <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwayne_McDuffie">Dwayne McDuffie</a> himself--creator of the Milestone line--leading the whole return. Also, I'm of the opinion that DC is a better company now than it was back then, anyway, so I'm pretty optimistic.Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3941638942841965664.post-19446744532933175952008-08-31T00:15:00.000-07:002008-08-31T11:31:47.266-07:00I am a Dungeon Master, and my wife is awesome<center><a class="image" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig7po3-cgPmKp9Rir4y-Mt2AKv8TzcJauxbpupsBmV7uOEvvVUgcr3tAvhq1CcBN9_rK1R2esjdZThPsoAczE6YOcjxFac4MnP3ErDcrLwbdRyi87Lqo1gvMpYt9Sfy5PQ5A_s6MdmzZ3C/s1600-h/mattdm.gif"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig7po3-cgPmKp9Rir4y-Mt2AKv8TzcJauxbpupsBmV7uOEvvVUgcr3tAvhq1CcBN9_rK1R2esjdZThPsoAczE6YOcjxFac4MnP3ErDcrLwbdRyi87Lqo1gvMpYt9Sfy5PQ5A_s6MdmzZ3C/s200/mattdm.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5240577779202642962" /></a> <a class="image" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3aZLvt8kgPhveJXiWHdqqL6rJ6sOXLlotqdJCT4r38aIjDU45uBqSrFbXMEJYrq60p64voVBV-Mzz3Hf5TNxy9-2uOgJBg2HctWL_uvyInT3C39mU5adSrUSFCWQ1FUox9da7OePNcRME/s1600-h/cc-mattthedm.gif"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3aZLvt8kgPhveJXiWHdqqL6rJ6sOXLlotqdJCT4r38aIjDU45uBqSrFbXMEJYrq60p64voVBV-Mzz3Hf5TNxy9-2uOgJBg2HctWL_uvyInT3C39mU5adSrUSFCWQ1FUox9da7OePNcRME/s200/cc-mattthedm.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5240577652698394466" /></a></center><br />Right, so <a href="http://ironcircus.com/">my wife</a> is awesome. She's been commissioning comics about me being a really, really bad Dungeon Master from various cool webcomics people. I'm not really sure why she started doing this, but it is extremely cool of her. I want to make "Minus 10 horse points" my avatar / custom title on every RPG forum I frequent, now.<br /><br />Anyway, the first comic is by John Campbell, who does the odd, quiet, and very funny <a href="http://picturesforsadchildren.com/">Pictures for Sad Children</a>. The second is by KC Green, who does <a href="http://horribleville.com/">Horribleville</a> and <a href="http://www.rumblo.com/">a whole mess</a> of other bizarre and hilarious comics. They are cool guys.<br /><br />Absurdly, these actually make me want to start running a <em>D&D</em> game again. But then, hey, freakin everything makes me want to run or play some RPG or another. Now I gotta go figure out when my used-to-be-Tuesday-nights game crew can meet for <em>Spirit of the Century</em>, next. (Yeah, the game's been moving along nicely, even though I can't be arsed to post session summaries, lately.)Matt Sheridanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01114884686181278683noreply@blogger.com0