Turkey Day Infodump

Here's a little something to make your brain feel as full as your belly (any non-U.S. readers should feel free to simulate bloating and belching as they read this). It expands the universe implied in the Dirty Jobs Dwarves post, to give the dwarves a little company down there in the Underdark.

Pardon the rough form here, but this all came to me at once, and I had to compose it at work, where word processors and google docs are forbidden.

Dwarves are:

+Sturdy, burly, and tireless

+practical about magic and technology

+good at teamwork

+brave

*collectively ambitious: think big, plan big, build big, fail big

*brontophiles

*able to see in the dark, but prefer not to.

*communal and family oriented

-better at adapting technology than devising their own

-undiplomatic

-a bit jingoistic

Dwarves have:

*Scottish or Irish accents

*a religion of ancestor worship in the form of tracing lineage to one of a "pantheon" of culture heroes, with a corresponding magic system

*technology based on iron, steel, brass, steam, and burning fuels

*a good mix of magical and technical competence

*large bustling, cities carved out of mountain caves

*beards, frequently

Gnomes are:

+brilliant and clever

+creative and innovative inventors

+gregarious and talkative

+good at hiding

+excellent at craft skills and fine motor manipulation

+neat and tidy

*individually ambitious, sometimes bordering on megalomania
*fascinated by puzzles, trivia, and minutia

*obsessive about their pet topics

*basically irreligious/atheistic

-flighty

-too distractable to be much good at magic

-shorter than dwarves and considerably less robust

-a bit vain

Gnomes have:

*German, Austrian, or Scandanavian accents

*a wealth of technology based on spring steel, brass, clockwork, pneumatics, electricity, and other, more experimental motifs.

*small towns or communes of like-minded individuals, quiet except for the occasional explosion

*hats, usually

Goblins are:

+expert at their brand of sorcery

+very handy with animals

+crafty and intelligent

+able to see in the dark comfortably

*highly mercantile

*inventive and enthusiastic users of expletives

*sensitive to the supernatural

*a little bit crazy

-downright puny

-physical cowards, generally

-very superstitious

-cagey and suspicious

-obligate primitives

-usually filthy

Goblins have:

*Russian, Gypsy, or nondescript Eastern European accents

*huge pointy ears and greenish skin

*sophisticated spell-based magic resembling witchcraft or shamanism

*limited technology based on domestic animals and enchanted tools

*a loose network of tribes and clans, living nomadically or farming natural caves out of huts

*absurd hairstyles like mohawks and spikes

Mind Flayers are:

+cerebral and intelligent

+powerfully psionic

+capable of using technology without magical interference

+sometimes good at summoning magic as well

*inhumanly cold and calculating

*"brain vampires"

*tall and imposing, but no stronger than the average dwarf

-territorial loners

-allied in a vague way with the Elder Gods

-in a hate-hate relationship with dwarves

Mind Flayers have:

*octopoid heads

*booming, villainous psychic voices

*mobs of brain-wiped minions

*powers of mind control, indomitable willpower, and minor psychokinesis

*creepy "live-brain-in-a-jar" technology

Drow are:

+tall, dark, and athletic

+inherently magical

+all capable of at least a few spells

+stealthy

+good saboteurs

*utterly, fanatically devoted to their goddess

*nihilist anarchists

-completely bugnutz crazy

-too Lolth-specific in their devotions to make common cause with other Elder Gods

-implacable foes of the gnomes

Drow have:

*sibilant lisps

*black skin, like, back of an iPhone black

*a penchant for paired weapons

*extensive magic granted by their goddess, with an especially potent technology-jinxing property

*a permanent mission from Lolth to further her agenda of chaos, anarchy, and ruin

*no names--they give them up as a sacrifice for the Lolth and take up the mantle of "Anonymous"

Orcs are:

+huge

+obscenely strong

+nearly fearless

+capable of hijacking the technology and enchanted tools of other races

+able to navigate and track by smell alone

+weirdly ignored or tolerated by the Elder Gods and their critters

*completely inured to violence

*cannibals

*hateful of gods and spirits as well as mortals

-not especially bright

-ugly as sin

-too simplistic to have their own style of magic

-too destructive to keep technology in working order for long

-especially hated by goblins

Orcs have:

*deep, gravely voices

*tusks and green skin

*big, bulky iron armor and melee weapons made with their limited metal craft

*an appetite for sentient flesh (or any flesh, for that matter)

The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, Dragon Age Style

I recieved my box set for Dragon Age Set 1 in the mail on Saturday.  It was full of the promise of the original Red Box all over again.  

Surprisingly (or maybe not) my 10 year old became entranced by the players guide.  I'm not so hot on the dark fantasy aspect, but the presentation of information is really well done.  1 page each for the character types - mage, rogue, and warrior.  A 1/2 page spread of weapons next to the weapons list.  A 1/3 or so page of armor.  Plenty to absorb even if you ignore the dark fantasy setting and backstory.

By Sunday he had decided he needed to be a rogue, scoured the map and picked out a city to be from, and was suitably excited.  Not wanted the excitement to wane (and man do I overthink things sometime), I pushed ahead blindly.  I run lots of indie narativist games off the cuff with little planning, but they generally have experienced players who carry their own end of the story/want different stuff out of games that wouldn't interest a 10 year old.  And not having gamed with kids too much, I was a bit lost as to what type of adventure to begin with.  Then I remembered a box I had with my old D&D modules and the light dawned.  What better place to start than the same place I did.

I wanted to find "Keep on the Borderlands", having fond memories of that module, but alas it was not in my trove.  A ragged copy of  "In Search of the Unknown" was considered, but discarded along with a better kept copy of "The Village of Hommlet" because I would need to read them through to prep, and he wanted to get playing that evening.  Then I found "U1 - The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh", and the parties fate was sealed.  They would be travelling to that same haunted house overlooking the sea, that I had many years ago.  U1 is nicley divided into an intro portion delaing with just the haunted house, and another probably 1/2 of the book dealing with what the players ultimately find there.  It also has some decent box text I could easily paraphrase without much prep.

That evening Mom the mage, the rouge, and his older brother the fighter wandered into Saltmarsh and began to literally kick in the doors of the haunted house.  A snake, a pack of giante cetipedes, and a magic trap or too later, it was the rogues bedtime.  Spells were cast, monsters vanquished, and the first floor of the haunted house cleared.  It was glorious.  Both to see his enthusiasm, have the whole family play, and in having a simple system that generated exciting play at the table.

For session 2 I will probably prep a little more to make the monsters a bit more deadly.  Honestly 1st level characters in DA feel way more competent than 1st level AD&D characters from back in the day.  I think only 1 of them actually took any reasonable damage, and even then it wasn't enough to not be easily healed.

Dragon Age is swiftly becoming my favorite trad system.  Many thanks to the folks at Green Ronin for making such an awesome game.

Real Steel: Round 2

More in that mode of giant fighty robots with the eye of the tiger:

Let's say you want something a little more original than just Real Steel, the RPG. Or maybe you don't like the fighting-by-proxy element of the source. Or [spoiler alert] maybe you have a low tolerance for adorable hip-hop dancing moppets.

So then, fighty robots with some human skin in the game. Let's merge (heh) Real Steel with Transformers. The contenders are drivers. They build and race futuristic Formula 1 style single-seater racecars. These cars can transform at need into a sort of robotic powersuit around their drivers. Car and driver participate in brutal street races in which parts of the course have to be negotiated in powersuit mode, while other parts are better handled in car mode. It's up to each driver to hotswitch modes when they think best. Rules are few, and injuries are many. Picture fast, furious street racing combined with crazy robotic parkour stunts and smash-mouth martial arts fighting. So really it's Real Steel meets Transformers meets Speed Racer meets District B13.

You can still do this with Contenders or Piledrivers & Powerbombs. It'll take a little more effort to reskin, though. If you're feeling really wealthy and creative, try running the people scenes with Smallville, PTA or your other favorite relationship drama system, while running the robot action in heavily-houseruled Mechaton.

Real Steel

I just saw Real Steel in IMAX on a whim. I didn't even get halfway through the movie without realizing: you could do this with Contenders. It wouldn't take much reskinning. More later, when I've had actual sleep.

Dirty Jobs: Underdark edition

This idea started when I caught my first episode of Dirty Jobs in quite a while. What if you combined that ugly, gritty, see-how-the-sausage-is-made attitude with The Wire's sense of real, imperfect people trying to do a hard job? And what if you threw in some deconstruction of D&D fantasy tropes?

The only "people" living in the Underdark who are halfway decent and halfway committed to keeping the place livable are the dwarves. They keep to themselves and build to last, but there are all kinds of things out there in caverns natural and unnatural that would eat your soul as soon as look at you. Someone has to see to it that a stray Purple Worm doesn't burrow into a dwarven creche and eat up all the little beardless kids. Someone has to keep those nasty illithids and their weird gods in check. That someone is you. It may not pay well, it'll certainly get you covered in some nasty substance or other, and your life expectancy will be shorter than a goblin's. But you're making the undermountain safe for all dwarvenkind.

Picture a fire team of dwarves with steampunky flamethrowers strapped to their backs, clearing out a nest of carrion crawlers. Picture a sergeant or foreman in back of them, shouting advice and insults around a huge cigar stub. And just to make it fun, let's say those carrion crawlers invaded from some alternate dimension full of nasty, inimical things. C'mon, you can't tell me carrion crawlers don't have at least a little Lovecraft in them.

Take every fantasy rpg trope about dwarves and underground critters and merge them with gritty, slice of life television. The players are a team of troubleshooters armed with clunky, dangerous technology and sent out to keep dwarven homes safe from the awful, awful things out there in the dark. If you're low on awful things, go pull out some old-school rpg supplements. Any of those weird monsters like otyughs and rust monsters can be scary and nasty if you describe them right.

Possible systems: I'd do this in Reign or Savage Worlds, but you could work it into D&d (3E or prior), Warhammer fantasy, Pathfinder, or Fantasycraft. If you're willing to do a little prep work, The Shadow of Yesterday would work if you grit up the pool recovery rules.

Dragon Age : a return to childhood

So last night we made characters for the Dragon Age RPG.  I don't/haven't played the computer/XBox game, and the dark of the fantasy setting really doesn't do much for me.  But the system is pure elegance of everything I wanted to play when I was 12 and just starting DnD.  Character gne takes all of about 30 minutes while reading the rules, probably 10 once you're used to it.  You get a background (some combo of race and heritage), a class (warrior, rogue or wizard), 8 randomly rolled stats (swap any two).  Roll on  at table for extra focuses, get some gear and done.  The book looks way better than the PDF.  For example, each class was on its own page in the book, making referncing them easy.  I hadn't noticed this reading the PDF because the pages don't fit easily on my lpatop screen.  It was oldschool brillance, melded with some newer ideas.  The only thing I saw lacking was no 10 foot pole on the equpment list (although they did have spikes for spiking doors).

It looks quite good on the chargen, now hopefully the gmaeplay (and stunt points play well).

I can easily see it being a good engine for a musketeers game I have ideas for.  But as Alton would say "thats another show"..

The Rig

I really enjoy the Laudry series by Charles Stross.  IT geek saves the world from unthinkable horrors while also having to battle beauracracy and pointy haired bosses (see Dilbert).  It helps that I'm an IT geek.  But when the Laudry came out in RPG form, they used the Chaosium BRP percentile system.  Not one of my favorites.  So I still love to read the adventure ideas, but I think it needs a better system.

Recently I read a good bit of Black Bag Jobs, the first supplement for the Laundry RPG.  The first adventure really grabbed me, Case Lambeth Witch, mainly due to the briefing by Angleton and the quote :

‘Without wishing to prejudice your findings, it is entirely possible that some moron has drilled into Cthulhu’s arse-crack.’

Its an adventure set on an oil rig in the North Atlantic during a storm (of course) with bad bad things coming up from below.  Good stuff all, but it needed a different system if I was going to run it.

Dread is definitely my goto game for horror and tension.  And I've had great sucess with my conversion of the Fiasco playset Objective Zebra into a full 4 hour long Dread convention scenario.

My idea is to make up questionaires (Dread uses questionaires instead of character sheets) for a Laundry based strike team, and run it that way.  My main problem with Cthulhu scenarios is how to make it different from the last one.  Sure people go crazy and there is impeding doom, but how do you make it unique.  How do you catch people off guard and give them something they haven't seen in horror before?

The New Myth Dilemma

I loved the fiction from Deliria : Tales for the new Millenium.   The game system didn't really get its hooks into me, but the fiction was just so magical to read.  Much like some Charles DeLint, the Fae and the otherworldness always seemed just out of reach, just beyond you the heat ripples on the sands.  Shimmering out there but never fully realized.  Always full of magic.  

Keeping that sense of magic in a scenario currently seems just as far out of reach.  

If you have the Fae, then the players head straight for them, they immediaely believe in the other worlds and the mystery drops away.  The characters would have a much harder time believing that a goblin is living under the stairs behind the local resturant, but the player, jaded by time and many games, just run right though it.

I have no idea how to recapture that magic in the players.

Jaded gamer syndrome seems to abound lately.  John ran a noir game at a con with a muredered 15 year old prostitute.  That would normally elicit at least some emotion in a book or movie, but at the table the players barely paused.  She wasn't a person, she was a plot point, and once discovered, no more thought about than the equipment list.

I wish I could figure out how to unjade the players...  maybe the goblin has a potion he'd sell me....