Wildly Inadvisable: The purpose of skills

Behind on blogging again, but life's twists and turns keep me on my toes lately. I've some extra time tonight, and in order to get to sleep, I think I will muse on Wildly Inadvisable, since I'm back to running it and the skills system has been bothering me quite a bit.

What's the point of a skills system? Well, that is a difficult thing to answer. In broad terms, it is a measure of things your character can do. This can include things such as creating objects, remembering a piece of information, climbing a wall, or casting a spell. In simple terms, this is a pretty easy thing. But taken into gaming terms, it can get pretty complicated, especially since there tend to be two types of skills: Combat skills, and non-combat skills.

In 2nd Edition AD&D, there was a pretty clear divide here. You had a list of Non-Combat abilities, such as Seamanship which got you a host of things like bonuses to swim, and the knowledge of how to work on a boat, but not necessarily run one. It was like how Professions became in d20 Modern - a measure of things your character has done in the past to give them an edge of sorts.

But many systems attempt to lump skills into the same category, and force them to play by the same rules, which can make things quite messy. Therefore, I have come to the realization that my previous dependency on d20-like mechanics is actually hurting the way I have conceived of the skill system for WI. Let's examine this.

How Things Turned Out

The concept behind skills seemed pretty straightforward. You had your attributes, which each had key skills tied to them. From there, these skills had specialties, ranging from resisting a specific type of damage to being able to create a computer virus. In theory, it works great. In practice, it's pretty messy overall, and it is hard to actually find anything in there.

Not to mention the messy amounts of math involved. For every two ranks you place into the basic skill, you can apply a single point to a "specialty", which basically means you gain a higher benefit to a specific instance. For damage resistances or elemental affinities, this is kind of cool. But it makes for a very messy skill sheet, particularly for a game that is supposed to be simplistic.

Fixing The Problem

In order to address this, a few ideas have occurred to me. Instead of an overly-complex system like I have already had set up, one can easily just separate things into combat and non-combat skills. Combat skills are those which do not have a hard 'cap' on them, and are intended to be scaled up as high as possible. Non-combat skills, on the other hand, should have a 'soft cap'. Is it really necessary to have to roll over a 30 to hack a computer database for information that is likely vital to the plot? Not really. So instead, let's have the two follow very different rules, instead of attempting to shoehorn everything into a single category where all the skills play by the same rules.

For lack of a better term, the Non-Combat skills should follow a "pip" system. Let's just say that each of these skills has ten "pips", or ranks that you can put in. Spend a point, get a "pip", similar to how it runs now. However, for every "pip", or maybe every two "pips", you gain an ability tied to that skill. For example, leveling Athletics could grant you a bonus to climbing, or maybe even let you avoid most climbing-based rolls. Or, it could grant you a higher base speed, to reflect your training. Likewise, the computer-based skill can be overhauled as well, so instead of having to roll for the skill, you instead can either perform the requested action if it is well within your ability to do so. Alternatively, treat all non-combat skills as if they had a result of 10. This is important for a second reason, and that is clearing up the combat system, while laying the foundation for the next major thing: Status Effects.

One main issue I have with the system as it is now would be that attempting to add in status effects threatens to slow down game play immensely. Roll Spell Control. Roll Status Defense. Determine whether it beats the target's Defense. Apply Damage and resolve Status Effects. On start of target's turn, roll Status Defense to see if still affected.

This really puts a strain on the combat system, and reminds me of the clunkiness that plagued the d20 system. Instead, I want to apply the above-mentioned "perfect 10" defense, with a bonus caveat: You can have benefits to your status defenses. You can have increased resistances to certain types of Statuses, lessened Status duration, or maybe even mitigate the drawback a Status has on you - perhaps even to the point of an immunity to that particular status. This is a great boon for making good 'villain' or 'monster' templates, which will be very important if the game system is to actually go anywhere. Players will likely not wish to pursue these options, but a monster with nothing to lose might enjoy an immunity to being blinded, poisoned, or even set on fire!

So what determines a "Combat" skill and a "Non-Combat" skill? A "Combat" skill is one that is important in combat, and has no real cap to it. This includes skills such as Resist Status, Dodge, so on and so forth, and may require rolls for it. Non-Combat skills, on the other hand, never have to be rolled, and have a soft-cap, after which point putting more ranks into the skill are pretty much pointless.

I suppose that's enough musing for now, and I covered all the important points I wanted to remind myself of, so that's good for now.

As for modeling stuff: Not sure how much time will be available for this in the near future, but we will see. I may have a contracting job coming available, so time will tell how this works out and whether a change in career is just a pipe dream or a distinct possibility.

A new year, with a few new things

I had told myself that I wanted to get back into the habit of doing this thing again. As the holiday season has come to a close, I already missed the first monday update of the year - a sad thing, to be certain, but I believe it to be forgivable, given my life's recent upturn, and the surprising developments that have been taking place this year.

Today, I'll be just talking about a game system I have just recently discovered - so recent, I've just started skimming through it in the last hour. It is a game called Legend, and it can be found on Rule Of Cool, as if that didn't sound awesome enough already. It can basically be summed up as D&D 3.5, but with many of the design philosophies of 4E. A different approach from Pathfinder, which is D&D 3.5 improved and spiffified (yes, I just made that a word), Legend does something new and unique that I see as a bit of a game-changer in the game design philosophy.

As I may have mentioned, I've designed some game systems myself, and often I have found myself struggling with issues of balance. Legend approaches this with a fresh perspective: Every class has these things called "tracks". Tracks basically detail when you are granted abilities. This is similar to how Pathfinder and D&D 3.5 did things: Classes gained abilities at X level, some gained multiple at the same level. Later 3.5 and also Pathfinder introduced "class options", which let you trade some abilities for other abilities instead, as a way of mixing up the classes.

Legend, on the other hand, has decided that, by granting you three 'tracks', you can substitute one track for one in another class, in order to multiclass. I have yet to finish reading through this, but already this seems exciting to me. Additionally, because of this methodology, it also manages to solve 'power balance' between different races, or monster classes. Vampires, Lycanthropes, those sorts of things are resolved by utilizing one's 4th, "free track" that every character gets. You get a choice between a few different types of "normal variants", such as True Mage, Necromancer, or my personal favorite, Vigilante. Or, you can swap that to be something like a Vampire, or a Demon. Like traditional races, you get racial feats and ability modifiers. Unlike them, however, you also gain additional powers based on your level, or your 'advancement' along that track.

This makes for a very intriguing system, and at the same time, it also makes for a system that is fairly lightweight and easy to understand. If you are X level, and have these chosen tracks, then these are the abilities you have. Skills, HP, all of that are based on your "base" class. You can be a Barbarian with some Paladin tendencies, but your core abilities are all based off your Barbarian class, which is pretty nice. No more trying to remember how many skill points you got off what level, it's all standardized and easy for you to calculate, which is a boon.

But thanks to the whole Track system, you can now do things that were previously not acceptable. Now you can create your own "track" templates for players to choose to gain additional power from for specialized games. For example, if everyone is in a Space Marine game, everyone has to take the "Space Marine" free track, where they gain additional benefits and powers. Or maybe even allow them to choose from a few different ones. Doing this doesn't break the game whatsoever, which makes having to balance encounters not very difficult at all, since it is already built into the game itself.

Overall, this looks like a very awesome system, and I am rather excited to look it over. I know one of the first things I want to try to do with this system.

I want to play some fucking Kamen Rider. =D

*edit*

Oops, I forgot to mention quite possibly the coolest thing about this system: It is free. Yes, completely free for download. Of course, you can go ahead and donate (please do, if you can!). Proceeds go towards making more stuff, but mostly to Child's Play. In short, the money goes to a good place, but you don't have to donate if you don't want to. Or you can donate later if you like. Whatever you feel like.

So check this out if you can. It is very awesome, and deserving of at least some of your time.

GM Style: Add More Characters

So I was reading a blog post over at my favorite gaming blog, Gnome Stew, that was talking about how long people should wait to introduce new characters. Reading through some of the comments, as I occasionally do, I started seeing some very intriguing possibilities for the major game I run, Roguelife. The idea is that they have a ship full of characters, but I've been saying for some time now that the ship itself is understaffed - it's a pretty large ship, but the group doesn't really have the cash to allow a large number of crew on-board (though with some recent windfalls, I'm sure that could change). But the problem still remains: they're still running on a skeleton crew, and that is going to start biting them pretty soon, once they start to realize *spoilers*.

Anyhow, this got me thinking about how we could add more named NPCs to the roster while maintaining a good connection for the party. I've discussed with my players several times that it doesn't make sense for them to have certain PCs going on the 'away missions' - the talker is not a very good shooter, for one thing, and the mechanic is very good at very nearly getting herself killed at every turn. So I asked a couple of my players a question to get the ball rolling: How would they feel if I randomly handed them character sheets with a paragraph of description at the bottom and said "here, play this character"?

To my surprise, the two I was talking with openly embraced the idea, which gives me hope that the others will see it this way as well - and if they aren't, nothing is stopping their characters from participating. But this method will help to enforce the harsh idea that yes, they *could* die at any given time, and at least this way, if they do bite the big one, it will make it a lot easier for them to pick up another character, since they'll probably have a favorite secondary they could use instead, should, god forbid, their main character die.

This makes things very interesting in another way, though: it also makes it possible for us to start using other scenarios, such as "Dave got critically injured during the last mission, and can no longer participate... you're going to need to take someone else with you this time to fill his place." I think this makes for a very interesting scenario, and gives the players some breathing room - especially in a game where healing is something that only occurs naturally.

So, if you are thinking about trying to shake up your game a little bit, tend to use a mission-based structure for your game, and are in an environment where you are utilizing a large group mechanic (such as on a spaceship of sorts or military organization, etc), or are playing in a high-stakes game, maybe you can consider this approach.

I think I'll refer to this method as the 108 Stars approach, of Suikoden fame. Because really, that was one of the ideas I had in my head when I initially gave my players access to a functional spaceship all those sessions back. Allowing the players to control multiple PCs just makes that 108 stars dream that much easier.

As a tangent, I could force the players to create additional PCs - albeit at a much lower level - and force them to 'level' these side characters. Everyone should still gain some amount of inherent XP gain over time - but participating in the missions grants them a much larger amount of XP.

The other great thing about this method is that I can finally do away with the whole individual rewards system - and instead the entire ship as a whole gains the rewards, to be split not fairly, but to be used purely for the ship itself, and any equipment the group may wish to maintain. This has many benefits associated with it, I believe, such as being able to reward themselves with special equipment upgrades on occasion. After all, right now most of the PCs money tends to just get funneled back into the ship anyways (where it should be, really). It just seems like the next logical step to me.

I like to imagine that, much like some NPCs I had planned, that these additional characters would have price tags associated with them as well, allowing for some great amount of variability. PCs pay themselves a certain amount for participating in the missions - everything else goes towards the ship fund (which is kind of how it works right now already). For lower-risk missions, they could go send out some lower-level NPCs instead of their mains, who are probably busy with doing administrative bullshit, or working on far more important things.

It also makes it very easy to segue into a separate side-game temporarily in case the main group is on a mission that requires a specific player who is currently not present.

Lots of great ideas from this, and hopefully someone else manages to think of some others. Personally, I am excited by this prospect, and I hope that it will spread to my players as well. I have a lot of awesome things I'd like to do in the next act, so this will just make it even easier for me to make the stakes that much higher while not worrying too much if someone might die.

Of course, I'll also need to make some NPCs of my own, but I'm looking forward to that a little bit. There's something nice to be said about giving yourself strict limitations you cannot work around, or being able to craft character sheets that have a little something unique about them for the players to enjoy as well, on occasion.

Like allowing one of the players to control the military-grade assassination droid that they re-purposed.

It's the little things in life which give me the most joy, I think.

Things you can do with d20 Modification

The d20 Modification project, which was originally designed as making the d20 Modern system compatible with Pathfinder, can be used for a lot of interesting things. Like the old Modern system, it still tends to favor the high-intensity action hero sort of game. Unlike the previous system, low-level combat is even more deadly, thanks to firearm overhauls - all guns have a minimum damage modifier, meaning instead of a handgun dealing 2-12 damage, it deals more like 4-14. At low level, that makes a huge difference.

Part of it is because, especially with massive guns like the Barret Light Fifty, the reality is anyone even in the vincinity of one of those rounds tends to turn into a fine mist. But according to the book, those guns 'only' deal 2d12 damage. That means one of the most powerful firearms in existence *only* deals 2-24 damage. At least this way the minimum is brought up some, and it gives more power to people using them. On the other hand, they also tend to come with accuracy modifiers, balancing that out.

With the introduction of the updated magic system, things are slowly falling into place allowing for a variety of interesting genre mixes. One of those mixes I've always had in mind was a Star Ocean-esque setting, where futuristic characters are learning to use magic - something that always fascinated me. But it occurs to me that there are other genre-types one can emulate with a system this versatile. For one thing, it is one step closer to being able to emulate something you can see in the Marvel Universe, where science and magic tend to exist side by side (but don't seem to play well together, usually, and occasionally blurs the line between the two). Or you could even attempt something in the vein of Disgaea - all kinds of craziness can occur there.

Urban Arcana could be re-envisioned - or even Urban Arcana Evolved (which is sort of like the future version of that). Sliders is another possibility, where characters may not always be existing in the same world from one game to another - which could make character choices even more interesting.

All of these things would require little-to-no modification of the system, really, and that was my main goal from the very start. When I was running a future campaign of mine many years ago, I thought it would be fun to pit the group up against some wizards, just to see how they would fare. Needless to say, the results were rather interesting, and the group perservered - of course, they also had far greater weapons than most fantasy characters often wind up with. But on the other hand, fantasy characters tend to get more awesome class abilities, so there is a balance there as well.

Overall, I'm rather pleased with the possibilities this system can offer, and hopefully I'll be able to get the rest of the magic system laid into stone. I don't think I'll be touching on the psionics or other FX abilities... but then again, maybe I might just at some point.

I wouldn't really bet on it though.

Special Edition: This Post

I'm a huge fan of Gnome Stew. I can't remember how I managed to find it, really, but while many of their articles have been kind of bleh lately, this one grabs me pretty good.

I have a huge problem with this myself, being unable to schedule regular times to run, and even worse, it's pretty hard for us all to come together without any in-home distractions (as there are many). But for an internet-centric group, it should be easier to find ways around this, I'd think.

Maybe this could give rise to a new sort of hybrid game - where players can edit wiki pages or post on a message board roleplaying stuff in between gaming sessions - helps keep players engaged, and lets us focus on the important things when it comes time for another session - and sessions can just pick up where conversations left off.

It's an idea.

Role Playing Games: Or RPGS?

There is a difference between RPGs and Role Playing Games. RPGs are more computer/console-based, and tend to waffle between one of two different tropes: you wander around randomly fighting things to gain experience to unlock greater powers, or you go from one battle in a 'chain' to the next until you reach the next portion, gaining amounts of XP along the way that you can then use to purchase whichever skills you like.

Sounds kind of familiar, right? But these games can be very different from Role Playing Games. Or, maybe even better, Tabletop Games.

Tabletop games evolved from old wargamers wanting to add a little extra something to their weekly war sessions - stories of how their figurines had gotten where they were, eventually evolved into something different from the norm - the Role Playing Games we know and love today.

It has since inspired entire generations of games made in similar veins, but there is still a distinct divide between what we experience on computers than what we experience at a table (or even virtual tables, if you will). Much of it is often attributed to not having an active gamemaster who can make up rules on the spot, or being able to change the game or even completely reinvent it as needed. But that's not the only place this divide comes into play: the design philosophies can often be different as well.

Now, many times people will argue that they are 'just the same'. But let's not lie to ourselves. There's a tremendous difference in the design philosophies between Final Fantasy X and our tabletop experiences. Take any random-encounter RPG - yes, old-school D&D has random encounter charts, just like most other RPGs. But those RPGs, you expect them, because they go by so quickly. Tabletop, however, is far more immersive - yes, you can have those random encounter charts, but you are in that area for a reason, and then suddenly TIGERS EVERYWHERE. What do you do?

There's a good point to understanding where this divide comes in, because as a GM, it's not just your job to set up a random encounter chart and go wild with it. It has to have a purpose and a reason. Let me share with you one of my experiments from my post-apoc future game, Roguelife.

The group was going to explore an abandoned city, looking for Quest Item X. Of course, X was something they had no idea where to find! It being a big city, I wanted it to be somewhat more old-school adventure - a bit of a departure from the traditional 'hallway segments', where the group goes from one battle to the next until they finally reach the end.

I set up a very large spreadsheet, which worked extremely well. It listed different building types, different creatures that could appear in those types, and depending on the sort of building it was (and it's size), you could expect to find a predetermined amount of loot within those buildings (if you were clever enough). This was awesome because it could generate some truly interesting things - in one building, they stumbled across a group of mutants who were being 'purified' by extremists - realizing they couldn't fight such a large battle, the group wisely opted to try looking elsewhere. In another building, they went all the way down to the ground floor, only to find an entire *herd* of Dire Caribou defending themselves from zombies. Successfully, I might add (they were, after all, DIRE Caribou).

Things like that can make for amazing gameplay sessions, but half of it is being able to know how to read those charts and react to them on the fly - how can you pull these elements together to create a similar scenario that the group may have already encountered, but adding some kind of twist to it? Another one had them trying to get into a gas station that was surrounded by zombies and... a DIRE BEAR. Oh man that bear almost tore them up, but they managed to bring it down and save the man inside.

Of course, since I made the chart, I already had an idea how these things could fit together. All in all, it was an attempt to make a tabletop version of a Roguelike - one that worked amazingly well.

So consider the type of game you are running, and the feel you want to give it. Is it a high-stakes game, where there is a clearly-defined goal and maybe even a clearly-defined path to achieve it? Or are your players looking for something more adventurey, where the destination is not as important as the journey to reach it?

Think it over. Talk it over with your group even. You might be surprised at what you can learn.

When GMs get it right

Bit early today, but found I have a little more time on my hands than expected, and since I'm still positively buzzing from our Flotilla game this weekend, I thought I would share some things about when GMs get things perfectly right.

Flotilla is a game based in a waterworld where almost everyone lives on ships or floating cities. There are, on occasion, islands, but they are very few and far between - most people never even get to see real land.

Our characters live on one of the largest fleets out there, known as the Marblehead Flotilla. It's a pretty cool place with a number of captains from each ship who are part of a council that votes on the future of the fleet. Our characters were mostly just regular joes who happened to live there (or were there for some reason, in the case of one of us).

There was recently an article on good game design over on Gnome Stew, which can be read here. The important part is further down, where it says "Build the Backstory, But Build The Characters Into It". That is one of the hardest things to do as a GM, without it somehow becoming a huge mess, or not what the players wanted/expected.

Well, I can safely say that after what Eyolo pulled last night, he did a damned good job.

Here's how this works: Everyone that lives on the Flotilla has a patron, which is one of the captains. The captains vouch for people - if you don't have the blessing of a patron, you're not going to be allowed to live in the fleet. One of the PCs is a fish-man whose mother is a powerful (and devout) follower of the Path of Light, the semi-religious order in the world, which is run by a guy named Caesar. Without spoilering for other people, there's some sort of connection between the main characters - in the mechanic's case, he is related to fishman's girlfriend (a girl who is always stuck in a rubber suit due to weak immune system), and has helped her out in the past in making her life a lot more comfortable over the years. My character was just a brute, who spends most of her time throwing people out of bars or brothels who act up, and generally being a Mean Bitch. But even she had a connection in her past to everything as well, it seemed, based on the backstory I provided.

Since it was mentioned in the last session, my character's father had something to do with Caesar's seal. There's a lot more I wish I could say, but out of fear of spoilering, I'll just say that there's a lot more to this than one might think. Knowing the story (because I wrote it), I can safely say that she is well-connected to the other PCs, because it seems as though she is also the granddaughter of one of the most infamous captains in the fleet - an ex-pirate.

Because of this development, I think we can finally rope in our other character, and start tying her into things - because from the looks of how the plot is developing, my character might just be inheriting a ship. We will, of course, need someone who can fix things (mechanic), someone who can sail things (the other character mentioned, not fish-guy). We'll also need someone who can heal things (new character introduced last night, amazing doctor based off of Ema from the Ace Attourney series). We'll probably also need fish-boy.

I think that, with all of us combined, we can pretty much pull people we all know and create a small gang who can sail off into the open seas, looking for answers. And maybe vengeance. I love vengeance. It means more chances to punch things in the face.

My character's world is about to come crashing down - and I appreciate this, because at the same time, it will liberate her and force her to rise to the top, and become something more than just a mere brute who beats people.

Maybe someday, we'll be able to get our ex-pirate captain a new ship, and maybe over time, we can make our *OWN* Flotilla.

Things like this is why I can safely say, our GM got it absolutely right this time.

I'm looking forward to next session. Shit is going to go down, all melodramatic-like.

Prepping for the weekend - and other things

Tonight I spent a couple of hours going through and setting the framework for Pathfinderizing (god that word is getting cumbersome already) spellcasting in d20 Modern. Essentially, it works like this: There is a pool of Universal Talents that any class which gains talents (re: base classes) can take. Additionally, they all come with a prereq requiring either the Divine Heritage or Magical Heritage feats found in Urban Arcana. There's an interesting option there for people who decide to use *both* - though they are likely to have a hard time of it, considering only Humans can opt to take both feats at first level, and they won't get the feat that makes the magic-based skills a class skill. Though, considering the nature of how Pathfinder handles its skills, I doubt this will be too great a drawback for the time being.

First draft of all the talent trees went up tonight - there's four trees in total, one for trained magic (wizards/clerics), one for natural magic (sorceror/favored soul), one for 'theurges' (people who can cast both), and then one tree dedicated to advancing spells. One in particular is likely to become a requirement for Advanced Classes, though I am reconsidering this partly due to the fact that I also want to make it possible for Pathfinder character capable of utilizing these Advanced classes as well - a level or two won't hurt their spellcasting potential, and could offer some interesting alternative benefits.

Thank god that multi-classing into similar spellcasting classes doesn't stack... otherwise we would have one whole hot mess on our hands there. Traditional classes are still far more powerful than their modern variants, but the modern ones will have access to abilities that the traditional classes don't - such as the option to increase spell damage or spell accuracy. There's enough customization that can go into it that you can wind up with some very interesting low-powered casters. Though gaining access to higher-level spells is a real pain for Modern characters - they have to already give up their traditional Talents in order to cast them, so if they want to be able to cast higher level abilities, you're looking at giving up not only every class-based talent, but also sacrificing any other Universal talents. On the bright side, however, characters can take any base class they want and level that, and still take those universal talents, so there is some benefit to that at least - for one thing, they'll be a hell of a lot tougher than their traditional friends. And that's just dealing with the base classes - I haven't even started working on the Advanced Classes (and after that, Prestige Classes).

But enough about game design, I wanted to talk about how I'd like to spend my weekend!

I get the feeling I'm going to be in a bit of a movie mood this weekend, but what should I watch? That is the ever-damning question that is posed to myself. Do I hit myself up again with a Back To The Future marathon again? Or should I just watch all the good Die Hard movies (y'know, every one EXCEPT 2). Maybe I ought to bust out some anime, and do another marathon along those lines of something I've not watched in some time?

I have a lot of options, but I have no clue what I'll go with. Any suggestions are welcome.*

And of course at this point I am suddenly reminded that I have yet to catch up on the new Thundercats. I should rectify this in due course.

Tomorrow night should see another update - though if I do make one, it will likely be short due to work schedule making me go in saturday morning. Upside of this? I have sunday off, so that's quite a bit of time away from my job that I get to myself. Until next time!

*Any suggestion NOT involving MLP:FIM, plzkthx. I'm sick of that already, I'll either watch it or I won't, constantly asking me to watch it will likely have the opposite desired effect. Stop asking!

Urban Pathfindera - Or How I Came To Stop Worrying And Love Converting Systems

An ambitious project I started quite some time ago was the Pathfinderization of the d20 Modern system. Unlike wanting to create an entirely new system (which I thought was wholly unnecessary), my goal was to simply provide an extensive errata for the entire system, and adding a couple other neat little touches I thought were worth adding in.

For reasons of wanting to avoid being slapped by copyright lawyers, I decided that I would only provide the text that needed to be updated - everything else was as the books had stated. I went through, I overhauled *everything*. Made every character class Pathfinder-compatible, balanced unbalanced classes, removed Action Points and instead made abilities a X Times Per Day/Encounter ability, so on and so forth. I went through and did an extensive re-writing of the armor and firearms systems - armor provides DR in addition to extra AC - at the expense of Dexterity bonuses, of course - and made guns more potent by giving them base modifiers to accuracy and damage based on the type of gun being used - and in doing so prepping them to be freely modified much like one could modify regular weapons via magic or (additional) mastercrafting.

d20 Modern, Future, Future Tech, Cyberscape, and even Apocalypse were looked at, reconsidered, and overhauled. I went page by page through the Weapons Locker, assigning new attributes to each and every single gun in there, without repasting the entire book on the internet - all you'll find are the changes made to each weapon. Yet there was one sole book that escaped my purview (aside from Past... who needs to change anything in that when you have Pathfinder now?).

That book was Urban Arcana.

I loved the idea behind Urban Arcana. It was a great idea. What wasn't great, however, was that the design philosophy behind the entire thing was critically flawed from my own idea of how this system should work - essentially, in order to cast a Magic Missile, one needed to take three levels of a basic class, and then gain levels in one of the extremely-limited magic-based classes.

So basically, 4th level character, but only a 1st level caster. Magic Missile? My basic handgun deals more damage at first level, don't make me laugh! At the upper echelon, the maximum level spell castable by modern characters is a 5th level spell. While dangerous to a party with limited magical abilities, this stark contrast is insane when compared to any fantasy-based caster, who has access to far greater abilities by that time. By 13th level, a Wizard or Sorceror is slinging around 7th level spells. Even with guns, how the hell is a modern character ever going to possibly compete should these two worlds combine?

That there's the rub, and tonight, I think I'll take the first steps to answering that question. Bear with me, this might take a little while.

The difference between Mages and Hedge Wizards

Or something to that effect, I suppose. Mages are what we typically associate normal spellcasters with - they are pretty awesome dudes who didn't afraid of anything and shoot fireballs out of their nostrils all night long while banging their totally hot summoned succubi. Hedge Wizards, or what is the equivalent of the Urban Arcana spellcasters, are modern characters who somehow gain access to spells.

In the context of the game system it was designed for, this makes perfect sense - after all, the CR of most creatures skyrockets because the party is not intended to have any magical abilities whatsoever. This makes your typical monster far more dangerous, since overcoming most common defenses (DR X/Magic or Cold Iron, or even Good, for example) becomes an insurmountable task. Weapons are capped at dealing at best 2d8 (or 2d12 if you're particularly saucy and using some badass AMR), and you have very limited protections against most common damage types, such as fire, cold, and electricity. It's a much higher stakes game, where attempting to defeat something that powerful is pretty much impossible without magic.

At 20th level, the best you can hope to ever use are 5th level spells. Since damaging abilities from other classes are capped due to a lack of magical weapons to help compensate, the Urban Arcana casters are restricted access to higher-level spells, as it would make things far too unbalanced in their favor. On the other hand, though, they pale in comparison to the 'real' casters - which the 'fluff' of the setting explains has long-since been lost to the ages for whatever reason you might want to imagine.

With that having been said, here's the main big point: The only 'advantage' that a Modern caster has over a Fantasy caster is that the Modern one is allowed the use of firearms, and has a different set of skills. Additionally, these characters are granted Talents which better round out their initial abilities by granting them something special early on.

Put a Strong or Tough hero beside a Fighter, and you'll note they are fairly balanced. But put an Urban Arcana caster beside a Wizard or Sorceror, however, and you've got what can only be described as a nightmare - the Wizard or Sorceror will likely win every time, considering they have access to far more powerful spells.

Now, I'm not opposed to this being the case. What I am opposed to, however, is the manner in which this was all presented. In order to start learning anything besides a 0th level spell as a Modern character, you must first take three levels of whatever. This rubs me the wrong way, and while I can understand *why* they did it in the context of the system (which works off of six core classes that eventually specialize elsewhere), the problem lies in that very same design - every class has to move into an "Advanced" class. It is literally impossible to play a first-level character who has access to something more powerful than Ray of Frost - and that's kind of lame, in a way. So how do we solve this issue without unbalancing the scales yet again?

Solving the riddle

I like to think the best solution lies in one of two places. One, you play a character utilizing one of the Fantasy classes - not an ideal solution, of course, but it should still be acceptable in certain circles that even the oldest of old school mages could be technophobes (and unlike other modern characters, not allowed the benefits of Occupations and the like). The second option lies right in the core of the system itself - a feat available only at character creation, which allows the player the ability to cast 0th level spells.

See, I liked the idea of that, because it was a way to cast spells as a Modern character. The problem, however, is that it never scaled in any way at all - what if you decided that you didn't want to advance into the casting advanced classes? Worse yet, what if you realized that you couldn't meet the prereqs required to move into those classes? Wild magic should be allowed to bear fruit at some point, shouldn't it?

4E has taught me many things, and one thing I enjoy about it is their take on multi-classing. Particularly, the ability to take something from another class as you desire. The problem I see between the Modern casters and the Fantasy ones is that the Modern characters don't get enough of a leg up on the Fantasy boys - they're always going to be left in the dust, being nothing more than pathetic posers wishing that they could be cool enough to cast the real magics.

What if we just let them? The solution I came up with some time ago was that you could make a feat available only at character creation that turns any of the core Modern classes into a spellcasting one - by using what I called a Universal Talent, you gained access to a *very* limited spell progression chart, and chose a source of magic - Arcane or Divine. Sounds familiar, right?

Additionally, the character could choose a source of study as well - Natural or Practiced. Natural casters gained spells like Sorcerors or Favored Souls would. Practiced were your Wizards and Clerics. The kicker? These characters could never see spells above second level without proper training. Perfect for someone who plans on eventually advancing into the Advanced classes... and for someone who just wants a bit of flavor? Equally useful as well, without breaking things too much.

The problem with solutions

Of course, this brings about some issues of its own. If left unchecked, eventually the Modern casters would overshadow the Fantasy ones. And for that very reason, they are capped on the maximum spell they are allowed to cast. The Advanced Class grants them access to fifth level spells, and a Prestige Class would allow them access to 7th. But this comes with its own problem as well, which brings me to the point of this entire thing:

In order to create such a solution, one must tear out everything that exists with the currently-existing magic classes in Urban Arcana, in order to make them work well with Pathfinder. Not only do you have to change how their spell progression works, you also have to strip the currently-existing level-based abilities, and make them something more than just "bonus feat, divine spells" every single level.

As it stands right now, a 5th level wizard can cast a 5d6 fireball. A 5th level Modern hero can cast a 2d6 Shocking Grasp. I'm okay with not allowing them access to the higher level spells... but can't we at least let them treat their core class as part of their effective caster level? 5d6 Shocking grasp is good, but pales in comparison to the Fireball (as it can only affect a single target).

The other thing I would love to see with making Urban Arcana Pathfinder ready is the addition of brand new abilities. The book had great ideas with some of their spells, such as powering electronic devices or making vehicles move, or even casting magic through the internet. What if the Modern caster, unlike the Wizards of yore, could swap out their spells on the go? Pull out your PDA, and suddenly you've got the incantations for a spell you didn't prepare for the day - something a Wizard might find difficult, being that they still work on the old Vancian system.

I believe that selectable Talents is the way to go here - and allowing for additional caster-based benefits to allow the Modern caster to become far more versatile is one way to allow them to compete with the old masters without tipping the scales too far in one direction or the other.

Urban Arcana had great ideas. It's just a shame they were executed so terribly.

With all of this said and done, I've spent over an hour typing this thing. It's almost a freaking essay at this point. Maybe later this week, I'll start setting aside time to begin working once again on the framework of this project - unlike the previous stages, I only had to update things. With this, I will be creating brand new content, because quite frankly I never really did like what they did with casting magic in Modern. Universal Talents, probably updating the original Advanced Classes, and then adding in 5-level Prestige classes will be a great step in the right direction, I think.

It'll be a heck of a project... but I *did* do a complete firearms overhaul, so I think this will be about as ambitious as Pathfinderizing Modern in the first place.

Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Late once more - technically today's update should be tomorrow's post, but since I failed to actually put anything up on sunday (when I should have) things have been out of whack.

So I'll just talk about what kept me up late sunday, and how my experiments are going with Wildly Inadvisable: Test Theory.

The test game was just a pretty quickly thrown together sort of thing. I had some very vague ideas in mind, but I had no idea what kind of characters I'd have. Speaking with those interested in trying the new system, I learned that they were very interested in trying a modern magical game - a world in which we evolved with the knowledge that magic was a very real and tangible thing. Then the first two sheets that were slid my way using the rules laid out both just happened to be college students.

I had to think on my feet. I wanted to attempt some sort of investigation-themed game, but how could I tie college students into it? The obvious choice was pretty obvious: put them into the thick of things pretty quickly. A mysterious creature (whom they've begun calling Slender) that looks similar to a cat began to lead them on, in a way. A mysterious set of numbers led them to believe that something might be occurring later that week - perhaps in that very spot. So they chose to come back later that week, and sure enough, their gut instincts were correct - a professor who had been fired that very day had return to exact some form of revenge, and once the cat-like creature was mentioned, the professor went ballistic.

In this world, magic is a very real thing - but also fairly rare. Sure, most people have at least a small bit of aptitude for magic - usually it doesn't go very much beyond levitating pens or creating small lights, or powering small devices (such as phones). On occasion, someone will develop a power that is useful to them in some way, and with training, they can manage to become Mages.

Most often, Mages are taken under strict supervision of some government entity - be it military, police, or even a federal government. They have entirely new career paths made open to them, many of which serve to better serve mankind at large. Police investigators, for example, can more easily understand what precisely occurred at the scene of a crime - emergency medical technicians no longer need to rely on chemical remedies and common medical training - the use of magic can help stabilize patients long before they even arrive at the hospital. Senior Mages can even become expert medical doctors, or maintain watch over entire sections of the city, dealing with only the most dangerous cases.

In this game, there is also an entity known as "Corruption", where a spell user can allow themselves to channel some sort of dark energy into themselves, in exchange for greater power. Every character has some sort of 'safe' threshold for this Corruption, but it both takes a long time to vanish and also has some extremely dangerous side effects - after a certain point, a character must roll each time their Corruption increases, or risk being taken over by whatever power it is they are channeling.

What is this power? I leave that up to the imagination - I have my own ideas in this world what it is (and if I have my way, it will eventually come to light in the plot itself). But it could just as easily be considered a form of 'demonic energy', or some extraterrestrial influence, or maybe even just madness itself ala Lovecraftian designs.

Of course, since this Corruption is a very integral part of the system, I want to utilize it in every combat, so pretty much any foe they will be encountering will, of course, be in the midst of channeling this power recklessly - after all, what is the point of power if one never gets to use it? How can one push themselves to the limit if they do not take some risks?

It is just another one of those things that fits in nicely with the title, I suppose.

In the last session, the characters managed to meet up once again with a very powerful person known as a Witch Hunter. In this world, Witches are supposed to be some kind of legend - nobody knows if such creatures actually exist. Witches are, according to lore, some sort of powerful magical force that is considered to be nigh-unstoppable - the Bubonic Plague is one of those incidents that was supposedly influenced by a Witch. But whether these things really exist or not, or in what capacity, is a mystery in itself.

So imagine how citizens must feel knowing that there is a top-secret government organization known as the "Witch Hunters" whose task is to protect the public at large from such a threat - and then imagine their distrust and anger towards that very same government that appears to be simply throwing money at an organization that technically doesn't appear to have any real sort of function, and who also does not seem to publically admit the existence of. Imagine if the US Government were found to be throwing billions of dollars in funding for projects into Area 51. That's the sort of anger and resentment that exists.

According to this Hunter, he is fairly tired of seeing one of the characters constantly seeming to show up in some form or another with every investigation he is a part of. To say that he suspects she may have something to do would be an understatement - however, thanks to one of the other PCs, who was revealed to be either a cyborg or a robot whose basic purpose was the detection and nullification of these very same 'witches', it seemed to the hunter to be just a coincidence - albeit one he might not dismiss so lightly should their paths cross again.

Of course, the two college students have their own concerns - given that they were instructed by another supposedly similar to them that they should avoid Witch Hunters at all costs - after all, they too could be considered Witches themselves, and that would not be good for anyone involved.

So I managed to take what things the players asked for - modern day society, magic spells - and spin it into something that could be intriguing. They desperately want to know what is with this 'cat' they keep seeing, and why it seems like only they can see it. There's a number of other mysteries - such as why other people not unlike the professor continue to crop up with increasing frequency - and also increasing amounts of violence.

I'm sure answers will eventually present themselves to the party, and with any luck those answer will only spur them to ask even more questions, and begin to forge their own sort of path. Hopefully I can take these initial ideas I had for this game, and spin them into something that is both at least a decent mystery, and also allow for some very intense action sequences.

That's it for tonight - another post should emerge tomorrow, most likely going on about Deus Ex: Human Revolution (which I'm playing right now, really). Until then, take care, and play safe!

Looking For Schedule

One of the main problems plaguing me is this whole creative process. It's hard to get into the swing of things when your life is so turbulent, and when you don't bother to set goals for yourself in order to accomplish anything.

When I started this thing, I thought I'd have a lot to talk about (which I do). The problem being, mostly, that I write when I feel in the mood - and most of the time, I'm not in the mood. Thusly, everything suffers - this blog, my creativity, and everything else surrounding that.

So, starting from today, I am going to set a schedule - at least three updates a week, monday, wednesday, and friday. I will do my best to talk about something going on - be it one of the games I'm playing in, what I think went well and what could have gone better, or any projects that I am working on (which will hopefully inspire me to see some of those further along the lines to completion).

So for this week, things are already quite behind. I'll have to go ahead and fix that, starting tomorrow (because what better time to start than on the next scheduled day?).

Tomorrow's topic will likely be musing upon either my homebrew tabletop system, Wildly Inadvisable, or it will be musing on my Apoc game that's just started. Maybe even both, who knows.

Sometime next week, I expect to be picking up Deus Ex: Human Revolution. And I am sure I'll have quite a bit to say about that as well.

Sometime later that week, I may even have some things to say about modeling as well - because I'm trying to pick that back up again, as a means of getting better at that thing I went to college for, while at the same time trying to bone up for a project I probably shouldn't have put off for as long as I have.

Since this post has been kind of short, I'll go ahead and talk about that just a little bit. For many years, I've had an idea burning in my skull. At first, it was just a simple little roleplaying thing for me - but over time, I realized it had evolved into something quite incredible, even though I really had no clue how to properly express that awesomeness.

I tried to start things with it - flash animations that never went anywhere, drawings that never really materialized, and half-written stories that just stopped going anywhere. But now that I have this degree in Computer Animation (a Bachelor's of which I am rather proud of), I should start working for myself to start seeing some of these dreams to completion.

I want to start small, of course. I want to model the main character that this revolves around, so I can finally visualize him well. (Drawings would help this, of course). But to do it in the way I wish, I'll want to utilize cloth and hair simulations, two things I am very unfamiliar with. Additionally, I want to try to push my high-resolution texturing skills to the test - which means I've got quite a bit of work ahead of me.

So my first step for now is to continue trying to get back into the swing of things, and to get modeling people! Following online courses from the ever wonderful Digital Tutors is a great step in the right direction - but of course I need to set goals and guidelines for myself so that I can make the time to actually sit down and do the damn things.

As of recently, I've finished up the first part of a modeling humans tutorial, which has helped immensely. Now the real test begins: can I recreate what I learned by using my own reference images?

With that having been said, I'm starting where the best place to begin is: the head. I've got a rough model already sketched out for the head - a bit more work and I can move on to roughing out the torso, then the arms, hands, legs and feet. And of course the bobbly bits (since in this case I'm attempting to model a female reference).

That's where I'm at right now. Some more practice with that stuff will do me quite a bit of good - and putting to practice those skills I've learned recently will go a long way, I feel. In the near future, I hope to be going over some fur/hair stuff, and then cloth simulations once I get that far as well. The end goal here is to attempt to make a very short animation of the character in action, so we shall see just how far that gets me.

In the meantime, I guess I'll just be moseying along. Tomorrow's post: It's The End of The World (or Doing Something Advisably Stupid). We'll see which I decide to go with tomorrow. One deals with game design, the other just running games. Such tempting little topics.

Starting something from the beginning

Probably one of the best things to start this blog off with is about starting something from the ground up. In this case, I'm going to be talking about one of my upcoming d20 Future games, which is based on an Apocalypse setting I've been running for the last couple of years.

Where do we start with something like that? I read a lot of other message boards and gaming blogs on occasion, and often I hear a lot of the same questions, like "How do I get started" or "How much prep work do I need?"

Well, I may or may not address those questions. What I'll be doing here is providing a bit of behind-the-scenes stuff, because what I'm doing is highly experimental (as have most of my games lately).

The experiment this time around revolves around attempting something I've not done before: running a short game that is not only consistent and makes sense the entire time, but has a very clearly-defined goal from the start. The main premise of the story consists of, well, apocalyptic proportions. It's pretty much the end of the world as you know it, and the goal is pretty simple: survive. The things I knew going into this:

My players wanted a game in the same setting (Roguelife is the title), that was before the "Contact" period (or when things ended). They wanted it to be on a space station in orbit, and they may or may not have insinuated wanting zombies of some sort.

Given all the material I have for this setting (which contained all of those things, most in the very first session!), this was a pretty easy thing to set up. I had the major set pieces (space station, apocalypse, add zombies), all that was left was to figure out how events would play out.

This is where the next part of my experiment comes - trying to build something around the characters themselves. Given that this is a game about the apocalypse occurring, the characters and the people they know are *extremely* important! So before I can plan out anything about how the session will go, I need to know who the major players are - so that I can craft some kind of scenario around them. Which leads me into the final portion of the experiment: unbalanced party levels.

Characters range anywhere from 1-6th level. But the only guidelines I gave them was to give me a character concept - to describe who their character was, and what they had done so far in their lives. So far, there is a school teacher, a retired master mechanic, a sports-car driver (for lack of better term), and a sort-of-mobster. Not a bad spread, and individually going over creation guidelines was rather interesting. Some people were given more experience, and more choices of cybernetic options - after all, the school teacher likely isn't going to have a whole lot, but the racer might, because he is semi-rich and it would help make him a better driver.

So the process behind this was pretty simple: Find out what the players wanted (pre-apoc space station, maybe with zombies), and then generate an area for them to live in. In this case, a Space Station is pretty easy - you don't have to worry about them hopping from town to town. But on the other hand, it means you have to go to some great lengths to find out where they might go, so that you can plot out some rough escape routes, and understand what avenues are available to your characters - especially if they are unfamiliar with the area!

In this case, I went with something large but also small: a recreational station. There's the sports arena (the only one of its kind in the solar system!), an amusement park, casinos, and some general relaxation stuff. But of course there also has to be housing for the people who actually live there, so I spent some time listing out what kinds of places there would have to be there, and made that information available to the players, who then commented on things. Then, I sat back, and expanded on these options a bit, adding pieces of information to help ease them into the setting - for example, adding in 'space races' or what I like to call the "Star Driver" event. Yes, that was the whole premise behind it and I'm not ashamed to admit it's a joke I'm playing through to the end. It's best described as NASCAR mixed with Hot Wheels. In space. I figure, why the hell not, may as well go all the way with the joke and make it an actual sport. Therefore, our racer boy who is popular with the ladies was born.

Usually, I have a sort of game plan set out before sheets are submitted. This time, I wanted to wait until three sheets were submitted - that would give me some time to figure out just how exactly things were going to work, and what the characters would excel at - so that I could throw in opportunities for them to utilize those skills, and not being trapped because there was no possible option for them to survive. As a player, I hate the prospect of a no-win scenario - instead, I embrace the creativity of utilizing aspects of a character (skills, abilities, equipment, whatever is around me!) to create a 'winnable' solution - even if it wasn't exactly intended in the first place.

That's part of the reason I prefer the older d20 system - yes, it's got its flaws, and it can be somewhat broken from time to time, but it's flexible enough I can do whatever I like to it and it'll still turn out okay. There's a great deal of power granted to the players, so that even with a team of three or four people, you should have a well-enough rounded experience that they can at least have some sort of reaction to whatever you might throw at them.

At this stage of the game, I'm still in the prep phase. I have a number of things I'd like to do, but I don't want to go overboard - that will just compound the problem I already have, which is stretching things out too much. This is to be more contained and kept brief - my goal is to run 6-10 sessions at most. Less if the party dies, which is something that rarely happens, but in this game I'm upping the stakes purposefully - it's the end of the goddamn world after all, so of course you can die at any turn! And people will die - even if it isn't the PCs. NPCs are all on the chopping block, and will likely be sacrificed to show players "this is what happens if you go this way without paying attention."

Technically, I have three completed sheets in. I'm still waiting on one to be resubmitted, which would make for a total of four. I have two more players that may or may not be interested in the game - I gave some guidelines, but whether they make it to the game or not remains to be seen. All I need at this point is to sit down and do some actual prep. Here's the things I need to focus on:

- Chronology of events. The most important, I need to know when the major events will be happening, so that way I can spin things as the game moves on.

- List of NPCs. Probably the most important, I need to go through and figure out who all knows people, and what people are on board the station. Then I need to go through and create a supporting cast of *other* NPCs that the players might encounter - not a huge list, maybe six to eight is all. NPCs don't need to be very fleshed out for this, and will only have the important bits: Name, rough background (one or two sentences), maybe an HP value, and any important skills they might have, with any special items they may have on their person listed too. It could all easily fit on a single page (since most characters may only have one or two big skills associated with them).

After that, the rest is just details details, which I can generate on the fly as need-be. I have a listing of the major areas on the station listed on a wiki, which I'll be referring to quite a bit. Now I just need to figure out where viable 'escape' options are, and I'll be pretty done.

It's really fairly lightweight in terms of prep, but it served me well when I launched the last major campaign (Roguelife), and it's also done wonders for managing larger arcs (so that I know names and have a good idea of how play should progress).

That's all for tonight. This has gone on way longer than anticipated. I could probably write an entire book or two about everything I have to say about gaming and the settings I've created - I take that as a good thing. I'll try to touch on them more in future blog posts, but time is at a premium as always.

Going forward, if you've got any suggestions for things you'd like to see in the future, or questions you'd like answered, I'll try to answer them. If it's short, I'll just make a quick reply, otherwise I may just address it in my next blog post.

Until next time~