Jan 8 2017 - Displaying images sanely

I think one of the most difficult challenges I face with not having a strong programming background is not knowing exactly how syntax is set up for different languages.

Case in point: Renpy. You would think flipping an image is a simple thing. Spoiler alert: It is. But figuring out how the heck the engine expects you to do it with the spaghetti documentation that exists is kind of a nightmare in my experience.

I have a picture, and I want to be able to display it facing left or right. This isn't a difficult thing to ask. But there are a lot of ways to do this, some of which are more trouble than others. It's possible to declare the image transforms upon initialization, but when you could potentially be flipping thousands of images, you need a much better solution. Same with exporting duplicates of every image that could be flipped and hoping you remember the naming conventions.

It's a nightmare, and while it might work for a one-off instance, it DOESN'T work for my project at all (or most projects, I'd wager).

Fortunately, there's a much easier solution, one that isn't covered in ANY of the documentation at all.

I present to you the xzoom command.

    scene black

    "This here is just a test scene meant to play around."

    "We're going to play around with some images right now."

    show tzania happy at right:

          xzoom -1.0

 The gist here is pretty simple: By declaring a show command with a colon, you can apply transformations such as scale, zoom, rotate, whatever. It does NOT work like the following:

                 show tzania happy at right with xflip

Despite the fact that the documentation seems to indicate this should work. (It doesn't because it has no idea what xflip is. Or xzoom. Or a lot of other things for that matter.)

So lessons learned once again, and if you ever need to flip an image in renpy quickly, this is how you do it. (You can also use yzoom -1.0, that works just as well but with the other axis.)

I'm sure I'll figure out other ways I can use this to my advantage in the future.

Dec 13 2016 Devlog: Cracking the code

Tonight I'm going back to the usual tone I've set lately, and delve into some of the programming issues I've been wrestling with. It comes with a surprising revelation: I'm actually sort of okay at this thing it seems.

I still feel like a hack when assembling things, but tonight was one of those nights where I made a plan, followed it through, then came up with a better way to do it immediately after. So I'm going to be talking about that.

Wildly Inadvisable: Being Inadvisably Wild

More on the skills tonight, I suppose, since I really want to write something tonight. Progress on separation of the skills went by rather swiftly, but imagining how it would all work together is taking a bit of work. But here's the basic concept.

For the most part, I'm keeping the "Perfect 10" idea I had for the General Skills. It lends itself well, and it makes me think that maybe I might have a good thing going. Now that I've looked at what I've done, there's been some reconsideration on the level cap thing for the general skills. If I put a cap on it, perhaps it will be 20, and there are a few reasons for this (assuming I want a cap at all).

Based on some NPC drawings I did up, a good "villain", or at least one for this particular game, has a fairly high base for magic-based skills. Using this as a litmus, I decided to ponder difficulties and the benefits for taking points and specializing in certain areas. For instance, Mind Control, a specialty of the Advanced Spell Control skill.

Basically, any spell that falls into usage by this are things that take either little effort, or take preparation. A few of them might be usable at will - for example, Mind Control. Of course this all will eventually tie into making Willpower rolls, which is good, but as a base, I wondered how many ranks it would take to destroy or create memories in a person's mind, based on previously-written DCs, under the new system. Using one of my villains is a great way to test this.

As written, and by preparing to use the rules I set forth, in order to perform such a feat, it could take approximately 6 character points to achieve this level of mastery - and in fact, this could even be enough to allow total domination of a strong-willed creature. Here's how this works out.

For every CP you spend, you gain two skill points. For every two skill points, you can spend one on a Specialty. Specialties grant you a +2 bonus to their respective field. For example, Mind Control grants you a double bonus for that particular use of the skill. So, with 6 points, that gives you a total of 12 skill points. That's 8 ranks, and four specialties, which when added up, gives you a +16 to Mind Control (if you decide to take it all four times, mind you). Depending on your ability, this could mean that you can either remove someone's memories, create new ones, or just dominate them outright (subject most likely to a Willpower roll, of course).

That seems rather excessive, however - a powerful ability for only 6 CP spent. Of course, all of that progression is difficult to swallow in a single gulp. So either something is very wrong with my DC tables, or I need to adjust how skills works. Perhaps the main issue is that the DCs appeared fine when I was only dealing with a die roll for these skills. But when you are guaranteed the maximum result, it makes things considerably more difficult.

On the other hand, however, if we make the Difficulty for resisting Mind Control equal to the caster's Advanced Spell Control skill (which in the above example is 16), most people should be able to resist that - even the average Joe ought to have a decent chance at resisting that, since the average Willpower for any given person should be 7-9. Now, this only gives the normal person (or even PC!) a 30% chance of resisting the effect of what could essentially be a total mindwipe. This is both good and bad, because it gives a player few options at resisting an extremely powerful effect, while at the same time not entirely trivializing an extreme amount of specialization.

Of course, it also means that for only 6 CP, you are pretty much given the license to go fuck around with people's minds free-range. With only a one in three chance of failing, odds are in your favor that you will win - even better since your Magic skill will inevitably increase the difficulty. If the average Magic score grants a +3, then there goes any chance you ever had of resisting an effect.

I think that some DCs need to be reconsidered in light of this. Most effects should have their ability shifted up by at least five points or more. This way abilities will require more progression (another three skill points, which translates to two more CP), and which promotes a more balanced approach to increasing the power in one's arsenal.

Now, the negatives: This means it can be pretty easy for an enemy to be able to dominate even the PCs, which is a very bad thing. Of course, since the only thing that really sets a PC above any normal person is their choice of skill arrangements and Advantages, it can be difficult to find a good balance to this. Willpower was originally meant to be one of the few stats that was extremely difficult to increase - particularly due to the influence of Corruption playing a major part in the system.

Perhaps certain effects should be shifted up even further, to make purchasing the ability to control another person even more demanding. More consideration will have to occur on this point, and I think I have gotten away from the main topic at hand, which was that skills have new specialties available to them.

Some skills will allow abilities that can be used by a character, both inside and outside of combat. Such abilities include being able to create computer viruses, cast special spell rituals (summon SUV anyone?), or even the creation of magical items. I'll get into that some other time, but magic items are rare and should remain so - after all, they are very powerful and time consuming to make. We're talking days for something simple, weeks or months for something most players would consider "useful". But again, that is a topic for another time, the important thing is how this impacts skill progression.

Some skills have many specialties, some of which now affect certain attributes that are otherwise difficult to increase. Athletics has specialties which allow you to increase Health, Fatigue, Speed, or even your Stamina. Feats of Strength can now be used as a good determination of what kinds of objects a character can lift - and if they deal any bonus damage when throwing them at someone (or something!). Similarly, some specialties may in fact have their own branches of even further specializing. In the case of enchanting magic items, perhaps you can spend a point to lessen the time it takes to create an item.

Perhaps another 'fix' to this is to have the initial 'rank' of certain Specialties do nothing more than grant access to an ability, instead of also granting a +2 bonus to it. That would require 3 additional Skill Points in order to attain the same amount of power, while at the same time not overpowering the initial rank of a specialty. You can be a Jack of All Trades, but you will suffer as a result. But likewise, a well-rounded character will be more versatile than a one-trick pony.

A lot of things to consider, and I've taken up enough time typing this. I'll sort through it later.

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 note on updatage

An actual update will occur tomorrow. Was planning to do some work once I'd gotten home, but then that got torpedoed by stuff, which is not something I'm liable to go over here.

Mostly because it is boring.

Also, upcoming gaming weekend, hoping to finally get back into the swing of things. Currently on my docket of scheduled games are Roguelife and Wildly Inadvisable. I've been pondering system stuff for the latter, and am considering taking another long look at the core mechanics of spells - namely status effects and such, and really asking myself how one can make interesting spells while at the same time not making something be completely broken beyond belief.

I may also be considering dealing with how skills are laid out, and how one improves upon them. The idea of using the skill system to enhance the defensive characteristics (such as status effects) is interesting, but far too cumbersome. After looking at a few other systems (notably Legend), I may be considering changing the whole thing. The point of the game was to make something lightweight and easy to use, not something that requires advanced algebra every time you want to do something! That is not very fun. Well, okay, maybe it is, but it is just time consuming, which detracts from the real fun!

I may roll some advantages into that instead, and remove the previous 'cap'. For example, perhaps one can take advantages that grant defensive benefits, such as increasing your overall status defense by one, or granting you a +2 defense against a specific type of effect (see how I re-used an idea there?).

On the docket to be played this weekend... unknown, but there could perhaps be some Guildion. For as far as I know, Flotilla is currently on hiatus, due to the GM having a terminal case of the babies, who takes up much of his free time to do much of anything. Like concentrate on a computer screen for more than half an hour. So until that is resolved, odds are pretty good that game will be on indefinite hold until further notice.

Anyhow, real stuff tomorrow - this has already gone on far too long as it is.

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.

Why do the gods play games with mortals?

An odd thought occurs to me, and I should put it into writing, as it may be of use to myself later. Or to someone else, even.

Why do gods play games with men (or other mortals, I suppose)? There are many answers, perhaps as many as there are ways to interpret the question. In this case, I am referring to a pantheon, fictional or otherwise - a group of deities who seem to be important to the world at large, but yet appear to simply lounge around all day doing what? Playing complex chess games with mortal lives? Here's a stab at it.

Some people say they do it because they are bored. And while this may be a contributory factor in the equation, it is not necessarily the only reason. Often times, it is as a 'contest', where one god may bet against another. But what is the primary reason for these games? The answer is surprisingly simple, really. It is because, with all of their omnipotence and infinite wisdom, there is one thing that the gods cannot do: Agree on anything.

The basis of any good pantheon of gods is that you have a myriad of deities, often on two or more distinctly different sides. In D&D terms, this would be the difference between your good and evil gods, your lawful and chaotic ones, and your neutral guys who just want to chill out. But what is the purpose of a god? Everything must have a purpose, and I am wondering if perhaps we've been giving gods the wrong sort of shine. Yes, they are all-powerful. They do what they want, when they feel like doing it, and to hell with anyone that might disagree. Sorry, did you just say something to me? Bam, you're a cockroach, enjoy the rest of your life, simp.

What's that lady? You don't want to have hot wild sex with me? Screw you, I'm going to turn into a swan and screw your brains out anyways. Oh Zeus, you always were a bit of a cad. But in fiction, a lot of gods tend to follow this pattern - just really big, powerful jerks who do what they do, and whose pantheons physically interact with the mortal realm, often with disastrous consequences.

There are many different takes on pantheons, and why the mortal world exists. Often times, it is the gods that created the mortal realm. Other times, someone before the gods, who then later came and took things over. Or sometimes the gods consist of mortal beings who ascended to a higher plane of existence. In this particular case, let's just assume that a group of individuals have been together for most of existence. A lot of times, pantheons are depicted as being something similar to a big dysfunctional family. I like that, so let's roll with that.

For argument's sake, let's just say there are 26 people all living under the same roof. And of course, not everyone is going to get along. Almost never works out quite that way. Arguments ensue, but there has to be some way to get some answers laid down. Well, you're a god, you can do anything you want. Add fifteen rooms to the house, destroy them, whatever it's all good.

Except that, well, how can you decide anything when everyone can do the exact same things everyone else can? How do you decide if the walls should be pink or beige or aqua? What are you going to do, fight over it? You're both invincible. It would be an exercise in futility to try to duke it out - you'll be sitting there for thousands of years until someone finally decides the argument isn't worth it anymore, and then the victory is bittersweet, because everyone else is getting agitated because you're just stinking up the rest of the household all the time. You need a way for everyone to kind of get along. Some sort of common ground that everyone can relate to.

Enter the mortal realm. Okay, so you've got 26 different people, all in the same home, all with the exact same powers. But you need to try to make things livable, because quite frankly, it is really pretty annoying when people are sitting around bickering for thousands of years over how they failed to properly utilize the color scheme in the foyer. So, the heck with it, it's obvious you will never decide things on your own, without some form of outside assistance. So you decide to set up a game of sorts, one where you can't use your powers, because that would make the game pointless.

In short, it is a game where you choose a champion, and let *them* decide for you. That way, no one can really be angry, because it's sort of like the lottery - you either pick the winning number, or you don't. You'll win some, you'll lose some.

So everyone pitches in, and helps creating this thing - obviously, they have to make it so that the game is advantageous to them, while at the same time disadvantageous towards the others. So everyone plays a part in the creation process: some races are really super tough, but also super short, but really smart, but also have to make themselves dumb all the time with something they drink. Oh hey, let's make all of these things super frail, and require them to eat and drink and even sleep! That'll give everyone an advantage. Oh but my guy doesn't need to sleep, he's immune to that. But of course, now he has no such thing as free will, and as a result is dumber than a box of rocks.

Over time, you wind up with a world of mortal beings, going about their daily lives, thanks to the parts that the gods played. Over time, the 'game' grows more complex. Stakes may grow higher, politics may jump into things, and tempers may flare. But the one rule is pretty unshakable: The gods cannot directly intervene. Because to do so would ruin the fragile balance that they all have struck with one another. Everyone is invested in this thing, some maybe more than others. But despite being all-powerful, despite being capable of doing anything in the world, they still will require mortals to make their decisions for them - because otherwise, there would be no way they could all agree with one another.

It's just a fact of life. Even the jerk who would want to knock down his sister's sandcastle realizes that there is no winning or losing outside of the game - only endless bickering and arguing. Yes, you may not like them, but the fact is, you're stuck with them for all of eternity. All of it. You can't just run away, because there is nowhere to run to! So, the best you can do is try to get your hits where you can get them, and play the game, and see how much influence you can wield by the mortals that you choose to focus your attentions on.

Ironic, in a way, that the ones who created this world, and to whom are often asked for guidance from, are in fact the very same ones looking for that exact thing from the mortals they preside over.

Free will is a very real thing in this world. In fact, it may even be the most important thing! Because without that allowance of 'free will', the gods would just be playing themselves, and that would hardly be sporting. It would be cheating, and would go against the atmosphere of the thing. Not to say someone won't try to cheat at some point, and some gods will. But those who are caught (and often are) wind up having their next game penalized, either by virtue of losing 'votes', or by not being allowed to participate in the next vote.

Small games often decide very simple things, and are often equated to a bet of sorts. This is along the lines of, "I want to sit in that chair today." "Okay, I'll let you if that little guy manages to beat the living crap out of that tall dude." "Cool, you're on." And suddenly, the gods are taking an interest in a seemingly-normal bar brawl. Other times, some of the gods may team up, asking to make a change to the world itself - or to their home, even. Those may be games whose decisions are solved by entire wars between kingdoms, who may have bits of guidance from those on above, hoping to manage to eke their way to a victory below, so that their team wins the vote they are looking for.

I like to think this is a very fascinating concept. It makes the gods all-powerful and important, but yet it answers the very simple question as to their motivations. It isn't that they care - in fact, they care a great deal. But at the same time, because they care so much, they cannot act, because to do so would to be going against the very reason that they created the mortal world in the first place.

It's like making a rule, and then saying you can never break this rule. And then having someone ask you to break that very simple rule. It is just something that can't be done, because to break the rule that one time, it would invalidate everything.

Unless, of course, everyone else agrees to let the rule be broken. Just this once. Which may, in turn, spawn other contests if there is a stark division between the teams, who cannot come to a conclusion if the rule should be broken. Or if someone should challenge it.

And now, you know why the golds play games with mortals. It is because that is the mortals reason for existence. But fret not, because you shouldn't worry too much about it all. Your life is your own. The only thing that you need to know is that your life is quite meaningful in some way or another. Don't worry about the gods, and how you fit into their 'plans'. Because really, whether you were going to 'fit in' or not really doesn't matter.

What matters most is, you have a life, and you should live it out as best you can. And if, by some miracle, you can help the gods arrive at a decision somehow, then that is something praiseworthy.

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.

Online Piracy - Hidden Threats, or Hidden Opportunity?

The internet has changed the entire world - a pretty big feat, considering it's age relative to how long it's taken to make such sweeping changes. Sure, the net itself was first invented back in the sixties, and didn't really start to take off until the boom in the nineties. But since then, it has transformed everything we do. I can remember a time ten years ago when it was impossible to watch movies online - when animated gifs were all the rage, and trying to download a file 300 mb in size could take an entire week.

But things are different now, and the culture that has begun to evolve on the internet has also changed the people who use it. Obviously, people resist change, and many battles have emerged over it. One of the biggest topics of debate: Piracy, or online file-sharing.

To be honest, file-sharing has a pretty spotted history. Back in the day, it was pretty hard to download anything directly - it was kind of illegal, after all, and nobody wanted to risk putting anything up for risk of being shut down (because, y'know, it was sort of illegal). But some people wanted to share whatever it was, for whatever reason - and someone found a rather ingenius workaround. Of course, it required a bit of technical knowledge (not too much, but enough to stump computer illiterate), and it also required a great deal of time. There were no filters on these early Peer-To-Peer (P2P) networks, so half the time you might get porn. If you were looking for porn, it might even work. If you were looking for porn in the first place, it probably came with a plethora of viruses that would make your desktop explode with popup windows from hell. Or reformat your hard drive.

Obviously, this high-risk situation made a lot of people leery about using these sorts of things, and so the culture thrived, as well as it could. Networks were "attacked" by companies after awhile, and the RIAA and MPAA started realizing that people were downloading their entertainment for free, and no one was getting compensated for it. Lawsuits were filed, and a lot of people were hurt as a result, due to complete ignorance of how the internet worked, or due to blatant disregard for the fact that it is stupidly easy to change one's IP address.

Meanwhile, at this time, social networking was starting to take off in the form of Myspace, and eventually Youtube began to emerge - a cool place to show the world whatever videos you wanted. Over time, the RIAA and MPAA started aiming their sights there as well - but at one time, it was possible to watch full movies on Youtube, for free, and technically, you couldn't be held liable for it at all - it's not a crime to watch such material.

The Internet had started what can only be described as a 'sharing culture'. Nowadays with current social networking like Twitter, Reddit, Facebook 'Likes' and Digg, the internet is all about sharing things. Saw something cool on the internet, gotta share it. It's just like with anything else - when you see something cool, you want to tell as many people about it as possible. Saw a new movie? Gush about it to your friends who haven't seen it yet - make them want to watch it. Heard a new CD or bought a new video game, and are eager to tell your friends? Invite them over to play it or listen to it and hang out. It's the sort of culture that's always existed, but on the internet, it is magnified - now you don't have to leave the bathroom to access this awesome video your friend saw on Youtube - he'll just tweet you a link you can pull up on your smartphone to enjoy.

Is this culture of sharing a bad thing? It's hard to say, because there are a lot of divisions on that topic. On the one hand, it shouldn't be a crime to want to tell/show people something that is awesome - on the net, you can put pretty much anything just a single link away. On the other hand, making these things takes a lot of time and effort on the creator's part, and every album/DVD/movie ticket not sold hurts the industry that produced it.

I was lucky enough to have an actual comic-book industry-based teacher by the name of Pat Broderick at my school. Some real hard nerds who actually pay attention to credits might recognize him as an inker and penciler for both Marvel and DC from way back in the day - and trust me, he still does a lot of that stuff and it looks amazing. But the best part were some of the conversations I had with him, particularly some of his insights into the whole 'piracy' thing.

To him, and this is something I see echoed many other places by many other artists, reading his comic books online (or anyone's, for that matter) is theft, plain and simple. He does this for a living, and every time you read a new book online without having paid a single penny, he is being denied that which he's worked a lifetime to earn. Which is kind of understandable. In so many words, he may have described the people who upload these things as having needing something particularly violent and disparaging occur to them. Which, again, is understandable.

On the other hand, if we take a look at some of the older stuff - bronze or silver age comics, whose value is quite measurable - those things are pretty hard to find - particularly some of the truly rare ones, such as some of the original Uncanny X-Men comics. Is it wrong to want to share those as well, with other people? The true value of these comics has long since exceeded what the original companies have done - after all, those books were already paid for and sold - now it is their very rarity that keeps people scrambling after them. Is it a 'lost sale' when you re-share something ten years old on the internet that didn't get a lot of popularity back in the day? If you share a long-extinct comic book series that was fated to ten-issue obscurity?

There is the same argument with movies and music. Is every single download/view a lost sale? That is how the RIAA and MPAA and other companies view it. Is this right, though? That is one of the primary arguments out there - each download does not constitute a lost sale, and the market is slowly changing to embrace this, but still there is that divide present.

Why is this all important to know? Because in the last few years, there have been a lot of concerned messages popping about the internet, about how certain companies would like to 'run' the internet, and take away its freedom to share anything, out of fear of lost profits. Youtube is already there, with people's videos being removed just because they used a song from a particular recording label, despite the actual content of it being more than just a song - fanmade compilations of shows, or 'fan music videos' being one of them.

Is it truly wrong to want to do these things? Some companies would say yes, and would prefer to force everyone to pay them money to enjoy themselves. But is that what's really right?

Being someone who wants to move into the entertainment industry, I look at this objectively, and I see where both sides of the argument arise, and wonder if maybe there isn't some form of compromise that can be reached. Anime in particular is one industry that has slowly started to accept what its fans want - streaming episodes of series shortly after or the same time as the original air date in Japan, with full translations, for free. Is that wrong? Technically, when you see something on TV, you don't have to pay for it (unless it is Pay-Per-View, of course). The money comes from the advertising that occurs during that show, and if no one wants to watch it...

Because of this, I think the entertainment industry as a whole needs to wake up and realize the world has changed. We are no longer using casette tapes, and VCRs are a thing of the stone age. This is the digital era, and we have come to expect things much differently. When people make these televised shows, really they are trying to pull viewers in to see the advertisements that companies pay them insane amounts of money to televise. The more people tuning in, the more likely they'll see those advertisements, and the more likely they will be to want their service/product.

The real money for these studios comes in after the fact - it's not the televising, it's the products that come along with it. The Anime industry is a great example of this - the real money isn't in the shows themselves, it's all the related merchandise: the limited edition DVDs, the figurines, the toy deals, the lunch boxes, the art books... all of that is where the real money comes in. Lately the gaming industry has started taking note of this as well - nothing makes me more likely to plop down extra money for a game if it includes an art book or something.

Why can't other entertainment industries attempt to follow this model as well? The point shouldn't be to force people to pay as much as possible for the initial product - it's everything that comes afterwards - the director's cuts, the limited editions, the posters bundled into the comics. Insanely cheap to make, but mass-produced and kept limited in quantity, you can make a real bundle off of those things, by making them hard to get - and people will gladly pay for them, because unlike something they can download on the internet, physical products are still something that cannot truly be replicated.

You can copy a video, but you can't copy an original figurine. And you can make that figurine cost three times what a single DVD is, or more if it is high quality and large-sized.

Seems to me that the logical way for the entertainment industry to take advantage of the digital age, maybe they should start looking at their own products as a form of advertisement. For bands, they see it as invitations to come see them in concert - can't duplicate that either. Sometimes you can watch them on TV, but is it the same as being there in person? No.

In the end, is piracy a good thing or a bad one? There's no good answer to that, and there's as many answers as there are people in the world. But I think I can safely say this: attempting to punish the world because a few people are jerks is kind of unreasonable.

Shift your thinking, and beat your competition. Look at those pirates as competitors, who are offering your very same product at a much better price. Give customers incentives to purchase your product as opposed to downloading for free (bundled extras help!). Special little extras available only online also work. But don't punish the people who just want to try your product out for a test drive - who knows, if you make it more available to them, they just might be interested enough to plop down the money for it - and then share it with their friends, who will also buy it.

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.

Deus Ex: On Design Philosophies and How The Market Has Changed

Once upon a time, long, long ago (yes, ten years is really such a long time anymore), there was a sudden boom in the video game economic model. It almost literally exploded, and people games were spreading like wildfire. It was an amazing time, and probably had a lot to do with the economic boom in the late '90's. Game companies were cropping up all over the place, and things were good.

Sure, you still had a lot of shit games. Daikatana, may you rest forever in eternal agony. There were also a lot of games that really stood out on their own, and re-envisioned what games could be. Myst, Fallout, Starcraft, to name a few. I would place other lesser-known games too such as Descent, and the spinoff series from the same team called Descent: Freespace (which later came known simply as Freespace - one of *the* best space combat sims ever, go look it up if you don't believe me). There were other games too - Homeworld, Baldur's Gate, the list goes on and on.

Some were critically-acclaimed hits. Others went softly into the night, only to be rediscovered a generation later as the gaming industry started shifting gears. One of those titles, however, was Deus Ex.

Few games offered what Deus Ex did. Even by today's standards, it's pretty amazing. Deus Ex was really an open world game which had as many solutions as you had ideas for getting around. Ion Storm really threw away the idea of having a single linear path to a goal. This was a game whose entire design philosophy was based upon the simple statement "This is where you are, that is your goal, and these are the things that are between you and it. Figure it out." It's a design philosophy I have always utterly adored, because it really speaks to the heart of what a game should be. It's not a matter of needing to have a certain item to perform a task, or needing to do X, Y, and Z in order to move forward. You could kill enemies, or you could stun them. Or you could bypass them entirely and just focus on your goal. Metal Gear Solid was pretty well acclaimed for this, but Deus Ex... that was just something else entirely. These were not closed-in environments - some goals had you crossing entire city districts, with all manner of obstacles and other things to find along the way. This was a game that really put you into an environment - these were not rooms simply for the sake of being rooms, these were rooms that had a very distinct purpose to them.

There was no wrong way to play the game. Morality played only a small part in it - money was necessary to survive - would you do everything in your power to conserve what resources you have, or do you abuse your power and hack every ATM you come across, stealing everyone's money? When you were in a town environment, you were in a *town*. If you failed an attempt to hack something, alarms would go off, and the police would come running. If you tried to just shoot someone in broad daylight, hell would break loose and the authorities would be on their way.

This was a game that really hammered into you that there were consequences to your actions. The fact that it had a pretty solid story and multiple endings really helped to seal the deal. The gameplay was great, and the graphics were passable for its time. This was a game that had a lot of substance to it.

Flashforward to now. Deus Ex: Human Revolution has hit the shelves, and by this time many people have completed the game (myself included among them). The game is truly designed like its predecessor, and while it did fall flat in many respects, overall the heart and soul of the game remained intact.

I can hold this game up to any other that hits the market, and you can see how very different the design philosophy is in them. Most other games are designed with a very linear approach: go to point A, perform task E, so that you can go to point B to complete objective F. In most FPS games, the goal is "Get from this hallway to the end of the next hallway, and shoot everything in your path." Crysis 2 did a pretty good job attempting to tackle this, but still fell flat in that as open as things seemed, there wasn't a lot of actual area to explore. Crysis 1 was great because you had an open-world island, and you could bypass entire villages if you wanted to in order to get to your goal.

Why do we use such flat design philosophies in our games? Because a lot of it deals with graphics and story costing so much more now. Final Fantasy XIII is an amazing example of game design failure. Don't get me wrong, it's a great experience for the most part. But as a game, it fails horribly. XIII fails because there is a distinct lack of actual gameplay taking place, and it doesn't feel like an RPG should. RPGs in particular are about exploration and adventure - but XIII is pretty much one long, endless corridor, with the occasional branching path that goes absolutely nowhere. The entire game is one long, drawn out tutorial until you get right up to the very final chapter - which it is kind enough to inform you that hey, this is the end of the game, better go back and see if there's anything else you want to do before you complete this, and also by the way, if you're looking to max out your bestiary better fight everything in this dungeon because after you beat the game they'll all be gone.

I don't play a game because I want to be coddled all the way through. I play a game because I want to play a freaking game. I want to challenge myself sometimes, and if challenging yourself isn't for everyone, I'm cool with that. But don't force me to be coddled the entire way.

That's the other reason that Deus Ex: Human Revolution is so refreshing right now. Because you *can* choose to do things the easy way. Or you can choose to do them the hard way, and try to play the game the way it's supposed to be played - with stealth and careful tactical choices. Yahtzee put it best in that the original let you simply bypass entire boss fights if you didn't want to do them - why can't more games let you do this?

Because some games are too full of themselves, and they've spent far too much money on the 'story' to let it be changed in any way, shape, or form.

Maybe this is one reason I love Star Ocean 2 so much. There's so much to do... two ways to play through the game, and how characters turn out at the end can vary drastically depending on who you picked up in the game, and who likes whom the most. The core of the story itself doesn't really change... but how things play out, that can change, all depending on the choices that you make.

I'd think this was an important thing developers would be taking notes on. But then again, I also like to think that people care enough to want to improve their methods, and that they want to do what is the right thing to do, as opposed to the easy thing. Or the same thing.

There's a game coming out relatively soon, and one of the main villains asks, "Did I ever tell you about the definition of insanity? It's doing the same fucking thing, over and over again, expecting the result to change. That is the definition of insanity."

Somehow, I think this is possibly a jab at the industry itself, and I sure hope that it's listening.

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.

Let's Do Something Crazy

As with many things, I had a crazy idea once. See, once upon a time, I dreamed of a world where d20 Modern was perfectly compatible with Pathfinder. For the most part, the conversion was going fairly well, until I got to the magic portion. The spells in Pathfinder and the spells in Urban Arcana... well, to say the least, they were extremely disappointing, and I never really did like the Urban Arcana casters - spell progression was so slow, and in order to cast even the most basic of spells, one had to be at least 4th level - at which point Magic Missile was so utterly pointless compared to firearms. There was no happy medium at all, and it left me wishing there was something better.

Well, I haven't yet tackled that issue, but it did give me an idea for something new instead - a game system where magic was the central theme, where it could be bent and changed on a whim, where everything was customizable - from the damage that the spell did, to the effects that the spell had. I then took it a step further - what if it was possible to super-power those spells temporarily, at great risk to the caster? Isn't that the stuff that stories are made of, trading terrible power at the expense of one's health?

From that was born Wildly Inadvisable. It's a bit unwieldy to get into at first, but one of my major inspirations for it was a homebrew d10 system that a friend of mine helped create: the To Aru no Railgun RPG. Weeaboo as it might be, I thought it made for an interesting base system that really appealed to some of my inclinations - a simple, single dice-roll system. The one thing I disliked was that it was a d10 Roll Under system - meaning that you roll the die, and subtract the result from your relevant stat ability for a total number that is your 'margin of success'. The reason I dislike it is because defenses are much the same way - whoever has the greater margin of success wins.

But knowing that the people I game with are extremely phobic of THAC0 (and let's face it, this isn't that much different from that very same model), I wanted to try to stick with something that didn't cap at 20 for every stat. I wanted a model that had no real ceiling, but which at some point, that ceiling becomes pointless to attempt to exceed. Instead of a d10 Roll Under, I'd make it something a bit easier to grasp and utilize: the d10 Add system.

Essentially, the d10 Add system is just like how the d20 system operates - roll the die, add the skill modifier, and whoever has the highest number wins. Simple, easy to grasp, and doesn't require two different mathematical operations.

Once I figured out that was the way I wanted to go, I made a list in my head of everything I wanted the system to do.

- I wanted something that was lightweight and easy to pick up

- I wanted something that would be quick to play, with as few die rolls as possible

- I wanted a high-stakes combat system that allowed for a great deal of badassery to occur

- I wanted a system that allowed you to customize nearly any attribute

It was an ambitious project, but it wasn't the first time I'd attempted to create a gaming system - I'd learned from many of my previous mistakes for the first time I tried something along these lines. Knowing that the entire game would hinge around magic, I had to really ask myself what was the most important parts, and that the magic system was going to carry this thing the entire way.

So I started by separating spells into their most basic components: Damage, Range, Area of Effect, and Spell Effects. Separating it into its most individual components, I wanted to showcase that two people can use the same spell in different ways - someone with a high attribute in their Intelligence or Magic stat, for example, could use their powerful abilities to get more out of the same spell by taking a 'drawback' that to them was no drawback at all to use the spell.

Spells are created by the user - whatever you can imagine, odds are fairly good you ought to be able to create it. Most spells center around either buffing the caster or causing harm to another - it is extremely combat oriented. Non-combat spells (teleportation spells, magic rituals, item creation) are things that should take a great deal of time, and require a large amount of preparation to utilize. Therefore, anything that is not a 'combat spell' has mostly been glossed over - that's really not the point of the game. If you want to fix a building, then go ahead and fix it with your magic! You don't *need* to have a spell written on your sheet to do something interesting, you just have to have enough control over the magic to be able to manipulate something along those lines.

Another thing I am a great fan of are sub-stats. You have your primary attributes, which determine all of your secondary attributes. In most systems, you can easily get some kind of 'dump stat' - let's take d20 for example. If you're playing a barbarian, you don't need Charisma, and Intelligence and Wisdom are optional at best. Heck, you can even ignore Dexterity somewhat. I dislike this train of thought, myself, because I don't believe that a single attribute should control only a single aspect of a character - usually there are combinations of this. So many of the sub-stats, such as HP, Fatigue, or Speed, are determined by two or more attributes - that way even if you only focus on a single stat, you get some benefit out of attempting to balance some of the lower stats - additionally, if you focus on specific stats over others, you are sacrificing the potential for a physical aspect over a mental one - causing your power for one to skyrocket over the other, and granting you an actual mechanical benefit.

The key is balance. I'm a huge fan of balance, and to me this is a better approach than most other games, because it means you can sacrifice just a little bit on your Constitution, but if you have a lot of Strength, it can help compensate your HP so that you don't become just a glass cannon in a fight.

Next comes the advancement system. I've eliminated 'levels' - honestly, I've felt that it's a humongous pain in the ass to attempt to 'balance' classes - especially if you start looking into that 'multiclassing' thing. Instead, I like to allow the player the freedom to advance however they wish. To that end, after nearly every session, players should be granted "Character Points", which they can use to advance their character, by either increasing base attributes, or increasing their skill prowess, or to purchase specific abilities for their characters. Additionally, CP can also be used as a fallback option for when they get into a tight spot - a player may expend unspent CP to grant them a sudden bonus in combat, for example - great for when they're having really crappy nights, and need to get out of a pinch. This is better than experience drain, in my mind, and it's a lot easier to envision. Once spent, CP can never be refunded - after all, if you've used it, then it's no longer available to you. No backsies.

Lastly, skills are more or less shuffled into a bracket for each attribute. Every attribute powers a specific skill, so the higher that stat, the better your base potential for that skill. Skill ranks (purchased with CP) factor into that, so that your total of training and base potential show how good you ought to be at something. This is great, to me, because even a starting character can be the best at a single skill if they wish to be - literally experts in their field - but at the expense of their combat abilities, which are also determined by skills.

Combat skills are placed into a few categories - accuracy with spells, power of spells, accuracy with melee/physical attacks, and how well you can resist damage - all of those things are skill-based. Additionally, every single skill has some sort of "Specialty" that you can acquire after you spend a certain number of points - this allows you to specialize in a specific aspect of that skill to become even better. For example, two characters can place the same number of skill ranks in the "Dodge" skill, and they can even have the exact same attribute setups. But one might have studied in the art of magical defenses, and gains a bonus when defending versus magical attacks, while another might have focused on avoiding physical attacks. No two characters need be exactly the same, even with very similar stat allocations - this allows multiple characters in a 'party' to be able to focus on similar skills, but still be able to shine when certain situations arise.

On the outside, it looks like a bit of a mess. But once you look at it, and realize that the very core of the system is an attempt at simplicity itself, then you can start to look at how that simplicity can be utilized throughout the game itself. Roll, determine result, move on quickly.

Now, the system does have its drawbacks. Especially with the skills. One of the things I wanted to maintain was the 'degrees of success', which did not go over as well as I had hoped initially. Combat was a nightmare the very first test session, because one person would roll an attack, the defender would use their base defense skill, and for every X number of points their defense was beaten, they would be dealt additional damage. When the first 'boss' of sorts was using four attacks at the same time, it became a literal nightmare to manage everything - that wasn't even attempting to factor in some of the magical defenses that were active all over the place.

If this were a computer game, where all of these operations would be calculated instantaneously, it would be no small matter. Sadly, this is a tabletop game, so some amount of simplification was desperately needed there, lest we fall into the exact same trap that I was attempting to avoid in the very first place - which was that resolving a single round of combat took freaking forever.

Another thing that was quickly discovered was that some things were just absolutely broken, despite their best of intentions. Being able to fire off multiple projectiles, despite being capable of only dealing a small amount of damage, was still far too powerful, and was immediately removed after that session.

There were things that worked wonderfully, however - the two greatest skills in the system, Defy Death and Diehard, being one of them. Defy Death is the skill that determines at what point you shuffle off this mortal coil - reach a number equal to negative that number, and you die. Diehard is the singular specialty of that skill, which extends that death threshold even further, and because it is a specialty, every point placed into that extends that final death threshold more, albeit at a great price.

Once you go into negative HP, every d10 roll you make takes a hit, making success difficult. Once you surpass your initial death threshold, and move into your Diehard threshold, it becomes even *more* difficult. It worked beautifully, especially in conjunction with the Fatigue.

Fatigue is a stat that determines how much energy you have left. Without Fatigue, you are unconcious. Stamina is linked closely to this - it allows you to reduce any Fatigue damage you take. Every spell requires some amount of Fatigue to be expended, because it takes energy. However, it is entirely possible to cast spells for 'free' - usually, these are less effective, but as one of my players has already demonstrated, it is a perfectly viable way to play the game - and is, in fact, an extremely *wise* way to play. Essentially, if your Stamina reduces any Fatigue damage by 5, so long as your spells do not exceed that number, it takes no energy to cast. If that spell takes 8 Fatigue to use, you only take 3. This is another example of how different characters with the same abilities can be different - a caster with a higher Stamina threshold can cast that very same spell more times before becoming exhausted.

That Stamina value becomes a double-edged sword, however - once your current Fatigue drops to that value or below, you suddenly become exhausted, taking a tremendous -6 penalty to all actions. Combine that with being on a death threshold, and suddenly the tides are turned - those simple spells you were able to easily control before are now becoming far more difficult to maintain. Failure to maintain your spell means that you've just spent Fatigue and gotten nothing out of it - which only makes the situation even more dire.

The other thing that worked wonderfully was the Corruption attributes - the ability to take a chance of losing your mind, at the expense of immediate power. The villain utilized this quite a bit, and boy was that a show to behold. It's a great tool that the GM can utilize not only for his badguys (who often won't live beyond that, and if they do... hoo boy). However, this is not an NPC-only thing, players too can access this potential if they wish - but they too are susceptible to losing their minds as well, if they press too far.

Which brings us all the way back to the title of the game, which summarizes the entire system fairly well; Wildly Inadvisable.

So far, I've heard a lot of positive things from my players. There are problem areas for certain, but those are things that can easily be worked out. I can only attribute the success of this particular system on one thing: selecting a central concept for a system, and then going as far with it as I possibly could.

Anyhow, I think that's enough ramblings for now, so I'll just wrap this up. Hopefully someone can take a bit of inspiration for this when trying to create their own homebrew system - take aspects that you like from other games, and ask yourself: "Why do I like this aspect?" "What do I want this game system to do?" Then once you've figured that out, ask yourself "How far can I take this without it turning into something I hate?"

I'm excited to be working on this in my spare time. One of these days, I'll get around to the next phase of the project, which is making non-magical characters a viable option as well - but sadly, that would require making an entirely different (yet similar) table to the magic casters, which also utilizes the Fatigue system in very much the same manner.

With that, I'll see you on monday! Unless something incredible happens that I must absolutely share over the weekend.