Archive for April, 2013

Dungeon World Compendium Class: The Karnarath Penitentiary Tracker

One of the coolest concepts from Dungeon World is the idea of the Compendium Class.  Conceptually it is an idea similar to Dungeons and Dragon 3.x Prestige Classes, or D&D 4e Paragon Paths / Epic Destinies. What I like about the implementation if it is that they require specific fictional conditions before you can use them, but they are short and simple enough to create that if there is a specific request from a player or need for your campaign, it doesn’t take too long to grab and re-skin some moves from other classes, or other Apocalypse World based games and come up with something thematic and very relevant to the game you are playing in.

I’ve built a few Compendium Classes for my current Dungeon World game that I plan to share on this blog.  The first one, Karnarath Penitentiary Tracker, can be found below.

Karnarath Penitentiary Tracker

When you sell your soul to the devils of Karnarath Penitentiary, you take whatever job they give you. For you, they have decided that you will hunt down the blackguards and monsters that haunt the world for the rest of eternity. The next time you level up take the following move:

IMMORTAL SERVANT – You are immortal, and will never die from old age. In addition when you use the LAST BREATH move, instead of bargaining with Death, you will bargain with the current owner of your soul.

If you took IMMORTAL SERVANT, count the following moves as class moves for you; you can choose them when you level up.

HOT PURSUIT (Roll + Wis) – When you follow a trail of clues left behind by passing creatures, roll+WIS.

On a 7+, you follow the creature’s trail until there’s a significant change in its direction or mode of travel.

On a 10+, you also choose 1:

  • Gain a useful bit of information about your quarry, the GM will tell you what
  • Determine what caused the trail to end

SOULGAZE (Roll + Wis) – When you want to figure out what someone is thinking or feeling, roll+WIS.

On a 10+ hold 3; on a 7-9 hold 1.

While you’re interacting with them, spend your hold to ask questions about the character, 1 hold per question:

  • Are they telling the truth?
  • What are they really feeling?
  • What do they intend to do?
  • What do they wish I would do?
  • How could I get them to _____?
BRING THEM IN ALIVE – Take +1 forward when performing actions to incapacitate or secure your quarry so they can arrive at Karnarath Penitentiary alive.
Rolled by on April 27, 2013 under Dungeon World 0 Comments Tagged: , , ,

The Infinity Gems: Soul

The Infinity Gems are a set of near-infinitely powerful artifacts in the Marvel universe.  The green Soul Gem grants its user unparalleled power over the souls of others, but at a price. While the Soul Gem can attack souls with karmic blasts, pierce to their core with the cold light of truth, and trap souls within the pocket universe known as Soul-World, the Soul Gem is a sentient being with a hunger for souls.

The Mad Titan Thanos stole the Soul Gem from the In-Betweener, an Elder of the Universe, and since then it has been used by both Adam Warlock and Doctor Strange, among others.

The power set provided below will allow you to use the Soul Gem in your Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game.

The Six Infinity Gems

Further Reading: Infinity Gems on Wikipedia, Infinity Gems on Marvel Database, Soul Gem on Marvel Database
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Rolled by on April 20, 2013 under Marvel Heroic Roleplaying 0 Comments Tagged: , , ,

Dungeon World Move: Spellbreaker

Mine is a Noble Class

Mine is a Noble Class

This weekend I was part of a particularly awesome Dungeon World session. In the climatic battle, our GM described an attacking NPC as casting a magic spell targeting my character, a Fighter. The words of the spell were projected into the air as the NPC recited them.  My reaction was stab the spell while it was in progress and attempt to interrupt it through sheer physical force. This translated in-game to a Defy Danger roll using +STR.

While Defy Danger works well for dealing with that on the fly, I felt the concept should be expanded into a full move if I were to use it in the future. That I leveled that session and needed a new move may have also been an inspiration.

The physical classes don’t have a proper spell interrupt move in Dungeon World.  One exists for the Wizard: Counterspell. It can translated easily enough to classes that use spells. The cost of a staked spell means it can’t be used by non-spellcasting classes via multiclass moves.

Spellbreaker/Protective Spellbreaker is based off of Counterspell/Protective Counter. It replaces the cost of a staked spell with a debility of the GM’s choice and changes the +INT modifier to +STR. The debility is a big cost, but even a partial success is going to null any effect of the spell. If you want to get the job done, you’re going to have to put something on the line.

Spellbreaker (Levels 2 – 5)

When you attempt to break an spell that will otherwise affect you, roll+Str. On a 10+, the spell is interrupted and has no effect on you. On a 7-9, the spell is interrupted, but you suffer a debility of the GM’s choice as magical energy is conducted to the ground through you. Your spellbreak protects only you; if the interrupted spell has other targets they suffer its effects.

Protective Spellbreaker  (Levels 6 – 10)

When an ally within sight of you is affected by an spell, you can interrupt it as if it affected you. If the spell affects multiple allies you must interrupt for each ally separately.

 

Rolled by on April 15, 2013 under Dungeon World 0 Comments Tagged: , ,

DragonRaid Adventure Learning System Thoughts and Character Spreadsheet

Dragon Raid Adventure Learning System

So, as Piet chronicled in his previous post, we played Dragon Raid over Easter. Despite Piet’s review of 6 out of 10, which I tend to agree with, Dragon Raid is worth playing as a curiosity in gaming history.

Dragon Raid is a game about very specific ideas surrounding a particular faith, and the mechanics and official adventures that I was exposed to seem to be designed to ensure that players are interacting with these ideas almost every time they are engaging the system.  The game includes Character Strengths like Joy, Love, Peace, etc., Character Abilities like Merciful Compassion, Hatred of Evil and Righteously Mingle with Evil,  and a “Word Rune” system where reciting bible verses has a defined mechanical effect in play.  This sort of clarity of focus reminds me of the discussions the came from the Forge that I am seeing a lot of in the modern indie games I’ve been picking up. However I feel like it drops the ball in the execution of these mechanics.  They were clunky, required a lot of calculation and charts and could use some refining when compared to something like Dogs in the Vineyard, which also touches on similar religious overtones, but asks the player different questions.

And questions is really what a game is all about.  Sadly if you came to Dragon Raid with questions about faith and Christianity and the whys and hows of it all.. Dragon Raid will not answer them. For a game designed in 1984 I think there are some ways in which it was conceptually ahead of its time.

If I have one recommendation to anyone who plans on trying out this game, don’t try to create the characters by hand. I’ve put together a quick spreadsheet that will have your Light Raider rolled up and ready to battle evil in no time!  Check it out and let me know what you think.

Dragon Raid Character Sheet

 

Rolled by on April 13, 2013 under DragonRaid, Musings on Roleplaying 0 Comments Tagged:

“So, God is a jerk?”: Dragonraid Playtest

Behold!

Behold!

You have probably never played Dragonraid. You probably never will. It’s an especially odd duck in a hobby full of odd ducks. It’s a role playing game for Christians, published in 1984 as a safe alternative to Dungeons and Dragons.

I first encountered Dragonraid while attending a Christian school in spring, 1987. I’d just started playing the FASA Doctor Who RPG during lunch hour with a small group of friends. A player’s father expressed concern our games lacked a clear moral compass. And, he was entirely right. The game was full of random death, greed, misanthropy and the usual sorts of stupid stuff that 13-year-old boys come up with when left to their own devices.

Dragonraid was presented to us as an alternative. Not one of those shady “roleplaying games”, but an “Adventure Learning System” that would instil important moral lessons and scriptural familiarity. I was the GM, so the player handed the rulebook over to me for review. I was both fascinated and appalled. I was intrigued by the setting, a weird mix of SF and fantasy, where “monsters,” like Goblins are actually the descendants of criminal aliens.

 

The PTL Club Renn Faire

The game takes place on a planet called EdenAgain. During the creation of this world by “The Overlord of Many Names,” an evil dragon released an egg onto the planet, which split into nine and became the seed of all unrest and wickedness. Over time, the descendants of dragons born from that first egg gained the upper hand, and the Overlord of Many Names had to sacrifice himself to save the world. Sort of. He came back to life a while later. Let me know if this sounds  familiar…

Humanity is divided into two factions. The TwiceBorn, the servants of the Overlord, live in a magical enclave known as the “Liberated Lands.” The Liberated Lands are a small peninsula protected from the dragon dominated lands by a magical mountain chain to the north and a turbulent, misty seas in all other directions. The Liberated Lands are essentially a Renn Faire designed by Jim and Tammy Bakker. TwiceBorn humans are taught that outsiders, the OnceBorn, or Dragonslaves, are miserable slaves. The OnceBorn may have fine stone houses and plentiful food and leisure time, but as they don’t have the saving grace of the Overlord, they are not really happy. They may think they are happy, but they aren’t!

"Roll to Mingle with the Unrighteous!"

“Roll to Mingle with the Unrighteous!”

The Dragonlands are ruled by nine different breeds of dragon, each race embodying a moral failing or representative of one of the snares of Satan. They once brutalized the humans under their control, but realized that it’s easier to dominate humans when they’re happy. So, they turned to other planets to supply their victims, inviting them to send their wretched, their depraved, their poor addled masses, their revolutionaries, lunatics and criminals. So arrived Orcs, Goblins, Trolls, Ogres, Flusterbeasts and other weird creatures. These races were tortured and further abused by the dragons, and thoroughly Stockholm Syndromed into liking it. They now serve specific roles in the dragon kingdoms. Goblins are sadists, torturers and the like. Orcs are the warriors. Other monsters serve as greedy merchants, spies, and so on.

Too Pagan? And Too Violent?

Two things unsettled me, at age 13.  First, the game explicitly states that humans are off limits. If you kill a OnceBorn human, no matter how evil, you’ve failed. However, evil creatures – humanoid monsters – are fair game. Not only are they fair game, God expects you to slaughter some monsters out of hand, regardless of age or infirmity. Killing orcs and goblins in their sleep is specifically condoned and encouraged.

Now, I realize that killing sleeping goblins is an essential part of every 13-year-old boy’s gaming experience. But very few games encourage the behaviour. In D&D, the secular game that lacked the supposed moral compass of Dragonraid, killing sleeping or helpless sentients is an evil act, even if they are goblins. And, the combat system is actually more explicitly violent than D&D, with critical charts that contain, for example, two “groin hit” locations.

The second thing that bothered me was the requirement to memorize scripture passages (“Wordrunes”) to achieve in-game effects. You cannot proceed in any of the modules, as written, without memorizing and parroting verses from the New International Version of the Bible. While the memorization didn’t bother me (at the time), I was bothered by the use of scripture verse as “magic spells.” You want to open the mysterious cave? You need to repeat a verse. All of you.

We decided the game was too violent and too pagan.

Think about that.

We were a quartet of 13-year-old boys at a private Christian school, which one would think was the ideal market for the game. But we thought it was theologically inferior to the Doctor Who game and went back to fighting Daleks. In other words, the game that was given to us as a holy alternative to the violence and magical thinking of Dungeons & Dragons… was full of violence and magical thinking.

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Rolled by on April 10, 2013 under DragonRaid, Musings on Roleplaying 0 Comments Tagged: ,

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying with Limited Power Sets

boomboomheader

My gaming group recently played through the beginning of the new Annihilation event book. I wanted to change up the character I was playing and, having both read Nextwave and received 50 State Initiative recently, decided on Tabitha Smith. A snarky, impulsive young hero who could be translated to space easily enough. Seemed like the perfect answer to me.

Her Datafile, however, is an exercise in “Marvel Heroic Roleplaying in Miniature”. She has a one power set with one power and a tiny amount of specialties at Expert. Tabitha’s Datafile is not completely unique in the system. There are a handful of characters with a similar build; Cyclops, Amadeus Cho and Elixir are also limited to one dice in a single power set. All of their Datafiles look uncomfortably empty compared to the majority of Datafiles in the system. It’s almost like they’re designed to be overlooked by players.

This lead to me considering what place is there in the system for these characters, both in a narrative and gameplay sense, and what’s the best way to get the most out of the characters. It’s easy to write these off as sets for people new to the system since not much thought needs to be put into building a dice pool. On further reflection, they aren’t quite beginner or advanced Datafiles but need to be approached with a slightly different mindset.

I’ll be looking specifically at Tabitha Smith’s Datafile, but many of these ideas apply to the rest of this peculiar group with some adjustments for varying SFXs and limits.

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Rolled by on April 8, 2013 under Marvel Heroic Roleplaying 0 Comments Tagged: , ,

The Infinity Gems: Mind

The Infinity Gems are a set of near-infinitely powerful artifacts in the Marvel universe.  The blue Mind Gem grants its user incredible psionic power, reinforcing any existing psychic abilities they may possess.  Its wielder can to pour through the thoughts and dreams of of others, and form mental bonds that transcend any distance.  In conjunction with the other gems, it can allow access to every mind in the universe at the same time!

The Elder of the Universe known as the Grandmaster was one of the earliest owners of the Mind Gem, since then it has passed through the hands of Moondragon, Professor X, Ms. Marvel and Beast.

The power set provided below will allow you to use the Mind Gem in your Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game.

The Six Infinity GemsFurther Reading: Infinity Gems on Wikipedia, Infinity Gems on Marvel Database, Mind Gem on Marvel Database

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Rolled by on April 6, 2013 under Marvel Heroic Roleplaying 0 Comments Tagged: , , ,

Pregeneratered Characters for MotW: Hinamizawa Syndrome

They might look cute, but....

As promised, here are the pregen Hunters for Hinamizawa Syndrome, the Monster of the Week Mystery posted earlier. They’re all based on the main cast of the original story.

If you’re not familiar with Higurashhi When They Cry, it might seem a little strange that the main cast is all under the age of 18. The Mystery will work perfectly fine with adult Hunters. These are mostly provided if you want to run the Mystery as close to the original story as possible.

The biggest change that needs to be made with these is that if Rika is in play as a Hunter, she can’t be included as a Bystander for obvious reasons.

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Rolled by on April 1, 2013 under Monster of the Week 0 Comments Tagged: , , , ,