Intro to a game idea...

It used to be the World Trade center, before it became a political message of hate.
There is now an opaque circular building that literally reaches into the clouds where it once stood.
The city used to be called New York, before they came.
Now, we call it Dino-1.

We call them Saurians - we had no notion of their true name, nor anything else about them when they first came. The first wave captured our world, 10 short months ago. Small creatures, 2' high at best, armed with strange weapons and forcefields. Hundreds, thoustands of them, swarming into every city. Within days, it was over. The larger ones - the dinosaurs of our stories - that came down from the heavens in living spaceships, were almost a relief, a boost to our broken egos at having lost a war against such a small foe.

The Home, as they called it, was built in a hour. They did know what what the WTC had meant, hadn't cared that the Statue of Liberty was famous: they came to conquer, not to care. Why here? Why now? We may never know. Helpless before their technology and resources, the last scientists developed an AI, Magi, and fed it all the secret and terrible things governments had kept hidden, for greed and the common good.

Before they died and it was put off-line, Magi sent out a virus, a virus that struck random people and changed them, into something far more than human. Heroes, perhaps. The last hope of mankind, marked by the last of the Wise, and hunted by the dinosaurs who will not let anything interfere with their plans.

"Beholding Love"

Just a nice sonnet I did up a few days back on very little sleep. It's a love poem. Sort of.

"O love, last night outside your home I stood
Waiting for you to come and meet with me
"I will not hide from love," I said: I wooed
You to come so we could togther be.
O love, that love could enter your bright eyes
And make you see me as I truly am!
Our love 'twill be doomed if the romance dies
And both our families will call it a sham.
Understand I am opening my heart,
And that I wait alone for you outside
Who has been hurt before but shall not part!
Even tho you shook your eyes I shall bide.
O! my Love! with tears unshed my eyes blur
I am not stalking you, my beholder."

XP given out for UA

EXP has been given out up to session 5.0.

If you didn't get it via memo, it's cuz esper was being a pain in the peer. If so, msg me for it.

We need more games

Sort of says it all. Currently, we just have me and Chaos running games. Lets gets more. We have enough people, and it's fun, and we used to run a lot more games. So, if you want to run a game in #game1, let an OP know. (Or, if you are an OP, run something :p).

As long as the game doesn't conflict with another in the title, it's fine. Any system, etc. is allowed. OPs are given to whomever runs the game for the duration of the game, so they can kick people annoying them out, and the like.

So if you want to .... feel free :) You'll even get a nice audience! And, uhm, mention in the topic. And, possibly, quotes.

And, as everyone knows, it's all about getting quotes.

Some Thoughts

Superheroes I
The next superhero game I do will use Amber as a system, because it's simple, easy, and makes sense. PCs'd likely be a low build and I am tempted to try the whole "world of superhumans you have to police" method. It'd be fun, and dangerous.

Superheroes II

The other option would be to have PCs born/come into strange abilities, and run it more like "So, you can do things no one else can ... what do you do?" rather than the normal superhero-comics idea game. And, of course, have a larger threat exist for the PCs to have to defeat, perhaps the very source of their powers. In this idea, superhumans beside the pcs would be very rare, if they existed at all.

Continuum
Continuum is a simple system game designed to be played at any time and with no regard to narrative coherence or anything else. Should be quite interesting, to say nothing of insane.

Weird Writing Idea...

What if a group of us all took a story. What story. Dunno. Something basic, like "Harry and Suzie fight, and she leaves him" and see how differtly we write/resolve the same idea. I think it could be fun.

New UA Players?

Well, I have no idea how many players UA curently has. Caltak and Chaos are at every session (barring Chaos's computer dying and stuff), fsz said he'd make the one before last, but RL got him. I have no clue where JacobRiis is ... WarezBert made one session (late), showed late for another (and wasn't worked in at the time) and hasn't been back, far as I know. Bali, well, hasn't shown at all, but I kinda half expected that :) Gemm missed the last, but as far as I know he's still in.
Alicia is making a PC, last I heard.

So, barring the return of players missing due to the evil known as RL (I'm giving them until the end of this month to show, otherwise their PC will be worked out of the game, or at least put to the side in a minor-NPC fashion until they return), there may be openings!

So if anyone knows anyone who'd like to play a weird rules light modern horror game, let 'em know :)

Proposed UA Idea

While this idea runs counter to horror games in general, given the fact that, minorly, a certain dice bot has a tendency to be a B-I-T-C-H and, majorly, it gives PCs a slight edge, I'm considering adding something akin to plot points.

The basic idea is that if you do something that a) advances the plot and b) is in character and c) does not benefit your PC (GM discretion on all of those), you get a Plot Point. This can be used during the game to give a +/-30 Shift to a roll for a PC or, if the GM is feeling particularly benevolent, an automatic success of whatever is rolled.

In game terms, it's the cosmos thanking you for doing specific things. The PC will just feel ... well, nothing most likely, but what they try, what they need to happen, may happen. (Mostly, this would be if the PC is doing whatever he is doing to help others, or to further whatever caused the PC to be given the Plot Point in the first place.)

It's not really "horror" like, but let's face it: if this was a horror movie, Hugh would be dead via boy #1 already :) But PCs are the stars of their own story, and this will reflect that in a very minor idea.

N.B. The only PC action so far worthy of one would be Hugh helping the insanse sociopath boy #1 :p (How George treats his brother could be another, later on.) So they aren't easy to get, and shouldn't be a goal.

Any thoughts on the idea? I'm ambivalent myself, but thought I'd toss it out.

Where UA is going....

Okay, oocly ....

The Boy #1 & 2 subplot that spun out of control should come to a sort of hiatus soon. Mostly because boy #1 is far too fun and his shawdow-thing "friends" too, but he's also rather scarily dangerous, even alone.

The crow girl plot that, well, created itself is just ... odd.

Dawson (hopefully) will find out about the mansion some more.

Billy will continue his quest for his own death, sort of.

George's family will get SERIOUSLY weird for him. It says a lot that the weirdest plots are planned for what is basically the most "normal" of the PCs.

Mac should have some interesting run-ins with ghosts, and his family :)

And, of course, Hugh mght find sokme aliens. And about his past.

Meta-plot wise, a few plots have begun to take shape, tho the PCs don't hang out much so information is scattered all over the place, like Jane having seen aliens and Hugh knowing who did the stuff to the high school walls. (Tho I'm not sure PC or Player know that yet :)).

What I want to know is where players want their PCs to go .. what kind of plots you want, what kind of threats. Do you want relationships with Signifigant Others, PC or NPC? Research out evils and deal with them? Actually have the PCs work together and stuff, or whatever.

Toss comments in here, channel, and msg.

If you don't like certain plots, or the way some things are going, or thinkg your PC or certain NPC aren't getting enough (or too much) air time, let me know. And no, Jillian won't get less :p

Is d20 a good thing?

Part of an interview with Mark C. MacKinnon, creator of tghe Tri Stat DX and the BESM DXX systems, found here.

Marx Pyle: What do you think of d20 and the OGL? Do you think it has been a good thing for role playing games?

Mark C. MacKinnon: I think that the collective gamer mentality that goes along with the propagation of the d20 System has set role-playing back many years. I know, I know -- it's odd hearing a publisher of successful d20 products saying such a thing. I think the d20 core has far too many details and strategy-game components to it, which de-emphasises the "role-playing of a character" and encourages the "gaming of a character." I'm a role-player, and not a gamer, which is why I see it that way.

The OGL, on the other hand, is a great idea that isn't working. The problem is that nearly every game designer thinks that they can design stuff better than other people. This is why we have multiple versions of the same d20 products. Other than compilation books (complete feats, complete spells, etc.), publishers aren't using each other's open content enough in their works. In addition to creative designers, a lot of this has to do with obscure or crippled OGC declarations and inability to easily access OGC.