About them games

Remember, remember, the end of November ...

Or, getting back into things. Games will become more regular cone the new year, as December is Crazy Time for, well, everyone.

Be afraid. No, more afraid than that. Almost as much as when you roll dice.

Sparkie has a tumblr.

http://fuckyeahsparkie.tumblr.com/

Questions will be taken and answered. Quotes sometimes posted.

It is not pretty, but at least we can all be happy it is NOT a facebook page.

Sigil plots...

So.

Mike has rescued 3 people from a farmhouse (kidnapped via ex-military working for one 'Brother XII') with the aid of two allies, Tammi and Helen have attempted to find out the ins and outs of the media blackout and broken at least one NPC * in the process (Hello, Zeke). Meanwhile, Edgar is learning about the world and Charlie and Ronnie have assembled a truly staggering amount of NPCs (9+, in potentia) to help them invade and survive The Lab, assuming all goes well.**

* Sean can be considered broken previously.
** This plot hinges on Gav, and Gav's ability is Sparkie-dependent. It will all end in tears.

So far keeping all the PCs apart is working quite well. Players can decide they want their PCs to meet, but there is no requirement they ever should or need to. As things stand now, barring action/NPC intensive stuff, the current system allows for up to Two (2) players to be active at once and the GM to keep things relatively sane.

Every Ios section header in one post

A hero is someone willing to die for a cause he doesn't believe in.

- Sen'giod the Cynic, The Little Book of Uncommon Wisdom, 2.iv

A true warrior knows that in the moment before you can die there is time enough in the world to do everything and nothing.

- Hadrien Dragonsbane

Expect nothing. Then you can be surprised when people succeed.
- Sen'giod the Cynic, The Little Book of Uncommon Wisdom, 8.ii

When the sun rises red the wise man fears cold water.
- Jan'el, Utterances of the Wise, 212.23.

The road seldom walked is filled with the corpses of the brave who walk it.
- Hadrien Dragonsbane, in conversation

"Heroes are good, I tell you! What's the use of a tragedy without one?"
- Gerlos, gnome bard, in conversation

There is nothing wrong with pejudice - it saves time.
- Harendriel, elven warrior

There is nothing wrong with pejudice - it saves time.
- Harendriel, elven warrior

The gods lead the willing - the unwilling they drag with chains of duty and guilt.
- Ural the pious, human cleric.

First impressions are often misconceptions. But it's amazing how often we wish for them again after we get to know people better.
- Wayland, human rogue, on kender

You cannot catch all the snowflakes that fall from the sky.
- Hermis the drunken, Barstool Philosophies For The Sober p. 34

There is nothing to be feared more than an honest man.
- Drake, according to legend

"In our city there are lots of ne'erdowells, ruffians and wanderers looking for adenture and glory. The few who are a notch above the rest we call heroes, in the hope that naming them such will help them act like heros."
- A member of the Aendar council, 2 years ago

When you stop to consider how many have to die in order to make someone a hero, you must wonder why the world wants them at all.
- Felris, gnome inventor

Heroes are terrible, boy. Striding the world with their dreamsof power, glory, adventure, renown - and thinking such things will come to them because they're heroes, as if they were gifts. They don't know the price the world pays for such dreams, even if they never come true.
- Brokash, orc shaman

When dogs mate they think of wolves.
- Kristal, kender philosopher

The one things that heroes are never warned about is the difficulty of saving the world. It can be done, but if you do it too often people come to expect it of you.
- Jiliehaolasien, Elven historian

Words are the only thing that are real.
- Omas, human sorcerer

True wisdom lies in knowing there is no True Wisdom to be found out there, in the hills, or beyond the woods. The only wisdom is within us all, and it's a truth for us, not a Truth for everyone, or the world.
The world is too old and has seen too much to be wise.
- Izayus, human druid.

A wise man always leads by example, except in the case of alchemy experiments.
- attributed to Avern, lich lord of the Tower of Bones, sometime in his youth

To be happy is to forget the past.
- Sai'Jer, gnome inventor and amateur elven historian.

Never make war. Dead men can't buy things from you - except in certain regrettable circumstances owing to a deep sleep and over-zealous relatives burying them alive, in which case you can sell them wake up alarm charms and insurance policies.
- Aendar Motto

It is an undisputable truth that the failures of the wise tend to long outlive their successes.
- Kral Orsh, half-orc fighter

It is an undisputable truth that the failures of the wise tend to long outlive their successes.
- Kral Orsh, half-orc fighter

A man's destiny is both his glory and his doom.
- from a famous oral Kobold book Sayings of The Chicken Slayer

All heroes must sacrifice themselves. It doesn't matter what do, as long as they pay, and they pay, and they pay.
- from the memoirs of Hadrien Dragonsbane

Pity the enchanters, for they can enchant all save themselves.
- Hami Grassblade, halfling thief

A posession is also a possessor.
-Sen'groid the Cynic, Aphorisms vii.2

"No! My armour is black because I’m poor. I’m not evil, I just can’t afford to polish i-"
- Last words of Bern the Black Knight

A real mage knows that the status quo is always in flux.
- Myasteriel, half-elven sorcerer

"Keep your prayers short - often, the gods will hear a moan over a chant and a plea over a scream."
- Redik, dwarven cleric

"What the world may bring, the world may take away. Give back to the world with your gift."
- Druid motto

"Be the place where the singer meets the song."
- Advice of Jeromal, human bard.

"It is said that when King Harowen the Absentminded of Elandai was going to die, Death came to came and the busy king said he had no time for an audience and bade his guest depart. Death was so embarrassed it did not return for another seven years."
- Legends of Elandai, Book 7

To be counted among the wise
Is a crime in a wise one's eyes.
- Saying of the Invisible College

"Believe in magic and it will believe in you."
- Ugram, half-orc sorcerer

"To help others you must be part of their lives, of the world. A wound can be judged from outside, but only healed from within, from being part of the wound you mean to mend."
- Kyrisil, elven healer

"The truth can hurt. We just keep it from hurting others."
- Motto of the Holders of Truth

"Wisdom is knowledge applied: and knowledge of something is not the capacity to choose between them."
- A member of the college.

Religions are the evils that turn the poetry that is the gods into the prose that is badly scanned sagas.
- Lurt the Unyielding, human barbarian

A man who has never lied is not a man who cannot lie.

- Or'wella, human druid

"Lies! It's all LIES!"
- Bern Harrowarm, dwarven historian, just before his suicide.

"Even the mightiest of warriors cower when madness wears the crown."
- Dwarf Saying

There are two kinds of anger, see? The wrongeous and the righteous. When you get mad, you kill. Kill with the righteous anger and you're a hero. Do it the other way and yer no barbarian, just some civilized fop who sniffs hankies and thinks that justifications 're more than excuses.
- Pairt the Pale, northern barbarian

Songs are as much discovery as they are invention.
- Splorrchahhh, Otyugh Bard

Power is not freedom, but the price of any power is a loss of freedom.
- Urien, human cleric

Nothing real is more real than anything else that's real.
- Merian, gnomish druid, shortly before being executed

Understand this, boy. Every time you kill, you die as well. Make sure what dies in you is something you can bear to part with.
- Hadrien Dragonsbane, to an apprentice

To understand the body you must respect it, live it, nurture it, meditate in and outside of it, be one. Being ale to catch arrows or beat people senseless are just side effects, nothing more. The body is trained to overcome ego, not glorify in what it can do.
- The Yellow King

I am here to die for the gods. I am their arms, their vengeance, their justice.
- Just about any paladin

To hunt an animal you must be an animal - the seeker must be the sought.
- Kami Leafsprout, halfling ranger

If you cannot keep it, you don't deserve to have it.
- Rogue Proverb

You can only be who you are.
- Jeram Kygul, half-orc sorcerer

Magic does not consist of drawing lines, but of erasing them.
- Avern, shortly before inventing the lich ritual.

"Circumstances don't make us what we are, they reveal what we are to others."
- Motto of the Brotherhood, circa the Age of Trade

No one can look inside themselves and find anything that isn't already there. Self-examination is like looking into a mirror and proclaiming you've found something new when it's just you reflected. Enlightenment is often nothing more than knowing you're already enlightened.
- Delta Mu

Dice Fever

I must roll down all the dice again, to the lonely fire and the sky,
And all I ask is s little luck and a 'bot to steer die by,
And the fire's kick, the player's scream, and the PC's shaking
And a grey look on the PCs face and a firey dawn breaking.

I must roll down all the seas again, for the call of the rolling die
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a firey day and the player's curses flying
and the flung spray, the septum spewed and the players crying.

I must roll down the dice again, to the terrible dicebot life
To the fire's way and pain's way where the roll's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry curse, a wish for a new dice-roller,
Character's sleep and dead don't dream when the roll's over.

Side Game: Sigil

Life in Echo City used to be normal. Not a town, not a large city, forest all around, a crime rate low enough to make national news for that fact alone. Northern, but you can't have everything.
That was yesterday. The world was boring yesterday. Now you've woken up with a tattoo you never got: to everyone else it's abstract and odd, but to you it's solid and real and when you think about it somehow the world itself isn't as real or simple as it used to be. You've been marked by something Other and the world is no long boring, and definitely not safe .... but neither are you.
System: BESM 3, 220 points.
Genre: Action/Mystery. Making a PC who can fight -- or can learn to -- is a good idea.
PC Concept: Take 1 character idea, and one BESM ability idea and mould the two together. Character age and occupation up to you, game will fit itself around that.
Time: This game will run at varying times, with the PCs likely never meeting despite having impact on each other. This allows it to run without player obligations to show up. We shall see how it goes.
Details:

• Up to 20 points can be spent on 1 ability from the BESM book, which is the characters tattoo/sigil in a spot on the body appropriate to the ability.
• Skills must be bought, but only those flat-out necessary. In other words, 1-3 skills that nail down PCs job and hobbies.
• Character Limits: Damage cap is ~40, after all modifiers. ACV/DCV is ~7. A character based entirely on Massive Damage can be higher, but only to a point.

Note #1: Points from defects can go into normal stuff and into improving one's Sigil.
Note #2: It will be possible to improve abilities and possibly develop other ones later on as the game progresses, though the caps outlined for damage and ACV will likely not change substantially.
Game Background: Our parents and their parents had generations defined by a war. This generation did not. To some, this is a flaw that requires being 'fixed' and in the small city of Echo something has been implemented, or gone out of hand. Some will blame the government, others aliens: the reality is that certain people have odd stylized tattoos show up on their bodies. They concentrate on them and find they can do one impossible thing no one else can.
Some abilities are permanent, some only work so long before the ability – and tattoo – fade away entirely. No one knows why it is happening or to what end, but some do abuse them and others cannot sit by and watch that happen ....

*coughs*

Well. Turned out the fun 'write a quick novel in June' became 'Oh, I'm doing this story instead, and it's damn hard and I have no time to do anything else'. Which hadn't been intended, but still happened. Sparkie will punish me for this, never fear.

Game wise: Should be able to get back into things in July, though I may be dog-sitting for a few days early on in the month again. I have no plans to run and/or play games more than 3 nights a week at present, however. I am aware the kind of games I run don't fit that model too well, but I can't run games 4-5+ nights a week and work on other stuff I want to get done, so something has to be scaled back a bit.

Shall see how it goes And if I hold to this at all :)

Talents and Characters

Harold Allison (Chaos)
Desc: He is a bearded young man with messy hair and clothes that probably belong in the 80's. A red and pink sweater worn inside-out over his body and a torn pair of black windbreakers with neon stripes around the hips. He smells like he hasn't bathed in a few weeks.
Notes: Has a talent for 'seeing things as they are' that includes discerning truth from falsehood. Left Argleton to go out into the world, got his heart broken and came back.

Hollie Keys (kentari)
Desc: She is a woman whose well-kept dark brown hair falls in ever-so-curled waves with all the liveliness of a coiled spring -- or viper -- to frame a forgettably statuesque face. She wears crisp greys and lacks much adornment, but what she does carry has a certain refined air about it suggesting either time or money involved in the acquisition. In not so many words, she's a dangerously benign blend of beauty and bland.
Notes: Can make doors lead from one place to another; is apparently in the Brigade on loan from some other organization.

Sophia Ransom (Caltak)
Desc: A young girl in her early teens with medium-length dark brown hair wearing a nondescript hoodie, jeans, and sneakers and with a backpack.
Notes: She is studying at the college and has the talent to enter the bodies of others and control them.

Citizen Brigade NPCs

Emma Tompkinson
Notes: Unmet thus far, has a Talent for keeping her cool in any and all situations.

Jamie, 'ghost'
Desc: he's albino-pale, tall and thin, wearing jeans and a t-shirt that are ripped and torn: though, unlike Harold, his clothing is expensive rather than style. He's also transparent.
Notes: A 15 year old kid who has only been in Argleton a week, Jamie is the only volunteer for this program and is as friendly and cheerful as one can be when permanently intangible to the world. On the plus side, he can become close to invisible if he needs to.

Lance Christensen, police officer
Desc: Lanc is a tall, ex-football player kind of guy, all blond hair, blue eyes and an attitude that just screams 'police officer'.
Notes: He can tell if other people have a Talent and what it is at a glance.

Treyvan Donison, mayor's grandson
Desc: A shorter, bland looking guy of about 20 is sitting on one of the chairs, looking bored. He can best be described as doughy
Notes: Can regenerate, reportedly to absurd degrees, though he still feels pain. Seems to prefer watching to participating at the moment.

Veronica Lake, activist
Desc: a stern-looking woman in her late 20s who looks flat-out furious to be in the room, let alone sitting in one of the chairs. She is favouring the world with a scowl that seems to say the world had better back off or she's going to rip it a new one
Notes: She is 100% pure human, a martial arts expert and harbours a serious grudge against Talents for ruining human achievement. She used to want all Talents dead but seems to have mellowed a little over the years.  A little.

Other People


Martin & Suzie Gaylord: Brother and sister who are robbing small stores together. He gives people bad luck, she paralyses with a touch.

Anna-Jean: old bag lady who doesn't like to be touched; she claims she kills anyone she touches, and at least believes this to be true though no one has seen it happen.
Barry: a homeless man who can set his own body on fire. It only hurts if he loses control.
Carlos: regular homeless guy.
Dieter: 'leader' of the small homeless contingent in Argleton, Dieter is a binder who can make people do what he wants when sober. As such, his friends keep him at least buzzed pretty much all the time.

Axis Mundi: GM Summary

UA SESSIONS TO DATE:

What has gone before ....

Hugh has been hired by one Amylin Hart to find out what happened to her mom, Laura. It transpired that Laura visited her mom at work (Grandma's Learning Centre) and had glowing reviews by customers. Apparently her mom raised her hand to hit Laura for driving drunk and then stated, "It's gone. It's all gone," and became irresponsive.

she was taken to Ravenshead Correctional Facility and placed under the care of one Dr. Jeremy Munroe (who transferred her to their country estate, Smithy Acres (aka Shitty Acres) and has refused to let Amylin see her mother at all. The walmart cashier has paid Hugh what she can to try and figure out what is going on, but his one trip to Shitty Acres just reveals what looks like, for a moment, an angel wrapped in chains in one of the windows of the walled house. The staff inform Hugh over the intercom that he has to make arrangements with Dr. Munroe for a visit.

According to Hugh's acquaintance, Dennis (who maintains his website) someone spent two hours trying to hack into it that evening; the why remains unknown, and Hugh decides Dr. Munroe in the morning.

Meanwhile, Jackson has finished a shift at work. Gustavo the butcher has left early and Vera and he close up, though Vera cutting up meat makes Jackson feel uneasy, as though she's listening to the echoes of some distant song. He leaves work and spots one spanish kid spraypainting garbage bins (with 'No babies!!!') and arrives at his apartment building to learn some ex-military man (Isiaha) has moved in and Sean -- across the hall -- has finished a counselling session with a thin 20-something named Snake. Snake takes one look at Jackon and runs off down the hall for reasons unknown.

Inside the apartment Thalia has been in her wheelchair watching PBS. They talk for a time and the girl next door, Mary-Anne Throckmorton, comes over with her autistic son Stanley. As usual, Stanley latches onto Thalia and watched her curiuously as the adults talk and eat; Stanley is =having a good spell though Mary-anne misses the nice lady at the one Learning Centre she takes Stanley to who seems to have retired. Stanley reluctantly goes home later.

The next day Hugh goes to visit Dr. Munroe, who produces a raw egg from his desk and breaks it with a hammer to demonstrate the frailty of the human psyche and why it would be dangerous for Laura Hart to see her daughter. Hugh asks about second opinions only to be told by Jeremy Munroe that:
"I am afraid I cannot release any case files due to confidentiality; I could release them to another doctor if Amylin requested such, but said doctor would be operating under the same penumbra of what is best for the patient," with an emphasis on patient. "I know it must be hard for Amylin to have no idea when her mother will get better." He offers up a washed-out smile. "It is rather difficult to try to explain to someone that their mother may well be cured when she stops being her mother."

Jackson head to work and feels himself being watched when he finished, ducking into the local Waffle House to find it was Snake, the boy he somehow spooked earlier. Snake claims to be in the business of buying and selling information and offers up, for food and coffee, that Jackson has a very weird aura and he thinks he knows what Thalia really is. He once saw someone to an exorcism in reverse, their heasd filled with fire, calling something foul into the world and he things that whatever happened to Thalia is like that.

Hugh has dinner with Tiff, his sometime-gf, which turns out nice and normal.

The next day is a Friday and ... a new session! Dr. Munroe is supposed to contact Hugh about meeting Laura Hart and Jackson is hoping Snake doesn't sell informatio about him and Thalia to the highest bidder.

A Time of Talent and Terror ....

(Updated May 7th)

100 years ago something Happened in the town of Argleton. To this day, no one knows what. All that is known for sure is that Argleton no longer shows up on most maps and no longer seems located in the county it used to be in: and no one can even agree where that was either. It is a town people find due to need and desperation and one very few of them ever leave.

Because being in Argleton changes you, if you let it. And in some cases, no matter what we wish or let, things happen. Some call if the Curse or the Blessing. Most call it the Talent and become capable of strange tricks and skills that are seldom normal at all: a few even have the same trick in varying degrees of strength (this is especially true of siblings) and some people are never even aware they have a Talent at all.

The flip side of all this is that there are those who are dividing the town into the Talented and the untalented, some trying to make use of Talents for nefarious ends and rumours of talents being taken out into the World for experiments or that certain drugs can boost Talents and so forth. Over the years, the minor curiosity of a few people with tricks has blossomed into over 10% of the entire town and the only thing that seems to be holding things together is the mayor, who seems to be immortal, and the chief of police – who is, as far as anyone can determine, immune to Talents.

But even they are hard-pressed to keep a lid on the simmering pot of resentments and ideologies and have/nots that threatens to boil over. As such, a Citizen's Brigade has formed,a semi-official group to straddle the line between law enforcement and by-law enforcement for the town, and the PCs have been selected to be part of this. Perhaps by choice, or for community service, orders of parents or to impress someone: you're reasons aren't important to the mayor, who just wants the town  to hold together.

Important Notes: Argleton is outside the modern world. Radio's work, local tvs work, but anything requires satellites won't, ditto with internet access. Pop culture does drift into it, via people coming into Argleton with items and there are some mysterious traders who seem able to enter and leave and will, often bringing newspapers and DVDs, but knowledge of the outside world is sketchy at best and some of the papers and DVDs seem to come from other earth's entirely.

ARGLETON

Argleton is a large town surrounded by farms, hills and a thick forest. The hill-folk tend to be quiet and insular, whereas the farm folk come in daily with food and supplies. Without the farms, Argleton would be a ghost town and the people on it are hard and tough, able to take what the land deals out and deal it right back when they need to.

Almost all the farmwork is done by hand but even if it wasn't, a town needs more than food and drink to survive. The hillfolk mine deep and sell what they find, but it is the grey-clad Traders who come into town with goods and items from the world that keep the town as part of the modern world, or at least try to do so.

SYSTEM

Risus!

12 dice, no one trait can have over 4-5 dice in it. PCs are expected to have , Life/Job, hobbies and such. While comedic use of cliches won't be allowed (say, pitting 'draw funny faces' against 'martial arts master via the back of a comic book' won't win via drawing a silly moustache on the enemy), the GM may allow PCs to buy double-pump if it fits a specific Talent. 

PCs must have a minimum of 3 cliches at 2 dice each.

Optional rule: Talent dice can be divided further into Power and Skill. So if you have 'burn shit down' at 4 dice, but want it to be more "I get mad and can't control it", you make it Power 5 and skill 3, for example. So any use of just fire comes in at 5 dice, any attempt to actually control the Talent is 3 dice.

Experience: This will be given out infrequently at best and is liable to be 'turn d6s into d8s' more than getting new cliches, unless PCs teach each other ones they know.

Notes

A Talent is pretty much a single trick that defies conventional reality. Some are terrifying, some are rather mundane, and many make no sense to anyone at all. The use of any Talent burns off energy, so how one loses and replenishes that energy is up to each pc. Generally, weaker talents burn les energy, and this holds true for a talent like 'fly in the air' vs. 'manipulate gravity': the more specific a Talent is, the less energy it will burn even if it is quite powerful.

What is known is that Talents develop sometime after puberty and often under stress. Existing skills can become Talents as well, so guy who used to be a Computer Genius is now a Tech Wizard and the like.

KNOWN TALENTS

Brute: Any talent involving one's own body. Toughness, strength, claws and such fall under this very broad rubric.
Elementalist: anyone with a talent for control over one or more elements. This is by far the most common Talent.
Finder: A knack for finding people and things.
Gearhead: Anyone whose talent involves tech and making things. Most forms of genius get lobbed under here.
Green Thumb: A talent generally held by at least one member of any farming family: stuff they plant grows very, very well.
Healer: Healers are uncommon and most end up working at the small hospital that services Argleton.
Lucky Duck: anyone with a talent over luck or possibility.
Mender: The common name for regeneration, but also applies to people who can fix items or stop them from breaking down.
Minder: Anyone whose talent involves the minds of others. Telepaths, naturally, are painted as bigger boogeymen than they really are.
'Porter: Teleporting, phasing and so forth. This is a pretty dangerous talent to the user, but does exist.
Transmuter: Aka a changer: Turn one thing into another. Limited by mass, volume, and a host of other things.

Many minor talents that  are just improved normal ones exist as well and likely increase the amount of people with Talents far beyond the 10% of the town with impressive/visible ones.

Note: The Talent 'lottery' seems set to random. Few people end up with a talent that magically cures or fixes some existing issue in their lives. (For these people, The Witch can be a godsend if they can make a deal for a talent they'd like instead.) There are also very few cases of a Talent physically changing someone, though temporary changes [due to Pumping] may happen at times.

RUMOURED TALENTS

Binder: Someone whose words can bind others to a geas.
Booster: Someone whose sole Talent is to improve the talents of others.
Creator: A person whose talent is to create things from nothing. (Transmuting is confused with this at times.)
Death-touch: Or glare, or anti-healing. The ability to kill with a touch. Considered to be anti-Talent propaganda.
Destroyer: Someone who can will things out of existence.
Phoenix: Someone who can die and come back.
Phoenix, flawed: you die, and you come back with some very minor Talent each time. Rinse, repeat.
Trickster: Shape-shifting. All reported cases have turned out to be Minders making illusions in people's heads.
Vampiric: Talents that involve sucking energy out of others and so forth.

TALENTS THAT DON'T EXIST

Anti-Talent: Someone who can shut down the talents of others; if this exists, logic states it would have been used against the mayor by now.
Medium: If anyone can actually speak to the dead, they are keeping mum about it. (This doesn't mean there aren't charlatans who claim they can, naturally.)
Multiple Talents: Aside from what the Witch can do, no recorded person with more than one Talent exists.
Mimic Talents: Also never recorded, believed impossible as an actual talent.
Seers: Any talent involving the future and time aren't known. Anyone who has claimed post- or pre-cognitive talents has been shown to be lying.
Time Travel: Many would want it, no one has it

MAGIC

Magic is a tricky one: a lot of things a gearhead makes can qualify, and might, but in general magic is known to exist -- at least in Argleton -- and allow practitioners to learn specific spells with limited effects. The use of magic requires time, rituals, will and is exhausting physically, mentally and spiritually. All miracles fall under the classification of magic as well, as much as it angers some of the devout.
Unlike Talents, anti-magical spells do exist and magical charms and talismans of dubious provenance are sold in sketchy shops. Further, no one with a Talent is capable of working magic though they can assist in magical workings.  Most Talents somehow provide an inate resistance to magic. Lastly, magic has never been observed to work outside of Argleton while some few strong Talents have.

PEOPLE:

Mayor:

Rudolph Donison: the nayor of Argleton, he has held the post for over 90 years and still appears to be 32 decades later. His only surviving son, Victor, is now in his 50s and rather bitter that he is getting old and dying. Rudolph has been known to deal with problems first-hand and thus far nothing -- in this world or of any other -- seems able to harm him. If need be, he is simply not where it lands but his body is also impervious to harm. He is quite willing to find and stop monsters to protect the town and his people. No one has even bothered with elections in the last 10 years.

Victor Donison: The mayor's last surviving son, Victor is a cold and bitter man who ran against his father three times for mayor until people decided having elections was rather silly. He has forgiven no one for that and runs a small pawn shop on the outskirts of town, selling weird things and information. Everyone is aware that his father disowned him 10 years ago owing to the horrible things Victor was doing to his son, but the details of those are unknown.
He is also one of the few openly practising magicians in the town.

Treyvan Donison: His grandson, now 18. While he does age, Victor possesses a regenerative talent that borders on the miraculous and allows him to heal from anything he's faced in his life thus far. On the flip side, he does feel pain so he's not exactly eager to test the limits of his talent. He is quiet by nature and tries not to use his family name for anything, but has finished school and is at loose ends.

The police:

Carmichael Jones: The Chief of Police. Carmichael Jones is a tough, grim man who has seen man's inhumanity to man and is known to be extremely hard on talents who abuse their powers against humans. He is human but considered by many to be the meanest and toughest man in the town when he has to be.

Wayland Chashi: The only flat-out Talent in the police department, Wayland is inhumanly strong and deals with rogue talents by hitting them until they don't get up again. It is widely believed that he sold his soul for his talent and that only Jones keeps him narrowly on the side of good.

Lance Christensen: Lance is a new hire for the department, since Jones was told he needed more talents. Lance's talent is to be able to spot the Talent in others and he is very, very good at it but also damn good at his job, much to Jones' chagrin.

The other four police officers work rotating shifts; all are male, which has been causing some fuss of late so the Citizen's Brigade has been ordered to incorporate more women.

The Policed:

Peter Spalding: Peter is a thin, balding man in his 50s who has the record for most time in jail in the entire town owing to a talent for telepathy, the fact that using talents on others is illegal, and lastly that his control has never been all that great. He spends most of his time very much alone and more than a little mad.

Mad Jack Jacks: Jack doesn't have a Talent, while the rest of his family does. Or did, until he dissected them all and attempted to figure out how Talents work. He's known to be somewhere among the hillfolk but beyond that no one is sure what he's doing or why, only that he is Argleton's Most Wanted and has somehow managed to hide from everyone and everything seeking him out for a damn long time.

Lenny Yu: A bright and fearfully ambitious man, Lenny is in his early 40s and convinced War Is Coming and builds things. Often weapons, and then he tests them, though seldom on people. Hence often being in jail and let out because he has a weapon or plan the town can use. He doesn't hate talents, like some people claim, but he hates the fact that they can do stuff that tales him years to learn and work out in mere moments.

Other People:

Mad Madeline: An old woman who is also a finder, though her talent manifests in finding things via seeing through the eyes of animals.

Trader Joe: One of the best-known traders, Joe has phenomenal luck and, for the right price, can find anything for anyone. He is also the only Trader to reveal his appearance, which is that of an albino man. He doesn't reveal how traders leave or return to Argleton and attempts at pushing him lead to finding out just how many people own him favours.

The witch: She goes by many names, none of them real, and moves about. Sometimes in Argleton, sometimes in the world, and currently goes by 'The Dealer', running a casino where you can trade anything for anything, because that is her Talent. If you want to trade something, she can make it happen. Talents, free will, skills, memories, limbs, even one's own life can be traded if both parties are willing. If she was ever human at all, she isn't anymore.

your typo of the night

Less than five minutes into a session:

* Dakota`^ heads into her room and promptly kicks Sam out, telling him to go to Gwyn
<AlcarGm> He wakes, looking a little better, and has indeed made himself a nest of sheets to curl up in. He lawns sleeping, pouting a little. "Nom?" hopefully.
<AlcarGm> err ,yawns sleepily. It should have been.

Small Games

I've been giving thoughts to game concepts and ideas lately, mostly mulling things over in my head, problems of genre and possible solutions.

To whit: the fewer players a game has, the 'better' it is. This not only allows the players and GM to develop both characters and supporting cast more fully but makes for a more solid game all around. A smaller game is also more likely to survive one or more players going AWOL for various RL reasons and should be able to factor the player's absence into the game narrative or pause the game without that much difficulty.

Genre Conventions: If the PCs are playing police officers, they play police officers. They don't quit the force when then going gets tough, fight to be reinstated when fired and so forth. The implied player/gm contract needs to explicit regarding PC occupations and how this affects the overall game. Are the PCs jobs going be connected to the game and plots or is it just office work they go to for X hours a day that will be glossed over? If it's intended to be a buddy cop game, are the players willing to work together to ensure this happens? And so on, and so forth.

Teamwork: Assuming the PCs are intended to work together, is there some necessary extrinsic force promoting this? Is it necessary? What happens when one player can't make the session?


Thoughts for future games

I think I'd like to try a setup where the PCs are either paid for Plot/Game stuff or paid enough in Day Job (or, being wealthy, don't need one) to be able to gloss over the problems of what is done for a living. A game where the PCs are wealthy enough not to need to work can be done with only mild moralistic fun and games on the side.

I still think a game involving playing siblings and/or other family members could work in a small game (one could be adopted, perhaps). It creates a dynamic from the start and solves a lot of pesky problems regarding knowing each other and the like.

If the teamwork function of a game is extrinsic, making a game where the PCs have some some edge over normal people but not enough to take on Bad Guys without working together and so forth would be both handy and necessary: the idea of the PC as unique rather than Unique being a kind of selling point for a game.

on the nature of pcs

Sooo .... I've been reading about world war III stuff and such lately (aka the news) and begin thinking about the current game and the nature of PCs. To whit: If we ran Middle East: the RPG, PCs would be nuclear weapons. They don't all go off, but they have the potential to. They change the world just by existing in it. If the world were a river, the PCs get to be stones and dams and anything else that fits that metaphor.

One of the major aspects of the world is that PCs Matter. The things you do create ripples, spreading out. The world isn't as much a powder keg as it is stuck in a stasis that the existence of PC s breaks, both for good and for ill. The things you do and friendships your characters make -- to say nothing of enemies -- echo into the wider world as they do. The point of PCs is that they change the world: having kewl powerz and such is only one aspect of being awesome and the stars of the show.

What is made of it depends on Sparkie, of course :)

How social media ruins rpg games ....

A lot of novels are no longer set in the present. This tends to be true of games as well, and for the same reason: social media. The internet. Facebook. Twitter. All games have problems in that that need solving, all quests have some mystery/discovery lurking in them waiting to be solved. Or you can just google it. Need help? The police are just one cell phone cal away. So are family, friends, co-workers. And why bother meeting in person if you can use google+, set a limited group as 'other pcs' and use that?

Granted, a GM can obfuscate things: the internet is an awesome source of flat-out lies and mistruths. For example, have a pc use wikipedia as gospel and just smile at them in the certain knowledge that the Big Bad had been editing certain pages for years under various sock puppets because it's the best way for a vampire to get prey these days. And cell phone coverage can be spotty, to a degree, but the chief problem is that such plot  devices make PCs lazy.

(This is much the same issue as skills in D&D: why look for anything when you can just roll Detect Traps and so forth. Laziness is roll-playing, role-playing is less so. (But using lots of dice is fun, and fun isn't lazy - Sparkie))

There are ways to use this and make it fun, no doubt, but the overall issue is that a lot of tropes uses in games and novels came into existence long before the internet, which tends to hinder and limit them. Sort of making PCs all Amish [which would rock....] or just not having FB and such come up as options I'm not sure what can be done with this problem, insofar as it is one. It can be useful: I would quite like to see a game where the players make social media avatars for their PCs and do in-game stuff with that between sessions but a lot of genres don't work as well when PCs have access to too much information or can exploit the ruthless common sense that comes with it.

At which point the GM pay well drop an EMP on the world :)

CSI: Trail

CSI: TRAIL

(aka: alcar is actually giving this some thought. Be scared.)

System: BESM3, 250 points, minimum 50 in skills. (Vanilla humans cannot get Dynamic Powers, no one can get Resurrection.)

The PCs are people living in the land of the Lords of Life and Death. Vampires and werewolves roam the world, terrible in their power, while magicians slink about the edges of the world practising their forbidden magics and the remains of the once-mighty fae hide in shadows and dream of better days.

You are all a forensics team sent to Trail to investigate the death of the last dragon. Because even in a world where myths and monsters walk they still manage to die and someone has to file paperwork, figure out what happened and survive the attempt to arrest the perpetrators. Most humans are scared of the monsters, thanks in part to the vampire publicity machine cranking things up to 11 but you've dissected enough corpses to know that anything that was born can die, no matter what it might become, and that can be dangerous knowledge in such a place and at such a time. Trail, as always, is a powder keg and the PCs have all the potential in the world to be matches just by asking the right questions and turning over stones to find out what lies beneath.

Note: Vampires and werewolves are the top dogs of the setting. While this may not be true in terms of actual power they are the humans of the supernatural world: they win with numbers compared to other critters out there and, like humans, have a wider variety of abilities and powers than the other kinds of monsters who infest the world.

GM Note: Vampire and were PCs are not allowed. You have Law on your side, a lot of skill, access to magic and technology. Some of the PCs may know magic, others not be entirely human at all or some other variety of monster in the employ of a Crime Scene Unit. Players are encouraged to make characters who'd fit into such a setting and provide useful skills for the group as a whole.

Other PC Concepts: if a player doesn't want to make a CSI-affiliated PC, there's always making a local guide to the weird for the government agents and the like if need be. New PCs can be agents sent into the game, or even from other government departments.

Genre: LOLAD was first and foremost about fun and adventure, and monsters being able to alter the world and become powers in it, upstarts who shook the balance of the old and established powers. They have done this, quite well in fact, and now it it time for humanity to try and reclaim some lost power and prestige of its own ...

While the game will begin with a mystery (Who Killed Cecil?) this can be seen as akin to the Amanda Palmer killing in Twin Peaks: it's an initial plot-thread but not the impetus of the game and will likely slip into the background of plots as PCs become involved in various going-ons in Trail and the attempts by humanity to take back the night, or at least find a new status quo for the world.

SETTING:

A century ago the world only knew of monsters from stories, thanks to the stringent efforts of the vampires. When you can live centuries and enjoy compound interest and blackmail you can accomplish many things, and among those was hiding the truth of the world from humanity. Some thing the vampires did that because humans would destroy them, others that it was an amusing game. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle of that.

A decade ago things began to fall apart: the internet, camera-phones and twitter came into existence and the vampires were old, and terrible, and not able to see the shape the future was taking in time to truly stop it. Oh, they tried – the RIAA is theirs, and SOPA and all things of that ilk – but the truth about the world is now an open secret in many places, the first among those was the small town of Trail in BC, Canada, where an exceptionally strong group of were outed themselves to the media in defiance of local vampires. How much of this was an accident is, also, open to debate, but the town is one of the few places now where the existence of monsters out of myth is not so much 'open secret' as much as 'accepted fact' and the town deals with this as best they can.

Property values have plummeted and yet people move to the town, some hoping to become monsters, or slay them, or attracted by high pay or danger, or simply being too damn stubborn to leave. There are now enough monsters in the town to fit into a major city and the clashes of new powers vs. old and the New World vs the Old World happen often enough that the detritus left behind must be cleaned up, catalogued and explained.

It's a plum job, if you make it out alive: having Trail on the resume looks good almost anywhere, after all ... if you can survive it here, you can make it anywhere.

THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT

Weres and vampires have no desire to be catalogued and understood – who does? – but some general facts are relatively well known among those who know about them. (As with the moon landing, there are a lot of humans who still refuse to believe weres or vampires exist at all.)

Weres: In general, were are stronger when they're younger and their powers fade with age; as such, were Packs often have competent leaders being beaten by younger were and don't become anywhere near as powerful or competent as they could. All were heal phenomenally quickly and many can be harmed by silver in one form or another. Most tend to be physical and dangerous beings, not the least because they have senses humans don't and tend to be driven by a sense of morality that often isn't human a all.

Vampires: Vampires do lack the raw power of were and sunlight (and fire) are seldom their friends. While a vampire can be active in sunlight their actual powers – which are many and varied – tend to be much reduced. However, vampires can live for decades and even centuries and only grow in skill and cunning over time. It is said of the old master vampires that, while they may not win, they never, ever lose. The downside of such a mindset is that vampires tend to plan for the future and not the short term, finding the acquisition of wealth and mutual funds – to say nothing of influence – far more important than actual vampiric powers.

Magicians: Magicians exist, human and otherwise, individuals capable of making their desires real, of manipulating energy and changing the shape of the world. While magic is power it also takes a lot of energy, often time, and is frustratingly limited against vampires and weres, though not other kinds of monsters. Most magicians keep to themselves and try to make their magics as mysterious and unknown as they can.

Humans: The problem of living centuries lies in falling behind; the problem of having the raw power of a were is forgetting other forms of power. Or, put another way, gun beats spear. And magic. And often monsters. Human monster hunters do exist and are generally terrifyingly good at what they do, at least up until they get eaten – or worse.

TRAIL:

The lords of life and death are the true powers of the town but divided into several factions which can, in theory, be played off against each other. Certainly the mayor tries his damndest to do so.

Cameron: an old-school vampire who owns/runs a mansion just outside the town, he's been known to take in any strays and has a wide range of alliances and allies throughout the town and beyond. He prefers to consider a sheathed sword more dangerous to one waved about and counts Frankensteinian monsters and fae-damaged humans among his stranger allies.

Sophie: The leader of the Vampire Nest in the city of Trail. Sophie and Cameron had a falling out years ago and Sophie decided to become a Power in the city, whereas Cameron preferred to work from behind the scenes. Sophie is young, as vampires reckon things, but makes up for power with sheer brutality and a willingness to do terrible and awful things at the drop of a hat.

Simon: The leader of the foremost Pack of were in Trail, he reputedly tries to avoid open war with Sophie and is a friend to Cameron. It's said he was in Trail since the beginning of things and knew Faline before they were even were but there's a lot of stories about him and most of them are riddled with lies.

Old Rabbit: A native american were who still has some power over the weres in the local Tribe. His 'pack' is rather small but fiercely loyal to the old man. He once ruled all of Trail and the well of bitterness runs deep within him that so much has been lost and will never come again.

Out Lady of the Claws: Faline is said to be a goddess , something perhaps far more or less than human. Most believe she was a were, though some think she was a fae in disguise. Sightings of her are as rare as those of a bigfoot and whether she is really any kind of god or not is a subject of much debate. That she was real is accepted – though, as with Jesus, there are doubters – but whether she is dead or something else entirely is a matter of some debate.

Lyn: the local magician-in-charge of the coven of magicians who operate in the town. (Well, she would be in charge if they bothered to vote and since they haven't she is.) Little is known about her save that she tries to keep her people out of harm's way from the mightier forces abroad in the city and, like everyone else, is said to have known Faline.

Edward D'Eath: A special police constable who often deals with monsters and weirdness in the town. He isn't liked by any faction and collects secrets like other men collect STDs.

Thoughts on D&D

So, the next edition is coming out in ~2 years (2013 at some point). I was not a fan of 4e -- admittedly, I didn't play it often and only read through the rules twice but it pretty much struck me as D&D trying to be an MMO and failing, to say nothing of being more complicated than it needed to be. I find as I get older I get tired of games involving flipping through acres of pages and legacy systems that make little sense. So .... some thoughts toward 5e of D&D.

1) The stats will remain as they always were. This is, pretty much, a given. Ditto for HP and AC, however unwieldy they've perhaps become. A thought: give fewer options. So, random dice roll, stat at a time, and you're stuck with them. This will prevent a lot of the min/maxing that begins right at the gate. I would allow for an optional rerolling of all if more than 2 stats are 9 or lower, but that would be it.

2) Scrap the obsession with balance. Classes are not balanced: you play X because it is the best at X, and won't be as good at Y and unable to do Z. Trying to make every class even seems to do a disservice to all of them.

3) If every race can be a PC, then have them all as options from the get-go. People aren't spending money on RPGs like they did back in the day: said model isn't working, so don't piss people off by trying to force it on them.

4) Reduce the amount of books.
PHB (The basic classes, with instructions for how to make everything else into a PC class. Ta-da. Combat stuff. Magic. Also psionics. They'll show up, put them in as part of the main thing from the start.)  
DM/M&M: One book. Cull stuff, streamline and focus things.
Optional book:  The M&M species done up as PHB ones. The rules should allow the GM to do that on his/her own but this could be handy and include the 'full' M&M list of monsters to make certain people happy.

Also, if one will be making Settings -- which one will -- have some idea as to what and the relevant feats in the main book rather than setting-specific ones. Just a thought.

5) Character generation can be complicated (See: spells, keeping track of). Make an online PC creator, make it free, give .html and .rtf formats for finished PCs.

6) Toss skills out the window, as they're just excuses/reasons not to role-place. Assume everyone can do X at a certain level, add in feats if they want to be better. So anyone can Climb, if you have a feat you can climb really well (and without the equipment). D&D is focused on dungeon crawls and killing monsters -- this has never changed, from a system POV. If skills vanish, it requires actual player skills to work things out, not just 'I check for traps.' *roll dice*. Rolling dice should be for social and physical combat, not broken things like diplomacy checks devoid of role-playing.

7) Cull things. If need be, add all those in as pdf/pod things later on for those who insist on having weapon X and Y and armour Z.

8) Recognize that the Epic 20+ level D&D stuff has never worked; don't bother trying to get it to.

Esper.net issues

Esper.net seems to having issues (perhaps owing to just five active servers at the moment). As it would be nice to avoid the dal.net meltdown of yesteryear, this is a general announcement:

If you can't get on esper, or it dies entirely, the dal.net #game1 IS still active (and Sparkie is generally in it). Sessions can be run in it, or game1 move back to it if need be.

Coupe De Foudre Game

Season One: The Clock Strikes Ones (2011 - 2012)

This is the first season of Coup De Foudre (a thunderbolt/love at first sight). The episodes are directed by Alcar, produced by Sparkie and feature the prominent voice talents of Chaos`^ . The episodes are based on a maga series created by Game1 Studios and the first seasion covers the protagonist, Quinn, becoming aware of other Elemententalists and acting in the wider world. 

The episodes use the same opening theme, "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper 

The ending theme of the first season is "Clocks" by Coldplay

(It is widely believed that the show's entire budget was spent acquiring these songs.)

Episode 1 - A Life Gone Widdershins (Sessions 1-4)

Quinn teams up with a complete stranger to beat up a kid and destroy a library, followed by learning the secret dimensions of the world via throwing the street at someone and prepares to break her GF out of a government prison.

(This is pretty much the first sessions done up as the infamous Wizard of Oz tv listing:

'Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets and then teams up with three complete stangers to kill again.']

Episode 2 - Time is on my siiii -- shit! (Session 5)

And then she died. Only not.