Found on a posting board by Anonymous, who is just a trifle more reliable than Wikipedia ...
The secret histories of the world are that: they do not end up on any page, often not in any memory. They are the purged records, the fires, but even ashes leave things before, and nothing is entirely forgot. Ghost memories, echoes, hunches and fragments of dreams remain when all else is dust and forgot even by legend. For instance, to mention the Terrible King by any title would see this vanish off the internet, and the writer from the world. Secrets. Lies. Necessary, perhaps, but still lies, and bitter as they go down.
We change the world, the secret warriors, fighting wars you will never know about, stopping the darkness because someone has to, because it is necessary and the price of knowledge is power, and the price of power is the obligation to use it. We fight the secret wars, and our comings and goings are unknown, sometimes forgot even by ourselves, so secret are the wars. Hexton is merely a word, now. Where is truth to be found, if we bury it so deep that nothing can drawn it forth into the world?
There is no reward. There can be no reward, for this. If people realize what goes on behind the stage, those who set it up have failed. I know this. We know that. And yet. And yet, the silence that folllows is so deep we wish to fill it with action, with words and names and meaning. And that is why we all fail, all those secret groups and terrible conspiracies without name, because the lure of the world pulls at us, and the desire to be More tugs at us all. And there are so very, very few who can resist such temptations, who can be given power that makes the world a toy to them and not then play with it, sometimes just to see what happens.
Five years ago, the oldest and deepest of the conspiracies, hidden behind the name of Illuminati, published and known to hide it further still, flattered. Fell. Even ideals only carry one so far, and the urge to act is always a deep, terrible thing. We are never done with doing, for all we wish we were.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Aurora Consurgens: 12 sessions in
12 sessions in, the game has acquired a new player [I believe that's first for an intended side-game] and various plots proceed apace:
The band is trying to get more members, and now may have a rhythm guitar player player who can toss people through the air with her mind and somehow create haunted houses, of a sort, who has also killed over 10 people by accident, but hey: bands need rep, right?
S.A.F.E. is finding things harder going than planned, since Doctor D has taken extreme steps to protect his drug shipments -- steps that led to armed men in battle armour killing Nattie, though it didn't take. Nattie and Damien are reevaluating things, as is Trevor.
For her part, Kami is trying to keep people sane, is the employee of the month (!) and may win a car in a raffle! Sullivan seems occupied with other matters and the Illuminati have yet to try and contact Kami, unless of course they already have.
Meanwhile, a bit across town, Mason's two weeks of dealing with his own change have taken a turn for the bizarre that seems to involving a woman named Claire who is trying to start riots involving Mason for reasons of her own, going as far as manipulating a brand-new Omega and refusing to explain herself at all. She does seem to have wanted Mason involved in problems and is quite annoyed all her attempts at causing that seem to have failed thus far.
Upcoming Fun! [Which should include more dice, please. - Your Unfriendly Homicidal Editor Sparkie]
The band is trying to get more members, and now may have a rhythm guitar player player who can toss people through the air with her mind and somehow create haunted houses, of a sort, who has also killed over 10 people by accident, but hey: bands need rep, right?
S.A.F.E. is finding things harder going than planned, since Doctor D has taken extreme steps to protect his drug shipments -- steps that led to armed men in battle armour killing Nattie, though it didn't take. Nattie and Damien are reevaluating things, as is Trevor.
For her part, Kami is trying to keep people sane, is the employee of the month (!) and may win a car in a raffle! Sullivan seems occupied with other matters and the Illuminati have yet to try and contact Kami, unless of course they already have.
Meanwhile, a bit across town, Mason's two weeks of dealing with his own change have taken a turn for the bizarre that seems to involving a woman named Claire who is trying to start riots involving Mason for reasons of her own, going as far as manipulating a brand-new Omega and refusing to explain herself at all. She does seem to have wanted Mason involved in problems and is quite annoyed all her attempts at causing that seem to have failed thus far.
Upcoming Fun! [Which should include more dice, please. - Your Unfriendly Homicidal Editor Sparkie]
- How long can Mason stay in the building if weird stuff keeps happening?
- Will Jerry's ad for Omega band members in the local free magazine get answered?
- Will Kami end up with a car that calls her 'Michael'?
- How long will it be before Nattie realized that Kami wasn't kidding about the horror stories of being a telepath in a world were other Omegas are scared of them ...
- Along the same lines, how long will Sullivan be allowed to use kids gloves regarding Kami?
- Can Archie continue to remain the best roommate ever?
- What does Barry plan to try next in his quest for Omega Rights?
Meta note 2: A game where one PC can think solutions insanely fast and one is a telepath does bode poorly for a lot of those secretive organizations trying to hide their goals from them. Which should be great :)
Thursday, March 03, 2011
Aurora Consurgens: fun essay
Something for Kami to find on the 'net Sunday morning before she heads out shopping ....
Understanding The Future
A paper by Dr. Kim Li, department of philosophy, Freemont University-College.
The world is too small. You can drop pins, and people find out. The world is too small. Elvis can fake his own death and hide for decades, preparing for a comeback tour with Michael Jackson. Both these things are truth (the small, the big). We live in a global world, a connected world, and despite the worries about the next great plague it has many benefits, as with most other paradoxes. It is easy to hide, but hard to not be found if people go looking.
All the old truths and certainties of even the last century are being swept away. Information is power, knowledge our candle in the dark and access is everything. We have it, are learning from it. (See 'San Francisco Crime Watch' (Robinson, Crusoe , 2009) for an example: citizens can chart out where the worst crimes are, since the police files are transparent, and push for action in those area.) We live in a world that is becoming more transparent. Libertarians would have us rejoice in this, believing we're all adult enough to deal sensibly with the data we are given. Conservatives believes only they should have the data and use it as they see fit. Liberals, of course, change their minds daily. (I was told I had to write a Political Essay this year: that paragraph is it. If you want to waste your time being offended, go do so.)
Everyone hears the stories and rumours of strange people with impossible gifts, curses, powers and the like. A lot of the evidence for them is anecdotal at present, but will likely not remain that way. There are deeper questions as to how new these people are, how they were hidden and so forth but it is, generally, rather easy to trick people. (For example, you are reading this essay.) If even a third – if even one – of these stories has basis in fact, it is a paradigm-changing moment for the world. Read that sentence again: if you aren't scared, you didn't understand it. The last one was, arguably, the atom bomb.
Historically, such paradigms don't go down well: the old world discovered the new, and decided the inhabitants weren't human. What we have are humans evolving into other states, possibly even post-human ones, and how we deal with that will determine if we are the old world or the new. If you see a man whose skin is covered in bark, what would you do? What will you do? What won't you do? We have deep troubles dealing with differences in our society, hiding away gimps, cripples, freaks until recently, throwing people into institutions because it was easier than accepting them as human beings.
Do you think we shall ever have pictures in fashion magazines of people in wheelchairs and have it not treated as a kind of game? How, then, do we deal with people who used to be normal and how look like horror-movie monsters, or (worse still?) look entirely normal and do monstrous things that are impossible to our limited understanding of the world? These are not idle questions. They deserve answers and need answers, but each of us will answer them differently, and hope that we can be the best in humanity when it comes times to truly face the questions.
Because there will be monsters, if we treat them like monsters. There will be war, if we think they are not like us. I am not saying it will be easy to accept such things. I am not even saying that we can, but I feel the effort most be made and, if we cannot achieve understanding, we could fake it under the guise of tolerance. If they are to be the future – if we do not fight them in a war to the death – could we at least have them say we tried, as best we could, to accept?
Understanding The Future
A paper by Dr. Kim Li, department of philosophy, Freemont University-College.
The world is too small. You can drop pins, and people find out. The world is too small. Elvis can fake his own death and hide for decades, preparing for a comeback tour with Michael Jackson. Both these things are truth (the small, the big). We live in a global world, a connected world, and despite the worries about the next great plague it has many benefits, as with most other paradoxes. It is easy to hide, but hard to not be found if people go looking.
All the old truths and certainties of even the last century are being swept away. Information is power, knowledge our candle in the dark and access is everything. We have it, are learning from it. (See 'San Francisco Crime Watch' (Robinson, Crusoe , 2009) for an example: citizens can chart out where the worst crimes are, since the police files are transparent, and push for action in those area.) We live in a world that is becoming more transparent. Libertarians would have us rejoice in this, believing we're all adult enough to deal sensibly with the data we are given. Conservatives believes only they should have the data and use it as they see fit. Liberals, of course, change their minds daily. (I was told I had to write a Political Essay this year: that paragraph is it. If you want to waste your time being offended, go do so.)
Everyone hears the stories and rumours of strange people with impossible gifts, curses, powers and the like. A lot of the evidence for them is anecdotal at present, but will likely not remain that way. There are deeper questions as to how new these people are, how they were hidden and so forth but it is, generally, rather easy to trick people. (For example, you are reading this essay.) If even a third – if even one – of these stories has basis in fact, it is a paradigm-changing moment for the world. Read that sentence again: if you aren't scared, you didn't understand it. The last one was, arguably, the atom bomb.
Historically, such paradigms don't go down well: the old world discovered the new, and decided the inhabitants weren't human. What we have are humans evolving into other states, possibly even post-human ones, and how we deal with that will determine if we are the old world or the new. If you see a man whose skin is covered in bark, what would you do? What will you do? What won't you do? We have deep troubles dealing with differences in our society, hiding away gimps, cripples, freaks until recently, throwing people into institutions because it was easier than accepting them as human beings.
Do you think we shall ever have pictures in fashion magazines of people in wheelchairs and have it not treated as a kind of game? How, then, do we deal with people who used to be normal and how look like horror-movie monsters, or (worse still?) look entirely normal and do monstrous things that are impossible to our limited understanding of the world? These are not idle questions. They deserve answers and need answers, but each of us will answer them differently, and hope that we can be the best in humanity when it comes times to truly face the questions.
Because there will be monsters, if we treat them like monsters. There will be war, if we think they are not like us. I am not saying it will be easy to accept such things. I am not even saying that we can, but I feel the effort most be made and, if we cannot achieve understanding, we could fake it under the guise of tolerance. If they are to be the future – if we do not fight them in a war to the death – could we at least have them say we tried, as best we could, to accept?
Monday, February 28, 2011
Aurora Consurgens
Aurora Consurgens [Breaking dawn]
Kids these days. It's the common complaint of parents: the wrong shows, the wrong music, the disgusting things they do to try and one-up the antics of their own parents. Only now, that's nothing. The world is too big, too global, too much of everything. It's hard to hide, that some kids aren't kids. They're stronger, faster, dangerous. They're more than other kids, more than other people. Evolution on crack, as the leading theorist Ms. Elenora Thompson put it.
And if that were all, that would be enough. But there's other kids, too. Able to do things that defy reason, miracles that mock physics. Able to create fire, to turn things into other things, to change the way we see and understand the world. Why this is, no one knows. It was hidden. Though how any government did that, and for how long, is unknown. But too many escaped handling, escaped conditioning, flew under the radar [some literally] and slowly but surely a new kind of being has been discovered. Something old? New? Government tricks? Aliens? No one knows. Or if they do, they're not talking.
Two new species of humanity exist now. They get called different things, are capable of stuff no humans are, but as a brief rundown.
Homo Alpha: People who are better than human. Stronger, faster, quicker. They heal quickly, are smarter than most, shrug off drugs etc. They're widely believed to be a human answer to Omegas, essentially, and what humanity may some day become. Despite the title, there is a lot of variance among them: some are geniuses at one thing, others awesome at a few things and so forth.
[In other words, you can get Reed Richards (intelligence wise) and Captan America, ability wise, falling under the same penumbra. Since people are capable of pretty impressive things, it's often hard to prove someone is one without drugging them – and some have died of such things, so it is not an idea test.]
Homo omega: The x-men style people. One, at the most two, related abilities that are, frankly, beyond the scope of modern science and understanding. A guy with strength CAN lift up an entire car, when his attempt should just rip off the bumper and so forth. Currently theory holds that there's some physics distortion field involved, but that's mostly scientists making up terms. The fact is that these people can do impossible things as easily as breathing and few of them look human at all.
Basically, mutants in the sense of being weird and different: red skin for fire-users, etc. It's generally held that the most visible and physical the 'tell', the stronger one is, but that's not strictly true since not some only have tells function when using abilities, but the general public is ignorant of this.
(Meta note: Telepaths don't exist, to the common knowledge of even alphas and omegas. Some abilities are so dangerous it's considered best no one knows about 'em.)
System: Risus! YAY! Dice: ~12-15. 4 die max for starting cliches, 2 die cliche minimum. Should have at least one hobby/future profession cliche that won't lend itself to being Useful. I am assuming the PC does not begin the game with martial arts and the like and learns such things via experience dice and teaching as the game progresses. (Ditto for increasing power and control of it.)
Homo Alpha: Post-olympic level ability (X), And (Y). Sometimes Z, or a more general 'all-olympic level'. Basically, you could get ninjas, batman, the punisher and the like out of this. They look like normal people, but aren't. Downside is their senses are better than human, so intense aural or visual stimuli can throw them for a loop. (Not well known, naturally.) Also, at least a third suffer some degree of sociopathic or autistic tendencies but most of that is blamed on upbringing.
Homo Omega: Likely the PC, naturally. One-two abilities. If more than one, the other is physical and based on mutation of the body in some way. In other words, one could have Fire (and burning eyes when using it) or Fire and flight with red skin/giant flaming wings, as an example, though the two don't have to be connected. The huge downside to this problem is normal humans with skin conditions and such can run into problems, which helps no one at all.
Note: Omegas spend their lives human until either some Huge Stress, puberty or being around a lot of Omegas fighting triggers abilities/powers/changes. Unlike alphas, who are born as they are, omegas do get to lead a normal life to a point.
Note (2): Whatever ability(s) the PC has should ideally be scalable. Game begins with PC new to the power/ability and with player providing ideas for scaling it up. So you begin with control/understanding of power at basic level, RP it up a notch as the game goes, and then have further milestones achieved via experience dice. Having one power ability and one mutation-style ne allows for growth in both, naturally.
EX: A pc with blueish tint to skin, ability to manipulate ice.
Start: make snowballs, throw them at people.
RPed stuff: Create ice, alter ice into water.
Experience (with dice): Freeze water in people, create ice duplicates.
More experience (with dice) animate duplicates , create second skin of ice as armour etc.
Still later: make an ice age?
SETTING:
Modern world, except paranoia has gone through the roof. On one hand, you have 'humans' who look like everyone else but are Better and on the other weird mutants who are Unclean and so forth and can probably kill other people with a thought, if sufficiently annoyed. The law hasn't begun to come to grips with this, and drug are already being marketed that can boost Omegas (and Alphas) to new heights – or depths. To say nothing of fast-tracking vastly illegal government experiments on humans (a la iron man) to give humanity a 'fighting chance'.
The world is basically a powder keg, and into that steps the PC.
THEMES:
Ism: This is the major one, really. On one hand, there's people who look human and 'aren't' (Alphas) and on the other people who don't look human who can level entire city blocks and so forth. Lots of fear, mistrust, and so forth, parents who go "think of the children!" and the like. On the plus side, it is getting rid of the previous racism and sexism humans had. A lot if mistrust, lies and such will be spouted.
(This one won't always be bad: someone can cleverly parlay it into hollywood-level fame and fortune, after all.)
Destiny: What does one DO with such power, especially when one begins to get inklings of the upper limits? You are, after all, a walking WMD, and the consequences of that can be pretty dangerous at the best of times, to say nothing of when being framed and so forth. As per the 'ism', it takes a lot of strength to be hated and not internalize some of that hate, eg: becoming a monster since people figure you are one and so forth.
Shaping the world: as the game increases to Epic levels of threats and problems, the extent to which one can change the world, if one has the right to and so forth. Should the Omegas ignore the humans, let them make their own path, catch them if they fall or raise them up? A lot of this gets deep into nanny state level ideas: what if people no longer put parachutes in planes because the odds an Omega would show to stop the plane from falling being ~70%? Etc. As the PC and NPCs gain in power, this becomes more and more important: you can have a huge impact on the world, become Celebrity famous and so forth, be the latest Hitler to scar the pages of history: it's pretty heady, and should prove fun to explore.
A few final notes: I doubt there'll be much call for secret IDs and costumes in such a setting. Hiding'd be rather difficult, after all. I figure there's some who will end up with cool 'call names' to market their brand, others who decide humanity should be exterminated and become terrorists and so forth.
A lot of groups with a lot of agendas can make for a fun game, especially with the giant question of the how and why of alphas and omegas hanging over it, and a lot of people having their ideals – or huge bets – riding on which theory is 'right', if any of them are.
Sample NPC:
Joseph Frizel, German-American, second generation. Age: 16, tall and thin. Looks normal enough save for vertical cat-like eyes.
Cliche: Cat (3), Bad Luck (4), B&E: (4), 70s clothing fetish (2), Electrical Engineer (2)
The son of 2 famous cat burglars, he's taken up the family profession with a twist, owing to being an Omega.
Cat: Can turn into a common black house cat. Really.
Bad Luck: Can give others bad luck, especially in cat form. Quite useful, not controlled at present.
B&E: Obvious. He's good at it.
70s clothing fetish: he's got this thing about the 70s and happily steals such things, up to and including furniture. Knows far too much about the decade.
Electrical Engineer: Began an an offshoot of B&E (with security systems) but he's found he likes working with such things, and was considering that as his legit profession before becoming an Omega.
Cat stuff: Claws, good night vision, land on feet, agility. All increase during game. Does NOT like turning into a cat, since the whole "I am cool/awesome' vibe he tries to give off doesn't work once he becomes a cat.
Further: Actually has an awesome cat-like vibe. People like him, think he's cool even when someone who steals and wears 70s clothing should not be cool.
Experience: turn into other kinds of cats, talk to/control cats.
Later: 9 lives? Other cat-like animals? Turn into cat and people just pour out their life stories to their own fur-covered therapist?
Bad Luck: The more actually impressive and useful power, though not flashy.
Start: uncontrolled, works on enemies and friends.
RP: Just enemies.
Experience: some idea of how to direct/focus it and eventually to the point of altering someone's fate, cursing them with superstitions and defying entropy at the maximum levels.
Eventual limited ability to give good luck, like cat hairs of inspiration?
Very basic, at present, but it's one idea.
Kids these days. It's the common complaint of parents: the wrong shows, the wrong music, the disgusting things they do to try and one-up the antics of their own parents. Only now, that's nothing. The world is too big, too global, too much of everything. It's hard to hide, that some kids aren't kids. They're stronger, faster, dangerous. They're more than other kids, more than other people. Evolution on crack, as the leading theorist Ms. Elenora Thompson put it.
And if that were all, that would be enough. But there's other kids, too. Able to do things that defy reason, miracles that mock physics. Able to create fire, to turn things into other things, to change the way we see and understand the world. Why this is, no one knows. It was hidden. Though how any government did that, and for how long, is unknown. But too many escaped handling, escaped conditioning, flew under the radar [some literally] and slowly but surely a new kind of being has been discovered. Something old? New? Government tricks? Aliens? No one knows. Or if they do, they're not talking.
Two new species of humanity exist now. They get called different things, are capable of stuff no humans are, but as a brief rundown.
Homo Alpha: People who are better than human. Stronger, faster, quicker. They heal quickly, are smarter than most, shrug off drugs etc. They're widely believed to be a human answer to Omegas, essentially, and what humanity may some day become. Despite the title, there is a lot of variance among them: some are geniuses at one thing, others awesome at a few things and so forth.
[In other words, you can get Reed Richards (intelligence wise) and Captan America, ability wise, falling under the same penumbra. Since people are capable of pretty impressive things, it's often hard to prove someone is one without drugging them – and some have died of such things, so it is not an idea test.]
Homo omega: The x-men style people. One, at the most two, related abilities that are, frankly, beyond the scope of modern science and understanding. A guy with strength CAN lift up an entire car, when his attempt should just rip off the bumper and so forth. Currently theory holds that there's some physics distortion field involved, but that's mostly scientists making up terms. The fact is that these people can do impossible things as easily as breathing and few of them look human at all.
Basically, mutants in the sense of being weird and different: red skin for fire-users, etc. It's generally held that the most visible and physical the 'tell', the stronger one is, but that's not strictly true since not some only have tells function when using abilities, but the general public is ignorant of this.
(Meta note: Telepaths don't exist, to the common knowledge of even alphas and omegas. Some abilities are so dangerous it's considered best no one knows about 'em.)
System: Risus! YAY! Dice: ~12-15. 4 die max for starting cliches, 2 die cliche minimum. Should have at least one hobby/future profession cliche that won't lend itself to being Useful. I am assuming the PC does not begin the game with martial arts and the like and learns such things via experience dice and teaching as the game progresses. (Ditto for increasing power and control of it.)
Homo Alpha: Post-olympic level ability (X), And (Y). Sometimes Z, or a more general 'all-olympic level'. Basically, you could get ninjas, batman, the punisher and the like out of this. They look like normal people, but aren't. Downside is their senses are better than human, so intense aural or visual stimuli can throw them for a loop. (Not well known, naturally.) Also, at least a third suffer some degree of sociopathic or autistic tendencies but most of that is blamed on upbringing.
Homo Omega: Likely the PC, naturally. One-two abilities. If more than one, the other is physical and based on mutation of the body in some way. In other words, one could have Fire (and burning eyes when using it) or Fire and flight with red skin/giant flaming wings, as an example, though the two don't have to be connected. The huge downside to this problem is normal humans with skin conditions and such can run into problems, which helps no one at all.
Note: Omegas spend their lives human until either some Huge Stress, puberty or being around a lot of Omegas fighting triggers abilities/powers/changes. Unlike alphas, who are born as they are, omegas do get to lead a normal life to a point.
Note (2): Whatever ability(s) the PC has should ideally be scalable. Game begins with PC new to the power/ability and with player providing ideas for scaling it up. So you begin with control/understanding of power at basic level, RP it up a notch as the game goes, and then have further milestones achieved via experience dice. Having one power ability and one mutation-style ne allows for growth in both, naturally.
EX: A pc with blueish tint to skin, ability to manipulate ice.
Start: make snowballs, throw them at people.
RPed stuff: Create ice, alter ice into water.
Experience (with dice): Freeze water in people, create ice duplicates.
More experience (with dice) animate duplicates , create second skin of ice as armour etc.
Still later: make an ice age?
SETTING:
Modern world, except paranoia has gone through the roof. On one hand, you have 'humans' who look like everyone else but are Better and on the other weird mutants who are Unclean and so forth and can probably kill other people with a thought, if sufficiently annoyed. The law hasn't begun to come to grips with this, and drug are already being marketed that can boost Omegas (and Alphas) to new heights – or depths. To say nothing of fast-tracking vastly illegal government experiments on humans (a la iron man) to give humanity a 'fighting chance'.
The world is basically a powder keg, and into that steps the PC.
THEMES:
Ism: This is the major one, really. On one hand, there's people who look human and 'aren't' (Alphas) and on the other people who don't look human who can level entire city blocks and so forth. Lots of fear, mistrust, and so forth, parents who go "think of the children!" and the like. On the plus side, it is getting rid of the previous racism and sexism humans had. A lot if mistrust, lies and such will be spouted.
(This one won't always be bad: someone can cleverly parlay it into hollywood-level fame and fortune, after all.)
Destiny: What does one DO with such power, especially when one begins to get inklings of the upper limits? You are, after all, a walking WMD, and the consequences of that can be pretty dangerous at the best of times, to say nothing of when being framed and so forth. As per the 'ism', it takes a lot of strength to be hated and not internalize some of that hate, eg: becoming a monster since people figure you are one and so forth.
Shaping the world: as the game increases to Epic levels of threats and problems, the extent to which one can change the world, if one has the right to and so forth. Should the Omegas ignore the humans, let them make their own path, catch them if they fall or raise them up? A lot of this gets deep into nanny state level ideas: what if people no longer put parachutes in planes because the odds an Omega would show to stop the plane from falling being ~70%? Etc. As the PC and NPCs gain in power, this becomes more and more important: you can have a huge impact on the world, become Celebrity famous and so forth, be the latest Hitler to scar the pages of history: it's pretty heady, and should prove fun to explore.
A few final notes: I doubt there'll be much call for secret IDs and costumes in such a setting. Hiding'd be rather difficult, after all. I figure there's some who will end up with cool 'call names' to market their brand, others who decide humanity should be exterminated and become terrorists and so forth.
A lot of groups with a lot of agendas can make for a fun game, especially with the giant question of the how and why of alphas and omegas hanging over it, and a lot of people having their ideals – or huge bets – riding on which theory is 'right', if any of them are.
Sample NPC:
Joseph Frizel, German-American, second generation. Age: 16, tall and thin. Looks normal enough save for vertical cat-like eyes.
Cliche: Cat (3), Bad Luck (4), B&E: (4), 70s clothing fetish (2), Electrical Engineer (2)
The son of 2 famous cat burglars, he's taken up the family profession with a twist, owing to being an Omega.
Cat: Can turn into a common black house cat. Really.
Bad Luck: Can give others bad luck, especially in cat form. Quite useful, not controlled at present.
B&E: Obvious. He's good at it.
70s clothing fetish: he's got this thing about the 70s and happily steals such things, up to and including furniture. Knows far too much about the decade.
Electrical Engineer: Began an an offshoot of B&E (with security systems) but he's found he likes working with such things, and was considering that as his legit profession before becoming an Omega.
Cat stuff: Claws, good night vision, land on feet, agility. All increase during game. Does NOT like turning into a cat, since the whole "I am cool/awesome' vibe he tries to give off doesn't work once he becomes a cat.
Further: Actually has an awesome cat-like vibe. People like him, think he's cool even when someone who steals and wears 70s clothing should not be cool.
Experience: turn into other kinds of cats, talk to/control cats.
Later: 9 lives? Other cat-like animals? Turn into cat and people just pour out their life stories to their own fur-covered therapist?
Bad Luck: The more actually impressive and useful power, though not flashy.
Start: uncontrolled, works on enemies and friends.
RP: Just enemies.
Experience: some idea of how to direct/focus it and eventually to the point of altering someone's fate, cursing them with superstitions and defying entropy at the maximum levels.
Eventual limited ability to give good luck, like cat hairs of inspiration?
Very basic, at present, but it's one idea.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Fairview Update
Where things are at:
The last session was late October (school and work limited the last sessions to pretty much single-player ones) and then November and the hell that is December hit. So, this update.
Alex: Had been captured by the evil servants of the Shadow Walker (again), mostly due to being with Joni one session and then the player having to abscond due to work for a bit. OOCly, the plan was for the shadow walker to offer to undo her nature and cut her loose, as she's been nothing but an annoyance. Which lets Chaos re-spec her somewhat and figure where he wants her to go, as a character.
Emma: Emma is still dealing with Julius and the fall-out from her time travel escapade. Her father is aware (somewhat) of what Emma is and has ties to Vericorp, but doesn't seem pleased about what his daughter has become. Ah, families. Helena has agreed to let Emma drive a car and Emma is slowly but surely meeting adults and other people who aren't boring and have dull ideas that power shouldn't actually be used and the world is an egg people can break etc.: her kinds of people, in other words.
Joni: Currently, Joni is trying to find out why a self-styled God is using a home depot as a base point for building her own temple in the city, with Brodie and the Scry with her. She also has Hell looking for answers to things she's done and continuing to make her school/place of power into something to be reckoned with as well as her goal of making a police force for the city's supernatural community.
Karl: Is working for Vericorp and the Inquisition, hoping if the former leads to a shitstorm, the latter will allow him to clean it up. Despite Brodie having been changed somewhat due to time travel, Karl requested working with someone else and, unless the player shows again, can be considered to be MIA on a Very Special Mission.
Rei: Is doing just fine, thank you, and working on her tan.
Overall Meta-plots
Vericorp: THE VP of human resources (Loric) claims to be a god and knows the woman who calls herself Star and Emma's father of old. What the company's goals are -- and his in particular -- remain unknown at present but Vericorp seems determined to find a way to make money out of supernatural creatures even if it does open a portal to hell in the process. Company motto: profit = progress.
Scry: Still trying to find a way to free his master/best friend. He's at least managing a truce with Eugene, though neither really trusts the other, and seems content to wander about helping the pcs without, yet, asking for payment in return.
Magicians: the local magicians have yet to react the death of the White Lord, and no one is certain what that will do to whatever balance and power structure they had. His kids, who helped the PCs kill him, seem willing to be allies at least and it's doubtful he has friends who would avenge his death, though someone may on the grounds that it looks bad for the major magicians to have one of their own die.
Temporal Skinwearers: the 'fake' Cristal and Peter, whose goals and mission seems unknown at present; brought back via Emma's attempts to fix the past.
Hell & Heaven: [Redacted] But they do have plans, oh yes.
The Grey Man: After the failure of the storm, he's done nothing since. Licking wounds? Debating leaving? No one knows, least of all the PCs.
The tree: What is it? How much has it changed JOni, Ike and Helena? Who wants it, or to destroy? It was one of the first major plot events, and its tale is not yet done.
Other side plots include Dennis's plans with werewolves, Dave and friends building transformers, real estate companies trying to buy up cursed land and Joseph's quest to get his friend Kyle back from the Grey Man. (There are also ninjas, and one evangelical ninja out there, but they are busy consolidating power.)
And finally, this is a note I had at the bottom of a file, make of it what you will:
The antichrist will, naturally, run for public office. Tired of secularism? Vote antichrist! Want pro-life? Vote antichrist!
The last session was late October (school and work limited the last sessions to pretty much single-player ones) and then November and the hell that is December hit. So, this update.
Alex: Had been captured by the evil servants of the Shadow Walker (again), mostly due to being with Joni one session and then the player having to abscond due to work for a bit. OOCly, the plan was for the shadow walker to offer to undo her nature and cut her loose, as she's been nothing but an annoyance. Which lets Chaos re-spec her somewhat and figure where he wants her to go, as a character.
Emma: Emma is still dealing with Julius and the fall-out from her time travel escapade. Her father is aware (somewhat) of what Emma is and has ties to Vericorp, but doesn't seem pleased about what his daughter has become. Ah, families. Helena has agreed to let Emma drive a car and Emma is slowly but surely meeting adults and other people who aren't boring and have dull ideas that power shouldn't actually be used and the world is an egg people can break etc.: her kinds of people, in other words.
Joni: Currently, Joni is trying to find out why a self-styled God is using a home depot as a base point for building her own temple in the city, with Brodie and the Scry with her. She also has Hell looking for answers to things she's done and continuing to make her school/place of power into something to be reckoned with as well as her goal of making a police force for the city's supernatural community.
Karl: Is working for Vericorp and the Inquisition, hoping if the former leads to a shitstorm, the latter will allow him to clean it up. Despite Brodie having been changed somewhat due to time travel, Karl requested working with someone else and, unless the player shows again, can be considered to be MIA on a Very Special Mission.
Rei: Is doing just fine, thank you, and working on her tan.
Overall Meta-plots
Vericorp: THE VP of human resources (Loric) claims to be a god and knows the woman who calls herself Star and Emma's father of old. What the company's goals are -- and his in particular -- remain unknown at present but Vericorp seems determined to find a way to make money out of supernatural creatures even if it does open a portal to hell in the process. Company motto: profit = progress.
Scry: Still trying to find a way to free his master/best friend. He's at least managing a truce with Eugene, though neither really trusts the other, and seems content to wander about helping the pcs without, yet, asking for payment in return.
Magicians: the local magicians have yet to react the death of the White Lord, and no one is certain what that will do to whatever balance and power structure they had. His kids, who helped the PCs kill him, seem willing to be allies at least and it's doubtful he has friends who would avenge his death, though someone may on the grounds that it looks bad for the major magicians to have one of their own die.
Temporal Skinwearers: the 'fake' Cristal and Peter, whose goals and mission seems unknown at present; brought back via Emma's attempts to fix the past.
Hell & Heaven: [Redacted] But they do have plans, oh yes.
The Grey Man: After the failure of the storm, he's done nothing since. Licking wounds? Debating leaving? No one knows, least of all the PCs.
The tree: What is it? How much has it changed JOni, Ike and Helena? Who wants it, or to destroy? It was one of the first major plot events, and its tale is not yet done.
Other side plots include Dennis's plans with werewolves, Dave and friends building transformers, real estate companies trying to buy up cursed land and Joseph's quest to get his friend Kyle back from the Grey Man. (There are also ninjas, and one evangelical ninja out there, but they are busy consolidating power.)
And finally, this is a note I had at the bottom of a file, make of it what you will:
The antichrist will, naturally, run for public office. Tired of secularism? Vote antichrist! Want pro-life? Vote antichrist!
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Game Update
Okay. New year, time to get crackin' (or crackling, to use a fire metaphor)
Option A: Continue Fairview. I'm up for this if players are (players currently being Chaos, Ken, Tass). If all 3 players are on board, or just two, it can work. And if someone wants to continue it as a single player side-game, I'm up for that as well. If people are NOT, however, I don't want people thinking they should play it just because it has gone on so long etc.
Option B: New Game! I'm up for anything modern (in terms of era), depending on what players want, both as settings and as characters. (High fantasy and sci-fi generally require a LOT more setting work than I'm prepared to spend on them, especially the latter.)
Option C: Lowlife finally begins! Set some time, in some era, and goes nuts.
Option D: Sparkie begins phase one. You are not authorized to know about phase one.
Option E: Cereus. [This one depends on ken, though :)]
Option A: Continue Fairview. I'm up for this if players are (players currently being Chaos, Ken, Tass). If all 3 players are on board, or just two, it can work. And if someone wants to continue it as a single player side-game, I'm up for that as well. If people are NOT, however, I don't want people thinking they should play it just because it has gone on so long etc.
Option B: New Game! I'm up for anything modern (in terms of era), depending on what players want, both as settings and as characters. (High fantasy and sci-fi generally require a LOT more setting work than I'm prepared to spend on them, especially the latter.)
Option C: Lowlife finally begins! Set some time, in some era, and goes nuts.
Option D: Sparkie begins phase one. You are not authorized to know about phase one.
Option E: Cereus. [This one depends on ken, though :)]
Friday, October 08, 2010
And november...
is coming upon us again. During which time all games will likely be suspended while I wander off and write absurd amounts of words in a vain attempt to find meaning to my existence and stave off acknowledgement of how hollow and empty life is.
Or something like that :p
Or something like that :p
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Side Games...
What i call the 'side games' continue, with Prototype X. There have been a few now over the years since La Fin de Siecle, some successful, others not so. One or two have even had another player playing an NPC as a secret PC, which was all kinds of fun to gm.
For the most part, they tend to be modern games that lean to an anime feel, largely because it requires less prep and such on the part of the gm. The main character has knowledge of fighting, gathers up allies and weapons and so forth. With few exceptions, said games have been designed with one player in mind from the get-go and tend to be built on a spur-of-the-moment aspect around the character concept.
So far only Chaos has done these, but the offer is open to other regulars in game: sometimes a game idea simply works best with just one player, no matter what the idea may be.
Ones done thus far:
* La Fin. The first one and arguably the best thus far. spawned 2 sequels that should, ideally, have not existed, but were still fun regardless. To clarify: the setting had done all it needed to by the end of the first game, so the stuff after that never had that spark.
* Plague of Demons. This one was odd: RL got us for awhile and he game never took off again; it was approaching the final act of the plot. My original idea had been to wrap up the first game quickly, have the necromancer win (!) by losing and then set up a second, modern, game in the same world, with the PC having the advantage of the players knowledge of the setting. Could still happen, at some point.
* 'mgame' (One with Ericka as a teacher, never titled). A flawed idea of a PC as teacher of magical students that never quite worked. It did have another player play an npc, which did make for interesting fun.
* Succubi game. Run by chaos, and ran into the same problem as the above in principle: a character meant to know the setting/be a power in it prior to game and a PC whose player knows nothing of it (since it's often made on the fly) seldom works in the long run. Flawed PC concept for such a setting.
* The Book of Going Forth. Another odd one; it was meant to work in a more episodic manner, a la tv show seasons, but the player never did find it quick enough. Which is a pity: I may be tempted to revisit the setting with multiple players at some point.
For the most part, they tend to be modern games that lean to an anime feel, largely because it requires less prep and such on the part of the gm. The main character has knowledge of fighting, gathers up allies and weapons and so forth. With few exceptions, said games have been designed with one player in mind from the get-go and tend to be built on a spur-of-the-moment aspect around the character concept.
So far only Chaos has done these, but the offer is open to other regulars in game: sometimes a game idea simply works best with just one player, no matter what the idea may be.
Ones done thus far:
* La Fin. The first one and arguably the best thus far. spawned 2 sequels that should, ideally, have not existed, but were still fun regardless. To clarify: the setting had done all it needed to by the end of the first game, so the stuff after that never had that spark.
* Plague of Demons. This one was odd: RL got us for awhile and he game never took off again; it was approaching the final act of the plot. My original idea had been to wrap up the first game quickly, have the necromancer win (!) by losing and then set up a second, modern, game in the same world, with the PC having the advantage of the players knowledge of the setting. Could still happen, at some point.
* 'mgame' (One with Ericka as a teacher, never titled). A flawed idea of a PC as teacher of magical students that never quite worked. It did have another player play an npc, which did make for interesting fun.
* Succubi game. Run by chaos, and ran into the same problem as the above in principle: a character meant to know the setting/be a power in it prior to game and a PC whose player knows nothing of it (since it's often made on the fly) seldom works in the long run. Flawed PC concept for such a setting.
* The Book of Going Forth. Another odd one; it was meant to work in a more episodic manner, a la tv show seasons, but the player never did find it quick enough. Which is a pity: I may be tempted to revisit the setting with multiple players at some point.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Who Killed Cristal McIver?
My notes for that plot ....
This is basically going to be the Twin Peaks plot of the campaign. Cristal planned to bring Roy back, aided by Andy (magic) and Peter (arranging things in the club so she could make the ritual space). And then she died. Possibly murder, even though it’s somehow been arranged to look like suicide. [Of course, one PC knows she did it and another player knows OOCly but that’ll just add to the fun of it.]
Fact: Cristal is dead, and planned to bring Roy back.
Fact: someone made it out to be suicide.
Fact: Ike is certain someone tampered with the ‘information’ at the scene
Fact: Cristal had John (whose parents own Solomon Security Solusions) disable the cameras and such at her home last year, so parties could be more .... interesting.
[Theories, arranged by Ike from most-least likely]
Conjecture: Andy (who has used magic to try and kill Brodie) blames her for his failure(s), kiilled her.
Conjecture: Peter was sick of being second-place to Roy.
Conjecture: Harley killed her because Peter would be heart-broken and he’d get the club.
Conjecture: Brodie killed her, because all of this was her fault.
Conjecture: Matt has gone nuts because of the angel. Maybe crazy enough to kill the person responsible for it.
Conjecture: Rei killed her because she doesn’t want her brother back (or to protect Roy)
Conjecture: John supplied Harley with the info. about the cameras and such. John is a privacy-nut who hates his parents business and spies; perhaps unstable enough to kill Cristal himself
Conjecture: Her parents hired ninjas to kill her because she spent too much money.
Conjecture: Joni, or any other Popular Girl, did it out of spite that Cristal achieved her status via wealth.
Conjecture: The Coven wanted info on Andy/the rituals Cristal learned and went too far. (Other magicians could fall under this, or people trying to prevent Cristal from doing the Necromancy Ritual again.) And yeah, this one includes Ike himself.
Conjecture: Depending on her influence on the kendo club, the fencing club seeking students may have tried to prevent the kendo club from expanding itself, which is possible thanks to money Kevin got them. Taken to a further extreme, Kevin figured this might happen and arranged her death via proxy.
Conjecture: It *was* suicide, and someone is trying to make that it could have been murder. Parents, possibly for insurance.
Conjecture: Roy killed her for daring to attempt to bind his awesomeness.
This is basically going to be the Twin Peaks plot of the campaign. Cristal planned to bring Roy back, aided by Andy (magic) and Peter (arranging things in the club so she could make the ritual space). And then she died. Possibly murder, even though it’s somehow been arranged to look like suicide. [Of course, one PC knows she did it and another player knows OOCly but that’ll just add to the fun of it.]
Fact: Cristal is dead, and planned to bring Roy back.
Fact: someone made it out to be suicide.
Fact: Ike is certain someone tampered with the ‘information’ at the scene
Fact: Cristal had John (whose parents own Solomon Security Solusions) disable the cameras and such at her home last year, so parties could be more .... interesting.
[Theories, arranged by Ike from most-least likely]
Conjecture: Andy (who has used magic to try and kill Brodie) blames her for his failure(s), kiilled her.
Conjecture: Peter was sick of being second-place to Roy.
Conjecture: Harley killed her because Peter would be heart-broken and he’d get the club.
Conjecture: Brodie killed her, because all of this was her fault.
Conjecture: Matt has gone nuts because of the angel. Maybe crazy enough to kill the person responsible for it.
Conjecture: Rei killed her because she doesn’t want her brother back (or to protect Roy)
Conjecture: John supplied Harley with the info. about the cameras and such. John is a privacy-nut who hates his parents business and spies; perhaps unstable enough to kill Cristal himself
Conjecture: Her parents hired ninjas to kill her because she spent too much money.
Conjecture: Joni, or any other Popular Girl, did it out of spite that Cristal achieved her status via wealth.
Conjecture: The Coven wanted info on Andy/the rituals Cristal learned and went too far. (Other magicians could fall under this, or people trying to prevent Cristal from doing the Necromancy Ritual again.) And yeah, this one includes Ike himself.
Conjecture: Depending on her influence on the kendo club, the fencing club seeking students may have tried to prevent the kendo club from expanding itself, which is possible thanks to money Kevin got them. Taken to a further extreme, Kevin figured this might happen and arranged her death via proxy.
Conjecture: It *was* suicide, and someone is trying to make that it could have been murder. Parents, possibly for insurance.
Conjecture: Roy killed her for daring to attempt to bind his awesomeness.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Notes on the Prototype ...
what has come up thus far with regards to Kadmon:
As Kadmon proper:
When engaged or not, Kadmon is invisible to almost all video, audio and other forms of scanning. This ability cannot be turned off but does make it much harder for VC to find him.
* Kadmon's non-engaged persona was intended to spy, so he's very good at reading body language of humans and figuring out if they are lying to him or not.
* Is stronger and faster than humans, though it takes more energy to access functions when not engaged.
* 'skin' can't get dirty or harmed; Kadmon obviously has no blood, so being stabbed and the like would give up the disguise.
* Weighs 152 lb, can alter that to +/- 50 pounds.
* Can heal damage via electricity, over time.
* Senses are more than human in this form as well; has photographic memory and can record and play back events on other media if needed.
* Lastly, Kadmon can lie extremely well, even going so far as hiding the extent that certain things (like removal of a 'rib)actually cost from his host.
Engagement: Nik is able to do this by touch, regardless if Kadmon wants to or not. It's also been possible when the prototype is stuck on a rebooting cycle via thought rather than contact.
Abilities once engaged:
* Enhancement of Nik's regular senses.
* Access to radio waves, infravision, some degree of x-ray vision and so forth: basically a rather wide sensory array filtered through Kadmon and accessed as needed. Kadmon has noticed that his sensors do not extend to low-earth orbit.
* Increased speed, strength, and so forth. A physical high in some respects. Actual limits unknown thus far.
* Armour, the limits of which are untested. Kadmon is able to protect the host from feeling the effects of damage to an extent but Dr. Ledwin did die from being hit by a car during escape from VC.
* Increased speed, enough to seem to be a blur to even people in vehicles. Can be faster for short periods, but the limitations of the host (such as breathing) come into play.
* The armour is able to change appearance and become visible or not at Nik's discretion.
* Electrical absorption, which ca shut down technologies around Kadmon.
* Seeing electricity in power lines, people's brains, etc.
* Ability to zap people with electricity, including directed neural storms to the brain to cause strokes.
* Kadmon also seems able to absorb tin (and possibly other things) after running electricity through them.
Due to Nik's modifications, Kadmon can pick up wifi, access the 'net and hack. He's also been able, with great effort, to split off a part of himself and resist direct orders.
Potential: The ability to split parts of himself off means it should be possible to create duplicates, or at least a host for Pandora. Since Kadmon was intended to be able ot think and adapt, the end-limits of what he is capable of under Nik's guidance remain unknown.
Personality: Created to be a weapon used by a host, Kadmon defaults to doing what the host asks, though he has learned to ask 'why', a fact that horrifies Pandora. All things being equal, he would rather someone say, 'go do this' than go do something himself, which probably makes Pandora a back-up host as well in some situations. In Kadmon's case, this doesn't seem to be a desire to avoid responsibility as much as simply being how he was made, a fact he has defended when pressed by Nik.
Kadmon also views his memories/data as 'himself' and the loss of those to be a loss of self, something he abhors given the effort he has gone to acquire a sense of self. He has successfully refused direct orders to erase memories but later recanted and, presumably if pushed on the issue further, would have given in at the end.
Sexuality: Having been created as half a mated pair, Kadmon is not asexual when it comes to his own kind. Of which only he exists. Humans, on the other hand, so not seem to elicit any response at all.
Pandora: Originally intended to be a mate to Kadmon, she was shelved and turned into a AI to take over if Kadmon was damaged and was intended to be removed prior to the project being finished. She is a quantum computer and has limited use within Kadmon but has fun being an AI on the internet despite the existence of other ones.
Pandora is more mature than Kadmon, in many ways, and does seem able to treat certain orders as guidelines but lacks his ability to flat-out change and grow and has been shown to want to repair Kadmon, considering him to be damaged in his present state. On the plus side, she does have more of a sense of humour than Kadmon does.
As Kadmon proper:
When engaged or not, Kadmon is invisible to almost all video, audio and other forms of scanning. This ability cannot be turned off but does make it much harder for VC to find him.
* Kadmon's non-engaged persona was intended to spy, so he's very good at reading body language of humans and figuring out if they are lying to him or not.
* Is stronger and faster than humans, though it takes more energy to access functions when not engaged.
* 'skin' can't get dirty or harmed; Kadmon obviously has no blood, so being stabbed and the like would give up the disguise.
* Weighs 152 lb, can alter that to +/- 50 pounds.
* Can heal damage via electricity, over time.
* Senses are more than human in this form as well; has photographic memory and can record and play back events on other media if needed.
* Lastly, Kadmon can lie extremely well, even going so far as hiding the extent that certain things (like removal of a 'rib)actually cost from his host.
Engagement: Nik is able to do this by touch, regardless if Kadmon wants to or not. It's also been possible when the prototype is stuck on a rebooting cycle via thought rather than contact.
Abilities once engaged:
* Enhancement of Nik's regular senses.
* Access to radio waves, infravision, some degree of x-ray vision and so forth: basically a rather wide sensory array filtered through Kadmon and accessed as needed. Kadmon has noticed that his sensors do not extend to low-earth orbit.
* Increased speed, strength, and so forth. A physical high in some respects. Actual limits unknown thus far.
* Armour, the limits of which are untested. Kadmon is able to protect the host from feeling the effects of damage to an extent but Dr. Ledwin did die from being hit by a car during escape from VC.
* Increased speed, enough to seem to be a blur to even people in vehicles. Can be faster for short periods, but the limitations of the host (such as breathing) come into play.
* The armour is able to change appearance and become visible or not at Nik's discretion.
* Electrical absorption, which ca shut down technologies around Kadmon.
* Seeing electricity in power lines, people's brains, etc.
* Ability to zap people with electricity, including directed neural storms to the brain to cause strokes.
* Kadmon also seems able to absorb tin (and possibly other things) after running electricity through them.
Due to Nik's modifications, Kadmon can pick up wifi, access the 'net and hack. He's also been able, with great effort, to split off a part of himself and resist direct orders.
Potential: The ability to split parts of himself off means it should be possible to create duplicates, or at least a host for Pandora. Since Kadmon was intended to be able ot think and adapt, the end-limits of what he is capable of under Nik's guidance remain unknown.
Personality: Created to be a weapon used by a host, Kadmon defaults to doing what the host asks, though he has learned to ask 'why', a fact that horrifies Pandora. All things being equal, he would rather someone say, 'go do this' than go do something himself, which probably makes Pandora a back-up host as well in some situations. In Kadmon's case, this doesn't seem to be a desire to avoid responsibility as much as simply being how he was made, a fact he has defended when pressed by Nik.
Kadmon also views his memories/data as 'himself' and the loss of those to be a loss of self, something he abhors given the effort he has gone to acquire a sense of self. He has successfully refused direct orders to erase memories but later recanted and, presumably if pushed on the issue further, would have given in at the end.
Sexuality: Having been created as half a mated pair, Kadmon is not asexual when it comes to his own kind. Of which only he exists. Humans, on the other hand, so not seem to elicit any response at all.
Pandora: Originally intended to be a mate to Kadmon, she was shelved and turned into a AI to take over if Kadmon was damaged and was intended to be removed prior to the project being finished. She is a quantum computer and has limited use within Kadmon but has fun being an AI on the internet despite the existence of other ones.
Pandora is more mature than Kadmon, in many ways, and does seem able to treat certain orders as guidelines but lacks his ability to flat-out change and grow and has been shown to want to repair Kadmon, considering him to be damaged in his present state. On the plus side, she does have more of a sense of humour than Kadmon does.
Friday, August 06, 2010
Fairview: the August Update
As of last night's ~7 hour session, the game has hit 58 official sessions (76 including the side-ones and so forth) and been going over six months. Given players dropping out and vanishing and other players switching characters, this is rather impressive. It's also survived a 3 week hiatus with Gm and then a player being sick, school, people moving ... so something is going right.
Currently, plot wise, the Grey Man's storm has been destroyed, the consequences of which have yet to be felt and the White Lord, one of the major magicians in the city, has been sealed in his place of power by the PCs and is unable to escape. Various NPCs have announced themselves in favour of Joni's plan to make the supernatural community in the city have a sort of oversight organization to keep things in line but thus far none of them have real power to help enforced that.
Character-wise, Alex is working on her plan to get free of the Shadow King, and Emma and Trevor are trying to figure out why it makes any sense that magicians don't make the world a Better Place(tm) and Joni's own plans are proceeding quite nicely. NPC-wise, El Nino/Scry and Eugene Stoffel are sort of getting along, Helena has yet to kill Ike out of sheer frustration, Cristal and Peter (the real ones) are actually beginning to get along, Pierce Chevalier is planning to betray the Grey Man and the Grey Man is finding everything so very amusing.
In terms of dangling plot threads, there is the question of what the other major players (magician-wise) in the city will do following the death of one of their number: the PC s will, unquestionably, have made an impression so what follows from this should prove interesting.
30 XP was given out after this session, making it 60 in total thus far. Investing in health/regen is probably a good idea at this point ... unlike the White Lord, the other magicians are not going to underestimate the PCs. Well, probably not too much. With great power comes great arrogance :)
Side-note: there are a lot of NPCs now running about that the PCs have met: most are off doing their own things, connecting with the PCs as and when PCs seek them out or they need help. That being said, if players -- or their characters -- want to make use of certain NPCS (Please, don't pick Cristal, don't pick Cristal) or have them play a bigger role in their plans, let me knows.
Currently, plot wise, the Grey Man's storm has been destroyed, the consequences of which have yet to be felt and the White Lord, one of the major magicians in the city, has been sealed in his place of power by the PCs and is unable to escape. Various NPCs have announced themselves in favour of Joni's plan to make the supernatural community in the city have a sort of oversight organization to keep things in line but thus far none of them have real power to help enforced that.
Character-wise, Alex is working on her plan to get free of the Shadow King, and Emma and Trevor are trying to figure out why it makes any sense that magicians don't make the world a Better Place(tm) and Joni's own plans are proceeding quite nicely. NPC-wise, El Nino/Scry and Eugene Stoffel are sort of getting along, Helena has yet to kill Ike out of sheer frustration, Cristal and Peter (the real ones) are actually beginning to get along, Pierce Chevalier is planning to betray the Grey Man and the Grey Man is finding everything so very amusing.
In terms of dangling plot threads, there is the question of what the other major players (magician-wise) in the city will do following the death of one of their number: the PC s will, unquestionably, have made an impression so what follows from this should prove interesting.
30 XP was given out after this session, making it 60 in total thus far. Investing in health/regen is probably a good idea at this point ... unlike the White Lord, the other magicians are not going to underestimate the PCs. Well, probably not too much. With great power comes great arrogance :)
Side-note: there are a lot of NPCs now running about that the PCs have met: most are off doing their own things, connecting with the PCs as and when PCs seek them out or they need help. That being said, if players -- or their characters -- want to make use of certain NPCS (Please, don't pick Cristal, don't pick Cristal) or have them play a bigger role in their plans, let me knows.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Prototype X
A modern earth side-campaign intended to have an anime feel, Prototype X is about a regular kid (Nik) who ends up bonded to a prototype armour devised by the multi-national company VeriCorp. VC wants their wayward weapon back, Nik wants his life back and Kadmon wishes to be used soley as a weapon -- something Nik is not in favour of. At present, Kadmon is living with Nikolas, Nik having lied to his sister (and guardian) Anna.
So far the only attempt to retrieve Kadmon has been via an ancient satellite that read dreams (which Nik easily hacked and disabled via Kadmon) and several SWAT-members who were easy to harm and run away from. Kadmon is aware other weapons have escaped, but not what ones nor where they are. At present, Nik is hacking the quantum computer backup AI (Pandora) in Kadmon to allow her internet access and learning about such technologies.
For his part, Kadmon seems horribly eager to please Nik, going so far as to offer access to pandora and connecting to the internet, both of which were apparently forbidden. What either of them will become as VeriCorp continues the search remains an open question, as is what other weapons exist and what their own goals are ...
So far the only attempt to retrieve Kadmon has been via an ancient satellite that read dreams (which Nik easily hacked and disabled via Kadmon) and several SWAT-members who were easy to harm and run away from. Kadmon is aware other weapons have escaped, but not what ones nor where they are. At present, Nik is hacking the quantum computer backup AI (Pandora) in Kadmon to allow her internet access and learning about such technologies.
For his part, Kadmon seems horribly eager to please Nik, going so far as to offer access to pandora and connecting to the internet, both of which were apparently forbidden. What either of them will become as VeriCorp continues the search remains an open question, as is what other weapons exist and what their own goals are ...
Friday, July 16, 2010
Ramble on rpg design bits
Two posts in one day?! That's a record for this blog. Anyway, I've been reading a fun horror rpg but ran into interesting problems:
* 16 stats. With different abbreviations for each. And using non-'standard' ones, like INL for intelligence. I find nothing throws me off a game faster than a giant pile of abbreviations to memorize.
* Disadvantages. So, it's horror. It lists AIDS and Alzheimer's. And being a virgin. At which I went 'uh, what?'.
At which point it occurred to me that I've yet to find a game system with disadvantages that do NOT feel like pandering to min/maxing. BESM actually does pretty well in making (most) of them real disadvantages that cost to take, save for -ism and the like. It's probably a personal preference, but I'd rather people took such things for RP value and the like rather than for, well: "Omg! I must balance out ze point costs! Quick, Bad Temper!"
I suspect it would be interesting to make an rpg where character point totals didn't have to match so stringently. Or allow other methods of balancing than disadvantages, perhaps something like Hooks and Tails in other systems or stuff that encourages background and complications. No firm ideas as yet, just some thoughts.
* 16 stats. With different abbreviations for each. And using non-'standard' ones, like INL for intelligence. I find nothing throws me off a game faster than a giant pile of abbreviations to memorize.
* Disadvantages. So, it's horror. It lists AIDS and Alzheimer's. And being a virgin. At which I went 'uh, what?'.
At which point it occurred to me that I've yet to find a game system with disadvantages that do NOT feel like pandering to min/maxing. BESM actually does pretty well in making (most) of them real disadvantages that cost to take, save for -ism and the like. It's probably a personal preference, but I'd rather people took such things for RP value and the like rather than for, well: "Omg! I must balance out ze point costs! Quick, Bad Temper!"
I suspect it would be interesting to make an rpg where character point totals didn't have to match so stringently. Or allow other methods of balancing than disadvantages, perhaps something like Hooks and Tails in other systems or stuff that encourages background and complications. No firm ideas as yet, just some thoughts.
Dresden Files game
DRESDEN FILES - DETROIT. (No campaign name as yet.)
The following is a summary of the initial chats on the city, as I recalled them, and some additional bits and ideas. Nothing of it is set in stone.
Detroit is, in practise, a hell on earth. Half of its population has vanished in 50 years, entire subdivisons are deserted (over 30K empty buildings) and the employment figure is between 25-34% depending upon the source. Half the schools have closed, it's 'ground zero' for education and jobs and essentially an American Mexico City -- this is how bad things can get when they simply keep getting worse.
THEMES
Urban Decay
This is the biggy. The city is falling into the abyss and no one seems able to stop it. Weirdly, the people who seem most willing to stop it are the Canadian government, via Windor .. a city that thrives while its sister city fails. Bail-out money and the like has been offered but to what extent the tide can be held back is an open question.
Things to explore:
* Why has Windor succeeded? Magically, it could somehow he considered to be 'stealing' Detroit's potential. A coven of magicians? I imagine there would be some interesting conspiracy theories about this. Perhaps the area they link to in the Nevernever influences things?
* Twin it with Mordor? :)
* The places it leads to in the Nevernever would be BAD places. And a lot of things can leak through: you have a city with shit police protection, urban jungles gone wild and areas more fitting for the third world than first -- a perfect feeding ground for nasty things, and for finding people desperate enough to make any kind of Pact.
* Some of this can be linked to the demise of the auto industry, leading to a competing theory to the above: magicians hate Industrialization, so they broke Detroit as a warning/lessson to the world. Things have fallen apart, the centre hasn't holded, people in the city are probably more aware of magic ... and scared people make leaps of logic others wouldn't.
Racism
This isn't a theme we've much explored in Game1, but Detroit is almost a poster child for it. The population is 80% black, 20% white (for all intents; other minorities are seriously minor). The average income is ~28K for a family. The math isn't pretty.There's a lot of anger and resentment boiling away that's one wrong word from exploding.
Things to explore:
* The music scene. Seriously, this is Motown and yet most of the famous rappers are white. What the hell? Seriously, what the hell?
* White Court vampires are into Sex and Porn. Black Court vampires have been destroyed by a Book/White Man's Education. The White Court is huge (in most cities), The Black Court is nothing. The parallels would be interesting for people to draw even if they have no real basis in reality.
* The sane folk. The city hasn't fallen apart, and some of that is because people don't blame it on race and so forth and actually talk to each other. While this theme is dark, there's some counterpoints to the urban decay in that the shit has not hit the proverbial fan.
THREATS
Save With Magic
Basically, at least one clued in Wizard willing to break the laws of magic to alter minds and enthrall people to create a better world. It's blatantly ignoring the fact that magic doesn't solve anything as miuch as make things more complicated but a desperate activist watching their hopes for the future crash and burn again is liable to ignore than and try and fix things in any way possible.
Things to explore:
* The domino effect. Lies beget other lies: You make one person Change, and others wonder why, begin to question, and you have to control more minds to stop those questions until it spirals out of control.
* To what extent does/can this work, short term? If it has actual tangible benefit -- short or long term -- then it could be worth it. If one has made the world a better place, then what purpose are the laws of magic actually serving, and whose ends?
GM Thoughts
I don't want this to be Harry Dresden in another city. As such, both the police and the mob are kept in the dark about Weird Shit as much as possible. (An ex-police officer investigating things they shouldn't is fine, ditto with minor criminals trying to make use of magic and such to have it backfire.)
I want the general populace more clued in, at a basic 'weird shit happens' level. Dresdenverse has no Illuminati, no Sleepers or WOD Veil -- and yet magic has, despite being real and powerful, somehow been forgot. Who benefited from this and/or arranged it? Such questions, of course, assume anyone deliberately did. (For my money, the first theory is closer to an in-game truth.)
The Eugenics Theory: The White Council dooms magic. Magic is inherited, and every warlock who dies reduces the amount of potential magicians: the rise of the internet (and people realizing their potential/heritage) has slowed what was becoming an obvious trend, but has not eradicated it: magic became rare because magicians did, and the extermination of warlocks does more than the Inquisition ever did.
The Conspiracy Theory: The Council encouraged science etc. because their magic is better than it (e.x.: electronics -- some 'coincidence') and if kept in a few hands, magic is safer and less dangerous. Letting people become convinced magic wasn't real prevented great harm via magic.
Differences from Dresden Files: The red court have NOT been wiped out; the vampire war ended as a cold war stalemate a while ago.
Also, I'll probably make use of/throw in things from the Nevernever a LOT. It's s fascinating aspect of the setting that is seldom touched on and there's a lot of interesting places to go with it regarding Faerie, Hell, Heaven, God(s) and so forth.
CAMPAIGN
Power level: Starting as Chest-Deep seems viable (8 refresh, 30 skill points, cap at Suberb) seems viable.
Players: Ideally, 3. More or less are possible.
"And if in the end, there is only darkness? If the world is meant to end in darkness?"
Jilly shook her head. She refused to believe it.
"How can you deny it?" he asked.
"It's just . . . if there's only supposed to be darkness, then why were we given light?"
For a long moment, he sat there, shoulders drooped, staring down at her hands. When he finally looked up, there was something in his eyes that Jilly couldn't read.
"Why indeed?" he said softly.
- Charles de Lint, "The Buffalo Man"
The following is a summary of the initial chats on the city, as I recalled them, and some additional bits and ideas. Nothing of it is set in stone.
Detroit is, in practise, a hell on earth. Half of its population has vanished in 50 years, entire subdivisons are deserted (over 30K empty buildings) and the employment figure is between 25-34% depending upon the source. Half the schools have closed, it's 'ground zero' for education and jobs and essentially an American Mexico City -- this is how bad things can get when they simply keep getting worse.
THEMES
Urban Decay
This is the biggy. The city is falling into the abyss and no one seems able to stop it. Weirdly, the people who seem most willing to stop it are the Canadian government, via Windor .. a city that thrives while its sister city fails. Bail-out money and the like has been offered but to what extent the tide can be held back is an open question.
Things to explore:
* Why has Windor succeeded? Magically, it could somehow he considered to be 'stealing' Detroit's potential. A coven of magicians? I imagine there would be some interesting conspiracy theories about this. Perhaps the area they link to in the Nevernever influences things?
* Twin it with Mordor? :)
* The places it leads to in the Nevernever would be BAD places. And a lot of things can leak through: you have a city with shit police protection, urban jungles gone wild and areas more fitting for the third world than first -- a perfect feeding ground for nasty things, and for finding people desperate enough to make any kind of Pact.
* Some of this can be linked to the demise of the auto industry, leading to a competing theory to the above: magicians hate Industrialization, so they broke Detroit as a warning/lessson to the world. Things have fallen apart, the centre hasn't holded, people in the city are probably more aware of magic ... and scared people make leaps of logic others wouldn't.
Racism
This isn't a theme we've much explored in Game1, but Detroit is almost a poster child for it. The population is 80% black, 20% white (for all intents; other minorities are seriously minor). The average income is ~28K for a family. The math isn't pretty.There's a lot of anger and resentment boiling away that's one wrong word from exploding.
Things to explore:
* The music scene. Seriously, this is Motown and yet most of the famous rappers are white. What the hell? Seriously, what the hell?
* White Court vampires are into Sex and Porn. Black Court vampires have been destroyed by a Book/White Man's Education. The White Court is huge (in most cities), The Black Court is nothing. The parallels would be interesting for people to draw even if they have no real basis in reality.
* The sane folk. The city hasn't fallen apart, and some of that is because people don't blame it on race and so forth and actually talk to each other. While this theme is dark, there's some counterpoints to the urban decay in that the shit has not hit the proverbial fan.
THREATS
Save With Magic
Basically, at least one clued in Wizard willing to break the laws of magic to alter minds and enthrall people to create a better world. It's blatantly ignoring the fact that magic doesn't solve anything as miuch as make things more complicated but a desperate activist watching their hopes for the future crash and burn again is liable to ignore than and try and fix things in any way possible.
Things to explore:
* The domino effect. Lies beget other lies: You make one person Change, and others wonder why, begin to question, and you have to control more minds to stop those questions until it spirals out of control.
* To what extent does/can this work, short term? If it has actual tangible benefit -- short or long term -- then it could be worth it. If one has made the world a better place, then what purpose are the laws of magic actually serving, and whose ends?
GM Thoughts
I don't want this to be Harry Dresden in another city. As such, both the police and the mob are kept in the dark about Weird Shit as much as possible. (An ex-police officer investigating things they shouldn't is fine, ditto with minor criminals trying to make use of magic and such to have it backfire.)
I want the general populace more clued in, at a basic 'weird shit happens' level. Dresdenverse has no Illuminati, no Sleepers or WOD Veil -- and yet magic has, despite being real and powerful, somehow been forgot. Who benefited from this and/or arranged it? Such questions, of course, assume anyone deliberately did. (For my money, the first theory is closer to an in-game truth.)
The Eugenics Theory: The White Council dooms magic. Magic is inherited, and every warlock who dies reduces the amount of potential magicians: the rise of the internet (and people realizing their potential/heritage) has slowed what was becoming an obvious trend, but has not eradicated it: magic became rare because magicians did, and the extermination of warlocks does more than the Inquisition ever did.
The Conspiracy Theory: The Council encouraged science etc. because their magic is better than it (e.x.: electronics -- some 'coincidence') and if kept in a few hands, magic is safer and less dangerous. Letting people become convinced magic wasn't real prevented great harm via magic.
Differences from Dresden Files: The red court have NOT been wiped out; the vampire war ended as a cold war stalemate a while ago.
Also, I'll probably make use of/throw in things from the Nevernever a LOT. It's s fascinating aspect of the setting that is seldom touched on and there's a lot of interesting places to go with it regarding Faerie, Hell, Heaven, God(s) and so forth.
CAMPAIGN
Power level: Starting as Chest-Deep seems viable (8 refresh, 30 skill points, cap at Suberb) seems viable.
Players: Ideally, 3. More or less are possible.
Sunday, July 04, 2010
Low Life
As noted on the forum, Low Life is going to exist. As a game using the Amber system. The basic idea is on the forum and is essentially:
1) It's the 80s (reasons for this on forum) and
2) You are pretty much the first people in the world with abilities past the human. How these manifest depend on what you buy, in terms of actual powers, increases in stats and so forth.
The core concept is that the PCs become more (and maybe less) than human, them finding out what was done to them and how they go about changing the world. Up until the PCs, the world is normal: how the dominoes fall after that entirely depends on what they do.
1) It's the 80s (reasons for this on forum) and
2) You are pretty much the first people in the world with abilities past the human. How these manifest depend on what you buy, in terms of actual powers, increases in stats and so forth.
The core concept is that the PCs become more (and maybe less) than human, them finding out what was done to them and how they go about changing the world. Up until the PCs, the world is normal: how the dominoes fall after that entirely depends on what they do.
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