Just went back and looked at _Into The Darklands_ again, for the first time in years.
It actually holds up pretty well! Putting aside the OGL stuff and the slightly edgier 3.5 ambience, the ideas are good and the writing is very solid. And most of the content still works just fine. Dividing the Darklands into three big regions was a good idea in 2008, and still is. The majority of the locations were cool, and still are.
There are a bunch of different ways you could slice this -- splatbooks on particular locations, or races, or whatever. But most of this content looks still relevant and usable.
Magic weapons are, in Min's opinion, stupid. Yes, it is possible to place Weavings around a blade so that it strikes harder, cuts deeper, makes wounds that are worse -- agonizingly painful, slow to heal. It's not even particularly difficult.
But it is time consuming, and expensive, and at the end of the day you have... well, you have a great big target painted on whoever is wielding that blade. Who doesn't want a magic sword? And owning a magic sword won't protect you from poisoning, back-stabbing, a gunman taking aim from an alley, or simply cutting your throat in your sleep. Magic weapons tend to go through owners quickly. The smart money says, owning the BlackNight EdgeBlade of Midnight Doom may be briefly interesting, but it doesn't enhance your life expectancy at all: quite the opposite.
But putting a one-time Weave on a weapon is something else again. That has no down side! (Well, no more than the normal downside of inserting Weaving into something complicated and unpredictable and messy like trying to kill someone with an edged weapon.) Better still, you can craft the Weave to fit the particular wielder. Really, you're spinning a Weave around /both/ of them...
So: Casia will very probably need to use her blade at some point. What's Casia missing, thinks Min to himself. What might make her strike slower, weaker? And what might make it more likely to strike true?
Min is also a practitioner of the Art of Memory, which is quite a bit trickier. This turns the memory palace inside out, and uses it as a technique of divination. It is a deep Art, and Min is not an advanced practitioner, but he has more than once found useful omens and portents by observing subtle changes within the halls of his own memory.
But stealing Augus' plans didn't require that advanced Art. (Stealing is the correct word here. Min has no objections to stealing from criminals, and Augus was and is a great criminal.) All that was needed was a few minutes alone with the documents: Min could simply add the map of the tunnels beneath his already-existing Manse.
So it's just as easy to simply recite them back. "A hundred and eighty paces, and then a left at the intersection. Twenty paces on, there's a descent; one may have to wade a bit. Then left again, then right. The stone will change there, to an older design, and the ceiling will drop, but it will be dryer. Through the arch, then a bit of crawling, and one emerges, directly under our destination."
Yes, that part is easy. The trickier part is where this emerges within Min's own Manse of Memory, and whether that raises any omens or portents he should pause to consider...
It's not that Min is squeamish. Emphatically not. Even though his caste is not formally martial, it /is/ a caste that sits inside the tent. Which means, among other things, being ready for every sort of unpleasantness, should it be necessary. Or to put it in terms an outlander might understand: Iruvian nobility, for all their pride, have no issues with getting their hands dirty.
So, not squeamish. But a certain fastidiousness is also part of the package. One may be ready for unpleasantness; nevertheless, unpleasant things are unpleasant. One may accept that the Negative Spirit has marred the world; one is not required to like it.
Nevertheless: needs must, when the Negative Spirit drives. And, really, is a stroll through a sewer the worst thing that could happen? Min hunches for a moment, very slightly, caught in an ugly memory: no. It is very far from the worst thing.
Min waits patiently, watching the young woman work her skills.
Comrades are to be judged along several axes. Caste is of course one. Competence is another. The marks of alcohol consumption are so obvious that almost any careful observer could see them. To Min's eyes, they are screaming headlines. Incipient alcoholism, or full-blown but high-functioning? Look below the headlines, read the finer print.
The family was known -- these people do not divide merchants and aristocrats clearly, so either high merchant or low aristocrat, with Min cautiously assigning them to the latter based on the brother's obvious competence with edged weapons and violence. But they had a fall; this also is known. Min is very familiar with having a fall.
He scans the young woman's clothes, tentatively assigning dates: the clothing is good to excellent but several years old, the patches cheaper and more recent. There are laugh lines on her face, but they are overlain by newer lines of worry, fear, and despair. Her hair is hacked, bluntly cut, obviously done by herself -- as is often the case with such, it is slightly off-center. Nobody ever taught her how, because the family had people for that. Now she does it quickly and sloppily, because she does not care. Min nods, internally. It all fits.
Caste is fixed, or nearly so. It is almost impossible to change one's place in the Prevalence. The Great Black Tent can make reassignments, or, very occasionally -- Min flinches internally a little -- the Round. But these are rare as death by lightning. So, her caste is fixed, and for that it does not matter how far she may have fallen economically, socially, or in any other way. "Bind the hawk, blind the hawk, still it will not eat carrion." So along that axis, Min does not care one bit about Casia's poverty, alcoholism, social standing, or mental health.
But competence is something else again. So Min watches, patiently but very alertly, as Casia works her skills.
Letting go of Zuben is as simple as taking off a wig, wiping off a bit of makeup, letting a couple of minor Weaves dissipate. But it feels like... both a relaxation and a resumption of tension. Like opening one hand and clenching the other, Min thinks.
"So... what now?" Finraeth asks, watching the transformation with one eyebrow raised.
"Exactly now? Nothing." Min reaches down to pull off the shoes, tucks them into a nondescript carrying sack. "They took the bait, yes. They believe, or half believe, or anyway believe enough. It makes sense to them that other groups would be jealous -- of their competence, of their ability to go where others do not. They are very proud, and the prideful always imagine that others are jealous. They imagine that they have 'mastered' the Darklands, and in fact their skills are a source of real pride, and of wealth. They have ambitions, because the prideful always have ambitions, and so they imagine that others seek the same goals..."
"Meanwhile the Grinders are arrogant and unlikable, yet strong enough to be plausible rivals. A sudden attack would fit their known patterns of behavior. There is also the element of class; to be assaulted by such rabble would be an outrage, beneath contempt. Yet contempt contains the seeds of fear. Easy to believe that the rabble are ready to rise!" Min stretches, cracks his neck. (Zuben is taller, but also has a tendency to hunch and bob his head a little.) "And they accepted the "evidence" whole -- that was fortunate, honestly it wasn't my best work -- short time!" Min feels his own personality coming back, like pulling on a glove -- fussy, careful, fastidious, aloof. Zuben is much more gregarious but also rather sloppy.
So my thought is, since this is the midseason / end of season Extra Special Episode, why not start with *everyone* doing a free play activity to help set up the main score? Each PC could do one Action, with another PC coming along to Assist for an extra die or greater effect. If everyone takes one Action and everyone throws one Assist, we spend 1 Stress each to get (hopefully) four good outcomes which may help us with the heist itself.
These sorts of pre-heist montages tend to involve each member of the crew doing what they do best. So I was thinking that each PC could do something that's a good fit for their best Action -- subject to GM approval, obviously. I was thinking of something like this:
1) Min -- Min can use his Downtime plus his free play to set up the confusing web of rumors, both general and specific, about the Silver Nails planning an attack on the Grinders (or vice versa). Anyone could come along, but I think Finraeth might be a good fit here for.
2) Finraeth -- Finraeth is our mayhem specialist, with three dots in Skirmish. So it would make sense for him to start some sort of conflict: fight, bar brawl, duel, whatever. He could attack some Grinders and frame the Silver Nails, or vice versa. Or smash up someplace that's under Grinder protection (though that might be Wreck?) and seek to shift blame to the Nails, etc. Any of the other three PCs could play backup here, but maybe Jonah or Min are good fits if a magical disguise (or a magical getaway) might be called for.
3) Casia -- Casia has two dots each in Prowl, Survey and Finesse, so she's totally spoiled for choice. She could break into Grinder HQ or Hutton's house, watch enemy movements and spot patterns, pick pockets, steal documents, plant evidence... lots of possibilities here. Her SA means she can do stealthy stuff and ignore enemy Tier. And that's before she calls on her friend Frake the locksmith... Casia could take any of the other PCs as backup -- Finraeth in case things go sideways, Min for planning and talking, Jonah for magic, whatever.
4) Jonah -- Jonah is our magic master, and he also has the ghost-calling SA. Is there a ghost that could be useful in the setup here? If not, then he might gather information, or use magic to frame an attack by one faction against the other -- maybe a /magical/ attack. Backup could be anyone, though Casia works better for stealth, Finraeth if violence is possible.
TBC, my thinking is that this is four short free-play activities. Ideally they would involve just one Action roll each (if things go as planned, cough cough). And they can be played/run in parallel, right? So when everyone's done, we look at the (hopefully useful and positive) outcomes and feed those into the heist.
The young woman and her brother are not exactly nobility, but their family was important and connected, even if they later fell on hard times. (To an Iruvian noble, caste is nearly immutable. The tosses and turns of fortune may affect wealth and status, but not your place in the Prevalence.) There is a lightning calculation to be done here. Fortunately Iruvians generally are used to this -- they've all been doing it since childhood -- and the nobility better than most, and Min better still.
Min bows, and puts one hand forward a little, palm up and open, as if tentatively offering some small invisible gift. A fellow Iruvian would instantly see that this is the Third Generic Bow ("You are of lower caste than me, but not grossly so, and presumed still capable of honor") combined with the Gesture of the Three-Quarters Open Heart ("Neither of us is obliged to the other, and I am aware of no grounds for conflict. My opening attitude is friendly.") Of course, nobody in the room is Iruvian, so they probably just see a nice bow.
"Health and a light heart to you, Spit and Finraeth! May the memory of our meeting ever call forth the sweet scent of acanthus and iris."Health and a light heart implies that they belong to a martial caste. If they were peasants or merchants, the greeting would be "health and good fortune" or "health and long life". But it is presumed that martial castes make their own fortune, and aren't very interested in long life.
"Spit" because to comment on a given name is a gross deviation, and usually a sharp insult. Casia could have said "you can call me Princess Mamoru Moonshine Jagermeister," and Min would have repeated it without a flicker.
The iris is of course the flower of valor, courage and hope. The acanthus is a bit unusual here: it is the flower of artifice and cunning, the bloom of successful craftsmanship. So this translates to something like "I look forward to working with you / hope for a successful partnership".
What you see: A small man of indeterminate middle age with a carefully trimmed beard. Well groomed and well dressed, though with a certain shabbiness. He's unarmed except for a dagger with an elaborately enameled hilt. He wears a high-collared overcoat over a shirt with complicated cuffs, a fancy waistcoat, pantaloons and a lovely green sash with some curious little bangles. A faint accent marks him as a foreigner.
If you're familiar with Iruvia and Iruvians...:
then you can look at his sash-fobs and tell his caste (high) marital status (ex) and awards (several, but none recent). If you're not that familiar, then they're just funny little decorative gewgaws.
If you know about drugs...:
then you might pick up on the faint sagging under the eyes and the brittle fingernails that are tells for regular use of Dream Smoke and/or Black Lotus.
If you're just generally attentive and perceptive...:
then you might notice that while his dagger is expensive and his sash is fine stuff indeed, his sandals are, generously, old and worn out and really not that great to begin with. On his neck there's the telltale nick of a man who shaves himself badly, because he grew up being shaved by servants. At the same time you might notice that his composure masks sharp attention; his eyes miss nothing; he is watching you watch him.
And if you are regularly comfortable with Attuning...:
then you'll pick up a very faint whiff of unfamiliar sorcery. (It's a minor illusion to disguise his worn-out waistcoat and reduce his general shabbiness. Iruvians go in for that sort of thing.)
Min Al-Biruni wakes from the beautiful, dreamless sleep of the Black Lotus to threadbare sheets and a bare, cold room.
He sits up slowly and carefully. The aftermath of a Lotus binge is not pain exactly, but rather depression combined with a bone-deep chill. It will pass, Min knows it will pass, but until it does the world will be a dank and joyless place.
There is a swift corrective, of course: more of the Black Lotus. Min has a single dose left. He will not take it today, nor tomorrow either. He has seen men and women enslaved to the Lotus, writhing in need and despair, their eyes empty of anything but the hunger for the drug. But Min is not an addict, he tells himself once again. Not him.
Moving very slowly, Min begins to prepare himself a cup of tea. As he does, he struggles to piece together his memories of the previous day. He spoke with someone, about something important.
-- BTW, I came up with the "billionaire decides 90% of employees are surplus to needs, locks them out to die" plotline a week before the whole Elon Musk / Twitter thing got rolling. Seriously, pure coincidence.
I was thinking to do twelve sessions, consisting of six arcs, with each arc having one social and one action session. (Why twelve? Because it's thematically appropriate, of course -- the whole 12 houses thing. Also because it gives us a fixed end point, which I think is very important in PBPs.) So, we were halfway through session 2, which would have completed the first arc.
Arc 1 -- Introduction, setup
Arc 2 -- Meet the Avatars; or, Who Can You Trust
Arc 3 -- Weird Cult Fun
Arc 4 -- TBD, kept open, probably something political
Arc 5 -- The Truth
Arc 6 -- The Final Confrontation
The weird cult would be (assuming the billionaire survives) a cult of followers for him. You remember how he has this kind of Gnostic idea that the Corax are pure evil, but there are also Celestials and they are pure good? So he declares himself to be their avatar among humanity -- "Celestius the Man-God" -- and gathers hundreds of fanatic followers.
At the end of Arc 3, there's a surprise reveal: he may be insane, and he's definitely a very bad person, but he's actually right about one thing: there are Celestials. Specifically, there was an incredibly advanced species that seeded the galaxy with life several billion years ago.
At the end of Arc 4, there's another, double reveal: (1) the Celestials are still around, and (2) the Corax don't oppose the Celestials -- they serve them.
Arc 5, The Truth, is the arc where we find out what the Corax actually are, and why. (I sprinkled a few clues in the background material, and was planning to sprinkle more.) And at the end, you get to roll for the fate of humanity.
To recap: This is the recruitment thread for Last Fleet, a Powered by the Apocalypse game inspired by the Battlestar Galactica TV series. It's not the official Galactica TTRPG -- that came out way back in 2007, using the old Cortex system. Last Fleet is more recent (2020) and uses a version of the PbtA system. If you have played PbtA, 90% of this game will be instantly familiar; there are a few unique Moves and some tweaks, but the skeleton of the system is unchanged. If you haven't played PbtA, it's mechanically pretty simple -- everything is 2d6 plus or minus a simple modifier.
JALASCO: Okay, going to try something different here.
MACKINTIRE: What you got?
JALASCO: Scanning for neutrons. Let's see here. I think we have --
JAGGER: Wait, we can do that?
MACKINTIRE: Yeah, the beam-intensity spectrometer can be used that way if you --
TIN MAN: Hush up, Mackintire, and let the lady talk.
JALASCO: Yeah so the whole asteroid is a big damn neutron emitter, right? So we can scan for shadows. Hang on, transmitting.
[pause]
JALASCO: Yeah there's the refinery. You see part of it is shadowed and part isn't.
JAGGER: Part isn't?
MACKINTIRE: Sure, makes good business sense. You have shadows because the neutrons are being blocked somehow. By, what, lead lining?
JALASCO: Could be lead, heavy water, a bunch of things. Probably lead though. That asteroid's pretty dense, probably lots of lead there. Land some drones, refine and pour some lead for your construction shack, off you go.
MACKINTIRE: So you rad-proof the parts where people go, with lead or whatever, and you leave the industrial parts exposed to radiation and vacuum. A cracking tower doesn't much care.
JAGGER: But the shadow bits, those are the places where people live.
MACKINTIRE: Live or work, yeah.
JALASCO: Right so, that's this big shadow around the refinery, that's gotta be like the headquarters, and then half a klick over here we have a bunch of smaller shadows...
TIN MAN: Cross-check with visual.
JALASCO: Okay yeah domes, see these domes. Dormitory areas, I guess?
MACKINTIRE: Worker's barracks?
TIN MAN: Look closer.
[pause]
JALASCO: Aw, heck.
JAGGER: Damn.
MACKINTOSH: Bunch of those domes busted all to hell.
-- By the way: if you're ever thinking you might want to leave the campaign -- family, work, time constraints, decided it's not your thing, whatever?
Obviously you can drop any time. But -- the game also literally includes a self-destruct mode. If you want your PC to go out with a bang, just do moves and eat Pressure until you've ticked all your Pressure boxes and hit a Breaking Point. Then we just agree on a Breaking Point action that either kills your PC or anyway removes them permanently from play.
Obviously this is optional, and people can just step down in the normal manner. But if you want to depart the game in a storm of drama or a blaze of glory, the game literally has that as a Move.
Hannah (or an NPC since Thea doesn't have Tinkerer or Engineer) make an Engineering roll maybe with Thea rolling a Support (she can do additional grunt work and such). A success starts a clock with the first quarter filled and the rest we fill using other moves. For example, Seek Out (for parts), Pull Strings (use of another engineering facility), Cover Up (keep it hidden from Command for the time being). At the end, the (hopefully) successful project gives a pilot a +1 for related Engage in Battle or Shake Off moves? With maybe the option of another Move or clock to equip a full squad?
Something like that, yes. Multiple Moves, probably spread out over several downtimes.
This is true, especially since this forum's search sweeps occasionally break, and it can take people awhile to realize it. I can think of a few different times when we've realized that searches on these forums weren't returning results after a particular date.
I like this forum a lot -- I've been hanging around here for over a decade now!
But it really, really needs an upgrade: more stability, better reliability, and maybe a few new functions.
In short, does Last Fleet punish generalists in the same ways Pathfinder does?
Mechanically, a little bit, but not as much as Pathfinder. Remember, much of the time you're choosing which Moves to make. So mechanically, much of the time you can lean on your stronger stats. If you've got great Raw, you can throw yourself into combat and then reduce Pressure by Cutting Loose. If you've got great Warm, you use Warm moves to get what you want and then reduce Pressure by Reaching Out.
But again: it's a narrative game. So go where the story seems more interesting. "My PC is a postdoc in biology who, thrown into sudden post-apocalyptic chaos, decided to double down on her strengths, focusing ever more intently on her research" -- okay, that's one kind of story. Put that +1 into Sharp. "Thrown into chaos, my PC decided that she would teach herself the skills needed to survive, alien though they were to her peaceful nature" -- that's another kind of story. Put that +1 into Raw.
It seems to me Last Fleet is in the Call of Cthulhu camp, and possibly even more flat with advances.
Do Last Fleet campaigns (is this even the right word?) tend to get more difficult going forward, or do they tend to remain fairly flat as well?
I would say it's closer to CoC, but not quite as flat. If you're just interested in minimaxing, then yes -- correct play is to raise your "core" stat up to +3, then start raising other stats. Bumping a stat up by +1 is pretty huge! For instance, if you have +1 in a stat, you get a clean win 28% of the time, a mixed or partial hit 42% of the time, and you fail about 28% of the time. Bump that stat to +2 and now the numbers are 42 / 42 / 16. That's a pretty big difference!
Taking new Moves can also be quite powerful -- and again, if you want to powergame, there are a bunch of playbook moves that are potentially very abusable. (Remember, when you buy new Moves, you can buy from any playbook.)
So if you want to "advance" your PC in the sense of making them tougher, more skilled, and deadlier -- the traditional RPG power curves -- then you absolutely can. A PC with half a dozen carefully selected Moves and +3 / +2 / +2 in key stats is mechanically a lot more powerful than a starter PC. Not 20th level wizard vs. 1st level wizard, no. But you would totally feel the difference in gameplay.
But -- BUT -- that would be slightly missing the point of the game. This is a narrative game. Yes, it's great to gain xp and unlock new abilities and better rolls. But this game is more about /telling cool stories/. And cool things can happen to your PC at any "level". That's what all the stuff about Relationships and interpersonal Moves is all about.
One other thing: note that sooner or later you will max out your Pressure track and hit a Breaking Point. You can probably avoid this for a long time with careful play, but (1) you can't avoid it forever and (2) that's not really the spirit of the game.
Breaking Points put a sell-by date on your PC, because when you've market off a Breaking Point action, it's gone and you can't use it again. Everyone has six Breaking Point actions: four general ones (they're on page 31), a fifth that is specific to their Playbook, and death. Yes, you can burn XP to un-mark a Breaking Point action, theoretically making your PC immortal... but, come on. Death is literally right there on your charsheet! The game anticipates that /at some point/ you're going down. So, think less about "how do I advance to 20th level" and more about "how do I gradually work towards a final scene that is fricking awesome?"
I suspect a lot of folks have migrated to playing on Discord, whether in closed groups or on a server where things like Pathfinder & Starfinder Society happen. I can think of at least a couple folks who used to be active in PbP here that have since migrated to Discord to play.
I believe that. OTOH there are people who dislike gaming on Discord, for one reason or another.
I'm one of them! I'd much rather game on a friendly forum -- especially one that provides a good set of tools for it.
Speaking for myself, one factor was the instability of this platform. I had my most recent campaign end because the system locked me out for several days. (No reason I could ever figure out, and eventually it just let me back in.) Intermittent outages are also a thing. IME they seem to come in waves -- things will be fine for weeks, and suddenly there'll be a flurry of incidents where the forum won't load, or it loads but messages post slowly or even disappear, or whatever.
The Paizo forums were amazing when they came into existence 15+ years ago, and they're still an important asset. But they haven't had a serious upgrade in... when? over a decade? more? At this point one has the impression that behind the scenes they're held together with string and chewing gum.
I've been on and off this forum since 2012 or so, and it feels like there's less traffic now than a few years back. Still plenty of activity; just, less than there was a few years back.
This is just an impression, but... does anyone else see it too? (And is anyone tracking or keeping statistics that could confirm or refute it?)
Also: just for amusement, I added the diary entries from the cultist diary found on Level 1. I'm going to Telegram these to my players during the session as they read the diary.
“Checked the SE pillar again. It definitely sounds different than the others. No keyhole, though. Now what?”
“…fiends guard the upper levels. Scruto said they’re called Hexor and Vexor. He said they have been bound to the Withering Eye, and have gained a portion of its power. Because of this, to even approach them is to [part of a page torn out] how they are controlled. Oh, for a chance to see these monsters! This is the power I’ve been waiting for!”
“So it’s true – they do watch us. But not with the power of the Eyes. I saw the Senior Excruciator sit upon the throne, and then simply vanish! So, they can walk among us invisibly. I wonder who else knows this secret.”
“We cannot get out. We cannot get out. They have taken the lower caves. Garsh and Lan and Luri fell there while the rest retreated… We are still holding...but hope …
“…party went five days ago but today only four returned. The trees come ever closer. I heard the the song of the Forest Wing yesterday. Now the music haunts my dreams and I cannot sleep. The Guardian in the Forest took Scruto.”
“we cannot get out. The end comes soon. We hear horns, horns on the wind. They are coming.”
Question: does anyone have the pdfs for the blank maps, so that I can print them out and hand them to the players? I can copy the ones from the book, but then the numbers are included.
With some googling I was able to find this page, which converts about 2/3 of Call Forth Darkness. Can't find a complete CFD, though, nor any of the other modules.
-- You know, it's been ten ! years ! since this thing first came out, and it's still very solid.
Concept: 21 years old Toughboy from the Chicago streets, from Italian origin. His Catholic faith his very important to him.
Okay! I like the concept.
Body 3
Brains 2
Coord 1
Cool 3
Command 1
Sense 2
All good here, except are you sure you want a 1 in Coordination? You want this guy to be a super-shot, and Rifle works off Coordination.
Now, WRT Skills, I can say (handwave) that you've gone through commando training at this rather ghastly castle in Scotland -- see pages 297 through 299. This gives you a bunch of useful combat skills. If we add them to your existing skills, we get the following:
I also gave you 1 point of Italian. That means you roll 3 dice on Italian, which means you speak it at a pretty basic level.
Quote:
Talents (25 points)
Still thinking about it.. and want to keep it simple! So probably:
Hyperskill-Rifle 3 normal dice ( cost 3)
Ace 2 normal dices (cost 10)
Heal 2 normal dices (Cost 12), only after a prayer
Hyperskill with Rifle brings you up to 6 normal dice with Rifle, which is pretty good. However, wrt Aces... note that *every single Ace die you ever roll* costs 1 Will. So, don't invest in Aces unless you have a nice high base Will. Your base Will is 4, which is kinda meh. So either invest some build points in base Will, or look for another route.
Fortunately, there are a couple. The simplest is to just buy some more points in Rifle. Hyperskills aren't restricted, so you could buy 5, 6 or 7 dice and it wouldn't cost you much. Alternately, consider buying either a hard die or a wiggle die. The hard die gives you a lot of head shots; the wiggle die means you literally never miss, and also usually shoot first.
WRT Healing, Healing dice are normally 3 points each; Nervous Habit (prayer) brings that down to 2 points each. I would recommend buying at least 5 dice. Remember, you pay 1 Will to roll your powers whether they work or not. So, if you roll a bunch of failures, you'll waste a lot of Will. Also, more dice means more chance of rolling wider, which means more healing bang for your buck.
Here's a possible sketch:
Talent Healing
Must say prayer first
5 normal dice @ 2 each
--> 10 points
Hyperskill Rifle
3 normal dice
1 wiggle die
--> 10 points
So when rolling a normal Rifle shot you'll roll 7d+1w. This means you'll pretty much always hit /something/, and you'll get 3 or greater width over 90% of the time.
That leaves 5 points. You can add more normal dice to Healing (2 points) or Rifle (1 point, or 3 for a Hard die) or just pile those points on your base Will (currently 4). Note that you don't have to burn Will points to use hyperskills, so you can shoot stuff all day long. You /do/ have to burn Will points to heal, at 1 per use, and they're spent whether you succeed or fail.
Thank you! I really appreciate it. Here's an updated sheet!
** spoiler omitted **
I turned a hard die of brain into a regular one, added another regular die to cool, and another regular die to dodge. Plus updated my skills :)
All good, except that your Base Will should be 10: Command (1) + Cool (7) +2 for having Hypercool (1 for each point over 5). Which is actually quite good for a starting character.
You're weedy and you wear glasses. You were never exactly a model of masculine beauty, and now you're no longer young. But you are one stubborn little cuss.
Godlike is a superhero RPG from the early 2000s, where you play a Talent who has been drafted to fight in the Second World War. It's currently on sale at the Humble Bundle -- you can pick it up for $15, along with various other stuff.
Why it might be interesting: well, it's a superhero RPG set in World War Two. So, if this is the sort of thing you like, this may well be the sort of thing you like. A bit of additional info: the superpowers range from low to medium power level -- think Captain America, not Superman -- and stuff like invulnerability and healing factors are not usually in play. So, most PCs are somewhat fragile. If a sniper shoots you in the head, you die.
A potential drawback: it's an older game that uses the One Roll System (ORS), which works off a dice pool of d10s. The ORS was a perfectly good system, but it never really caught on, and it's not around much any more. It's not complicated or hard to pick up, but it would involve learning a new system.
On the positive side, ORS might adapt to forum play pretty well. Also, because it's WWII, it's something where we could play a short scenario ("blow up this bridge") to see how people like it.
If you want to know more about the system, there's a Quick Start version free on DriveThruRPG, along with some sample scenarios.
So, a thing that's missing from the freelancer discussion: IIUC, many of Paizo's employees *are also* freelancers -- they work 9-6 (or whatever), then clock out and work a couple of hours on freelance projects. Apparently many of them have said it's the only way to make ends meet, and that getting first pick of freelance gigs is one of the fringe benefits of working at Paizo.
I don't know if any of the work-stopping freelancers are also Paizo employees, but it seems likely.
Oh man, I would love to see Paizo products with a union label on them. Probably a crazy dream, but it would be pretty cool.
I'll also note that this is a chance for Paizo to be a cutting-edge leader in the industry. I'm pretty sure no TTRPG gaming company has ever unionized before; by doing so, Paizo would attract a great deal of positive attention.
This is long overdue in the gaming industry, and a union at Paizo would have real visibility. Strong support.
I used to be a regular on these boards, and I used to buy hundreds of dollars of Paizo merch per year. I tapered off. I could perhaps be persuaded to come back, though. Certainly recognizing the union (without forcing a vote) would make me at least blow some gaming cash in celebration.
Hm: in addition to Walter the PTSD Wizard, Lewis the carelessly arrogant bard, and Lugo the near-Bleaching gnome, there's also Charlie the accidental paladin.
Character concept: a rogue has a near-death experience and swears that, if he survives, he'll be good. To his astonishment the universe takes him seriously, and he takes his next level as a paladin.
A bit more detail:
"down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid"
Straight Charlie was a decent enough fellow for a mercenary. He was known for keeping his word and giving solid service for money paid. Lawful neutral, yeah? Not wicked, but nobody's fool. And in a fair fight, he was a dab quick hand with a blade.
Then his little mercenary band got ambushed by a bunch of undead under a priest of Urgathoa. Charlie was the only one who managed to escape, and that's after watching his friends get fed, piecemeal and screaming, to the bloated thing that they called up out of the earth. Desperately working at his bonds, in the depths of terror and despair, Charlie gasped out a half-remembered prayer from childhood... and Someone answered.
From the outside, Charlie seems pretty much the same. But he's different now. Very different. Charlie works for Good now.
He's still in the mercenary world, because it's the only world he knows. He doesn't belong to any order or temple. And he doesn't remotely look like a paladin. He's still a disheveled, somewhat grimy guy in battered armor. You're more likely to encounter in a bar or a flophouse than out questing on a warhorse. Sarenrae, or whoever, saw some deep spark of decency in Charlie, and chose to breath it into a flame. He's grateful, and he wants to be worthy of this incredible gift. But the poor guy has to figure out the whole paladin thing without any help or guidance. Heck, he may not even quite realize that he's a "paladin".)
Charlie's unorthodox origin makes him very circumspect. He's discovered that he can literally "smell badness", and that he feels a strong urge -- almost a compulsion -- to protect the innocent and punish the wicked. But he's not issuing formal challenges and yelling "Smite Evil!". Charlie was a mercenary and rogue (albeit an honest one), and he still *thinks* that way. He doesn't advertise what he is -- in fact, he actively hides it -- and while he doesn't lie, his preferred methods of fighting evil still revolve around misdirection and ambush. And if innocents aren't being directly threatened, he's perfectly comfortable with pulling back to fight another day.
(My impression is that under 2e, a paladin with some rogue chops is slightly suboptimal but perfectly possible. Let me know if I have this wrong.)
Thinking about this a bit... in a horror-themed module, party composition is less about who's a hitter and who's a blaster, and more about *narrative* roles.
The Steady Sensible One.
The Curious One Who Wants To Figure It All Out.
The One With Issues That Match All Too Well With This Bad Environment.
The Blithe / Confident / Naive One Who Is Slow To Realize Just How Bad It Is.
The One Who Lets Greed Overwhelm Their Better Judgment.
The Cowardly One (usually just an annoying nuisance in PF games where heroes win most of the time, but gets a a rare chance to shine in a horror themed adventure)
The One Who Confronts Evil Boldly (perhaps too much so).
Horror often leans on tropes and, yeah, I am there for that. I would be perfectly okay playing the character who decides to go down those creaky stairs into the dark basement right after cheating on his girlfriend, loudly announcing that monsters are just stories, shaking the flashlight a few times and saying "huh, batteries are running out -- no biggie, this won't take a minute," and then loudly discussing his plans for breakfast the next morning as he descends. That character may not have a long career, but I will heartily enjoy playing him.
OT tangent: I've avoided most webfiction ever since Worm ate a couple of weeks of my life a while back. (Worm is pretty good, and it definitely keeps you turning the nonexistent page, but damn it's long.) But I've been dipping in and out of A Practical Guide To Evil for a while, and... how to put this. If you like this kind of thing, it's going to be a thing you like.
“There is no truth in flesh, only betrayal.
There is no strength in flesh, only weakness.
There is no constancy in flesh, only decay.
There is no certainty in flesh but death.”
"The Machine is strong. We must purge the weak, hated flesh and replace it with the blessed purity of metal. Only through permanence can we truly triumph, only through the Machine can we find victory. Punish the flesh. Iron in mind and body. Hail the Machine!"
(Oldest kid just got accepted into the Mechatronics program at university. More shortly!)
In general, I will try to give everyone something to do -- fight, negotiate, rig, hack, be empathetic, whatever. Complications help with that. Of course, they can also fractally multiply and, well, complicate.
The art is beautiful! And it's a very solid game of tactical mecha combat.
That said, it's very tactical -- it would be difficult (not impossible, but difficult) to play without a board, virtual or otherwise. I love theater of the mind, but there'd be a lot of "how far away am I? In range for my grappling hook?"
I know nothing of Scythe, but I'm a bit surprised you want to leave the world of Union behind. The setting is very well done, and IMO it's part of the appeal.
"Tuber growth formula, Trial Six," Sonia is muttering to herself as you enter the tent.
"Six?"
"Trial One did nothing. Trial Two made the tubers grow quickly, but then they melted into sludge. Three, Four and Five all produced viable tubers, so I fed them to the hamsters --"
You suppress a shudder. Old Grumbles has been dragging around a dozen cages full of of hamsters for years. They don't generally come to good ends, those hamsters. "And?"
"We-ell, Three just killed them. I mean, they ate the tubers, they were fine for half a day, and then they all died. So that was pretty clear. But Four, now, Four was really interesting. Take a look --" Sonia reaches into one of the cages. "This is Elmer. Elmer really liked Four! He ate a lot of it."
You back away, waving your hands, but unfortunately you get a glimpse of the thing in Sonia's hands. It's a blind, shapeless mass of golden fur with bald patches of raw skin and... legs. Far too many legs. A pink-tipped nose projects out of the mass. It twitches.
"Back you go, Elmer." Sonia replaces the thing in its cage, then turns to you, eyes bright. "So I think there's really some potential there, when time allows. I mean, what if we fed it to, I don't know, a chicken? Extra drumsticks, maybe? Anyway. So, Five, now..." Sonia reaches into another cage. You flinch away, but this time the hamster seems fine. Asleep, but fine. Or, no wait, its little eyes are open...?
"So after eating Trial Five, they just seem really... happy. I mean, it's hard to be sure, with hamsters. But they just sit around, and sometimes they give these little squeaks that sound really, you know... contented." Sonia pokes the hamster gently in its plump little belly. It gives a very faint, tiny sigh. By damn, it does sound contented. "Hey, this one could have medicinal value! Of course, I have to watch to make sure they don't end up with, you know, brain tumors or something. Still!" Sonia hefts a small bag of what look like yams. "I'm hanging on to Trial Five, just in case."
Is it your imagination, or are the Trial Five tubers just ever so slightly... glowing? But before you can look again, Sonia has tucked the bag away. "Anyway, Trial Six has produced a crop. So, let's see. Whooo's hungry? Num-nums! Who wants a nice slice of yummy tuber?" As you step back out of the tent, Sonia is peering around the cages, tuber in one hand, knife in the other.
I'd never even heard of this person until your post but the story sounds intriguing.
She was a massively huge Broadway star of the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Went to Hollywood but never quite broke through there. But she was such an immense personality that they're still telling stories about her 80 or 90 years later.
The champagne glass:
Tallulah Bankhead was getting nonsense from an upstart young actress who declared she could upstage Tallulah anytime. "Darling," said Miss Bankhead, "I can upstage you without even being onstage."
The next night, she proved it.
While the upstart actress acted a long telephone conversation, Miss Bankhead made her exit -- not before placing her champagne glass on the edge of the table, precariously balanced half-on, half-off.
The audience began to notice the dangling glass, and whisper in a hubbub. The actress was completely upstaged. And Tallulah Bankhead was nowhere in sight.
Afterward, the secret was revealed: Tallulah had put sticky tape on the bottom of the glass.
