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‘By 1922, the British Empire held sway over about 458 million people, one-quarter of the world's population at the time, and covered more than 13 million square miles (34 million km2), almost a quarter of the Earth's total land area.’ Wikipedia entry on the British Empire.
If there’s enough interest, I’ll run this. If not, then no biggie! ;)
A proposal for a PbP game using White Wolf’s Adventure! (d10) system:
It’s 1925, and the latest recruits in a long line of field operatives for His Majesty’s Supplemental Resources Office are about to have their first day on the job. A clandestine government group charged with investigating (and protecting the British Empire – and therefore the world - from) the strange and unusual HMSRO has existed, in one form or another, since the time of Queen Elizabeth the First. (Of course, now that the Americans have finally started to catch up with their so-called ‘Branch 9’ the Brits are happy to let them think that it was their idea first... after all, they’re so new to the whole espionage game and have yet to learn the value of both information and disinformation... why disillusion the poor yanks?)
HMSRO recruits from all across the Empire (the largest in history), bringing the talented, mystical, and just plain weird together in their common goal. There are strange things in (and beyond) the world which the vast majority of the population don’t need to know about, but which they need to be protected from anyway. If you believe the reports of past missions HMSRO has already sent people to the moon in Cavorite powered capsules, defeated the heat rays and black smoke of Martian war machines, used drugs to accelerate men to speeds where time seems to freeze and even (it is rumored in the highest and most secret corridors of Whitehall) created a machine which can traverse time itself. Yet it is now the dawning of a new age, an age where more and more players on the world stage of such bizarre happenings are surfacing, an age which needs new heroes to take up the mantle of HMSRO and deal with the things no one else can.
The current incarnation of HMSRO is overseen by legendary (within the organization) ex-field agent Director Wells, whilst Doctor Millie Griffin is in charge of the scientific research side of things... as well as being literally invisible. An animal-human hybrid called Montgomery acts as the butler and general odd-jobs man of the main London branch. HMSRO has field offices all over the Empire, but they’re generally staffed by only a handful of people, often just one person to note and report stories of strange happenings in their area. The organization is well-funded, but secretive, with few staff – the PCs would be the main field investigation team, the ‘troubleshooters’ if you will, sent to various places around the globe to investigate and combat weird goings on.
Obvious influences on the campaign concept are things like Alan Moore’s ‘League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’, Warren Ellis’s ‘Planetary’, and TV shows like ‘The X-Files’ and more recently ‘Sanctuary’ and ‘Warehouse 13’, and the ‘Men in Black’ films. The writings of H.G. Wells are, of course, influence #1.
Player Characters would need to be created as citizens of the British Empire (so not necessarily English by a long shot, since the Empire stretches across the globe) and can have all sorts of weird and wonderful backgrounds. They can be any sort of Inspired. They’ll all start with an Allegiance to HMSRO, and the one dot of Backing that comes with choosing an Allegiance, but can’t start with any more dots in Backing than that (since they start out as new recruits). Characters will also need to buy at least 2 dots of Resources (they get paid), and 2 dots of Cipher (they work for a top secret organization which ‘doesn’t exist’), but these aren’t free dots and need to be purchased at some point in chargen like any other Background dots. No duel Allegiances (so you can’t ‘also be a member of the Æon Society’). No cross-Inspired type Knacks (but remember you can always take the Gadget Background with yourself as a ‘medical Gadget’ to gain access to Knacks outside your Inspired type which fit your character concept). Remember when designing your character that the group’s goals are both investigation and protection – try to make sure you don’t create a character who’s useless in either of those situations. Also try to give your character a unique ‘hook’ – it’s actually pretty easy to end up creating a rather generic ‘kind of good at a few things’ character using the Adventure! rules, so try to avoid that and go for interesting character concepts: for example the two NPCs – Dr Griffin and Montgomery – are both based on stuff by H. G. Wells (The Invisible Man and the Island of Doctor Moreau respectively) and are both created with the rules for medical Gadgets to make them unique, instead of ‘generic smart scientist’ and ‘generic helpful butler’.
Feel free to ask questions and post comments.
So, any takers?
Count me as very interested. However I have never heard of White Wolf’s Adventure! (d10). I do have the NwoD book and just love it. How different is the system?
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Seeker: glad you're interested without even knowing the game! (That pitch must have been better than I thought... ;) ).
I've got the 'new' WoD main book, but only really read it the once (and wasn't impressed) so it's hard for me to say how similar the systems are.
Adventure! is the third game in WW's Æon-verse series (after the sci-fi future 'Trinity', and the modern day supers 'Aberrant' - yes they released them back to front setting-wise...) and IMHO is the best game they ever published (which means, of course, they only ever published the one book and dropped the whole line soon after... go figure...).
It uses the 'dice pool' (i.e. the 'bucket of d10s') system, with each die being a success or failure (and has a 'fixed' target number of 7: 7 or more on the die is a success, 6 or less is a failure), more successes means doing the 'whatever it is you're rolling for' better. WW released the three games as d20-fodder as well, but (again IMHO) they were some of the worst 'round peg in square hole' lazy game conversions I've seen (didn't stop me buying them all...), so I'm defintely wanting to run the d10 version of the thing.
I'm not sure how things would work if you can't find a copy of the rules to read (which is why the PRD makes Pathfinder so accessible I guess): I don't think I'd have the time to get someone up to speed on the whole thing... it's not a really complex system, but it'd take more time than I have to coach someone all the way through chargen and the basics of the various game rules. I'd also have to post a heck of a lot of stuff which would probably end up with me getting sued by WW for giving away their game content for free! ;)
Megan: daredevil pilot would be fine, as long as you keep in mind that there's only going to be very limited 'flying action' in most scenarios (since such scenes tend to mean the pilot gets to do lots whilst everyone else just sits tight and holds on for dear life), so you'd have to make sure the character had stuff they were good at outside of just being a pilot (including both investigating stuff and combat) - otherwise you just get left as the team 'chauffeur'. A pilot with some sort of 'personal scale' flying equipment (such as a Rocketeer style rocket pack or a Tom Strong style heli-pack or Hawkman wings) would probably be more use in most scenes than a pure Biggles or Amelia Earheart type.
thanks for the info, the only thing they seem to sell in PDF is the d20 version, so I think I'll have to bow out of this as I am unable to find the book.
Best of luck to ya
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Don't go: it is available in PDF!
Go HERE and follow the link of your choice to purchase.
Unfortunately those PDFs look like the d20 version, otherwise I'd be interested in this game too.
Honestly both sites are calling it d20 and I am not taking a chance of buying the wrong product.
Love the pulp era...and love WoD, unfortunately I love NWoD, not so much the old system. If you ever decide to do a nWoD game I'll be all over it.
I also would be extremely interested in a nWoD game. I'm not very fond of the old system either, though the Adventure! setting seems pretty cool.
Adventure! is the bizomb. (The d10 version is. The less said about the d20 version, the better.) I don't think I should risk adding another PbP to my slate right now, since I'm starting a second one as a GM, but my great envy to all of you who wind up playing!
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Just to clear up what seems to be a bit of confusion: the 'Æon-verse' games aren't anything to do with the WoD, either new or old - they're a completely unrelated setting, and a different system (although with basic similiarities, such as Attribute and Ability combos to make dice pools, Willpower, stuff like that).
Just to clear up what seems to be a bit of confusion: the 'Æon-verse' games aren't anything to do with the WoD, either new or old - they're a completely unrelated setting, and a different system (although with basic similiarities, such as Attribute and Ability combos to make dice pools, Willpower, stuff like that).
Indeed. The closest mechanical equivalent among the other White Wolf games is actually Exalted (or possibly Scion). Setting-wise, though, they are entirely their own (awesome!) thing.
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Ooh! Adventure! I love pulp goodness. I've got only a few sample characters for Adventure!, and my favorite would be Shen Li-Yuan, the Golden Mandarin.
Adapting him to operating in Britain would only require that I adjust his flavor text and say that he moved his Sanctum to Britain to acquire better access to occult texts on alchemy scoured from all over the Empire.
Ooh! Adventure! I love pulp goodness. I've got only a few sample characters for Adventure!, and my favorite would be Shen Li-Yuan, the Golden Mandarin.
Adapting him to operating in Britain would only require that I adjust his flavor text and say that he moved his Sanctum to Britain to acquire better access to occult texts on alchemy scoured from all over the Empire.
Don't forget that Hong Kong is, at this point, a British holding, and so would meet the requirements as well...
What was the problem with the d20 version, exactly? Or is it just that the original is the best?
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Loving the character Set!
Couple of quick notes:
He seems to be missing a dot of Mental Attributes (primary Attributes get 6 dots, he's only taken 5).
You appear to have brought 5 extra permanent Inspiration (the maximum starting permanent Inspiration is 5 total, or 4 on top of the one you get for free during the 'Transformation' stage); however, you seem to have then reduced that by 1 to 'pay for inventions' - starting inventions (beyond the Gadget Background) are 'paid' for with starting Inspiration Pool, not your permanent Inspiration!
You also can only start with a maximum number of non-Gadget inventions equal to half your permanent Inspiration (rounded down) using this method - so with a maximum starting permanent Inspiration of 5, no one can start with more than two inventions paid for with Inspiration pool points like this.
Each temporary Inspiration pool point spent on such inventions can give you up to 5 options, so by spending 1 temporary Inspiration pool point he can have 1 invention with 5 options, 1 with 1 + 1 with 4, or 1 with 2 + 1 with 3.
One unclear bit in the inventions rules is the number of 'doses' of disposable stuff you get. Making 3 options worth of acid damage have only a single dose, where 3 options worth of gun damage is a permanent bonus always seemed a little harsh to me. I usually rule that you get a number of doses 'per adventure' equal to your starting Inspiration +1 (just like the starting charges on a Gadget). So, if he's invented some 9 dice damage acid (for 3 option 'picks' - each 'level' is one option's worth) and has a permanent Inspiration of 5, then he starts each adventure packing 6 doses of his 'super acid'.
The 'all Ability draining' poison seems a little too good to me; the standard 'advanced poisons' only do damage, and 'mind control drugs' only reduce Willpower (and have a one option pick maximum) - neither is a 'blanket' effect. You could take an advanced poison which does non-lethal damage, if you wished (with the usual 3 dice damage per option pick, maximum of 3 picks, for a maximum total of 9 dice damage) and just rely on the dice pool penalties people get from losing Health Levels (if they remain conscious at all!). Or, you could take a 'reverse' of the Attribite enhancement drug, and create a drug which reduces Attributes for a scene (-1 per option pick, max three option picks, penalty could be all one Attribute, or split - say a -1 to all physical Attributes for a scene for the 'cost' of 3 options picks).
Backstory-wise he's great! Obviously with this campaign he'd need to be tweaked a bit into a more loyal subject of the crown, rather than a completely independant mad scientist only interested in his own endevours, but that shouldn't be too hard: he's already from Hong Kong, so he's already a citizen of the Empire. With the Alligience to HMSRO he'd gain the free dot in Backing of course. His 'Sanctum' Background seems more the 'lavish' rather than 'secure' type (two dots for a small private island, and a lab in the big city), which is fine (I'd suggest keeping the island in Hong Kong waters, and the lab in London: I'm aiming the game to be British Empire-centric rather than just England-centric after all). Love the descriptions of his Knacks - both the weird aging thing and the golden-hue thing - just the sort of touch to make a character unique!
Right, who's next? :)
BTW: anyone who's new to the game, take a look at Set's character (along with my few notes above) to see how it's done. He's even made sure to spell out where the character's Freebie and Transformation points have been spent, which is essential when it comes to me checking the sheets over and totting stuff up.
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What was the problem with the d20 version, exactly? Or is it just that the original is the best?
IMHO with the d20 version they did a 'round peg in a square hole' conversion. By that I mean they pretty much ignored how the D20 system works, and basically just hammered on some of the Adventure! stuff where they could.
For example, 'Inspired' characters are much, much, better than other characters, with no balancing disadvantages, yet they make them a D20 template with no level modifiers: so you can have struggling 'normal' guy doing exactly the same challenges as super-dooper 'Inspired' guy but the game treats them as facing the same amount of difficulty, even though it's obviously much, much, easier for one of the two characters. It's a bit like a third party D&D book which gives you a new race which has +4 to all Ability Scores, innate magical powers, stonecunning, save bonuses, blah, blah, blah, but no level modifiction and no balancing weaknesses. While this may actually work okay in a Storyteller system (where XP are given out more based on Storyteller judgement call), it goes against the whole point of the d20 system (where XP are mostly given out based on a big chart in the book). So, I'd call it pretty lazy writing.
It's also obviously a setting which should have been based on D20 Modern, but they based it on D&D 3.5 (for, I'd have to assume, bigger sales), then stole 'bits' of D20 Modern... but not enough so that it all made sense (unless you happened to be familar with D20 Modern in the first place).
There's other stuff too, of course, and a few good things in there as well, but to be honest, this isn't really a thread about that...
What was the problem with the d20 version, exactly? Or is it just that the original is the best?IMHO with the d20 version they did a 'round peg in a square hole' conversion. By that I mean they pretty much ignored how the D20 system works, and basically just hammered on some of the Adventure! stuff where they could.
For example, 'Inspired' characters are much, much, better than other characters, with no balancing disadvantages, yet they make them a D20 template with no level modifiers: so you can have struggling 'normal' guy doing exactly the same challenges as super-dooper 'Inspired' guy but the game treats them as facing the same amount of difficulty, even though it's obviously much, much, easier for one of the two characters. It's a bit like a third party D&D book which gives you a new race which has +4 to all Ability Scores, innate magical powers, stonecunning, save bonuses, blah, blah, blah, but no level modifiction and no balancing weaknesses. While this may actually work okay in a Storyteller system (where XP are given out more based on Storyteller judgement call), it goes against the whole point of the d20 system (where XP are mostly given out based on a big chart in the book). So, I'd call it pretty lazy writing.
It's also obviously a setting which should have been based on D20 Modern, but they based it on D&D 3.5 (for, I'd have to assume, bigger sales), then stole 'bits' of D20 Modern... but not enough so that it all made sense (unless you happened to be familar with D20 Modern in the first place).
There's other stuff too, of course, and a few good things in there as well, but to be honest, this isn't really a thread about that...
AH, I see. Big problem there. Thanks for the info.
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Loving the character Set!
Thanks!
He seems to be missing a dot of Mental Attributes (primary Attributes get 6 dots, he's only taken 5).
Ooh, thanks for the keen eye! Modified here. (Holler if the yellow on black is annoying to read, I was just being pretentious. It was even harder to read in the original gold-on-red!)
I've added +1 to his Intelligence, and taken the point I used to buy that six Inspiration and put it into +1 to Str and Sta. I got rid of the poison, saving that for later research, and modified the backstory and Contacts to represent his new focus on Great Britain, instead of America.
Another sample character, although Shen is definitely the one I would prefer to play!
I had intended to make at least one of each type, Stalwart, Mesmerist and Daredevil, but couldn't find anyone to play with, and lost focus. Plus my Mesmerist ideas all ended up looking more or less like The Shadow, and it was getting on my nerves. :)
It's been years, and I'd probably take the Mesmerist in a new direction and base them on Norse Seithr or a charming Romani gentleman who always gets his way or something, just to violently get away from the Lamont Cranston cliche.
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Definitely like Shen better of the two.
I'm very much not using any Merits/Flaws rules, as I've seen them abused and min-maxed too often, and besides, Adventure! generally covers many traditionally 'negative' aspects of characters (such as arch enemies and weaknesses of character) in more positive ways (such as the Nemesis Background and the 'vice' portion of the chosen Nature), and more severe Flaws (such as actually being functionally blind - as opposed the 'Daredevil' [the superhero] 'blind') would severely limit a character in the genre of the game.
A couple of final points for Shen: he does have another 'option pick' spare (he's got one for his silk-steel, and three for his acid) which he could add to the silk-steel. There are only limited options listed for chemistry inventions, but I'd be happy for him to own two different sets of silk-steel clothes and count that as one 'invention' for 'maximum inventions' purposes - maybe a traditional Chinese silk robes outfit and a Western style suit, so he can fit in anywhere and still feel safe?
The other small thing you've missed (like nearly everybody seems to) is adding Qualities for his Attributes at 4 and 5 dots. These are great in game, since they let you re-roll tens for additional successes if the task happens to match the chosen Quality (only for Attributes 4 or higher, and only one per Attribute). It's the only way in the game to get 'open-ended' rolls, and can produce, with luck (so, okay, probably not using the dicebot... but still...) some amazing runs of successes!
I'm very much not using any Merits/Flaws rules, as I've seen them abused and min-maxed too often, and besides, Adventure! generally covers many traditionally 'negative' aspects of characters (such as arch enemies and weaknesses of character) in more positive ways (such as the Nemesis Background and the 'vice' portion of the chosen Nature), and more severe Flaws (such as actually being functionally blind - as opposed the 'Daredevil' [the superhero] 'blind') would severely limit a character in the genre of the game.
For what it's worth, I have generally found Merits to be fine on their own; it's when Flaws get dropped in that I have seen issues developed. Making people buy Merits solely out of their bonus points has generally produced pretty reasonable characters, with only one or two Merits at most. I've typically allowed the option just because there are a few things that can't readily be handled within the scope of the standard rules (one of the most common being Ambidextrous).
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A couple of final points for Shen: he does have another 'option pick' spare (he's got one for his silk-steel, and three for his acid) which he could add to the silk-steel. There are only limited options listed for chemistry inventions, but I'd be happy for him to own two different sets of silk-steel clothes and count that as one 'invention' for 'maximum inventions' purposes - maybe a traditional Chinese silk robes outfit and a Western style suit, so he can fit in anywhere and still feel safe?
Excellent idea. I was thinking of making the 'goldsilk' suits slightly more protective vs. environmental extremes, radiating away excess heat or helping to contain body heat, in some paradoxical manner (as Inspired inventions sometimes do), so that his clothing counted as both extreme cold-weather gear and hot-weather gear, but I like the idea of having both western and easten style suits instead!
Perhaps later, he'll develop some alchemically-treated clothing that changes cut and style when exposed to a certain reagent, allowing him to wear a single outfit that changes to suit the occasion...
The other small thing you've missed (like nearly everybody seems to) is adding Qualities for his Attributes at 4 and 5 dots.
Will look into that! Added Healthy for Stamina 4 and Methodical for Intelligence 5. I picture 'methodical' as coming into play when he takes the time to exhaustively go through options and discount them to find the solution to a situation.
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As for Merits & Flaws, most of them didn't bug me, but the various 3 pt. 'Supernatural Ally' Merits (Spirit Ally, etc.) that basically gave you an entirely other supernatural critter as an ally (including such craziness as a Garou ally), and Powerful Ghoul, tended to get a little gross, depending on the rules available (building a 'Spirit Ally' using Wraith rules, and allowing the PC to select the allies powers led to some awful abuse, and Powerful Ghoul allowed someone to build their Kindred optimized for social / mental combat, while the Ghoul was a monster for fight-scenes...).
It is interesting how differently the different game-systems weight things. Followers (Herd, Contacts, etc.) are cheap in ST games, and you could have a half-dozen of them or more at '1st level,' while Leadership (which gives even *less* useful allies) is held off to 6th or 7th level and often strictly listed as optional!
It is interesting how differently the different game-systems weight things. Followers (Herd, Contacts, etc.) are cheap in ST games, and you could have a half-dozen of them or more at '1st level,' while Leadership (which gives even *less* useful allies) is held off to 6th or 7th level and often strictly listed as optional!
I would assert that in the latter, it's assumed, to the point of a Dead Horse Trope, that they're cannon fodder, whereas in the latter it's more of a discretionary plot point. Put it another way, someone who takes Leadership will (#*$(#* fire and brick if the ally says "sorry, I've got the kids this weekend," if only because of the relative value for what he could have also purchased with that slot. In the world of Backgrounds, such tomfoolery is almost promised.
Anyway, on topic, I'm totally ready to come in as the consummate bureaucrat, but I need to dig up my book.
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Okay then, we have Set with Shen 'The Golden Mandarin' Li-Yuan all ready to go.
Megan was interested in a Daredevil pilot
J.S. has mentioned a 'consumate bureaucrat' (I'm interested to see the take on this one, and how you've managed to match it to the campaign description)
I'm not sure who else was interested in playing the actual game (since we all got a little sidetracked there about versions and WoD and stuff), so could those thinking about making a character give a shout (and some idea on character) please?
Hopefully I'll post an introduction at the weekend, so it'd be great to have some idea of who's going to be playing by then.
Hmmm... I may have to create a new alias to run this thing, as the orc-boy picture isn't really evocative of the genre...
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Well, since there was no response to my last post, I considered it one of those 'almost but not quite' things where people showed some initial interest, but then it died away. Trying anything non-Pathfinder on this site is always something of a struggle, as you'd expect - it's understandably harder to find people who have access to the game, let alone enough such people who're interested in playing what you happen to propose.
So, since the thread got bumped anyway, I'll take the opportunity to say thanks to all those who read it and showed interest, but I'm pretty sure it's a dead end right now.