Just seeing if people would want to play in this game: mechanical details after the story. This is just a first stab at it to establish the general idea, details/quality will probably increase.
The mighty He-Man, guardian of Castle Grayskull and most powerful man in the universe, has disappeared! Nearly twenty years ago, the kingdom woke to discover Grayskull gone, and its defenders with it. At the same time, King Adam went missing, and Queen Teela the Sorceress remains the sole ruler of Eternos.
Skeletor, the Overlord of Evil, has also been quiet these last twenty years. The common people have begun to believe him gone forever, and the most common story is that He-Man must be continuing their battle wherever it is they have gone. Without their leader, the Evil Warriors quickly became disorganized and went their separate ways; each still a deadly threat, but none could face the might of Eternia and the Masters without the power of Skeletor to bind them together.
But not all is well on Eternia.
The Queen has fallen into a coma, and with no heir, nor the Council of Elders to advise, there are rumblings of a war of succession within Eternos.
The bee-people of Andreenos, long dependent upon the wondrous Ambrosia, have found their supply disappearing. Without it, they will surely die, or worse.
In the Sea of Rakash, the waters begin to thrash menacingly, churning to reveal hideous monsters never before seen that attack mariners of all kinds.
And on the Dark Side of Eternia, there are whispers of a man with a skull for a face...
In desperation, Orko the troll, Grand Vizier and Court Mage of Eternos, has sent out a summons for heroes, for the next generation to protect the people of Eternia against the oncoming darkness - for new Masters of the Universe!
There you have it, folks - a fantasy/sci-fi game set in a darker version of the Masters of the Universe...um, universe. Not based entirely on the comics, the old Filmation show, or the newer Cartoon Network reboot, but rather an amalgam of all three taking the bits that I (and, presumably, the players) like the most.
My conscience says I should mention I'm pretty blatantly stealing the original concept, and the name, from a personage who went by Sacremas on Groovy Gamers and PbPHouse. He gave up on running the game before it ever went up, but the idea stuck with me pretty hard. If anybody has better luck at finding this person than me, let me know, 'cause I would love to invite him to play.
Now then, down to the talking points.
- System: I'm inclined to run this in Pathfinder, using the Mythic playtest rules with the official revisions posted to the forums. I'm not completely married to this idea, however, and would be willing to hear arguments for Mutants and Masterminds, the Marvel RPG, or any other system you think would fit this game.
- Theme: Don't be scared if you don't know much about the source material. It would be great if you knew something about either show, but again don't worry if the only thing you know about He-Man was that he used to walk around in fur undies. All I ask is that we stay true to the main themes. We're looking for swords-and-sorcery meets science fiction, with maybe a little Conan layered on top. Yes, I will be asking for ridiculous names for characters, but they're all probably nicknames, so don't get too worried. Oh, and if you are looking for a bit more information about the setting, here and here are two great timelines of the universe, and here is a similarly great bio list for basically everything in said universe. Hats off to these guys, they compiled all that out of a seriously weird hodgepodge.
- Number of Players: I'm thinking about five, maybe six.
- Power Level: Epic. These are Masters of the Universe we're talking about here, not members of the local ratkilling guild, and as such, they are a cut above. That being said, while these folks are superpowerful, they're not terribly experienced at the hero gig just yet. If we do run in Pathfinder, this will be represented by a high point buy (25 or 30), relatively low level (5 or so), and a higher than average mythic tier ratio (about equal, maybe slightly higher than, character level). We'll also be looking at each character specifically, figuring out what we want their 'power set' to be, and handing out perks to make 'em work.
So that's that. Who's up for this thing? And if you are, do you have any questions or opinions on how we make it happen?
Would you be looking for characters that are direct expys of characters from the cartoon? (Ram-Man has a certain visceral appeal)
No, although I'd be willing to consider it ,with some trepidation. Remember, this is over twenty years (something closer to thirty) past the end of the cartoon. Most of those folks are getting pretty old at this point. If someone threw me a decently updated concept, I'd probably be willing to look at it.
Oh hell yes.
I'll work up a concept tonight for you.
Eternia is a tech/fantasy world how are you going to handle the tech side of it? Im asking because Man at Arms was my favorite character and i would love to have a tech character similar to him. Perhaps one of the castle guards.
A high tech character basically just takes their Pathfinder class abilities or magic items and reflavors them to come out sounding high tech. For instance, you don't have a Carpet of Flying, you have a Wind Raider.
The same goes for being an inventor/builder type. They'll need to pick up Master Craftsman if they're not an actual caster, and we'll tweak it to make it a little easier to use(mostly because I think that base feat is way too hard to be worth it, usually).
Oh, and obviously, characters will be receiving a giant pile of gold with which to pick up said items. Any custom items would need to get run by me first, obviously, but anything in Paizo books is fair game. There will also be access to some fairly ridiculous stuff in-game (vehicles in particular are all over the place).
It occurs to me that I've been a little loose with what I'm actually looking for in characters. To make it a little clearer, here are a couple of examples.
You could do a tie-in to one of the old heroes, like my character for the original game: Stingor, son of Buzz-Off.
After the disappearance of He-Man and Skeletor, the disappearance of Castle Grayskull caused a terrible disaster in far-off Andreenos. As the magic of the Elders disappeared forever, so did the underground source of wondrous Ambrosia that gave the Andreenids remarkable strength. Without a steady supply of the Ambrosia, Lord Buzz-Off slowly began to lose a war of attrition against the dangers of his harsh land and the evil cut loose from Skeletor's reign. Worse than that, however, not long after, the Andreenids began to weaken. They had relied on the Ambrosia for power for so long that the loss of it devastated their bodies, and in some cases, their minds. Their addiction could not be sustained by the meager supplies left in their stores, and it was only parceled out in the direst of emergencies. Buzz-Off himself eventually succumbed to the ravages of the addiction, although it took years to bring him down. By then, the Andreenids had all but died out - once a powerful mountain kingdom, they were only a pitiful tribe huddled in their remaining caves. However, Buzz-Off's son Stingor remained strong. Only an infant when the great battle came to a close, he had only rarely tasted of the Ambrosia. He felt the need for it, but it didn't weaken him as it did the others. After the death of his father, the lonely Prince of Andreenos looked around at what remained of his people and despaired. Without something to give them hope and strength, the Andreenids were surely doomed. Until he could give them that, he could not claim his father's title.
And then came the call for heroes. Here was an opportunity to bring his people what they needed - an alliance with the Masters, as of old, was the one thing in Eternia that Stingor could think might actually save the Andreenids, perhaps even bring back the Ambrosia. And so, with his heart higher than it had been in a very long time, he took to the skies.
As I said to Mark Sweetman above, you could take one of the original characters from the show (like Ram-Man, or Mekaneck) and update them to fit the timeline.
Alternatively, you could tie in to one of the Evil Warriors, something along the lines of: Angel-La, Evil-Lynn's rebellious apprentice now seeking to redeem herself by allying with the forces of good.
Or, you could make your own mighty hero, such as: Thundor, last of the cloud elementals. The lord of lightning, he wields the power of the storm to strike down the forces of evil.
Aye - I wouldn't make Ram-Man himself... more a character inspired by.
The attacking with the head schtick actually has some traction in PF with the ARG - a dwarf with a boulder helmet is a good fit for Ram-Man's early cartoon presentation.
Aye - I wouldn't make Ram-Man himself... more a character inspired by.
The attacking with the head schtick actually has some traction in PF with the ARG - a dwarf with a boulder helmet is a good fit for Ram-Man's early cartoon presentation.
Heh. Yep, that's the sort of thing we're looking for. Although we'd step it up a few notches, to something more like a Ring of the Ram in helmet version.
Tech based former Eternian guard or soldier,mabe even a cyborg. Techno Man lol. Man at Arms type character.
Beast type character with ties to Beastman. Notsobeast Man,Shewolf,Lycana..etc etc
A monk type that fights with his oversized feet. Footso..
An archer type that has tech based arrows. Arrow Man,Techunter,Amazona,
A gunslinger using energy based firearms. Blastar,Pistoleera,Lazar,Lazara
Those similar to what your looking for?
Definitely interested! I want to play Orco! Lol. Or maybe something else.
Zarisa, Man-At-Arms is actually a title. You could be the next one, who took the position after the last one retired.
Hey Dorin...I mean Viscount :P
I remember watching the show when I was a really little kid. I also saw an episode or two of the newer version. At any rate I'd be interested for sure. I will do some reading and then get back with a character concept.
Ok, here's my concept-
The adopted son of King Adam and Queen Teela, the heir apparent to the throne of eternia. For a time he was the bearer of the Sword of Power which transformed him into the powerful He-Ro, Eternia's next champion.
Dare took on the role of champion younger than any before, first raising the sword when he was only thirteen, so that his father could be King instead of being He-Man.
King Adam took the sword of power to confront Skeletor one last time because he couldn't bear the possibility of losing his son. With the Sword of Power lost as well, Eternia was left without a champion.
Distraught over the loss of his father and the belief that his father did not trust him to protect Eternia, Prince Dare spent his remaining youth single-mindedly training under Man-At-Arms and Fisto, desperately trying to learn how to be a hero without the benefit of the Sword of Power.
He is zealous, driven, reckless and sometimes suffers from a crippling sense of guilt and inferiority.
Mechanically, Dare is a Bastard Sword focused Fighter with a splash of Monk and the Champion mythic path.
Zarisa: Any of those would work, yeah, good stuff. On another note: Footso! Haaaahahahahahaha!
T.C. Golem: You could certainly play Orko's apprentice, or another Trollan seeking to follow in his footsteps. Sadly, Orko himself is a central NPC at this point, so he's off the table.
Jelani: Great to see you on board, eagerly waiting to see what you come up with.
Doomed Hero: Yeah, we just talked about this plan, you know my thoughts. Interesting, excepting only that he doesn't know what happened to He-Man. He woke one day and the sword was gone, along with his adopted father. A note: Dare would, by necessity, be one of the very few who knows King Adam's secret identity. This might take some tricky maneuvering.
All: I think this interest check has borne enough fruit to go ahead and make a real thread for this thing. Should be up later tonight, but I want to make sure it's fleshed out properly, so gimme a bit and I'll post the link here for you folks.
This sounds amaaaaaazeballs.
Recruitment thread's up!