Doctor Who Adventure: Using Mythic for adventure creation - an example

I just created another adventure. It involves the PCs coming to a primitive world, where the PCs find a mind controling device that they can use freely. But the device turns those who where mindcontrolled mad after some time...)

Q: Scifi World?
A: Primitive Insanity, You

Q: You=PCs?
A: An Incorrect Assumption about Authority

Q: PCs think they are mind controled?
A: The Exact Opposite of Violence, A Random Passerby

Q: So PC find mind control device?
A: Horrifying Hilarity

Q: The PCs discover a mind control device that turns the victims batshit insane after use for some time.
A: NO

Q: The PCs discover a mind control device that mutates the victims. Maybe mind control only side effect?
A: YES

Q: WHo is the PCs opponent?
A: A Rough Likeness of Grotesqueness, Finding something to do

Q: The villain is a mutated PC?
A: YES

Q: Does the tech look like magic? YES

E: Progress on 'Finding something to do': the Movement of the Physical

Q: The villains looks for a mission? YES

Q: He asks the PCs for a mission? NO

Q: Someone tells him to move huge objects? YES

Q: Does the villains mission giver have bad intentions? YES

Q: Does he want to harm the PCs? EXCEPTIONAL YES

Q: Does he hate them? YES

Q: Does he know them from before? EXCEPTIONAL NO

Q: Has he lost his memory? YES

Q: Is he also time traveller? NO

Q: Is he an important political figure? YES

E: Positive for You: the Oppression of Elements

Q: Are the huge objects ancient pillars of tech? NO

Q: Living pillars? YES

Q: Are the pillars intelligent? NO

Q: Are the pillars intelligent? NO

Q: Does the task giver/ the villain's boss dream of the PCs? NO

Q: Did someone else tell him about them? EXCEPTIONAL NO

Q: So he just hates them when he sees them the first time? YES

Q: Does he show his hate? EXCEPTIONAL NO

Q: Is he a women? NO

The Mythic Gamemaster Emulator

I own the Mythic RPG already for a few years. It is a great way to play solo without a GM. The Gamemaster Emulator takes over the decisions. Most of the time you get a Yes/No answer, but every few rolls, a random event happens, that gives much more detail and new inspiration.

Originally this was a table in a pdf, but recently I found a flash version of the GM Emulator online.

An amazing thread at rpg.net details how to use the GM emulator for world building.

It's especially cool for settings, where you regularly need new worlds - like the Doctor Who RPG.

I just tested it and we created a world, where less than 10 gods exist, but those are banned into weapons and heavily interfere with the life of all mortals. Those gods are now weapons of mass destruction and seemingly can be used by a few chosen (but generally by everyone). These godweapons seem to be missilelike. I imagine them as talking weapon silos. Seems to be a great start!

Roundbased Conflict Resolution

I was reading some 90ies Thunderbolts comics yesterday and issue #2 (the fight with the Wrecking Crew and the sudden final twist, to be exact) gave me the following idea.

Comic books don't have unlimited space for their fight scenes. They need to be resolved in a few pages. So wouldn't the same be handy for fast RPG conflict resolution?

The conflict would have a certain number of rounds that you would decide before hand, depending on the importance of the conflict. Let's say 2 for fighting some minions or 5 for the dramatic final battle.

Each round is resolved either group based - if it is suppossed to be fast, e.g. against minions, or character based, if you want more detail.

So in every round everyone does their action and each round has its outcome. Something along the lines of.

Victory and
Victory
Victory, but
Loss, but
Loss
Loss and

You see where I am going here, especially if you know the new Doctor Who RPG...

The "but" gives an advantage to the losing side? I have to think about that...

Rifts Rant

In this thread someone complained that the early Rifts stuff was serious and the game later on became ridiculous with every crazy comic drawing becoming part of the world, I replied that this is exactly what I am looking for.

And while some early Rifts players moved on to play being elves but seriously, others like me embraced the Heavy Metal cover style and went straight to Synnibarr. :D

The core of roleplaying for me is cooperatively coming up with crazy stuff like our characters' amazon minions merging into a 20' Megazon. Now I would like to have a picture of that. :)

Off the rail: that is my direction. :P

Free RPG Dungeons: Every Day

Ôkay, Free RPG day is over, but there is still much more great free RPG stuff out there on the web than anyone will ever be able to play. Especially free short adventures, dungeons and modules seem to be very handy. Next to the One Page Dungeons, especially useful with D&D and the Savage Worlds One Sheet Adventures, I especially like the 5 Room Dungeons.

They offer a topological drama structure that inspired my own FAWS7 adventure sketching technique. The most interesting of the 5 Room Dungeons really offer a dungeon and organize the rooms in an interesting way. Honestly we were never able to play more than 5 rooms in an average session anyways. Some see the 5

Anyways: Here you find the link to the dozens of 5 Room Dungeons usable for D&D, Savage Worlds or whatever fantasy system you enjoy.

And a short rant to finish this post:
When I was young I assumed a good module or scenario needed to have been written out in at least 64 pages. I hated hook, line and sinker adventure sketches for examples. But later on I realized: only the short stuff is flexible enough to keep all options open for the players and a GM will rarely be able to remember all the details in long adventures anyways. So what write the details for? For the GM to learn it by heart?Or for him to read it to the players? Ough. That always seems super pretentious.
Anyways: in our good session the adventure is only a simple framework that hopefully does not interfere with our characters' motivations and interactions. The characters should be in the spotlight, not the "plot".

Roll Right Under System Alpha Version 0.2

I changed some details of the stuff I have so far. New stuff is bold. Designer notes are in italics.


Stats and Checks

We have the following stats between 5 and 15:

Fighting/Close Combat (=base for Parry (better call it Evasion?)
Courage/Willpower
Smarts
Charisma/Social
Agility Used for Shooting and Throwing
Strength/Body (= base for resistance and cap for maximum melee damage and maxium carried weight)

Designer note: While I started with the stats from The Dark Eye 1, I realized I would need to weighten them in another way instead, because there is no space for stats in RRUS.

You create them by spending 50 points. 10 is an average human and default.

Skill checks are done by rolling a d20. If you roll higher than your stat, your character fails.

The difficulty of a check is decided by a Difficulty Number. If you roll below that number you fail as well. (An example for that is the Defense score of an opponent.)

If you roll 10 or above, but still not higher than your stat, you achieve a great success.

If you roll 15 or above, but still not higher than your stat, you achieve an amazing success.

If you roll 20 and you have a stat of 20, you achieve a legendary success.


Traits Character Focus
Each character starts with one Trait: a Talent Trait, an Origin Trait or an Supernatural Trait. If a Checks falls under a Trait, the player can roll 2 dice (d20) and choose a result her prefers. Traits are not cumulative. You never roll more than 2 dice in a Check. (Only important characters have Traits??)
Supernatural Traits are the exception, because you can not roll without the Trait and with Trait, you can roll only 1 die.

Talent Traits:
Fighting
Shooting
Athletics (Climbing, Swimming, etc.)
Social
Tech

Origin Traits:
Nature
City
Sea/Coast
Nobility/Elite
Caves/Mines

Supernatural Trait:
Magic
Blood Magic
Psionics
Nature Religion
etc

Designer note: The traits are superpowerful, nearly doubling your effectivity (as far as I can calculate), so the game needs a weaker category as well. I renamed Traits in Character Focus, as you will have only one and make Traits something different: little rule modifications. E.g. Ninja: your Damage Roll caps with Dextery, not Strength.
Another option would be to make Traits less general. E.g. not Fighting, but Backstab etc. Generally the second d20 should be granted by lots of dramatic and cooperative situational modifiers.


Attacks

A great success means 2 dice for Damage (and take the better), or hitting d4 additional opponents near you (all with the same Damage).

An amazing success means 3 dice for Damage (and take the best), or hitting all additional opponents near you (all with the same Damage).


Damage

If someone gets potentially hurt, you also roll a d20. Each source of Damage has Damage Rating between 1 and 20. If the result of the roll is higher than this stat, no damage is done, but the enemy is Shaken.

If the result is the same or below (but not the same or below the Resistance, see next paragraph), it causes a wound. If the result is 10 or above, but still not higher than the Damage Rating, it causes 2 wounds. If the result is 15 or above, but still not higher than the Damage Rating, it causes 3 wounds. If the result is 20, but still not higher than the Damage Roll, it causes an instant kill.

The Resistance of the victim is used as Difficulty Number for the Damage Roll. That means that Damage Rolls that do not top the Resistance are just shrugged off and cause no effect.
(Armor is part of Resistance.)

Abel Wellington - Primetime Adventures Character from Rockheart

Trait: Excentric artist

Contact: Creepy big city wife Agnes

Contact: Local family renown

Issue: Wasting money like there is no tomorrow

Private Set: Putting up his film/photo equipment/ canvas/ installation equipment and taking over a place with it.

Nemesis: Local cousin Warren Walker who was like a son to Abel's father Richard and helped run the Heartrock while Abel was doing nothing of value in the Big City

Abel is a tall, slim man in his mid-30ies. His hair - kept in a short ponytail - already turns grey, but his short cut beard is still all dark brown. He looks really young for a guy turning grey, especially because he hides his eyes behind dark glasses most of the time.

Abel wears a new and expensive looking suit.

Paad Ulhof - Female Human Warlord from Karrnath

Backstory

Paad comes from a family out of the lower nobility in Karrnath. She studied at the famous Rekkenmark Academy from a young ago to join the ranks of what she was told to be the finest warriors of the Khorvaire. During the later years of the Last War the academy had to close. (I don't have a year for that event I hope it goes okay.) Paad, who was still a teenager, had to continue her training to become a warlord at the damaged and wartorn castle of her parents.

When the War finally ended, she was 17 years old and still to young to go to war. At least her parents did not let her sign up. While she somehow understands that fact - her older brother died on the battle field in the Mourning, she blames her parents for being selfish. Wouldn't real patriots be willing to sacrifice their child for the greater good and the glory of Karrnath?

When she was finally old enough to fight the war was over and her education seemed to be worth little in the bled white kingdom. Sure, Paad could have taken a position on her parents' land as marshall or leader of the guards, but she prefered to leave Karrnath as mercenary.

She hopes to find the reason how it was possible for the Karrnath not to win the Last War. She is still very convinced that there must have been a hidden act of treachery within the kingdom - a theory that is pretty wide spread among Karrn nobles and soldiers. She is for example split between cheering for King Kaius III. as righteous leader and seeing him as the one that sold Karrnath under its value by the peace treaty.

Personality

While Paad is for sure still somewhat chauvinistic and naive, the last 2 years have opened her mind for different cultures and ways of life. She is convinced that the Karrns have the highest culture in Khorvaire, but only by understanding and sometimes adopting to the mentality of other people, she can hope to solve the ultimate mystery how Karrnath could loose the war.

Still it's hard for her to hide her pride and her natural talent for leading. She appears quite stubborn sometimes, until she has a moment to cool off and to decide to use what she calls diplomacy.

Physical Characteristics:

Paad is an athletic woman with light brown hair. She normally wears impressive Screaming Scale Armor, covered in ornate patterns of screaming faces, but under most circumstances does not show Karrn insignias while working as mercenary.

Roll Right Under System Alpha Version 0.1

This is a follow up from the last blogpost. In the meantime, I created an alpha version from the sketch for a simple not experimental RPG system.


Stats and Checks

We have 5 stats between 5 and 15:

Courage
Smarts
Charisma
Agility
Strength

You create them by spending 50 points. 10 is an average human and default.

Skill checks are done by rolling a d20. If you roll higher than your stat, your character fails.

The difficulty of a check is decided by a Difficulty Number. If you roll below that number you fail as well. (An example for that is the Defense score of an opponent.)

If you roll 10 or above, but still not higher than your stat, you achieve a great success.

If you roll 15 or above, but still not higher than your stat, you achieve an amazing success.

If you roll 20 and you have a stat of 20, you achieve a legendary success.


Traits

Each character starts with one Traits: a Talent Trait, an Origin Trait or an Supernatural Trait. If a Checks falls under a Trait, the player can roll 2 dice (d20) and choose a result her prefers. Traits are not cumulative. You never roll more than 2 dice in a Check. (Only important characters have Traits??)
Supernatural Traits are the exception, because you can not roll without the Trait and with Trait, you can roll only 1 die.

Talent Traits:
Fighting
Shooting
Athletics (Climbing, Swimming, etc.)
Social
Tech

Origin Traits:
Nature
City
Sea/Coast
Nobility/Elite
Caves/Mines

Supernatural Trait:
Magic
Blood Magic
Psionics
Nature Religion
etc

Attacks

A great success means 2 dice for Damage (and take the better), or hitting d4 additional opponents near you (all with the same Damage).

An amazing success means 3 dice for Damage (and take the best), or hitting all additional opponents near you (all with the same Damage).


Damage

If someone gets potentially hurt, you also roll a d20. Each source of Damage has Damage Rating between 1 and 20. If the result of the roll is higher than this stat, no damage is done, but the enemy is Shaken.

If the result is the same or below (but not the same or below the Resistance, see next paragraph), it causes a wound. If the result is 10 or above, but still not higher than the Damage Rating, it causes 2 wounds. If the result is 15 or above, but still not higher than the Damage Rating, it causes 3 wounds. If the result is 20, but still not higher than the Damage Roll, it causes an instant kill.

The Resistance of the victim is used as Difficulty Number for the Damage Roll. That means that Damage Rolls that do not top the Resistance are just shrugged off and cause no effect.
(Armor is part of Resistance.)

A simple RPG system - Another Sketch: Roll Right Under System

I was thinking about using a simple RPG system for a potential game of Nightspawn/Nightbane. Generally you could use it for everything anyways.

So the game would be based on 1st edition The Dark Eye/DSA (a simple d20 roll under system with 5 stats), but there would be one big difference:

Instead of an active parry or modifiers to make ability rolls harder, difficulty would be expressed, by a a value that you are not allowed to roll under.

So if an opponent has a Parry of 4 in this system, you only hit him if you roll above 4, but below your attack value (e.g. 10).

But to make things more interesting, the higher you roll (but not above your value!), the better the result is. Therefore someone with a really high ability can get special successes. (This aspect could be similar to the the Dragon Age system, but I did not read this one yet.)

If you know Unkown Armies, you will notice certain similarities.

The system would also include Tricks (based on any stat/ability), like Savage World does. This could also be influenced by page 42 of the D&D4 DM Guide.

(Something else I like a lot are aspects from FATE, but I am not sure, if they fit this system or make it too complex.)

Talislanta is free! What could we play?

I was looking for an old fashioned and simple system recently and stumbled upon Talislanta.
I own the 2nd Edition of thie classic non-EDO fantasy setting, but my books are a few 1000 kilometres away.

So I was happy to be able to download most of the pdfs for the system.

Here you find the free RPG books for Talislanta.

What means "non-EDO"? EDO=Elves,Dwarves,Orcs? Talislanta breaks out of the Lord of the Rings mold and is not influenced by old nothern European myths, but much more by Jack Vance and H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands.

But what adventure should you play in such a huge setting?

I would let the players only chose between archetypes from the Seven Kingdoms and maybe the Wilderlands. That is enough choices. And I would set the adventures as well in this region.

Probably I would start in the near the realm of the Gnomekin, as some of the Seven Kingdoms are a little bit too cute. And for exactly that reason I would create an adventure where someone wants to create a Civil War in this nice union of races. An intrique that should split this bright corner of Talislanta apart.

Some interesting seeds:

• The Muses don't have a real ruler, but one is assigned randomly every month. What if a player character Muse becomes ruler, or if an "evil" (or blackmailed) Muse takes reign.

• The bird people (blue and green) seem to be quite split, it is a good point to start a war.

• The Cymril people seem to quite arrogant. It would also be easy to seed suspicion among the other races.

Now combine this 3 ideas through one villain and let the players run wild and create even more of a mess. Then villain should even empower the PCs to behave like PCs do. What a fun mess.