Gaming day! 7-14-12

So, yesterday was an interesting day at the gaming day. It lasted all day and was in Pittsburgh, and it proved so much just how important an efficient GM can be. 

The day started with Spirit of the Century. THe idea was to play the module called Hell comes to Hollywood, which is a tie-in to the book Dinocalpyse now by +Chuck Wendig The premise was simple, the wold has been attacked by dinosaurs! You must defeat them at all costs!

It was a lot of fun. I played a sneaky type chraracter, while the two others played an academic, and a bruiser. It never got TOO hard, but was hairy a few times, but overall we overcame all of the obstacles and saved the day. The only down side to the day was that since it was such a fighting kind of game, our academic did get to do as much as she could have. She did have guns and had a few good moments, but nothing that really showcased whom she is. That is not anyone's fault since it was a one shot game that took place in about 3 or so hours.

But the gm did a great job of moving the game along and I was reminded why this game is so awesome. You can do whatever you think you can do, you just have to be creative and be able to explain clearly what you are trying to do.

The second game was called Monster Hearts, which is hack of Apocalypse world (there seems to be a few of those), where you played angsty teenagers at a school. Yet, the characters in our game was tho chosen (think buffy), a ghost, and a third I cannot remember, but it had something to do with snakes.

The rules of this game were a little odd to get used to at first, since that is the way apocalypse world apparently runs. I am not going into the mechanics cuz I still don't feel great and don't have the energy to remember them. Needless to say there were interesting, but the person that ran the game did a good job of moving things forward.  

The last game of the night was Call of Cthulhu, one of my all time favorites. This did not go well at all. First of all, the GM did not do a good job (at least I think) of running it. It is a four hour one-shot and we spent the first almost an hour making fishing and cooking checks. We were on a boat in the everglades, but I have a philosophy that you do not roll for things that don't matter. The game turned out to be someone that wanted to play CoC as a D&D adventure. CoC is not really that kind of game. You're job is usually trying to investigate what is going on and try to find a way to fight the creatures....without fighting them head on if you can. Cuz that way leads to death.

Just never got into his style and all he wanted to do was throw a bunch of people into a situation where they had no choice but to fight. That is not what this game is to me..and I was not enjoying it before I got sick again. Which was bad, toothache, nausea, dizziness. Awesome!

Just not a good time in that game, but a good day overall.

My Dresden Files character

So, this is my Dresden Files Rpg character. The people I am playing with are using power level, feet in the water. Still may tweek it a bit. :)

Name: Ransom Winter                  Age: 25

Template: Focused Practitioner

High Aspect: Bounty hunting practitioner

Trouble:  In debt to the Winter Court

Phase 1. Background

Ransom grew up in the foster system in New York City. After numerous beatings (and nearly dying) from different foster parents, he took to the streets to make his own path. The lesson learned here was that he could only trust himself and his instincts.

Aspect: Acting on Instincts

Phase 2. Rising Conflict

Ransom found two loves simultaneously. Lydia (daughter of the Three Rivers casino owner) and craps. He loved craps, and was actually very good at it, but as with most games of chance, his luck could change quickly. His love for Lydia was met with some resistance by her father whom threatened him to stay away from his daughter. Also, his growing debt to numerous “money lending” operations (some even tied to the Winter Court) made for a dangerous time in his life.

Things came to a head as one night as Ransom and Lydia were walking down the street and were attacked by a bunch of thugs. Ransom fought them off, but it was too late to save Lydia. Ransom vowed to find those responsible.

Aspect: Lydia will be avenged!

Phase 3. The story A run in with a vampire…or three.

Desperately needing money, ransom turned to bounty hunting. His first mark seemed innocent enough to start, but ended up in a battle to the death with two black court Vampires! Now there is a price on his head.

Aspect: Weirdness magnet

Skills

Great +4 Conviction

Good +3 Contacts, Lore

Fair +2 Athletics, Investigation, Rapport

Average +1 Discipline, Endurance, Guns, Presence

Powers

-2 Channeling (spirit)

·         Necklace, two pair dice +1 discipline

-2 Ritual (scyring)

-1 The Sight

-0 Soulgaze

-0 Wizard constitution

1 focus item slot left

Stress

Physical (Endurance) 000

Mental (Conviction) 0000

Social (Presence) 000

Consequences

1 extra mental consequence

Focus Items

Dice Necklace (+1 offensive control, spirit) A necklace in the shape of two dice (lucky 7), which allows

Ransom to focus on his offensive spells.

Athame (+1 defensive power, spirit) An Athame with a dragon hilt which allows more power to poured into defensive spells.

Rotes

Kinetic Blast (spirit attack, 4 shifts) Blasts an opponent with kinetic energy. Weapon 4.

Hide (Spirit block, 3 shifts) Ransom and one or two additional people standing with him. Seeing through the veil requires a roll against a difficulty of Good (+3) unless he expends a shift into persistence.

So, I guess I still really don't like the D20 system.

Apparently, I still have a major dislike of anything d20.

This is not me bashing the system as much as just realizing that I don’t want to have anything to do with it.

To be fair, I got into gaming playing D&D 2^nd ed, and still have fond memories of that game. It was the game that got me into gaming in the first place. So without it, I may have never got into gaming at all. For that I am grateful.

It started in 1991, and I played that game (along with others such as Call of Cthulhu, cyberpunk, champions, etc.) for a good decade. Then I had a few years where I did not play anything, mostly due to not being able to find people to play with.

Then I moved to NYC in 2003 and started my own sci-fi/fantasy book club. From that I found people wanting to game, and we started playing 2^nd ed again. It was fun, especially getting to introduce new people to gaming. I had a blast.

Then it changed.

I started to get bored with the game, and a few other things happened at the same time.  The first thing was an introduction to the indie game scene by playing Spirit of the Century. This changed how I viewed gaming and I started to go into a different direction. The second thing that happened is that we started to make a game and I realized our game was just a clone of D&D.

I don’t think we meant for that to happen, but it did.

Not to mention at this time it seemed like every game was becoming a d20 game.  Or it could be that I was so burned out of D&D that it ruined other d20 games as well.

So, anyone that knows me already knows this.

But last weekend we were at half-price books, and I came across and old star wars box set for 7 bucks. Part of me remembered that Wizards made a D20 star wars game, but I blocked that part of my mind and could not wait to get back home. See, I had played star wars years before it was a D20 game and it was AWESOME.

So, when I got home, I started reading the book and realized it was the Wizards version which was D20. It was so disappointing to me, and once I got a few chapters into the game, I was already done with it. It just annoyed the hell out of me. lol.

So, apparently, even though I have not played a d20 game in probably 4 years or so, I am still annoyed with the system enough that I don’t even want to read the book in a setting I love. This may never change, and if that is the case, that is ok.

I have enough indie games I love to make up for it.

The last week....

So, this is what has been going on lately.

Chris and I got together last wed night and talked about our game. It was a good evening of talking about setting type things. About how the Fury (a huge storm that ravages and heals the world) is going to work. Which is very important since the entire world is affected by this.

Also, we talked about starting a timeline of the world. To understand the present, you also have to know the past.

We are mostly just brainstorming right now about the fundamental aspects of the world. I am going to be working on Fate mechanics in between our weekly discussions.

The nice part is that I am reading Spirit of the Century now, and bought the Dresden Files rpg (yay!) again, and Diaspora is on its way.

Also, I am about to join a Dresden Files game with some people. I am really excited about that since I love the game so much. It should be fun making a character and actually getting to play Fate. I tend to be the one who runs is, so when someone else does I am very happy.

Other things I want to play? I really want to play the One Ring. I have not been as excited about a game in a while as I am about this one. I still need to buy it at some point and wished I had broken down and bought it on Amazon (it was like 37 bucks dammit).

Notes from todays game design discussion

So, after discussing the game today with  a few things were determined. Mostly due to some good advice from people about collaborating on a game, we decided to split up the duties. Chris is going to work on the layout/geography of the world. I am going to work on mechanics and tweaks on the Fate system for the game. We will both work on the setting itself.

Obviously we will both help each other with the tasks, but just getting some clarification as to where we are going really makes the control freak part of me happy.

I plan on writing a small synapses about the game soon so people can have some idea as to what the game is about. But it is influenced partly by the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher.


p.s. please vote on my Fate poll. :)

The first step? Research

So, we finally got started on working on the game again. There are a few things we have to figure out, but overall I am just damn glad to be started. But a name would be nice, and the old name "perdition" just doesn't feel right anymore. The name of the world is Kushara, and I am writing a book that is going to be tied into the game. The name of the book is Kushara's Fate. I have no idea if they will be the name of the game, but we will figure that out eventually.

So, the first thing I realized I had to do when we agreed to make the game with Fate as a foundation? Well, other than creating an entire world and brainstorming with Chris. :)  Next? Read Fate again! I know some of Fate pretty well, since I have played Spirit of the Century, and was part of the Dresden Files play-test. But that doesn't matter, in order to really dig into the system, I have to read it all over again. So, along with those two, I am also going to read: Bulldogs, Diaspora, The Kerebos Club, Legends of Anglerre, and Starblazer's Adventures.

Those are all different games using the Fate system, so reading all of them will give me a feel for how they went about it as well. I especially want to read Legends of Anglerre, since it is the only other fantasy game like mine on the list. It was made by Cubicle7, and they already have a companion book out for it.

So, with each book I am going to be taking notes and trying to come up with ways to tweak the system to fit the world we are making. I will go into more about the world on my next post. But, the question is always how much you want to keep of the OGL, and how much do you want to tweak it. It isn't an easy thing to figure out, and luckily not something we have to figure out today.

Another great thing is Google+. There are so many people on there with so much information and most of them are willing to go over ideas I have for the game. That is just a great source to, and I am damn appreciative.

REALLY, appreciative.

So, now I got back to reading Sotc. :)

p.s. don't forget to vote on my poll.

Ahhhh....game design!

So, tonight was very productive. Sat with +Chris Whissen and talked game design for a few hours. We have decided to make our game with a foundation of Fate...which made me happy since that is what I have wanted to do since I first played Spirit of the Century a few years ago.

The world is inspired by The Codex Alera in a lot of ways. No furies or anything like that, but mostly a world based on the four elements. Every character will have some link with one of the four and there will be A LOT of political things going on since the focus of the game is a faction that is trying to rebel against the "empire". So there will be betrayal, fighting, exploration, politics, and much more. :)

We worked on this a few years ago and have all of the stuff still, but now we are creating our own world from scratch and trying to decide just how big it should be. But taking things I love from Sotc and the Dresden Files rpg. I still  have to check the OGL on the game and such, but we want to take everything we love about the Fate system and give it at epic fantasy twist. 

For now, I am just very happy to get started again