UltraRob

Re: Steampunk Star Wars (Needs Better Name)

Put this together as week 7 of my summer Savage Worlds project

 

http://penbrookindustries.com/blog1/2009/08/07/campaign-engines-of-revolution/

 

A lot of room for expansion.

Well done! I like it. Choosing to set it during the 18th century instead of going Victorian like so many often do was a nice touch. It really allows for a lot more flexibility in the setting- keeping it a touch more fantasy and swashbuckling instead of highbrow proper British.

Rob

Re: Shadow Warriors: The Best Ninja-Hero Source Material Ever

It also has very good fight sequence but that what happens when you attend Sonny's school. I enjoy the series greatly. the fun thing to notice is that Hattori's little band of warriors exemplifies idealized Yakuza mythology (both in philosophy and jobs). Given the interview with Sonny at the end' date=' I would have to say I have a pretty good guess on his political leanings. But I digress, it is a fun series and great source for a heroic Ninja campaign.[/quote']

 

You know, I hadn't caught that bit about the Yakuza, but you're completely right! They are the idealized Yakuza group on pretty much every level, they're just lacking the tatoos (which would be pretty stupid for Ninja to have). I think this is mostly because that was a natural archetype for the producers to draw upon when creating this little fictional clan. We don't really know how real ninja cells operated, so they used the idealized Yakuza to kind've fill in the gaps.

 

One of the things that most made me think this is a "ready to game" setup was the established existence of identical cells in each city in the episode "The Woman Disappeared Into the Port on a Foggy Night". There's literally no reason one of those cells can't be the PCs in a game, just pick a place on a map of Japan and go! Instant game!

 

Rob

Has anyone here watched this yet?

I'm on the second DVD of the Shadow Warriors (Kage no Gundan) boxed set and I can't get enough! I already ordered more through an e-bay seller ($30 a season for English subbed DVDs if you find the right guy) and I'm totally in love with this series! Sonny Chiba is like the Japanese William Shatner- stick him in the right role and he's a coolness god! And this is definitely the right role!

The story itself is about a team of Ninja from a clan that's fallen into disfavor going on special missions for the Shogun's guardian. The show itself comes across like a weird mix of Lone Wolf and Cub and Mission Impossible (the TV series) and takes a bit of getting used to, but once you hit the third episode it rocks so hard you won't want to see it end!

From a gaming perspective picture this: Set during the Tokugawa era, the clan is scattered across Japan in teams of five, each team member with a "secret ID" they use to survive, gather information, and as a cover while their team engages in covert ops. One week it's a plot against the local lord that will bring war if it succeeds, the next rogue ninja from their own clan come to town to make war on their rivals, and the next they must infiltrate a corrupt magistrate's office. The possibilities are endless, and the action is fast and furious. (And I've only been talking about the real show! )

If you see this sitting on your DVD store shelf I high recommend grabbing it, especially since there won't be any more printings of it as the company distributing it recently went under.

Rob

P.S. The link above says the series takes place during the 1500's, but it's wrong. The rest of the writeup is pretty accurate, though.

Re: Team Iron Angel-BDGA: A Superheroic Audio Adventure Serial

And finally, to celebrate the end of the project, a team picture!

Re: My new on-line comic

Not bad! Poser has definitely improved a lot, and you did well setting them up and positioning them. They're still a little stiff, but you did manage to capture some real feeling in them.

Rob

Re: Team Iron Angel-BDGA: A Superheroic Audio Adventure Serial

My Director’s Notes for TIA discussing the origins of the project, the evolution, how audio dramas are made, the characters and the cast as well as various trivia about the story.

Runtime: Approx 1 hour.

Direct Download

Stream

Re: Team Iron Angel-BDGA: A Superheroic Audio Adventure Serial

Re: Team Iron Angel-BDGA: A Superheroic Audio Adventure Serial

Re: Spell Active/ Real Cost in Average Games

in my oriental setting' date=' the max (think level 9 wizard spells) is 60 AP. things are set up into 4 levels. 1 is 10 AP, 2 is 20 AP, 3 is 40 AP, and 4 is 60. seems to do well, as the dabblers can get a few simple spells, while the all out mages can get the HARDCORE stuff...[/quote']

 

Eternal Sage, are you requiring your players to pay a seperate cost to determine their "magic level"? Say, 10pts to be Level 1, and 40pts to be Level 4 or somesuch?

 

Rob

Re: Team Iron Angel-BDGA: A Superheroic Audio Adventure Serial

Re: Heroic Endurance and Stun

I think the simpler compromise lies in the area of Long Term Endurance. Just have STUN damage inflict LTE with the idea being that the body is suffering pain and stress. If you want to set up a really simple system, have say 5 STUN taken inflict 1pt worth of LTE to the character. This will accumulate quickly if they get into multiple fights, and result in characters barely able to lift a finger after a few fights if they get hit a lot.

Or alternately, just say that every turn of combat automatically causes 4-(REC/3, round down) points of LTE to the characters involved. This would mean a weak character with 3 REC or less takes 3 LTE per turn of combat activity, an average one takes 2 LTE, better than average (9 REC) takes 1 LTE a turn and superhuman (12+) could just take 0 per turn. Using this system, one fight won't exhaust you, but continuous fights quickly will.

Rob

Re: fantasy books

I suggest neither, read Guards! Guards! by Terry Prachett if you haven't already. Reading one Wheel of Time book killed the Fantasy Genre for me for a while, but Guards! Guards! made me love it again.

It's a slightly humorous take on what it's like to be the members of the Town Guard in a particularly unpleasant city, but Prachett brings the whole place so much to life you can't help but fall in love with the characters and Diskworld setting's take on Fantasy.

Rob

P.S. if it's either/or for you, I suggest Song of Fire and Ice, which at least will give you something other than Jordan's....work.

Campaign GM: "UltraRob! SOS! I can't make gaming night tomorrow! Can you run? I repeat...Can you run?":idjit:

UltraRob: "Relax o revered GM! UltraRob is on the case!"

So, with that, UltraRob sped into action! He had one night to prepare, but what was he going to run? Having just finished watching a bunch of Naurto live action fan videos online, and having been wanting to take a stab at a Naruto HERO game, even for a oneshot, the choice was obvious!

So, how to put together a winning one-shot for a bunch of gamers of variable HERO experience that will only last a few hours? Here's how I went about it!

Step One: Find a bunch of Naruto fanart of original characters from deviant art. This guy fit the bill.

Step Two: Pick the following: one character for each PC, an equal number of NPC ninja pictures, and one to be a teacher.

Step Three: Grab Hero Designer and whip together a generic Genin (Ninja Cadet/Student) Ninja Template. I made them on 125 points, buying equipment with points, but gave them no disads at all! (See below for why.)

Step Four: Mod the template to fit each picture (I mostly played around with stats and gave one or two unique skills to each), giving each one or two Jutsu (funky ninja powers) in addition to standard Ninja equipment and skills. I gave my characters each a unique power, but that's not quite by the book for the setting:

From Wikipedia:

The academy is where would-be ninja start; they are not actually considered ninja until they graduate. Academy students take formal and practical tests of all sorts and are taught basic ninja skills, such as martial arts, techniques, physical fitness and the way of the ninja. Basic weapon usage, such as kunai and shuriken, is commonly taught. Elementary ninja techniques, though they vary from village to village, are also taught. These include the Transformation Technique, Rope Escape Technique, Body Replacement Technique and the Clone Technique.

Step Five: Print out character sheets and pictures of both good guys and bad guys, make sure nothing is double-sided. (I cheated with the opposition, using just the generic template and modding it with notes, but had full sheets for each picture.)

Step Six: Go to game.

Step Seven: Show the players only the pictures of the PC group, and have them pick the sheets with the pictures on them they think would be good to play. (Tell them nothing else!) Once each one has picked a picture, have them flip over the picture and on the blank back of the page write 5 interesting things about that character in point form. (Personality, goals, quirks, whatever). (Tell them they will be rated on these. (optional))

Step Eight: (optional) Once they're done, they hand them to the GM, the GM then rates what they wrote on a scale of 1-5 and that number is the number of Hero Points they get for the game. These are my generic metagaming points which I used to reward players and keep things heroic in games like HERO which lack any such system. Each point can be used to a) reroll any die in the game, or not die from a shot that should have killed you, only leaving you badly wounded.

Step Nine: Hand the players out the actual character sheets which go along with each picture. Let them read it over and explain anything that needs explaining, especially in regards to special abilities.

Step Ten: Run Game

The Tutorial- The players, genin (apprentice Ninja in this setting) arrived at a forest clearing in the morning to find their teacher Tenchi-Sensei (a white haired genius Ninja girl) waiting for them to put them through their morning exercises. Their instructions were simple- beat her up and don't hold back. Of course, she's much higher skilled than they are, so she's mostly playing defensive while they get a feel for their characters. In my game, she used a Ninja Duplicate technique partway through when they couldn't see her, and then they found themselves facing 3 of her, each of which could hit normally, but disappeared if they took 1 BODY damage. (The real teach had at this point taken off to watch from a nearby tree anyways, as they soon discovered.) The key here is just giving them practice, don't let this run longer than 2 full turns before she calls it quits. She then informs them that they have a mission, tells them the mission, and lets them know they need to show up at the city's South Gate at lunchtime. They have a few hours to get anything ready they'll need on the trip.

The Mission: The players are to escort a local merchant through the forrest to a city 3 days away. He's driving a large wagon and a full team of oxen, and the players will be expected to walk beside him and keep him safe for the trip. There's no danger, they're told, it's a simple babysitting job. However, if they do encounter any opposition, they're to bring them in alive for questioning under any circumstances. When the players meet the merchant "Mr. Taro", they'll find he's a curious and slightly lecherous old man who will ask them lots of questions and provide them with as much trouble and comic relief as the GM wishes.

The Complications: At the same time, there is a group of NPC Genin students being told by their teacher the following: "another group of Genin are escorting a man to the city on the edge of the forrest, capture him and return him here. You are under no circumstances to seriously hurt them, just knock them out and leave them. You leave at dinnertime today, any questions?"

So, as you can see, the actual scenario is more or less a game of hockey, with each side trying to get the puck (the merchant) into their own net. Whether they need to get his cargo there or not too is up to the GM, but I suggest against it as it might slow things down.

The Result: In my game, the players foiled an attempt to sneak the merchant out during the first camping night and decided to make a run for it. (Or as fast as an ox cart moving at night could handle.) This led to a bloody confrontation on the road just before dawn of that night which left half of each team incapacitated and the others at a stalemate. The ones who remained negotiated a withdrawl and both sides retreated to lick their wounds and try again. The PCs then prepared plans to fortify their position the next night to keep the NPCs out, but the game had to be called there on account of time. (We only had 3 hours to play.) To understate the case, it was a rousing success all around, which is why I thought I'd post it here for others to consider. I should note that all but one PC actually had either seen or read some of the Naruto comic/anime, and they filled in the unfamiliar one quickly. ("We're ninja cadets.")

Notes:

Funky Ninja Powers

I built their Jutsu (techniques) as 45 point multipowers, each with 2 clearly labelled slots. These multipowers had the limitation Gestures: Requires Both Hands.

Their Jutsu were powered by Chakra Pools (END Reserves) of 3x their EGO, with a REC of 1/2 their EGO per hour. Depending on how much you want them using their abilities, this may be too much or too little.

Standard Ninja Stuff:

• +3" Running
  
• +6" Leaping
  
• Kunai Throwing Irons (multipower: 1 1/2D6 RKA/HKA, 6 recoverable charges)
  
• Explosive bombs smoke/explosives (20 active points, charges)
  
• Herb Healing Patches (given to the group medic), 1D6 healing, 20 charges. (use carefully)
  
• Shirken (RKA with 4 recoverable charges)
  

Re: D-Ranger Audio Adventure

Re: Tricky END Reserve Question

As far as I can tell, in the actual Negima setting, rendering the Magi unconscious doesn't stop the Pactio users from using their Magi-powered abilities. (Although killing him/her obviously would.) Although, in HERO terms their abilities would stop when the Magi's END reserve ran dry whether he is conscious or not.

Yes, it's well known that the Pactio users are powered by the Magi, take him out and down they go, so the Foci limitation would actually work very well. Thanks Outsider!

Rob

Re: Tricky END Reserve Question

Interesting. In the setup I was thinking of, the characters would only be able to access the special powers by using END from the Power Reserve Character, not their own END sources. Those specific powers would be only available if the Wizard had the power to lend them. I'm not sure about range, but I know in the Negima manga, which I'm modelling it after, they can access it if they're within a few kilometres of the Wizard and possibly without him even being aware. (Although they can telepathically communicate with the Wizard as part of the bonding process anyways!)

I myself am inclined to probably make it a -1/2 limitation, but I wanted some outside thoughts and input from HEROdom as well.

For more on this setup from Negima, go here for the very full writeup of the Pactio system.

Thanks guys!

Rob

Re: Tricky END Reserve Question

Actually, it's really quite the opposite. The concept comes from the manga Negima, in which wizards can bestow upon their allies the ability to tap into the Wizard's power reserve for short periods of time during combat to pump up the allies' combat abilities.

This differs from a "buff" situation in that the allies, through a contract item, can control what powers they use and how much they're enhanced. Once the contract is made, the allies can tap into them anytime, the wizard is no longer in direct control of the use the allies make of their power.

The reason this is very anti-munchkiny (from my POV), is that the wizard and allies are both working with a very finite power reserve, and must ration it out in strategic ways. If they don't, they'll quickly deplete the reserve, rendering the wizard both useless and the allies without a source of enhancement when they need it. Think of it as a whole party sharing a single END Reserve, but not a big one, as opposed to the normal situation of each player having their own.

Rob

Here's the situation: One character has a huge END reserve, the rest of the party has the ability to tap into that reserve to power their superhuman abilities.

So, the one with the END Reserve would have to buy: Useable by Others at range on their END Reserve, naturally.

But, what would the cost modifier be on the powers bought by the rest of the team whose powers can only work off their friend's END Reserve? The powers cost END normally, just not the END of the people using the powers.

Rob

Re: Batman is dead

With all the emphasis on cars so far, this is starting to sound more like "Team Knight Rider" than "Team Batman". Also, you haven't told us their exact purpose. Are they trying to convince everyone Batman is still alive and kicking butt? Or are they trying to fulfill his role in a mysterious way, implying that Batman is behind it when it's really them.

If it's the former, a priceless moment just occurred to me, when the PC playing Batman suddenly finds Superman floating next to him, having dropped by to say hello....

Rob

Re: Team Iron Angel-BDGA: A Superheroic Audio Adventure Serial

Re: Dungeons and Dragons

The Realm.

 

The Realm is ruled by 'The Eternal Emperor' aka 'The Eternal One' aka 'Eo'. Eo is a necromancer and tyrant. He commands undead legions and tries to enslave the living. Those who fail to swear fealty to him are hunted, killed and transformed into 'Undead'.

Err...But if he's the EO and already rules the Realm, he has enslaved the living, and not only that, why is he trying at all? Better to say that he just rules with an iron fist and that he takes people to become his servants when it suits him, ripping them cruelly away from their loved ones and turning them into undead. Too many undead= lots of immortal servants with nothing to do.

Rob

Re: Negima Magic Style

So' date=' basically; forming a group is urged. I like it as surely everyone can find a niche to fill.[/quote']

 

Exactly, it keeps the wizard from being massive in combat and just winning- a real danger with the HERO system. If the wizard wants to have a force field, that's fine, but it's all they can do, and they're 0 DCV while doing it. If they want to go offensive they're still 0 DCV, and now vulnerable while casting the offensive spell.

 

In the comic there's a funny scene where the hero wizard Negima is trying to cast spells, and the other wizard's partner just keeps bapping him in the forehead to break his concentration and cancel the spells so he can't cast. It's the "object lesson" he gets on why wizards need partners.

 

Rob

Re: Negima Magic Style

I like it. It's simple and straight-forward.

Thanks!

I should note that this system in the comic is specifically designed so that magisters (latin for magic users) need someone watching their back while they cast. The whole idea of the comic is that wizards work in teams with a guardian of some kind (or guardians, if they have a whole party backing them up) and so while the magisters are powerful, they have two large weaknesses- reliance on foci, and inability to defend themselves while casting more powerful spells. (Concentration could be reduced to 1/2 DCV if the GM wishes to give them more of a fighting chance.)

Actually, in the comic there's a really easy way to depower a magister in a single spell- cast a spell that destroys their clothes and anything they're carrying. A naked magister is helpless (which plays into the comic's more lecherous side since most of his opponents are female), however personal foci (like custom magic wands) won't necessarily be affected by this, so you can't always rely on it.

I liked this system when I read it because while it lets wizards be powerful, it also enforces teamwork in combat situations. The wizard ends up like a quarterback on a football team, with the others making their plays against the opposition and defending the wizard.

Oh, and one other minor note- In the comic, Eastern Wizards use guardian spirits and demons as defenders, Western Wizards use magically enhanced people, but a typical adventuring party would do just as well.

Rob

Re: Pharos

Nice writeup! I like them a lot!

I've always liked the idea of priests as psionicists (as opposed to channeling gods, odd as that might sound) with them believing their powers are coming from their gods. Sidesteps the whole question of how active gods are and why they don't do more.

I also like your use of "20 active points" as the power cap and working through it accordingly, it's just the right level for a fantasy game, I think.

One quibble, the package writeups list active costs but not real costs except in 1 case.

Best!

Rob