UltraRob

Re: Trying to write a magic system...

 

This is my take on what MarkDoc was talking about, which I think is a very cool idea...the mage must pick their spell and then slowly gather the local mana into the spell before casting it. This means the character will have to take a couple phases to build a spell up before being able to throw it at full power, or can cast it at whatever power level they have available.

 

Actually, something occured to me while I was making this...with this magic system a wizard duel is a cross between chess and "chicken"...It's "chicken" in that the longer you cast, the better chance of taking out your opponent, but the longer you cast the better chance he might nail you with a spell first! As well, the "chess" aspect comes in in choosing just the right spell, or outthinking your opponent by choosing a quick defensive spell over an aggressive one...Or maybe flashing him....all sorts of trickery could be used here....

 

I have to say, I like this system a lot!

 

Rob

Re: Trying to write a magic system...Alex the Water MagePlayer: NPC

Val	Char	Cost
9	STR	-1
14	DEX	12
12	CON	4
11	BODY	2
18	INT	8
15	EGO	10
14	PRE	4
14	COM	2
4/6	PD	2
3/5	ED	1
3	SPD	6
6	REC	4
24	END	0
30	STUN	8

6" RUN02" SWIM01 1/2" LEAP0Characteristics Cost: 62

Cost	Power	END
12	Mana Focus: Aid all magic spells, any one spell at a time. 3d6, Can Add Maximum Of 40 Points (41 Active Points); 1 Recoverable Charge (-1 1/4), Spell (-1/2), Gestures (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4), Concentration (1/2 DCV; -1/4)	[1 rc]
2	"Water of Chaos": Killing Attack - Ranged 1 point (5 Active Points); Spell (-1/2), OIF Expendable (Easy to obtain new Focus; Water; -1/2), Gestures (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4)	1
2	"Water of Protection": Force Wall (1 PD/1 ED) (5 Active Points); OIF Expendable (Easy to obtain new Focus; Water; -1/2), Spell (-1/2), Gestures (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4)	1
1	Grasping Waters: Telekinesis (2 STR) (3 Active Points); Spell (-1/2), OIF Expendable (Easy to obtain new Focus; Water; -1/2), Concentration, Must Concentrate throughout use of Constant Power (1/2 DCV; -1/2), Gestures (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4)	1
4	Mist of Obscuring: Darkness to Sight Group 1" radius (10 Active Points); OIF Expendable (Easy to obtain new Focus; Water; -1/2), Spell (-1/2), Gestures (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4)	1
5	Rushing Waters: Energy Blast 1d6, Double Knockback (+3/4), Area Of Effect Nonselective (3" Cone; +3/4) (12 Active Points); OIF Expendable (Easy to obtain new Focus; Water; -1/2), Spell (-1/2), Gestures (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4)	1
1	Summon Water: Change Environment 1" radius (5 Active Points); Extra Time (5 Minutes, -2), Spell (-1/2), Concentration (1/2 DCV; -1/4), Gestures (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4), Not under dry conditions. (-1/4)	1
2	Waters of Life: Life Support: Breath Underwater (Expanded Breathing) (5 Active Points); Spell (-1/2), Incantations (-1/4), Gestures (-1/4), Costs Endurance (Only Costs END to Activate; -1/4)	1

Powers Cost: 29

Cost	Skill
3	Climbing 12-
9	+3 with Magic
3	High Society 12-
5	KS 14-
3	Riding 12-
2	KS 11-
3	Conversation 12-

Skills Cost: 28

Cost	Equipment	END
$40	Padded Cloth: Armor (2 PD/2 ED) (6 Active Points); Independent (-2), OIF Durable (-1/2), Real Armor (-1/4)	0
	Water Bottles (6): Custom Power (1 Active Points)	0

Equipment costs shown above are for reference only, and are not included in Total Cost.

Val	Disadvantages
5	Enraged: when she sees people being hurt (Uncommon), go 8-, recover 14-
5	Psychological Limitation: Naive (Uncommon, Moderate)
10	Psychological Limitation: Sense of Duty to her Magic School and fellow students (Uncommon, Strong)
15	Psychological Limitation: afraid of fire (Very Common, Moderate)
5	Rivalry with Kally Lin, a fellow student at her school.: Professional, Rival is As Powerful, Seek to Outdo, Embarrass, or Humiliate Rival, Rival Aware of Rivalry
10	Watched by : Blue Oaks Magic School 8- (Mo Pow, NCI, Watching)

Disadvantage Points: 50

Base Points: 75Experience Required: 0Total Experience Available: 0Experience Unspent: 0Total Character Cost: 119

Height: 1.60 m	Hair: Blue
Weight: 42.00 kg	Eyes: Blue

Appearance: Alex is a tomboyish girl clad in the noble travelling clothes that she ran away in, she has long blue hair and blue eyes. She is pretty, but she doesn't know how to take care of herself yet.Personality: Alex is a likeable girl, but a little tomboyish and headstrong. She has a good heart and honestly wants to help people, although she still has a lot to learn about the world.Quote:"Oh? Your little boy is locked in the house? Sure, I can break the door open for you..."Background: Alexandra von Neuman ("Alex" to her friends), is the daughter of a noble family who possessed "the gift", which both made her unsuitable to inherit the family line and a potential embarassment to her noble parents in a society where Mages are not always welcome. Thus they shuffled her off to the Blue Oaks magic school as quickly as they could, hoping she would be able to learn enough control of her powers to hide them properly. She had a happy, if somewhat strict upbringing at Blue Oaks, showing a natural talent for water magic, and becoming a rival with one of her classmates, Kally Lin. At the age of 16 Alex decided to return home to the family manor, but found her own family cold and indifferent towards her. Distraught, she ran away and started to wander the world, looking for a purpose in life and using her magic to help her survive.Powers/Tactics: Alex is a Water User, and carries around her waist 6 water bottles she uses in doing her magic. Normally she will use the water to restrain other people ("Grasping Waters") or just put up a wall between herself and any threat ("Protective Waters"). If push comes to shove she will try to escape ("Mist of Obscuring") or push the enemy away ("Rushing Waters"), she will almost never use water to hurt people unless she is trying to bluff them away. ("Water of Chaos"). Keep in mind she has to summon up available mana and "charge" her spells before they are really effective, which means 2 or 3 phases of just charging up before she lets loose with anything. If she thinks there might be trouble, she can pick a spell and prepare it before hand but the mana she has pooled for the spell will slowly fade away.Campaign Use: 

Re: Trying to write a magic system...

 

KS is on the right track, but buying an Aid for each spell would be horribly expensive, and not very cost effective, as you would soon hit the ceiling on the Aid.

 

However, I wanted an effect like this for a magic system I wrote up. What I'd suggest is that you give mages a gift (for others, a learnable power) called Augment, or something similar - an Aid that can increase any magical spell or power, one at a time: including Augment. To get best value, buy it with a significantly delayed return. To prevent it being used to augment multiple spells one after the other, I'd be inclined to buy it with one recoverable charge and define some simple ritual to "recover the charge".

 

cheers, Mark

 

I would just like to comment that this is a very cool system! Excellent work Mark! (As usual!)

 

Rob

Re: Run! Live Action Sailor Moon!

 

You've seen father along than I have. waa.

 

I see them english subbed about a week after they air in Japan.

Gooood watching! ^__^ Wait until you hit the 20's...there are episodes there that reduced people I know to tears ....The show has some major heart.

 

Rob

Re: Myworld - Stuff

 

Looks good so far, interesting reading.

You've done a great job of making a solid High Fantasy setting, although is the world at large as unified as the world of magic is?

 

Rob

Re: -2 Spell vs 1/3 using Math

 

Where it runs into problems (IMHO) is the 105 Active Point spell with only a -1 limitation.

Normally, that's 52 points.

1/3 price, that's 17 points.

-2 Spell Limitation instead, 26 points.

 

So actually, it seems to work almost perfectly. A 105pt spell should NOT be cheap under any circumstances, we don't want our players throwing them around casually. (Unless you DO want it, then that's another story...) 26pts means they will only be able to afford a few of these babies, maybe 2 tops, and that sounds pretty good to me.

 

Rob

Re: If magic cost full price...

 

Or you could make thesize of the "Spell" limitation proportional to the percentage of the mage's total points are spent on spells...

 

Or, it might vary depending on the type of magic user.

 

Really, "Spell" as a limitation should come with some limitations built into it.

 

As well, this really isn't any different than the 1/3rd thing...Think about it, the "Spell" limitation at -2 means the Active Points are divided by....wait for it.....3! As a minimum limitation of -2, plus the typical -2 worth of regular limitations on top of it, you're going to end up dividing the Active Points by 5 in most cases...30AP powers would cost 5pts, 60AP powers would cost 12pts....90Ap powers would cost 18pts..........Wait....that might actually work quite well when I think about it.... Have to give this one some more thought...

 

Rob

Re: Run! Live Action Sailor Moon!

 

Humm...It should be interesting. Anyways' date=' I asume that Kunzite rocks also. Is the relationship between Kunzite and Zoicite the same as in the anime (I know the manga the relationship is not)? [/quote']

 

Not even close, actually those two pretty much hate each other. The relationships of the characters on the bad guy team are pretty different...Basically Jadeite and Nephlite are both under a "love" spell that makes them worship Beryl, but Kunzite and Zoicite are not under magical control, they are just bonded to Beryl because she controls the rocks they are bonded to. That's what makes things so interesting, because Kunzite and Zoicite know what's REALLY going on and have their own adjendas. You can't compare them much with the anime versions at all.

 

Rob

Re: Bag of Rats Help

 

Uhm' date=' isn't this just autofire on any attack with a few limitations? Extra SPD would let you move and stuff, and let you use other weapons.[/quote']

 

I was thinking the same thing...This could be set up as a naked autofire advantage on one or two primary attacks that only kicks in if the owner kills something. Say, the phase or three after the owner kills something they go a little berserker and get autofire attacks instead of normal ones.

 

I admit, the idea of a villian who gets faster the more souls he eats sounds cool too, but that literally is an Aid to Speed like you outlined above, and that won't just generate extra attacks, it will make the villian faster overall as a whole. Which is also a pretty cool image and idea.

 

Rob

Re: Run! Live Action Sailor Moon!

 

Prehaps, but I remember seeing an all male, FAT, Sailor Moon troup photos. Then there is the photo of "Sailor Bubba" in the recent ish of Wizard's Anime Insider.

 

But images of a live action, black haired Tuskino Usagi does not frighten me one bit. Prehaps the 'talking stuffie' Luna. Which reminds me...where is Artimus?

 

There is a stuffed plushie Artemis, he shows up much later in the series. Actually, the coolest characters in the series are the Shi-ten-ou, the four "evil" lieutenants of Queen Beryl, especially Zoicite, Zoicite rocks! (No pun intended.) Jadeite is annoying, but the other three are all cool in their own ways. Unlike the Anime they don't die quite as easily, in fact I'm not sure they CAN die, they just revert back to crystal form....Gonna be a whole lotta death in this series soon, though, they're up to 38, and it should end around 50.

 

Rob

Re: What is Evil?

 

"So, you're working for the good guys, and you think we aren't?" -Quote from the Maximum Metal book for cyberpunk I always liked. Point being that indeed, as noted here, the vast majority of opposition the PCs or heros face in a game or story are in fact just people doing their job. (Or trying to survive, in many cases of Fantasy creatures.)

 

That said, I do disagree with Watt-Evan's rules of Fantasy a little bit, there ARE evil people in the world, the real world. However, these people don't think of themselves as being "evil" or even "good", such concepts never occur to them, they are so self-absorbed that they probably couldn't even think in these concepts. We call them Sociopaths, and the true ones, the Ted Bundies of the world, have no concept of what people here are even talking about. The don't do evil because they are being evil, they have no concept of it, they only have concepts of what interests them, what they enjoy, and what may give them pleasure. You could call it "absolute selfishness" or perhaps "narcissism" in it's most extreme form, but regardless by most social standards these men are "evil" by most definitions of the word. (Psychologists like to think of them as being "sick", but that's a whole other kettle of fish.) Really, they have the one thing that gives a person absolute freedom and perhaps power in society....they don't care. They don't play by the rules, and usually don't understand why you do, but since you do and they don't, they don't see the harm in taking advantage of you.

 

Hmm...am I talking about sociopaths or some gamers I've played with....

 

Rob

Re: If magic cost full price...

 

Just to play devil's advocate here, there is a valid point in having your players pay full cost for spells. As noted, players will end up with fewer and more combat-oriented spells, but at the same time those are the spells that they will need to survive anyways in most FH games.

So what you'll end up with is a early to midranked Magic User who knows a few (presumably) combat spells and maybe one or two other things when the campaign starts off. As the game progresses, he can learn/buy other minor spells and variants of the old ones to develop more fully as a Magic User.

Yes, at first he might seem like an "expensive warrior with more flash", but in the long run he'll end up being more veratile and having a more definite focus and evolution than he might as a character with a shotgun of low-cost spells.

As well, when you start throwing in heavy limitations, like the aforementioned Expendible Foci, you start getting costs that are comperable to even 1/3 ratio spell costs anyways. When I require a minimum of -2 worth of limitations on spells in a game world, then I will get spells costing in the 5-30 range at most, and probably lower than that. With 150pt characters, that doesn't seem too bad to me.

 

Rob

Re: Fantasy Races

 

Okay, I am working on creating a fantasy world, its based on a video game.

but I disliked the naming convention they used for the races initially and wish to create my own. Here are the one's I have come up with

 

 

Priodon - Armadillo like humanoids, Very large (8+ft tall, very broad) - Agriculturalists

Anuran - Humanoid Frogs.

Boveen - Humanoid Cattle; replacing Dwarves as the master smiths

Lepori - Humanoid Rabbits; replacing Gnomes, as the clever inventors

Cannus - Canine Humanoids; Replacing elves as forest loving race

Equus - Humanoid Horses - mostly desert nomads

Vulpeen - Fox like race

Woren - Tiger aspect humanoids; known warriors, breeders of horses, plainsmen.

Yssill - Plant Humanoids

Manillo - Fish Humanoids; Greedy, 90% of shopkeepers in the world are Manillo

Muslan - Mole men; miners. Shy, not seen above ground often

Winlans - WInged Humans; Mighty Magicians

Highlanders - Anthropomorphic Monkeys; default Japanese style warriors (ninja, samurai, etc...)

 

Now the names I like best are the Woren, the Priodon, and the Manillo. The rest I am not married to. Any better ideas for the names?

 

 

No better ideas for names offhand, but I have to admit I kind've like this idea, while not especially a "furry" fan, I have wondered if taking the athropomophic approach to fantasy would encourage the players to think and act a little differently than usual. Players all too often only think in stereotypes anyways, so making all the races "animal people" in a setting could have some interesting effects on play style. I'm a big fan of Usagi Yojimbo, and have always wondered what a Euro-fantasy version of it would look and play like.

 

Something to consider, thanks!

 

Rob

Re: Owing Favors

 

I know this is adding something new, but..

 

Wouldn't this just be a reverse version of favors? One listed in the disads column? You tabulate it up based on the likelyhood of someone asking for a favor and the degree of obligation you have to granting that favor to the person. Then, once the favor is repaid (ie you buy it off), the debt goes away and all are happy.

 

Rob

Re: The People of the Young Kingdoms

 

I don't know about the others, but I didn't say anything because I am generally impressed. You did a good job with the names, the descriptions, the dress, the ideas and I think it all looks solid and quite playable. I think these are all good starting points that would give players a lot to work with.

 

Rob

Re: Run! Live Action Sailor Moon!

 

Actually, having watched it from the start...I like it better than the anime...it's more like a drama and they get a lot more into the characters than the anime did. Sure the fights are a little bit quick, but the point is the drama, not the violence. If you were to do it for HERO, you'd have to work out a fighting style based on Gymnatics and Ballet, though....

 

Rob

Re: Reagan's Alien fighters

 

Did any of you guys ever watch that really bad SciFi Channel miniseries about that very same idea? I can't remember the name of the damn thing, but it was about a race of pale humanoid aliens that come to Earth to warn us about an extradimensional alien race that kidnaps humans and uses them as biofarms... Anybody know the name of the story?

 

Jak

 

Are you referring to Steve Spielberg's "Taken"? Or the British one which ran a few years earlier? (The name of which I now also forget...It might just have been "Invasion".)

 

Rob

Re: Reagan's Alien fighters

 

Your wish is my command:

 

Audrey Mark I AI

 

Later,

Greg Volz

 

Bwahahahahaha ^__^ Sorry for the late response, but that is too cool!

She could inspire me to battle any day!

Actually, in the old HERO Supplement Super Agents they had their own version of SHADO which is more or less in line with this dicussion. Does anyone remember what they were called?

 

Rob

Re: Reagan's Alien fighters

 

We just need a talking AI Satellite that says...

 

"UFO....UFO....."

 

Whenever the aliens are incoming.

 

With a british accent, of course.

 

Rob

Re: What the heck is BODY anyways?

 

Hit Points were always explained to me as a an aggregate state representing toughness/will to live/life energy....I would consider BODY pretty much the same thing.

 

If it were a figured stat (not unreasonable), I would actually make it based on CON and EGO.

 

Rob

Re: Knot Another Magic System!

 

Very cool idea. I like it! It's the subtle uses of magic that people tend to forget. I once had a villian take out one of my characters through using magic to cause food poisoning...

 

Rob

Re: Thoughts on having a multi-racial game...

 

Interesting that Warhammer has Orcs being sentient plants. Runequest's Glorantha setting does the same thing with Elves.

 

Given the whole Elves/nature thing. I can actually see that in regards to the Elves, it almost makes sense and even explains things like their longevity and connection with nature. (Hmm...I like that to the point I might rip it off for my game if I still go multi-racial.... )

 

The Orcs thing kinda freaked me out, as my friend explained it to me, they grow like mushrooms underground over a period of about 10 years, then are suddenly "born" in a fully awake, fully aware form which has a racial memory already in it so they don't need to learn the basics. They just explode up from the ground one day, seek out other Orcs, and then do whatever it is Orcs do.

When I heard this I had visions of a "night of the living dead" situation as a new farming village settled 10 years previous suddenly wakes up one night to find themselves with Orcs coming out of the ground everywhere...Nasty!

 

My 2 cents on this topic: How about having all "nonhumans" actually be a human ethnic group? Or they could have evolved along with humans from a common ancestor. Then divergent evolution heightened the changes among the different races. They could still interbreed if they're the same species.

 

It would make sense, wouldn't it? They all look human anyways, and I think that's been in a lot of gamer's heads for years since all these "races" seem to be able to interbreed. Not sure I've ever been fond of that idea, but it is one more thing to play with.

 

Rob

Re: Thoughts on having a multi-racial game...

 

But is this not "six of one' date=' half a dozen of the other"? I would think that it would get down to the personal preference of the GM and players. Part of the appeal of the stereotypical elves, dwarves, trolls, and orcs are that they are familiar. We have a general idea of how they act, who they like, and what they do. [/quote']

 

Well, my complaint really is that those "races" amount to little more than shorthand for a series of traits, instant fantasy race - just add water. Although as Blue Jogger points out above, in many cases that is the point I guess, you make a "Fantasy" world in most cases by tossing in a bunch of "kit" elements and flavouring to taste by giving them quirks.

Actually, my other burr when it comes to fantasy "races" is that the core ones amount to:humans, tall thin humans with attitudes, short squat humans with attitudes, small humans with foot hair, and small squat humans who wish they were the short squat humans. Since when is that variety? Or deviating from a game where everyone is just human? It's just culture coding by body type, and boring body type at that.

At least when you start to add animal people they become physically different or can do things that normal humans can't. Fantasy's supposed to be about imagination, so why isn't there more effort to actually be imaginative when it comes to races? [i think all assembled here now understand why Rob is a HERO gamer.... ]

I'll give Japanese fantasy RPGs this, when they put together a setting they usually use humans, maybe elves, and then go nuts from there most of the time. (Although they have their standards too...animal people (cat people mostly), "big guy" races, and usually magical goblins of some kind). Heck, I'm still trying to figure out what race half the PCs in Shining Force were....

 

I've read the first part of the Turakian Age and could tell could tell you the major races, but I could not tell you anything special about any of the eight human races, except that one is regarded as cursed.

Brett

 

With apologies to Steve Long, is that because it's hard to tell humans appart (they all look alike, blast it! ) or the author didn't do a good enough job distinguishing them from each other?

 

Rob

Re: Thoughts on having a multi-racial game...

 

Also, even if you did not have elves, dwarves, and such, the Humans tend to be broken down into different varieties.

 

Even thought the Turakian Age has many nonhuman races, there are still about eight types or cultures of humans.

 

Brett

 

Oh, I agree 100%. Especially if you don't have non-human races, there should be many varieties of humans and different cultural takes. That's actualy my point, why bother with races when you can just make many types of humans and have fun with them.

 

Thus far the reasons for including other races seems to be:

1) Because it's Fantasy/Players want them.

2) They're fun.

3) They serve as a metaphor for certain human traits.

4) They add colour to the setting.

5) They allow for "cannon fodder" like Orcs, which can be killed without concern about morality. (Nice idea that, that some "races" are just good as cannon fodder...Although Warhammer had an interesting take on this...in that setting...Orcs are actually sentient plants...fungi in fact, "born" fully grown and ready to fight.)

6) They allow for characters who can do things most normal humans cannot.

 

Anything else?

 

Rob

Re: Norse Rune Stone Magic ?

 

Hello HEROphiles, the QM has yet another question.

 

2. What is the best resource for Norse Historical/Fantasy game setting?

 

 

QM

 

GURPS:Vikings

 

Easy one.

 

And it's one of their better historical books too. Written in plain english with gaming sidenotes, as most of the better GURPS worldbooks are.

 

Rob