MordeanGrey

I’ve done something like this in several games. The Fey (raw magic) exists, but is manipulated by enough people believing in it, practicing it (religion), etc. If parents in the village all tell their children to be good or the boogieman will come and take them, and enough of the children believe it, the boogieman will manifest as a result of the Fey being manipulated.

A famous encounter from 25-30 years ago with our gaming group was a female player who had the equivalent of a giant tape worm inside of her. The party decided to cut her open to remove it and as soon as the player made the first incision the GM said, “Initiative!” 😅

Because of the wonderful flexibility of the HERO system, I once had a character who played an intelligent sword. He was basically the demonic force and personality of the weapon and would use mind control powers to obtain new sword bearer minions who would carry him around and wield him in battle. It was a high-magic game set in the Planes and worked out surprisingly well.

I agree that the originals look like Hyenas. I changed the pack in my current game to have black/gray fur and more Egyptian hound features so they look like Anubis. The underlying stats and skills are basically the same, but they fit in better with the ancient empire that is part of the setting.

I think it depends a lot on the maturity level of the players. Our group has been playing together for 20+years and are all middle-aged plus. They love a good story and we've had several successful campaigns playing bad guys, but not murder hobos. Their characters are professionals and don't put up with others who threaten their operations by drawing attention to themselves through random public acts of violence/stupidity.

I definitely prefer "shades of gray" vs. black and white morality in games. Your perception of who the good guys and the bad guys are depends on your viewpoint. It's not hard to do if you use the organized crime model. Think mafia or cartels. They tend to be smart and focused. They don't intentionally target civilians as they are after a bigger prize. Rival gangs, foot soldiers within the same organization, local law enforcement, etc. are the natural enemies that may also do their work in the shadows to avoid complications. Raids on rival safe houses, ambushes, and intrigue can be a big part of these games. Go intercept an opposing organizations shipment or tip off others to their rival's plans. I've never had a group of "bad guys" just go around robbing and killing civilians because they can. It's boring and repetitive. Give them a good story and some rival factions and you're well on your way to a great game. If you're looking for literary examples of shades of gray storytelling, look no farther than Glen Cook's Black Company series. A group of mercenaries who start off working for the big bad guys and then shift loyalties as they see a better option arising. The resulting intrigue requires the characters to take a hard look at who they support and how it affects their personal relationships.

I've ran players in campaigns who played a wide variety of "monster" characters. These have included a hollow suit of armor animated by magic, a demon sword that possessed NPCs to carry it around, a day-walker vampire, goblin fire mage, mind-flayer, minotaur, centaur druid, ogres, etc. These campaigns were in a wide-open magic world and I allowed about anything as long as it had a good back story.

I like that idea of getting a separate "dreaming" skill set that lets them manipulate the dream rather than just being part of it. Of course, it would take a while for them to realize what was happening and then they could slowly build the "dreaming" skills as additional character points they earned.

I like the idea of making it difficult to recall what is real and what is dreaming. In order for this to work, I'm going to have to do a lot of thinking and writing in advance to keep the plot moving forward and making sense. Thanks for the reply. I hope to hear more from you and others on ideas.

After a LOONNNGGGGGG hiatus from running a fantasy hero game, I'm in the early stages of creating a campaign where the characters will eventually be entering the realm of the Dreaming Child. He appears as a young boy (age 12-14ish) who has shiny black skin, hair, and eyes. He's basically a minor Power in the planes that can project himself into the minds of sleeping characters, or create lesser avatars of himself to be physically present in material realms. I'm looking for ideas about how this could work. The dreams for the most part would be non-lethal, but will be a big part of the story and provide clues to what the group should be doing during the waking hours. The dreams may have aspects of dream combat and I would like to have the characters use mental combat somehow to determine the results. At this point, I'm mainly looking for ideas so let me know what you think would work and feel free to share ideas that would be fun/interesting to the characters.

I've done the "road patrol" option. Basically citizen militia assigned to a low-level military leader who patrol the roads as part of their service to stop bandits, monsters, whatever. Totally open as to what they discover and deal with in the game. Another great option is the small band of mercenaries who have wide backgrounds and abilities but rely on each other to survive the next mission. (Think Glen Cook's "The Black Company" series or similar.) Both of these allow fairly diverse character types who are required to work together.

Who, me? lol

My username, Mordean Grey, was a shadow mage who summoned shadows (actual creatures/demons from the shadow realms — think wispy, black shadows with red eyes — with unpredictable behavior that required a control roll) to do his bidding. The success of his summoning roll determined how large or powerful the summoned shadow demon was. It was easy to get small ones to use for simple physical tasks or sending messages, but the roll difficulty was harder if you tried to summon more powerful shadows. Also, failing critically might open a gate and let a big one through. (That was a problem on one occasion!) He used powers with special effects related to shadows to wrap himself in a cloak of obscuring shadows that made him hard to see and provided magical armor protection. He could see in darkness and shadow step (teleport) short distances from one shadowed area to another. He also used a shadow sword that worked a bit like a dark saber. It ignored physical armor. His powers were obviously stronger at night and in areas with heavy shadows. He certainly wasn't a "good" guy, but he was a lot of fun to play.

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