Here there be Planeswalkers
Last weekend our Manaburst campaign finally got off the ground. The actual play portion of the night wasn't too long - we spent a lot of the session going over rules and took our time with the scenes to make sure that all of the rules were explained as we went. Slow-paced that it may be, the session seemed to be a success. By the end of the night everyone had gotten the basics of the system and were getting into the flexibility it afforded them.
Character generation was slow at first while everyone wrapped their head about the phases and aspects that FATE uses, but before long we had a fairly diverse group of planeswalkers who, for the most part, had a united enemy and had met each other in their travels-at least in passing.
Ada
Ada's original conception was that of a construct capable of aiding its master in research and ritual. She quickly became indispensable to his experiments, able to observe and record all that transpired while his concentration was elsewhere.
Many years after her creation, Ada was given sentience when a powerful spell cast by her master inadvertently bound a being of primordial magic within her shell. The reaction not only destroyed the ritual but also flung Ada from the plane, sending her careening through the Blind Eternities for the first time.
Concept of Magic: Flow of Aether
Manaburst Research – Trappings of Magic
Although I haven't been writing much about it, I've been making some notes on how I plan on using the Spirit of the Century system to run a Magic: the Gathering-inspired campaign for my group that I've previously mentioned. One of the unknowns I since the beginning is how to handle magic - a decision made harder since I really have no idea how magic works in MtG's Multiverse.
Sure, that card game has its mana-powered magic, but it's made for a turn-based card game and can be considered slower and less fluid than I'd like for our campaign. I still had two questions to answer before I could design my magic system: how exactly does one gain and spend Mana, and does summoning pull a preexisting creature to the summoner, or does it create a simulacrum. To answer these I decided to ask WotC directly... so to speak
RPGs: Metal or Plastic?
I've always enjoyed painting pewter figures over their plastic counterparts. The heft makes them easier to handle and they feel like they just take paint better (a trick of the mind, I'm sure). Plastic models are far easier to customize and modifty, but pewter makes for a more solid figure that I prefer for some intangible reason. Lately though, I've found my opinion switched when it comes to using figures for role-playing games. The pewter is still preferable for painting, but plastics seem more beneficial at the table.
Wayne's character "in the belly of the beast"
I think that this is primarily due to the resilience of plastic. Dropping (or even just knocking over) a pewter figure can result in damage. Beast case scenario, that means a weapon or arm has to be bent back into place, but worst case scenario it means something snapping off that needs pinning and replacing... in multiple places. And that's not to mention the repainting necessary.
In contrast, plastic figures have a resilience that lets them take a fall better. The relative elasticity of the medium, combined with the model's lighter weight, means an accident with a plastic miniature is far less catastrophic than its metal counterpart.
Burstback: the Return of Manaburst
The members of my Saturday gaming group are all adults with busy lives so it's no surprise that most Saturdays at least one person winds up being late for our weekly session. Instead of starting our sessions early and having to catch people up, we've recently started breaking out some Magic decks and playing a few games to pass the time.
During one of our games a player mentioned that he thought a role-playing game set in a heavily Magic-inspired setting would be a lot of fun, but that playing beings like planeswalkers didn't seem like it would work. He was surprised when I replied that not only did I think it would work fine, I had done it before.
I'm not about to usurp the Earthdawn game we have running - I enjoy it too much. But with the interested around the table it seems like it might be time to break out my Manaburst notes and look at making some revisions. I've already started getting ideas on how to improve over our first attempt.
Adjusting Earthdawn’s Strain Mechanic
RedBrick Limited's third edition of Earthdawn has been a big hit so far with my Saturday gaming group. The system is providing us with a solid internal consistency through which we can interact with the rich setting.
But like most groups, we've come up with a few tweaks to the system to make it better fit with what we want out of our game. The biggest is that we've decided to try a slight re-working to how strain is handled.
The concept of strain is that it is a key balancing feature to the game - there are a vast number of talents, skills, and maneuvers which include a strain cost to use them. The disconnect for many members of my group is that this is basically taking hit point damage any time they want to do something.
Revolving Door Villains
"That will be 25,000 gp in diamonds, please."
There's a running joke that in high-magic fantasy games, death is naught but a revolving door and the party cleric is the doorman. I haven't played much 4e myself, but I've heard many of the epic-level abilities start out "Once per day, when you die..." If there's a bigger way to hang the "death doesn't matter" out for everyone to see, I haven't found it yet.
What about villains, though? Unless everyone is playing a pulp-style adventure, having the villain inexplicably escape every time he's encountered can seem contrived and simple GM-fiat, but can the revolving door be used as a plot device to present the players with a unique challenge?
Earthdawn 3e: Character Generation
At the last session with my group, we came up with character concepts and had decided to do the actual generation this week. I wanted to get it taken care on my end prior, so that I could both familiarize myself with the changes to 3e character generation enough to answer questions and be available to do so instead of needing to work on my own character. So earlier last week I finished up my human warrior.
If you're like me, one of your initial reactions to that last sentence is "a race and a discipline isn't a character concept," and you'd be right. However, for this post I want to specifically talk about some of the changes to Earthdawn from a character generation standpoint. So while a character back-story and personality are crucial to a good character, they're going to be outside the scope of this discussion.
Earthdawn 3rd Edition: Initial Paces
I finally got a chance to try out the Earthdawn Third Edition rules last Saturday when a friend ran Misguided Ambitions, the demo adventure available on the Earthdawn home page. Though there were some obvious tweaks and mods to the Step System to help streamline play, the game still feels very much like Earthdawn. Considering how much I enjoy the Eartdawn game - both the system and the setting - that's about the highest "initial impression" I can offer.
BACKSTAB! +4, x5
Sometimes getting a group of characters emotionally invested in their adversaries can be tricky. There are tried and true methods like having the adversary take something (or someone) of value from the characters but if done poorly it can come off as an uncreative cookie-cutter set up. Not only can it fail to get the players invested, it can actually divest them from the plot as well.
There's also the issue of the omnipotent adversary. Inexperienced gamemasters can fall into the trap of giving their adversaries full knowledge of the party's actions even if said adversary lacked a sufficient means to gain such information (by spying, scrying, etc). But again you can run into the trap of the cookie-cutter with things like the traditional wizard with a crystal ball.
When my turn to gamemaster came around in our current game, I decided to use a little trick to get the party invested in one of their adversaries as well as explain why the characters had been oiled in their recent attempts to accomplish their goal. Unbeknownst to the players, I made one of their characters the adversary.
Refreshed by the Rotating Gamemaster Campaign
I feel that my last few stints in the gamemaster's chair have been less than successful. There was something that happened in each campaign that made the game unsatisfying to me. So when it came to my turn gamemastering in our current rotating gamemaster-style campaign, I was pretty nervous. Turns out, though, that this particular format bypassed some of my biggest weaknesses as a gamemaster.
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Recent Posts
- Wall of Fire, MkII Style
- Here there be Planeswalkers
- Different Strokes: Technique and Painting Speed
- Manaburst Research – Trappings of Magic
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- RPGs: Metal or Plastic?
- Diminutive Denizens Update: Jun 6, 2010
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