RPGaDay Day 26 2020: Strange

 

        My wife got the Stranger Things Dungeons and Dragons box last Christmas. Still looking forward to running that as a one shot. 

        One time we were playing Earthdawn and the party was facing jehuthras. This was the ill-fated let's drink while underage and play game session. A girl that had come to the game to drink and watch the game sat on the figures and wrecked the board which ended the session. One of the players hurled on a couch cushion they were sleeping it off on. That was a Strange night of gaming. Drink and game responsibly and don't do it when you aren't of drinking age.

RPGaDay Day 25 2020: Lever

 

          Levers show up in a lot of RPGs. Especially video game RPGs. I don't know how many levers I've seen my wife push in Skyrim, but it is a lot. 

         Of all the games I've run, I think levers showed up the most in Earthdawn Cathay Quest. Probably surprising considering how much Dungeons and Dragons we have played, but it is interesting how much of that time we were above ground or in space rather than in dungeons. The levers controlled mining shaft elevators in a lot of the dungeons as the main bad guys for a time were enslaving miners and kidnapping blacksmiths to forge enough weapons and armor to make an army. One of the mines was also located beneath an ancient Cathay city which was full of traps. One of them was a pressure plate trap that was tied to heavy ballistae in the city towers which would crank the crossbow lever and fire at those on the ground stepping on the plates. It only worked once because the nocked bolt would need to be manually reloaded and the inhabitants that made the traps were long dead, but usually once was enough to kill an intruder. The players spent an entire session just going through that ancient city and dealing with all sorts of traps while exploring the ruins for treasure. It was very Indiana Jones. 

RPGaDay Day 24 2020: Humour

          Humour has always been in my games. Then again when you run a dark fantasy game like Earthdawn, the humor is a requirement to balance it out. I love giving NPCs and my characters accents.

         My greatest comedic achievement will always be Admiral Kirel. The character had an accent that my wife has described as Fez-like (From That 70s Show). He was cowardly, hedonistic, and lazy but competent at boating and logistics. He was a Christian man who confessed away his sins on Sunday and sinned the rest of the time.  

        He was beheaded by a monkape club swing and became Ghost Kirel. Ghost Kirel could be seen in times of strange weather or by the redman assassin So Cai when he took opium. He would often juggle his own severed head when seen. Tellah struggled with playing as captain getting in the way of his Ahab-like obsession on getting revenge on the Sea Hags. When the opportunity presented itself, he brought back Kirel with one of the only two ways to be resurrected in 50 Fathoms. 

       A few moments stand out for me, Kirel stealing a Lich's treasure and running away as Tellah fought off the Lich. Kirel getting high on opium and needing a Catnap card to wake up and get the ship out of Deiking in a chase. Kirel always surrounding himself with extra sailors as human shields and forcing one of them to load his crossbow so he could keep one hand on the wheel and one on his crossbow. Kirel insisting on being absolved of all his sins on Caribdus before navigating to the Flotsam Sea to take on the Sea Hags. This quest involved going to the New Madrid cathedral and taking missionaries to Torath-Ka for the Church.  Then he had to leave Caribdus without committing any other sins. It was just one more delay for Tellah. 

     But in the end, Kirel made it home to Earth but left with Tellah, a stranger coming to a strange land...

RPGaDay Day 23 2020: Edge

         Edge is the name of a ninja in Final Fantasy IV. Edge is pretty unique as he has the Throw ability that became synonymous with ninjas in Final Fantasy. If you haven't played it, it is one of the best RPGs on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, just not in the spotlight because Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, and The Secret of Mana are even better by the same company Squaresoft (and Shadow is a superior ninja too but has the benefit of not being introduced late in the story like Edge).  

       As a person who uses battlemaps on the tabletop, I still can't believe how often characters run off the edge of the map, even with our larger battlemaps. This often happens in Savage Worlds due to the Panicked status on Extras after a failed Fear roll. 

      In Shaintar, the All Out Move was often used to go from one edge of the map to the other side. Then again that is what happens when you double your pace and add +2d6 run dice. The funny thing is that average 31 movement gets you nearly from corner to corner on most DramaScape maps which tend to be 48 x 30 inches a lot of the time.

RPGaDay Day 22 2020: Rare

       The most rare item I've ever possessed as a character was a god-slaying dagger that my halfling thief used to stab Tiamat and kill her in Dungeons and Dragons. Then the gods were so afraid of me that they exchanged immortality and godhood, the God of Daggers to my character, for the dagger. And the character rode off into the sunset, an epic game over. 

      If it were mythology, I'd like to think my character was given godhood and immediately stabbed by the god slaying dagger by one of the evil gods in revenge for what he had done.

RPGaDay Day 21 2020: Push

       The most epic Push I ever heard in a game was in Dice Funk Season 4. Katarina Brooks pushed the head of Crown Corporation's Agriculture branch right off his own pleasure Zeppelin. The iguana lizardman flipped her off as he plummeted for ten minutes to his death by skydiving.

       Something similarly happened in Earthdawn. The famous total party kill (TPK) from Terror in the Skies. Earthdawn had a lot of these. Mists of Betrayal was a TPK (Twice!). Throal Adventures had a TPK from an avalanche. I even had a TPK from Cavalrymen early in the Vivane Resistance quest (Where I learned that First Circle Cavalrymen against a First Circle party is death).  Earthdawn Cathay Quest ended with half the party dead and half Horror-marked. We even had a party killed by a flood. And a TPK in the first session of a game right after we made characters. Dead in media res trying to save the village we started in! Bonus dice and lots of dice to roll are often a cruel combination. And players wanting you to roll in front of them. The successes were the Earthdawn Ten Year campaign and Earthdawn Kratas Quest. But we had a lot of failures around those successes.

       Back to Terror in the Skies though. The group was fighting a Horror and his crew of undead cadaver men on an airship but were losing. So their human Air Sailor Cid grabbed the ship's wheel so the Horror couldn't navigate and jumped off the ship! He then tried to use Wind Catcher to save himself but botched the roll so fell to his death holding the ship's wheel staring at the Horror as he fell. The last survivor was the ork Thief Bane who was pushed to the bulwark of the ship by the surging wave of undead and jumped to his death in a tree below refusing to die and be reanimated as part of the ship's crew by the Horror. With no way to navigate, the Horror ship crash landed which saved Travar. They died, but they died as heroes. It may have been a TPK, but it was a satisfying conclusion to their arc. I can't say that about most of the TPKs.

      Never forget that the Push maneuver exists in Savage Worlds when fighting in positions of height like on a ship over water, in an airship, fighting on a cliff or mountain, etc. Against a very tough opponent, it might be the best way to get rid of them permanently or for a breather to give you time to recover. 

RPGaDay Day 20 2020: Investigate

        I want you to Investigate A Dirty World by Greg Stolze. A full Film Noir game system with a concise 70 pages. It features some very interesting character sheet mechanics with a slide system between two antagonistic character traits. The pure can become corrupt and vice versa.  

       Probably the best detective novel I've read in a long time was last year with Haftmann's Rules by Robert White. An old detective is trying to solve a girl's disappearance and it gets very dark and gritty. The first f bomb is on page 2, so it is full of cursing, violence, sex, and vulgarity.  Haftmann is an old, jaded detective but with a morally intact core seeking justice. And you are along for the ride.