March Madness OGBC: Day 16

"Which RPG besides D&D has the best magic system? Give details."

Who knew I'd be talking about the Iron Kingdoms again so soon? Or maybe not so soon. This pre-posting stuff is starting to give me an anachronistic viewpoint on life. Regardless, currently my favorite magic system is utilized in Iron Kingdoms, and I favor it over D&D because it eschews the traditional concept of spell failure percentages when wearing heavy armor.

In D&D, wearing anything heavier than basically a tee shirt gave you a chance for your spell to fizzle in the casting of it, probably to prevent casters from walking around wearing plate mail. Iron Kingdoms says to hell with that and decks their Warcasters out in powered plate mail, carrying swords and guns and sledgehammers, and proceeds to beat the everloving piss out of the opposing Warcaster, who is also decked out similarly. In Iron Kingdoms, magic doesn't have to define who you are. You can be a sniper and still cast spells. You can be a warcaster and a Stormblade. This is a setting that looks at the Rule of Cool and asks what else it has up its sleeve, because while giant steam-powered robots are cool and all, what about people who want horse-drawn tanks?

There's also the lore around magic, which involves certain gods disappearing, certain races being really pissed at others and blaming them for the disappearance of their gods, and certain races who use necromancy to cross oceans and enslave entire civilizations.

So, to summarize, in Iron Kingdoms, you can use magic to cast spells, telepathically link with steam-powered automatons, infuse bullets with magic spells, and inscribe non-magical weapons and armor with slottable rune magic (or the souls of your victims, if that sort of thing's your bag, baby.)

God I love this system.

March Madness OGBC: Day 15

"What pseudo or alternate history RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?"

You know what? I think I'm going to deviate again from standard RPGs, as I just talked about Call of Cthulhu twice, as both my favorite horror and historical tabletop RPG. Instead, it's time to go out on a limb and pitch a setting creation for my own later use.

A couple years back now, I bought the BESM (Big Eyes, Small Mouth) 2nd revised edition core ruleset, because I like anime, and I like gaming. It's been sitting on my gaming shelf since I bought it. I've read through it a bit, but haven't ever really sat down to write anything for the game, or try to run it for friends. This is obviously a travesty, as there are myriad amazing anime series that are just waiting to be plundered for their goodness.

One of those is Valkyria Chronicles, an alternate-universe take on World War II where a small, neutral, resource-rich Europan (not European) nation called Gallia must defend itself from being absorbed by a more powerful neighboring country, called the Empire. The resource, instead of petroleum, is called Ragnite, and is a kind of unobtanium, capable of being used as a fuel for tanks, an accelerant to the healing process, and a key component in weapon function.

Also, because it's an Anime, there are magical women from an ancient stock of Valkyrur that can turn blue and wreck absolutely fucking everything. Obviously, there aren't very many of them.

Converting Valkyria Chronicles to BESM solves a few innate problems with the system. First, it's a specific genre of anime. Characters created in the system have the restrictions of being soldiers, but the lore of the game allows for a multitude of types of soldiers to be created, and latter games add even more insane careers to focus on. VC1 played it relatively safe with Scouts, Shocktroopers, Lancers, Medics, Engineers, and Snipers. VC2 added Fencers and Armored Techs. VC3 upped the crazy by sticking cannons on giant swords. So, depending on your (and your players') familiarity with the series, you can be as conservative or insane as you like with the tech.
Second, it reduces a good number of character options for the system. Magic doesn't really exist in the universe, neither do psionics or superheroes. There are the Valkyrur, but those are super-rare and can easily be nixed by a prudent GM. It establishes a low power level for characters but with the knowledge that your opponents aren't going to be crazy strong either.
Lastly, being based on an existing anime property, there's already a hell of a lot of lore that isn't present in the games existing on the internet because of zealous fans putting things together or the developers releasing their notes.

With all the projects I've taken on this year, I'm hoping I won't get burnt out before attempting this one. Fingers Crossed.

March Madness OGBC: Day 14

"What historical or cultural RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details."

I suppose I'll have to talk about Call of Cthulhu again, as I've not really touched on any other 'historical' RPGs, and CoC's settings tend to be rooted in historical references, even dividing up different sections of the lore into the eras they take place in. There are a hell of a lot of historical settings to play in Call of Cthulhu, from Jazz Age America to Rome Empire Italy, and each offers its own unique look at how the mythos interacts with the world as well as how the world reacts to the mythos. I'll just take a quick look at my favorites.

1920s:

The classic Call of Cthulhu setting takes place during Prohibition, shortly after the Great War has finished and the world is simultaneously reeling from the memory of machine gun fire while feverishly dancing the Charleston in one of the many dance clubs in the cities. Fashion exploded, and girls began rebelling against traditional Victorian dress; wearing more revealing clothing (for the time) and engaging in *gasp* casual sex. For visual and cultural reference, take a look at The Great Gatsby. Scenarios in the 1920s tend to focus on fear of the unknown, racial tensions, and a sinister explanation of the various excesses that has marked the decade, occasionally tempered by old-school book learning and academia.

Dark Ages:

Cthulhu Dark Ages brings a little bit of sword swinging back on to the tabletop. Not a great amount, of course, but for a period remembered often for its knights and war-making, there's obviously a good bit of good old-fashioned hitting to be had. This is an age where man feared the dark, the church was the solution to everything, and disease and sickness ran rampant. People still believed in faeries and monsters, so the skepticism of later eras rarely emerged.

Cthulhu Rising:

An intriguing setting that I've only lightly wet my beak with, Rising takes investigators into the far reaches of space, potentially in a post-apocalypse where Earth has been lost and humanity sent into a stellar exile. Here is the opportunity to inject some horror sci-fi into games, pulling from films like Alien and Event Horizon to create jarring intersections between human and alien technology. With the tech increase, there are obviously different methods for investigators to deal with the alien threats of the mythos. The real issue instead becomes one of diplomacy, perhaps. Balancing amicability between the insectile Mi-Go and fungoid exiles of Yuggoth while maintaining one's humanity. Kind of like Star Trek meets Call of Cthulhu.

These are just a few options, and obviously historical accuracy in them is only as good as your GM's researching (or, in the case of Cthulhu Rising, their premonition) skills. However, if you're looking for a system that has mountains of lore pertaining to a specific historical period, you'll likely find it in Call of Cthulhu.

March Madness OGBC: Day 13

"What horror RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?"

Welp. This one's easy.

Was there ever any doubt? Call of Cthulhu has so much going for it, the classic 1920s setting, the rich mythos, the hopelessness of retaining sanity, the ineffectiveness of modern weapons...

Call of Cthulhu is horror gaming at its finest. Not terror gaming, because a lot of the goodness about CoC is the creeping factor of the scares. The really bad stuff is literally alien to us, defying standard comprehension, and I enjoy seeing how various Keepers try to bring that to the gaming table.

Characters play Investigators, their generic descriptor already setting them up as pre-determined to want to go into strange crypts and open musty tomes. Players in Call of Cthulhu don't get to take the safe route, because even if they've got all the genre savviness in the world, every created character in the game is predisposed to lemming their way into a shoggoth's mouth, and the only real question is how much ingenuity the players can bring to the table to delay that inevitable end, and for how many sessions.

The Sanity mechanic is where the system steps out ahead of its competitors in the horror gaming field. It's the great equalizer. I tend to look at it as a countdown. All RPGs tend to have, in some form or another, a hit point counter. Call of Cthulhu brings two to the gaming table. One for your body, one for your mind. Either runs out, and you're gone from the game; and similar to how some monsters in D&D can one-shot a character with a particularly powerful blow, the sanity losses for some entities in the mythos can also knock a character from play, leaving them a catatonic, drooling mess.

I could go on about Call of Cthulhu, but I won't, leaving this with the final statement that if you're looking to introduce someone to roleplaying and they aren't into Dungeons and Dragons, try getting them hooked with Call of Cthulhu. The mechanics are drastically different, the play style is likewise an almost complete reversal from heroic fantasy games, and the injection into the 'real world' makes it easier to just hop into a character and start scoping out haunted houses and basements.

Seriously, play this game.

Warmachine Wednesdays: The Charger

A significant model for Cygnar, the Charger offers the first hint about the ranged superiority of the blue faction. With a decent range that is meant to be boosted with spells like Snipe, and the ability to boost attack and damage rolls on its gun by spending a single focus point, AND a rate of fire that allows two shots per activation; all this means that the Charger is a focus hungry, but damn effective, light 'jack.

All-but perfect for plinking those multi-HP high-defense targets, if you can get the charger in range of something that doesn't come with insane armor, it can likely put the hurt- if not the unit- down. About the only issue with the Charger is that its damage is negligible when used against Khador heavy jacks. However, if you can manage to get it line of sight of a Warcaster, you'll likely be able to knock off a significant number of damage boxes, and either put the stress on an ill-prepared opponent, or begin one hell of an assassination run.

As the only warjack I own that has significant range abilities, I'm looking forward to purchasing some other Cygnar ranged 'jack options; however, my main opponent right now is Khador, so I find myself needing to tailor lists to focus on high damage in order to at least threaten punishment to my opponent.

We'll see what I can manage for my next purchase. It would be interesting to field an exclusively 'shooty' (or dakka) army.

March Madness OGBC: Day 12

"What humorous RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details."

My experience with humorous RPGs is in a similar category with spies and superheroes, but I have had the pleasure of engaging in one game I would consider to have been exceptionally humorous, and that game is Maid RPG.

What is Maid RPG? Well, It's a celebration of the harem anime culture, where a group of attractive girls (occasionally dudes) coalesces around a main character and showers him (sometimes her) with their love and affection, hoping that today will be the day he chooses one between them all, usually to be his bride.

Such is the affectation behind Maid RPG, except that players constitute the group of love-struck girls, in the form of maids. The GM is called the Master, and it's up to him to create the setting for all the drama to take place in the game. Players attempt to complete tasks and raise his affection levels for them, while occasionally sabotaging their fellow maids and trying to raise their stress levels (essentially hp), in order to take them out of the game for a few scenes.

Maid RPG is the type of game that caters to a certain sect of gamers. Non-anime fans will have very little to enjoy in the setting, in my experience, as a lot of the game relies on a player's ability to act out the various tropes seen in harem anime. My only real criticism for the ruleset is that the introductiory scenario, "Birthday Party," is a bit too open ended and without any real drama to engage the players who need a bit more plot to buy in to the setting.

That said, I'd definitely like to take a crack at running an actual 12 "episode" game of Maid RPG. Perhaps it could get enough steam to get a second season.

March Madness OGBC: Day 11

"What post-apocalyptic RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?"

Oh man I totally had to talk about Fallout yesterday. Well, since post-apocalyptic is my RPG genre cup of tea, I guess I'll talk about my three favorites: Fallout, Dark Sun, and oh god why can't I remember it's called Deadlands thank god. Each offers its own spin on the post-apocalypse, but all of them are wonderful in that they take place in wasted deserts that have been created by various types of armageddon-generating energy. Let's start with Fallout, because it's my fav, and it'll be like continuing out last conversation, where I talk and you listen.

"Randal Kite don't f- around" by Seamus Heffernan

Fallout

Fallout's apocalypse came about due to global thermonuclear war. A cold war turned hot, then frozen in nuclear winter, turned hot again by the vast irradiated deserts now carpeting the earth. The most commonly attributed inspiration for Fallout has been the Mad Max films, and various easter eggs have been inserted into the games to let people know it isn't just rumor.

In Fallout, wastelanders stumble around in the remnants of great cities, or in the construction of new ones, living day to day lives. The average intersection of culture is between the Raider, the Trader, and the Mutant. And the Victim, of course, but those types don't really last long in the wasteland.

Stories in Fallout tend to focus on survival. Earning enough cash to scrape by. The games give you a hero, but not everyone in the Fallout universe is the Chosen One. There are schlubs, too. That's what interests me the most about potentially running Fallout. The intersection between the players' perceptions and my machinations. Seeing who would come out on top.

"Stone Figure Design" by Cheyenne

Deadlands

Deadlands is a Weird-West setting that I suppose isn't 100% post apocalyptic, it's more accurate to say that the setting is about five minutes away from an apocalypse. Set about ten years after the events of the Civil War, in an effort to drive out European settlers (now calling themselves Americans), delegates from native american tribes opened a breach from our world into the spirit realm, in an event known as "The Reckoning."

Essentially, the denizens of the spirit realm aren't very cool dudes, so they want to bring terror to our side of the rift in order to manifest here physically, and bring a hell on earth. As a side-effect to the rift, magic has appeared as well as a new fuel source, known as ghost-rock, which powers all the weird technology that appears in Deadlands.

Characters can play investigators, lawmen, scientists, or other variations on western tropes while trying to resolve the abundance of weird that keeps appearing on our side. One only has to take a look at the supplemental materials to know how well that panned out for us.

Dark Sun art by Brom

Dark Sun

Ah Dark Sun. Technically D&D, and by technically I mean absolutely D&D. Athas is yet another scorched wasteland, this time razed by unchecked use of arcane magic, powered by the life force of plants and animals, and the machinations of a group of nigh-eternal sorcerer kings bent on achieving as much power as possible, usually through the tried-and-true method of mass genocide. Trolls, Orcs, Gnomes, Goblins, and a plethora of other demi-human races have been exterminated in order to fuel the ascendancy of the various SKs.

What I love about the Dark Sun setting are its subversions of standard D&D tropes. Elves are like gypsies, wandering traders that aren't trusted by anyone. Halflings are xenophobic cannibals. Dwarves are beardless. Psionics are the name of the game, anyone using magic is likely to be run out of any populated area on a good day; ripped apart by an angry mob on a normal one. Slavery is all-but universal.

Everything wants to kill you.

Gods I love Dark Sun.