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Category: Gaming

Etheric projection

August 26, 2003
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[The following is a note to myself. Really.]

The telegram says this:

Telluric ectoplasm projector discovered STOP Located in San Francisco STOP Controls still mysterious STOP Daring agents needed STOP Come at once STOP

The Zatarin Agency is located in the basement of a townhouse in San Francisco’s Noe Valley. Above it is the Zatarin Floral Service, and above that is Paul Zatarin’s residence. Mr. Zatarin is a moral man and a first generation immigrant who is immensely proud of his adopted country. As such, when he discovered the telluric ectoplasm projector in the basement, he immediately wired Max Mercer for advice.

Mercer visited San Francisco in person, with Dr. Primoris at his side. Unusually, the pair was unable to make much headway on the device: they were able to turn it on and test its functioning, but control was completely beyond them and the underlying principles remained somewhat of a mystery. Still, it was fairly clear what the thing did.

In short, the telluric ectoplasm projector creates exact replicas of its users and sends them where they are most needed. The window of operation is fairly narrow; a group of people can all arrange to arrive at the same place, but they can’t control where they go and if someone else comes along fifteen minutes later it’s more than likely that they’ll wind up in another location altogether.

Mercer and Zatarin talked over the possibilities, long into the night. Once Mercer was assured that Zatarin had the best interests of the world at heart, he made his recommendation. Simply put, he proposed that Zatarin recruit daring men and women who would be willing to use the telluric ectoplasm projector to fight evil and crime wherever it might take them. And Mercer, as it happened, knew a few likely candidates…

Which brings us back to the telegram. You just got it. There’s a request for assistance therein.

Off to California — and from a basement in San Francisco, the world awaits!

Map of a life

August 26, 2003
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Perhaps reaching new depths of geekiness here, but I added a relationship mapping feature to my local gaming Wiki. It shows how nodes link to one another; here’s Reese Beulay as a collection of boxes and lines.

This is actually pretty useful for visualizing how characters relate to one another. I’m going to play around with using it to do relationship maps for new campaigns, too.

There’s probably some clever way to use this to visualize blog connections, but I’m not sure that it wouldn’t just degrade into a black hole. Maybe I’ll play with it sometime.

Monday Mashup #6: Huck Finn

August 25, 2003
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Today’s Monday Mashup inspiration is the classic Huckleberry Finn. It is perhaps the definitive American novel of juvenile delinquency, beating out Catcher in the Rye by a nose. (I added “American” above so no smarty-pants would say anything about Lord of the Flies. Hah.)

Huck, the quintessential youth, and Jim, the quintessential outsider, float down a river on a raft. They are not in control of their travels to any large degree, and they are willing to accept what comes as a gift from the gods. Adventures, in many ways, happen to them.

Sounds like the average adventuring party to me. Mashers, have at it!

Continue ReadingMonday Mashup #6: Huck Finn

WISH #61

August 23, 2003
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WISH 61 asks:

Come up with a character concept for one to three other gamers you know. System, genre, stats (if you even bother with stats) up to you. How did the gamer(s) influence the concept(s) you came up with? Would you play the character(s) you came up with yourself?

OK, that’s an awesome question.

So, let’s see. System will be Exalted, cause I’ve kind of been on an Exalted kick of late. And I will pick on the core members of my old group back in California, because I miss them.

Brad gets the old geezer who just Exalted. I think probably Dawn Caste. Brad has an old geezer with lots of skills concept who I’m not sure he’s ever gotten to play, so this seems like it’d be a fun twist. The Charms would have to be a smattering from all over, enhancing his years of knowledge, and then he’s got the kick butt Dawn Caste stuff going for him. Rejuvenated.

Carl gets an Eclipse Caste Exalted, because I like his charismatic NPCs but I don’t ever see him playing charismatic PCs. Or, rather, I don’t see him playing talkers, and I’d like to see it. Also, Exalted might just be big enough to encompass his ability to stretch the boundaries of plausibility. “Sure, you can pick up the warship and carry it overland.”

Gretchen gets a Night Caste who was raised by feral animals, and only really gained self-awareness when she Exalted, for old times sake. (It’s a canine concept and a weapon concept!) More seriously, I very much admire her portrayal of non-human characters, and I like the way she treats the seriousness of killing, and I think that concept would give her room to do interesting things in both fields.

I could play any of these three characters, but none of them are my style per se.

And then

August 21, 2003
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Absolutely awesome campaign concept, plus a bonus first session writeup. Man, I am beginning to yearn for some good pulp. Here’s the most brilliant gem out of all the brilliant gems:

The characters were all previous associates who had been in Paris just before the bombs were dropped. They don’t talk about what happened there, but as a result of it they all swore an oath — an oath which takes preference over loyalties, family and faith. Each of them can call on the others to help them with any situation once and once only. For the first time, one of them has invoked the oath.

This turned out to be a nice way of getting people together, and ensuring that they’d stay that way. We didn’t go into detail about what happened in Paris, just saying that they never talk about it, but the players could, and did, allude to it in play. I’m hoping that after a number of sessions there will have been enough hints that I can run a flashback scenario set there tying all the allusions together.

One of my favourite moments in the game came when someone said something like “It could be worse – we could be back in Paris.” and everyone nodded sagely and shuddered. “What happened in Paris?” asked one of the NPCs.

“WE DON’T TALK ABOUT PARIS!” chorussed the entire player group.

Elegant.

Folks talk

August 20, 2003
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I’m still braindead, despite any appearances to the contrary, but Jonathan Walton writes a mean campaign prospectus. I am not sure I’d want to play in it, but the prospectus makes me want to want to play in it, if you see what I mean.

Also, it has the best tag line ever, which I won’t ruin for you. Read to the bottom.

Monday Mashup #5: Fantastic Four

August 18, 2003
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Another Monday, another mashup. What’s the Wayback Machine got for us today, Sherman?

“Um, it’s something about ‘true believers,’ boss.”

Right! Time to mash up the Fantastic Four! The Fantastic Four are notable among superhero teams for a) being a family and b) being the most blatant example of Jack Kirby’s “use the elements as inspirations” rule ever. It’s kind of a difficult mashup in that the characters are key to the concept, so you’d almost need to use pregen PCs. Perhaps we’re talking convention games, here.

My mashup follows.

Continue ReadingMonday Mashup #5: Fantastic Four

WISH #60

August 16, 2003
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WISH 60 asks:

How do you use different frames of reference or mindsets in your games? In what ways do your characters or NPCs in games you GM think differently from the people around you? What sorts of things make them different (societal, mental, physical, etc.)? Do you feel that you’re successful in incorporating and showing the differences?

I was actually kind of taken aback by this question for a moment. Shifting mindsets is a really basic, low-level component of my gaming. I am, to borrow the r.g.frp.advocacy jargon, an immersive player. I don’t forget who I am — that path is not deeply healthy for me — but I like the experience of mentally filtering reactions through a different mindset.

My ideal roleplaying experience is for me, Bryant, to take in the descriptions of the GM and other players; to then filter that through a sort of perceptual level and translate it into what my character sees; and then to express the reaction in the character’s voice. I’m the one who defines the perceptions, and I construct the mental map from the perceptions to the character, which allows me to figure out the character’s responses without “being” the character.

Maybe that’s not immersive after all. It is in that the effect is the same, but the process doesn’t match what I hear people who call themselves immersive talking about.

In a way, come to think of it, it’s the flip side of the classic GM technique of describing with the characters in mind. When describing a threatening situation to a cowardly PC, you quietly play up the menace: “there are, I don’t know, you can’t count how many orcs.” When you’re describing the same thing to a paladin, you downplay it: “there are perhaps seven orcs, poorly equipped.” Same situation, no dictating what the players are feeling — but what they pick up on depends on who they are.

I do that for my PCs. I filter the descriptions of the world to match what I think their perceptions would be. In Rob’s UA game, if an NPC is talking about occult weirdness, Reese hears the stuff about ley lines and patterns because it fits into his worldview; I mentally screen out discussions of entropomancy because Reese really doesn’t get how it works.

Or, put a third way:

“blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah blah…”