Messages

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RPGs / Re: The Shadows of Eseren

« on: July 02, 2012, 12:13:09 PM »

Teleportation wouldn't be a problem, those things exist in the Witcher but they more often function as plot devices; players don't get access to "high magic".

What I'm most focused on would be the lethality; how gritty the combat and damage systems feel. There are two systems I've considered using: the World of Darkness and Song of Ice and Fire. World of Darkness has a very generalized system of damage. Song of Ice and Fire has an abstracted system where details about the kind of damage can easily be filled in. What I'm curious about with Shadows is, if my character is hurt, do I feel where and does it feel like I'm hurt?

Combat is rather deadly, with a condition track for damage taken and successive penalties. The rules don't incorporate hit locations, but that does keep things smoother and less complicated. You get 19 spots on the condition track before incapacitation, and damage is the difference between the attacker's skill roll and the defenders skill roll, plus damage bonus from the weapon, minus armor.

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RPGs / Re: The Shadows of Eseren

« on: July 02, 2012, 02:16:10 AM »

Cool. That is a nice looking book. I don't know if you are familiar with "The Witcher" game series or the novels it is based on, but I've been wanting to run a table top game based off of them for a long time and haven't quite found the right game system to do it in. Would Shadows of Esteren be a good potential system for that kind of game?

It would take some modification of the magic system, as I don't believe things like teleportation are possible, but a lot of the setting elements definitely fit. I never got a proper look at the rules for Feondas (not in the half of the book I proofread) but the general concept of them could definitely be adapted to things like the Striga.

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RPGs / Re: Eclipse Phase

« on: June 28, 2012, 02:05:21 AM »

Ah.  Thanks. Its hard keeping everything straight.   I am assuming if word got out that the PC owned/controled Know Evil then there would be a serious PC disaster? 

If it could be proven, it would basically be the end of the PC as a viable political entity. There would be witch hunts for those responsible, and for those who allowed it to happen.

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RPGs / The Shadows of Eseren

« on: June 25, 2012, 12:44:01 AM »

Last year I was engaged proofreading a localization of a French RPG called Les Ombres d'Esteren. It looks like it's finally ready for English release now, and I thought I'd share some details about it with you guys.

http://www.esteren.org/shadows_of_esteren/

I was actually pleasantly surprised at the production values of the final product. The art turned out to be really decent.

The Shadows of Esteren is a gritty fantasy horror RPG set between three major factions of civilization, each with their own way of warping reality, either the Demorthèn with their cultish magic, the Magientists with their science and factories that basically drain life from the land, or the dogmatic faith of the Temple. The cities are far from each other, and many of the roads infrequently traveled, largely because of unnatural creatures called Feondas who lurk in the wilderness.

To a degree, the Feondas can be fought with sword and bow and magic and faith, and it's very easy to die a hero when the mass up and maraud cities. Many of them however are far less straightforward, with more mysterious ways of overcoming human strength or senses.

Each of the three kingdoms on the peninsula of Tri-Kazel blames the others for the existence of the Feondas, and for a number of conspiracies and mysterious going's on besides. They're all about half right, too.

The biggest difficulty I can see in it is trying to justify the menagerie of character types that most play groups seem to want to put together in the face of how little the factions trust each other, but there's enough variation of roles within each of the factions to allow a faction specific party.

I thought it was an interesting take on the normal fantasy concepts, and overall an effective setting of fear and uncertainty that allowed for a decent horror game in the fantasy genre. Because of this, I thought it might be of interest to the RPPR crew in particular.

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RPGs / Re: Trying to plan my first EP module

« on: June 23, 2012, 01:34:48 AM »

First of all, how will the statues fight, exactly? Are they just little sharp metal men? Do they have access to some kind of beam weapons? What exactly triggered them?

Personally, I'd let the players go through all the effort of bugging the statues, make some rolls, take some meaningless notes, then have another group come in to steal the statues. Either while the PCs hide and the group examines the statues, or while a firefight blazes between the PCs and this group, one of the newcomers does something that triggers the statues (shoots it, touches it in a certain way, says the iktomi word written on the base, whatever) and it becomes a three way fight.

Now it turns out that some of these statues have already been distributed to the execs of whatever hypercorp, and further study confirms they could be a xenological X-threat. Firewall needs them removed.

Also, if your group is shooty, calling in an eraser squad is likely to take all the fun out of it for them, really. That should more be kept as an option if they get in over their heads, not as something they're expected to turn to.

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RPGs / Re: Eclipse Phase

« on: June 23, 2012, 01:17:17 AM »

None of my friends are really up for as high-concept a game as Eclipse Phase is (or much into the horror and gritty aspects of it either) so I've been relegated to play-by-post. I've still been impressed with how elegant and simple most of the game mechanics are, even more so with the blackjack system. It feels like it could be powergamed, but the setting provides a lot of reasons not to, and there's only so much of an edge you can get out of that with how universally deadly it is.

I really am looking forward to being able to GM it one day.