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Messages - Thesauradon

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16
With apologies to Tad, I've been editing this post for hours and don't want to get stuck in an infinite loop.

        Because I am a procrastinator, my journey into RPG design is intended to reform my habits. Thank you to the people in this community for making me a better person!
        I break my game design into the following three categories:

The Inspiration
        “That great poets imitate and improve, whereas small poets steal and spoil.” –W.H. Davenport Adams (To read how this quote has been stolen and spoiled: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/06/artists-steal/)

        I re-listen to GDW every month, and enough of Caleb’s work ethic has subconsciously stuck in my brain to make me start planning. Since the first episode I have plotted 8 different adventure scenarios; my general game design principles; and the design mandates for rewriting the Cthulhutech RPG, which is my group’s Palladium.
 (Remember the F.A.T.A.L. review? Here’s the spiritual successor http://tradwiki.foxxtrot.net/index.php/FATAL_%26_Friends:_B-C#CthulhuTech_.28by_Ettin.29)

        However, for my first attempt I want to imitate and improve upon the best material available, so I’m going to rip it straight from Caleb’s brain.
 
The Concept
        In Episode 85: We Three Games, Caleb pitches “sling stone”, described as “The Boys without the sophomoric cussing and sex jokes and absurd Irishness”. I want to write this game (Caleb-willing). A game about people, from the special operative badass to the societally-oppressed single mother, who are tired of putting up with superhumans. Superhumans fly in the face of Justice and forget the consequences of their actions as often as they forget their own history and allegiances. You want them gone. Are you going to kill them or can you destroy their reputation? Do you hope to capture them first? How do you crush an invincible being? Let’s find out.
        Before I write it, I am following the New Arcadia playbook for superhero games and running a campaign to test the conceits.

The Campaign
        When there’s trouble, you know they called. The Young Vanguard have trashed Marathon City time and again in the name of fighting crime. Safeguarded by city government sponsorship and the lax prosecution levied against heroes in training, the only restitution they ever have to provide is a handshake and a smile. That apartment block they threw the hijacked bus through gets patched up, but only because the international courts ruled that someone, the government or the Paragons, pays when beyond-a-reasonable-doubt heroism can be proved.
        A legal gray area exists between the black-and-white of heroic charity and villainous punitive damages. When the chameleon rhino-trashes your restaurant for a vegan protest or the star-spawn opens a gate above your house during necronomicon book club, that’s recreational power use and clearly not of world-saving significance. The government suggests private legal action and insurance won’t cover you if you don’t have overwhelming evidence and the right premiums paid. The Vanguard’s legal team? They will give ground if you could just see reason and sign this gag order. The institutions know whose fault it is: yours, for being at the wrong place, wrong time.
        You’ve lost life and limb to a gang of emotionally-fueled, mentally-unsound teenage demigods. You’re done with the proper channels. You have a like-minded support group and you will make them pay.

Thesauradon Presents:
“The Kids Aren’t Alright”

My goals, system choice, and challenges will be in the next post.

17
General Chaos / Re: Kickstarter: Cool Stuff
« on: January 15, 2014, 02:26:57 AM »
This project passes my initial quality check and sets off my optimism filter. I long for the product and the service.
Imagine: custom miniatures for our 5th edition/Eclipse phase campaigns today, home-printed miniatures for those same campaigns tomorrow! And it's a quantum leap in forward thinking to follow this product with a terrain-printing service. That I would buy into without a pitch, papercraft is a timesink of legendary scale.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/heroforge/customizable-3d-printed-tabletop-miniatures

18
RPGs / Re: Help Scare My Players! (D&D Horror Ideas)
« on: April 13, 2013, 03:56:39 PM »
massive chamber (undeground valley/rift) filled with THOUSANDS of monsters/undead/nasty things, walking on a sea of corpses. There's a giant monster too - a big ass thing too scary to fight. The PCs quickly realize they can become invisible to the creatures if they cover themselves in the white worms covering the corpses. The worms of course start to slowly eat and burrow inside the PCs - skill challenge to see how quickly they get across - the more failures they get the more healing surges they lose and status conditions they wrack up. 

Terrifying. If the psionic player succeeds a check to investigate it, I'll say that the room is a psychic attack created by the worms- the players see a person running across the room covered in them- to get the players to cover themselves. Any other players get no explanation.


I would like this better if it was a room filled with closed treasure chests all of which were mimics except one. The one non-mimic chest would have worthless items in it and a scroll explaining what mimics are.


That would just be rather cruel. For horror the scroll could explain that a mimic's attack carries a curse. The curse has no effect upon living beings but objects slowly begin to become self aware and eventually turn upon their owner. However, the curse does not always take hold: there is a fifty-fifty chance of it taking root.

Ideally do this at a time when the PCs can't easily leave the dungeon. They'll have to spend the rest of the delve waiting for their weapons and armor to turn against them; or they'll try to go without their cool stuff. Either way, they'll be more inclinded towards fear.

Awesome! The flavor text now reads:
Inside the chest on the table are a simple bronze axe, a pair of leather boots, a serrated ceremonial dagger, and a note. The note reads:
“This is the ‘quarantine’ chest. The mimic’s bite appears to be cursed: items affected become sentient. It bit my boots, and my boots later threw me into the bone pit. Not all items are affected, there seems to be a fifty-fifty chance. If you want to be safe, put the items they bit in the chest.”

Thank you All! I'll keep you posted when I run the game.

19
RPGs / Help Scare My Players! (D&D Horror Ideas)
« on: April 11, 2013, 01:40:23 AM »
Hello Forum members,
I am a long-time lurker looking for your creativity. Recently, a player in my D&D campaign (4th ed. Eberron) informed me that he felt my games were not “scary” when compared to a Wild Talents campaign he also plays. This may be his last mistake.

For the next session, I have made an homage to horrible monsters Ross and Caleb: we’ll be playing Dread (the Jenga-tower horror RPG) while the party explores a Know-Evil inspired “scare-by-numbers” map.
The party is raiding a Cult Compound dedicated to Khyber, who I’m running as Eberron’s Draconic Elder-Thing. This sect of the cult specializes in Summoning/Mutation.

I need your suggestions for weird/evil/unnerving things to fill the map with. If you have played Dread before, mechanics to go with said things would be greatly appreciated.

Things I have so far (suggestions and criticism welcomed)
1: A wooden coffin, standing upright. Inside is a dead Warforged with human hands and feet.
2: Thick white ropes hang from the ceiling. They are actually the tentacles of a Gelatinous Cube-Jellyfish. If pulled on, it will pounce.
Mechanics: Players must make a pull to escape the Jellycube. The Jellycube will block the door the player leaves through, requiring another pull to backtrack through the room.
3: A room filled with discarded, open treasure chests. If searched, one turns out to be a sleeping mimic. My players have never met a mimic.
4: A dark room, filled with potted plants. When entered, all players’ light sources are extinguished. With an active light source in the room, the potted plants open to reveal Venus Fly Trap teeth around a large single eye, and will track the player around the room.
Mechanics: Moving through the room in the dark requires two pulls from the Jenga tower. The player is told that if they relight their source, it will only require one pull.
5: Six obsidian pillars in a hexagon. If a player looks into any of the pillars, they find themselves stuck in the center of the room, while a shade forms from their reflection and leaves.
Mechanics: The player must make a pull to break free from the center of the room, then either make a second pull or lose their next turn to leave the room with their eyes closed. If the player chooses to lose their next turn, the shade will take actions/communicate with other players during their turns. The shade disappears when the player leaves the room.

So please, present your most ghoulish fantasy thoughts!

A side note on my players’ psychologies: One is absolutely terrified of jump scares and the atmosphere of horror films, one finds body horror totally unsettling, and one is power gamer- things that threaten his character create a metagaming-fueled fear.

20
General Chaos / Re: What Vidja games are you playing?
« on: April 04, 2013, 09:52:19 PM »
Keys Redeemed, Game session planned. Thank you Bidoof! Your generosity now supports my entertainment habit.

21
General Chaos / Re: RPPR Minecraft Thread
« on: December 04, 2011, 10:37:38 PM »
I am completely on board with developing a forest from under those hippy elves!
Also, my support to everyone who had property damaged.

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