The first thing to do is to release Oddpool, an eight-page pocketmod that casts Liverpool as a ruined city for exploring.
But the battery on my laptop is dying so I must sign off for now. More tomorrow.
Monday, 31 August 2015
Eventually
In April I was working on a hack of Into The Odd - and I still am, it's just taking me longer than I thought it would. I had a busy time of things with work for a few months, and then my priorities shifted. Into The Oort is still coming along, but I have a couple of smaller projects that I want to do before then.
The first thing to do is to release Oddpool, an eight-page pocketmod that casts Liverpool as a ruined city for exploring.
Fingers crossed, last details to check and so on and so forth, I'll be releasing this on Friday! Which is very exciting. I'll be releasing it as a pay-what-you-want pdf download, and also looking at getting a small print run printed on 120gsm paper, home-made/-assembled and numbered or something - something a little fun. Over the next few days I'll say more about it - and maybe hint at another project I'm eager to start soon.
But the battery on my laptop is dying so I must sign off for now. More tomorrow.
The first thing to do is to release Oddpool, an eight-page pocketmod that casts Liverpool as a ruined city for exploring.
But the battery on my laptop is dying so I must sign off for now. More tomorrow.
Tuesday, 28 April 2015
Into The Oort: Hexes
Into The Oort is set in a region of space that is 50,000 astronomical units (AUs) from the Sun, way out where the comets that orbit the Solar System move in a vast shell across a huge region of space. What is an AU? An AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Which is vast. To reflect the incredible distances and emptiness of space, each hex is 10AU across. Approximately 1.5 billion kilometres. If you were moving at the speed of light it would take over an hour to cross a hex.
A hex is big.
As with other settings, a hex in the Oort has a quality to it. In another game it might be called the "terrain". Some are basically space, empty; some have dust clouds, some have a high gas concentration, some have cometary debris, some have rogue asteroids in them. With the distances involved, there is a good chance that there is a human settlement of some form somewhere in a hex; if not, there is a good chance that there is an old human settlement - something abandoned or lost or wrecked. And of course there are ships that are travelling here and there; the Oort Cloud is big but the people living there are not static.
Occupied settlements might have huge populaces - tens of thousands of people - or only have a few dozen, or even less. The Hub - the largest human settlement that anyone knows about - has far more people than anywhere else, and no-one knows quite how many people live there.
The region of the Oort Cloud 50,000AU has, from a back of an envelope calculation, on the order of 500 million hexes. If, on average, each hex has a thousand people in it (some have far more, some have far less) then this region of the Solar System might have 500 billion people living in it.
Variety and wonders and opportunities are everywhere...
A note: for the playtest campaign and ultimately a release of Into The Oort I am planning to populate a region of around 50 hexes around the Hub, along with tables for populating hexes with settlements, groups and people. I've shared an in-progress document for generating the basic outline of a human habitat before; if you haven't seen it you can get it here.
A hex is big.
As with other settings, a hex in the Oort has a quality to it. In another game it might be called the "terrain". Some are basically space, empty; some have dust clouds, some have a high gas concentration, some have cometary debris, some have rogue asteroids in them. With the distances involved, there is a good chance that there is a human settlement of some form somewhere in a hex; if not, there is a good chance that there is an old human settlement - something abandoned or lost or wrecked. And of course there are ships that are travelling here and there; the Oort Cloud is big but the people living there are not static.
Occupied settlements might have huge populaces - tens of thousands of people - or only have a few dozen, or even less. The Hub - the largest human settlement that anyone knows about - has far more people than anywhere else, and no-one knows quite how many people live there.
The region of the Oort Cloud 50,000AU has, from a back of an envelope calculation, on the order of 500 million hexes. If, on average, each hex has a thousand people in it (some have far more, some have far less) then this region of the Solar System might have 500 billion people living in it.
Variety and wonders and opportunities are everywhere...
A note: for the playtest campaign and ultimately a release of Into The Oort I am planning to populate a region of around 50 hexes around the Hub, along with tables for populating hexes with settlements, groups and people. I've shared an in-progress document for generating the basic outline of a human habitat before; if you haven't seen it you can get it here.
Sunday, 26 April 2015
Into The Oort: Ships 2
In Into The Oort, ships have three stats, just like player characters. They also reflect, sort-of, the features or attributes of the player stats (which at the moment have the same name as stats in Into The Odd, Strength, Dexterity, Willpower). The three stats in Oort for ships are currently:
I'm creating tables that generate the appearance of ships, but my impetus for doing so is for NPC ships to be generated quickly. Players could use some them though, but appearance could also be left to player-choice - so long as they can choose fast. As with Into The Odd, I aim for players to get playing ASAP. At the time of writing I'm constructing a table to give some details of the features of the ship - does it have something special like missiles, a cloaking device or a leaking engine coil? Or is it perhaps owned by someone else or a notorious past?
- HULL: the physical structure of the ship; the exterior, the interior, how spaceworthy it is, and so on. It is no indicator of size particularly, or speed - it is more about resilience.
- DRIVE: a measure of how fast a ship is and also how well it handles. It is used almost-directly to calculate transit times across large distances (a hex can be crossed in 20-DRIVE days by a ship), and over short distances it is needed to make difficult manoeuvres.
- SCAN: the sensors of the ship - whether those are heat-based, x-ray, optical wavelengths or radio transmissions. It is also a measure of how good those systems are for understanding what signals have been picked up.
- Roll under the SCAN stat when you are trying to look for something.
- Roll under the DRIVE score when there is a difficult comet debris trail to navigate.
- Roll less than your HULL when you're trying to maintain the ship in a difficult situation.
I'm creating tables that generate the appearance of ships, but my impetus for doing so is for NPC ships to be generated quickly. Players could use some them though, but appearance could also be left to player-choice - so long as they can choose fast. As with Into The Odd, I aim for players to get playing ASAP. At the time of writing I'm constructing a table to give some details of the features of the ship - does it have something special like missiles, a cloaking device or a leaking engine coil? Or is it perhaps owned by someone else or a notorious past?
Friday, 24 April 2015
Into The Oort: Ships
Chargen in Into The Odd is one of the fastest things I've seen for a game. 3d6, 3d6, 3d6 and a d6 and then mechanically it's done. Sure, you might want to make up some details of what your person looks like or talk about how they know the other players' characters, but after a brief flurry of rolling you're done.
I want the same thing for chargen in Into The Oort, but also for shipgen as well; a starting group of players has their own ship, which has three stats that are related to different mechanical aspects of the ship. Roll 3d6 for HULL, 3d6 for DRIVE and 3d6 for SCAN, along with a d6 for shield points. Shields are always on, as a kind of energy shield to deflect dust and particles. In a pinch they absorb and redistribute weapons fire; once they're overloaded damage is taken by ship systems, but it only takes a short break from combat before the shields are back online.
Some combination of highest/lowest stat and the d6 for shield points will index a table that gives some details on what else the ship has - type of weapons, armour, special systems, and so on. I'm looking at ways to make other aspects of shipgen as simple. I think that there are possibly three other aspects which could be done quickly, and I've tried something for them recently at my second playtest game.
I had a short table of six entries for each of three aspects: TYPE, CREW, CARGO. Players roll three d6 as a group, and then use each result to pick out what they want. 6s are generally better than 1s. So at the playtest I think they got 6, 6 and 1. They assigned the 6s to TYPE and CARGO and the 1 to CREW. For the purposes of the playtest this meant that they had a decommissioned warship, two valuable cargoes but a small cargo hold, and they only had a skeleton crew of two others.
I liked this, but it also seemed slightly at odds with the other mechanical setup. That may or may not be a bad thing. I liked the aspects of choice rather than totally random gen. The discussion at the table - "We want an ex-warship, but do we need a good crew? Would it better to have no cargo?" - was great, and didn't take long. I can see that it might take a different group more time deciding what ship they want. I'm not 100% sure about it yet, so it might change.
What do you think? Any questions? Maybe in the next post I'll say something about how the different main ship stats work, mechanically, in the game.
I want the same thing for chargen in Into The Oort, but also for shipgen as well; a starting group of players has their own ship, which has three stats that are related to different mechanical aspects of the ship. Roll 3d6 for HULL, 3d6 for DRIVE and 3d6 for SCAN, along with a d6 for shield points. Shields are always on, as a kind of energy shield to deflect dust and particles. In a pinch they absorb and redistribute weapons fire; once they're overloaded damage is taken by ship systems, but it only takes a short break from combat before the shields are back online.
Some combination of highest/lowest stat and the d6 for shield points will index a table that gives some details on what else the ship has - type of weapons, armour, special systems, and so on. I'm looking at ways to make other aspects of shipgen as simple. I think that there are possibly three other aspects which could be done quickly, and I've tried something for them recently at my second playtest game.
I had a short table of six entries for each of three aspects: TYPE, CREW, CARGO. Players roll three d6 as a group, and then use each result to pick out what they want. 6s are generally better than 1s. So at the playtest I think they got 6, 6 and 1. They assigned the 6s to TYPE and CARGO and the 1 to CREW. For the purposes of the playtest this meant that they had a decommissioned warship, two valuable cargoes but a small cargo hold, and they only had a skeleton crew of two others.
I liked this, but it also seemed slightly at odds with the other mechanical setup. That may or may not be a bad thing. I liked the aspects of choice rather than totally random gen. The discussion at the table - "We want an ex-warship, but do we need a good crew? Would it better to have no cargo?" - was great, and didn't take long. I can see that it might take a different group more time deciding what ship they want. I'm not 100% sure about it yet, so it might change.
What do you think? Any questions? Maybe in the next post I'll say something about how the different main ship stats work, mechanically, in the game.
Wednesday, 22 April 2015
Into The Oort: Start
Some time ago I was convinced that I wanted to run a game called Dogs In The Oort Cloud. I had this idea that there was something attractive about religious peacekeepers in a far future solar system, on the edge of interstellar space, going from asteroid to asteroid, helping to solve problems and mete out justice.
(There's a whole other post that I want to write some day soon about why DitV is such an attractive proposition for me, that for the faults I find in the game's mechanics I actually found it to be one of the best campaigns that I've had the pleasure of being able to run. But another day!)
Time and life intervened. Apart from one shots I've not run a game for ages, but I keep reading, keep noodling ideas, keep on talking nonsense with David over on A Gaming Podcast About Nothing. And then towards the end of last year Paolo Greco posts a link to a new thing he is publishing by some guy called Chris. The price is right, so I buy the pdf. I flick through it for ten minutes and email Paolo asking if I can upgrade to get the print version.
Into The Odd is fantastic for many reasons: the setting is imaginative and heavily themed (implicitly), but not described through page after page of flavour text. Everything about the setting you get from the various tables. Chargen can be done in a minute, and the mechanics for various resolutions are easy for beginners and familiar for more experienced hands. It's a game that anyone could be a party of playing.
And precisely because the game is so clear, so simple in mechanics, it popped into my head that it could be perfect for combining with my idea of the Oort Cloud as a setting. Gone are the religious peacekeepers (for now, although they're in the background as one possible group in the Oort Cloud) and hello to adventurers and explorers, traders and tyrants, anyone and everyone existing thousands of years from now at the edge of everything.
This has been my creative playground for the last few months; tables and setting things are coming together, and I took a step to start sharing some work-in-progress tables for various elements. I'm a big believer in tables as a useful aid or prompt for setting generation (inspiration providers), so while some of them have been difficult to put together so far, they've always been there for a clear reason for having them.
This is the first in a series of who-knows how many posts. It's a long time since I've posted on this blog (although until fairly recently I was doing a good job of maintaining a work blog) and I hope to update a few times per week as I talk about where Into The Oort is going - ultimately, I'm aiming at publishing it - but that's a little way off yet.
Thankfully not 50,000 astronomical units though.
(There's a whole other post that I want to write some day soon about why DitV is such an attractive proposition for me, that for the faults I find in the game's mechanics I actually found it to be one of the best campaigns that I've had the pleasure of being able to run. But another day!)
Time and life intervened. Apart from one shots I've not run a game for ages, but I keep reading, keep noodling ideas, keep on talking nonsense with David over on A Gaming Podcast About Nothing. And then towards the end of last year Paolo Greco posts a link to a new thing he is publishing by some guy called Chris. The price is right, so I buy the pdf. I flick through it for ten minutes and email Paolo asking if I can upgrade to get the print version.
Into The Odd is fantastic for many reasons: the setting is imaginative and heavily themed (implicitly), but not described through page after page of flavour text. Everything about the setting you get from the various tables. Chargen can be done in a minute, and the mechanics for various resolutions are easy for beginners and familiar for more experienced hands. It's a game that anyone could be a party of playing.
And precisely because the game is so clear, so simple in mechanics, it popped into my head that it could be perfect for combining with my idea of the Oort Cloud as a setting. Gone are the religious peacekeepers (for now, although they're in the background as one possible group in the Oort Cloud) and hello to adventurers and explorers, traders and tyrants, anyone and everyone existing thousands of years from now at the edge of everything.
This has been my creative playground for the last few months; tables and setting things are coming together, and I took a step to start sharing some work-in-progress tables for various elements. I'm a big believer in tables as a useful aid or prompt for setting generation (inspiration providers), so while some of them have been difficult to put together so far, they've always been there for a clear reason for having them.
This is the first in a series of who-knows how many posts. It's a long time since I've posted on this blog (although until fairly recently I was doing a good job of maintaining a work blog) and I hope to update a few times per week as I talk about where Into The Oort is going - ultimately, I'm aiming at publishing it - but that's a little way off yet.
Thankfully not 50,000 astronomical units though.
Friday, 29 August 2014
AP: Doom-Cave of the Crystal-Headed Children
Finally got a game in! noisms was visiting, Patrick was around and so was David W, so finally after many long months we sat down and played something.
The guys all knew that they were playing DCCHC, but hadn't read it. They rolled up new characters, two each (ending with a party of six, two fighters, two MUs, a cleric and a specialist) and then found themselves a little way out of the town of Rookwood (there was a steakhouse out of the window of the cafe we were playing in with the same name, and it sounded good). A series of women of all ages approached and *SPOILERS* (if you've not read or played DCCHC and don't want to spoil anything, then don't click through; I will try to refer to things as sensitively as possible to avoid spoiling, but cannot promise I won't miss something).
Click through!
The guys all knew that they were playing DCCHC, but hadn't read it. They rolled up new characters, two each (ending with a party of six, two fighters, two MUs, a cleric and a specialist) and then found themselves a little way out of the town of Rookwood (there was a steakhouse out of the window of the cafe we were playing in with the same name, and it sounded good). A series of women of all ages approached and *SPOILERS* (if you've not read or played DCCHC and don't want to spoil anything, then don't click through; I will try to refer to things as sensitively as possible to avoid spoiling, but cannot promise I won't miss something).
Click through!
Friday, 22 August 2014
In The Attic...
(Blame Patrick's past tables and the guy who came to do our plasterwork)
Apparently it helps the new plasterwork to dry out if we keep the attic hatch open. We didn't know it was open until we came home, and have to leave it until there are no more signs of drying on the walls. How long will that be? I have no idea.
Last night I looked up at it as I was going up to bed, and of course, even though I'm 33 years old, the thought that came to mind was "What if there's something up there?"
No insomnia from worry, but this morning it got me thinking...
What's in the attic?
1. Goblins
2. Ragamuffins
3. Zombies
4. Former owners of the house
5. Ratlings with strange rune-shaped teeth
6. Almost-invisible things, but you can see a big smile
Weirdly...
1. ...they talk like your parents...
2. ...they all wear a filthy rag with your name on...
3. ...they have no eyes...
4. ...they float above the ground...
5. ...they move slowly, silently and in a jerky stop-motion fashion...
6. ...they say that you're their "Mummy"...
...and...
1. ...they're constantly looking around as you try to talk to them.
2. ...they seem quite docile, but lick their lips constantly.
3. ...they're fiddling with something in their pockets.
4. ...they stare at you while saying "Mmhmm, yeah, yeah, mmhmm," to everything you say.
5. ...whenever you look away there is one more of them when you look back.
6. ...you're sure there was one more of them a few minutes ago when you started talking.
They ask you...
1. ...what the time is, and where you keep it...
2. ...if you have a cup of sugar they can borrow...
3. ...how long you were planning on staying...
4. ...if they can just talk to you for two minutes about the coming end of days...
5. ...where you keep your delicious younglings...
6. ...for those years back that you've so far wasted...
...but really what they want...
1. ...are as many teeth as they can carry.
2. ...are spouses.
3. ...is a nice big piece of bloody meat.
4. ...is your life, and they're studying you ready to take turns being you.
5. ...are friends. Will you be their friend?
6. ...is your heart.
They're not actively violent though, whatever they may seem. They tell you...
1. ...it's time for them to leave, this has been nice, you should do it again...
2. ...we can't go yet, we need one more, we need one more...
3. ...there is no escape...
4. ...they know your true name, and smile...
5. ...you'll never know love, even if you think you already do...
6. ...not to worry, there was nothing you could have done differently...
...and...
1. ...that's when they tear their masks off, and they all look like you (but dead).
2. ...they go, but you realise ten minutes later your wallet is gone. And so is the attic hatch.
3. ...everyone else who was in the house is gone, along with the things from the attic.
4. ...they go, but everyone else who was in the house looks at you oddly, head cocked, for the rest of your life.
5. ...they leave the way that they came, but when you go downstairs everyone is a stranger to you.
6. ...you realise that you're one of them, you always have been, and you follow them up into the attic.
OK, now I have worries.
Apparently it helps the new plasterwork to dry out if we keep the attic hatch open. We didn't know it was open until we came home, and have to leave it until there are no more signs of drying on the walls. How long will that be? I have no idea.
Last night I looked up at it as I was going up to bed, and of course, even though I'm 33 years old, the thought that came to mind was "What if there's something up there?"
No insomnia from worry, but this morning it got me thinking...
What's in the attic?
1. Goblins
2. Ragamuffins
3. Zombies
4. Former owners of the house
5. Ratlings with strange rune-shaped teeth
6. Almost-invisible things, but you can see a big smile
Weirdly...
1. ...they talk like your parents...
2. ...they all wear a filthy rag with your name on...
3. ...they have no eyes...
4. ...they float above the ground...
5. ...they move slowly, silently and in a jerky stop-motion fashion...
6. ...they say that you're their "Mummy"...
...and...
1. ...they're constantly looking around as you try to talk to them.
2. ...they seem quite docile, but lick their lips constantly.
3. ...they're fiddling with something in their pockets.
4. ...they stare at you while saying "Mmhmm, yeah, yeah, mmhmm," to everything you say.
5. ...whenever you look away there is one more of them when you look back.
6. ...you're sure there was one more of them a few minutes ago when you started talking.
They ask you...
1. ...what the time is, and where you keep it...
2. ...if you have a cup of sugar they can borrow...
3. ...how long you were planning on staying...
4. ...if they can just talk to you for two minutes about the coming end of days...
5. ...where you keep your delicious younglings...
6. ...for those years back that you've so far wasted...
...but really what they want...
1. ...are as many teeth as they can carry.
2. ...are spouses.
3. ...is a nice big piece of bloody meat.
4. ...is your life, and they're studying you ready to take turns being you.
5. ...are friends. Will you be their friend?
6. ...is your heart.
They're not actively violent though, whatever they may seem. They tell you...
1. ...it's time for them to leave, this has been nice, you should do it again...
2. ...we can't go yet, we need one more, we need one more...
3. ...there is no escape...
4. ...they know your true name, and smile...
5. ...you'll never know love, even if you think you already do...
6. ...not to worry, there was nothing you could have done differently...
...and...
1. ...that's when they tear their masks off, and they all look like you (but dead).
2. ...they go, but you realise ten minutes later your wallet is gone. And so is the attic hatch.
3. ...everyone else who was in the house is gone, along with the things from the attic.
4. ...they go, but everyone else who was in the house looks at you oddly, head cocked, for the rest of your life.
5. ...they leave the way that they came, but when you go downstairs everyone is a stranger to you.
6. ...you realise that you're one of them, you always have been, and you follow them up into the attic.
OK, now I have worries.
Wednesday, 13 August 2014
Spell: Pause
Found this in my Google Keep folder and thought it might be worth sharing; there is half a thought somewhere in my head that I have seen this already in an LotFP book - if I have, will someone put me out of my misery and let me know please?
On the one hand, this looks a little bit like a blanket way of halting magical effects. It did get me thinking though, that if a group with a few MUs spent a few rounds casting targeted spells at some great monster or something while a couple of Fighters/meat-shields held things back, there could be some tactical value - as well as a magical protection/deflection spell.
Of course, time has to catch up at some point...
Pause
Fourth Level Spell
Distance: A sphere of radius up to 30'/caster level (can be made smaller at MU discretion)
Duration: Caster's level in rounds
While this spell is in effect every spell subsequently cast by any Magic User or Cleric, and even any charge used in a rod, wand or other item, will be suspended. The caster must roll a d20 for each spell to determine the order that they resolve in after the Pause ends.
Spells in effect before Pause is cast are not effected (e.g., an invisible person is still invisible) and magic that is bound to a particular item or location still works (e.g., a flaming sword) so long as the power of that item was active before Pause was cast. Any power that must be activated is paused as well, unless the boundary of the spell is crossed, the power activated, and the boundary recrossed.
A spell "fired" from outside the boundary into the area may have unexpected effects (GM's discretion).
On the one hand, this looks a little bit like a blanket way of halting magical effects. It did get me thinking though, that if a group with a few MUs spent a few rounds casting targeted spells at some great monster or something while a couple of Fighters/meat-shields held things back, there could be some tactical value - as well as a magical protection/deflection spell.
Of course, time has to catch up at some point...
Pause
Fourth Level Spell
Distance: A sphere of radius up to 30'/caster level (can be made smaller at MU discretion)
Duration: Caster's level in rounds
While this spell is in effect every spell subsequently cast by any Magic User or Cleric, and even any charge used in a rod, wand or other item, will be suspended. The caster must roll a d20 for each spell to determine the order that they resolve in after the Pause ends.
Spells in effect before Pause is cast are not effected (e.g., an invisible person is still invisible) and magic that is bound to a particular item or location still works (e.g., a flaming sword) so long as the power of that item was active before Pause was cast. Any power that must be activated is paused as well, unless the boundary of the spell is crossed, the power activated, and the boundary recrossed.
A spell "fired" from outside the boundary into the area may have unexpected effects (GM's discretion).
Monday, 11 August 2014
Game Idea: A Year Of Festivals and Special Dates
A few days ago I spotted a small hardcover address book (the kind with A to Z running down the edge of pages and little bits cut out etc) for 68p in the supermarket. I guess it was reduced to that price because no-one has these anymore, all your numbers are in your phone and people don't send letters - at least, that's what the news says.
But anyway, I picked it up because I thought "Hmm, for things like my various LotFP games I could come up with a book of NPCs..." The idea being that I wouldn't just default to random tables as I typically do, but I would have a book of people. Maybe I would take one randomly, maybe if a player says "Do we know any journalists?" I could think Ah-ha! and look up Reg Cutter, the sleazy journo for the Wetham Herald... It might be fun.
Today I spotted a marked down diary. I didn't buy it because it was a pretty poor looking little thing, but afterwards it got me thinking: there are always events and festivals and special days in cities. When you add in religions and organisations then there are feast days and observances and so on and so forth. There is always something happening in the background.
So: how about a book with 365 days of festivals listed? Some religious, some street things, some business, some cultural. Potentially adding nothing more than a little flavour ("On 9th December, watch out as children run through the streets with strings and ribbons to try and create a trap for Santa!") or maybe having mechanical effects ("17th July is the god Honarius summer feast day; Honarius is the god of winter and daggers, and those who make an offering before sunrise in his name will find that their short blades strike cold and true until sunset (+1 to hit for daggers, on a 3 or 4 re-roll as the blade freezes the wound)").
Perhaps this is something else to add to my Big List O' RPG Projects... At the minute it is just a little idea.
But anyway, I picked it up because I thought "Hmm, for things like my various LotFP games I could come up with a book of NPCs..." The idea being that I wouldn't just default to random tables as I typically do, but I would have a book of people. Maybe I would take one randomly, maybe if a player says "Do we know any journalists?" I could think Ah-ha! and look up Reg Cutter, the sleazy journo for the Wetham Herald... It might be fun.
Today I spotted a marked down diary. I didn't buy it because it was a pretty poor looking little thing, but afterwards it got me thinking: there are always events and festivals and special days in cities. When you add in religions and organisations then there are feast days and observances and so on and so forth. There is always something happening in the background.
So: how about a book with 365 days of festivals listed? Some religious, some street things, some business, some cultural. Potentially adding nothing more than a little flavour ("On 9th December, watch out as children run through the streets with strings and ribbons to try and create a trap for Santa!") or maybe having mechanical effects ("17th July is the god Honarius summer feast day; Honarius is the god of winter and daggers, and those who make an offering before sunrise in his name will find that their short blades strike cold and true until sunset (+1 to hit for daggers, on a 3 or 4 re-roll as the blade freezes the wound)").
Perhaps this is something else to add to my Big List O' RPG Projects... At the minute it is just a little idea.
Sunday, 3 August 2014
Ersatz Recollection
A few nights ago, unbidden, a situation from the first game that I played - a game of Apocalypse World that Patrick ran and noisms played too - came to mind, but I was pretty tired so the strangeness of the memory didn't hit me until the morning. I realised that the memory I had was that of my character, Chaplain the Gunlugger - it wasn't my memory.
But as you see from how I just described it, I used the description of Chaplain: I don't remember the table, I remember the game. I remember the end of the exchange, because we had to step back from the game to resolve it (our understanding of the mechanics at the time meant that neither of us were backing down). I remembered being the character, remembered slamming someone against a wall - could see the wall, could see the ruined hospital - and it was only with effort that I remembered the conversation around the table.
Thinking about this made me realise that more and more I remember the fiction/game rather than the table environment. Is this normal? I have no idea. What I find strange is that it's only just dawned on me in the last few days that this is how I (mostly) remember games.
noisms' Hocus character, Trout, wanted to try and use his affinity for the Weird to control some strange machine that was probably channelling the dead and zombies and all kinds of crazy insane stuff in the game. (trust me, this made sense at the table) This was a tremendously bad idea, as we were already freaked out, in a weird space in a ruined hospital - where someone had hacked an MRI machine into a ghost controller or something. Trout thought that he could get the ghosts or spirits in his control.
My/Chaplain's reaction was to roll +Hard, grab Trout and slam him against the wall "Are you crazy, you can't do that!" Trout tried to kick me in the balls and escape but I wouldn't let him have it. I think we had to back down in the end, because things were just spiralling out of control - it was possible that Chaplain was a hair's breadth from knocking Trout out or killing him.
My/Chaplain's reaction was to roll +Hard, grab Trout and slam him against the wall "Are you crazy, you can't do that!" Trout tried to kick me in the balls and escape but I wouldn't let him have it. I think we had to back down in the end, because things were just spiralling out of control - it was possible that Chaplain was a hair's breadth from knocking Trout out or killing him.
But as you see from how I just described it, I used the description of Chaplain: I don't remember the table, I remember the game. I remember the end of the exchange, because we had to step back from the game to resolve it (our understanding of the mechanics at the time meant that neither of us were backing down). I remembered being the character, remembered slamming someone against a wall - could see the wall, could see the ruined hospital - and it was only with effort that I remembered the conversation around the table.
Thinking about this made me realise that more and more I remember the fiction/game rather than the table environment. Is this normal? I have no idea. What I find strange is that it's only just dawned on me in the last few days that this is how I (mostly) remember games.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)