Day Thirty: Jiangshi: Blood In The Banquet Hall

 Sometimes the past haunts you, and sometimes the past literally haunts you!

Jiangshi is a TTRPG about Chinese immigrants in the 1920s who are run a family restaurant by day and fight hopping vampires by night! The book goes into lots of detail about Chinese immigrants, Chinatowns in different American cities, and Chinese restaurants. It inspired me to do some research about Chinese immigrants here in New Zealand too, which I never got around to using. Things are getting better, but there's still a lot of culture shock and racism to be faced. As well as vampires! The game is divided into a day and night phase. During the day, the players have to complete tasks to keep the restaurant running, and at night they have to fight the vampires. As stress accumulates, characters lose access to their abilities until it's managed.

Character Creation: One of my favourite parts of character creation comes right at the beginning. Characters must decide what generation of immigrant they are, what their role in the family is, and their language skills. Characters have 14 points to spend on language, putting 0-3 points in Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing - once for Chinese, and then again for English. This right here does so much to convey the immigrant experience. You can be very capable at Chinese, but extremely poor at English. You could have excellent English skills, at the expense of your native language. Or you could be sub-par at both. It's pretty tough! I made my character Hung Ah-Ming, he's a bit of a wheeler-dealer. Since he's first generation I've given him good oral Cantonese and average literacy; on the other hand, he has average English listening skills, but he's poor at speaking and reading, and can't write in English at all.

Beyond that, characters have seven other abilities, all of which can be overwritten to complete tasks or as you have bad dreams. Ah-Ming has his wok which he's brought over with him from Guangdong, and he's skilled at Cooking and Negotiate. He's an Entrepeneur, and a bit of a poet - I imagine this as more of a good turn of phrase than literally writing poetry. His heirloom is a jade bracelet from his grandfather, and his hopes and dreams are that he can start a family and start a successful restaurant that he'll be able to pass down to his children.

I hope the jiangshi don't get him!

Final Thoughts: This is a very niche game, but it's a fascinating niche; it puts you in someone else's shoes, and it prompted me to learn more about my own country's history. For that alone it's a wonderful game. I actually have a friend who'd really like to play this, so fingers crossed, maybe one day I'll get it to the table!

Day Twenty-Nine: Nobilis

Some books you just know are something special when you hold them. There's something beyond beauty, beyond dreams, about them. Nobilis is one of those books.

Nobilis is a game about being a Sovereign Power, a sort of demigod personification of some aspect of existence. It could be trees, or laughter, or wistfulness, or anything else. Your characters wield almost unfathomable power. You belong to the Mythic Earth, the truer reality that lies behind the Prosaic Earth in which humans live. Within it, you fashion your Chancel, your personal demesne.  You can also imbue an aspect of your power in Anchors, mortal servitors. Of course, there's always bigger fish out there, like the Imperator who imbued you with your Domain, or Lord Entropy who rules all the Nobilis. Amongst his decrees is one that states that no Nobilis is allowed to love another being. Worse still, there are things from outside reality trying to get in, the Excrucians, and so you must also fight to withstand them.

Nobilis has no dice or any other randomizers. Characters have Attributes, which give them a considerable amount of power, and Miracle Points, which let them go beyond that already formidable power. Contests are won by whoever is more powerful, or more willing and capable to invest resources in them. 

Also, it's worth saying that this book, the 2nd Edition, was phenomenal for the time it was produced. There's big splashy black and white art pages. There's little sidebars with story snippets that elaborate on what is being said. It's a very cool book. It won the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming in 2003.

Character Creation: One more time, my wife Hiria joined me for character creation, because she's always been very interested in Nobilis. She decided to make Justin, the Nobilis of the Unadulterated Now - inspired by our children and how fully they can live in the moment, and by a story of a Taylor Swift concert where fans were so present that they couldn't remember it afterwards.

Nobilis is a points-buy system, and you will not have enough points to go around! There are four Attributes: Aspect (your corporal abilities), Domain (your command over your estate), Realm (your personal demesne) and Spirit (your ineffable nature, which also affects your use of ritual). Justin has only one level of Aspect, making them physically and mentally equivalent to a minor metahuman. Three levels of Domain gives Justin a deep and powerful control over the concept of 'the unadulterated now.' Living so deeply in the moment, Justin does not have a Chancel, so there's no points in Realm. Finally, Justin's unadulterated nature means he has four points in Spirit. Justin has five Miracle Points for each attribute, except Domain, where we purchase another two for a total of seven - he can use these to temporarily perform more powerful miracles than he would normally be capable of achieving.

Gifts are special powers belonging to each Nobilis. There's a guide on how to create your own powers, but we liked the look of one of the example ones - Perfect Timing. With the lower level of this, now is always the right time. (With the advanced version of this, Justin could affect the rules of temporal causality!) We also have Handicaps, which limit Justin's abilities. We took Disabled on Justin's Aspect - because he lives in the now, he has extremely limited long-term memory. He also takes Manifestation - Justin is unable to affect those who are diametrically opposed to him. Those who don't live in the now and are long-term schemers are immune to his abilities.

Next, we pick our Bonds and Anchors. All characters have 20 points of Bonds to distribute, which represent the things they care about. Hiria felt that Justin's Bonds would be constantly shifting, so we didn't bother to record those. We also are able to pick five Anchors, mortals who are tethered to our power and through whom we can act. I imagine that these five are also literally anchors for Justin, stopping his mind from completely vanishing into 'now-ness' - what long-term memory he has comes vicariously from them.

Finally, we pick our Design. Nobilis has a highly developed language of flowers. (The GM is called the Hollyhock God, because hollyhock represents vanity and ambition.) Looking through the associated symbolism, Justin's design would be a fir flower, closed, with a double row of petals, on a crescent moon and dark blue background. Beautiful.

Final Thoughts: Beautiful and unique. I'd love to play Nobilis one day, though I think it would need a very special group to run it.

Day Twenty-Eight: Dialect

 This is one of the most beautiful and most unique games in my collection.

Dialect is about an isolated community. You tell the story of the community, but more than that you tell the story of the language that you create. When the isolation ends, the language is lost, but maybe some aspects of it remain. There are lots of examples in the core book for different communities, such as the first colony on Mars. There's also cards that you use that give you prompts for the development of your language. 

Character Creation: Character creation is secondary to developing your community. Your Isolation consists of three Aspects. Two are given for you, with prompts; the last is a free choice. I looked at the Isolations and decided I liked the look for Solar Slums 2081. Global warming and the destruction of the ozone layer means that humanity has moved into corporate-owned biospheres. Those who stay outside perish. But we are a slum-dwelling gang that remains in the old metropolitan area because we don't want to sell out to the corporations.

The three aspects are:

ARTIFICIAL SHADE: We live underground or in the bottom of abandoned high-rises. We use the subway system tunnels to move around, or we have some scavenged above-ground tunnels which link different buildings.

SLUM SAVVY: We scavenge for valuable scraps, which we trade in to the biodomes for resources, especially food. Some people think this feels like selling out.

WHAT WE BELIEVE IN: This was my free-choice one. With no government and no corporate culture, we're reclaiming old cultural practices and values systems. Old religions are making a revival. We're practicing 'neo-matauranga Māori.'

Next, you draw three character cards, pick one you like, and answer the questions on it. I saw the Zealot, and liked the look of it because it links to the 'what we believe in' aspect.

The Zealot: There is a right way for the Isolation to live. You know what that way is. You will convince the others. People talk to you about your followers.

I pick one aspect which I take much too far. Obviously, it's 'What We Believe In.'

I'm named Hone Apirana, but my assumed name is Te Atua Wera, the Fiery God (which was the name of a Ngāpuhi tohunga.) I'm a tohunga ahurewa, a religious leader. I approve of the artificial shade because it's a necessity, and I explain it in terms of tapu and noa (restricted/sacred and unrestricted/mundane). I hate how we are Slum Savvy and push for hard-line independence and self-sufficiency. I'm also the main religious leader of our Isolation, I'm strongly in favour of the What We Believe In aspect and I have a lot of influence over people spiritually.

And that's my character. 

Final Thoughts: Beautiful and unique, this game gets you thinking about languages. It even has a whole section in it about action that you can take in the real world once you've played the game. I think you'd need the right group to play it, but you'd have a really amazing and unique experience. Well worth checking out.

Day Twenty-Seven: Castle Falkenstein

Every time I pick up Castle Falkenstein, I love it a little bit more! 

Castle Falkenstein (written by Mike Pondsmith in 1994) purports to be the diaries and notes of Tom Olam, a game designer who vanished years earlier. The first half of the core rulebook is the story of how he was magically kidnapped to an alternate-reality 19th century. He has various adventures as he restores the true Prince to the throne of Bayern, fights the nefarious agents of Otto Von Bismarck, woos a beautiful adventuress, and saves New Europa from Prussian conquest. There are also frequent digressions which explore aspects of the world. Normally I'm not a huge fan of fiction in game texts, but this is very charming and serves as a very good example of play. This section is also fully in colour, in a time when this was not commonplace, so it was quite lush!

The second half of the book is also in character, and it's Tom saying how he invented an RPG for his new 19th Century friends as a parlor game. As a result it's a bit different from traditional RPGs. Dice are considered vulgar, so it uses a regular deck of playing cards instead. Abilities are descriptive rather than numerical, which feels more natural - so you can be an Extraordinary Fighter, and you can play a card to temporarily do better than you usually could. There are no character sheets, because data entry forms aren't a thing yet, so instead you have a character journal. This is why the first half of the book being a story was so appropriate! I also love that there's a note saying, "If you're nervous about journalling because you're a bad writer, so were most 19th century diarists and it didn't stop them!" And then there's special rules for magic, sword duels, inventing crazy devices.

I also love the setting. It's a very early steampunk fantasy in a world where everything is a bit better brighter and happier than our world. Unlike a lot of steampunk, it focuses on Bayern rather than Britain, and it's a lot more romantic and swashbuckling. Also there's magic, fairies, dragons, dwarves, Sherlock Holmes, Emperor Norton I of the Bear Flag Republic, Pushmi-Pullyus, the Nautilus and Captain Nemo, and all sorts of other fun. For years I've wanted to write up New Zealand, where I'm from, for Castle Falkenstein - a New Zealand where history went better and indigenous rights were respected. 

Character Creation: So, so easy. There's a list of 29 different character archetypes, with more in supplements. Pick one of them - or don't! They're just suggestions with a few skills that might be useful, some possessions you might have and some ideas for the sort of things you might write in your journal. I decided to roll for which template I'd use and got an Anarchist. Interesting! But there's something very Suzie Izzard about going up to someone and saying, "Hello, I'm an anarchist!" I felt like I'd need a cover identity, so I rolled again and got a Dashing Hussar. Perfect! 

I need to pick one skill I'm Great at and four I'm Good at, as well as one at which I'm Poor. As it happens, there's five recommended skills between Dashing Hussar and Anarchist, one repeating. So I'm Great at Marksmanship and Good at Athletics, Charisma, Education and Fencing. Looking at the other skills, I decided to be Poor at Sorcery. No sixth sense or déjà vu for me!

And apart from that, there's a whole list of questions to answer, including such excellent genre-appropriate choices as "Who is your Nemesis?" But I'll answer them in the appropriate format, along with extra capitalization for emphasis. No promises about the prose style, but then that's rather the point! In the diary entry below, you'll find answers to all the character generation questions, as well as all my skills, which I underlined for clarity.

Image: Hussar of the Magdeburg Hussar Commando (1763, drawing from Richard Knötel, Uniformenkunde, 1893.) Sourced from Wikipedia.

I am driven, in this year of Our Lord 18--, to put pen to Paper so that I may address some of the peculiar Circumstances that have befallen my life. My name is Captain Oskar von Auerbach, and it was my honour to be a dashing member of the 117th Hussars of Bayern. However, my Troubles began when I was drawn to the Philosophy of Marx, and secretly aspired to Anarchy, and to topple the tyrants of Europa so that the Working Man may rise, all in the name of the Principle of Equality.

My upbringing was not an exceptional one, as I spent my Boyhood in my family's home on the outskirts of München. I was the youngest of five, from a Family renowned for its military service. Even as a boy I was renowned for my resolute and determined Nature, although I also suffered from the Vice of Obstinacy. When I grew to be a Man I defied my family's wishes and travelled to University, there gaining a Good Education. It was there that I met my sweet Angelika. It was She who first introduced me to Marx and opened my Mind to the Oppression of the Working Classes. Although I am now Bereft, I still treasure the last Letter which she sent me. 

Upon finishing my Studies, I found myself a Man at loose ends, and surrounded by friends who felt likewise. I have always possessed a Good Charisma. Those who knew me described me as Square-Jawed and Intense, with a healthy Physique, and a Serious and Dour Personality, even Gloomy. Some of my friends now meddled with spiritualism, but even as I tried it I discovered I was Poor at Magic. At this juncture I Yielded to the pressure of my family and joined the Army, swiftly earning my Commission. I became Good at Fencing and Athletics, and Great at Marksmanship. I cut a fine figure in my uniform, as did my trusted Friend Hans Ritter, who likewise joined with me. However, I retain a love for books and Scholarship, even as I detest Dishonesty, even that which men call 'Tact.' 

My unit served with Distinction during the Invasion of the dastardly Prussians, and my fellows became as Brothers to me. It was during the Fighting that I first crossed sabers with a Certain Hussar Captain of Prussia - of whom more later. My greatest Deed was my role in the Battle of Konigsberg, where we broke the Prussian invasion. 

Following the Battle, I received a Strange Letter from Angelika, and learnt that she had perished. Now I found myself Torn between serving my Prince and Country, and the Principles which had douibtless led to her Untimely Death. So I forewent further Promotion, which I had long sought, and begged leave to Uncover the Truth and maybe strike some Blow for the Revolution as well...

Final Thoughts: Love it. Castle Falkenstein is perfect. It's another one I've never played (how?! why?!) but I have finally tracked down all the books, and it's such a fantastic game in a fantastic world. Creating a character was a blast. This game is an unappreciated gem. It desperately wants a new edition, just to reintroduce it to the world.

Day Twenty-Six, Addendum: Fate Accelerated

 If you liked the sound of Fate Core but the rules are a bit long for you, why not try...

Fate Accelerated is the same game as Fate Core but a lot faster. It's 50 pages long instead of 300. The main change is that skills have been thrown out and replaced by Approaches, which ask how you solve things - do you fight Forcefully, or Carefully, or Quickly? Some actions will be tied into different approaches; others let you choose the approach as a way of adding colour. Stunts are simplified too - they're now either 'because I am ____ I get +2 when I do something in a particular way, with a particular circumstance' or 'because I am _____ I can do some narrative thing, once per session.'

Here's Mark Melville, the bombastic Bookworm, as a Fate Accelerated character! 

Day Twenty-Six: Fate Core

 

Fate Core is a generic RPG system published by Evil Hat. It seeks to emulate the shape of stories, rather than any sort of objective reality. Actions are performed by rolling four Fate Dice, which are d6s with two minuses, two pluses and two blank faces. This means that characters tend to be as competent as they should be, more or less. There are only four actions, which are all very abstracted: Overcome an obstacle, Create An Advantage to give yourself a bonus, Attack an enemy and Defend against an attack. But the most important part of the game are Aspects and Fate Points. Aspects are descriptive tags which are applied to everyone and everything thing, from the very literal ('on fire') to personality traits ('wouldn't hurt a fly') to events ('Count Von Blood wants me dead.') Characters can spend a Fate Point to invoke an aspect when it would be relevant, giving them a significant bonus to their action. Characters can also gain fate points by letting these aspects mess with them. The result is a character-driven game with powerful, competent protagonists whose qualities alternately empower them or trip them up. After becoming disenchanted with Dungeons & Dragons, my current game shifted to Fate Core, and I like it a whole lot more: it's a lot faster and a lot freer and a lot more story-driven. Also it has an excellent SRD and community resources!

Character Creation: I've made so many characters so far, but I haven't made a superhero yet! I'm definitely more of a Marvel fan, so my goal is someone low-powered who could have a team-up with Spider-Man or Ms Marvel. As a librarian, I decided to do a super-powered librarian. Introducing Mark Melville, a.k.a. the brilliant Bookworm! Mild-mannered Mark Melville comes from a poor working-class background. The library was always his refuge when growing up because it's free and welcoming to all. During a part-time shift at the library, it was attacked by the super-villain Book Burner! Mark risked his life to save the books. Trapped in the basement, he discovered the mystical Book of Thoth which chose him as its champion. Mark gained the ability to gain the skills of any book that he touched and was able to use it to stop Book Burner and save the day. Now he works three part-time jobs by day while also fighting to protect libraries and their users!

Mark gets five Aspects, which can alternately help him or trip him up. I gave him the high concept 'Superpowered Library Shelver.' I'd add the library's name to this, but I'm leaving it for a hypothetical game - imagine it's somewhere in the greater New York region, True Believer. His Trouble is 'Struggling to make ends meet' which I can imagine applying variously to Mark, his family, or the library itself. The next three aspects are meant to be chosen collaboratively with the other players as you weave their origin stories together. Since I don't have any other players, I went for some other superhero tropes. I put 'Chosen by the Book of Thoth' (the source of my powers, but it will totally have its own agenda), 'Secretly in love with Aster Achari' (the NB immigrant children's librarian, an ally or someone who might need to be saved) and 'Arch-Enemy of Book Burner.' I'm also imagining other villains called Censor, Manifesto, and Mr. Toad, but they'll show up down the line.

Next up, I get to pick a skill pyramid: one skill at +4, two at +3, three at +2 and one at +1. These are all relative to other superheroes: Mark is only Fair at fighting (residual memory from using his powers to learn martial arts) but that's still a lot better than that classic superhero punching bag, a street thug. I choose Will as his Great power, Empathy and Lore for Good, and so on. 

Next are Stunts, which are special moves. The game encourages you to invent your own, but there's also a whole lot of examples and to save time I've used them. The main one is 'I've Read About That', which gives me a big bonus if I spend a Fate point and have read a book. In this case, I'm asking the GM (me!) if that can be my super-power. I'm also taking Strength From Determination and Indomitable to go with that epic +4 Will. I think it's my real superpower, and it's why the Book of Thoth chose me.

Stress and Consequences come next - these are like my hit points. I get an extra box of physical stress for my Fair Physique, and two extra boxes of mental stress for my Great Will. 

Finally, there are Extras, which cost Fate Points and act as permanent power ups. A superpower would usually be an Aspect. Since mine is sort of already included under 'I've Read About That!' I'm using mine as an extra aspect with a short description of how it works and how it can backfire. I figure with it being more of a clarification and having a built-in weakness, it's probably more like an extra Aspect than a fully-fledged Extra, so I haven't charged myself a Fate Point for it.

And that's Mark Melville, the battling Bookworm, done!

Final Thoughts: I really like Fate Core so far, and I really like what I've seen of Evil Hat as a company. I don't think I'll ever enjoy a generic system as much as I enjoy a really good bespoke system aimed at specifically emulating a particular thing, but of the generic systems I've seen - GURPS, TriStat dX, and I guess at this point the d20 System counts as well, though it really shouldn't be one - Fate Core is easily my favourite. 

Also, Bookworm might be my favourite character I've made for this, not counting system, and I look forward to doing something with him in the future!

Day Twenty-Five: Everway

 A little indie game from some company called Wizards of the Coast...

Back in 1995, before purchasing TSR and Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast was riding high on sales from Magic: The Gathering and decided to put out Everway, a beautiful and distinctly weird RPG by prolific designer Jonathan Tweet. It's recently had a 25th Anniversary edition, but this is based on the original set.

Everway is another early card-game driven RPG. It uses a 36 card Fortune Deck, a sort of custom oracle deck, for task resolution. While characters have statistics and powers and magic, these are descriptive rather than prescriptive. Challenges are resolved by drawing a card from the Fortune Deck and interpreting its upright or inverted meaning and how it applies to the task at hand. In addition, Everway has a series of 90 Fortune Cards, with more available in collectible packs. Each had fantasy art on one side (surprisingly diverse, especially for the 90s!), and a series of leading questions on the other side, which could be used as inspiration.

In Everway, players take the role of Spherewalkers, travelling between different fantastical worlds. At the centre of the spheres is the city of Everway, acting as a hub for Spherewalkers. It's like an early Planescape.

Character Creation: I found this a little challenging, because it's so open - you really need to know what you want. You start by selecting five Vision Cards to represent your character. I went through the deck and pulled out about ten cards that appealed, then shuffled them up and dealt myself five. I saw a lot of mythical animals and a lot of women, so I decided that my character is travelling the spheres to look for different amazing magical animals. One of the women looks like a knight or soldier, so I think my character also fights for the creatures she finds - a sort of fantastical Jane Goodall. 

Once I had my concept, I answered the questions. Everway characters have descriptive names, so I named my character Whisper. No particular reason why, I guess she's very soft-spoken. I selected one of seven motives for travelling - Beauty (of living creatures). I then went through the Fortune Deck and selected three cards for my Virtue, Fault and Fate. You could do this randomly, but the game encourages you to pick and gives ideas about what they might mean. I chose Spring for my Virtue (new growth) and Autumn, Reversed for my Fault (want). I wasn't sure for my Fate so I picked that one randomly and got The Phoenix - Rebirth vs. Destruction. I think Whisper might be torn between eco-tourism and eco-activism.

Finally, I have 20 points to distribute between four stats (Air, Earth, Fire and Water), Powers and Magic. Powers are determined by whether they're powerful, commonplace or versatile, and cost one point for each. The other stats have descriptors of roughly what each number means. So here's Whisper's character sheet. Whisper's Power is speaking to animals. Everyone also has a single 0-point power for free. Whisper can commune with a willing animal and gain an instantaneous impression of what life is like for that animal, one time only. I figure it's a cool roleplaying flavour ability, which ties into her eco-tourism vs. eco-warrior conflict. I thought about animal magic or an animal companion, but decided against it.

Final Thoughts: An interestingly weird system from such a big-name publisher. I feel like it could be a bit hard to run - character creation is so broad, the spheres can be anything you want, and the Fortune Deck can be hard to interpret sometimes (I'm trying to climb a rope and get 'renewal' - what does that mean?) That said, I'd love to give it a go one day. And the art cards are gorgeous; there's lots of nostalgia with all the old Magic: The Gathering artists like Amy Weber or Douglas Shuler. 

Day Twenty-Four: Fiasco

Last time I said after someone has played D&D I want them to play Call of Cthulhu next, to expand their ideas about what an RPG can be. Well, after that I want them to play Fiasco and discover just how different it can get.

Fiasco is an indy RPG by Jason Morningstar, inspired by films like Fargo where everything goes wrong. It won the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming in 2011. It's extremely accessible but it challenges so many basic assumptions about RPGs. There's no GM. There's no random conflict resolution. Characters are often deliberately unsympathetic, and are expected to fail, badly, at their goals. 

Before we go further, this is based on the first edition! I know that the second edition changes things around considerably by taking all the dice out of the game entirely and replacing them with cards, but since this is the one I own, it's what we're doing.

At the start of the game, players select a playset, which is a series of random tables tied to a particular setting - small-town America, or an Antarctic research station, or many other options. Four playbooks are given in the core book, and there's lots of other options readily available online. Players roll a lot of dice and then use them and the random charts to collaboratively build the relationships between characters and attach a need, object or location to each relationship. They then interpret what this all means. This is an immediate departure from traditional games because characters are never defined on their own terms: they only exist as this a network of relationships.

Play then takes place in two Acts, over a number of scenes between characters. In each scene, the player proposing the scene can either establish the scene - deciding who's in it but leaving its resolution up to the other players - or they can resolve it and decide whether it will end well or poorly for their character, in which case the other players decide the details of the scene. After each scene, that player is awarded a light die if it ended well, or a black die if it ended poorly. In the middle of the game, a Tilt is determined, the introduction of a chaotic element that will derail everyone's plans. In practice this means that the first half of the scenes establish the characters and their relationships, and the characters begin to scheme, then the tilt ruins everything and the second half of the scenes have the characters scrambling to achieve anything. Finally in the Aftermath, the players roll their dice and consult a table to find out how badly their character ends up, and then they narrate a short sequence of vignettes wrapping up their character's (undoubtedly awful) fate.

Character Creation: The first step is picking a Playlist. I chose 'Tales From Suburbia' which is in the core book. Then each player rolls 4 dice into the centre of the table. You take turns assigning a dice and then writing its meaning (defined by the playbook) on an index card situated between players. Everyone ends up with a Relationship with the player to either side of them, and either a Location, Need or Object associated with that Relationship. Since I only want to create one character for this blog, I decided to pre-roll four dice that I got to allocate. The other four I rolled randomly, and I used this to simulate other players making choices that affect my character.

The first relationship I have is Family, and it's a Sibling relationship. We have an Object, and it's an Unsavoury Object - the charred ashes of $100,000. Did I burn that, or did they?

The second relationship I have is Crime - we're Thieves of some sort. We have a Need, to get even with the local drug dealer. 

Now I get to define my character. I'm Hank Jones, and I'm a good working-class middle American. My baby sister Mary-Lou has recently come to me for help: she needs $100,000 to pay off the local drug dealer. We've managed to raise the money, but there was an accident and it's gone up in smoke! (Either Mary-Lou was negligent and burned her house down or - even more awful and therefore even better - some thugs came to do some property damage to threaten her, and in the process they unknowingly destroyed all the money I'd saved up. Mary-Lou is freaking out, and I don't have another $100,000, so my friend and I have come up with a brilliant plan for how to make the money - we're going to steal $100,000 from the drug dealer to pay him off with. That'll teach him! 

What could possibly go wrong?

Final Thoughts: Fiasco is brilliant. Go play it right now. 

Day Twenty, Addendum: Lasers & Feelings

On Day Twenty I statted up Lt. Aroha Pearl for Star Trek Adventures but I forgot the post-script! You see, Hiria and I actually made rules for Lt. Pearl in TWO systems. The first was the maximalist Star Trek Adventures, with all its characteristics and talents and values and skills and meta-currencies and what have you. The second was the minimalist Lasers and Feelings.

That's the whole game there. You can download a nicer version here: Lasers & Feelings by John Harper

Lasers & Feelings is a micro-game by John Harper, who also wrote Lady Blackbird (which I've played, and it's great) and Blades in the Dark (which I haven't played, but my friend tells me it's great too.) Characters have one stat only. All rolls are either Lasers (science, rationality) or Feelings (emotions, intuition. You want to roll under your number for Lasers, or over it for Feelings. If you roll equal, you get Laser Feelings and get to ask the GM a question. 

So here's Lt. Aroha Pearl for Lasers & Feelings:

Lt. Aroha Pearl

Intrepid Doctor

4

Goal: Advance medical science.

If Star Trek lookalikes aren't your thing, there's a whole lot of other games using this system too. Have a look and see what you can find! It's a great game for a one-off or a convention.

Day Twenty-Three: Call of Cthulhu

For everyone who's only ever played D&D, the next game I want them to play is Call of Cthulhu.

Call of Cthulhu is a horror RPG published by Chaosium (who we've seen before, and will see again, in this series!) from 1981 that's been in print continuously since then. It's the biggest and most successful game that's not related to Dungeons & Dragons. Players are investigators into weird eldritch horrors. This was one of the first non-D&D games that I got, too, and I remember feeling almost dazed by it: you can do that in a RPG? I remember seeing an article once about how these days it's easy to forget that at the time, Call of Cthulhu was an extremely 'indie' game - based on an at-the-time obscure writer, this is one of the first  games with rules for personality simulation (the sanity mechanic) in which combat is almost always a terrible idea and characters are inevitably doomed to either perish or go mad, rather than gain power and wealth. In addition, Call of Cthulhu is supported by some very, very excellent material, like the famous world-spanning adventure The Masks of Nyarlathotep. 

The core of the game is very simple. Characters have a number of skills, all expressed as a percentage. To successfully use that skill, they have to roll under the skill. With 7th Edition, there are now degrees of success, where rolling under 1/2 the skill or 1/5 the skill can achieve a higher level of success. Failed checks can be modified with Luck points (but at the cost of having less Luck available later on) or by Pushing the check - this lets you reroll, but with increased consequences for failure. These combine to make investigators extremely good at what they do. At the same time, they're only human: characters have extremely limited hit points and weapons or monsters can do a lot of damage. Even worse, character have to make Sanity checks when something awful happens, which can result in the players temporarily losing control of their characters to terror or even going insane. It's a nice simple system that's pretty intuitive and gets out of the way when you're playing the game.

I think modern design has evolved a lot from when Call of Cthulhu was created. At the same time, I have been involved with Chaosium's Cults of Chaos programme demoing Call of Cthulhu. Sometimes this was for people who'd only played Dungeons & Dragons before, and sometimes for people who hadn't played any TTRPG, or who had no idea what a TTRPG was. Everyone found it really quick and easy to take part, they found the rules simple and intuitive, the setting thematic and enjoyable, and generally had a blast. I've had a blast with every session that I've run too. This is a really, really good game.

Character Creation: Even though I hold Call of Cthulhu in very high esteem, I don't actually own the 7th Edition rulebook. I do find the few changes to the rules in 7th Edition to be a big improvement over earlier editions though! I've created this character using the Quickstart Rules, which you can find for free online or in the excellent Starter Set, which are a bit streamlined.

I'm a librarian in real life, and I think that a librarian would be an excellent protagonist for a Lovecraftian game, so I've created Ms. Jean Lafitte, a librarian from New Orleans who currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island. I started by allocating scores to my eight Characteristics. (These are rolled in the full game.) I gave her an excellent Willpower (you see things as a public librarian!) and good Intelligence and Education as well, as well as an above-average Strength for lugging all those books around. Her Size is her lowest characteristic, many librarians are fairly petite. These characteristics then determine the starting value for various secondary characteristics, like hit points and sanity.

Every character has an Occupation, with a number of associated skills. (It's also easy to make your own occupation - just pick the skills!) In the Quickstart, these are also allocated; in the full game, these are usually calculated based on the Investigator's Education characteristic. I made Jean excellent at Library Use, gave her a good Charm and Intimidate (Shhh!) and made her well-read in Anthropology and the Occult; she is, after all, going to be investigating Squamous Horrors down the line. Finally, you get some additional skill points to distribute, which are your investigator's personal interests. I like this differentiation of 'occupation' and 'personal interest' skills, because it's a simple way to think about what's going on inside a character's head. I gave Jean some personal interest points in Cooking, Listen, Natural World and Psychology. 

And that's it! Very easy.

 

Final Thoughts: Can you tell that I like Call of Cthulhu? I think it might have come across. It's a classic for a reason. I'm not actually a huge fan of Lovecraftian horror, which is the only reason I haven't played more of it. Great game, always fun, highly recommended if you haven't tried it. 

Day Twenty-Two: Laser Kittens

Kitties!

Today my daughter turned one! She loves cats, so we went to a cat café and had a wonderful time playing with all the kitties. In her honour, I decided to do Laser Kittens today. Originally I was going to leave this out since I did Magical Kitties Save The Day already, but they're very different games and anyway... kitties!

In Laser Kittens you play as a group of tiny tiny kittens at a foster home. There are big cats who show you what to do and humans and maybe other animals, and you have to learn how to be a cat. The biggest difficulty is learning how to use your laser. All cats have a laser (you may have seen their eyes charging if you looked at the right time) that can do magical effects. Tiny kittens have very little control over their eye lasers, which will fire at random times for random effects. All lasers rhyme with 'pew pew pew' and there's twenty different possible lasers, with effects ranging from the comical to the astronomical. Lasers are represented with a series of five face-down cards, which you gradually flip face up. You can trigger a laser early and flip all the cards, otherwise after every scene one card flips up, and when they're all up the laser triggers. You add up all the cards; black cards are positive, red cards are negative, and the total determines whether the effect will be positive or negative, and how great its magnitude will be. I'll give an example of what lasers might do with my character in a minute. 

Kittens go on adventures throughout the Knoll Street School For Wayward Kittens, adventures like 'go down the stairs and out the cat door.' When you're a tiny kitten with an out-of-control laser, everything is a huge adventure! This game also does not have a dedicated GM - players take turn being the Class Captain and running challenges. Task resolution involves playing a face-down card against a face-down card from the Class Captain and seeing whose is higher. At the end of the scene, the class captain awards cards from their hand to kittens who behaved in a mature manner and swaps them with cards in that kitten's laser. The game is designed for one-off play, but there's also options for turning it into a campaign that ends when the kittens find their Forever Home.

Character Creation: Very simple. I decided to name my kitten Strudel. I picked up a hand of five cards and checked the chart to see what my five possible lasers were. I decided to go with Crew Crew Crew, which makes me be the leader. If I my laser goes off negatively, I might have a Professor (older cat) stop me, or I might summon zombie kitten minions that also want to eat our brains. If it goes off positively, I might let the group automatically succeed at a plan I suggested, or even make a peace treaty with the rats that live in the walls! 

We also pick five random classes that we're studying. Two of them are rated at A, two at B and one at C. So I have Computer Sciences A and History A, Chemisty B and Electrical Engineering B, and finally Food Preparation C. (Other people should prepare my food for me!)

Finally, I pick a Lesson I want to learn. I think Strudel might be a bit bossy, and needs to learn to be less so. And, once I've drawn a little picture of a cat, that's it!

Final Thoughts: SUPER cute. The misfiring lasers are almost surreal, which is cool. This is a nifty little indie game. If you like cats, you should check it out.

Day Twenty-One: Hillfolk

Hillfolk is another RPG that I have never played, but it's one of the most useful I've ever used!

Created by Robin Laws (last seen in this blog with Feng Shui and Heroquest Glorantha), Hillfolk is meant to model prestige TV shows. According to Laws, there are generally two sorts of conflicts in fiction: procedural ones, against an external challenge, and dramatic ones, which are internal. RPGs are traditionally good at handling procedural challenges, but bad at dramatic challenges. Part of that is that in conflicts, characters often seek some sort of emotional response from people that they care about, which they may or may not receive. Furthermore, they may be pulled in multiple directions as different drives and emotions conflict within them. How often in a game do characters have opposing goals or ideals for their characters, and then dig in their heels rather than compromising or yielding to their opponent, because 'it's what my character would do'?

In Hillfolk, players are the members of a tribe in the Iron Age Levant. Or you can use one of the many, many other pitch ideas provided or come up with your own idea. Unlike other storytelling games, this one does use a GM, but as more of a moderator. Each session has the players taking turns to propose scenes with the other players. Players earn meta-currency for conceding the emotional stakes of the scene to the other player, which they can use to influence the story in turn. There are rules for procedural challenges, but these are quite perfunctory - the core of the game is about the dramatic relationships between the characters, and the characters' internal conflicts. In fact, Hillfolk says that you can just jettison the entire task-resolution system and use the game of your choice instead, and that's what we experimented with doing, and it worked well. In addition, concepts from Hillfolk like dramatic poles (a character's two conflicting values) have become a basic part of how we define characters now.

Character Creation: I wasn't feeling inspired by the Iron Age Levant, but I do have another world which features dramatic relationships between complex characters, and it's my home RPG world of Tirenia. Tirenia is like a fantastical version of the Italian Renaissance, except the princes in charge of the different city-states are different broods of dragons. I invented it about ten years ago for Dungeons & Dragons, and I've run a number of short campaigns in different systems in it, with each one changing the world and becoming part of a larger continuous narrative. 

Conte Galeotto d'Armonia is a background NPC who's cropped up a few times. He's a philosopher, scholar and magician in Fiumenze (inspired by Florence, but ruled by blue dragons.) He's secretly a humanist, which in Tirenia means he's working for the liberation of humanity from the tyranny of the dragons. However, he's also friends with Zaffiro 'il Magnifico' di Fisici, the dragon ruler of the city. So he has pretty conflicted loyalties. He seems like a good person to turn into a Hillfolk character!

The first thing I have to answer about him is what he desires. This isn't his goal, but the emotional need that underlies his desires. For Galeotto, I think it's admiration: he's an egotist and he wants people to think he's smart and noble and wonderful. His dramatic poles are the two warring forces inside him. I've put this as knowledge versus wisdom. 'Knowledge' in this case means being an intelligent, proud, learned and hypocritical ally of the dragons, doing magic research and being very rich. 'Wisdom' means being self-sacrificing, actually throwing in fully with the humanists, and humbling himself in order to work for the greater good. 

Next, we record all the other characters, their dramatic poles, and what we want, emotionally, from them. I decided to just do the two other main NPCs with whom Galeotto is connected. Zaffiro the blue dragon is Galeotto's patron, whose own dramatic poles are about power versus enlightenment - he's trying to decide if it's better for a prince to be loved or feared. Galeotto wants money from him, but more than that he wants respect and to be considered a peer. Meanwhile, Fra Salvatore is an itinerant firebrand preacher who's strongly anti-dragon. Galeotto wants absolution from him, to be pronounced a good man. Salvatore's own dramatic poles are following church orthodoxy versus his own personal integrity.

Finally we have the traditional RPG 'what are you good at'? There's seven different skills; you rank two as Strong, three at Middling and two at Weak. You also say your specialty in that skill, which could get you a bonus. Galeotto is Strong at Knowing and Making. He's middling at Enduring, Fighting and Talking. He's weak at Moving and Sneaking.

Final Thoughts: I don't know if I'll ever actually play Hillfolk. You really need a largish group of people who want to do a long-term campaign to get the most out of it, and I don't know how likely that is. However, as an inspiration for how to do drama in RPGs, Hillfolk is fantastic. It won the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming in 2014, and I think it was richly deserved. 

Day Twenty: Star Trek Adventures

Space! The final frontier... 

My wife and I are huge Star Trek fans: her since her childhood, watching Voyager with her father; me since watching Strange New Worlds a few years ago. It is thus inevitable that we'd jump on Star Trek: The Roleplaying Game! In this game, you take the roles of the senior crew of a Starfleet vessel, exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilisations. There's also options to be Klingons instead, or lower decks crewmembers, or on a space station or colony instead, if that floats your boat instead.

The game uses Modiphius' 2d20 system. Characters have six attributes, rated 7-12, and six disciplines, rated 0-5. Every check involves rolling 2d20 and trying to get one or more dice scoring under the total of a relevant attribute + discipline. Players can gain more dice by using meta-currencies or giving the GM another meta-currency, or can use another meta-currency to activate their Values to gain additional bonuses... there's a lot of meta-currencies! 

Character Creation: This involves a lifepath system, always a favourite of mine. We decided to make a character sheet for Lt. Aroha Pearl, a medical officer. My wife Hiria and I had so much fun making the protagonists of her romantasy for Thirsty Sword Lesbians that we decided to do it again: Aroha is the protagonist of Liliflora, a Trek-esque scifi short story that's being released soon.

You start by deciding your Species, which gives you some modifiers to your Attributes and access to exclusive Talents. Aroha Pearl is a human, so she's versatile and potentially good at teamwork and exploration. Her first value comes now: 'the drive for exploration' which is a very Human value. Next you choose your home planet - is it the homeworld, a colony, a spaceship or another species' world? Aroha grew up on Earth, and she gains further Attributes, Disciplines and her first Value. In the next step, we ask about Aroha's upbringing (agricultural / rural, since she grew up on a marae) and whether she followed or rebelled against that upbringing (she rebelled by going to join Starfleet, which is still a major source of conflict in Liliflora.) This is where she got her second value: 'tradition and innovation hand-in-hand.'

Next your character joins Starfleet! You decide on which track your character follows (Command, Operations or Science), gaining more experience as you go. The third value is earnt here: Aroha discovers the joys of diversity, expressed in the Vulcan philosophy 'infinite diversity in infinite combinations.' After your character graduates, you finally choose how long their career has been - are they fresh out of the Academy, do they have some experience under their belt, or are they a hardened veteran? This is also where your character has some life experiences occur to them, a few random adventures that have also shaped who they are today. Aroha is an experienced Science division, specializing in Medicine. She used her traditional skills at rongoa to help with a plague, after which she received a promotion, and she helped make first contact with a plant-based species. She's currently completing a research term there, and gains her final value: 'lifelong learner.' After some final tidying up, the character is done!

Final Thoughts: A very fun character creation system. It felt very Star Trek to check in with Aroha throughout her life and see how she's doing at each stage, and what life lessons she's learnt. It reminded me of the Star Trek Voyager novel Mosaic, about Captain Janeway's background. Lt. Pearl is also a wildly competent character, on a par with the greatest doctors in Starfleet. That's pretty cool - everyone in Starfleet should be incredibly capable, and it's a nice change from games (like Star Wars) where you start off much, much weaker than the main characters. This is another 'one day!' game: one day we will boldly go where (many) role-players have gone before...

You'll be able to find Liliflora on Headland Journal soon, here: https://headland.org.nz/

Day Nineteen: Lone Wolf Adventure Game

 YOU are Lone Wolf! (or some other character...)

Lone Wolf is a gamebook series by Joe Dever which was very, very influential to my RPG development. You play as Lone Wolf, the last of the Kai Lords (medieval Jedi Knights)  who have just been exterminated by the forces of evil. You, being the most inept member of the order, were out cutting firewood as a punishment when the attack happened and accidentally knocked yourself out on a tree branch trying to get back to help. Unlike other series, Lone Wolf featured the same character across a continuing twenty-book epic. By the time the series is done, you'll be an epic hero storming the Plane of Darkness with your holy sword, fighting your way through demons and demigods. In a continuation of the series, you then take the role of the most promising member of the renewed order. The books were out of print for years, but have recently been rereleased, with the very final two-part installment due later this year. You can also read most of the series online for free here: Project Aon: Main / Home (browse)

This game is an expansion of the gamebook rules, and is set before the gamebooks. Characters have only three statistics - Combat Skill, Endurance and Willpower. In addition, you have a number of different special abilities which you can use, and you gain a new one with every adventure. It uses a 'random number table' like the books, where you close your eyes and jab your pencil at a chart with numbers 0-9 distributed across it, or you can use a d10. Combat involves cross-referencing the difference between your Combat Skill and your opponent's on a grid with a random number to find out how much damage you both take each round. This game was released ten years ago but is out of print and completely unavailable now. I'm sure a new edition will come out one day with similar rules.

Character Creation: The starter box set contains rules for Kai Lords. There are additional classes in supplements, but since Kai Lords are the most iconic class, that's what I'm going to make. One nice feature is that the game has simple and advanced modes. Green boxes on the character sheet are only used in the advanced game. 

I decided to start by using the random name generator table to come up with a Kai name, and wound up with Dawn Oak. I imagine a solid, tough character, maybe with some wilderness or divine powers (the patron of the order, the god Kai, is the sun god.) I rolled my stats and was immediately disabused of this - I wound up with the best possible Combat Skill (19) and the worst possible Endurance (20). I also have an above-average Willpower, which can be used in the advanced rules to power different moves in combat.

There are ten Kai Disciplines, and a starting character gets to pick five of them. I went for ones that suited my name: Animal Kinship, Camoflage and Hunting for good 'outdoors' powers, and Healing and Mindshield for good 'hardy' powers with divine overtones. I picked my starting items from a list: a quarterstaff, a bow, a quiver with arrows, a lantern, a rope and some armour. 

Finally, for the advanced rules I can pick some Traits (additional, more generic special abilities) and Skills. I picked Diehard and Hardy, both of which give me additional Endurance Points. For my skills, I went for Might and Survival. I recorded my Kai's Favour points, used for rerolls - everyone has one, and I gain an additional one for my sub-par Endurance. And that's Dawn Oak.

Final Thoughts: I really like Lone Wolf! I find it hard to be objective, because it's something I've enjoyed for so long. I haven't kept up with it as much as I'd like - buying the books to New Zealand is pretty expensive due to postage - but it's a cool and nostalgic story and I'm looking forward to the final volumes when they come out!

Day Eighteen: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

 In a grim and perilous world, there is only...

For those who aren't aware of this well-established game: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is set in the Old World, in an Empire sort of like a more cartoonish version of the Holy Roman Empire. Religious fanaticism is everywhere, enemies abound on all sides, and you're a bunch of ordinary people just trying to get by and catch a break! I love Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and I've got an ongoing game (currently on hiatus) working through the epic Enemy Within campaign - we paused after finishing Death on the Reik. The mix of dark horror fantasy and British working-class comedy is absolutely perfect to me. I love how it doesn't matter if you succeed or fail at a role, as long as you don't mess up as badly as the other guy. I love how you're constantly scrambling to make a living and get by from day to day. I love how combat feels so incredibly dangerous that your best bet is to just avoid it at all costs. The extreme randomness that I can't stand in Dungeons & Dragons here feels like it's part of the world - yes, you're a hopeless schmuck and luck is more important than skill. Our Warhammer game has made me burst into laughter more than any other game I've run. It's just fantastic.

Character Creation: WFRP character creation rewards you if you rely on chance rather than choice, so I let the dice create my character for me! I wound up with a Human Flagellant - an itinerant religious fanatic with a flail who begs for alms and beats himself with a whip to promote holiness. He's got very good Ballistic Skill and Fellowship. I guess zealots need to be likeable if they want followers. He's got very poor Toughness and Initiative. Low Toughness could be a problem! I can add +5 to one of the career-relevant Characteristics, so I decided to put that in my Toughness to get it back to average human levels.

Everyone also gets random starting Talents, based on their species. I have Doomed - I get bonus experience if I die in a way that was foretold to me! There are websites which can provide random Dooms, and I got "a howling in the night"... guess I'm getting eaten by wolves? I'm also Suave, Very Resilient and Coolheaded, which improve my basic characteristics. I now have good Willpower and very good Fellowship, and my toughness goes up a bit more. Finally I'm ambidextrous. My Career gives me another talent of my choice. There's lots of fun options for hitting people with flails, but I found the other option funnier: I can read and write. Someone's got to write the placards for all the other flagellants saying that the end is nigh after all!

I get skills based on my Species and my Career. I put a +5 in all the Career skills, which is a prerequisite for advancing in my career from being just a Zealot to a fully-fledged Flagellant. The skill choices from being Human I put in things I think a Flagellant might like, or in my social skills, since apparently I'm quite a personable chap. 

From here it's just filling in some details. I get some starting Trappings: rags and a big flail. I also get the generic starting equipment, which includes clothes and a cloak. I'm starting to feel that my Flagellantism might be a bit performative - putting on a good show for the crowd! I put points into the two meta-currencies of Fate and Resilience, which I spread evenly. I come up with my short-term and long-term goals. I think my character would like to visit the great Temple of Sigmar in Altdorf, and that I'd like to settle down as a priest one day. Changing careers is very possible in Warhammer, but it will take a lot of experience points. I also rolled for my personal details and wound up a tiny 5 foot 1. 'Wee' Weither Lang sounds like a good name! 

Because I randomly rolled for my character, I have 120 experience to spend as well. I used 100 xp to get +4 to my Strength, and save the last 20. This pushes Weither closer to advancing in his career.

Closing Thoughts: A really fun, evocative and hilarious game. I wonder if Wee Weither Lang will make an appearance in my Warhammer game when we start up again.