Another Reading Week bites the dust...

[alexmegami]

Well, I spent the week mostly sleeping and roleplaying. It's been a good week, although now I'm going to be scrambling to do all those things that I forgot to do, like readings and such. (Really there were only a couple of things, I think... *cough* Like a play...)

But hopefully I have managed to catch up on all that sleep I needed, and hopefully this means I won't be dragging myself to school in the mornings.

I'll just need to crack down on doing homework/essays.

I can do that. *firm nod*

In other news, Pat playtested a new way to run D&D so that it was darker/more horrific. It worked pretty well, though he needed to up the magic effect a bit more - I was casting Animal Friendship so often that I probably should have gotten points of Autumn, and I definitely think Cody needed to be picking up a lot more Autumn himself. Though he had enough Winter that it was already creepifying enough...



The Mage Storyteller's Handbook (yes, a White Wolf OWoD product) gives an idea for Resonance that doesn't just run Static, Dynamic, and Entropic 0-5. Instead, you have three axes:

Summer-Winter (life/death)
Day-Night (good/evil)
Spring-Autumn (creativity/banality (stasis); in D&D terms, chaotic/lawful)

These are marked from "0" (true neutral) to 10 in either direction.

We then applied this to D&D magic and actions.

...basically, everyone starts at "True Neutral". This means you have to toss out traditional D&D alignments, including ones for paladins and other restricted classes. Magic, especially, affects the direction you sway in: magic seems to have a bit of a life of its own. That said, "evil" magic doesn't always have to be "death", nor does "good" have to be "life"; an "evil life" might be zombie-summoning, and a "good death" might be the corpse preservation spell, or some things out of the "Repose" cleric spell list. And so on.

And, basically, as you get higher on these lines, you start to go a little crazy. Your resonance becomes noticeable. For example, by the end, Cody's character had 3 Winter (death) - he was wearing the skull of a beast we'd killed to sleep, and he had dreams about killing, and people were starting to become edgy around him. (I mentioned to Pat that with the frequency he was casting Charm Person, he probably should have had a bit more Autumn than he did, but it wasn't a big deal - we were just playtesting, after all.)

I dropped to 2 Winter at one point, but by the end had managed to pull myself to a total of 0 Summer-Winter, 0 Day-Night, 1 Spring. Pretty good for a Ranger/Rogue.

The other thing was the introduction of the critical injury table. Basically, if you took more damage in a round than your Constitution total, Pat rolled to see whether or not there was a crippling side-effect. (I was the only one it happened to, sadly, and I only got "requires a Heal check before it will begin healing." The other options were crippled (i.e. sprained), which I think gave temporary attribute loss; loss of limb, which gave permanent attribute loss; and... can't remember the last.

Anyway, it was pretty interesting.

Comments

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

That does sound interesting, but like maybe the craziness effects need to be toned down a bit. Personally, I like playing altruistic characters in RPGs, and I wouldn't really like having them suffer heavy derangements from being just two or three out of 10 levels more "good" than the average.

[adagioweapon.livejournal.com]

Well, on that:

First off, most adventurers walk an even keel. They raid dungeons and loot corpses, but also save maidens and liberate townships. They're walking a fine line to keep from getting a bit crazy. Craziness in this setting is more of a defense mechanism than a problem: loot corpses, and your character starts to develop a need to do this in order to make their lives a little easier. (gold takes the sting out of murdering orcs).

Likewise, your character, who is altruistic, isn't that out there. A character who concentrates on their day/life is going to give most people the willies in the same way a really devout person preachifying would put off someone who's not incredibly religious. But they're put off by a giant cold hired hand, a sinister seeming warlord, or a law and order obsessed adept of magic. And you don't think that character's kind of crazy already? What posesses a person to give away their time, risk their lives for people they don't know? Might these people not have a little problem being selfless in a setting of selfishness?

The character starts finding themselves having trouble going back on their word, or constantly seeking out further oppurtunities to give of themselves. ( 1 - 2) It may not seem like an insanity that the character tries to see the goodness in everyone. (3-4) It starts to look like the character is cracking when they have trouble sleeping imagining the injustices of a cruel king every night. (5) When the Gods start sending the character more and more visions of people suffering, (6) and they can't sleep from crying all the time, (7) it's time to make the character take a vacation and a bit of me time. (Do some selfish stuff, like drink or have promiscuous sex, or whatever selfish release mechanism your character might have to reduce their good intentions.)

Basically, the game rewards people who don't adventure. But those people don't get shit done.

[safti]

That Con total < damage/round = possible detriment thing will become an issue when you get higher level. ;) But the rest sounds fun! I actually really like the spell thing.

[Sorry, a bit goobery right now.]

[gharbad.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I do agree that there's a problem there...
You're essentially saying that a character almost becomes unplayable at 7. What about 8,9,10? I mean, a character should become nigh unplayable at 10, not 7.

Is it just magic that alters alignment, or do regular actions do it as well? Is it more of a "magic does more" kind of scale?

Sounds kind of cool though.

[alexmegami]

Yeah, it will be, but that's really the point. First of all you have to fail your Fortitude save.

Let's use a Tarrasque. On average, with his best attack, a Tarrasque is hitting you for 35 damage (with a physical attack - I'm not sure if we were using this for magical attacks as well). That means you need to make a Fortitude save of 27. A Tarrasque is a level 20 beast, so let's assume you're a level 20 character. The worst off are the more nimble classes - Sorcerers, Wizards, Rogues and Bards (who are also far more likely to have abilities that allow them to evade that attack). They have a +6.
Assuming no positive Constitution modifier (unlikely, at such a high level, unless they have an AC through the roof to make up for their weak HP), they are unable to make this check. However, all the rest of the classes are able to make it on a 15 or higher.

Then, you have a 35% chance that the worst you'll have is needing a successful Heal check or magical healing. You have a 30% chance of it being mildly irritating - slower move speed, or mimicking a low-level spell (Fear, etc.). There is a 20% chance that it's a major issue (need to use offhand, finger amputated, that sort of thing). That leaves a 15% chance that something major happens - hand missing, permanent Strength loss, insanity or the like. It's a bad chance, but it's not a terrible chance.

To be fair, it does favor those with high Constitution, but Cody had a negative Constitution modifier and I only had a +1, and we were fine beyond the heal checks.

[alexmegami]

"Magic does more", but other things were affecting us too.

(Community account still logged in. Damnit.)

[alexmegami]

I think it sounds a little worse than it was - to be fair, Cody started wearing the skull before the little voice in his head started saying he couldn't sleep without it. He just developed a dependence on it. And dreaming about killing in a world where it was happening daily doesn't seem that out there.

(That was me before... community account still logged in. *sigh* Please ignore. ^_-;)

[safti]

Ooooooh, I thought you meant a straight Con check! Fort's much better. Also, nonmagical = less likely to nearly fucking die and then also have a hand burned off or whatever.

So, coolness all around, then. :)

[safti]

to be fair, Cody started wearing the skull before the little voice in his head started saying he couldn't sleep without it

. . .

You guys have been playing WAY TOO MUCH WoD.

Awesome. :D

[alexmegami]

I did skip over the Fort save in my original explanation, but that was because Pat was rolling it for us (in case he wanted effects to set in later).

Pat says a few things - first of all, yes, magical does count. (So I was wrong about that.)

But: first off, mages and magical beasts are half as likely to show up in this game as in a normal D&D game (as a function of a low-magic setting), so you are less likely to die from them. Two, some of the mage spells at high levels are likely to kill you even under the normal rules where 50 damage + failed Fort save = instant death. So, yes, high-level mages may very well kill you instantly.

However, you can't die from a critical wound - you might just wish you had. (I don't think, for example, the DM is just going to remove both your hands as punishment.) On the other hand, removal of left hand + bad knee + pockmarks from the smallpox that you barely survived + partial blindness from that crushing blow to your head are all things that an adventurer may very well have to deal with. On the other hand, they're also things that a couple of merits can bypass and magic can cure (if you can find it).

[alexmegami]

*grins* I think he set out wanting to play an evil character.

...to be fair, I Animal Frienship-ed two baby Howlers, so I can't say I was being very good myself. (Tiny little banshee serial killers with poisonous porcupine quills that love me? How is this bad? :D)

[adagioweapon.livejournal.com]

Magic is more likely to create resonance, as most spells have it.

Also, bear in mind that to get to 7 - 10 is damn hard, especially since you can reign yourself in (it's easier to lower numbers back to zero than it is to hit the extremes.

[cherryflavoured.livejournal.com]

hello...

i was doing some searches on google blog search about the program i'm in (advanced tv and film at sheridan) just to see if people had written about it. i saw you had an old entry about schools to go to and i have a fair bit of knowledge about some of the programs and schools you were interested. i went to western for a media, info and technoculture BA and have friends in the MA programs.

i don't know if you've made your decision as yo where you're going or what you're doing but if you ever want to know about film school, don't hesitate to ask because it's not like regular school at all.

[cherryflavoured.livejournal.com]

i must sound really intrusive but after reading some of your journal, i guess you went for the tv writing and producing program at humber? i went to that interview last year and it was goofy...it's not a very good program because for $7300 you don't get to touch a single peice of technology.

if you applied for something at sheridan...let me know because i'd love to give some insight as to how it really works. i was in your shoes exactly a year ago...i hope i don't come off as creepy...i just want to help out since i had no idea what i was getting into.

[alexmegami]

Thanks :) I actually did apply to Sheridan, but not for TV and Film - for Journalism. TV-wise, I've applied to Humber's TV Writing and Producing program. I'm not sure how like film school it would be.

[alexmegami]

To be honest, as an English major I care less about the technology and more about the writing aspects, which they seem to be focused on. So to me, it's not a huge deal that technology isn't involved much.