#gurps pc

[i-rolled-a-zero]

So I DMed a GURPS game for my friends recently and it went..! Well!!

[white-weasel]

Realizing I could just run a GURPS campaign that’s set up with the same rules as the nonary game and it could feasibly work

[fantasyfantasygames]

Combo review: The Dark Room and Pitch-Black Time Machine

The Dark Room / Pitch-Black Time Machine, Rob Knight, 2016/2018

In 2016, Rob Knight released a thoughtful, investigative RPG entitled The Dark Room (TDR). In 2018 he released an extremely different game entitled Pitch-Black Time Machine (PBTM), using the exact same rules word-for-word. I figured I'd review both of them in one post.

In TDR each of your characters have walked into the titular room and found themselves with each other, despite entering the room in different years. When you exit the room, you're at one person's era. You try to resolve someone's issues (external and internal), and then walk back into the room and do it again in someone else's era. Once everyone's issues are solved, people can finally go back to their own eras. The mystery of the room's how and why is never resolved.

PBTM, on the other hand, is a party horror. Your inebriated characters cram themselves into a darkened closet on a combination of "seven minutes in heaven" and a phone booth stunt. When they tumble back out it's into a weirdly fractured universe where one of their issues has gone rampant, causing horrible trouble for everyone. Every time they confront one successfully, the world rearranges, until they finally end up in a world better than they left it and burn down the house with the closet. Tone-wise it's a mix of Buffy and Harold & Kumar.

There are three "layers" to the rules, and to the characters you build with them. The Issues layer deals with problems in the character's lives. It's the most innovative part of the system. Rather than just a description or a rating, Issues have mechanical hooks that let the GM generate opposition dice pools and relevant NPCs. They also provide the PCs with tainted bonuses, building negative effects even as they provide dice Success doesn't erase Issues, but instead transmutes them, turning down the negative side effects, healing weakness and building resilience.

Talents and Statistics provide more standard systems. You could run the game with just Issues, but Talents provide your character's background and anything that would fall under Advantages and Disadvantages in GURPS. Statistics provide the usual six modern attributes (str/agi/sta/int/cha/per) on a 20-80 rating and some percentile skills. The Statistics layer is either extremely phoned in, or is a reasonable case of whipping up a generic system when you don't need anything more complex. Honestly, you could run a game without the Issues layer and have a very typical older modern-era game, but that would be like using Unknown Armies without the shock gauges or Rolemaster with no crit tables. Issues are what make this system sing.

Overall I'm impressed by the difference in tone between the two games despite using the exact same system. The art does a lot to help reinforce that. Both are black and white line art, but TDR is thin-lined historical sketches and PBTM is thicker-lined and more cartooney, kind of caricature-ish. (I talk art good.) A little research revealed that it's the same artist at different points in their career, and pre/post transition, which is kinda cool. Even without the art, the text really conveys a very different game, and Rob did a great job finding two settings that precisely fit the same set of rules.

x

[tabletopgayventures]

My TTRPG Lexicon

A list of common tabletop role-playing game terms:

Arc:  Adventures, chapters, seasons, story arcs, all terms to describe different sections of the overall campaign.  Things like “Training Arc”, “The Harbor Adventure”,  “Blood War”.  Whatever you decided to use to describe a specific section of your campaign.  These would only last a few sessions of a larger campaign.  

Campaign:  Speaking of campaigns, these are a series of adventures and sessions that cover a multi-arc story.  These can last for a few months or even multiple years.  Whether you start the campaign with a designated endpoint in mind or just want to play until the game fizzles is fun either way.  Most of my games have just fizzled out due to numerous external factors but I still had a great time.  

Character Sheet:  This is the paper or packet of papers that players use to track their character’s information.  Some ttrpgs have multiple pages of information you need to keep track of.  Some have only one page.  Some don’t even have character sheets; you just write the basic information in an index card or scrap paper. 

Core Rules:  Core rules are basic or generic game mechanics that developers can build a game around.  Some examples of Core Systems are D20, GURPS, and Powered by the Apocalypse.  Most of the time a game gets made and its system is so unique or interesting that it gets replicated into other games.  For example, Apocalypse World created the Powered by the Apocalypse or PBTA system.  Whereas Generic Universal Role Playing System or GURPS was built from the ground up to be a core system for games and settings to be built onto it.  

Crits:  Most systems have some kind of superior success when you roll a specific number on the dice.  Usually the highest or lowest numbers on one of the die.  Crits either give you a special bonus or penalty based on the rules of the game.  Some even let the player take control of the narrative in a limited way.  Not all games use crits but the ones that do make it special.

Dice:  One of the most common tools in TTRPGs.  Dice can have any number of sides, the most common being six sided dice, sometimes called monopoly or yahtzee dice.  These are abbreviated as d6.  If you see a number followed by a dice number that tells you how many dice of that type you need.  For example 3d6 says you need to roll 3 six sided dice.  Dice come in numerous shapes and sizes.  A standard 7 piece set of polyhedral dice will include a d4, d6, d8, two d10, d12, and d20.  Goodman games dice sets will also include D3 (which is just a d6), D5, D7, D14, D16, D24, and D30.  There’s also a d100 which is the size of a golf ball and impossible to read.  Most of the time if you need to roll a d100 or d% you roll two d10s with one designated as the 10s and the other the 1s.  The Denary Dice Set from Curiosity Box includes dice from each number 1 through 10.

Game System:  Game systems are different from core rules because they use the rules to make their system work.  Multiple games can use the same system but will make modifications to make each game unique.  For example:  Glitter Hearts, Root, and The Warren are all different game systems that use the same core rules of Powered by the Apocalypse.  

Homebrew:  Is when you modify the rules, setting, or just add something new.  Campaigns, games, and settings are almost never run as written.  You change the rules to make them work better for your table.  You change the setting to work with your story or the PC’s backstories.  You reorder a campaign to make it flow in a way that works for you.  Just making a character and putting it into a pre-established setting is technically homebrew because you’re going to make changes to the world in game.  

Module:  A general term for a prewritten adventure or campaign.  These can be for one-shots or multi-year campaigns.  These are great for Refs who don’t have the time to build a full homebrew adventure.  

Non-Player Character:  NPCs are the characters portrayed by the Ref and run all kinds of personalities.  Don’t expect them to have special voices for all of them though.

One-Shot:  Single session adventures.  Sometimes these can run 2 or 3 sessions, two-shot or three-shot respectively.  Any longer than that it’s just a campaign.  

Players:  The players, the PCs, the heroes, however you want to call it.  They make the character and interact with the game world within the rules of the game system.  Just remember, even though the Ref doesn’t have a single character sheet, they are still players at the table and are there to have fun too. 

Rules as Written:  Or RAW, is when you take the rules directly from the book without making any changes.  You read and interpret the written rules as literally as possible.  I tend to have a homebrew spin on everything so RAW is a rarity for me.

Referee:  The person who facilitates the game.  Sometimes called the Game Master or Storyteller.  Some games, like D&D or Call of Cthulhu, have specific titles for their games, Dungeon Master and Keeper of Arcane Lore respectively.  The job of the Ref is to set the scenes, adjudicate rules, plan the session, and ensure that everyone at the table is having a safe and good time. Including the referee!

Safety Tools:  Boundaries, check-ins, surveys, x-cards, and more.  These are the tools you use to make sure you and your players are having a safe and fun time.  It’s important for every player, including the referee, to establish hard and soft limits so no one gets hurt or stressed during the game.  I’ll explain more on these in another post.   

Setting:  The genre and story of your game.  Is it set in ancient Greece?  A dark and disturbing fantasy world?  A hopeful spaceport?  Whether it’s homebrew or pre-established by the developers, you and your players will inhabit and affect the setting in a variety of ways with your games.  

Session Zero:  Think of this as your game prep.  The ref and the players will go over the campaign, the characters, themes, safety, and so on.  

Sessions:  The time you set aside to play.  Sessions can be anywhere from a half hour to half a day, or even longer.  I used to run sessions that went from noon to midnight.  I’ve even heard of people playing a game session for multiple days.  I don’t recommend ever doing this, it’s very tiring.  2-4 hours is enough for a game session.

Stats:  AKA ability scores, attributes, skill points.  Whatever the game calls it these are the numbers defining the power of your character and are typically added to your rolls.  

TTRPG:  Tabletop Roleplaying Game!  The thing we’re talking about.  Somes games will be called TRPGs.  Fabula Ultima calls itself a TTJRPG since it takes inspiration from classic JRPGs.  

West Marches:  These are a specific style of sandbox campaign.  You choose a setting and genre, for example:  Fantasy and Middle Earth.  Then you just run games in the world.  They’re meant to run multiple games, systems, and stories that don’t directly interact with each other.  So you could have an adventuring party using Pathfinder, a fellowship using One Ring, and a group of Orcs causing chaos with Ork! all in the same game world but not directly interacting with each other because the game systems aren’t compatible.  This is great if you want to run multiple games/campaigns without having to come up with a new game world or story every time.

[syrips]

Other People's Adored OC/PC list (loosely alphabetical)

hi im making this to add in other peoples' ocs/pcs. if you want me to gush about your character or do art of them please reply/DM/message me/let me know and ill add to the list. also i wont do nsfw art of them unless with your explicit/direct permission!!

Achlys Ghost-Speaker - @ immortalarizona (CoS)

Adran Farith - Imperial (CoS2)

Aihara Cannolis - @ razeshepard (GURPS. WP:CS.)*

Caden Lamorak - Kaiser (CoS2)*

Captain Darryl Shepard - @ razeshepard (GURPS)*

Cathus Deldrach - Kaiser (RoT)*

Cayn - @ razeshepard (GURPS. WP - 1. WG.)*

Chester - Mango (CoS2)

Cryxafil - Kaiser (TSC)*

Dharosa - Kaiser (WP:CS)*

Duke L'Orange - @ kidheart (CoS)

Ezra Sunstar - @ mx-lamour (CoS)

Faire Lira - @ chronoscalamity (CoS2)*

Gristle Soot Beard - Kaiser (SwI)*

Itamachi - @ razeshepard (WP:PC)*

Kasia of St. Andral - @ lemonsdaily (CoS)

Lugh Varrenguard - @ razeshepard (CoS2)*

Mori - Kaiser (DL:SotDQ)*

Notac - @ razeshepard (GURPS)*

Ozan Varrenguard - @ razeshepard (CoS1. CoS2.)*

Reagan - Kaiser (WP1)*

Reccet - Kaiser (WG)*

Saer'llith Dyrr - @ theseusdevorak (CoS)*

Silas Xavier - @ mxvanrichten (CoS)*

Tree Guy - Kaiser (WP:PC)*

Taltos Vasha - @ chronoscalamity (CoS2)

Verafim Razori - @ razeshepard (GURPS)*

Viola Varrenguard - @ razeshepard (CoS2. PF.)*

Irl Stuff (Vtuber / In Game Name / Username)

Keita - @ / razeshepard

list of 'what stuff means' i forgot the name for that

CoS = Curse of Strahd campaign. Syrips is not DM

CoS # = Curse of Strahd campaign, numbered. Syrips is DM

DL = Dragonlance

DL:SotDQ = DL: Shadow of the Dragon Queen

GURPS = umbrella term for other campaigns under GURPSystem

PF = umbrella term for other campaigns under Pathfinder system

RL = Ravenloft

RoT = Rise of Tiamat

SwI = Stormwreck Isle

TSC = The Sunless Citadel

WG = Weazel is DM

WP = Winged Paradise world, created by Syrips

WP # = WP campaign, numbered. Syrips is DM

WP:PC = WP: Prison Campaign under GURPSystem

WP:SC = WP: Cyberpunk Strahd under D&D 5e system

little star thingy* = Syrips has permission for nsfw fan stuff

OCs/PCs I adore but the op/artist didnt request / doesnt know about this list (aka i put them here just for organization purposes)

Caladium - @ secondsundering

Ezra Vilisevic - @ guardianinthemist (CoS)

Faline - @ todderwodders

Helene Crow Stoneraven - @ crowholtz (RL)

Immren - @ astarionz

Jack Punch - @ victorgrwrites

Tino - @ luinen-bluewater

Vex - @ laezels

Virgil - @ gravedigg

Zenith - @ feniksido

See Also: syrips OC/PC list (loosely alphabetical)

[elbiotipo]

Kinda want to run a GURPS Biotech campaign. I'll make up something when I get a PC.

[fenmere]

The Sunspot Chronicles: Trial Run (ttrpg)

We have just had our own table top role playing game published!

It's set up to run like the very first test game we played using GURPS back in September of 2000 (not the GURPS part - ugh - but the setting).

You play a youngster on the Sunspot, or an Exodus Ship of your own naming, who is being given a trial run of some new technology that will link you up to the ship's Network in a way you haven't had access to before. It gives you something akin to superpowers. And the resulting story might involve discovering the origins and purpose of the ship, which have been forgotten with time.

Also, you are an alien furry. A chimerical mix of animalistic traits unique to you and no one else on the ship.

Each player gets to invent an answer to one of a set of important questions, while the other players don't yet know that answer, and the GM decides which of the players' answers are true or not.

So, at the beginning of the game, the PCs have an opportunity to trade notes, and then decide which ones they want to try to pursue, or what they want to do about them.

And the world building can escalate from there as you play!

Part of the whole idea of this setting as a game was to make it possible to mix all kinds of genres, from anime and Saturday morning cartoons to horror, from science fiction and cyberpunk to cozy furry slice of life drama. Anything that inspires you.

This setup allows you to either play by using our novels as a source material, or for you to create your own setting entirely, if you want.

You can find it here:

You'll want to be sure to download the character sheet as well as the copy of Xine Two. It is built using Cortex Prime, so you'll need familiarity or access to the toolkit book to play (we had a hard limit on words, so we had to reference rules instead of spelling them out), which you can find here:

But, this is just the first step we're taking to create a fully fleshed out game you can just download and play (or reference off the website).

Cortex is a lot of fun. It's very similar to the Fate system, which would have been our goto if we hadn't been sucked into Cortex first.

It's a narrative driven system, so the dice aren't being used to badly simulate physics to any sort of minute detail. The dice ranking is used to give your character's traits more or less weight in influencing the direction of the story. And in Cortex there is a plot point system that directs the development of twists and setbacks that can later culminate in a heroic finish. And it's streamlined enough that we (at least) can focus on the story and role playing more than the game engine, but just crunchy enough to give some sense of strategy and tactics.

We're planning on hosting some games of this on the Cortex Prime discord server, and maybe on our own as well, depending on energy and time. We'll post about that with ample warning when we do it.

[lawfulgoodness]

Experimental campaign idea

I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain my next campaign setting/idea in a brief, sensible way.  It’s really silly, but also really ambitious, and we’re about to have the second session, which means I really need to get a firmer grasp on all the moving parts.  To that end, here are the 3 main things I’m doing with it:

Self-insert PCs - All Player Characters are self-insert, so everybody’s just literally themselves.

Reality is a simulation - The players are “pulled out” of our world, and “plugged into” another one.  They are thrown back and forth with little explanation, hopefully motivating them to investigate why.

A Multiverse of RPGs -  Initially the world they are thrown into will be Shadowrun, since it already has an understanding of “jacking into the matrix.”  However, the goal is for them to try and find a way to escape from the world of Shadowrun, only to find themselves trapped in the world of Earthdawn instead.  The levels of reality are nested, so escaping one simulation leads them to discover what they thought was “reality” is in fact another simulation.

It’s basically “Sliders” meets “eXistenZ”

If you’re interested in the currently planned nesting realities, click the “Read More”:

World 0x0800:  Fake Shadowrun, but a very glitchy VR video game, simulating the world of Shadowrun.  It is so glitchy, that the players are able to exploit it in a way that creates a rift in the underlying simulation of all worlds, allowing them to begin traveling between worlds.  

World 0x0700: Real The world of Shadowrun.  The players were hired to pull a series of jobs in a popular video game, but after the first few jobs, the world of Shadowrun started to demonstrate weird glitches just like the video game.  Players try to escape to get back to their “real lives.”

World 0x0600: Spawn point.  No system/setting.  This is the world players initially find themselves in when the campaign starts.  It is clear that 0x0800 isn’t real, it is also implied that 0x0700 may not be real.  All but one player is currently assuming that 0x0600 is probably “real.”

World 0x0500: Earthdawn  After finally realizing 0x0600 is not real, the players escape and find themselves in Earthdawn.  In the world of Earthdawn, the players are welcomed as rescued heroes that had been trapped by the Horrors of Barsaive.  They are finally awake, and all of their previous adventures are considered nightmares, but not real.  Other nightmares and astral adventures will occur from here, throwing the adventurers into 0x0610 (d&d), 0x0620 (pathfinder), and 0x0630 (Golden Sky).  Once the players find out 0x0500 isn’t real either, they escape to...

World 0x0400: Trail of Cthulhu  Players find themselves to be mental patients in a late-30s mental asylum, locked up for their insane ramblings about the future, and for being suspects in the murder of a local business magnate.  Lovecraftian Whodunit to follow, giving them the ability to travel to other worlds, such as 0x510 (Solomon Kane) and 0x520 (Castle Falkenstein), which forces them to collect powerful magical items in order to escape to...

World 0x0300: GURPS Cyberpunk - Players find themselves to be unwitting contestants on a reality game show, where their simulated adventures are a form of public entertainment.  In addition to worlds 0x4000 - 0x8000, the players will now be throw into additional fictional settings for one-shot adventures to entertain the masses.  These adventures include 0x410 (Star Wars), 0x420 (TMNT), 0x430 (BtVS), and other popular franchises.  If they are able to escape this world, they find themselves in...

World 0x0200: Android RPG by Fantasy Flight Games.  They are recently activated androids, designed to replace a series of violent malfunctioning androids.  They have to hunt down their counterparts and stop them.  If they succeed in escaping the world the enter....

World 0x0100: A Tron-like world, probably using d20 mechanics of Horizon:Virtual, unless I can find something better.  Players find out they are each distinct AI/ML processes being groomed for placement in the “real world” to infiltrate & replace humanity.  All of their adventures up to this point is to help them simulate being actual humans, but able to understand why humans must be replaced.

“Ascend” as AI/ML constructs in synthetic bodies and step out into the real world for the first time.

Destroy the Master Control Program that’s been pulling the strings behind the entire campaign, but trapping themselves in the simulated environment in the process

Return to what they originally thought was the real world (Planet Earth in the 2020s)

Something else that I haven’t thought of that the players do instead.  Obviously, this is going to be the one that actually happens and I can’t wait to find out what it is.

Root 0x0000 // The game’s actual reality.  

[maklodes]

I’d like a recommendation for a kind of fairly kitchen-sink-y space opera TTRPG system. It can be a mix of GURPS books. I don’t know which ones. Or it could be something other than GURPS. Come to think of it, I think Star Wars-based RPGs could fit. (I wasn’t really envisioning a Star Wars campaign, but Star Wars has a fair amount of overlap with the features I’d be interested in.)

Mechanics:

-Moderate preference for classless systems.

-Weak preference for level-less systems. (GURPS/Storyteller style continuous character progression is preferred to discrete leveling, but not that strongly.)

-I would moderately prefer “rolling high is better.”

Scenarios that could happen, that would ideally have immersive mechanics:

-Walking around on foot, exploring, fighting, etc, on planets, space stations, ships.

-Doing the above, but maybe in the vacuum of space, or on a planet with an unbreathable (to humans!) methane/ammonia atmosphere, possibly in a flimsy spacesuit, or possibly in tough power-armor.

-Piloting a starfighter, mech, or other one-person vehicle

-Collaborating, as a party (“bridge crew”), to pilot a larger vessel, like a space cruiser, freighter, or the like.

-Trying to hack a computer system without alerting security.

-Studying a Mysterious Anomaly, using remote sensor scanning, sending closer ranged telemetry probes, or even taking a Sample Specimen for close examination in the Laboratory.

-Conducting a diplomatic mission to broker a ceasefire between two factions in a planetary civil war.

Player Races I’d like to be viable:

-Humans

-Maybe a small assortment of Rubber-Forehead aliens, or Grey-style aliens.

-Alien furries

-Maybe the occasional insect-like or centaur-like or whatever

-Weird starfish aliens, but not so weird as to be unplayable. (Unplayably weird ones that don’t understand linear time or whatever might exist, but not as PCs)

-Androids, cyborgs and other artificial beings

I’m on the fence about psionics:

-I’m inclined toward not having psionics, the Force, or other magic (other than “future technology” that is magical in practice, like FTL travel)  in this campaign, but if you find The Perfect TTRPG for my campaign, and it happens to include psionics in a way that’s non-trivial to remove, I’d maybe be okay with psionics so long as it doesn’t reach “if you’re not a psionic character you’re a useless chump” power levels. Psionics as something weird space anomalies might have, rather than PCs, is more acceptable too.

[sisterdivinium]

I think someone mentioned mixing WN with D&D on Twitter a while back and I hope that, if so, "D&D" was being used as a synonym for RPG rather than actual D&D 5e (which you shouldn't really do because they aren't synonymous, but I know it's a common thing).

Adapting Warrior Nun into 5e rules seems a bit like fighting the system rather than working with it, at least to me.

Here is a game that depends on character classes -- how will you make it work when all characters will probably share the class of sister warrior? If the idea is to differentiate them through skills, then isn't it better to just ditch the concept of class altogether? Maybe take inspiration from something like Knave, Maze Rats, Cairn if one wishes to stick with a D&D-ish aura.

Fights in WN aren't all that long if you think about it; so how will you conciliate that with the HP sponges that 5e characters are? (An anecdote: the other day I saw someone complaining about their weak initial character, who had some 20 HP. Playing old school D&D, I've had players start with 4. Ask them if they weren't scared shitless of dying -- and if this fear didn't make them play smarter and end up valuing their PCs much more when they levelled up!)

The economy system of 5e (well, of D&D as a whole, really, including older editions) has very little in common with the one our favourite ass-kicking nuns would use -- would it even be necessary, if we assume the Vatican is responsible for providing them with gear?

I'm not asking any of these questions simply because I dislike 5e (which I do, I admit) or to dissuade people from mixing WN and RPGs (I even did it myself once and might or might not be doing it again with another play style and basic system in mind), I just ask that they take mechanics into consideration. 5e can be good for what it's made for (or so I'm told), but in this particular instance it seems inappropriate for WN.

If I may be so bold as to offer amateur designers some suggestions...

I'd start by taking a look at Nathan Paoletta's RPG Design Zine, just because it helps you think about what the hell you're doing.

Generic systems are just that, generic, but they can be much easier to adapt than something so heavily-coded for a certain type of game as 5e is. They can be more complicated (maybe GURPS, though you could go for Lite and consider getting, idk, Religion, Martial Arts, Low Tech, High Tech... Go explore) or lighter. I am a gigantic fan of Freeform Universal Classic, but you could do something cool with FATE or FAE, Mini Six, hell, I don't know! There's a good deal of generic systems out there.

You could be a little more daring, if versed in PbtA games, and hack one up yourself, why not?

All I'm saying is that you shouldn't be wrestling with the system to make this thing. Have it work for you, not against you; find something that can "translate" the show more easily than 5e does.

There's a whole world of games out there, a wealth of inspiration to work with. A lot of creators stick to 5e because it's popular and it helps them get visibility for their products -- and I don't fault them for it, but you aren't going to sell this, are you? You're not the IP owner. Others use 5e because "everybody knows the rules" -- which isn't true and, honestly, if you're going to change the whole thing up so it matches WN, then what's the use of knowing how rangers in a high fantasy campaign progress if you're playing nuns with guns?

I guess my point is: just don't tire yourself out trying to make an apple pie out of ingredients meant for chocolate cake.

[clowniconography]

some kitty cats i designed for a homebrew gurps-style oneshot i DM'd for my friends :3 unfortunately craig and bingo didn't get picked as pcs but i think everyone had fun playing as the rest

[i-rolled-a-zero]

The hero the city never asked for: Iron Jaw!

With his mighty "Crocodile Tears" he can raise his strength and attack to do devastating damage!

[felduhuutruong]

Inadvisable tabletop RPG premise #137: fantasy adventure game where each player character is the Chosen One of a different world-ending prophecy; while the game is cooperative at the PC level, it's competitive at the player level, with each player employing various meta bullshit devices to ensure that their apocalypse is the one that comes to pass and their Special Little Guy gets to be the protagonist of history. "In private she was not in the least what her calumniators would have wished her to be. She was very quiet, had a great natural dignity, and was extremely intelligent. She was also exceedingly sensitive. In repose her face was at moments strangely, prophetically tragic, like the face of a beautiful ghost - a little spring ghost, an innocent fertility daemon, the vegetation spirit that was Ophelia - a visitor from some other plane; only here visiting."Fantasy adventure comic which you strongly suspect, but cannot prove, is a direct adaptation of somebody's high school GURPS campaign. The story is so elaborately and discursively plotted that you need to keep the fandom wiki open in a separate tab simply to remember who the fuck any of these people are.

[syrips]

decided to sketch hoagie / agatha because self indulgence

ok so context about creating this pc:

the first CoS campaign i ever played was also my first time EVER playing 5e, cuz we moved from GURPS to 5e for CoS. either way, the CoS 1 DM pulled each player aside to help us manually make our character sheets. DM pulls me aside and is like 'ok what do you wanna play?' and me, with no context of CoS or 5e at all during the entire creation process, was like, 'i wanna be a redhead evadey vampire-hunter PC! oh i wanna call her Valentina, so gothic romantic! it fits!' and anyways my DM was like 'did you read the module?' and i felt bad like something was wrong but he wouldnt explain to me. so, with still no context i was all big brain like, 'okay nevermind. ill make something new that isnt related to that at redhead pc idea at all. give this new PC all the possible curses, corruption, suffering stuff! i dont care if she gets corrupted, dies, or goes insane, woo!' - and anyways the DM was way too onboard and gave my PC amnesia due to all the curses so i knew she was gonna go through ✨ trauma ✨

ok anyways here hoagie lore:

shes my cos/multicampaign piglin PC who is having an enjoyable corruption arc. since shes influenced by my cracked headcanon minecraft piglin lore, i decided to make her a yugoloth 'prototype soul' who reincarnates (pseudo-soul) repeatedly to gather souls for her 'prototype soul' back in her home plane. the more souls she collects the more corrupt she becomes. (DMs have me roll to discreetly steal souls from the party hehe. if i get 'caught' the party can kill me or exile me from the party, which happened at the end of LMoP then she got attacked by a warlock of azalin so thats something but anyways)

she consumes souls using her lil black book that she carries with her everywhere. the black book was a trinket but the CoS - 1 DM and LMoP DM, both made it where it was her personal journal and her warlock (strahd) pact tome. i made strahd the patron for obvious reasons but also because in CoS - 1, the DM decided to secretly make her a strahd consort, as he was entering her dreams trying to manipulate/soothe her while she was dealing with other curses stacking and breaking her sanity.

the DM never told me how charmed she was, but when she was conscious, she would react to things not there. except it was THERE BECAUSE STRAHD WAS STALKING US FUCK OYU STRA anyways her dreams got more and more corrupt cuz she was suffering from like the other stack of curses. my DM didnt tell me any of these curses until it was naturally revealed and she had to roll wis saves to not have a mental break down. shes fine though shes got strahd and i hate my dm for literally not telling me she was a consort until after the campaign ended but he couldnt say cuz it was one of the potential reveals where she wouldve betrayed the party

but yes thank you for reading

random junk here:

CoS 1 = Curse of Strahd (Ended. Strahd's Beloved Killed by the Abbot)

CoS 2 = Curse of Strahd (20 BC years after CoS 1. Ongoing, Strahd's Beloved Alive and in love with a PC)

LMoP = Lost Mine of Phandelver

N/A = Not Available until in-campaign reveal

ok goodbye!!

[athelind]

WotC picked up on the idea of Aggressive Game Balance from the "second generation" point-based game systems like Hero System and GURPS that showed up in the '80s. In those games, EVERYTHING has a point cost, PCs and opponents all use the same mechanics, and in Hero System in particular, even environmental hazards are built using the character creation mechanics.

It bears repeating how much of an anomaly the WotC D&D occupation with providing "balanced" encounters to the extent where every edge characters can gain over their opposition needs to be somehow accounted for in game balance. D&D is multiple different games, but the most stark internal division is between the TSR and WotC eras, where the previous one was not built around the expectation of encounters that need to be overcome in a specific way to "progress" and characters and their opposition were never really thought to be balanced.

Encounter balance only really became a goal with WotC D&D and even though it was at first and still is pretty much all over the place, there very much is an underlying philosophy of designing encounters to account for the party's capabilities and, on a character level, every possible edge characters might gain being accounted for. This was the clearest in 4e (a game explicitly built around these assumptions), but it very clearly informs the design of 3e and 5e: characters can't just go and make friends with a wolf, man. You gotta spend character-building resources on your character so that they may gain the Animal Companion feature and thus have permission to have a wolf. The wolf animal companion is placed on the same level as an extra sneak attack dice or a bonus feat or a new daily allotment of spells, and by this point you should see what I mean by the balance being kind of all over the place.

And as stated, that type of approach to game design is actually anomalous when you consider it within the context of RPGs as a whole. Sure, D&D has a disproportionate effect on perceptions of RPGs, and since there are many new designers coming in with expectations created by WotC D&D that type of design is becoming more and more common. And D&D's biggest competitor, Pathfinder, also very much subscribes to that philosophy of game design.

In Mythras a character can just join a Shamanic cult and learn the skills necessary to practice Shamanism and bind a predator spirit they have befriended into a wolf to thus gain a spirit companion who now has a corporeal form, and none of that requires the expenditure of character resources that need to be somehow balanced on a budget, nor does it somehow affect considerations of encounter balance. It's an edge that the character gained because they did the thing in the fiction. The only expenditure required was for the character to do it, and the time and resources it took for them to do it.

And most trad RPGs are balanced more along the lines of Mythras than they are of D&D.

[open-hearth-rpg]

Choose Death: Great RPG Mechanics #RPGMechanics: Week Eight

Some games care about your characters. They matter, they mean something in the grand scheme of the story and play. Some games don’t give a shit about your characters. They’re interchangeable. You die and you can stat up a new one, scratch out the name and say you're an identical cousin, or elevate a henchperson to front-line status. These later games are about the world– but often in a particular way. They’re about the challenge, puzzles, and often lethality of the game. 

I played those latter games a lot in the late 1970s, early 1980s: D&D, AD&D, Gamma World, Rolemaster. But then I started to play games where death and lethality weren’t really the focus: James Bond 007, Champions, GURPS. Sure– you could still die: the game mechanics kept lethality on the table. Some games made it harder than others– but they all kept the wink, wink, nudge, nudge of “oh watch out, your character might die…”

But they weren’t really going to. Not unless you pissed off the GM and the table, not unless you begged for death, not unless you were coming to a campaign conclusion. It was, as they say, kayfabe. There’s a lot of kayfabe in role-playing, as Michael Underwood said recently. 

On a side note, I only just now realized why Runequest’s Glorantha setting works the way it does. Glorantha makes resurrection for heroes well, not cheap, but readily available. Be a good follower of your god, have solid friends, have stashed away some money and you can come back. And this isn’t the level-draining, loss of stuff comeback. And the fact of that resurrection is built into the setting with Hero Quests and having to worry about your foes coming back. There’s a great adventure in the Strangers in Prax collection that turns on Lunar Agents trying to interfere with the locals bringing back a rebel leader that just got offed. 

I honestly think that Glorantha does this, in part, to deal with the cult of early rpg lethality and avoid some of the hand-waving done at the table. Yup, you can die and it will be significant, but your character matters and we’re not just tearing up their sheet.

Of course some games and gamers revel in the threat of death– and some systems encourage the GMs to pull that trigger, but, well, you know, that’s just like uh, your play style, man.

Some games have engaged with death as a thing in ways other than resurrection spells. Adventure!, one of the original Trinity rpgs, had a specific power for this. You could buy a special ability which allowed you to die dramatically in a scene. Then you would return in a later scene telling a story of how you narrowly escaped death. Pasión de las Pasiones has a similar choice as one of the suffer harm options. 

But some modern games have been a little more direct and honest about what death actually means. The choice for death and dying lies in the hands of the player. This is how Hearts of Wulin handles things. If you burn through your stress, health, wounds, whatever, you get to choose the form of your fall at the end. You can choose to be unconscious and bleeding, captured by the foe, or placed in a more perilous situation you’ll have to deal with when you recover. You’re still out– and the GM may have a say in what happens next, but your character lives. Or you can choose death. 

The real thing is this: death isn’t the worst option you can present to a PC. You may be sacrificing yourself as a martyr, you may be making a point, you may be going gloriously as a middle finger to your enemy who wants revenge. Other consequences can be worse than death to a hero and/or PC: humiliation, betrayal, loss of things they care about, death of valued loved ones. These are often the really painful results. 

But these results and forces only really work if the PC cares about the world. In games where the world doesn’t care about the characters, why should they? Here the only real threat is death, with a side serving of XP loss and loot vanishing.