Tag: games

Between the Skies, Part 2

Back to the skies

Between the Skies is such a beautiful and fascinating book that it is a pleasure just to read it. If anything, all this writing about it is just slowing me down! But I do feel the need to evangelise a bit more. So join me, dear reader in an exploration of the character generation options. Or, if you haven’t read the first of these posts, you can catch up here.

Character Generation

The “Approaches to Character Generation” section encourages you to decide on the approach you want to use and then to roll on the relevant tables to flesh out the description. It’s important to note that your interpretation of the table results is what’s important, rather than having a strict set of attributes or traits that have specific meanings in the game.

It also tells you to note all of the things you want known about your character. I love this point, actually. Rather than waiting till it comes up in play, when a GM might casually bring up an element of your character that you don’t want the other PCs to know, you make it clear at the outset the only parts of your character or background that others would be aware of. Or maybe it just means that there are things about your character that no-one knows and that will come up organically during play, at which point they will become a part of them. Either way, it is an important point.

Character sheet with character generation question page no.1. This is for a "Through the Looking Glass" type character.
Character sheet with character generation question page no.1. This is for a “Through the Looking Glass” type character.

This section also directs you to go and take a look at the character sheets in the back of the book. There are three types, which I will get into below. But, notably, on the page before each actual character sheet, you’ve got a few questions printed in large font, taking up an entire page, to build a basis for your character. For the Lifepath and Spark procedures these are:

“Who are you?”
“What can you do?”
“What do you have?”
“What do you want?”
“Who do you know?”

And for the Through the Looking Glass procedure they are:

“Who are you?”
“What can you do?”
“How did you get here?”
“What are you searching for?”
“What have you brought with you?”

It’s almost as if their significance cannot be over-stated. It feels like these big old questions and the spaces for you to fill with your own answers to them on these pages could act as the character sheets themselves. Perhaps, if you don’t want to be too bothered with specifics, if you don’t want to use numbers and die types and the like to describe your character, you could just write a few answers to the best of your ability beneath each of the questions. That would be a good basis for a character in a fictional story. Would it be a good character in an RPG? In the very loosest of story-games, I feel like that’s more-or-less the approach and it works well, but it does depend on the type of story you and your table are trying to tell. In a space-pirate, treasure-seeking, swashbuckling adventure game, it might not hold up. But if your aim is to tell the story of a group of people caught in a difficult situation, informed by their backgrounds and desires, complicated by their relationships and inner lives, and their development as people over the course of the game, sure, it would be perfect. Writing about this makes me want to try it…

Character sheet with character generation question page no.1. This is for a "Through the Looking Glass" type character.
Character sheet with character generation question page no.1. This is for a “Through the Looking Glass” type character.

So, next to each question page is a “Worksheet.” Even the word-choice here is significant. It indicates that this is where you will be performing the admin for your character. Filling it in will be an exercise that you may find tedious or satisfying, very much depending on the type of person you, the player, are.

Each worksheet helps us to encapsulate a character designed according to one of three (four, kind of) procedures.

I mentioned in the last Between the Skies post that the procedure you use here is related to your approach to weirdness. So, if you have decided to go with “All the Weird” you can probably use any of the methods described, but if you are going with a “Venturing Out Into the Weird” approach, and you want mundane characters, you should think about going with the Spark character creation procedure (with a few modifications.) Once again, it’s important to note, all of this is advice, none of it is mandated. Choose and use what you like and discard the rest.

Lifepath character generation

I have never played it but I have heard about this character creation method being used in Traveller. Essentially, you map out your character’s life up to the point of the start of the game and this process creates the PC. You roll on the tables provided for this character generation method to establish events in your character’s life that lead to the accumulation of “Skills, allies, enemies, Mutations and Debt, among other things.”

Let’s take a look at some of the tables used for Lifepath character creation.

You have a Type table that contains a pretty wide array of permutations. I rolled up a Swimming Avian. I’m thinking seagull.

The Descriptor tables are d66 so have a lot of options in them too. You might be described as Huge, Transformed, Dead, Nomadic, Staunch or Minimal. These single adjectives should ignite the imagination and lead you down paths to fill in the blanks on your character sheet, or just in your mind.

You roll twice on the Aptitude table (also d66) and take the adverb form first and then the adjective form. So a roll of 54 and 45 (which I genuinely just rolled) would be Inspiringly Commanding.

After this you enter the Life Events section. It explains the basics of using this method and then tells you to go and roll on the Life Events tables. There are three tables to roll on depending on whether you want have your major life events on a Surface (I guess like a planet or something similar,) in Space or out in the Planes. You can switch between them and sometimes have to depending on the events you roll.
A sampling:

  • Quest for NPC completed, harmed – Roll powerful NPC for patron; Gain problem related to injury suffered by PC
  • Death, became undead – Create one Extraordinary Ability related to undeath; Create one Problem related to undeath; If already undead when this result is rolled, PC is destroyed, create new PC who has dead PC’s possessions.
  • Joined heresy – Joined heretical religious organisation; Gained ire of opposed religious organisation; Gained skill related to heresy
  • Became Hermit – Cannot roll any further life events; Gain skill related to hermeticism
  • Lost in the Planes – Cannot roll further life events
  • Became petty god – Roll or describe Focus; Gain Extraordinary Ability related to petty godhood; Petty gods are not necessarily more powerful than mortals

After this you have a bunch of tables to help you determine your Extraordinary Abilities, Skills, Mutations and Problems all of which will help to round out your character. There are some great entries in these tables but this blog post has already gotten away from me so I am going to have to skip on to the next method of character creation.

Spark character generation

ANother black and white illustration from Between the Skies. It shows a creepy person with no face except for two blank, white eyes. They open theirlong black coat as though they were selling hot watches, but inside are only toothy grins and gaping maws.
ANother black and white illustration from Between the Skies. It shows a creepy person with no face except for two blank, white eyes. They open theirlong black coat as though they were selling hot watches, but inside are only toothy grins and gaping maws.

This is an entirely table based method, but, as the title suggests, the results you get from the tables should be used to spark the imagination of the player. As Huffa takes pains to point out more than once in the characters creation section, the tables might give you powers and abilities and they might even describe what you can do but they don’t tell you how your character does it. I think most of us assume this point without thinking about it in our games most of the time (my Magic Missile looks like three paper planes that explode when they hit!) but it’s a good thing to have it called out here formally. So the tables used for this method are very much based around the questions I listed above. Under the “Who are you?” section we have table after d666 table of descriptors to roll or choose from.
Here are a few nice ones:

  • Sickle mender – fixing what cuts
  • Messmaker – joyous entropy
  • False smile – feelings turned inside out
  • Babysitter

For “What can you do?” you can go back and use the tables under the Lifepath method for Abilities, Aptitudes and Skills.

“What do you want?” – There are a couple of tables here. You are encouraged to use these to “inspire a few sentences describing what your character wants.”
Examples:

  • Objects of Desire – Redemption, Surprise, More
  • Related to… – past self, rulers, daemons

When it comes to “Who do you know?” we have another trio of tables. These can be used to make two or three entities with whom you have a relationship of some kind. For instance:

  • Entity type – Creature
  • Relationship type – Debt holder
  • Relationship detail – Yearning

Once again, use these results as prompts to describe these relationships in a little more detail.

Finally, in the “What do you have?” section, you use the Starting Resources procedure with some changes. Generally this involves you having an alright weapon and some semi-decent armour, equipment needed for skills and maybe even a ship if that’s the sort of game you’ll be playing. You get to roll up an interesting object too! You will also possibly have some Assets or Debt to start with. There is, unsurprisingly, a table for that. Assets, Debt and Petty Cash are all rather abstracted in Between the Skies. You measure them in units where a unit of Petty Cash might buy you a nice meal and a unit of Asset or Debt would be the equivalent value of a house. I appreciate a system like this as counting gold pieces holds little or no interest for me. Also, Debt implies a Debt-holder and that could be an important relationship and could be used as motivation at some point.

Through the Looking Glass character generation

A full colour illustration from Between the Skies. The picture is of some strange characters, drawn in a deliberately childish style with funny hats heading towards some circus tents and away from a colourful bu threatening forest in the foreground.
A full colour illustration from Between the Skies. The picture is of some strange characters, drawn in a deliberately childish style with funny hats heading towards some circus tents and away from a colourful bu threatening forest in the foreground.

Your character has done a full Alice and is now in a freaky other-world. Why are they there? What sort of personal disaster has led them to this point? What are they looking for in this isekai nightmare/dream realm? These are things you need to know about your Through the Looking Glass character.

Once again we have some tables to roll on. But interestingly,

It is assumed that Through the Looking Glass characters are mundane people from a world like our own, and that results are interpreted accordingly

A few sample descriptors from the tables:

  • Vengeful
  • Loopy
  • Ostentatious
  • Firefighter
  • Hack
  • Paparazzi
  • Avante Garde Hobby
  • Entrancing Dancing

On the “You (were) recently…” table we have a little more to shape your mundane character. You can roll on the d66 table to get these sorts of results:

  • Retired
  • Transitioned
  • Canceled

Under the “What can you do?” section, the abilities are a lot more “normal” than some of those in the previous character generation methods. They include stuff like:

  • Untapped Scholarly Education
  • Precocious Performative Love
  • Charming Spiritual Profession

One of the different questions belonging to this character generation method is “How did you get here?” This is, of course, of utmost importance to this type of character. Maybe you were trapped by an entity from another world. Perhaps you stumbled into it while intoxicated, seeking pleasure. Or was it that you were reincarnated after dying by a catastrophic event?

Even just reading the entries in these tables has my imagination all aglow with possibilities. They make me want to run this sort of game. I don’t think I have ever done that, not for such mundane PCs, at least. I want to see how such characters would be changed by such an impossible journey! Yum yum.

Another question that is specific to this character generation method is, “What are you searching for?” Ruby slippers? Aslan? That damned white rabbit? I suppose it could be any of those but why not roll on some tables instead?

The tables, interestingly, do not tell you exactly what you are looking for, just the type of thing you might be looking for (knowledge, person, object etc,) what that thing will provide (relief, comfort, affirmation) and what complicates it as a goal (explosive, famous, moving.) You should then get together and discuss the precise nature of the thing. The text suggests that, if you are all of a similar type of character, you should maybe all be striving for the same object but that you might each have a different motivation. This sounds like a wonderfully interesting potential grenade to throw into the works whenever the characters finally find the item they have wanted all this time. It smells like interpersonal conflict. Yum yum yum.

Lastly, for the Through the Looking Glass method, we are looking at the “What have you brought with you?” question. This is different to the “What do you have?” question common to the other two methods because your character is assumed to have been yoinked out of their own reality with only the items on their person. So they don’t get to have any Assets or Debt or any of the other starting equipment other types of characters might begin with, which is totally fair. Instead, they get a few basic items and maybe one Special Item. There is, as you might have guessed, a set of tables for that. Once again, these provide inspiration rather than outright answers to what that Special Item might be. So you might have an Alien Secret or a Mythical Key… This idea of only having what you had on you makes the prospect of the first few hours in a new world particularly enticing from a game perspective. How does one survive in a desert otherworld with nothing but a mobile phone, a wallet full of loyalty cards and used tissue? The answer could be that the locals are enchanted by the Spectral Device that you were handed just before being shoved through a portal.

Character generation using other games

There is a very interesting and useful section near the end of the Character Generation chapter. It provides a loose guide to using another system’s character creation method to make your Between the Skies character. Essentially, if you use this procedure, you will end up with a blended character. They will still consider the questions from the first two character generation methods but you will do your best to apply the answers to the character you have created using the other system. In some cases, this will mean that you are adding bits entirely from the question answering method as many systems do not consider things like what you want and who you know at the character creation step.

I am a big fan of Troika! so I am happy to see the practical example of using a Troika! background as the basis for a Between the Skies character here too. It makes it easier for me to picture using this method and elucidates the process in a practical way.

Character generation conclusions

All in all, I am impressed with the breadth of options presented in the chapter. You have no fewer than four different ways of making your character (and many more if you consider you could technically use the fourth method to use any other game’s mechanics to do it) a plethora of interesting tables to create some really weird or terribly mundane characters and a whole bunch of world-building before you have ever started playing the game in anger. The results you are likely to roll on things like the Life Events tables are going to haunt your game if the GM is paying any attention at all. You’re likely to establish the existence of certain NPCs, gods and demons, places, objects and catastrophic events that effect the whole world while rolling up your PC. I love this! It starts the whole table off with so many potential plots, grudges, vendettas, desires, loves, hates and motivations that the game should practically run itself from the moment you finish character creation.

As a process(es) it makes me excited to take part in it and even more excited to play the game, either as a GM or as a player.

What do you think, dear reader? Does this make you interested in Between the Skies? If not, perhaps I will continue to pursue this subject in another post in the near future so I can convince you. If so, maybe I’ll keep entertaining you with details and opinions of a subject you clearly enjoy! It’s a win-win!

Between the Skies Part 1

Formalising the informal

We introduce informal rules on the fly in our games all the time. You need to figure out if someone can find a newspaper stand around here somewhere? Sure: odds, you find one, evens, you’re out of luck. Oh, you rolled a nat 20 on your investigation check? Well, that means you also get advantage on your next Thieves’ Tools check. You know what I’m saying. It’s not unusual. So, is it unusual to formalise this informality? Maybe, I suppose. But that is exactly what Huffa has done in her new book, Between the Skies.

I heard about this game from the Yes Indie’d podcast from Thomas Manuel. On the episode I linked above, you can hear him interviewing the writer and creator of Between the Skies, Huffa. You can get most of the background of the game from the podcast, if you’re interested, but if you need a TLDR, it started off as a digital release and then a series of zines you could get on itch.io until Exalted Funeral got involved and made it into a book. You can still get those there in free PDF format, by the way.

A couple of things struck me while listening to Huffa talk about her work. First was the subject matter of the game, which seemed rather Planescapey to me, the nineties one. Maybe cross that with some AD&D Spelljammer, a wee sprinkling of Troika! and just a little bit of Black Sword Hack. Strangeness in the spheres and across the planes of existence is the overall theme. It sounded both very old school and incredibly fresh at the same time. Where does the freshness come from, I hear you cry, dear reader! Well, that would be from the other thing that struck me about the interview; the ideas Huffa espouses when it comes to rules.

Why restrict yourself to one ruleset when there are so many out there to choose from?

A badly taken photo of the double-page spread before the At Play Between the Skies chapter of Between the Skies. There is an abstract monochrome picture in it.
A badly taken photo of the double-page spread before the At Play Between the Skies chapter of Between the Skies. There is an abstract monochrome picture in it.

So, like my very wordy sub-heading says, why go full Forged in the Dark all the time when certain situations might call for a Resistance System style roll with pre-established fallouts to hit them with? Why limit your game to using only Powered by the Apocalypse rules when you might also want to use adversity tokens sometimes? The point is, you should be able to play almost any game you want, using almost any rules that suit, not just the game but any given situation within a game. Is this dangerously anarchist? Maybe, but it also sounds like excellent fun. If you have been around here for a few months you’ll know that I like a good ludicrous mash-up. See my various attempts to introduce new and exciting elements to my D&D 5E game here and here. You might also remember me going on and on about how cool it was to use other games to establish the world and the city in a Blades in the Dark campaign I recently took part in.

If you’re interested in games and the rules of games and how they interact with the players, the setting, the events, this is an approach I think you might be able to appreciate.

Now, I will say that Huffa is not necessarily suggesting that you should abandon a single ruleset play style, but that you should open your mind to the idea of using the ruleset that most appeals to you when you pick up Between the Skies to play it.

Playtime is the name Huffa uses for the set of procedures presented in the book to allow for the style of play it espouses. It’s all about the “shared understanding of a fictional world.” And really, however you achieve that is the way to do it, with the understanding that this might look different for literally every table. Here are a couple of relevant quotes from the introduction:
“Judgement based on shared common sense is the fundamental ‘rule.’”
“All rules, methods and procedures can be used or ignored.”
This type of play is related to the FKR or Free Kriegspiel Revolution. This is a movement that rejects the cumbersome mechanics prevalent in so many games, particularly from the war-game or “Kriegspiel” side of the hobby. In FKR, the game is very much a conversation, where a player may suggest a way of overcoming an obstacle and the referee or someone in a similar role will make a judgement, based very much on the table’s shared understanding of the world they are creating together, as to whether or not it would work. Dice rolls may occur but they will be minimal.

And yet, Huffa has provided here, in the At Play Between the Skies chapter, a plethora of potential rules. Here’s a brief collection of some of the suggestions.

All time is tracked by Turns but the time scale of the Turn is dependent on the situation, longer for travel and exploration, shorter for investigation and shorter still for combat.

The Occurrences table on page 46 feels like the most basic denomination of the tables in this book. It is incredibly general but its presence and usage suggests at the way the whole game is to be played.

The Occurences table from Between the Skies. It is a d6 table. The possibilities are "Encounter," "Complication," "Hint of what is nearby," "Environmental Change" and "Boon/opportunity/Progress." There is also a small illustration of a well dressed mouse with a rapier above the table.
The Occurences table from Between the Skies. It is a d6 table. The possibilities are “Encounter,” “Complication,” “Hint of what is nearby,” “Environmental Change” and “Boon/opportunity/Progress.” There is also a small illustration of a well dressed mouse with a rapier above the table.

Use tokens to succeed at risky actions or extraordinary actions. Or! Choose a dice rolling mechanic from any of the bunch described in the book (coming from games like Blades in the Dark, Apocalypse World, Traveller, Electric Bastionland etc.) and see if you succeed, or if you succeed with consequences or if you just fail.

Or you can just play without dice!

Give your characters Conditions when they should get them. Let these conditions affect the riskiness of actions.

Injuries! Roll on the Injury table to really fuck them up. It’s a 1d6 table and the 6 is death or fatal wounds… So use this sparingly, I guess!

The Injury Die table from Between the Skies. it is a d6 table. the potential injuries are: "Superficial, "Cosmetic," "Hindering," "Treatment required, not debilitating," "Treament required, partially debilitating," "Debilitating, mortal injury or death."
The Injury Die table from Between the Skies. it is a d6 table. the potential injuries are: “Superficial, “Cosmetic,” “Hindering,” “Treatment required, not debilitating,” “Treament required, partially debilitating,” “Debilitating, mortal injury or death.”

You can, as Huffa suggests, use all of these rules or none of them or you can add any other systems or subsystems you can think of where appropriate.

Approaches to Weirdness

In the Setting Up Your Worlds Chapter it is time to decide how strange you want this game to be.

“Between the Skies is filled with weirdness. Its tables, and its author, revel in the strange.”

Huffa provides some options here, broad categories of weirdness that will help to define exactly how weird things are likely to get. Of course, this might change during the course of play, depending on how you and your players get into it.

Go “All the Weird” for a setting and game where the characters are probably at home in a very strange and out-there place. The sky is not even the limit here.

With the “Venturing Out into the Weird” approach you play humans with a limited but very much real knowledge of other planes and spheres but who have never left their homes before. Everything will be new to them but high levels of weird are ok.

If you want to be the weird in everyone else’s world, take up the “Playing he Monsters” approach. Your characters will be the only magical, non-human, truly strange things in an otherwise normal world. You will probably be feared and hated.

In a “Through the Looking Glass” style game your characters will start the game having found themselves in a strange and magical new realm. But they themselves are relatively mundane and must figure things out as they go along.

The approach you decide on will also have an influence on the character creation method you use. So it is of primary importance to the type of game you are looking to play.

A photo of one of the black and white illustrations from Between the Skies. it depicts a forested land and a starry sky overwhelmed by a nebula of some sort.
A photo of one of the black and white illustrations from Between the Skies. it depicts a forested land and a starry sky overwhelmed by a nebula of some sort.

This section of the book asks a lot of questions about how the planes and space work in the universe of your game. There are familiar touchstones here with Planescape and Spelljammer being the obvious ones. But it tries to get you to really think about important things like how PCs might travel through this weird space, how gravity works and the real difference between worlds, space and the planes, if any.

Next time, I am going to get into the Between the Skies approach to character generation, which is exactly as lassaiz faire as you might have come to expect by now.

Feeling Fulfilled

Surprise!

There is a special sort of feeling when one of the things you were backing turns up at your door. Like, you might have been keeping track of it and the creator has maybe been telling you, if you’re lucky, where they are in the fulfilment process but when the physical object is in your hands? It’s like someone sent you a present. It’s like opening up a gift from a stranger. It makes you feel something for that person, gratitude, wonder, amazement. You know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, I got some stuff that I backed! Just look at the photo up at the top there! Go on!

The Electric State

I backed this one in December last year because I love Simon Stålenhag’s artwork and imagination, as you will know if you have been around the blog for a while. The Electric State is the latest in a line of RPGs from Free League that explore the world that never was. It started off in the eighties with Tales from the Loop, where you play kids scoobying about the wilds of suburban Sweden (or Nevada,) getting into trouble and investigating the weird shit that local scientists had unleashed on the world. Things from the Flood took us into the nineties that never were. You played teenagers in that, in a world much less full of wonder and much more full of uncertainty and dread. The Electric State takes us into the late nineties in the state of Pacifica where the countryside is riddled with he remains of busted battle-bots and everyone’s addicted to some sort of cyber-helmet device. It’s a road-movie game! I have not yet played either Things from the Flood or Electric State (I mean it just arrived on Monday) but I can’t wait to. I loved the slightly eerie vibes of Tales from the Loop seen through the eyes of kids who had literal plot armour. I am looking forward to experiencing something similar through the eyes of older, more jaded or just more experienced characters. I am sure the horrific elements of Stålenhag’s work are likely to come though much more starkly. I’ll let you know how I get on with it, dear reader!

Here are a few photos from the core book and of the extras that came with it, including some very tasty custom dice.

Oh, I also got the artbook with this Kickstater. It’s not new, it came out in 2017, but just look at it!

The Price of Apocrypha

@drunkndungeons is an instagram mutual with a D&D podcast, which, I confess, I have not yet listened to. Anyway, up until relatively recently, I thought they were just into posting things about 1st and 2nd edition Ad&D on their account but then they revealed that they had a kickstarter on the way back in August. August! Let that sink in. They kickstarted a D&D/OSR adventure module in August and I now hold it in my little paws (OK, fine, I don’t. I’m typing right now. But, if I stopped and reached over to my right, I could just pick it up, you pedants!) Quite the turn around. By the start of September the Kickstarter campaign was done and I ordered up my copy from Drivethru RPG POD service, which was cheap and efficient and looks great, honestly. I have had no time to read this one yet but it I’m looking forward to digging in. I love the look of the map and the monsters and the general idea of an interplanar arena of some kind. Gravity Realms produce it and you can get it here.

Bump in the Dark Revised Edition

Bump in the Dark is another game set in the 90s. It has spooky Scooby vibes again as well. But in this case, you are more Buffy and the gang than the Famous Five. One of the touchstones Jex Thomas, the author, lists in the book is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in fact. I don’t know a huge amount about it, to be honest. I backed it on something of a whim. I know that you play hunters in it who are sworn to protect the people of Iron Country from the monsters and the beasties out in the darkness, along with your team of found family and friends. It’s based on a Forged in the Dark Ruleset but rather than the heists of Blades in the Dark, you go on Hunts. And this Backerkit pledge level came with a bunch of hunts in the form of little leaflets! I didn’t know what the heck they were when they arrived in a little white envelope that had a fluorescent sticker on it saying “Do Not Bend.” Even after I opened them up it still took me a while to figure out they were Bump Hunts. But just look at them! Aren’t they cool? I think I would like to try one for the season that we’re in, you know? Anyway, go and get it here!

That’s all I have for you for today, dear reader, just showing off my goodies. See you again soon!

Dragon Age Rules

Basics

So, it looks pretty straightforward as a system, if I am honest. The basics, at least. I do believe that, from what I have read in the past, there is one major innovation in the AGE system and I will get to that later. For now, let’s just get a grip of the basis of the whole thing, ability tests.

Ability tests

You need to roll an ability test to do any sort of action in the game. In general, you can try to do anything, even if you don’t have the appropriate ability focus, which is kind of like a skill or proficiency in D&D and similar games. Sometimes, the fiction of the game or the situation might require you to have a particular ability focus to even attempt a roll, but this seems to be the exception and not the rule.

Anyway, the way it works out is you roll 3d6 when you want to try to do something. One of these dice needs to be identified as the Dragon Die, more on that later. Then you add the ability you are rolling and another 2 if you have the right focus.

3d6 + Ability + 2 for Focus

Obviously, the intention is to roll high. The GM sets a Target Number depending on difficulty and circumstances. The higher that number is, the harder the action is. If you roll the Target Number or higher, you succeed. Simple enough.

They identify the Opposed Test as a separate type in the rules but essentially they work the same way, except, instead of having a Target Number, both characters roll their opposing ability tests to see who rolls higher. Also, if your scores are tied, you use the number on the Dragon Die to decide who wins.

It also makes it clear that you will need to use tests, in some situations, as if they are saving throws. So, you would make a Dexterity test to avoid falling off an unexpected cliff. That sort of thing.

There is a short section here on degrees of success. But, honestly, it doesn’t make an awful lot of sense and I would be loath to include it. Essentially, it seems to be a narrative tool, only. It allows you to show off how well you succeeded in a test, or how you only just scraped by. You do this by referring to the result on the Dragon Die. The higher the Dragon Die roll, the more spectacular the action. But, from my point of view, it’s still a success and, if you want to see how well a character did in their success, can’t you just look at the number you beat the Target Number by? (Since I wrote this, I was chatting with a mutual on Instagram, @otherstuffrpg about this very subject. They were a big fan of this mechanic! They felt it was a unique aspect of the rules that added a lot to the game. It might be one of those things that comes alive in play.)

Time and Actions

So, time is explicitly divided into Narrative Time and Action Time. It’s pretty much always Narrative Time until the Action starts, is more or less how they put it in the book. There’s not a lot to explore regarding Narrative Time, to be honest.

Action Time happens when you get into any scene that requires the rolling of initiative. Once that happens you are dealing with rounds. Each round is 15 seconds. Within a round you can take one Major Action and one Minor Action or two minor actions. There is a list of major and minor actions that are possible within a round. Major ones include stuff like All-out Attack, Heal, Melee Attack and Ranged Attack. Meanwhile, Minor Action examples are Aim, Guard Up, Ready and Press the Attack. I’m not going to get into the description of each and every action. Suffice it to say there is quite a lot of detail here. I imagine a cheat-sheet would be all but essential at the table to help players remember what they can do in a round and how each action works.

Initiative is sorted by everyone making a Dexterity (Initiative) roll. Ties are broken by the result on the Dragon Die and only PCs and major NPCs get their own individual initiative rolls. Minor NPCs act together in a group. You only roll initiative at the top of an encounter, not every turn.

Combat

I realise I already started the combat stuff above but that is the way it’s presented in the book. Also, it does suggest that the initiative and Action Time rules can be used in any situation that could be an action scene in a movie. You could lump chases, hunts, and other similar activities in there too.

Anyway, here’s how you do violence in Dragon Age:

  • Make and attack roll. That’s a test using the ability associated with your weapon type, Strength or Dexterity.
  • Add any bonuses from focuses, magic etc
  • Compare the result to your enemy’s Defense rating
  • If your roll is equal to or higher than that Defense rating, you hit! Well done!
  • Then you inflict damage. Everyone’s favourite part
  • You roll the damage dice of your weapon and add the relevant ability to it. This is usually Strength, but, interestingly, you add your Perception score to a ranged attack roll, rather than your Dexterity.
  • If your attack is Penetrating skip this step, otherwise, subtract your opponents armour rating from the damage roll
  • The result is the damage you do to the enemy’s Health

@Otherstuffrpg suggested an interesting house rule for damage, which I thought was a pretty fun way to speed up combat a little and beef up the Dragon Die. Instead of rolling damage for every hit, you take the result of the Dragon die and add a +4 for each damage die your weapon normally has. So, if you roll a 3 on your Dragon Die on your attack roll and you are using a longsword, which normally does 2d6 damage, you get 11 damage, 3 + 4 + 4 (plus whatever other miscellaneous bonuses you might have.) Sounds good, right?

There are a bunch of other rules around how you deal with dying characters, pulling killing plows and coups-de-grace but I am not going to get into them here. Most of them are the sorts of things you are more likely to tackle using your own judgement at as a GM anyway.

Stunts

This is the part I was most interested in getting to. It is also the mechanic that I feel provides the most uniqueness to the system, was I hinted at earlier.

Here, I am only referring to Combat Stunts but the game has Exploration, Roleplaying and Magic Stunts too, which is interesting.

Essentially, in combat, if you roll doubles on any of your dice in your attack roll, you get Stunt Points. You get a number of Stunt Points equal to the number on your Dragon Die, so, you want to roll high on that too. If you want to do a stunt, you have to use those points immediately or they disappear. Now, different stunts cost different numbers of points. There is a table of stunts and their SP costs.

You can see from the table that it includes some pretty cool little tricks and actions. I particularly like the Set Up one, that allows you to help another PC on the battlefield and Seize the Initiative, which means you literally move to the top of the initiative table.

But, when I first heard about stunts I was imagining something a lot more freeform. I guess, even when restricted to the items on this table, you are relatively free to describe how you achieve the results. I think I would almost certainly play stunts much looser at the table, allowing players to come up with their own stunts on the fly and assigning the required stunt points to what they are trying to do.

Healing

You can recover a few Health points by taking a Breather, like a five minute break, you can recover more by sleeping for a solid 6 hours or you can gain some back instantly by using the Heal action or the wizard spell of the same name.

Magic

I am skipping the chapters on focuses, talents, specialisations and equipment, mainly because I touched on them in the character creation post, but also because I just want to get to the section on Magic.

Magic in Dragon Age the video games, while not necessarily very different o to other games in how it is presented on screen, is such an interesting and integral part of the lore and story of the setting. With most mages being controlled by the Chantry, or church, due to their volatility and the potential for them to become possessed by demons and turned into violent abominations, you have a fascinating dynamic in place already. If you then throw in the apostate mages on the run for the chantry and their enforcers, the Templars, the existence of the Magocracy in the Tevinter Imperium and the fully enslaved and tightly controlled magic users of the Qunari, things get pretty explosive. It is always at the centre of the stories in Dragon Age games and I am hoping they have retained a lot of that flavour here.

The chapter on Magic does take quite a few pages to cement your understanding of the subject in the setting, which is good, although, once again, potentially a bit too much for the beginner.

It then gets into the rules, starting by suggesting several basic mage builds that equate largely to those from the video games, Creation Mage, Entropy Mage, Spirit Mage etc. These are essentially just the selection of three spells that you should start off with if you have a preference for the type of magic you would like your mage to cast.

Mana

We then get into Mana Points. Once again, I got into this a little during character creation. A mage gets a 10 + Magic + 1d6 MP to start. You have to spend MP to cast spells. Each spell has a set cost but this cost can be increased if you are wearing armour, the heavier the armour, the higher the cost. Once you run out of MP, you are done casting spells until you recover some. Resting/meditation or sleeping will regain you some or all of your MP. Pretty straightforward there.

Casting Spells

You have to make a Magic ability test to cast any spell. Every spell will have a Target Number in the spell block and you have to hit that number or the spell fizzles, taking your mana with it. This seems pretty rough. You only have so many MP and even if your spell fails you lose them. This smacks of the spell casting rules in Dungeon Crawl Classics. There are even a number of tables in here describing specific Spell Stunts and Magical Mishaps that might happen depending on the results of your rolls. Magical Mishaps happen on a failed casting roll where the Dragon Die shows a 1. Here’s the table:

You can see there, that the mage risks becoming an abomination on a roll of 6!

Spellpower

This is another one of those rules that makes me wonder why they have bothered with it. Some spells will require a character to make a test against your Spellpower. Now your Spellpower is calculated like this:

10 + Magic + Focus (if applicable)

So, it is not a constant, like a D&D magic user’s Spell Save DC. What I don’t understand is, why not just use the roll you made to cast the spell and make your opponent roll against that? This whole Spellpower business seems like an unnecessary mechanic.

Spell Stunts

These work just like Combat Stunts. If you roll doubles on your spell casting test, you get the number of spell stunt points that shows on the Dragon Die. You have to use them straight away and you do so by spending them according to the cost of the spell stunt. See the table below:

I really like Fast Casting and Imposing Casting. No surprise really since they are the most powerful.

There are also Spell Stunt tables for each type of magic, like Creation, Primal, Spirit etc. And, if you want, you can include the optional Advanced Spell Stunts but only at higher levels.

I like the stunts a lot. It feels like something really special that I could imagine players hoping and praying for sometimes. I can imagine the burst of excitement at the table whenever doubles are rolled!

Spells

The spells themselves, I am not going to get into. I think it’s enough to state that the spells accurately reflect those presented in the video games. As a piece of flavour and lore, I really appreciate that. Spells like, Death Magic, Crushing Prison, Frost Weapons and others are very evocative of the Dragon Age games for me so I am glad they have chosen to stick so closely to them.

Also, the most iconic of the magic specialisations in Dragon Age, Blood Magic, is very much an option here, but to emphasise its otherness, the Blood Magic spells have all been listed separately. They’re pretty horrific, most of them, too.

Although there is no level requirement for the spells, as such, many of them have another spell as a requirement. I like this as it will force mage players to take a certain path through the spell lists if they want powerful, top tier ones. Just like in the video games, once again.

Conclusion

So, thems the rules for Dragon Age, pretty much. They are not as crunchy as I was expecting given the size of the tome but there are definitely a few mechanics that I would probably just not use. I would also definitely consider @Otherstuffrpg’s home-brew damage rules.
I am a fan of the stunt mechanic overall, but I would probably be quite happy to allow a lot of improvisation of stunts at the table too.

I didn’t expect this, but getting to grips with the rules has made me excited to play it!

How about you, dear reader, have you ever played this game? Would you be interested to give it a try now that you know a bit more about the rules?

Dragon Age Character Creation

Dragon AGE

I’ve recently been playing through Dragon Age Origins again. It’s been a long time since I have played that particular game although, I have played a lot of Inquisition and even Dragon Age II since then. Playing Origins has put me in a nostalgic frame of mind but also, I thought it might be a good incentive to try something new, TTRPG-wise. The Dragon Age RPG has been out for some time, about ten years I think. Green Ronin published it and it is based on the AGE (Adventure Game Engine,) which is maybe better known for being used by their Fantasy AGE game. I got both of those on a Bundle of Holding years ago but have never even gotten around to reading them. So, I asked in the Tables and Tales discord if anyone would be interested in trying the Dragon Age RPG and I was surprised and delighted to discover that I am not the only DA fan in the community!

If I needed an excuse, I could also say this is all in preparation for the new DA game, “Veilguard,” which is due out soon. But, honestly, it has more to do with replaying the old game than waiting for the new one.

Anyway, I have had some decent success in getting to know new systems by creating characters on here in recent posts, so I thought I would do that again today. Off to Thedas with us!

The steps

So, I am doing this using the Dragon Age RPG Core Rulebook published in 2015. I have it in PDF format. I would like to start by praising it for having a comprehensive set of internal links from the table of contents. For a book of over 400 pages, this is invaluable.

So, what are the steps to creating a Dragon Age character? Having a quick look at them, there are similarities with the video games but with some flourishes and differences presented by the AGE system.

A screenshot of the Dragon Age Character Creation Steps table from the Daraon Age RPG core book. The table includes the 8 steps you need to complete to create a PC for the game.
A screenshot of the Dragon Age Character Creation Steps table from the Daraon Age RPG core book. The table includes the 8 steps you need to complete to create a PC for the game.

As you can see from the screenshot, the first step is coming up with your character concept. I quite like this as a starting point, although, I do wonder if it might be rather a tall first hurdle for some players. I often find myself coming to know the concept of my characters in other games during the process of creating them. But, let’s give the game and its designers the benefit of the doubt and go with it.

1. Step 1: Character concept

This section in the book urges you to go and read through Chapter 7: Welcome to Thedas, if you’re not terribly familiar with the setting, and maybe haven’t played the video games. Now, chapter 7 is almost fifty pages long and covers everything from the major nations and races to the cultural significance of the Dwarven Paragons. You would want to be pretty invested in the game before you ever start to read that whole thing, as interesting and even pleasurable as it might be to do so (the writing is not bad but the illustrations are very good indeed.) As I have played through all the games multiple times, and even stopped to read all the books I picked up off bookshelves and desks as I played, I feel like I am already well enough equipped to get away with not reading it before embarking on the character concept step here.

  • An adventurous youth who has finally found a way to escape their home.

That’s it, that’s the concept. I will say, I don’t think a thorough knowledge of the game’s setting is required to make this sort of thing up. Most of the example concepts they provide in the book are vague enough that they could belong in any traditional fantasy setting, in fact.

Step 2: Determine abilities

You’ve got a whopping eight abilities in this system: Communication, Constitution, Cunning, Dexterity, Magic, Perception, Strength and Willpower. Other than Perception and Communication these match up pretty well with the stats in Origins. We are rolling 3d6 for each one of these and then we record the modifier from the table below, not the sum of the dice, much like your average Borg game.

A screenshot of the Determining Abilities table from the Dragon Age RPG core book. It is a 3d6 table, which indicates what your starting ability score will be depanding on your roll. It goes from -3 to 4.
A screenshot of the Determining Abilities table from the Dragon Age RPG core book. It is a 3d6 table, which indicates what your starting ability score will be depanding on your roll. It goes from -3 to 4.

Communication: Rolled an 8 so that’s a score of 0
Constitution: Rolled a 13 so that’s a score of 2
Cunning: Another 13 for this one, so, 2 again
Dexterity: That’s a 10, which equates to a 1 on the table
Magic: I rolled a 12, so that is 2 yet again
Perception: Not wonderful. That’s a 6, which is another 0
Strength: A below average 9. Still, it gives me a 1
Willpower: That’s a 7 on the dice. And that gives me my third 0

The book does give options to either roll the scores and assign them to abilities as you see fit, or to do use point buy system instead. But, I think I will continue the tradition of randomising the process that I started way back in the OSE character creation post.

Step 3: Backgrounds

So, in this game, your choice of background also determines your race and has some pretty major mechanical effects, as well as the obvious cementing of your character concept from earlier. Here are the effects they generally have:

A screenshot of the list of features a PC's Background gives them in the Dragon Age RPG. These include ability score increses, ability focuses, race, class choices and languages.
A screenshot of the list of features a PC’s Background gives them in the Dragon Age RPG. These include ability score increses, ability focuses, race, class choices and languages.

Now, the book says nothing about rolling for your background randomly. In fact, I believe it encourages you to choose based on your original character concept and the ability scores you rolled. But I’m not here to play by the book (actually, that’s not true, really. I just enjoy the thrill of the roll!)

So, there are a total of thirty, 30, backgrounds (!) in the core book. It just so happens that I have a 30-sided die thanks to my flirtation with Dungeon Crawl Classics. So here we go!

That’s a 28! This means my character’s background will be:

Tevinter Laetan

And that is pretty cool! So, it means that I will necessarily take the mage class as the Laetans in Tevinter society are magic users from the mundane classes who are identified at a young age and trained to serve the Imperium. It fits quite nicely with my character concept, too. I can imagine a young Tevinter mage, disillusioned with the unfair system under which their own class of people toils while the upper class mages reap all the benefits. Not to mention the binding of so many elven slaves in general society.

Here are the benefits gained from this background.

  • +1 to Cunning – this makes my Cunning score 3 now!
  • One ability focus, either Communication (Deception,) or Cunning (Arcane Lore) – I rolled again on a d2 for this and got Cunning (Arcane Lore)
  • Languages – Tevinter and the Trade Tongue
  • Take the Mage class
  • Roll twice on the Tevinter Laetan table:
The Tevinter Laetan Benefit table from the Dragon Age RPG core book. It is a 2d6 table. Depending on wht you roll you will get a particular benefit such as +1 Consititution, Focus: Communication (Deception) and +1 Magic.
The Tevinter Laetan Benefit table from the Dragon Age RPG core book. It is a 2d6 table. Depending on wht you roll you will get a particular benefit such as +1 Consititution, Focus: Communication (Deception) and +1 Magic.

First roll – 11 Focus: Cunning (Cultural Lore)
Second roll – 9 Focus: Communication (Persuasion)

Step 4: Classes

A screenshot of the page from the Dragon Age core book that describes the Mage class. It includes an illustration of a femme human in red robes with long blonde hair, a staff with a blue stone on top, three bluish potions at her hip and some magical enegy emanating from her outstretched fingertips.
A screenshot of the page from the Dragon Age core book that describes the Mage class. It includes an illustration of a femme human in red robes with long blonde hair, a staff with a blue stone on top, three bluish potions at her hip and some magical enegy emanating from her outstretched fingertips.

This game, much like the video games, only has three classes:

  • Mage
  • Rogue
  • Warrior

But within these classes you have a selection of specialisation options. I often wonder that there is no Priest class in this relatively traditional fantasy world. They gave the healing duties to mages and that is one specialisation option you can take as a mage. You can’t take Bard as a class but if you are a Rogue, you can choose to specialise as a Bard. And Barbarian isn’t an option in the Class list, but Warriors can go down that sort of route if they want.

Anyway, all that is academic as I am required to choose the mage class due the background I rolled.

The Class section starts off with an explanation of the broadness of the classes as I said above and then tells us a little about character advancement. You start at Level 1 and can get up to Level 20. There are options for XP and milestone leveling and it explains how you improve with a new level. Suffice it to say, ability score improvement is one of the main ways you gain in power, but you also get more Health, new ability focuses (which I don’t understand yet,) new class powers and “stunt points” (which I also don’t understand yet.) I just know you start with 6 Stunt Points. Everybody does.

It’s important to note that you don’t get a specialization until level 6.

As a mage, my character starts with three spells but can’t wear armour or use many types of weapons.

They have three Primary Abilities (as do all classes.) For a mage that’s Cunning, Magic and Willpower. The first two are not bad for me but that last one is a 0. Oh well.

All the others are Secondary Abilities.

Starting health is 20 + Con + 1d6. I rolled a 5 so that means it’s 27! Not too shabby.

My Weapon Groups are Brawling and Staves.

At Level 1, my Class Powers are

  • Arcane Lance, which means I can send a burst of magical energy from a staff
  • Magic Training allows me to cast spells. Here are the spells I’ve got:
    • Arcane Bolt
    • Arcane Shield
    • Daze
  • Mana Points. I start with 10 + Magic + 1d6. That’s a 4 on the d6 so a total of 16.
  • Starting Talent. I choose one talent from Chirurgy, Linguistics and Lore. Can’t get Chirurgy because it has a requirement that I don’t have. Gonna go for Lore, which seems the most generally useful.

Step 5: Equipment

You don’t get a lot to start with to be honest. I’ve got a backpack, some traveling clothes and a water skin as well as a staff and another weapon. I can only use staves or Brawling weapons. The Staves group includes clubs and morning-stars, I guess I’ll take a morning star then!
I also get 50 + 3d6 silver pieces to buy other gear. I rolled 10 on the 3d6. So that’s 60 silver.

I guess I’ll pick up a bedroll for 10 sp and a blanket for 6 sp. I’m not going to get into any more shopping right now.

Step 6: Defense and Speed

Your Defense score is, unsurprisingly, a measure of how hard it is to hit your character. It is 10 + Dex + Shield Bonus (if you have one.) So, that’s an 11 for me.

You can move up to a number of yards equal to your Speed when taking move actions. For a human, that’s 10 + Dex – Armour Penalty. I don’t have any armour so that’s not an issue. So essentially my Speed and Defense are the same, 11.

Step 7: Name

They have a long list of sample names in the book. Not just for Dwarves, Elves, Qunari and Humans but for the full variety of cultures and backgrounds (actually this mainly applies to the various human cultures) that they might come from. First, I need to decide what this character’s pronouns might be. I think I will go with he/him this time. As a Tevinter character, I can choose from some pretty cool names, including Dorian, Florian and Ether. But I have decided to go with Amatus. Amatus the Tevinter Laetan Mage.

Step 8: Goals and Ties

I like that they have included this step in character creation. Just go and take a look at my Motivation post to see why I think that, at least about Goals.
Anyway, I have to pick three Goals, a mix of long a shorter term ones.

  • Find the only friend I ever knew, an Elf named, Adanna, who was once a slave who belonged to his family in Tevinter, but escaped to Ferelden a year ago.
  • Try to make a name as an adventurer in Ferelden while staying out of the hands of the Templars.
  • To earn some coin and find some companions.

The other part of this is the Ties part. Now this specifically refers to other PCs. Since I don’t have any of those, I’ll have to skip that part.

I think I will have to do another post on the general AGE system and particularly how it relates to this game as there are still several elements that are a mystery to me but I feel like I have gone on long enough for one post.

Non-standard Holidays

Celebrations

I’ve begun to realise recently that I would much prefer to celebrate a fictional or “made-up” holiday than a real one. At least a real western one. I have had to interrogate the reasons for that, of course. But, let me tell you, dear reader, it did not take me very long to hit upon the answers.

Religion is, naturally, the top reason. It’s been a long time since the church and I parted ways. We had a fundamental philosophical conflict that was irreconcilable. Anyway, as a result, I don’t feel I’m a part of the religious side of any of our really major holidays. Christmas and Easter are the ones I am thinking of but in Ireland, at least, there are plenty of other saints’ names attached to days throughout the year. Of course, I know that these holidays, and even some of the saints have been recycled from pagan ones by the church. Same with a lot of the traditions. I’m sure dominant religions have been doing that throughout history as a clever way to stamp their authority on a people or place. You can see it happening in real time to our big holidays too, of course, as they are co-opted by consumerism. The original meanings have become mixed up and diluted and lost. What even is the meaning of Christmas? (there’s a saccharine Christmas movie in there somewhere.)

The second reason is related to the first in that rampant consumerism is the focus of these big holidays that we tend to celebrate in the West. So, as diluted as the pagan purposes of the holidays have become, even the Christian meanings of more recent centuries have been co-opted by Black-Fridayism. These times, when families and communities come together, are often the most stressful and worrisome occasions for those struggling financially in the first place. It just doesn’t feel worth it…

So why not celebrate occasions where the meaning is as clear and sparkling as Caribbean waters, and as fun and uncomplicated as a Hobbit’s birthday party? And let’s not forget, themes worthy of really kick-ass RPGs.

Talk Like a Pirate Day

Those of you have been around a couple of weeks might remember that I made a character using Pirate Borg a while back. That was by way of familiarising myself with the game, the setting, the character classes and the general rules. And all of that was in the service of a Talk Like a Pirate Day one-shot on September 19th.

I was the GM for this game so I never ended up using Isabella “Butcher” Fernando, the buccaneer I created for that other post. However, we did have another buccaneer in the party, recently returned from hell, where the devil didn’t want her, was Eliza “Bad Omen” Rackham. She made an incredible entrance (her player was unavoidably detained so she appeared about an hour and a half into the action.) As though rising from Davy Jones’ Locker, she emerged from he water by the other characters’ little row-boat and hoisted herself into it by grabbing their oars, shocking her companions who all knew she was dead. Eliza was, surprisingly enough, the most normal member of this cursed crew. As well as “Bad Omen,” we had a couple of skeletons, one a swashbuckler and one a zealot, a vampiric rapscallion and, a mutant great old one from another reality who also happened to be a sorcerer with a taste for human flesh. So, I decided to skip any town-based interactions with NPCs and start them off in medias res, facing down a British naval vessel who wanted to kill or capture at least three members of the small crew. Raymond, our vampire took the role of captain, despite being disadvantaged by the glaring Caribbean sunlight, while Jolly Roger, the Great Old One Mutant and our skeletons, All Bones McKeown and Hector blasted off broadsides.

After they escaped that fight, we did a smash cut to them rowing ashore, greeting the resurrected Eliza and then to the carved door of a lost temple in the jungles of Black Coral Bay. That’s the island presented in the core Pirate Borg book as a place to start your adventures. I took three of the dungeons (Shrine of the Nameless Skull, Sanctum of Nameless Blood and the Lake of the Nameless One, which are all a part of the larger Temple of the Nameless One but are distinct nonetheless) described in the book and used those for the one-shot. It might seem counterintuitive to use three dungeons where one would have been more than enough for a one-shot, but, for the Pirates of the Caribbean type theme and for the satisfaction it would bring, I thought it was important. So, I did the first dungeon entirely in montage, finally describing how the PCs figured out the way through the temple door and let play begin there. For, the second dungeon I took out all but two main rooms, putting several major items and encounters into those rooms instead. The third dungeon, I left in its entirety and I’m glad I did because it had so many cool moments. These were topped off with a bunch of curses handed out by an ancient golden idol in the hold of a sunken Spanish galleon in an underground lake, the skeletons regaining their flesh, and All Bones McKeown being eaten by the giant Cthulhoid monster from the home-dimension of Jolly Roger. The survivors escaped through a maze of flooded underground tunnels and emerged into the creepy and atmospheric Black Coral Reef.

I loved it. It was a very good time and I think the players liked it too. One of them announced that they would happily play a full campaign of Pirate Borg, in fact. Their roleplaying was fantastic, because, as game designer and mutual on Instagram, sean_f_smith recently commented on one of my posts “everyone knows how to play a pirate.” I was worried about the strangeness of the PCs at the start, but the madcap elements introduced by their weirdo characters only heightened the atmosphere. Add in some pirate tunes and a few glasses of grog and we had a whale of a time. 10/10, might just go back to it before next Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Bilbo and Frodo’s Birthday

Did you know that it was Bilbo and Frodo’s birthday on September 22nd? The Bagginses of Bag End? Well, I didn’t. Not until the day before at least (although, I’m sure a younger me would have known it.) Anyway, I got in the Discord for Tables and Tales, our local TTRPG community and requested a Lord of the Rings flavoured game. It was incredibly short notice but our resident Tolkienite, Isaac of Lost Path Publishing did not shirk. He suggested a one-shot of a scenario that came in the core rules of The One Ring 2E from Free League. In no time at all we had swords, bows and axes being proferred in the comments and a full fellowship was formed.

In fact, we had five players and Isaac in total so it was a very fun table. We started off, on the night, with a spot of light character creation. Now, you need a bit of time for this in The One Ring. It’s not as time-consuming as D&D 5E character creation but it’s somewhat more involved, than say, Pirate Borg. Even then, with Pirate Borg, we had plenty of prep time and we had all met for a session 0 online a few days before so everyone had their characters ready to go. Since I had given Isaac only a single night to pull this together, (sorry Isaac) we had to include it in the session. By this point, we already knew this was going to take longer than one night to get through but we were all alright with that.

Actually, by the time we all had out characters ready we still had plenty of time to get into “the Star of the Mist.” The scenario began with our Player Heroes meeting Gandalf in the Prancing Pony! How my nerdy heart swooned! Isaac, producing an Oscar worthy performance as Ian McKellen as the old wizard, sent us off on a quest into southern Eriador where some folk had been going missing.

Our party consisted of two Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain, one of which was played by me. I said I was going to go full Nesbitt (as in Jimmy who played Bofur in the Hobbit movies) But I think I was more Belfast than that in the end. My guy is Frár, the Champion. The other dwarf is Berfa, a Treasure Hunter. We have a second Treasure Hunter, Porro, one of our two Hobbits. The second Hobbit is, Rollo, a Messenger and finally, our Barding, Dagstan, is a Warden. We set off into the wilds to find the source of the trouble and we managed to get a fair way into the scenario despite our time constraints. I don’t want to give anything away but it has Dwarves ruins, monsters in the water and a mysterious “she” who has so far remained unnamed. That’s a trio of Tolkien ticks right there.

As I said to the rest of the players, this session was special to me. It felt like the realisation of the dream of Tables and Tales; the ability to get a game together at a day’s notice for people to enjoy and to celebrate an important occasion, Bilbo’s onehundredandeleventh birthday!

I’m so looking forward to continuing this adventure. It had been a long time since any of us had played the system so there was a fair amount of scrabbling through the book for rules by all concerned. I feel like next time, we’ll know what we’re doing a lot better and, from recent experience, I find Free League games to pretty intuitive once you grasp the basics.

Other festivities

These are just the latest games played with a particular non-standard festival in mind. On May the Fourth, we played a Never Tell Me the Odds one-shot set during the events of Star Wars Episode Four, A New Hope. The PCs had to infiltrate the Death Star to rescue a certain Princess before the storm troopers got them, or indeed, before anyone else could rescue her!

Obviously, we are coming into the season for horror and spooky games as Halloween approaches. This is one holiday I can get behind. There are so many games that could suit this season that I am excited to start coming up with a few ideas.

How about you, dear reader, are there any occasions, events or holidays that you like to mark with a festive game? Let me know in the comments!

Case Closed

The suspects

I finished up two investigative scenarios in the last week or so. The experiences could not have been more different. I was the GM for one and a player in the other. They were in very different genres and systems too. I am going to have a go at dissecting them and trying to compare them, nonetheless.

D&D 5E – An Unexpected Wedding Invitation

I wrote a little about this short campaign here. At the time I wrote that, I didn’t even know it was a murder mystery, to be honest. It is a published, third-party 5E scenario so I could have looked it up, but I avoided reading anything about it online. Our wonderful DM was also the consummate host and was always wonderfully welcoming. She was a great DM too. We met in person over the space of eight sessions, more-or-less every two weeks. Our DM, who has run this scenario more than once previously, informed us afterwards that we took far longer to get through the scenario than other groups. Personally, I think that’s probably because of a couple of very important factors. Firstly, we had a fairly large group, five players and the DM. But, I think the second factor is what really pushed it so far beyond the normal length for the scenario. We were all chewing the scenery at every available opportunity. This group of players does not shy away from the first person, expansive, full-chested role-playing and it honestly does my withered heart good to see it every time we get together. We all had reasons for going ham as well. There was the promise of romance and, failing that, friendship. The possibility for court intrigue and drama was there as well. But, certain sections of the table were there to get their kisses in (in the infamous words of Lou Wilson.) The mystery was almost secondary to those folks.

As for the mystery itself; I won’t go into details. No spoilers except to say that there is a murder and we were not aware of that aspect going in. I don’t know if the DM advice is to keep that from the players until it happens but that was the case for us. Anyway, that was quite exciting actually. To discover there was an actual crime to figure out gave us all a shot in the arm! Up until then we had been essentially casing the wedding for curses and harassing the guests with weird, cryptic questions about the nature of one family’s bad luck. So, when we had a specific thing to investigate, it filled us with the sort of motivation that, I feel, the scenario failed to provide up to that point.

As for the investigation itself, it’s all about the NPCs in this adventure. That seems appropriate for a mystery game and this particular scenario was replete with well drawn NPCs who had distinct personalities, motivations, idiosyncrasies and voices (provided quite expertly by our DM.) You have the bride and groom, of course but you also have a cast of characters drawn mainly from the families on both sides. There are several set-piece scenes that are designed to allow the PCs to get to know the cast and our DM graciously provided us with portraits for all the main NPCs, hanging them on her DM screen. This was very helpful as there were a lot of them and without that constant visual aid, it would have been much harder to keep track. Our interactions with the NPCs seemed to give us positive or negative standing with them, leading to later conversations being more or less difficult for us.

The setting was integral, of course. An opulent country manse belonging to one of the families involved, surrounded by a generous estate on which they enjoyed hunting and picnicking. The adventure provided a couple of maps; more for reference than anything else as there was not a fight to be had at this affair.

As I said, I am not going into spoilers here about the murder, the suspects or the ending but there are a few things I can say. It seems as though the adventure comes with several prepared possible endings. The actions of the players, their standing with the major NPCs and their final pronouncement of who they figure did the murder all seemed to have an effect on that. This served to give it a slightly video-gamey feel, which was neither good nor bad but certainly leant a lot to the idea that everything was laid out in the adventure quite prescriptively.

Speaking of which, the actions of the PCs throughout felt a little restricted. This was purely a result of playing D&D 5E characters in a genre they were never meant to exist in. Few of our powers or abilities were of much use in this milieu and that felt a little frustrating at times.

Equally, there were several timed events that could not be prevented or changed in any real way by the PCs. Once again, this had the effect of making us feel more like spectators than active participants.

Questioning the NPCs, the most important part of the scenario, by far, and the only one where you could make inroads in your romantic or duelling ambitions, was difficult to say the least. Pretty much all of them could have done it, to be honest. That, by itself, is ok, but failing certain rolls here and there made the process feel fruitless at times. Without some mechanic to allow you to fail forward, it was always going to feel like this.

In the end, we failed to catch the killer. We fingered the wrong guy for the crime. This was due, in large part, to us interacting less with the killer than we might have, failing s couple of clutch rolls in interacting with them and the fact that we were left with too many potential culprits at the end that we couldn’t whittle down further with the evidence we had. Our failure was revealed to us in a sort of cut-scene right at the end. After all the effort we had put in, this felt like losing even though we had all enjoyed playing together around the table. The overall consensus from the players was that 5E was not the system for this scenario. It is not built for this sort of investigation and it led to an unsatisfying feeling from the result of the game even if we had a good time playing together, as we always do.

Blade Runner, Electric Dreams

Two blade runners posing like neon noir heroes in front of a stylised Wallace Corp ziggurat beneath the title of the Blade Runner Role Playing Game.
A photo of the front of my copy of the Blade Runner Start Set box.

I wrote a little about this game here while we were still playing it. At the time of writing that, we were only two sessions in and I was greatly looking forward to the next one. There were two players, playing Detective Novak and Fenna. We did this online, using Zoom and Roll20. It took five sessions of two and a half to three hours each. Having checked out other groups’ experiences with the same case file, I can say that’s about average. I could absolutely see it taking both less or more time since it would be dependent on how quickly the blade runners discover the key clues and how quickly they act.

Electric Dreams is also a pre-written scenario but, I think, importantly, it was produced by Free League as the intro to the Blade Runner RPG. There was never going to be a mismatch of scenario and system like we saw in An Unexpected Wedding Invitation. In fact, it felt as though this scenario was close to perfectly designed to bring players into the world and the system at the same time.

If you are a Blade Runner fan but not familiar with the Year Zero engine or RPGs in general, its got elements from the movies for you to geek out over and allow you to feel part of the megacity of LA by referencing the media you know and love. Meanwhile, it holds your hand through the early interactions with the mechanics, kicking things off with a few basic Observation and Manipulation rolls, teaching you that the more successes you get on your dice rolls, the better the result. As time goes on, the references to the movies remain strong, keeping the whole thing feeling like a natural continuation of or bridge between those stories and establishing a consistent and immersive tone and atmosphere. But you get more and more in-depth interactions with the rules as it introduces you to chase mechanics, combat, use of more complicated investigative techniques and character advancement.

And if you are an old hand at Free League’s signature rules engine, you will be good to go from the start. I was somewhere in between when we started playing. I am a big fan of Blade Runner and I have run Tales from the Loop before so I knew how the system worked well enough. But it was a long time since I had played it and I definitely had to look some rules up in play. This was generally fine, and didn’t take too long. What we also found, was that, once we looked up those rules once, we grokked them and didn’t have to keep referring to the rulebook, which was a refreshing change of pace for a group of players who have mainly only played D&D 5E together before (at least in recent years.)

Now, down to the scenario itself. As with the Wedding mystery, this was largely based around really well drawn NPCs, all of whom were potentially important to the plot. But, from the start, it felt as though the PCs knew who their main suspect was. They were rarely dissuaded from that notion, despite (or perhaps because of) the powers-that-be forcefully reminding them about the way they would like to see the investigation go. Since the characters were playing blade runners, cops in the LAPD, there were a number of NPCs that were there purely to back them up or chivvy them along. You had Coco, the medical examiner (who you also meet in Blade Runner 2049) and Deputy Chief Holden (who got his chest punctured in an interaction with Leon the replicant in Blade Runner) as well as any number of ad-libbed beat cops and the AI LAPD Despatch. The Wallace Corp is represented by one of their replicant executives who was immense fun to play. You also had a few NPCs that were witnesses and were never going to be anything but witnesses. The investigation was not designed to send the detectives off on the wrong path. There was no more than one red herring and that was there more to reinforce a theme than as a real way of derailing things.

What we found was that most of the sessions involved them trying to track the one suspect and discover their motivations and whereabouts. This led them into a web of corporate intrigue and moral dilemmas. That’s what Blade Runner should be about, of course, and Free League nailed that. The PCs were able to use the abilities of their pregenerated characters to do that pretty well. In fact, I would say that they were implausibly successful most of the time. On a couple of occasions they rolled so well that I felt compelled to reward them with information that would not, otherwise, have come up until later in the investigation. Moments like these allowed them to make incredibly effective leaps. What I liked about this scenario is that it allowed for that. There is a timeline of events that will happen at particular points of the investigation, but only if the PCs do nothing to prevent them. So, that doesn’t stop you moving them two steps forward, instead of the usual one. I think it actually encourages that sort of thing, in fact, as the timed events are generally pretty bad for the investigators or the other major characters.

We got an ending that was equal parts satisfying and open-ended, with the PCs making the moral, rather than the legal choice after the corporation took the law into its own hands one too many times. We might return to Novak and Fenna someday, maybe in the next published case file, Fiery Angels. The first one ran so well that I would definitely be confident to play the next one.

Conclusion

It is almost unfair to compare these two games, but it has been impossible for me to do anything else. In blade runner, you had a scenario where any outcome the PCs reached was likely to be satisfying and a system that supported the sort of game you were playing, investigative, character driven and darkly themed. In the other, the scenario felt a little too restrictive and was hampered further by a system that was never designed to support the investigative nature or the regency feel. I had fun with both, but I know where I would turn first if someone asked to play a mystery game.

Oh Mother!

Moonbase Blues

New member of the Tables and Tales crew, and experienced GM, Joel, is going to be holding our hands and releasing them when we reach the airlock, only to lock the door and start the cycle sequence while we batter our fists raw on the glass. He will watch us, impassive and seemingly unaware of our distress. Is that a hint of reptilian hunger in his eyes?
If this is how Moonbase Blues actually goes down, I’d honestly be ok with that.

Mothership character creation

Any excuse for a character creation post, eh?

Mothership has a very handy method of guiding the prospective victim through the process. The third paragraph in the Player’s Survival Guide tells you to turn to the sheet in the back of the book as it leads you through character creation. And, guess what? It does! All the instructions are right there on pages 5 and 6 as well though.

Our thoughtful and wise GM has also provided us a lovely form-fillable character sheet. That’s what I will be using tonight.

A screenshot of the Mothership Character Profile. It is a form-fillable character sheet, which also includes almost all the instructions you need to create a Mothership character.
A screenshot of the Mothership Character Profile. It is a form-fillable character sheet, which also includes almost all the instructions you need to create a Mothership character.

We are five-by-five. Let’s go.

Step 1 – Roll Stats

We have four stats: strength, speed, intellect and combat. For each one we will roll 2d10 and add 25. Just watch me fuck this up:

Strength: 31
Speed: 28
Intellect: 32
Combat: 36

It’s not a total shit-show but it’s not great. I only got one roll above ten and that was eleven.

Moving swiftly on to leave this debacle behind!

Step 2 – Roll Saves

You have three types of saves in this game: sanity, fear and body. I think they pretty much speak for themselves, no?
For the saves I am rolling 2d10 and adding 10.

Sanity: 21
Fear: 14
Body: 25

I feel like having a low fear save score in a horror game is a distinct and unfortunate disadvantage. I just have to remember to milk it for role-playing opportunities, I suppose.

Step 3 – Choose Class

I like the choice of Class you have here. They are the classic Alien archetypes after all:

Marine
Android
Scientist
Teamster

I very much like the description each one gets in the intro.

A screenshot of the "Step 3. Choose Your Class" table from the Mothership Player's Survival Guide. It shows the available classes, Marines, Androids, Scientists, Teamsters, and describes them.
A screenshot of the “Step 3. Choose Your Class” table from the Mothership Player’s Survival Guide. It shows the available classes, Marines, Androids, Scientists, Teamsters, and describes them.

I am leaning towards marine, mainly because my Fear save is so low and there is that crack about marines being a danger to everybody when they panic. Heh. This is why I like one-shots. No fucker is getting out alive.

Yeah, marine it is.

“How do I get outta this chicken-shit outfit?”

You actually do also get some mechanical effects through your choice of class, it’s not all planned panic and movie quotes.

A Marine gets:

  • +10 Combat
  • +10 Body Save
  • +20 Fear Save
  • +1 Max Wounds

Sounds good.
That makes my Combat now a more respectable 46, my Fear Save a 34 and my Body Save a 35.

Step 4 – Roll Health

Health is rolled with 1d10 and you add 10 to it. I’m sure this roll will go just fine.
It’s a 7! I genuinely expected so much worse.

Anyway, that makes it

Health: 17

So, the way it works is that, once you drop below zero health, you get a wound. Most people start with 2 max wounds before things start getting more permanent. Marines, as noted above, get 3 max wounds. Once you mark a wound, you reset your health to its max minus any damage that carried over.

Step 5 – Gain Stress

What? Already?
I start with 2 minimum.

Step 6 – Trauma Response

“They’re all around us, man…Jesus…They’re comin’ outta the goddamn walls!”

Yep, this is a fun bit of Mothership specific stuff here. The Marine’s trauma response is:

Whenever you panic, every close friendly player must make a Fear Save.

Just stay outta my way.

Step 7 – Note Class Skills and Choose Bonus Skills

So, my class skills as a marine are no big surprise. Military Training and Athletics.
My Bonus Skills, though, I get to choose one Expert Skill or two Trained Skills. There is a sort of skill tree that you can see in the screenshot of the character sheet above. To choose a skill you have to have at least one pre-requisite skill. In other words, if you don’t have an arrow coming out of your trained skill and into the skill you want, you can’t have that one.

I’m realising that Marines have a very narrow range of potential specialities here. But that’s ok, do you really need any more than Firearms and Hand-to-Hand Combat? Nope.
“Check it out. I am the ULTIMATE badass.”

Step 8 – Equipment, Loadout, Trinket and Patch

We have got some tables on page 7 of the Player’s Survival Guide. There is one for each class. I am going to roll on the Marine one with a d10 to see what shit I have.

A screenshot of the "Marine Loadouts" table from the Mothership Player's Survival Guide. It is a d10 table. Each entry has a different set of equipment for a marine character to start with.
A screenshot of the “Marine Loadouts” table from the Mothership Player’s Survival Guide. It is a d10 table. Each entry has a different set of equipment for a marine character to start with.

I rolled a 3. So this is what that gives me:
Standard Battle Dress (AP7 (that’s short for Armour Points, yw,)) Pulse Rifle (3 mags (that’s short for magazines)) and Infrared Goggles.

I’m quite happy with that.

On page 8, we have a d100 table of trinkets. Let’s see what I get.

That’s a 005.
Ok, this guy is a total jarhead. That’s a necklace of shell casings. Cool. Cool, cool, cool.

Page 9 has another d100 table, this time for your patch. And that is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a patch that is sewn into your clothes, somewhere.

I rolled a 72 which means I have a patch of a black widow spider. I’m beginning to feel a character coming on.

I am pretty sure this marine is super serious about the job, really does consider themself a badass and is weird about it. Collects spent bullet casings and makes jewellery out of them, has a patch of the black widow spider because they truly respect her ruthlessness. But they are faintly ridiculous to their fellow crew and anyone who meets them, probably.

I am going to roll up my starting Credits. It’s 2d10 multiplied by 10. Here we go:

I rolled a 3 so that’s 30 credits. Clearly this marine has spent too much money on bullet casing jewellery courses. Should not be in charge of their own finances.

Step 9 – Finishing touches

That means name and stuff.

She is Corporal Victoria Ibanez, she/her.

Despite all those Hudson quotes, I think this marine is more like Vasquez. She knows she is the greatest marine to grace the corps in all the years it has existed and she doesn’t mind letting people know.
She has two brothers and a girlfriend at home on Theseus IV. She keeps promising to send credits to them but she somehow never has any left at the end of the month.
Victoria is 28 years old. She has a shaved head but it shows ginger when it’s growing out. She is stocky and broad and sports a lot of scars that she tells everyone she got in combat.

Also, I have to mark a zero above High Score on my character sheet. That’s because this records the number of sessions your character has survived!

The final chacter profile for Corporal Victoria Ibanez, she/her, my Mothership PC. She has a relatively high Combat score, mostly quite low Saves and is specialised in Firearms and Hand-toHand Combat. She knows she is the greated marine in the corps.
The final chacter profile for Corporal Victoria Ibanez, she/her, my Mothership PC. She has a relatively high Combat score, mostly quite low Saves and is specialised in Firearms and Hand-to-Hand Combat. She knows she is the greatest marine in the corps.

So there we go, Victoria Ibanez, Corporal in the Marine Corps, all ‘round badass and potential cautionary tale. Can’t wait to start playing this PC at the table tomorrow night!

Festive one-shot

Celebrate

It’s almost that time of year again, everyone’s favourite holiday where we all dress up as our favourite characters and talk funny. That’s right! Talk Like a Pirate Day is fast approaching! It falls on September 19th, as I am sure you all know. As is traditional, we’ll all be renting a parrot, donning an eyepatch, practicing our “yaaaar” and contracting scurvy to commemorate the joy and wonder brought to the world by that most under-rated of historical figures, the lowly pirate.

As well as that, this year, I thought it would be fun to run a pirate themed one-shot. Since an RPG named Pirate Borg exists, it seemed like the notions of a landlubber to choose any other game to use for the occasion.

There has been an unsettling number of Borgs released over the past number of years, certainly more than enough to make Jean-Luc Picard lose his temper. It can be hard to see the hacks as anything other than cashing in, however, and I will confess to thinking that way myself. But I hear very good things about Cy-Borg and Pirate Borg has been a pleasant surprise as I read through it. It is genuinely more fun and more entertaining than I was expecting. The art, design and layout are good and the vibe is perfect if you are looking for a horror pirate game.

I have really only just gotten into the character creation section so I thought I would do another character creation post! Everybody loves those, right?

Random pirate

I’m gonna roll for everything as is traditional around here. Luckily, this game is well set up to allow for that.

Here’s the step by step guide provided on page 27 of the core book:

A photo of the table from the Pirate Borg core book that illustrates the 5 steps to Create a Player Character (PC.)
A photo of the table from the Pirate Borg core book that illustrates the 5 steps to Create a Player Character (PC.)

Random tables

So, when it says to roll on the tables on this page, this is what it means:

  • Container table (d6) I rolled a 6! That means I get a friggin’ dinghy! Good start.
  • Cheap gear table (d12) Got a 4. That’s a shovel. Should be useful for digging up buried treasure or my own grave.
  • Fancy gear table (d12) 9 on a d12 = a worn out book. I imagine it to be the well-thumbed guide to the manners of the gentry in Paris and London 50 years ago.

Random scores

A pirate has 5 abilities, Strength, Agility, Presence, Toughness, Spirit. You roll 3d6 for each one and consult another table to determine what your score is. Here we go!

  • Strength: I rolled an 8 so that gives me a -1 (it could be worse)
  • Agility: That’s a 7, which is also a -1 (a pattern is forming)
  • Presence: 12! Phew! That makes the score an incredible 0!
  • Toughness: 6. Shit. That’s -2. This pirate is not an olympic athlete
  • Spirit: 10. OK, OK. That’s also a score of 0.
    Things might start to look up as I move on to a

Random class

You can choose to be a landlubber if you don’t want to take one of the 6 standard or two optional classes. But half the fun of this exercise is rolling everything up, I’m going to roll a d8 and take whatever class it gives me. In this case, I am including the optional classes.

Here are a list of the classes:

  1. Brute
  2. Rapscallion
  3. Buccaneer
  4. Swashbuckler
  5. Zealot
  6. Sorcerer
  7. Haunted Soul – there is another d6 roll here to decide the type of supernatural entity you might be. Includes vampire, zombie, skeleton. All the classics
  8. Tall Tale – if you get this one, you roll another d6 to determine what sort of tall tale your character is
    1-2. Merfolk
    3-4. Aquatic Mutant – this gets broken down even further. Lots of potential mutants out there, folks. If I roll this up, I’ll have to roll another d8 to find out which type of mutant I’ll be. Suffice it to state, Anglerfish is an option
    5-6. Sentient Animal – this one will involve another d6 roll to decide what animal my pirate is going to be…

Well, I rolled a 3. That means my character is going to be a Buccaneer.

Skilled trackers and survivalists. Expert sharpshooters, especially with muskets and rifles

Buccaneers get a +2 to Presence, a -1 to Agility and a -1 to Spirit.
So that makes my Ability Scores:

  • Strength: -1
  • Agility: -2
  • Presence: +2
  • Toughness: -2
  • Spirit: -1
A photo of the two-page spread for the Buccaneer class in the Pirate Borg core book. The illustration on the second page shows a femme person wearing pirate gardb, including a tricorm hat. They have a hook instrad of a left hand and have a spade slung over the right shoulder.
A photo of the two-page spread for the Buccaneer class in the Pirate Borg core book. The illustration on the second page shows a femme person wearing pirate gardb, including a tricorm hat. They have a hook instrad of a left hand and have a spade slung over the right shoulder.

For a Buccaneer, reloading a black powder weapon only takes one round instead of the usual two. I guess the hope is that you are far enough away from the bad guys that you have a round before they kill you or that they don’t have ranged weapons themselves.
I also start with a Musket and 10 + Presence rounds of shot. So that would be 12, then!

Random feature

I am going to now roll a d6 for my class feature. You do this when you first begin and then again each time you gain experience. Each feature can be taken twice, or so it says here in this book.

I rolled a 2! That is the feature, Crack Shot. That reduces the Difficulty Rating (DR) of all ranged attacks by 2. That’s pretty great actually. If taken again, the feature reduces that DR by another 2 points.

Random hit points

A Buccaneer gets to roll a d8 for hit points and add (or, in my case, subtract) my Toughness. Looks like d8 is the most common die for HP across the classes. I rolled a 7 so that leaves me with 5 HP. I am pleasantly surprised!

Random clothing and hat!

Now we’re on to the really important shit.
Buccaneers get to roll a d10 on the clothing table. The options range from Tier 0 rags to Tier 3 conquistador plate!

I rolled a frigging 10!! That’s the conquistador plate! -d6 damage. But it does add 4 to the DR for all agility tests and 2 to all defence test DRs. Also, the text goes out of its way to tell you you’re going to drown if you end up in the water…

Now for Hat! Have to roll a d12 for this.
You can get anything from “none” to “morion” on a d12.
I got a 6, bandanna, which I find acceptably piratical.

Random… Luck

A photo of the Devil's Luck page of the Pirate Borg core book. It shows an upsidedown five-pointed star with text describing the ways you can use a PC's Devil's Luck points in each of the five points and a pirate's skull in the middle. You can tell it belongs to a pirate because of the eyepatch over the left eye.
A photo of the Devil’s Luck page of the Pirate Borg core book. It shows an upsidedown five-pointed star with text describing the ways you can use a PC’s Devil’s Luck points in each of the five points and a pirate’s skull in the middle. You can tell it belongs to a pirate because of the eyepatch over the left eye.

Devil’s Luck is a resource that your character can use in Pirate Borg for the purposes of dealing max damage with an attack, lowering the damage done to you by d6, rerolling any die, neutralising a crit/fumble or lowering a test’s DR by 4. So it works like Omens in Mõrk Borg, basically.

Your class determines what you roll for your starting Devil’s Luck. The Buccaneer gets d2. For my purposes, I plucked the first die out of my dice bag and it turned out to be a glittery, turquoise d6. I rolled a 6! So that means I get 2 Devil’s Luck. Not too shabby, but not too great really, eh?

Random background

The next thing the step by step guide says to do is roll on the tables on pages 55 to 61. The first of those is a d100 table of backgrounds. These are more than just back story. They also determine your starting money and provide you with something significant like items, important NPCs and motivations.

I rolled a 97! That gives my pirate the “victim” background. That’s broad but might give me a spark for my actual backstory. It also gives me 2d6 x10 silver pieces and a haunted past (obvs.)

I rolled a 7 on my 2d6 so that’s 70 silver to begin. Along with the 200 I am likely to get for the conquistador armour, this buccaneer will be laughing all the way to the X.

Random flaw

Page 56 has the Distinctive Flaws table. It’s a d20 table of generally one-word personality traits. Some of these are only subjectively to be considered flaws in my opinion. I rolled a 9 and got “aggressive.” I would imagine that that is considered a good trait for a pirate in many situations. I’ll take it!

Equally, “2. Stubborn,” “6. Coward,” and “17. Paranoid” might all be considered beneficial to people in the pirating business at least some of the time.

Random trademark

I am rolling here for a Physical Trademark, rather than some sort of copyright or patent type deal. That would be a weird thing to include in the character creation section of a pirate game.

Another d20, here we go!
I rolled a 5… shit, I’m missing a hand; hook or claw instead. I’m thinking claw? Might be easier to handle my gun that way. Importantly, there is nothing in here about this causing any sort of mechanical drawback to your character, which I like.

Random idiosyncrasy

The full title of the table on page 58 is:

Idiosyncrasies one might have developed and will certainly never be rid of…Yet that certainly won’t stop you from trying.

It’s another d20 table. I have been using a different die for every single roll and I don’t see a reason to stop that now. It has been serving me semi-well thus far after all.
That’s a 12. Now this result might very well feed into the victim background I rolled up earlier:

You wronged and infamous pirate lord

I am beginning to think that the two are connected. My Buccaneer’s cat, Milly, tore out the throat of Captain Tall John Copper’s parrot, Butch. Milly jumped from the gunwale and swiped the emaciated bird off the shoulder of the famously bad-tempered pirate captain who had had men flayed alive and keel-hauled for less. As some sort of poetic justice, he made my pirate cook and eat poor Milly while the whole crew looked on, and then he chopped my hand off.

Random incidents

A photo of the Unfortunate Incidents & Conditions table from the Pirate Borg core book. It includes a black and white illustration of an overloaded lifeboat on rough seas surrounded by debris and a d20 table beneath that.
A photo of the Unfortunate Incidents & Conditions table from the Pirate Borg core book. It includes a black and white illustration of an overloaded lifeboat on rough seas surrounded by debris and a d20 table beneath that.

This one has an incredibly long full title as well:

Unfortunate incidents & conditions having occurred or developed with or without one’s express consent, desire knowledge or general understanding

Guess what! It’s another d20 table. I rolled a 9 on this table. The result is unfortunate:

Your last crew was killed by undead. They left you alive on purpose

Shit. I hope my new crew doesn’t learn of this…
I am thinking that I made a deal with a necromancer to send his vitality-challenged minions to do in Captain Tall John Copper but they got a bit enthusiastic and did the whole ship instead, leaving me to take a dinghy (call back to the first roll of the character creation process!) to the nearest port and find some new gainful employment.

Random things

The last table in the list stretches right across from page 60 to page 61. It is entitled “Thing of Importance.” It is another d100 table.

I rolled a 79:

A long scar on your face

I think it is only fair that Milly gave me that just before I popped her in the stock pot.

Random name

There is only one thing left to do as part of this process, and that is the all important name. Now there is a table for names on the inside cover of the book so I think I will use that. It is a d12 table with three columns. I shall roll a d12 3 times and combine the names as I see fit:

Roll the first: 7 – Sam(uel) or Butch(er) or Philip
Roll the second: 3 – Robert(s) or Jack or Fernando
Roll the third: 11 – Genny or Isabel(la) or Jean

I imagine the name Butcher came from the Milly incident. It should go in the middle. So, it’s Isabella “Butcher” Fernando. That’s a bloody good pirate name if I do say so myself.

Random conclusion

Not really.
I thoroughly enjoyed the process of making his character. I am used, in more recent games of Mõrk Borg, to using their Skum Birther site to come up with a random character and that can be fun too, although I do think, when you are that far-removed from the process, you don’t have that strong an attachment to them. So, spending the time rolling up this pirate with you, dear reader, has been rewarding and has taught me quite a bit about the game as well. And that, after all, was the whole point of the exercise.

Have you played Pirate Borg, dear reader? Will you be celebrating Talk Like a Pirate Day this year? If so, what will you be doing for it?

On Kickstarter

Kicking things off

I mean that’s what it was all about, yeah? Just, like, getting things started? Kickstarter might have changed its policies enough that more and more creators are jumping ship to Backerkit but it doesn’t change the impact it has had on the RPG scene (as well as many other indie scenes.) Many, many projects would not have existed without Kickstarter connecting their instigators with people who wanted them to instigate. I think we can all be grateful for that.

Swedish Machines

This is not the first Free League product that I have backed on Kickstarter and it probably won’t be the last. Right now, I’m waiting for the Replicant Rebellion Blade Runner boxed set and, another Simon Stålenhag project, the Electric State Roleplaying Game, for which I am rather excited.

But Swedish Machines is not an RPG book at all. In fact, if it is anything like the Tales from the Loop art book I received as a Christmas gift a few years ago, it is going to be a loose narrative related to the artworks presented in it. Together, in Tales from the Loop, at least, the art and the text tell the story of this strange, alternate 1980s where technology developed in a very different way than in the real world. That fact leads to some fascinating and terrifying occurrences that appear in a kind if vignette consisting of art and short fictional pieces.

I have every reason to believe that’s exactly what it will be. And I can’t wait to see what his mind has come up with this time.

Here is a short extract from the Kickstarter page to give us an idea:

Stålenhag’s most personal work yet, Swedish Machines explores masculinity, friendship, and sexuality in a queer science fiction tale about two young men stuck in the past – and in each other’s orbit. Their story spans decades, as fleeting moments become defining memories, and they set out to explore a mysterious forbidden zone together.

Set in his native Sweden and based in an alternate version of Mälaröarna outside of Stockholm, the place where he grew up, and still lives to this day, Swedish Machines juxtaposes giant futuristic machines and vehicles against the inner turmoil of the characters facing a social dystopia.

It makes me think Tales from the Loop and his other books must be related to this one. The setting, Mälaröarna, is also the setting for the Tales from the Loop RPG if you set your game in Sweden, rather than Nevada (the other option from the core book.) And, as well as that, the existence of giant futuristic machines makes it sound like this is in the same universe. I think it’s also really exciting that the book is focusing on this queer couple and their story. I have not read all of his books, but, certainly, Tales from the Loop had a much more ensemble tinge to its cast of characters.

And let’s just focus on the art for a moment. I don’t have the vocabulary to fully do it justice but I love how Stålenhag goes for realistic depictions of the world at a very specific time and in a very specific place but inserts the impossible into them. These impossible things, like the huge cooling towers with blinking lights in Tales from the Loop, or the giant cat mascot collapsing an overpass in Electric State are ignored or, at the very most, treated as mundane, by the characters in it. And the characters? Almost all have their backs to you, encouraging you to see the world through their eyes or to take their place in it. It’s great.

I believe that, once again, I am just a day too late posting this as the Kickstarter campaign finished up on September 5th. Still, it’s worth keeping an eye out for and picking up a copy when it is released more generally.

Kal-Arath

Slaps the roof of Kal-Arath This baby’s got everything your average OSR gamer could ever want or need. You want to drive Kal-Arath solo? No problemo. You want a co-driver, just you and them out on the open hexes? Kal-Arath’s got you. You want to take a group of four or five passengers out on a road-trip to who-knows-where with no preparation and hankering for some adventure on the highway of fantasy? DONE!

I became aware of Kal-Arath as a project by following Castle Grief on Instagram. And it is one of the projects I am most excited to receive. It has a wonderfully indie, hand-made quality to it and it’s telling us it’s going to do a lot of the work for us at the table:

Oracles, Starting Adventure Seeds, Points of Interest, Encounters, Settlements, NPCs, Dungeons, Items – all of these have their own tables for generation, and combined together create a setting flavorful setting that emerges from the tables themselves

That was actually an extract from the Castle Grief itch page, which you should also go and check out, dear reader!

The rules are purportedly a combo of elements from a number of other games. It uses 2d6 and employs at least some aspects from two games I have played before, Mörk Borg and Black Sword Hack. I am a big fan of both of these OSR games and really enjoy a 2d6 system in general. I know the actual dice you chuck don’t really make that much difference at the table, but 2d6 just feels good. OK?

Also, it’s got a lot of gnarly hand-drawn art too. It fits the idea of this game so well. I love it.

Anyway, Kal-Arath is definitely still live so go back it!

And, if you’re interested in Simon Ståhlenhag’s art, you should still be able to pick up a copy of Tales from the Loop.