MY POSTING HABITS

Well I've been posting very intermittently lately because of my Dark Before Dawn multi-modal LARP.  Something about running monthly LARP sessions, with attached downtimes, play-by-posts and tabletop scenes tends to fill up your day!  Especially as it's a high mechanics LARP (lots of rules!) with character sheets and booklets that constantly needed updating.  Things will slowly get back to normal (I think!) after late May once my finale is done.

Meanwhile I'm in the planning stages for the following LARP campaign - Paradise Island (monthly LARP sessions, nothing else), enjoying Southern Wilds LARP (fortnightly boffer LARP), and continuing my Iron Gods and Wrath of the Righteous campaigns (currently on hiatus due to upcoming Finale).

I'm also working on finally doing the Cthulhu campaigns I've always wanted now that I've found a second player with the same love of tactics, investigation and NPC interaction.  It's a little too heavy having to do it solo because of all the decision making required.  Two players should be perfect as it gives each player plenty of time to enjoy their characterisations -- and it's much easier to interrogate a witness with two (maybe three) players than with four to six.

I'll be doing the Cthulhu campaign a little differently, however, because it's me and I like to tinker with settings.  The tinker posts will be their own topic, though, and worth their own post.  I will say that it will be using the Trail of Cthulhu rules and that I might start in Innsmouth and move on to Masks of Nyarlathotep and then finish up with Mountains of Madness.  Presuming we have the energy for all of these!  And then Achtung Cthulhu may tempt me.

901 Posts! Woo hoo!

So with this post I've vaulted through 900 posts on this blog.  Wow ... just wow.  I can't imagine how long it would take to read them all.  I swear I should try it sometime, though.  See what I can find.  See what gems of wisdom I've promptly forgotten about moments after I wrote them down!  (Here's hoping there's gems of wisdom somewhere in 900 posts!)  But yeah, woo!  Go me!

Dental Shenanigans

Sorry about the lack of posts recently but I fell sick just before I had to Chief Bridesmaid a wedding and then had dental surgery on Monday to prep the gum for a dental implant.  I've got some more Demon: the Fallen Lore posts ready to go but the next Game Translation will, alas, need to be next Wednesday.  I'm also planning on putting up some more of my Pathfinder - Wrath of the Righteous stuff and some information on the last few sessions and general style guide and How Tos for my vampire LARP.  I'm also about an inch away from being able to release some more of those Masks of Nyarlathotep audio logs.

Is there anything else you guys are super keen on hearing about?  Now's a good time to say.

Vampire LARP ... eep

So my first big vampire LARP as part of the Adelaide Roleplaying Community Incorporated is due to kick off this Saturday.  I'm kinda nervous.  It was initially slated to run with 30 people so all I had to do was ensure we had enough Floor GMs and Assistant GMs.  We had a nice hall, fancy decorations, and some really neat character goals to keep things going for the six and a half hours and to justify the $16 non-concession door price.

Then we had 12 people purchase tickets.

Ye gads....  You can't rely on 12 people to entertain themselves for 6 and a half hours.  Well, you can, but you shouldn't, because they won't be very entertaining 9 / 10.

So I'm having to shift things around, take the original advertised concept and mould it a bit so that everything I said about the game remains true but there's more stuff to do and keep them occupied.  As it's a dice LARP I can't rely on drumming up buddies to charge in there as bad guys because, well, dice LARP combat even between 12 people is pretty boring, so I need to find ways to keep them entertained that doesn't rely on NPCs.

For a little while, I panicked.  I won't lie.  I considered swapping venues and building up a real murder mystery style game, very Lovecraftian, lots of props, but swapping venues a week beforehand is generally a bad idea.  It looks sloppy.  Plus I didn't have enough time to really do all the props and handouts that would make that work.

So I stole a couple Nordic ideas through a lens of Vampire: the Requiem.  We should have more than enough stuff to keep folk entertained and busy.  6 1/2 hours.  12 players.  The time allotment works brilliantly as well.

Naturally I can't discuss it upfront as some of my players will read this but I will be able to give you all of the details next week.

Also sorry I've been slack with this blog.  I've been busy with LARPs and life and stuff.  I'll do up a Game Translation this Wednesday on This Is War to make up for it.

Wrath of the Righteous: Sword of Valor: Part C

I was extremely excited to run this book as it meant we could play with armies ... something my solo player would be quite keen to do.  So when we grabbed the Armies Character Sheet and popped in the Heirs to the Wardstone paladin army and his custom tiny Rosethorn Army, we were excited to see how it played through.  I wasn't as sure about Part C as I tend to find dungeons quite boring but this one worked out pretty well.  My only petty gripe is that there were a number of blank rooms in the dungeon and I had no idea what they might been used for beyond defensive measures.  It wasn't such a big deal as I have a vivid imagination but it still made me occasionally pause to think.

I'll admit it.  I don't have a head for rules.  I can deal with the basics but I'm likely to forget the meaning of certain feats and spells.  Rather than have my head in a book for most of the game, quickly cross referencing and checking, I either ignore it, query my player (who has a better head for rules) or use the online SRD quietly while he's busy setting up his four characters' next actions.

 

That's right.  Four characters!  He doesn't roleplay them all, only Alfie and very occasionally the new guy when he can think of something snippy to say to the dragon (now a very young dragon rather than a wyrmling).  He does control them during combat and level them up occasionally.  Other than dealing with their inventory, he's enjoying it pretty well.  Taking Sosiel in the second strike at Castle Drezen tipped him over the line on occasion a few times but as that cleric was only Level 5, he was relegated to walking healer anyway.

 

So who was the magical fourth helper?

 

I thought this game was heavy on demons and light on celestials, so I threw in a Vulpinal as support - sent by Shelyn herself.  After all, why is the Worldwound *only* a mortal concern?

 

It's not a fault with the adventure path, which focuses on players actions after all, but I saw an opportunity so I took it.  My player therefore equipped the Vulpinal, Harri, with some of the loot that he found and the game progressed.

 

So the first strike at Castle Drezen found them badly affected by the fireballing brimoraks in the gatehouses and they only survived that because the Vulpinal teleported into one of the rooms and unlocked it from the inside, allowing them all to flee inside and heal up while the brimoraks came out of their room and entered from the outside.  They took out the vrock with better ease this time, in part due to the dragon's increase in damage die and number of attacks. 

 

They had to fall back after the encounter with the succubus - she managed to charm them all after suggesting that the vulpinal state she isn't evil and then commanded three of them to wait outside in case of enemy attacks while she had a conversation with Alfie.  She proceeded to try to find his resentment toward Drezen but, failing that, decided to simply seduce the fool.  She inflicted four negative levels before he managed to succeed on the Suggestion roll to stop kissing her.  Realising he'd been injured by her broke the charm effect and he grabbed her in a grapple and started damaging her.  It was a rough fight but he managed to kill her in a nook, using her as a defense against the charmed crusaders. 

 

They then headed back to base with Alfie feeling very sorry for himself - having lost his first kiss to a demoness!  Lex, the Umbral Dragon, didn't help when she regaled him with how those who die from a succubus' kiss are damned to the pit and their bodies rise again as undead.  She also poked fun at his obvious anxiety about discussing sex, calling Mendevians prudes.  Then she grew bored and went to sleep, leaving him to have a heart to heart with Eliska.  Eliska tried to coax out of him any aspects of his tiefling nature, but other than a destructive and impulsive personality, he was pretty good.  Gooder than good almost.

 

She pronounced him an aasimar in disguise and they had a little laugh about that, before she mentioned that she and her team were once Nidalese slaves who had been washed in negative energy as babes in their mothers' womb so that they could work a particular mine.  She was the most dhampyr of the lot of them (the others were a variant dhampyr of my construction - they gain darkvision and negative energy affinity but retain the bonus skills of a human).  She stated that their inhuman nature draws them to depression and suicide, which was a sobering thought.

 

Once fully healed and rested, they had to face a tiny army of man eating aurochs who were part of a herd just outside Drezen.  They won, easily, and Alfie took his team back into the castle - choosing the tower entrance rather than enter that gateway again.  The dragon flew up a knotted rope and it was an easy climb.  Once inside, Lex declared that she should be allowed three nights to sleep on all the treasure as payment for her work and that she should also be allowed to keep the tower.  Alfie promised her a new tower but she wanted that one.

 

I also realised that just as unintended evil actions pull someone toward evil, so should unintended good actions pull someone toward good, so since Lex was raised as a hatchling by Eliska and hasn't had much opportunity to do many evil things (other than take real sadistic pleasure in the kill as desecrating bodies can hardly be a sin to a carrion eater), I'm shifting her toward neutral.  She'll still have evil urges but they've been weakened by the wardstone.  She still thinks of herself quite proudly as Chaotic Evil, though.  I doubt she could ever become good.  She wouldn't see the point.

 

Anyway, they found the succubus who self-charms herself so that she can look like a charmed victim and swashbuckler tied to a bunk and chose to keep her in manacles but release her from the bunk and temporarily suppress the charm spell using Protection from Evil.  She trailed after them up until they defeated Joran's babau guards and were attacked by Staunton Vhane himself who rode in on his wasp (10 foot high ceilings, remember) and threatened to kill Joran for his weakness.

 

On the second turn, just before she would have attacked, she was approached by Harri with a clearly helpful look on his face as he reached out to cast Dispel Evil on her to help against the charm....  She failed her Spellcraft roll and thought he was about to release her from the manacles.  Instead she abruptly failed her save and was banished to the pit.  Surprise all round but it significantly prevented this battle from becoming a slaughter.

 

The next surprise was that after Staunton Vhane struck Lex for some crippling blows, he then failed his roll against Joran's suggestion to drop his weapon and flee the castle.  Lex and Alfie followed him, striking him in the back for two rounds before he came to his senses and attacked them in turn (as his previous command became obviously fatal).  The others focused on the two fiendish minotaurs but, proving how much weaker they were at combat than Lex and Alfie, they still needed those two characters help to end the battle.

 

Finally they all retired to Staunton Vhane's room to regroup, catch their breath and read Staunton's diary.  In desperation, Joran has thrown his lot in with them and renounced his god, Droskar, for failing to provide him with any real benefits.  And that's where I've left these daring heroes ... with Lex curled up on the bed, Alfie reading, Harri on guard, Joran moping on the edge of the bed, and Eliska reading over Alfie's shoulder but wishing she could just drink some dwarven ale and head to bed.

Wrath of the Righteous: Sword of Valor: Part A and B

The game proceeded well with Captain Irabeth explaining that the impressive actions undertaken by Alfie would likely draw Queen Galfrey's attention when she inevitably marched her armies into Kenabres.  He then spent the next week helping repair fortifications (largely by moving rubble) while Lex used her amulet of change shape to appear as a small child and Eliska established a small temple to her god not far from the Shelyn Temple's ragtag establishment. 

Eliska invited a few Shelyn acolytes (who had recently arrived from Vigil which is only a few days march away in my version of the game) to lurk in her temple so that those who came to make dark pacts with Zon Kuthon could be turned back to the light.  Meanwhile her allied Nidalese engineers (Expert 1, Rogue 2) turned their efforts to digging survivors out of the rubble with a precision and dedication that led some to wonder if they were truly Pharasmins instead.

Still the racial intolerance of the city reared its head and there continued to be mutterings about Alfie's success, some finding even that as a sign of some deeper demonic scheme.

When Queen Galfrey arrived, she immediately summoned Alfie to her side and requested that he lead a small army of paladins to lay siege on Drezen, believed to be weakened by the redistribution of demonic forces following the fall of that first wardstone.  He accepted the mission, nominating Commander Irabeth to lead the army.  He also sought out Eliska and Lex to join him - with Eliska came her 17 followers.  The Mongrelfolk also were willing to send fifteen forth to re-take Drezen (seeing it as connected to their history) led by Lann.  Finally the tiefling rogues he'd turned to Kenabres' aid saw it as an opportunity for greater distinction -- and failing that, plenty of loot.  They were led by Michael Rapscallion.

Basically his efforts and the plot so far meant he got a Tiny Level 2 Army ACR 1/2 that turned out to be quite handy in the battles ahead.

Due to a string of exceptionally lucky rolls, he kerb stomped the various armies with no casualties.  Funnily enough, his ragtag army (called the Rosethorn Army) kept gaining tactics and morale while the official paladin army (called Heirs to the Wardstone) gained no additional morale or tactics.  Sometimes the Rosethorns wiped out the opposing army during the ambush before the Heirs could even react - a good justification for why their morale wasn't as high.  They were being outdone by ragtag rogues!

The temple encounter worked a charm and was a nice break from the marching army tale.  So was the demoralised ex-paladin.  He even picked up on the shadowblood addiction though he didn't see *spoiler warning* Nurah do it.  He started running Lex and Eliska during combat as well and quite enjoyed using all three to great effect.

The swarm queen was more of a risk as it was CR 9 with several swarms for support so I had the Kuthites (expert level focused on alchemy and engineering) jury-rig a fancy alchemical bomb out of chemicals they had brought with them.  The bomb was terribly unstable, necessitating the characters use some of their previously acquired potions of invisibility to not set off a swarm early, but it dealt 8d6 Cold Damage in a 30-foot radius.  As Lex the Umbral Dragon is immune to cold damage, she was nominated to drop it off.  The swarms were wiped out and the chief queen was damaged but not too severely, allowing for a tight battle before the other swarms arrived (rolled a 7 on a 1d8).

Finally he arrived at Drezen shortly before nightfall and made camp.  he was immediately set upon by the ghoul army.  He managed to wipe them out before they could retreat.  At this stage I started creating mini-boss battles at the end of each army encounter to show what Alfie, Lex and Eliska were doing.  The only one that truly threatened him was the Vrock, Pozlixt.

The final encounter involving the watchtowers would normally be a party only affair but since he had a small army of rogues that could be split into three conveniently similarly sized groups (as he had added on an additional five tieflings - 2 from a conquered army, 3 were among 5 prisoners in the temple that I had added to the adventure; various high Diplomacy checks had made all but one of them friendly), he could have them attack the three other watchtowers.

I determined what the enemies would be rated as in terms of 4-monster armies and calculated the attackers as level 2 rogue / level 1 expert 15-person squads.  Since two of the groups managed their stealth check to catch their opponents unawares, they won without casualty.  The Kuthites failed and were attacked in turn, losing 2 of their individuals but managing to win through in the end.

Alfie had a significant battle ahead since Eliska couldn't climb the watchtower and had to be left behind.  She still had a part to play, though, because at one point Alfie took so much damage he turned invisible to hide from the bad guys and left it all up to Lex - who got damaged and had to fly down for healing from her (via inflict potions) before coming back up to finish the job.

Once the main party were down and healed up, I unleashed the Mythic chimera onto them.  Realising that he was a non-mythic Level 6 three-person (er, creature) party with only one level worth of bard / rogue abilities on top and they were going to be up against a CR 9 chimera with three Mythic tiers, I did some fancy thinking and realised that the Kuthite expert level in Rosethorn Army had an engineering focus.  I mean, heck, Rosethorn had their own siege weapon!

So naturally I allowed the four watchtowers (as some of them had crossed to the one Alfie had cleared) to make a hit with their standard catapults.  Three hit and did an impressive amount of damage.  Fortunately I forgot the creature's Mythic Initiative (i.e. two turns per turn) the first time around, which I later justified as it toying with them, and then had it play right.  It dealt loads of damage to them all, focusing on Lex to begin with but then wishing to keep the dragon as a toy for later, it attacked Alfie with both heads (dropping him to negative hit points) and then flying off with him.

It took him to the Eyrie, put him in manacles, and left him there as a trophy with the reasoning that he would slowly bleed to death while his armies fought in vain to get to him.  He stabilised, regained hit points through natural healing enough to wake up after a day, slipped his manacles, and used one of the +2 magical beast bane arrows with the +1 flaming longbow to coup de grace the sleeping mythic chimera (after making a stealth check).  The coup de grace just managed to kill it with but a couple points of damage to spare leaving Alfie in its treasure lair.

He quickly looted the place and upon hearing the sounds of battle outside, he climbed out onto the edge of Fort Drezen and started making his way back to them.  At this point, the player took control of the armies under the guidance of their two commanders (Rosethorn is commanded by Eliska due to her higher Charisma), and led the way to victory with another smashing success!  Damnable high rolls took down the other armies with ease.

And there ends Part A and Part B of this lovely adventure.  Next up ... some downtime and then Part C.

Wrath of the Righteous: The Worldwound Incursion: Part C

So "Alfy" went out of Defender's Heart to track down the lost child only to find a sinuous reptilian creature munching on some dead cultists over the rubble of the Shelyn Temple.  It was small and I described it piecemeal as he stealth-circled around behind it and the fact that it was an Umbral Dragon meant I could focus on a few details (fine scales, paler belly) that one doesn't normally associate with dragons.  I blew the surprise later on by calling it a dragon, however....  *sigh*

Anyway, the dragon took flight the moment it noticed him and tried to goad him into digging his "master" out of the rubble for an epic fight.  A Natural 20 on a Sense Motive check ensured Alfy saw through the ruse.  The dragon didn't think it likely that he would attack her Master at all but wasn't being honest with him because a) it liked stirring trouble, and b) it was racist enough to assume that he lacked the focus and wherewithal to dig someone of the rubble if there wasn't something to fight under it.

So Alfy dug up the rubble and opened up a stairway into the Shelyn Temple's root cellar where a few dozen suspicious citizens were holed up with the Kuthites of the earlier adventure.  They weren't certain the Kuthites who had warned them of the demonic attacks weren't part of it but had taken shelter nonetheless from the first explosion.  They also weren't sure that Alfy hadn't dug them up to eat them - being a tiefling - and so threatened him with makeshift weapons for a bit.  All the real clerics and paladins of Shelyn had remained outside to help people so these were just congregants.

Alfy met his Master, the lead Kuthite who introduced herself as Eliska Zaitherin, an oracle of Zon Kuthon.  He offered to lead the congregants back to the safety but wouldn't take Eliska or her followers since the Chaotic Evil dragon kinda put her on his "Avoid" list.

When he finally set off to deal with the Gray Bastion of Part 3, he initially used a scale to pretend to be another tiefling cultist called Faxon.  After all, he was a single PC and a sixteen-year-old youth in the campaign so it would be illogical for Irabeth to actually send him in to try to take the bastion on his own. 

Unfortunately, the two demons by the front gate recognised him and attacked.  It was a tough fight but he was soon joined by none other than the small dragon (whom he'd glimpsed darting past through the night skies) and soon after that Eliska joined in with a glowing dire flail.  The three formed a truce and continued onward after Eliska revealed that she had been following him.

Eliska is an oracle with the same bonus feats, high stats, etc. that Alfy possessed.  She wasn't a GMPC and therefore her actions and dialogue are edited to ensure that the solo PC gets to make all of the major decisions and steal all of the thunder.  Since she was a dhampyr oracle, she wasn't particularly powerful and had little combat capability beyond her dire flail which bypassed damage reduction.  She certainly wasn't built for melee combat though I did justify Weapon Proficiency: Dire Flail as a feat that mysteriously awoke within her when she had found it among the rubble (it was a long sword at the time).

The dire flail was the sword of Radiance - which I had mistakenly thought he'd picked up in Part 2, declared stolen from Defender's Heart and which later turned out to be hidden in Part 3.  Since he finds it's actual physicality in the Gray Bastion, I made the dire flail she carried the spiritual reflection of Radiance.  While Radiance isn't meant to work for anyone who isn't a paladin, it was too cool to simply discard as a plot line, my solo PC is a monk and I liked Irabeth as a commander rather than a companion.

Eliska isn't great with it so it certainly doesn't draw the spotlight from the player and simply provides flavour for her.  As a worshipper of Doubral, the god who had been Zon Kuthon before his corruption, she takes the weapons' transformation into a dire flail rather than either a spiked chain (Zon Kuthon's favoured weapon) or the simple longsword (suggesting her god doesn't exist), fills her with hope.  The fact that she could wield the weapon at all is what made Alfy realise she must be good.

This entire book went beautifully well with the monk, oracle and wyrmling Umbral Dragon getting through the encounters with just enough difficulty.  Some of the battles against the regular tieflings were so out-classed that I let my solo player auto-defeat them with narrative description.  He took all of the humans and tieflings prisoner at the bastion, except for those tieflings who were gambling for severed fingers.  He took exception to those and killed them.  Naturally neither Eliska nor the Umbral Dragon, Lex, could deal subdual but they didn't deal enough damage to kill anyone outright and hung back when he dealt with the CR 1/2 encounters so that didn't become a problem.

At the very end, my solo player was amused to see the good energies suffuse the wyrmling and delighted in the idea of redeeming her.  With a lot of fanfare, my player joyously took apart the babaus with his temporary super powers with some support from Eliska and Lex.  Once that battle concluded, he returned to report on his success (minus Eliska and Lex who thought their involvement would draw undue suspicion) and then helped the priests until it was time for bed.

The Mythic Energies that suffused him also gave him the abilities and spells of a bard (i.e. bardic performance) and granted Eliska the sneak attack die and trapfinding of a rogue.  Lex didn't get anything material.  I'm basically going to treat it as her alignment becoming somewhat unchained from her body due to the saturation of good energies.  In other words, Lex will find it easier to become good.

Normally the energies from the wardstone are meant to grant actual Mythic tiers but I thought it might be a bit too potent so I went with increasing versatility (i.e. oodles of extra feats and additional class features) rather than outright power.

Alfy grabbed only a few of the actual Divine Points listed in this adventure book but plenty of his actions justified Divine Points later on - his wisdom in dealing with the Mongrelfolk, incapacitating rather than killing his foes, setting up a fallback point in the sewers, ferrying survivors back to the fallback point, treating everyone well despite their suspicions (justified considering the number of evil tieflings here), and redeeming a pack of tiefling thugs into rescuing survivors. 

Alfy also encouraged Eliska to clean and consecrate the zombie-filled room (which would need to be re-consecrated later), took all of the notes from one room back to Irabeth at the end, and took out the alchemist which were all worth Divine Points in the book.  I also gave him one for dealing with the Wardstone fragment quite cleverly ... he feigned being Faxon in that final room long enough to press the rod of cancellation against the fragment.

In the end, he gained the full benefit of those Divine Points (as did Eliska and Lex).  In my campaign, I'm treating the Divine Points as coming from Shelyn rather than Iomedae as I want Shelyn to be a bigger focus for this campaign.  After all, my solo PC picked her as his patron diety!

**Adventure Book Review**
Loved it!  It was an absolute smash.  I loved the little NPC roleplaying hints in certain rooms.  I loved the descriptions.  I loved some of the combats.  It was a great start to an awesome campaign!

 

Wrath of the Righteous: Solo Worldwound Incursion

The tiefling "Alfie" is doing well so far.  Due to his very high AC most creatures can't hit him without rolling an 18 or above and that combined with his maximised hit die means that he's survived every encounter with only Anevia providing occasional arrows (i.e. not for every encounter) for support.  He started at level 3 and hit level 4 shortly before reaching the surface.  I'd given him full XP for each creature he'd killed alone, half if Anevia was involved, and a quarter of all story bonuses.

He also gained *a lot* of loot which he's determined to give to the Crusaders or the Shelyn Temple, whichever he finds first, as he can't use most of it - being a monk!

There were a few combats that got a bit dicey but nothing he couldn't handle.  I started hand waving some of the critters once he hit the surface because they couldn't do much to him.  I only used the interesting encounters listed and didn't bother with wandering monsters except to harry him by appearing and disappearing - making him paranoid that they would follow him to the shelter.

One interesting choice he made was to use subdual against every humanoid target, taking the time to deliver them down to the Mongrelfolk waiting in the sewers, and even grabbing some manacles from the nearby Southern Gate Tower (I reasoned there would be cells and manacles there) so that they could be better captured.  He didn't end up killing a single humanoid, which was pretty neat.

I chose to have the gods notice him from this point onward to give him a chance at accruing divine points from this moment.  He still won't be able to go over 10 but why not reward for *good* choices.  Especially since my choice to move Lastwall into Mendev means that he has a massive viable prison they can be returned to afterwards.

I also inserted a number of folks to save and took inspiration from the book on tieflings.  Basically there's this picture of a Chelish Hellknight wrapped in ropes and hounded by tieflings while another tiefling toys with his removed helmet.  I didn't want to just include tieflings cultists, after all, and so had them be ordinary thugs who'd reasoned that they were dead anyway regardless of whether the crusaders win (likely round up and genocide) or the demons (butchering or conscripting).  Since the demons couldn't tell a tiefling cultist from a random tiefling, they were able to walk around unmolested more readily than most.

"Alfie" talked them into releasing the Hellknight and even understood their reasoning - the Hellknight comes from Cheliax and Cheliax worships devils and why is that okay?  Though it turned out this particular Hellknight worshipped Iomedae (or at least said as much).  Using good reasoning and some Diplomacy checks, Alfie even convinced them to start rounding up innocent civilians and taking them to the mongrelfolk.  Once they released the Hellknight, he assumed command and oddly enough the tieflings followed (trio were Lawful Neutral devilbloods who would have been perfectly obedient lawabiding citizens if they hadn't been rejected by authority). 

Alfie heard the tieflings grumbling that they'd better get a medal for this otherwise they should cause havoc and leave once this mess gets mopped up.  So later when he found the half-orc paladin in charge, he made certain to mention them and recommend them for a medal.

Alfie also talked the rogues in the alchemy store into helping protect the safe place with the mongrelfolk - they weren't willing to risk their lives but were happy to find a safer spot with their loot and the 100gp each he promised them.  After all, they'd barely looted as much thus far.

He also saved a young girl from a random encounter I created who had basically hidden in her parent's home.  He spotted her glancing out at them and went in for her.  She hid behind a chair and held her dolly out at him menacingly but he managed to get her to come with him by talking her into sipping some holy water to prove she wasn't possessed - and more importantly to prove he wasn't a demon to do the same.

Anyway since he only took a day in the sewer, after he reached the safe place I gave him a few days to scout around the city looking for survivors and let him roll a 1d20 each morning and afternoon and declared that he located and saved that many survivors.  I thought it was a nice touch to help him feel all the more heroic and like he was doing something.  He ended up saving 82 additional people.

Haven't done the last part of the adventure but I can say that so far the creatures have been relatively weak.  Yes, he is a potent character but economy of actions should balance that out a bit.  I would just recommend that other GMs keep an eye on how their party progresses and if it starts becoming too easy they should simply maximise the occasional hit die here and there or boost their strength by 2 to give them a +1 to attack and damage which should make it smooth out without wildly swinging it in the other direction.

I will have the current half-orc captain of the crusaders (whose name I have currently forgotten) send Alfie into a side adventure where he must track down the missing child.  Since I want to play around with a potential redeeming Zon-Kuthon meta-plot (that may involve a couple campaigns to complete with different solo characters), this child is a shapeshifted humanoid-friendly Chaotic Evil wyrmling Umber Dragon. 

In other words, just like a workable Chaotic Evil party member, it attacks its enemies with a sadistic glee and is willing (and eager!) to use nasty techniques but has an otherwise good goal of helping close the worldwound (because killing demons is fun!) and a single good guiding principle (hurting the right people is important).  It has a neck collar that allows it to change its shape into that of an elf of the same approximate age but which punishes it for doing the wrong thing by giving it a blast of guilt that dazes it.  This has been affixed by the Nidalese bard who had hired Alfie to take them to this city in the first place.

The child spent time among the crusaders but quickly grew bored (and hungry!) and has decided to roam the city looking for undead and her bardic master.

Once Alfie has found the child I'll lead him into Part 4 by stating that the people in the base are wary of him and are growing suspicious that he might be working against them.  One of these agitators is actually a demon that can feign being human and does so to rile up the masses and cause divisions.  He'll discover that later when he actually marches with them in the 2nd book.

The most important part of this write up, however, is that I need a name for this wyrmling dragon and Nidalese bardic master.  Any ideas?  The bard is a Lawful Neutral aasimar wishing to become good.

Rooting Fantasy Characters In The Mundane

One of the troubles with the Pathfinder / D&D method of creating classes is that people generally define their characters by that class.  This makes sense since as a player it's helpful to know what niches are taken and what powers are available.  It also makes sense that those categories would be available colloquially since people of particular classes function in effectively different ways within the game universe as well.

However that's not to say that you can't further define your character by what they spent their time doing before they took up adventuring.  Sure, they might have been adventuring since Level 1 or since being a commoner, and sometimes that may be perfectly fine, but there are other options even if the game itself will be a dungeon delve.

What if you were a merchant caravan guard?  Or a chronicler who writes the last day's activities next to your spell book?  What if you are an archaeologist (hence Engineering, Dungeoneering and History) who picks up spells from carvings on the walls (ask your GM to let you aesthetically flavour your auto-spell-known-per-level from this)?  Or maybe you were a pirate and lament being stuck in this place now?

And that's not even touching upon the jobs you might have had prior to being an adventurer.  Technically you could gain levels from any regular task, it just takes longer.  So perhaps the bard was a satirist whose satires got them chased out of town?  Or that rogue could actually have worked with law enforcement to get the dirt on the bad guys?  Or acted as a security specialist?

Was your barbarian a generally mild-mannered bouncer at an up-market establishment who chased off the unfortunate?  Or even just a blacksmith with a military history and one hell of a temper?  Your ranger could have bred horses back in the day or couriered messages across the land.

Even if you're a cleric whose task kind of connects with your class quite well, you could have a variety of different positions within the church: proselytizer, medic, almsman, protector of relics, administrator, or jack-of-all-trades as the solitary priest at the local church.  Do you have a preferred title other than cleric?  Are you a Father, Mother, Divine, Kezar, Whatzit?

I've found an easy way to develop your character and give them a bit more flavour be to give them an occupation in their history.  It doesn't need to be complicated.  It doesn't even need to come up much.  It just helps give off that feeling that your character existed and has a place in the world.  It also makes them more identifiable as we don't think of ourselves as Scientist, we think of ourselves as that health inspector that takes water samples from air conditioning units and examines shops for pests.

What are your thoughts?  Do you do this yourself?

LARP Organisation - Financial Costs or Why We Have Membership Fees

One of the things rarely mentioned in the various Create a LARP web-links I've found is the actual nitty gritties of the boring stuff that must go on in the background.  If you're in a litigious society, especially one where venues require public liability insurance and offer discounted rates to registered Not For Profits, you'll need to do quite a bit more to run a campaign LARP than simply hire a place and offer tickets.

You see, an event LARP can afford to pay the higher rates for a venue so long as it's relatively prop-lite / uses props already owned.  People will generally pay a higher ticket cost for something that has so much extra prep-work going into it than the more self-sufficient (but still time intensive) campaign LARPs where players must shoulder some of the burden in character creation, goal setting and interaction.  I think it's also partly because an annual event also feels more special than a monthly one so people can justify to themselves spending a little more (i.e. $15 instead or $3 - $5).

Generally private venue hire includes public liability insurance coverage (at least in South Australia) where your event can come under the venue's own insurance contracts.  Most venues have a limit of, say, four hires per year where you can do this.  This is basically a 'Private Hire' and explains how people can hire such places for birthday parties and other celebrations without having to take out event insurance ($250 a pop).

If you wanted to run a campaign LARP under the private venue hire rules in South Australia, you could still do it using the higher hourly rates but you'd need to change the venue every fifth time in a year.  True, you could run it as an unincorporated association (i.e. informal club) but very few organisations / councils recognise them and insurance companies certainly don't.

In Adelaide, the average meeting room has an hourly rate of $10 - $20 for a private hire.  Larger spaces like halls tend to sit between $40 - $75 an hour, especially on weekends (Friday night to Sunday night).  If you want meeting rooms on top of that, you have to pay the combined rates.

Generally Not For Profits get to pay half to a quarter of that rate - sometimes meeting rooms will be free though halls rarely are unless you get really lucky.  They do need someone to contribute to the cost of the building's overheads and all that.  (Increasingly venues won't offer reduced rates on weekends due to a lack of funding from other sources - so even as a Not For Profit you need to shop around).

Therefore becoming a real Not For Profit can save you a lot of money.  I don't yet know the cost of public liability insurance (which covers damage to property and passersby) for a dice LARP but boffer LARP insurance can cost around $1800 for $10 million insurance.  That boils down to $150 per session if you run 12 a year - which compared to $250 for event insurance for each game for a private hire, is a saving of $100.

Of course, very little is free these days.  Not only does a Not For Profit require a constitution and a committee, but there's an incorporation fee (currently $181) alongside other sundries such as cash boxes, ledger books, occupational first aid kits (potentially sporting first aid kits), and rubber stamp.

Then when running the actual events, there are venue fees that will generally range between $10 to $20 an hour if you're clever and lucky, insurance that could reach up to $1850, and a bond for the events that can range from nil (rare), $250 (less common) to an average of $500 and a high of $1000.  That's a lot of money to put up front for an event and it's likely to come out of the organiser's pockets and you don't get the bond back until after you stop using that venue.

This is the reason why most LARP organisations charge some kind of membership fee on top of the actual session fee.  There are a lot of costs and if you want to get to the point where you can pay deposits and bonds as well as purchase props without digging into the organiser's pockets and reimbursing them later on, then there also needs to be a small profit per event.  This profit can also help the game survive if there's a small slump in either members or attendees.  If you're barely breaking even then even one player dropping out can put you in the red.

There are alternatives naturally but in Australia you have all the legal responsibilities (as an unincorporated association) but fewer protections, can't apply for grants, can't open a bank account for the organisation and will likely need to run the game out of your own house.  There are also convention LARPs which normally involve a single event run using the insurance provided by the convention itself.  Either option can work for some LARPs and not for others.

So ... any thoughts?  Any queries?  What's it like in other countries?

(Also, let me know if this article isn't very clear.  There's a lot of details in there and it's easy to make it over convoluted and confusing.)

Intense Changeling Moment

I just thought I would relate a quick anecdote from my last solo game where I was actually playing a fallen in the new World of Darkness world and while playing through an adventure (from Cthulhu Britannica, no less) I found myself helping a true fae to clear out an evil wizard who had sacrificed thirteen people to build up wards to dominate her brother and drive her out of the location.

While the adventure was complicated when I immediately fell down one of the first pits in my attempts to smear the chalk outline (amazing how Cthulhu adventures can merge with World of Darkness), I managed to return to him and fulfil the quest.

So what does my dear new true fae pal do?  She asks me what I should like as a prize.  I ask to leave, having wizened up to their inhuman natures, but she refuses as she doesn't feel that would be reward enough.

Since I had previously reassured my human friend (and one-time thrall) that he won't always be so weak once I arm him to the teeth with magical weaponry (which fallen can do if they have the right lores), and having joked about getting him a flaming sword, I asked for such an item.  He was complaining about feeling ineffective and I had been needing to leave him behind while I go off and adventure, after all.

She grins and takes me through a portal to her world where she points out a sword embedded in a big stone.  I try to draw it, fail, and she hints that it may not be for me.  So I let my human buddy, Henry, grasp it and draw it.  Arcadia ... True Fae ... a mortal ... my demonic PC knew little about these factors.

Anyway he rolls up his sleeves and gets to it, straining to remove the blade.  As it slowly gets pulled loose, the rock begins to crack and lava seeps out of those cracks, splashing on his feet and then writhing up his body in tendrils, plunging below the skin and seeking out his heart.  Set alight as a human touch, he screams, and so I use my revelatory form's "Immune to Fire" ability (not that it helps against supernatural sources) and try to pull him loose.

No luck.

Finally it ends, leaving him obviously traumatised and with ribbons of glowing fire beneath the skin and the occasional heat spark dancing through his hair and a glowing flame in his heart.  He pulls the sword finally loose and stands there gasping.

The true fae then provides me my flaming sword, in the shape of my human friend, and says I will have him for a year and a day and that if he does not serve me admirably as my sword then he will return to her at the end of that time.

This is with that Shaitan character I've described earlier that I've played in numerous realities and universes (much like a beloved comic book character) because I'm lame like that.  Currently she's an anthropologist in the modern world (as we grew tired of that apocalyptic landscape previously described).

So having been resculpted into a living weapon herself in the time of the Fall, she's particularly sensitive to having essentially done the same to her friend through a foolish slip of the tongue.

Anywho, intense and a nasty surprise for any of your players should you be running Changeling.  The fae are dangerous to both cross and to help.

ADDENDUM: Conversations in the comments section reveals that a number of other players wouldn't be as cool with this as I am.  Thus I will add in a few details of what made this work in case you're thinking of trying this at home: Know Your Players (I mentioned this possibility with a smile; I spend much of my spare time daydreaming about worst case scenarios; I love deep and intense plot developments), Check With Your Players (I mentioned evil sword and he grinned before asking me if he should do it to which I responded that he might as well), A Prize For Every Cost (He will be far more useful now rather than being constantly sidelined and now he has a fancy sword), Style of Game (You can generally get away with more intense plot points in a solo game where you have adequate time to explore the ramifications and where you require more in-depth NPC characterisations).

Creating a Demon, Part 3

SHAITAN

The Avenger

Shaitan snuck away at one point to visit her old village project only to find that the three villages were struck with a terrible cancerous plague that kept them alive (as the cells kept replicating) but in perpetual anger and pain as their bodies twisted and bloated, their children wracked with a pulsing corruption beneath the skin similar to what happened to his own skin when the weapons were implanted.  This was the Duchess of Knives' revenge against her.

The two Fell Knight lovers who had served Shaitan were nowhere to be seen.  Shaitan learned that Shaeotiel hadn't been seen since a few weeks after Shaitan's first experimental procedure while Arekhala had fled to the Iron Legion where she campaigned to have Shaeotiel found.

From that point on, more than at any other point, Shaitan was consumed with a need for revenge.  While before Shaitan used any opportunity to lash out at the Silver Legion, now Shaitan actively sought out those opportunities, sowing discontent by the cunning application of truth or simply through insinuation that a fallen's worse fears were true.  Since the Silver Legion were often quite brutal and paranoid, it didn't take much imagination for them to feel betrayed.  Shaitan naturally took quite a bit of glee in losing glamorously during the Long March in a way that assisted their success in securing a number of human settlements.  Shaitan was knocked down to Fell Knight for that (and suitably tortured) but he took later opportunities in the war to show her value to the Ebon Legion and thus was re-instated at her previous rank.

SHAITAN

The Symbol

Shaitan had set himself up to be the symbol for what others should avoid becoming.  She took risks that no one else would have taken because, in the end, he hoped to be destroyed.  Her words were more often true than false and within that lay the seeds of a legend ... at least in a few people's minds.  (The next bits are of the Storyteller's invention).

Viriel, an Iron Legion defiler, was one such person.  Seemingly struck by the cruelties in the world and desperate to prove that redemption was possible, Viriel focused all of her efforts on Shaitan.  She would occasionally creep close to his camp, spending time in quiet observation or conversation, and while Shaitan at first chased her off - thinking her a spy - later they actually spoke.  Viriel believed in Shaitan, truly believed, and wished with all her heart to save him.

When Shaitan froze a small battlefield by screaming out his horror that this is what they had all fallen to, sibling against sibling, the silence was broken by Grifiel (enraged at the brief shaking of his worldview) charging toward Shaitan and ripping off her wings before flinging her to the ground.  Viriel raced between them and begged for Shaitan's life, finally dragging a barely conscious Shaitan away to an Iron Legion fortress where she convinced the others to let her tend him.  Yet when Shaitan finally returned to full strength (though still wingless), Shaitan slashed her back with his sharpened tail, outraged that she had denied him the opportunity to die.  Ashamed of what he had done, Shaitan fled, leaving her shocked and confused.

SHAITAN

The Lost

Yet all things couldn't last forever.  The war ended with the angels capturing all of the remaining fallen and holding them by a portal which opened out into the Abyss itself.  When Shaitan passed through that portal, he felt something unexpected.

Relief.

The war was over.  She could be at peace.  There was nothing more to do, nothing more to fail, nothing more to fear.  Shaitan sat in the blank expanse of sensory deprivation, hearing only the wails of his brethren, and simply retreated inwardly.  In all of the eons within the pit, Shaitan never spoke, simply dreaming her way through the screams of hell.  For a time, his old vassals would scrabble and beg and whine and wail at her, but after awhile even they began to drift away ... mostly.

Part 1 can be found here.
Part 2 can be found here.

Creating a Demon, Part 2

SHAITAN

The Bioweapon

Once physically invaded in such a way, her very essence twisted and tainted, he was thrown into a cell where she shivered and trembled as the infection took hold.  The pain and rage itched through his very being and for a time all she could think of was her urge to die.  Somehow she managed to pull through this time by praying to her brothers and sisters, his erstwhile allies in the Silver Legion, the best and the brightest of the heroic Iron Legion, and even Lucifer himself.  No one answered.  Her invocations were cut off by the wards within the prison.  Yet even knowing this, he couldn't help be torn by bitterness, hope and a terrible feeling of betrayal.

Finally she was brought out of the cell and given a series of terrible choices.  The infection needed time to fester but it also needed food so that it could solidify its hold, or so they say.  Doubtless they also wanted to break his spirit so that she would do whatever they wanted him to do.  So they forced him through a battery of tests, many of which designed to force obedience, such as demanding she slay dozens of humans (or else they would perform fouler experiments on them in front of her).  She knew that there would be humans earmarked for those experiments anyway, that by killing those they demanded, he was only passing the tests onto others she didn't see, but refusal brought pain to him and to them and she just couldn't cope with that.

At one point, once they had thought her spirit was thoroughly broken, he was paraded through the Palace of Sighs and introduced as an obedient bioweapon to Belphegor.  The sights she saw within that bastion chilled her to the bone but it also gave him strength.  She would pretend to obey for now but soon he would be able to escape.  For every Belphegor in this world, there was a Belphigor (the twisted Fallen's Iron Legion twinsouled brother).

While he was being transported back from the Palace of Sighs, the group were attacked by Loyalist Angels.  Eager to see her weapon in action, the Duchess of Knives ordered Shaitan's release from his chains.  Shaitan performed admirably, using everything at his disposal to impress the others and responding to her orders with hair trigger precision.  Then, when he saw an out, she took it, flying quickly away from them once the Loyalists were down.

The Duchess of Knives smirked and called down the syllables of Shaitan's true name to bring him to bear but ... the experiment had changed her irrevocably and altered his name.  The Duchess' arrogance bought her time and he managed to escape.

SHAITAN

Pleas for Help

Shaitan fled to the Iron Legion, expecting that they would help her if anyone would.  They were the kindly ones, those who didn't break under pressure, the paladins of goodness.  He knew he looked like a monster.  Her appearance had been, for a time, that of a golden angel with a face and body which subtly shifted through different guises, male and female, in representation of how she had to be able to take others perspectives into account. 

When the experiment had been conducted upon him, the sharp teeth had been driven into her pearly whites, causing little pieces of remnant enamel to float about the destruction points.  Purplish black lines of corruption had seeped beneath her skin in lines from teeth, nails, horns and tail.  Now her that purplish black corruption covered her body, providing a mere golden gleam in representation of what he once was, and her face had stiffened into a pale mask-like form and it was so very hard for her to change her expressions.  Only her wings remained largely golden, the sign of her desperate hope for freedom, but lines of corruption still dripped across her feather tips.

The Fallen she passed on her way to the Iron Citadel stopped and gawked, shocked and disgusted by the sight of this mutilated angel.  He felt their horrified glances as hammer blows, felt their judgement, their assumptions.  What was she now?  What was he worth?

Before she could reach the Iron Citadel, he was approached by a Silver Legionnaire, a lesser female angel called Reotel who had once taken messages from the Duchess of Knives.  Terrified and enraged, Shaitan attacked the fallen, leaving grievous gouges across her flesh, and had to be hauled off by a dozen Iron Legionnaires.  Shocked and horrified by Shaitan's actions and thinking him to be infected by some new weapon of God (or so ran the Duchess of Knives' initial lines), they disbelieved her rants about the Silver Legion as the ranting of a madman.

Her wings filled with corruption, the golden gleam disappeared, and in terror and confusion, Shaitan burst free of them and escaped.  He came across an important Ebon Legion Baron who was here on a diplomatic assignment and fell to her knees before the Ebon figure.  Baron Harakul was a female Slayer of reasonable renown who saw value in her abilities and skills and, best of all, believed Shaitan's words.  After all, Baron Harakul had already witnessed some of the Silver Legions' best experiments.  Why not benefit from it and deprive the other legion of their toy?

SHAITAN

The Squad Leader

Shaitan was given charge over a squad of 100 Fallen.  Due to his recalcitrant nature, these were hardly the best and the brightest.  Baron Harakul was willing to put up with some insubordination as sometimes those free thinkers create the perfect level of havoc among the enemy, but that didn't mean she could openly support such actions.  So Shaitan was given the recalcitrant, the cowardly, and the otherwise problematic Fallen who were generally of lower rank (i.e. Eminence 2 or lower) though there were a couple Fell Knights among them.

Some examples included Zaphriel (the cowardly reaper who spent a short time as Shaitan's lover since he was the one who could best empathise and comprehend Shaitan's plans), Remiel (the rebellious devil whom Shaitan groomed to be a living insult to the First House's arrogance), Kezekiel (the smug defiler whom Shaitan used for more diplomatic messages), and Haruta (a death dealing Scourge who was only in it for the joys of violence).

Shaitan kept them together through his quick wits, cunning words, and the fact that she was willing to accept more attitude from his people than most of the others.  If Shaitan's idea was bad, then you should tell him so and tell her why.  To do otherwise would be ridiculous.  You could do what you willed to any Loyalist Angels captured, but Shaitan kept a tight leash on what they could do to humans.  Sometimes that leash wasn't so tight as Shaitan felt things were best "Out of Sight, Out of Mind", but occasionally he would care and her previous lack of concern would be no protection against future offences.

Part 1 can be found here.
Part 2 to come.

Creating a Demon, Part 1

I'm one of those annoying players who sometimes grabs hold of a single character concept and wants to run with it a dozen different ways.  When I consider the various Shaitan campaigns I've convinced my Storyteller to run (cyberpunk, forties, post-apocalyptic, two modern New York games), I think I take the cake for obsessive player.  It helps that demon lets you explore the core of a character (the fallen) with a variety of different personalities (change the host).

I've been fascinated by this character for awhile as it has a few essential traits that I simply adore.  The fact that the fallen came to be whole-cloth while I was walking down the street only helped ground my fascination with it.

Since my Storyteller (as this is a solo game) has the equally annoying, and opposite, habit as a player of falling in love with a new character / game idea every month or two (I exaggerate), we even ourselves out.

Anyway, since there was some renewed interest in the system due to the free release with the latest nWoD demon variation, I thought I'd give out some information on my latest demon - host combination.  Creating a Fallen Angel is no simple process but it can be a *hell* of a lot of fun.

Also, since Shaitan is gender fluid, I will be switching male and female pronouns with carefree abandon up until I start talking about the host.

 

SHAITAN

The Angel

Shaitan was an Eminence 5 Namaru / Devil who was one of the minor lords of the First House who held the important responsibility of checking up on other people's interpretations of their fragments of God's plan, providing a second opinion on some of the difficult bits.  Since each Fallen could only read / hold so much of God's plan, Shaitan held no piece of her own and though he might have read most of God's plan over the years, she could never remember more than the vaguest hints of it.

Since the rest of her House had this very important and sacred text to hold, and he did not, she felt very lonely and marked out as differently.  Luckily, with God's *love* to fill her, he didn't notice it very much or, at least, didn't actually know what that feeling was meant to be.  While the other Fallen didn't react too well to being told they might be wrong, his halo provided a calming effect that helped her get his point across.

When he heard Ahrimal's prophecy that something terrible lay in store for humanity, she simply had to support giving them a fair warning.  After all, God had given no definitive answer and surely that meant they were meant to take the initiative?  One should always protect one's younger siblings and Adam and Eve were nothing if not the Fallen's younger siblings.

SHAITAN

The Early Days of The War

Shaitan was shocked at God's reaction and the curses It flung at humanity when so many of them stayed with the newly Fallen Angels.  When Lucifer created the five legions, Shaitan immediately joined Silver as exploring the taboos made sense to him.  What could be more taboo than finding some way to elevate her younger siblings to an almost equal standing so that they could help decide their own fates?  He selected two other Fallen Angels who were lovers, Fell Knight Arekhala (a Halaku called "Death's Warm Embrace") and Fell Knight Shaestiel (a Lamashtu called "Summertime's Rainfall"), and gathered over a hundred humans to settle three villages.

These three villages were to be build by human hands, with occasional advice and assistance from other Fallen, and to begin with they were rather ramshackle affairs as the humans could hardly comprehend tools let alone use them.  The trio persisted with them and whenever a new social tactic, tool or experiment were to be performed, Shaitan practised informed consent - giving them the full information and letting them decide.  Shaitan spoke out about the importance of informed consent at many Silver Legion gatherings.  For now, while the Fallen and Loyalist clashed with song and flair, the Silver Legionnaires mostly ignored him simply because there was no need for it.

After all, what Fallen would do something to a human that wasn't necessary and in their best interests?  Why ask a baby if they would prefer better warmth?  Mother knows best and so do the Fallen.

SHAITAN

The Time of Atrocity

When Caine slew Abel in adulation of God, the world was thrown into chaos.  So many Fallen recoiled from the act, devastated that their beloved humans would introduce such a terrible concept into their hearts.  The stain spread and, in too many cases, consumed the Fallen so affected.  Here was a weapon!  Here was so much potential!  Many a Silver Legionnaire leapt onto the opportunity it offered them.

Shaitan was saddened by the invention of violence but placed no blame in humanity.  Either it was a flaw designed by God in one man *or* it was the direct result of a sentient race whose minds were birthed in warfare and family feuds.  He argued against the cruelties performed by the Silver Legion, stressing again and again the necessity of kindness, forethought and informed consent.

(My contribution to the following was simply that I had been earmarked for an experiment that left me with horns, lashing tail, and claws which were so marked by evil that it slowly infected me with torment ... a matter which was exacerbated by the cruel acts I was forced to perform during the process which further cemented their position.  My Storyteller created the Who, What and Why).

It didn't take long for her enemies to see a use for her.  The Duchess of Knives, a Silver Legion Malefactor, wanted to create a more powerful version of the Fallen and so she chose several Fallen to be recipients and several Fallen to be donors.  She used tools designed by no less than Fell Knight Gipontel himself to draw the full essence of the donors into their natural weapons (the donors being mostly Rabisu) and then implanted them into the recipient Fallen.  The other recipients died.

Shaitan lived.

Lucky her.



The second post can be found here.

P.S. I need a little more time to work on Lore of Patterns before I put it up but you should hopefully see it up in the next couple days.

Elder Scrolls Online

So that's where I've been.  Tamriel.  I'm part of the Alliance of Bosmer, Altmer and Khajit because, well, their queen sounded like the best kind of royal to get behind from the brief summaries you can get outside of the game.  I'm a little disappointed by how much information needs to be gleaned from websites before heading in but otherwise it's a lot of fun and full of exciting inspirations.

Regrettably I'm currently running a dark fantasy / personal horror campaign in my homebrew world revolving around a place somewhat similar to a haunted mansion possessed by an eldritch abomination ... and then there's Masks of Nyarlathotep.  So there's not a lot I can do with all of this inspiration I keep receiving.

Except for pouring it onto this blog for later use.

Oh, and I've also started working with my husband to create some nifty house rules for the Demon: the Fallen lores.  The original sets are just a little unbalanced and awkward to use, in my opinion.

GM Analysis: Frank!

Seeing as Frank Punch (not his real name) was so enthusiastic to read about my opinions on various GMs, I figured I may as well start with him.  Frank Punch is new to Game Mastery and his previous experience (as far as I understand it) involves occasional game running of munchkins where the GMs revolved their spots between playing and GMing as well as a more recent very casual family games where several parents come along to play while their children play together.

Since I dropped the Flashpoint game, he chose to take up the slot with some Pathfindering of his own and decided to run one of the published adventures he'd purchased.  It proved a pretty cool game, embroidered with his use of purchased miniatures and hastily drawn maps, with a high focus on combat and peril.  The enemies played cleverly and used their abilities to their full advantage which led to very long combats, with one boss battle taking up an entire session (2 hours, approximately).  Since the enemies were tactically clever, these long combats didn't grate and the players were energised still by the end of it.

To be honest, one of my main failings as a GM is that combat rules, in particular, tend to slip freely from my mind and so I don't play the feats and the sheet as well as I might.  This makes my combats remarkably fast but also generally easy.  (Somehow my players haven't clued into the general ease of such combats, though, so my descriptive ability must be somehow driving the fear of the Gods into them.)

Once we had finished this pre-generated adventure (which killed three PCs and sent the fourth one fleeing for help), we moved onto a dungeon that he partially randomly generated and partially painstakingly created.  I believe the maps and architecture were the main part of the random generation (completed by a computer generator) and the rest was done by himself.

He uses a house rule where "What you say is what you get".  This isn't to say that he takes OOC comments to be true.  This isn't that kind of super serious game.  It is a dungeon crawl, after all.  But if you say you walk down a corridor, you can't later complain that you were sneaking.  He drilled the point home by having a door resist being pushed open, since it opened the other way and had to be pulled.  A silly point, perhaps, and one that could have indicated a bit of anal retentiveness, but later exploits in the dungeon revealed  the inclusion of that piece of dungeonry was probably more of a cautionary point so that we would have to put a bit of thought into our word use.  In other words, he wasn't so anal at later points so I think it was more to drill the point home!

Other than this, he makes good use of traps.  He included a faux trap involving well-placed spears alongside some descriptive clues that there was no trap there (including the fact that I could find no trap).  He also included several other traps with neat descriptions for those who locate them.  He also includes faux treasure points, such as a Mimic hiding under rubble which looked like a treasure chest and a corridor into nowhere that would normally include treasure (as a reward for coming all that way) but instead contained a trap (as the In World dungeon architects would have suspected we'd assume a reward).

All in all, it was a lot of fun with an easygoing atmosphere, high importance placed on the scenery of words (pay attention to the verbal clues), and with roleplay encouraged to be mostly about asides rather than character arcs and conversations.  I don't know what he's like with other formats.  It may be that his preference is for dungeon crawls and combat-to-combat games.  It may be that he's just dipping his toes in that end of the pool.  I know, at least, his tastes will run towards action as they do as a player as well.  I also can't say what his NPCing talents are or if he has them because it hasn't really come up.  Since we've only been playing for about five sessions, they haven't really needed to.

So yes, there you go, Frank.  You have been analysed.  If I were to steal two of your talents, thus far, it would be your combat preparations / battle ability and your trap wizardry.  At least, thus far.

So out of it....

Well I've been too out of it lately to pop up another Masks audio recording and I'm out of ones that I've previously gone through so ... we'll need to wait until next week.

In the meantime you can check out these cool LARP videos.

Dungeon Crawls Are ... Fun?

Well it's happened.  I never thought it would, but it has.  I am officially enjoying a dungeon crawl as a player.  I didn't think it possible.  After all, there's no story.  The only roleplay involves the brief asides the various characters make toward each other and a few of the decision points.  Yet it somehow feels satisfying, despite the fact that everything takes longer than in a videogame.

Setting aside my surprise at enjoying such light and airy entertainment, I then wondered at how it could possibly be better than a videogame.  Our miniatures and maps were hardly equivalent to a videogame's splendour and it's not like I'm one of those imaginative visionaries who creates an epic visual environment within my own head.  So why did it perfectly hold my attention?

Well, for one thing, we all got along.  Being in a social environment and playing in a team that genuinely gets along, complete with gentle IC ribbing and playful asides, is wonderful!  I've never gotten into multiplayer videogames despite people's assurances that this could be fun because I've always worried that they would be full of goons.  That's what you get for growing up female.  Not only do you lack multiplayer experiences from your childhood (since few girls play videogames and my game console was a Sega Master System anyhow which lacked many multiplayer games) but you also hear about how a whole bunch of credits live on the Internet wanting to pick on girls.

The latter point likely being true, judging by the number of anecdotes I hear, though I tend to be pretty lucky and could always play LAN-style anyway so it shouldn't really hold me back.

Anyway, random tangent aside, I realised that roleplaying games actually have something videogames don't ... a different set of pacing.  Videogames move so fast, especially this sort of fantasy game, that you can barely take a breath to enjoy one thing before you're whisked off to the next.

As an example, we entered a room with an incongruous trash pile to one side.  We ignored it.  Then the next time we passed we used Detect Magic and Detect Evil on it.  When we were about to leave, one of the players stared at the section on the man with a thoughtful look in his eye.  "You want to search it, don't you?" I asked.  Yup, he does.  Pulling back the trash, he reveals a treasure chest.  My PC saunters over to unlock it and ... is attacked by a Mimic.

Now think about this same situation in a videogame.  You don't eye off potential time wasters in a videogame.  I would just rush through that trash pile to see if I picked up anything OR there'd be a OOC button indicator over the trash pile which, being one of the few action commands available on the level I'd undoubtedly press OR I'd just run straight past it.  There's so many other goodies in the next bit that I'd largely forget what I'd passed.

Now it'd be different in a game like Outlast where you don't *run* anyway.  You cower and slowly slink about.  But in an action-based fantasy game?  You'd rush about!  So, while both are certainly good, they deliver different experiences beyond a pen-and-paper game's laggy combat (imagine waiting a minute for a swing to resolve in a videogame).

I also adore Pathfinder alchemists.  I don't know if I'll ever play anything else.  I've been a sorcerer and a rogue several times before yet have always found them too limited.  With an Alchemist I have some cool levels of damage output, some flavour options (explosive, cold, acid), a few spells to choose from and some neat little skills - especially Disable Device.  While I never feel overpowering, I do always feel relevant.  It's great!

GM to Player - Confliction

As you've probably gleaned, I am most often the Storyteller, never the player.  Well, nearly never.  I've played in the occasional solo game but rarely with other people.  Since I've started playing in a Pathfinder game with three other people, I've started noticing the various habits I've gleaned over years of infrequent play with various tabletop group games.

(And yes, I'm well aware Confliction isn't a word but it sums up the general vibe I get.  An affliction with a vague sense of conflictedness - also not a word - and also an infection with an interest in the conflict.  It's a very ambiguous word, confliction.)

It is quite different on the other side of the screen, I must admit.  I've felt the urge to guide the storyteller, accidentally pointed out forgotten things (i.e. we're in pitch blackness), and second guessed plots (sometimes with too much rapidity).  I also tend to come up with ideas which could be awesome, which tend to annoy GMs because they're either really good ideas that put theirs to shame, really stupid ideas which make them die a little inside, or are actually the same ideas they wanted to run with.  Really I should stop voicing such ideas!

I also find it hard to be doing so little comparatively.  The player's brain sits on idle far more than the storyteller's brain, as you wait for your co-players to finish their actions, resolve their turns, and for the NPCs to do the same.  You don't need to respond to their choices (generally) and when you do, there's normally either another player who's happy to choose (social or environmental choices) or a roll the GM tells you to make (environmental or resistance).  Normally you just need to vaguely log their actions in your mind and prepare for your own, especially in games like Pathfinder or D&D where your combat options are larger at character creation than in any other games, yet feel reduced during them. 

This Pathfinder / D&D feeling of constricted choice in combat is likely an illusion due to the sheer frequency of combat and the sheer amount of choices at character generation, but it is there nonetheless.

It's just the nature of the beast for players to have an easier time of it brainpower-wise than GMs, most of the time.  There are exceptions, but generally you can go with the flow a lot more ... unless you're in a solo game where the entire direction of the game tends to rely on you.  There are *other* efforts a player must make (patience being one of them), but it's not the same *kind* of effort.

So it's been a learning experience trying to control and restrain my brain like a player rather than rushing a 1000 miles ahead like a solo gamer or juggling a dozen details, past and present and future, like a GM.

I've also learned a few other things in the current Pathfinder game I'm in and the few other party games I've played as well.  I've found that it's really easy to annoy other players (which I've always suspected).  I've learned it's way easier to give in than to negotiate, but that I'm okay with it if it gets us to the goal more quickly by requiring less OOC time, and that most other players (though not all) feel the same way.  Better an hour of unused IC time than 10 minutes of moving toward faster action.  It's logical but not something you first expect.

I've found that I can be patient and enjoy my character being taken out of the game with Dominate far more readily than I can enjoy having little to contribute yet needing to contribute anyway with something (an issue often found in World of Darkness games).  I've found that a long three-hour combat can still be entertaining by fulfilling a more board gamey instinct than I ever thought I had ... and that I might even enjoy those parts more than the generally negative (to me) player character interactions that devolve around any sources of conflict, no matter how minor.

I've learned that I get acclimatised to my crunch very quickly and that I equally quickly yearn for a new PC so that I can play with shiny new crunch.  This means that I'm happy for my PC to die.  In fact, if my PC lasts too long I look to opportunities to let the PC take the hit for another player (which may well save said PC) or ponder ways to retire my character without derailing the game.  After my years as a storyteller, it would be a gross act of negligence and hypocrisy on my part to knowingly risk derailing anyone's game.  I've also found I sometimes have to back out of putting my PC in harms way as many a GM will bend over backwards to avoid killing off a PC too readily.

I've learned that being Dominated into PvP can be a lot of fun and there's plenty of satisfaction and fulfilment to scrabbling ineffectually in an attempt to hit a PC (with the possibility of getting a *real* hit in) then was ever enjoyed against an NPC.  This is likely, in part, because it's relatively consequence-free.  It's not my fault, after all.  I'm just rolling the dice here.  I also learned that it feels really good when another PC has the choice to strike your PC, yet refuses to do so.

I've found that it's hard to make character-driven choices when you've been patchily in your character's perspective due to the rather off-again on-again nature of group roleplay (i.e. pause for die rolling, description, waiting your turn), and that while you're out of your character's mind-state it's so much easier to just select either the funniest or more strategic decision rather than try to forcibly re-immerse yourself for few minutes.  Perhaps experienced players have that skill down, but I find that my PCs are shallower than my NPCs ever were as while they were juggled between other thought processes, those thought processes were all directed to the game and not directed to that lazy state of patience and calm which allows me to float through the various waiting periods.

I've learned that my PC shallowness is also because while there may be the potential for death, the other sides of your PC may not be triggered, or tested, which leads to a flatter character.  As a GM you introduce an NPC knowing that your players or the circumstances of the game will prod them in certain ways, revealing certain traits.  As a PC you're more likely to have one set of consistent traits appear and remain everlasting.  If you get bored, those traits tend to become a little more humorous and exaggerated to compensate for a lack of depth or variety.  I've done this to players myself, so it's no judgement against GMs.  It's part of the issue of being part of an ensemble cast who generally aren't designed with the interactions in mind (unlike ensemble casts in TV) which means it can be hard to trigger any depth in more than one PC at once.

I've learned that there's a lot of waiting periods involved in being a player.  Many of them don't contain details that are of keen interest to me.  They're not often boring, but they don't arouse excitement and anticipation either.  This might be because I'm not worried about the outcomes of our actions, partly because I concede the point and therefore don't have much of a stake in things and partly because I don't mind losing in combat.

I'm not saying these are things I should learn.  In some cases, they aren't good habits.  I'm also not saying that my current GM or co-players are to blame for any negative lessons as I have been a player in several infrequent games over the years and so these have been learned over a combination of games.  I'm just saying this is what I've learned and it's been an eye-opening experience for me.

And yes, a lot of what I've learned has been rather negatively flavoured but that's likely because a) been brushing against burnout for awhile now; and b) there's a reason why I'm more often GM than player.  I think the downsides of being a player are more obvious to me than the downsides of being a GM or, potentially, my play style, expectations and perspectives lead to more negative experiences.

This isn't to say that I'm hating my time as a player.  I'm not.  I do find it enjoyable.  I just haven't found much about ensemble play that makes my heart sing the same way that watching a great movie or playing a brilliant videogame does.  I'm going to keep going because it's a fun, social way to spend the time with minimal requirements for me but I don't think playing tabletop roleplaying games are really my thing.

What about you players?  Do you find much to agree with about my experiences?  Are they minimal issues?  Am I missing the point?

And you GMs, are you the same way?  Do you find playing equally enjoyable?  Frustrating?  More fun?

Next week I'll mention some of the techniques, tactics and skills I've noted in some of my former GMs (especially my current one, really) which I would love to learn.

Adelaide Roleplaying Cooperative

The world needs more LARPs...

I have created a new blog called Adelaide Roleplaying Cooperative which will be used for the roleplaying organisation known as, you guessed it, the Adelaide Roleplaying Cooperative.  We're not yet incorporated and we still have to fix little niggles in the constitution and get the insurance sorted out but we have one LARP designed and ready to go and are getting close to having a second one in place as well.

It's been a bit of a rapid ride to get to this point but I wouldn't trade it for anything.  It's been a lot of fun.  I've met a lot of people.  And now I'll get a chance to speak on the National ABC News to let other people know about LARPs in general and my LARP in particular.  I'm really looking forward to our game launch (likely in July) and I can't wait to see where we'll be in a few years time.

Hopefully we'll have a few more game organisers and some very different settings and styles out there for people to play.

If you want to have a chat to me about it, you can also find me at our brand new Facebook Group.

Only a few hours to the radio interview...  *shivers with excitement*  This shall be fun!