Friday, August 12, 2016

Psionics Supplement Mini-Review plus Yuan Ti for DCC/MCC

So - picked up this thing by +Reid San Filippo (esteemed author of Crawling Under a Broken Moon).










It's called Mind Games. It's a supplement for DCC that shores up one place where I find that DCC doesn't scratch my 1st Ed. AD&D itch better than the original, namely the Psionics. It's funny now that I am older I notice that many, many monsters in the MM1&2 and FF have psionic abilities listed in the stat chunk. I never paid much attention to them, mostly because I think Psionics were frowned upon when I were a lad as an unnecessary, optional option that most people I played with did not opt. When you think about it, Psionics-empowered PCs ought to have been, like Paladins, rare as hen's teeth, given the dwindling, vanishingly unlikely statistics involved necessary to play one if you do (as Crom intends) 3d6 straight down the line. But hey, plenty of folks let their hair loose and upped it some, which I don't think I ever saw.
What Reid has done (and +Claytonian JP hinted at in The Wizardarium) is attached a nicely foreign and exotic system onto the DCC core rules, with very little in the way of changes to the base mechanics, in order to give you that weird flavor of yore back. The thing is chock full of cool stuff, and the art and layout are nicely done. (I hear there was a kerfuffle with print versions but I think it's fixed at the time of this writing). There are 20-something psionic powers of varying dangerousness, a new class, plenty of psionic items (watch for Living Crystal weapons in my campaigns in the near future), and a couple of really terrific monsters.  The Braingineers are like daleks, crossed with spiders, and so they're probably going to fall into my own games, soon.

Mindgames is just what I needed at this point, since I am thinking of siccing some ancient, slithery evil upon some friends at TridentCon, replete with Mind Blasts and Ego Whips and Polymorphing Demon Venom. David "Zeb" Cook is scheduled to attend, and my mind was transported to the Ancient Times when I fussed and fretted about snake cults in a city in the jungles of... I don't recall, was it Chult? Before Chult was a place? I don't know. Suffice it to say that The Dwellers of The Forbidden City charged my young brain with all kinds of images that laid dormant in there until I first view'd a version of King Kong (pretty sure it was Jessica Lange and a young The Dude). I recently had a vision in which I plopped the Forbidden City down with a Lost City erupting up from beneath, and +Kabuki Kaiser 's Kwantoom nearby, across the Pan Lung lake. Can you smell the lemongrass and strange spices? Olchak may give me a hard time about fetishizing the Far East, but it feels like something that hits me (granted I'm a white middle aged guy who was weaned on Saturday Afternoon TV and D&D) right in the tropes-lobe.


Okay, okay, back on track. Yuan-Ti. The demon-worshipping snake-men that everybody loves to hate, and doubly more so because the implicit body horror/snake phobia that gets you right in the amygdala from aeons dark and unremembered. On a glance at the stats below, they are bad ass and ought to send most low level parties fleeing and peeing and quaking and praying (6-9 HD with maybe a 0 armor class, plenty of spells, and psionics, also!) Good thing only 1-4 at a time, and I guess maybe accompanied by some cultists. I note that Deep Ones worry me more, since it's a metaphysical issue, but maybe later for that line of thought. The disciplines listed are B,D (Mind Thrust and Id Insinuation) and F,I,J (Mind Blank, Intellect Fortress, and Tower of Iron Will). With psionic 150 points, that's fairly bad ass, and most of these things will leave psychically undefended adventurers as synapse-shorted, howling idiots before the battle is even begun! Afterward, its disgusting worshippers will trundle you off to a dark cave and poison you into becoming a breeder for a new snake-thing, and (as Dragon #151 points out) if you fail and die during the process, they can neutralize poison you and try again...


So: Yuan-Ti need magic, lots of HD, and PSIONIC POWERS, and so where might we find some of those? Well, in Reid's new thing, that's where!



YUAN TI ABOMINATION: move 15', Init +5; Atk bite +5 (1d10), psionics, spell casting ; Action Die 3d24; AC 18; Hit Dice 8d10; Fort +7, Ref +7, Will +1

Psionic Attack Powers: (roughly analogous to Mind Thrust and Id Insinuation): Kinetic Burst, Affliction, Transmogrify Mind

Psionic Defenses: Hard to say.. Needs development as a power, or maybe not, but boosting the Telepathy Focus Die to 1d10 seems sufficient to me for the moment in order to defend in Duels/Subjugation Battles.

The other forms of Yuan-Ti have lesser Hit Dice and 1 fewer Attack Powers, but they all know 1d4 (suitably reptilian in their manifestation) Wizard or Cleric Spells chosen randomly, in addition to Neutralize Poison and Bind to/Invoke Patron. For PAtrons, use Set/SSeth or that snaky one from AD&BiB or maybe that one from Dragon 150 or the other canonical Yuan-Ti one from your old-fashioned system of choice.

More later - Be Well, Warm-Blooded, Manthings!




Post-Script for reference: These are the original 1e stats from Zeb Cook's Dwellers of the Forbidden City, to my knowledge the first appearance of this classic AD&D monster.

YUAN TI
FREQUENCY: Very Rare
NO. APPEARING: 1-4
ARMOR CLASS: 4/0
MOVE: 12” or 9”
HIT DICE: 6-9
% IN LAIR: 70%
TREASURE TYPE: C
NO. OF ATTACKS: 2

DAMAGE/ATTACK: See below
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Spells
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 20%
INTELLIGENCE: Genius
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic evil
SIZE: M
PSIONIC ABILITY: 150
Attack/Defense Modes: B, D/F, I, J
LEVEL/X.P. VALUE:Variable


Living in tropical jungles, the yuan ti are a degenerate and corrupt race of creatures who were once human. All are devout demon worshippers and have a high regard for all kinds of reptiles. Through dark and unknown practices, their blood has become fouled, thus producing monstrosities, There are three types of yuan ti: purebloods, halfbreeds, and abominations.

Purebloods are the weakest of the yuan ti, having only 6 hit dice. They are human in appearance, except for some slight difference - scaly hands, a forked tongue, or a somewhat reptilian look about them. They are able to pass as humans 80% of the time. They normally handle affairs with the outside world, and may travel far and wide doing so.

Halfbreeds are highly distinctive. Some part of their body is that of a snake, while the rest is human. Appearance may be determined by the table below (rolling once or twice), or the DM may select the changes.
  1. 1  Snake head
  2. 2  Torso can bend and move like a snake’s
  3. 3  No legs, ends in a snake’s tail
  4. 4  Has snakes instead of arms
  5. 5  Body is covered by scales
  6. 6  Snake tail is growing from backside
If any combination seems impossible or unworkable, the result should be ignored. The DM may also create other results involving snakes and humans.

In attacks, a snake-headed halfbreed will bite for 1-10 points of damage, snake-headed arms will bite for 1-6 points, and a tail will constrict for 1-4 points. Otherwise the yuan ti will be able to handle weapons as a normal person. All snake parts will have an armor class of 0. Halfbreeds have 7-8 hit dice.

Abominations are the strongest of the yuan ti. All have 9 hit dice. In appearance they are often confused with nagas and other snake creatures. Abominations are either totally snake- Iike or only have some human feature (such as a head or arms). Their bite (unless human-headed) will do 1-10 points of damage.

All yuan ti with human legs may move 12” per turn. Those with snake bodies move 9” per turn and are able to coil around pillars and the like. Human headed yuan ti are able to cast the following spells once per day:

Cause Fear Darkness, 15’ radius
Snake charm
Sticks to snakes

Neutralize poison
Suggestion
Polymorph other

Yuan ti speak their own language. They may also speak with any snake or snake-like monster. Those with human heads also speak Chaotic and Common.

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Wish in One Hand, Tirade in the Other

DEAR ADVENTURE WRITING MOFOS:


In your modules/expansions/adventures, what I want is:

In the front matters, of variable length and however long it takes for you to get it out, set the scene, some verbose and stylized flavor text, fluff maybe, that I can read this and say: "Daniel wrote this on a Lovecraft tear and it is hilarious".  Include satire. Ineffable wonder is terrific but not if its not gameable... Or if the concept is so high-concept that the game becomes an abstraction of whatthefucks, then maybe tone it down a couple notches but I am not the boss of you

I personally don't go for books-as-art/collectibles. Cleverness and usability, newness of thought in terms of gaming situations, that's key. I don't want it to be ugly, though. If we ought to emulate Z--'s approach in anything it's that he puts a great deal of effort into the things he does, and I admire him for that.  Or at least, it appears he does. It's his livelihood and nobody ought to try to pull it out from underneath him, and I take ownership of my part.  Don't make it like you generated half with some online website and filled in the rest. I can use a website for that myself and they are generally free. I'm paying FOR YOUR BRAINWAVES or maybe I will if you impress me.

In the entries, terseness. Just enough to oomph me. Clarity: I want to be able to know the theme of the area already. Put standout features in bold, treasure easily sussed, traps evident at a glance (or maybe just TRAP and I can cook it up kaboom). Stonehell by Michael Curtis and Gillespie's Barrowmaze are good examples where just enough is given in the general scheme of things. I should be able to look at the entry and in one fell swoop know what is about to happen

Random monsters that make sense somehow and introduce novelty, hilarity and dread and will interact with keyed static encounters. These should provide impetus against standing still and silly-dallying too long. Else, don't include them if you want the tone of your thing to be relaxed and merely exploratory. Shitty randos that are boring and just attack is a waste of ink. Moldvay reaction roll or something similar called for in situations of total ambiguity, BUT these things are wandering around for a good reason, right?  Motive: these skeletons are lugging parcels for the Oppressive Douchebag Necromancer and would love to break up the monotony of post/biology workday and they resent his managerial style is better than "SKELETONS HIT LUCIENNE WITH SWORD FALL DOWN"

I want original monsters from your brain. Homages are okay.  Radiation infused stirges are good, and they puke radiation into you because they are excited. A stirge is not okay to stat out because that's wasted ink.  I'm pretty sure they are hard to hit, flimsy, and drink blood if they hit and latch on. I got that already.  Staying on the ASE-as-example, the little robot dwarf guys who want to use you as parts, those are terrific.  If it was all goblins, I wouldn't even have read the thing.  I'd almost go without stats entirely since you could essentially let me kludge it into my own system. NO STATS!? A hush falls over the crowd and a looming sense of alienation toward the writer and off you guy, Dearie!

Awesome items for foolish players to let their PCs experiment with (I'm going to include experimentation rules in all my games maybe, I need to work out a system where I describe items more thoroughly instead of FUCK I GUESS ITS A LASER GUN). No more magic swords. I've seen every variation of magic sword ever and I get bored by swords and not engorged by swords if you take my meaning

One thing I love to see lately is permanent or long-lasting changes to PCs from items or interactions with the dungeon. Possibly death (there are more fun outcomes than death); possibly rocket-fired batwings. Something that changes a PC from "Eric the Warrior" to "Eric the CHROME SKYVIKING". I've killed, personally, a great number of Warriors and have no remorse, but a well-marbled pig invested with the semblance of a personality gets me upset when my mutant chomps his head off because the personality makes it taste better, you see. Mike Evans' Hubris has a good deal of this in the funnel so that the survivors are going to be unique and weird right at the start. One reason I dig DCC is that it allows me to purposefully encourage, with a minimum of work up front, a large group of memorable PCs that players get invested in.  They ought to maneuver their shitty uninteresting ones into the line of fire, somehow. Many times these days, I think players get disappointed when their 0-levels bite it and it's natural, but if you do it enough you get less attached to individual PCs and more attached to the development of the survivors. Sometimes, you get invested in the pigs and goat-wives and Wargeese which says something to me.

My own policy is there ought to be chock full of hooks for the next thing in the back, and a number of setups for the thing in the front. Possibilities. Maps to other places. Let's do what the Old Ones did and link our own little Multiverses together by way of mutual reference. It's fantasy, and we all do it anyways, why not drop hints about other folks' works in there?  Like a cult from Paul's book?  Include it in your module and people will (without even knowing its happening) like it also, provided your thing makes a good time.

Don't name NPCs. That sucks. More later. THinking about Keep On the Borderlands, here.

Enough loot to make their eyes light up but not enough to break the economy. Or I don't know, your call.

I was in an "anti-table" mode for a while, but I have reconsidered. If it's thematic and provides some chaotropy, then hurrah (like, the reams of possibility in Kabuki Kaiser's stuff, versus ANOTHER LIST OF DOGS TO GROOM)

We're old enough and wise enough, now, to leave the graph paper in our youth. The world is not laid out, mostly, in uniform grids - sensible though it may be. I think Doug pulls this off nicely since his maps are arty and nicely represent scale and relationship without the tedium of 20 foot squares all the damn time.

Less scribbletits for the sake of scribbletitillation since I am somebody's dad and maybe I want to hand my daughter this book-analogue without my conscience nagging at me.  I want her to be able to read it, comprehend it, and not lose SAN when she's 7 or 8. Call me uptight and I know demihuman and semihuman bodies are beautiful and natural etc etc but maybe 

On that note, design some factions that have other motives besides SENSELESS GORE, and make it possible for pacifist approaches to have a possibility of winning the day. I really believe that games are much More Fun when we are all cracking up laughing because of interactions with the world and each other that are not merely rolls to see "DID I HIT AND KILL IT THIS TIME? IS IT KILLING ME?" And that one guy who has not yet, in 2016, learned to roll his attack and damage and Deed dice with one hand together all at once at the same time together for the sake of expediency and clarity and hold on what's that word I'm looking for let me get it from my bag I here it is what was the monster's armor class again?  We should all respectfully model accurate and useful behaviors to people and hope they pick them up without a lecture, since tirades are good Sunday morning IMHO but not at game time; that's for laughing and laughing and maybe pissing your pants laughing from fear and terror and MAN THIS GAME IS TERRIFIC BUT I WISH JOEY WIULD HURRY IT UP BY GOD'S STONY YARBLES

Your mileage may vary of course but if you don't agree with my opinions, you're wrong and stupid, as this one or two guys I see on the Internet are prone to saying, and I will see to it personally that you reform or are ostracized.  (A little satire for you but if you don't get it then count yourself lucky). This is about games, not maybe about selling games (to me it's a non-issue but for some a primary motivator which I think tangled up your approach) or our identity as a tribe and who the biggest dick swinging is but as I said choose for yourself

ON TO ELEVENSIES AND MORE CAFFEINATION THANKS FOR READING MOFOS

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Retinues and Scavvy Hordes (also Genestealers)

Been effing around in the basement.  Had too much coffee the other day and felt an urge for finality that I now know will never ever come.  I will be painting these little people probably until the time I pass away, in little batches of like 2 or 3 forever.

Here's some progress, if you're interested. My buddy is sending me my old genestealers (maybe 2nd edition?) and my original Scavvie gang that I never painted. I think he is going to keep the delaques and plastic orlocks/goliaths and terrain, but hey.  It's cool.
 
Some of these figs have needed a little zazz on 'em for maybe 10 or 12 years.



Saturday, June 25, 2016

IRON WITHIN : IRON WITHOUT

It is clear that this sector's secessionist tendencies is due to a deeper underlying cause; some perverse machine at work under the surface. Under siege is all that is good and unites the Imperium of Man together, as if an Engine of Ill Will drives the machine unions to work against the Adeptii Arbites and the Astartes Soldier Brethren.


The cause must be investigated further and each face that comes to light will be voxcast.

NOTA BENE: This servant's eye units no longer work effectively and suitable cybernetic replacements are requisitioned from the Union storehouse. Please forward a surgical servitor and 2.5 drams of Kalma, as per the previously agreed terms.  The hands shake and perhaps the next requisition forms will include requests for bionic brush holders and magnification elements

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Gangs of Metro City: BURNING ROAD

 for +Jarrett Crader and +Claytonian JP  and +Tony Tucker  the rest of you people that make me want to create a new thing or play games or both

I call this genre DANGERBOOBIES;this is an example of Cosplay that doesn't maybe read the fluff
i GET A BIT CUNTY ABOUT OTHER PEOPLES' SUCCESS and also when I'm drunk i'm prone to drink and leave the caps lock on and make wild inadvisable boasts like HEY THIS MOVIE I WATCH WHILE IM WAITING FOR ZAKS NEW BOOK TO ARRIVE IS AWESOME AND IT COULD INSPIRE A GAME. You may have heard about my irritating and time-consuming project to turn my awesome Space Dungeon campaign on G+ into a 2D fighting game or maybe not, fuck it, i'll provide a link so you can catch up... Go ahead.  No seriously, I'll wait.

Ok, all done? I know! It's a great idea to me, also!  This post is only tangentially related, but since it's my blog, fuck it, you'll have to bear with me before you get to CONTENT because INSPIRATION etc etc blah blah

the objections to the character are deep and confusing
So anyway, one of the things about Space Dungeon: IN THE MAZE OF THE CYBERLICH is that it's a 2d fighting game all about poor human schmucks and alien schmucks and robot schmucks against the Terrible Horribly Combo-Laden Powers of Evil with Awesome Hypers and so, like in my RPGs generally it's not about the PCs having a chance of winning I mean come on let's be serious this is totally power tripping, here, but it's like every once in a while your schmuck will win a round or score a terrific combo and you'll feel elated for a second and TAKE THAT MOTHERFUCKER and it's a lot like Call of Cthulhu without all that messy fucking around with Sanity scores.  I get plenty of Insanity at work, thanks, and sometimes I just want to beat some shit up with my body instead of my GOODWILL and POSITIVE ESTEEM

and so when I was lining up the Good Guys roster for this thing, I kept thinking about Cody and Guy and Haggar from Final Fight.  If you do not recall, O Phillistine, then let me remind you of the goodness that was the late 80's/early 90's in which my meagre mind was formed, sack full of quarters and a face like it was on fire and somebody put it out with an ice pick.  Double Dragon, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Karate Champ, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat.  Yeah, yeah, I know!  No wonder i'm always picking fights.

Henceforth all game maps will be drawn this way by decree
Anyways, the Final Fight guys didn't make it into my heartbreaker SD2d game, since they were too normal.  But a byproduct of the search was that I found out that Final Fight was based on, nay a blatant copy of, Streets of Fire.

Where am I going with this?

Okay, here's the HACK-a-riffic wall of text you assed for


In BURNING ROAD, there are no classes, only Warriors.  Lesser people are there, obviously, but only Warriors come out to play. It's a Neo-Noir shitbag-stomping node-crawl, where you gotta get from this place to rescue that person/do that thing/get back with thugs on your tail. The world is an endless sprawl of wet roads, broken steam pipes, elevated trains, subways, and tenement housing.  Littered in between the fearful citizens' fruit stands, diners, and watch repair shops, there are juke joints and maybe some newspaper offices. Everybody's come back from the war, and it feels like the 50's.  There's pompadours and poodle skirts and it's not like diesel punk, I guess, but maybe if you want, fuck it I don't care.  I guess it begs for lasers and big robots eventually. Everything happens at night but there's no reason why, that's just the way it is, see? Or else there could be aliens, I don't care it's your game.


You get a couple of Moves - these are Mighty Deeds, but you gotta name them up front.  One per level, plus one.  That makes two Moves at level 1.  In all other ways, you're a standard DCC Warrior.  There's small arms and you can choose those as special Lucky snowflake weapons if your group does that, or you can pick a baseball bat, butterfly knife, switchblade, broomhandle mauser.  Something genre appropriate.  For Moves, you get two Deed Dice and pick the best so it's pretty unlikely your Moves won't go off

You spend Luck like normal, but any time you get a breather, you get 1d3 Luck back and 1d6 HP. Any time you get a shot of Whiskey, also, or get romantic with a attractive member of your choice, or have a heart to heart about the past with a pal (even in the midst of combat)


Willem Dafoe and Lee Ving.  Whowouldathunkit.
Any in-game dialog must be somewhat irritable and hostile and passive-aggressive, and use the slang of the 50's which I am not gonna look up for you, doll.  If you don't use it, you lose that next combat's Moves dice, even if you're in the midst of combat, buttface.  That's a Biff Tannen reference.

You can choose to be a Lone Wolf, a Band member, or a Ganger. When I was a drunk last night, there was some benefit to these but I lost it between then and my current state. Lone Wolfs can give away Moves dice or keep them; Band members improve dice chain on actions when with bandmates and coordinated; gangers get Thief Luck dice when with gangers of the same gang and can subtract from other gangs' rolls with those (trying to avoid too many old mechanics but keep same principles). If you're by yourself as a Band Guy or Ganger, go find a chum.  Some Moral Advantage for Lawful, and Intimidation for Chaotic, and Neutral characters can pick
Gimmick gangs.  That's cool.
There's something about colors.  See: Dick Tracy, any modern noir film, Dark City.  Streets of Fire actually has a lot of great examples of what must be gel lights on steam vents and it's beautifully shot and a nightmare of dialog but the writing is pretty spare and straightforward. I'll have to return to colors in scenes, or leave it out, I don't know.  It's formulated in that compartment in my brain that had a lot of bourbon last night.  Red for violence (improved dice for everybody in combat); blue/purple for the same in sneaking; green for fear/terror (reduction in die rolls, little shop of horrors)
neither Joan Jett nor Pat Benatar but somehow both and not as awesome
You only level up when you're travelling, or prepping for the adventure. All the action takes place in a night.  Nodes generated by the narrative;

there;s more, but the world turn monochrome and this headache does not abate and I will have more links for you to consume

Meantime:



+ramonthe3rd  has a fun and simple urban crime rpg thing that I might steal liberally some of the ideas - Fire Elixir, but I can't figure out where I found it, maybe from Reddit or something

Speaking of Reddit, it's a nightmare, but it often has treasure in the deeps, for example in this thread




 





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