Lovecraft, Houdini, and the Hundred-Handed-Ones

In my most recent Scion session, the plot demanded a big nasty the PCs couldn't hurt, but could circumvent via trickery. I chose a Hekatonakhiere, partly because it gave me an opportunity to steal a bit from a story HP Lovecraft once ghostwrote for Harry Houdini. If you haven't read the story "Imprisoned With The Pharaohs", stop reading now and follow the link. Either that or live with having the short story being spoiled a bit first.

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And so I describe it (the hundred handed one) as 40 feet tall, multi-limbed and multi-headed, with a long serpentine tail twisting and disappearing over the ridge. It's trundling along the top of the ravine, decimating an army, shapeshifting new limbs and attack modes as it needs them. Overall, it was being very colorful, and stunting spectacularly.

The PCs debate strategy for a moment, and then one shouts out an Overt Order at the thing, telling it to leave here as fast as it can.

In response, it springs back on it's tail, no doubt coiling just behind the ridge the way a cobra might. The "body" they'd been observing towers above the battlefield for a moment, and then it becomes apparent that the tail is but a wrist and forearm. The thing they'd watched assault their forward lines was but a single hand of the beast.

It's two-mile long body climbs out of the ravine, and marches off - for an action or so. The characters now had a mere 5 ticks to brainstorm a much more creative solution to a much larger problem than they'd anticipated. It was fun watching them sweat.

Previously, on Scion

I put something up on the wiki a while ago:
Threat-Generation system for Scion

To be honest, I don't use that system any more, but it was really helpful to me for my first 10-15 sessions until I got a better hang of the mechanics and flow of combat. Now I can roughly eyeball (with minimal math) what it takes to challenge my group.

And every so often, I play dumb. For example, last session, I threw three extremely short one-sided fight scenes at my PCs.

1. The first involved the arrival of one of Aten's Heralds. The PCs trounced it before it could get it's second action. Being able to hit for 30 at a pop with massive knockback was enough to safely handle an Angel with a "deadman's switch" in under 8 ticks.

2. The second fight involved a Hekatonakhiere that they had no chance of beating. This required them to think out of the box, and quickly, or else get pulverized. They performed admirably.

3. They then left the Terra Incognita / island and found their boat had been overtaken by mutineers. Assuming something sinister was at work, they solved the issue with a Deeded/Channeled/Burned punch that did some 35 points of damage. Despite being Legend 5, the "mutinous deckhand" went down in one hit. This turned out to be a horrible mistake, as the now headless mutineer was later revealed to be Heracles's common-law wife, the daughter of Weyland Smith.

None of those fights were fair, but the players just ate them up.

Legend, Willpower, Avatar, and Titan

Trying to post something at the Scion Forum today, I nearly ran afoul of trying to distinguish temporary Legend points from permanent Legend rating.

• A character, with a Legend rating of X, has X-squared temporary Legend points.
• Many powers grant Legend, and others charge Legend. In most cases this means points, but there are a few things that temporarily boost Legend rating instead.
• However, it's terribly easy to accidentally not specify "points" or "rating" and those vague moments can get a little painful or confusing sometimes.

A similar problem sometimes occurs with Willpower.

• There are things (mostly powers) that trigger based on permanent Willpower rating.
• Other things (powers again, but also non-power mechanics) care about temporary Willpower points.
• Distinguishing between the two can sometimes be tricky.

Then there's the word Avatar, which can mean:

1. The top Boon of a Purview - the ultimate level of a field of godly power. (Note: sometimes players and forumites refer to the Ultimate epics as Avatars, but technically this is incorrect)
   
2. A character currently using such a Boon.
3. A birthright that allows a god to manifest with lower Legend (rating) for fewer Legend (points).
4. The sentient embodiment of one of the Titans, who can have 2 out of 3 of the above.
5. The words standard english-language meaning gets used occassionally, which in Scion would be roughly the earthly manifestation of a god, regardless of whether or not they used the birthright to manifest it, and regardless of whether they have and ultimate boons (in other words, it's still their avatar regardless of whether they have Avatar or any Avatars).
6. The physical body manifested from ichor by a god to be their earthly manifestation.
   

And, of course, the word Titan has similar issues. It can be:

• The world-sized embodiment of a primal concept. (Also sometimes known as a Greater Titan)
• Any of the many simultaneous Avatars (primarily 4th meaning, but also potentially the 1st, 2nd and 5th) of a Greater Titan.
• It's mythology-specific meaning, the primal beings from which the greco-roman gods were birthed. These would be just the Greco-Roman Avatars of the Greater Titans: Cronus, Ouranos, Gaia, etc. This is rarely used by the books, but it's hard to avoid when discussing the myths and characters that inspired the game.
  

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Wouldn't all of the above be easier if they'd just used a thesaurus?

• Legend Rating could have determined "Myth Points".
• Willpower Rating could have associated temporary "Ego Points".
• "Primals", of which greco "Titans" are but a subgroup, could have "Avatars" (4th meaning only). Gods would instead have "Manifestations", with the option of purchasing the "Mortal Coil" (or perhaps even "Humility"?) birthright.
• The apex of Powers could be "Ultimate Boons" to compliment the games existing Ultimate Epics, though perhaps "Ultimates" and "Pinnacles" would preserve a distinction between them.

I think choosing to use multiple different terms would strengthen the game and remove much of the ambiguity and confusion of the rules. I fail to see what possible advantage all these duplicate terms and alternate meanings have. Does anyone have insight into why such decisions were not made?

Batphone of the Gods

Early on in my Scion campaign, I gave my PCs very special cellphones. I'd had a little "God Conference" at the Seattle Westin, kinda like the one in Vegas in "The Long Road To Heaven". So that they could coordinate the efforts of their children, each of the Gods provided their own kid with a special phone that they could reach them on.

The groups lawyer, Alyssa Cunningham, the Daughter of Nemesis, got a very modern earpiece. She can wear it anywhere, though it's a bit redundant since she already had an iPhone. It has no buttons - she can't call mom, but she's potentially at Nemesis's beck and call at any moment.

Ashilda Helsdottir - just guess which dichotomous Norse goddess she's the daughter of - has a dayjob of working for the CIA, of which her mother is supposedly ignorant. She got a tiny little cellphone. It's very concealable, but to dial her, you need to push the buttons with a pin. No doubt Hel enjoys the idea of all those angels (on the pinhead) getting bludgeoned and squished everytime her daughter calls.

Omar Amin, son of Horus, got what is by far the least portable phone in the bunch. It's big and bulky, solid gold, with the old two-part headpiece. Clearly ol' dad isn't with the times. In the early game, he kept leaving the thing at home, which, as fate would have it, meant lots of missed calls from Horus. That went over well.

Barbarella Miller, daughter of Tlazlteotl, is the group's NPC sidekick. Her mom gave her a beeper with (incoming only) text service. She took offense at the notion her mom doesn't even want to talk to her - but when your mom's a Goddess, and you're just a Legend 2 Scion, what ya gonna do?

Despite these "hotlines" to their kids, the Goddesses (and God) involved have been fairly distant. Only Hel calls with any sort of frequency, and she has some pretty creepy notions of what proper mother-daughter bonding should be. To be honest, the point of the phones is largely just a control issue - a way for the Divine to remind their offspring just who holds the power.

Firefly Brainstorm Lists: Amber-Conversion

The two people pushing hardest for the Firefly/Serenity campaign that almost happened last year were me and Jeremy. We both prefer rules-light systems, and neither of us wanted to learn the Serenity RPG system well enough to run it. It was intended to be a rotating-GM game, so everyone would have had to learn it pretty well. The system discussion took a couple weeks. We went from the Amber-based system below, to Dogs-In-The-Vineyard in the Firefly setting, to just playing something else (Amber, as it turns out). In retrospect, I wish we'd done the DITV Firefly.

Diceless System for Firefly/Serenity (based on Amber DPRG mechanics)

This is based on Jeremy’s idea that a diceless version complete with Amber Auction would:

1. create some built-in rivalries from the get-go, to put the players in the right frame of mind,
2. give everyone a clearly-defined specialty, something everybody knows they’re good at
3. allow us to play very rules light so it’s easy for anyone to GM a session
4. put the exact definition of our abilities and capabilities in the hands of each sessions GM (which is great for Psy powers, for example)
5. be a lot of fun

Attributes that may prove important to the setting:
Speed
Accuracy
Strength
Endurance
Intellect
Intuition
Tech
Charisma
Cool

Here's the logic behind portions of that list:

Speed vs Accuracy: I think we need two separate stats for these. Being a good shot and a fast draw feel like two separate skills in a western. A successful gunfighter needs to be good at both, but plenty are better at one than the other.

Strength vs Endurance: Jayne is a character who’s clearly strong, but kind of a sissy.

Intellect vs Intuition: Simon is clearly very rational and clever. River is primal and psychic. Shepherd Book has a good balance between the two. Jayne lacks both.

Tech vs Charisma: Kaylie (and to a lesser extent, Wash) is good with machines. Inara (and to a lesser extent, Mal and Simon) is good with people.

Cool: Where Zoe excels and Wash scrubs out. (Zoe, by the way, is like Bleys in Amber - 2nd or 3rd best at everything). Maybe this is part of Endurance?

Your Talent: Each PC gets something that makes them special beyond stat points, but it’s limited to one per PC. Examples drawn straight from the show:

• Simon is “The Doctor”.
• Kaylee “Understands Technology”.
• River has “Amazing Potential, But It’s Completely Beyond Her Control”.
• Wash has “Hotshot Pilot”.
• Mal has “It’s MY Ship”.
• Inara is a “Certified Companion”.
• Jayne has “Personal Armory”.
• Shepherd Book has “Mysterious Past”.
• Zoe seems to lack anything terribly special, so maybe she’s just got more points than anyone else to explain her being second best at everything -or- maybe Wash is the NPC pilot, and Zoe has “NPC Husband”
  

Should each PC get one free Talent, or should Talents cost 20 (out of 100?) Points?

Related posts: Character Concepts and Genre/Plot Ideas for use with Firefly.

Firefly Brainstorm Lists: Characters

This list was generated in early 2007, when some friends and I were contemplating a rotating-GM game set in the Firefly/Serenity setting, but using the Dogs In The Vineyard rules system. Had that game taken place, my character probably would have been based on the "The Man With The Past" archetype.

Character List: The Firefly/Serenity setting allows old stereotype characters to become fresh. Here's a short brainstorm list of character types that would be good within such a setting. Any of these that don’t get used for PCs should be used as NPCs eventually.

• Whore with a heart of gold - Either a full-fledged Companion or some unliscensed boy or girl turning tricks on the side. May be combined with another archetype to give a reason for “adventuring”, or could just be really loyal and tags along for whatever her friends are tangled up in.
• Bank Robber / Second-Story Man - Someone who’s a criminal for the challenge or excitement of it. Gadgets, acrobatics, elaborate schemes, etc. Could utilize a combination, or maybe just focused on one.
• The Duelist - Either a gunslinger, competition shootist, or a noble swordsman, who thinks he’s the best around, and is always looking for a chance to prove it.
• The Man With The Past - Like Shane, Han Solo, or The Prisoner, this character can never escape thier deeds of thier personal history. Even if they’d like to just settle down and own a farm, what they’ve done keeps cropping up to get them. Rivals, spurned lovers, enemies and bounty hunters lurk in every port just behind the friendly facade. (More artistic would be situations just paralleling the decisions and actions of their past, not literally recurring villains from their past, but sometimes it’s too hard to pull off artistic subtlety in an RPG.) There’s two types here - the true hero who’s on the run from enemies, and the reformed villain who has to grapple with the sins of thier past.
• The old coot - Grizzled veteran, hard-bitten pioneer, crazy old spacer. A great character-actor role where you get to spew pessimism and cantankerous monolog whereever you go.
• The Shepherd - The lone pacifist or rationalist of the group. Doesn’t have to literally be a priest, especially since that’s been done in the original show. Just a voice of reason to keep the frontier justice from getting too far out of hand.
• Samurai - A noble warrior. Does what is right, fights for the oppressed, etc. Refuses to flee, surrender or back down. Fits the genre really well, while still being unique from what we see on the show outside of short-term NPCs. However, there is the risk of it leading to TPK massacres.
• Dodger - the quick-fingered orphan/urchin/pettythief. Lovable little kid who’s always getting into trouble. Maybe some sort of prodigy worth keeping around. Maybe just a relative of the captain.
• The Psychic - Could be messed up like River, or could be a more stable psi-sensitive monk. The extent of their abilities are probably best not being spelled out in detail, but being mutable depending on situation and GM. (I’d love to figure out a way to make an Indian Medicine Man fit into the game, because it’d play great against the western theme, but there’s just no natives in the setting.)
• The scoundrel - the one guy in the group that’s willing to sell out the others, like Jayne. It’s a bad idea for Liam to play this part, it’d be like typecasting him after his Continuum role. Seriously, due to what happened before, we’d all end up spacing him in the opening reel.

Firefly Brainstorm Lists: Genre

This list was brainstormed back in early 2007, when my play group was considering playing a rotating-GM campaign set in the Firefly/Serenity universe.

List of Genres that can be explored in the Firefly/Serenity setting...

• Western - This is the most obvious theme of the show outside of sci fi. Inspiration can be drawn from any spaghetti western. Good guys and bad guys are easy to tell apart. Hard-working pioneers and miners struggling against the odds. Corrupt local government or railroad barons.
• Hard Sci Fi - Ship could be stranded in space, dealing with a failure of life-support, or some crazy interstellar phenomenon. Inspiration can be found in many Star Trek episodes, but a lot of novels do it more realistically.
• Space Opera - Melodrama meets questionable science. There’s even a big oppresive government and a rebellion.
• Heist films - Con men and bank robbers are pretty common in the setting. There’s even a mafia - and it’s pretty nasty. The Alliance government is rather corrupt, too.
• Courtly Intrigue - Rich folks are like nobility. They have courtly interactions, fancy balls, dueling is popular.
• Bushido - Such a strong asian subculture within the setting. Especially considering kurosawa’s influence on The Magnificent Seven, etc, it wouldn’t feel out of place for a Samurai to enter the series. Bushi would be right at home next to Geisha and Chinese Laundry, after all.
• Pop Dialog - Everybody talks like Sawyer from Lost. If you don’t know what that means, just take any Buffy or Tarantino character and give them a southern accent. Pop references are OK, shakespeare turned on end is even better, and witty insults are a must. Banter and scenery chewing are encouraged.
  
• Cthulhoid horror - Reavers are twisted, malicious and no longer purely human. And it is widely believed to be contagious. The lack of supernatural explanation actually increases the terror potential: we did this to ourselves.
• Epic Fantasy - In the movie, Serenity, Reavers are treated like LOTR Orcs . I feel this is at odds with much of the rest of the series, but it’s there as an option.

Sarah Michelle Gellar

sarah michelle gellar has a Bacon number of 1.
Sarah Michelle Gellar was in Air I Breathe, The (2007) with Kevin Bacon

I quote that from the Oracle of Bacon because, according to The New York Times movie section, my old buddy Audie Harrison has been involved in the following projects:

• The Golden Compass - Role: Animation Supervisor
• Charlotte's Web - Role: Animator
• The Ant Bully - Role: Character Animation
• Garfield - Role: Animator
• Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed - Role: CGI Artist

Which means he's worked with (according to the New York Times)...

• Nicole Kidman in The Golden Compass
• Dakota Fanning in Charlotte's Web
• Julia Roberts in The Ant Bully
• Bill Murray in Garfield
• Sarah Michelle Gellar in Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed

So, since both Audie and I were in the no-budget video project "Andrew Crosby is James Bondage, 006.9 in: A View To A Clone, Part 2: In The Mouth Of Cloneness" I can now claim a Fakin' Bacon number of 3. I was in cloneness with Audie who was in scooby 2 with SMG, who was in the air with Kevin Bacon. Rock!

Of course it doesn't touch the fact that later this year, when Black releases, I'll have a legitimate real-world Bacon Number of 4.
Rolfe Bergstrom - Billy Garberina - Kenneth J Hall - Nancy Giles - Kevin Bacon, as documented here.

Scion on Trailfire

Attention: fans of Trailfire. I've created a Scion RPG Trail. It provides links much of the best Scion RPG content on the web, including specific forum threads, wiki pages, tools that Scion GMs have created, etc. Good stuff. If you find a quality Scion site I've overlooked, let me know so I can add it to the trail.

101 Wild Die 1's

One gimmick I like to use when I'm GMing is checklists. If there's some category of random element that's likely to come up almost every session, I'll brainstorm a big list of possibilities, and then write them all out. Later, when a situation comes up I can grab one off the list, and check it off. This prevents me from lamely relying on the same problem again and again - which is especially bad when dealing with something as annoying as a critical failure.

Here's an example - it's the critical fumble list from a d6 StarWars game I ran a while back. These are 101 things (well, 35, but it's still enough for several sessions worth of rolls) that can go wrong when the wild die rolls a 1.

1. Allies wounded: Some allied NPC is wounded automatically. It's not that you shot him, but he's somehow hurt at this time.
2. Ammo running low: you have 5 shots left, then you need to buy a new power pack or change weapons. (continuous weapons have this turn and next)
3. Awkward Footing: The difficulty of all actions this round and next is increased by +5. (Subtract 5 from your Dodge rolls)
4. Cowardice: One of your allies flees or surrenders to the bad guys.
5. Droid in the way: Your next stated action has TN: +15 because of a Droid being in the way.
6. Drop your weapons: The item(s) in your hand(s) falls to the ground. To pick it up takes Dexterity vs TN:10.
7. Dropped something: An item on your belt or in your pocket falls to the ground, and the enemies see it. To pick it up takes Dexterity vs TN:10.
8. Equipment Ionized: One weapon or piece of equipment stops working until the end of the next turn.
9. Escape Route Blocked: Some neutral 3rd party (droid, taxi-driver, jawas, etc) has blocked your best escape route.
10. Excess Venting: There's a leak of steam, power, etc. 1d6+1 spaces of the map are now off-limits. Passing through does 3D damage.
11. Exposed: All attacks against you roll an extra die until you spend an action taking better cover.
12. Floor collapses: The ground beneath you gives way. Climbing/Jumping vs TN:15 or take 1D+2 damage and be on the next floor down. Climbing out is TN:15.
13. Gravity Failure: If on ship or station, gravity fails. Dexterity rolls: TN:10 to start moving. TN:15 to stop or to change direction. -2m speed for everyone.
14. Gun Jammed: Requires a Weapon Repair roll vs TN:10 before it can be fired again.
15. Horrible Alarms: The klaxons are so loud, no one can hear each other talk. PCs may no longer communicate or plan together. Security TN:10 to disable.
16. In Your Friends Way: The next PC other than yourself to take an action has +10 TN because of something you did, or else they hit you.
17. Item Damage: Some item you carry but are not currently using becomes damaged. Takes Repair vs TN:15 to fix.
18. Meanwhile, On Your Ship: Crew, droid, or ship calls to tell you about a mechanical or social problem they are having.
19. Mechanical Failure: A neutral piece of machinery malfunctions - a door locks, bridge retracts, a shield collapses, an elevator jams, etc - in an inconvenient way.
20. Obvious Target: You gain the attention of every bad guy in the scene. They all attack you next turn if able.
21. Reinforcements are on their way: Start counting rounds. On round 4, the bad guys get 1d6 minor characters to back them up.
22. Reinforcements: 2 more minor bad guys enter the scene.
23. Ricochet: A blaster shot ricochets off a magnetized or reflective surface. All PCs must roll Dexterity vs TN:10. Lowest roller is hit, provided they failed the roll.
    
24. Shaky footing: Must immediately make a Dexterity roll vs TN:10 or fall. (1d6 damage. Getting back up will require a climbing/jumping roll vs TN:5)
25. Sights misaligned: TN for all non-point-blank attacks is +5 until you make a Weapon Repair roll vs TN:20 (TN:10 if take a full minute)
26. Slowed: Next turn, you move 1/2 distance, and roll -2D on Running, Dodge, Beast Riding, Vehicle Operations, etc.
27. Spectacular Death: The next villain killed explodes like a grenade. PCs must dodge or take damage.
28. Structural Collapse: Some part of the room you're in falls on you. Dodge roll vs TN:10 to avoid it. If hit, 2D+2 damage and pinned till make Lifting vs TN:15.
29. Twist an ankle: You roll 1D less on all Dexterity skills (and Running) till a medical check against TN:15 is used on you. -2 meter move / turn.
30. Unexpected Explosion: Something blows up near the PCs. They must Dodge vs TN:10 or take 2D damage.
31. Villains figure it out: The NPCs suddenly figure out your plans better. They know you're lying, you're rebels, which side you'll attack from, etc.
32. Weapon Overheating: If you roll a "1" on your wild die again this combat, the weapon will explode like a grenade. You will be hit automatically.
33. Weapon switches modes: You're now set to stun (or to lethal, if you were on stun) and you don't know until you hit someone.
34. Winded: Roll Stamina vs TN:10. If you fail, you are Stunned for the remainder of this turn and next turn as well.
35. You get in their way: The other PCs and all your allies get -1D on their next action because of your mistake.