Sycarion Diversions

Home of the Odd Duk

Category: Andras (Page 15 of 17)

Potpourri and Upcoming Posts

July 15, 2011 /

I've begun to believe that the RPG crowd has taken over Google+. Aside from Zuckerberg and Ford Motors, almost everyone I have seen there is from the RPGBA and the RPGBN. This isn't a problem for me as Google+ has not been blocked by my workplace, yet.

If you need invites, let me know. I got a bunch.

Thanks to everyone that linked the trailer of the upcoming John Carter of Mars. (I linked to the Apple trailer instead of the one on YouTube.) Since it is Disney, I'm not sure what to expect. Until then, all I can say is BARSOOM!

I have received a review copy of Azamar, a game based on the OpenD6 rules. The folks at Wicked North Games developed their own SRD called Cienma6 and then created Azamar as a fantasy setting on top of it. Seeing Azamar reminds me of what I loved about D6 when I first saw it a couple years ago. I'll get into more detail in another post, but it reminds me of Talislanta in scope and diversity. I've really enjoyed reading it so far. When I think about RPG material I like, it has to meet two criteria: I want to play it and it has stuff I can re-use in my campaign. Azamar meets both of these criteria very well.

I think I've worked out the spell and augmentation systems for the Arcanist. The spell list is heavily inspired by OpenQuest sorcerers, 2e psionicists, a smattering of Wizards from TFT and magic items from Tekumel. Developing this class has helped me to define some of what differentiates Andras and 2e. It has also stretched the class creation system I plan to include in the GMs guide. Not only can you re-create the standard classes, but invent an off-the-wall magic wielding class!

Zolotta Publishing will quit publishing Tekumel books after its current inventory runs out. Many fans of Tekumel books have inquired about digital publishing and/or assuming the rights to publish the books. We'll see what happens next.

Savage Worlds Deluxe is out and I have a copy. I am excited about it in many ways. The biggest way pertains to advice about running the game without miniatures. I don't use minis at all. I have a big pad of blotter paper and I may scribble some sketches of a room or corridor, but nothing with enough detail that a player begins to study the scale of the drawing and start to argue exact distances. If the action moves from the mental landscape to the real world, it's not fun for me anymore. It's a personal preference, not a criticism. Many of my gaming friends love minis and tactical planning, etc. If I had the money, I'd be painting them and building huge armies to display in my basement.

I don't have to change much about Shayakand to conform to these rules, but I am hopeful that it can help me figure out the system of psionic magic called Shaping.

Lastly, a link I keep forgetting to make permanent on my site, the list of retro-clones, some not related to D&D.

Anyway, that's what is percolating here. Next post really should be the Azamar review. I am testing it to see if I understand some of the finer points so that I can sound half-way intelligent in my review.

Posts About the Game You Think You Know

July 8, 2011 /

2eDM over at THAC0 Forever! has been posting a series about the actual rules of 2e. When I joined a 2e group recently and went through the rules, I was surprised at all the optional rules provided. In fact, based on the rules that are NOT optional, it plays a lot like my first 1e group.

I was surprised by Chapter 11 stating that surprise was determined by 1d10 with 1,2,3 being a success. I had always done a roll of 1 on a 1d6. I know, works out about the same. Still, it's something I didn't pick up on until I started with this most recent group.

Anyway, here are links to the series thus far.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

I've been interested in reading these and comparing them to the optional rules made mandatory in various Skills and Powers books.

In my clone, I'm still looking for a good way to include Non-Weapon Proficiencies in a sane manner. In addition to rolling the Thieves Skills into the same mechanic, I keep going back and forth between the PHB way of listing them (Attribute - Modifier, roll under to succeed) or the Skills and Powers way (Start with a score ranging from 4 to 8 depending on the NWP). Thieves Skills would operate the Skills and Powers way because of the nature of their improvement over time. The difference is, that the PHB way ties Non-Weapon Proficiencies to an attribute, something recently mentioned by none-other-than-Mike-Mearls, while the Skill & Powers way completely divorces the NWP from attributes.

The question is, could I make Thieves Skills attribute based? Climbing Walls would probably be DEX -2, but some of the other could be awful. Pick Pockets at DEX -8?

Then again, maybe I can leave them detached from an attribute. The only thing I really changed from the PHB is that a d20 is used instead of d%. Consequently, a Thief begins with 12 points instead of 60 and gains 6 points instead of 30 points at each new level.

Rock on, 2eDM!

Changing Feeds

July 8, 2011 /

I realized that with my Statis-Pro Football post earlier that I setup my feeds incorrectly on the Old School RPG Planet and the RPGBA.

I have fixed the issue so that only RPG articles will appear in both places. Although it is well after the fact, I hid my Statis-Pro post in the RPGBA feed before making the correction to the feed itself. My apologies for any annoyance this created.

Although the Joesky tax technically doesn't apply, here is something to actually add RPG content:

When thinking about spell points for the Arcanist, I originally looked to the Magus Divlantia section of the Net AD&D Players Supplement (written sometime in 1995 and edited in 1996). The formula for starting points is (((2INT)+CON)-30) /4. The formula for points gained every level was (((2INT)+CON)-30) /7. In the example of the Arcanist I gave earlier, I had assumed an INT of 16 and a CON of 12. Following the formulas, he started with 4 points and gained 2 points every level.

In the end, I simplified to INT bonus + CON bonus + 2 as the initial points and INT bonus + CON bonus every level after that. It calculates the same as the other formula. Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of a little math. It just is simpler for newer players to use numbers already on the character sheet and perform simple addition.

I still believe I need to tweak it to generate more points. If a different idea tests well, I'll be happy to post about it here.

If you want to test it out, basically download the OpenQuest developers kit and look at chapter 9 about sorcerors. Use that spell list and Magnitude table for spells. Use the simplified formula above to calculate spell points. I would post it if I had it written in a better format than some crawled notes on a printout.

 

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