Barf Forth Apocalyptica
barf forth apocalyptica => brainstorming & development => Topic started by: Sabwones on October 06, 2015, 07:08:44 PM
-
Sorry for creating another thread, but I'll just stick to dropping the links in here for the sake of space.
Snuffed is my ongoing idea for a PBTA hack where the cast are a ragtag bunch of otherwordly ghouls, ghosts and supernatural arseholes who're stuck in an unwelcoming and unfulfilling afterlife where (un)life is dull and often very brief, and where the only pleasure, and power, to be had is via going into the mortal world and doing horrible things to the living. Some want to rule, some want to pass over, some just like making the squishy little lifesacks go splat. Whatever.
For the best mental shorthand I can think of, imagine the waiting room in Beetlejuice, only with more bitching, infighting and casual homicide, with occasional trips into the very finest B-List Horror flicks of the 70's, 80's and 90's.
Any and all critique, questions, support, abuse and lobbed bricks will be welcome and/or dodged.
Links:
The Core Playbook (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5rAQzrerSj1S1B1clBSb3BUWGs/view?usp=sharing)
The Gloom Playbook (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5rAQzrerSj1WDZ5U0lIZGxZV2M/view?usp=sharing)
-
Completed another playbook:
The Vessel (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5rAQzrerSj1M0YxOVJCeWhZelU/view?usp=sharing)
-
...and another:
The Ripper (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5rAQzrerSj1TDVDOG8wRTZMdkE/view?usp=sharing)
Ideally there will be another four or five, just to hit all the main 'types' of spooky bastard, then I'll run some one-shots to test it out.
-
I love the Ripper. I have a penchant for violent characters with simple solutions to difficult problems i.e. HIT THEM IN THE FACE. Is there any way a Ripper could get more weaponry?
EDIT: Just spotted the ability to spend Creep for stuff, sounds good. It looks like the Ripper playbook has an error, it says "Vessel Signature Moves" in the appropriate space. Additionally, at what point can signature moves be selected?
-
Hey, thanks! I'm thinking of altering one of the moves to allow the Ripper to take a secondary weapon, or perhaps alter the Tools Of The Trade section to reflect a sidearm much like the Gunlugger's playbook.
Signature Moves are at the 'advanced' stage where the player's filled up their basic advances - the idea behind them was twofold: to have each Playbook have some form of 'final form' of ass-wreckery, and also so that each Playbook could have something entirely unique to them alone.
I'll fix the errors quick sharp.
-
Every single basic advancement? But what if I never have use for Sly, already have +3 Wrath, or don't really want to go for moves from different playbooks?
But ignoring all of that:
Signature.
Moves.
Are awesome.
I really like how it's not possible for other playbooks to take Sig Moves from other playbooks, really works well with the capstone idea you've got going.
(My one criticism of the Sig Moves, is WHY WON'T YOU DIE makes Needs More Gun obsolete. I like both moves, I just wished they synergised somehow)
If you don't mind me asking, what other playbooks do you have in the works?
-
That's actually a fair point about the advancements. I might shuffle that down to maybe a minimum of four or five basic advancements before making any bigger ones available. More Gun and WWYD also need some balance. I might make it so the Ripper gains +1 Armor Vs Arcane if they take both.
In terms of other playbooks, I've got (WIP Names):
o The Loci (Poltergeist - Think a Chopper but a little less stompy)
o The Revenant (Curse/Revenge Ghost - Great when they're satisfying their motivations)
o The Old Firm (Fallen Angels/Demons who aspire to regain their former power)
o The Sleeper (Mortal who can project themselves into the Afterlife)
o The Padfoot (Spirit animal, nature spirit, avatar that represents something greater)
-
AW has 5, which I feel is a good balance. I made a Gloom into a trickster-haunter, working behind the scenes to manipulate silly mortals into screwing themselves over. Is that the kind of thing the Loci/Poltergeist does, or is that solely the purview of the Gloom?
The physical armor to arcane armor was exactly what I was thinking. Is there a way to get armor apart from moves? Can it be purchased with Creep?
-
I didn't want Armor to be something that any class could afford - I figured it made sense for some of the playbooks to naturally be tough, and others could always pick some as a cross-playbook move, but I felt that some of them would be naturally squishier than others. Their in-built resistance to physical damage once they get to 2 Vitality was my way of compensating for that.
Anyway. Playbook? Playbook. You wouldn't like him when he's angry...
...and he's always angry.
The Revenant (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5rAQzrerSj1QjdhekdQaDMzUnM/view?usp=sharing)
-
In AW and most hacks, playbooks don't usually start with stats at +3, and require an additional -1 to have two stats at +2.
There's a reason for this, having to do with the fact that, mathematically, higher stats actually do tend to matter more. Thus, the way you've currently got it set really encourages the use of those stat-lines that are more...focused.
The Revenant also has a +3 Wrath stat-line and a Move that can take it to +4, which seems like a bad idea statistically. You might want to add the standard (max. +3) into the FUCK OFF move.
-
So far, Snuffed has +4 as the maximum. It's just a thing, AFAIK.
-
Hey DMW, as Spwack said, I was aiming to have Snuffed playbooks have a higher upper limit for some stats if it made sense. In the case of the Revenant, although they're Wrath-heavy, their overall stat balance is actually only +2 instead of +3, so they're designed to be more hard/weak than a jack-of-all-trades type.
-
Just as a counter to that, I get the feeling that the +3 to a stat to begin with is the stats someone will choose. Flat. There is no real reason not to pick it. Now, battlebabe will always have a +3 to cool. That is just a thing, and allows for more choice. For any of these stats, the +3 seems to be the optimal stat choice, even when the total is less than other pools.
Solution: If it has a +3 in one stat pool, they all have a +3.
-
Fair point, actually. I might retool them with that in mind. Given that their Rage pool is dictated by that, it might be fairer to have it that way.
Derp.
-
Hey DMW, as Spwack said, I was aiming to have Snuffed playbooks have a higher upper limit for some stats if it made sense.
Ah, gotcha. Missed that. Though, thinking about it, since that makes the +3 Wrath statblock the only one that can ever get a +4...that migvht make the inequalities of the stat-blocks a little worse.
In the case of the Revenant, although they're Wrath-heavy, their overall stat balance is actually only +2 instead of +3, so they're designed to be more hard/weak than a jack-of-all-trades type.
I'm not necessarily arguing they need to be jacks of all trades, or that they can't be hyper-focused. I'm saying, much like Spwack mentions, they should probably be equally focused. The third Revenant stat-block is just miles better than the fourth in every meaningful way, for example. Ditto the 'Average' Vessel stat-block compared to the others, or the second Gloom stat-block compared to that playbook's other options.
-
From a request made by one of my players, I've started putting together a Swarm playbook. Is this is ok with you, would you mind if I made it, and would you like to see it once it's halfway complete?
-
Absolutely - if you want to PM me a link or throw it up on here I'd love to see what you come up with.
Currently working on the Padfoot - I like the idea of a more 'Gaia' playbook over the more typical modern ones. We'll see.
-
He asked for something similar to the movie Gremlins, no idea if you've seen it (I haven't). Rather than being natue-spirity, it's just a swarm of narsty spiteful biting things. The core move is: Spend 1 creep, gain another (somewhat impermanent) body, based somewhat on the Macaluso. I'll post it here once I finish writing enough of it
-
- The Swarm -
Name:
Gremlins, Critters, Birds
Jinx, Growler, Snider, Oliphant
Look:
Slimy body, scaly body, furry body, chitinous body
Wings, tail, big ears, forked tongue, large eyes
Cute demeanor, gross attitude, violent outbursts
Jagged teeth, block teeth, rotting teeth, fangs
Buzzing, padding, squeaking, slopping, twittering
Stats:
Wrath-1, cold-2, sly+2, spirited+2, eerie+1
Wrath=0, cold+1, sly+2, spirited+1, eerie-1
Wrath+1, cold-1, sly+2, spirited+1, eerie=0
Wrath=0, cold=0, sly+2, spirited+1, eerie=0
Moves:
You start with all the basic moves and Exponential Horror. Choose two more.
Bonds and Grudges:
Someone here is extremely palatable. Mark +1 Grudge (Tasty) against them.
Someone here has given you a delectable snack or shiny bauble. Mark +1 Pact (Greedy) with them.
Violence:
1 harm (Arcane, close/far)
Manifesting:
You manifest as (Disparate, Distracted, Delicious)
When you take physical form in the mortal world, roll+spirited. On a hit, you are where you want to be, no problems.
On a 10+, pick three tags.
On a 7-9, pick one tag.
Coalesced (drop Disparate)
Concentrated (drop Distracted)
Crunchy (drop Delicious)
Vicious (+1 harm)
Annoying (+distracting)
Tricksy (+1 Sly)
On a miss you are spread out all over the place. It’ll take a while for you to find yourself.
Swarm Moves:
Exponential Horror – Spend 1 Creep to generate another functional body. Depending on your primary size, this may be a cloud of insects, or a single small creature, but each can function independently. You can accurately control three+spirited bodies at any one time. Others may be created, but you do not control them specifically. Each body takes harm as a mortal NPC.
Quarantine Buster – When the majority of your bodies are killed or captured in one swoop, roll+sly. On a 10+, one of you got away clean. On a 7-9, one of you got out, but is in a fix. On a miss, you’re done.
Great Big Gnashing Teeth – Gain new violence, 3-harm (Physical, melee, messy, swarmed), so long as a bunch of you are threatening a single target
Tricky Buggers – Gain +1 Sly (Sly+3)
Innocent Antics – When you Traumatise, roll+sly.
Jack-of-all-Trades – While in the mortal realm, spend 1 Creep to succeed on a roll as if you rolled a 7-9
Consume – You gain 1 Creep whenever you consume a huge amount of food. Additionally, when you return to the afterlife you can convert bodies you control to Creep in a 2:1 ratio.
Adapt – Take a move from another playbook
Swarm Signature Moves:
Oh Dear God No – When there are too bloody many of you for someone to deal with, take +1 ongoing against them.
Biblical Plague – You can now control an extra two+sly bodies. Have fun.
---
My first thoughts: I need suggestions for the names, but I think the look is alright, for now at least. The stats are a mess, no idea what to do with them, I just splattered them down and followed the rules Vincent put down. Not sure about manifesting, but I'll leave it for now. The moves are OK. The sig moves are hot garbage. Any suggestions?
-
I frigging love it thus far. I figure it might be interesting to prescribe it the same gang setup as the Chopper or Hocus, so they can be more 'erratic trickster' or 'flesh-eating swarm' as the player wishes during setup.
As for signature moves, perhaps something like being able to 'infest' a mortal NPC when they can get one alone, then walk around in their skin, a-la the cockroack alien from Men In Black.
Also, dude, watch Gremlins. And Gremlins 2, which is arguably better.
-
Love that sig move. Heres yours:
Unholy Infestation - When you kill an NPC and their body is mostly intact, you may drag away the corpse. One of your bodies takes up residence over the course of a few minutes, manifesting as (Dead, Slow, Vile), with the appearance of that NPC. You may spend Creep to remove tags as usual.
I think I'll drop Oh Dear God No (as Great Big Gnashing Teeth sort of covers that). I've also made:
For the Greater Good – by sacrificing one of your number, you can grant a the remainder of the group of bodies either +2 armor or +1 forward
What do you mean by gang setup? I like the sound of it, I just have no idea what it is :P
-
That's cool - in terms of gang setup, I figured something like picking two positive traits and one negative trait for your swarm, plus a move for using your swarm en masse to do something. For example:
When you have your swarm commit to performing an action, roll +Spirited. On a 10+ it happens, with all the mess and horror you desire. On a 7-9, it happens, but you've committed yourself to the outcome no matter what. On a miss, thanks to bad luck or over-entheusiasm, you've put yourself in harm's way.
When you create your Swarm, pick 2:
o You're agile, flexible, worming in and out of any tight spot (+Flexible)
o You're easily mistaken for simple vermin at a glance (+Inconspicuous)
o Aww! (+Cute)
o The fluttering of little wings opens up many doors for you (+Flight)
o Ugly? Sure. Dumb? Not quite. (+Savvy)
Pick 1:
o FEED ME (+Ravenous)
o Ooo! Shiny! (+Thief)
o They come! Run! Hide! (+Hunted)
o WOO! (+Reckless)
o Oh crap *pop* (+Weakness)
Something like that.
-
I love it. I've got this idea that there are two kinds of Swarm bodies (which I need a better name for), those that you control personally (up to a maximum of whatever), and those that you have made but don't . It doesn't mean they act against you, that is you as the player, but you can't make moves with them. Well, apart from that one ^ just there, which looks pretty neat. Do you think Exponential Horror should be a non-move as well, that is, part of the playbook rather than the list of moves?
-
Two kinds of swarm make sense, one that's more of a taskmaster (more capable of big moves, but has to control their spawn) and a hive-mind (easy to control, but limited in ability).
I think Exponential Horror is best left off the table to other playbooks, so have that as an ingrained move, maybe? It could be folded into the 'Gang Move' section, so you have all the rules for expanding and using your swarm in one place.
Perhaps there could be an additional option:
o Legion: You are one, eyes and ears in every shadow and nook. When you Read A Scene or use Influence, you can burn some of your Swarm to ask an additional question, even on a miss. However, when your Swarm suffers Harm, you suffer 1 Harm (Physical) along with it.
o Taskmaster: You crack the whip, they do your bidding. For now. When you Inflict Trauma or Menace, you can burn some of your Swarm to pick an additional option, even on a miss. However, when you use your Swarm to complete a task, on a miss, you lose some of your Swarm, down to a minimum of 1.
-
Seems we have had a bit of a misunderstanding. I don't really see the player as the leader of the Swarm per se, it's more that X amount of the swarm are somewhat more focused than the others, and are the ones that specifically interact with allies and enemies, even though they all have the same general goals.
-
Ah! Fair enough. More of a mob than a team? I'll leave it to you - I'm just curoius how it'd be shown in-game. Maybe it'd be part of the hard moves the MC makes?
-
I'm thinking in the line where you are granted the number of bodies you control, you would also create the impulses of the rest of the swarm. You made a great list:
o FEED ME (+Ravenous)
o Ooo! Shiny! (+Thief)
o They come! Run! Hide! (+Hunted)
o WOO! (+Reckless)
Which I think is perfect. They will act vaguely according to this, or cohesively when you roll+spirited. You can't get uncontrolled bodies to act against their impulse really, except maybe if they took +Savvy and it makes sense. Does this sound ok to you?
-
That sounds just about perfect for the creature style - and would undoubtedly cause some chaos in the midst of sessions. If you want to hash it all out, I'll slap it into the template and put up a proper Playbook for you.
-
Here's version 2. If it's an effort, hold off on doing the formatting, because I want to edit it (a lot) for version 3, particularly the Exponential Horror part and several moves. Then again, that part would go in the first page (where Tools of The Trade would go for the Ripper) so perhaps the second page would be all right.
Swarm Playbook
- Exponential Horror -
A Swarm is composed of nigh uncountable creatures, multiplying and consuming without end. Each is functionally identical, but a few are controlled specifically by the player, usually up to three+spirited. Each body is capable of all the basic and Swarm moves known, but only those controlled by the player can spend Creep.
Over the course of a few moments, a controlled body can spend 1 Creep and create a new body. Describe to the MC how this happens, whether it splits into two, lays an egg or the new creature emerges from the shadows. If you have an opening, choose whether it is controlled or uncontrolled. Every body, controlled or uncontrolled, takes harm as an NPC. If all of your controlled bodies die, your Swarm is scattered. A random uncontrolled body will come under your influence a few hours later, if there are any left.
While this playbook refers to bodies as if they were individuals, this isn’t necessarily the case. Choose the approximate size of each individual:
- Insect (each body is composed of dozens of individuals)
- Rat (each body is composed of several individuals)
- Dog (each body is composed of one individual)
The Swarm has a number of adaptions to assist its survival in the mortal realm. Choose two:
- You're agile, flexible, worming in and out of any tight spot (+Flexible)
- You're easily mistaken for simple vermin at a glance (+Inconspicuous)
- Aww! (+Cute)
- The fluttering of little wings opens up many doors for you (+Flight)
- Ugly? Sure. Dumb? Not quite. (+Savvy)
Most of the time, each uncontrolled body acts on its instincts in a vague manner. Choose one:
- FEED ME (+Ravenous)
- Ooo! Shiny! (+Thief)
- They come! Run! Hide! (+Hunted)
- WOO! (+Reckless)
- Something about a cat? (+Curious)
- *snore* (+Relaxed)
- RIP BURN KILL RIP BURN KILL (+Violent)
Unfortunately, the mortal realm is hostile for small squishy things. Choose one flaw:
- Hey! I’m talking to you! (+Aggravating)
- Argh! Garlic! (+Allergy)
- Oh crap *pop* (+Weakness)
- Eh… (+Lazy)
- Nuh-uh. No way (+Obstinate)
When you have your entire swarm act upon their instincts in a concerted manner, roll +Spirited. On a 10+ it happens, with all the mess and horror you desire. On a 7-9, it happens, but you've committed yourself to the outcome no matter what. On a miss, thanks to bad luck or over-enthusiasm, you've put yourself in harm's way.
It isn’t possible to have uncontrolled bodies act against their instinct. You’ll need to use controlled bodies for that.
- Creating a Swarm –
Name:
Gremlins, Critters, Crawlers, Birds
Jinx, Growler, Snider, Oliphant
Look:
Slimy body, scaly body, furry body, chitinous body
Wings, tail, big ears, forked tongue, large eyes
Cute demeanor, gross attitude, violent outbursts
Jagged teeth, block teeth, rotting teeth, fangs
Buzzing, padding, squeaking, slopping, twittering
Stats:
Wrath-1, cold-2, sly+2, spirited+2, eerie+1
Wrath=0, cold+1, sly+2, spirited+1, eerie-1
Wrath+1, cold-1, sly+2, spirited+1, eerie=0
Wrath=0, cold=0, sly+2, spirited+1, eerie=0
Moves:
You start with all the basic moves. Choose two Swarm moves.
Bonds and Grudges:
Someone here is extremely palatable. Mark +1 Grudge (Tasty) against them.
Someone here has given you a delectable snack or shiny bauble. Mark +1 Pact (Greedy) with them.
Violence:
1 harm (Arcane, close/far)
Manifesting:
You manifest as (Disparate, Distracted, Delicious)
When you emerge in the mortal world, roll+spirited. On a hit, you are where you want to be, no problems.
On a 10+, pick three tags.
On a 7-9, pick one tag.
Coalesced (drop Disparate)
Concentrated (drop Distracted)
Crunchy (drop Delicious)
Vicious (+1 harm)
Annoying (+distracting)
Tricksy (+1 Sly)
Evolved (add an extra Swarm adaption)
On a miss you are spread out all over the place. It’ll take a while for you to find yourself.
Swarm Moves:
Quarantine Buster – When the majority of your bodies are killed or captured in one swoop, roll+sly. On a 10+, one of you got away clean. On a 7-9, one of you got out, but is in a fix. On a miss, you’re done.
Great Big Gnashing Teeth – Gain new violence, 3-harm (Physical, melee, messy, swarmed), so long as a bunch of you are threatening a single target
Tricksy Buggers – Gain +1 Sly (Sly+3)
Innocent Antics – When you Traumatise, roll+sly.
Jack-of-all-Trades – While in the mortal realm, spend 1 Creep to succeed on a roll as if you rolled a 7-9
Consume – You gain 1 Creep whenever you consume a huge amount of food. Additionally, when you return to the afterlife you can convert bodies you control to Creep in a 2:1 ratio.
Adapt – Take a move from another playbook
For the Greater Good – by sacrificing one of your number, you can grant a the remainder of the group of bodies either +2 armor or +1 forward
Swarm Signature Moves:
Unholy Infestation - When you kill an NPC and their body is mostly intact, you may drag away the corpse. One of your bodies takes up residence over the course of a few minutes, manifesting as (Dead, Slow, Vile), with the appearance of that NPC. You may spend Creep to remove tags as usual. If the NPC was killed using Messy harm, you cannot remove Dead, and if it was killed with Gruesome harm, you cannot remove Dead or Vile.
Biblical Plague – You can now control an extra two+sly bodies. Have fun.
-
Right, back after a brief delay. I'll knock up a draft of your Playbook when I get a moment - for now, here's the Skinjacker (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5rAQzrerSj1a0tCdjBOeUlHcDA/view?usp=sharing).
Edit: Boom. Done. Let me know what you want to update. As it stands it still needs a Special worked out and the avancements picked. Other than that, and ideally a better picture and some fluff text, she's good to roll.
Introducing...
THE SWARM (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5rAQzrerSj1bzdIS2RucG5fUWM/view?usp=sharing)
*Distant chittering*
-
Awesome! Looks great already. I've noticed a few things that I'll jot down here, but don't bother changing them till I've got the lot ready.
- Exponential Horror text is copied, remove from Mob Rules
- Add more/better names
- Change stats to something that makes sense, add advancements after
- Special relating to irritating people so much they give creep? Perhaps
- Add 'curious inclination' to third group in look
- Add 'Slimy, yet satisfying (+Disgusting)' to flaw list
- Change core manifestation from (Dead, Cold, Lost) to (Disparate, Distracted, Delicious)
I actually don't mind the picture, and I love the Skinjacker. Thanks for formatting this for me btw, looks great.
-
Done and done. Updated the old version on my drive so it should work fine. I think.
-
Ok, the Swarm Special and sizes is awesome. Is each size advancement 1 extra body? I assume so, but it might need to be written somewhere.
-
The size advancements are 2 per stage - so a player would need to fill 4 boxes to hit Medium, then another 2 to hit Large, then 2 more to hit Huge.
-
Back from the dead for 2016!
About to play a one-shot of Snuffed with my group this coming Monday, finally, now that we've wrapped up our Tremulous campaign (insofar as much as that's possible). I'll update the per-skin files later on, but this is the roster I'll be running for the game. One notable change is the Gloom - now, rather than 'theatrical', which felt a bit pidgeonhole-y, I've gone for an emotional balancing act that alters how the skin plays depending on what happens. Melancholy makes the Gloom more effective at non-violent and emotional moves, whareas Mania turns the Gloom into a powerful, but simple, blunt instrument.
Check it out, yo. (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5rAQzrerSj1MXRLT0p1enlnZk0/view?usp=sharing)
Notes on the session, including my scenario, will be forthcoming shortly.
-
Looking awesome already. I love how flavorful the Mood is on the Gloom. Should "Tears of the Clown" allow you to roll Mood with Spirited as well as "Feel Nothing"?
-
So, it happened. We ran a one-shot of Snuffed and lo, it was...interesting.
I only had a single session, as we had some campaigns planned with Dungeon World's Class Warfare system the next week, so this was more of a 'get back into the habit' session with a nice fire-and-forget situation. The group, assembled from around the world, or as it turned out, mostly England, except one player in South America, had been assembled by a representative from a cosmic otherworldly being trying to prevent, or perhaps enact, some terrible omen of horror. Unfortunately, that wasn't intentional. I just hadn't been able to come up with a solid plot, and had to wing it.
As it turned out, this made very little difference, once the players got to work dismantling everything in pretty short order.
Aaaaanyway, we began with some nice, cheezy corporate America Muzak on the player, setting the tone as the group found themselves in an office space designed by MC Escher without all those tedious distractions like gravity or physics. Presently, a large goat-headed demon in a rather tasteful blue suit and a Bluetooth headset introduced himself as 'Gz-Fl-Hep' (this, on his name badge, was more of a bizarre Prince-esque rune) and began by letting each of the characters introduce themselves. This as where I have to give the players credit, as they immediately broke the system with aplomb:
Martin Clunes: The Ripper (http://cdn.inquisitr.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/docmartin.jpg)
A werewolf whose murderous alter-ego basically jumped into his unwitting host at night and went around murdering people with sharp claws and deadpan insults in equal measure. His did his killing with his Claws (2 Harm, Messy, Animal), but was otherwise just insanely tough to kill, which was rather useful for Martin's non-murderous side.
Immediately, we'd hit upon something the playbook had missed - what about monsters that lead double-lives, or were more physical than ghostly? Thankfully, it just took a bit of MC caveat to get around that, as we determined that Martin would black out and turn up wherever the player needed him as part of their Manifest move. Simple.
Mr Hugs: The Vessel
Imagine Ted if he was a psychopathic killer who talked with the kind of six-packs-a-day American accent that would make Nick Nolte say 'shit, that dude's got a fucked-up voice', was a toy from the 60's pulled from production because of his asbestos stuffing, but was emptied by his owner and stuffed with cotton wool and torn scraps of an occult tome (I didn't even try to ask). He was besties with the Gloom, Queenie, and normally did his killing with Smothering (1 Harm) or his knife (Sharp Edges - 2 Harm, Messy).
This was part 1 of a pre-planned double-act by two of the players. It was a really interesting dichotomy that played really well, with minimal tinkering on my part.
Queenie: The Gloom
Queenie is 9 and a half. She's been 9 and a half for about 600 years, since her daddy beat her very badly and she MADE HIM BURN so the people got cross and said she was a VERY BAD GIRL WHO NEEDED TO BE HURT so they took her to a hospital where some very, very bad things happened. While she isn't precisely violent by nature, she likes playing with other children, often mirroring their own appearances, and playing with Mr Hugs. Rather sweet, when she's not making people do terrible things.
Queenie was part 2 of the double-act. To be fair, I really enjoyed that these guys got to create a bond before the session started, so we could have some natural dialogue and co-operation as the game progressed.
Felix: The Skinjacker
A self-confessed addict who hit it a little too hard one night, but found a new kick in jacking unwitting mortals and riding them into the ground. Happy-go-lucky, verging on sociopathic, with absolutely no problems with killing random strangers. One might suggest this is the same kind of character this particular player always rolls, but that would be mean. And very, very accurate.
Nice and simple with this one. The Skinjacker actually shone out quite nicely in the hands of a player who was good at improv and steering scenes as they came about.
And finally...
No Rats: The Swarm
Imagine a tiny mechanical mouse. Like a wind-up toy you'd get in a Happy Meal. Now imagine a dozen of them, all with tiny razor-sharp teeth, coming down on you from head height. Burrowing into your eyes. Your mouth. Devouring you entirely. Yep.
I'm still not sure if this player was fucking with me specifically or if they went out of their way to stress-test the playbook, as they focused entirely on making the biggest, nastiest blunt instrument of a character as possible (Huge, , refusing to speak in anything but chittering, and killing/destroying absolutely anything in its way. This very nearly included one of the other players. Besides this, it raised a lot of questions about certain functions with the Swarm's size, abilities and some of the wording, all of which are going to undergo a very serious overhaul.
Setting Up
With introductions out of the way, their host explained the situation as it stood. A company known as 'Synergine Inc.' was celebrating a Christmas party that night, as part of the wrapping up of a very big ongoing project. Hep ('cause I'm Hep to what you guys are about!) was looking for us to locate one of the Synergine CEOs, get the Skinjacker into their head, then ensure that nobody else left the building alive. Nice and simple.
Alas, this was about the first, and only, time that I realized that I really should be noting some of this down as I, well, made it up. I planned to drop some seeds for the cast to discover that the CEOs were, in fact, not real, and inform Hep that this was the case, at which point the mission would shift to Plan B - break into the offices some other way and find what Synergine's been translating. The minute things began to derail, I lost track of where I was trying to lead the group and it rapidly descended into chaos, but that comes later.
Everything began with the players making their Manifest Moves. Queenie and No Rats made theirs, arriving where they wanted. Mr Hugs was with Queenie, as she and Mr Hugs' Owner, Tilly, were already in place. However, Tilly was in Want (Mr Hugs whiffed his beginning of session roll) and was there so he could help get Tilly's big sister away from her jerk of a boyfriend and back home with her. Felix and Martin got partial hits, so Martin showed up outside, needing to bluff his way in, and Felix wound up in the body of one of the caterers of a vegan burger van, "Gutz" called Louis.
A quick break here, as I explained the basics of the playing card system. Value determined their rank or importance, the suit determined their basic personality. The Skinjacker, on a partial hit, picks from one of three cards played face-down. If he picked a face card, he'd have been Hugo, the boss, but as it was a mid-value card (5 of Hearts) he just got +1 to his Spirited stat whilst inside Louis, but still caught crap from Hugo.
While Louis curbed his disgust as Tofu burgers, dreaming of thick, juicy steaks and buttery potatoes, Martin rolled with someone assuming he was the bartender, got inside and began drinking pints of conspicuously high-quality whiskey. His innate Physical Harm resistance meant I couldn't even make him roll anything - he just slammed a bottle of 14-year-old single malt without blinking an eye as he read through a conspicuously ominous health and safety waiver for the party. Interestingly, the company forbid anyone to consume meat on the premises, hence the vegan burgers.
In the vents, No Rats suddenly appeared and set about ensuring that, without a shadow of a doubt, that No Rats were all that were in the vents. This joke ran throughout the entire session.
Inside a janitor's closet, Queenie was let out by Tilly and Mr Hugs, with Queenie mirroring Tilly's appearance as part of her Gloom Special move that let her copy another person's appearance if they'd studied them for long enough (I let that slide, what with Mr Hugs being her toy at the time) as a tag while Manifesting. They immediately set about their tasks, with Tilly & Hugs looking for ways to seal the building off, whilst Queenie ran off to find someone and hatch her side of the plan.
As Felix (in Louis) set up the stand in the hall, he floated the idea that, maybe, they should see if anyone had any dietary requirements. He didn't want to poison a CEO or anything. Despite Hugo's inclination to just serve the food then demolish the open bar, he conceded accidentally killing someone wouldn't look good, letting Felix free to explore the building in search of important people.
In the break room, with Martin, I introduced another character, Maisie (Queen of Spades - High Ranking, Charming, Inquisitive) who was head of the Translation Department, who explained the plans for the evening - people were getting bussed in, there was a Chill Out Area where people could rest if they partied a little too hard, and they weren't sure if any of the CEOs were going to turn up. As it turned out, nobody had ever met face-to-face with them, or even seen a picture. There were offices on the top floor, sure, but nobody had even been up there that she knew of. After a little awkward drunken flirting, she excused herself and Martin got back to pounding some of the most expensive liquor known to mankind as he set up the bar.
Tilly and Mr Hugs decided that the safest way to get around the building without getting spotted would be to get around in the TV-Show-Size air vents, so they got in. Unfortunately, No Rats was in there with them, and they had the +Delicious Grudge against Mr Hugs, so his player attacked them the moment they got in the vent. This didn't go down well, but I had to go with it, as this was entirely within character. Mr Hugs elected to take 2 Harm in order to deflect any from coming to Tilly, but wound up with a big hole torn in his guts and a very shaken-up little girl to deal with. Thankfully, once they got out the other end, they found themselves in front of the Fire Alarm control box. Mr Hugs made a fair attempt at prying the box open, but it took Tilly swinging him like a club a few times before the box cracked open, whereupon Tilly soaked the thing with her juicebox. It wasn't until then that they noticed the weird black box that had been stuck inside there, with some sort of antenna on it, but this didn't interest either of them that much. What did was that the alarms failing had, funnily enough, unlocked all the fire doors as a safety precaution. Whoops.
Queenie ran into a rather rude janitor (let's call him Bob, as I can't remember him) who was drawn as an 8 of Clubs, surly and aggressive. Despairing that a kid had snuck in, he was horrified once Queenie explained that her mother had dumped her here for her 'no good white collar sumbitch' father to take care of, who she strongly hinted was one of the CEOs. At that, he radioed someone on his walkie-talkie and ushered her to where Maisie was getting her pre-drinks in before the rest of the party-goers turned up. Panicking ever so slightly at the news of someone's illegitimate child being dumped at a christmas party, it didn't help that Felix chose this moment to show up asking even more questions about the CEOs. Half drunk and out of ideas, she asked Felix to watch Queenie until she could find some people from HR to sort all this out, then ran off to make some calls.
This, of course, was all the time they needed to start hatching a horrible, terrible plan.
Back in the vents, No Rats decided to have a bit of explore. So they went up, through the vents, into the penthouse offices by burrowing through an ajoining wall. Interestingly, the whole floor was sealed off from the rest of the building apart from via the central elevator. Inside, the pristine offices were set up with tons of interesting data for the players to start picking apart.
No Rats decided that it was hungry.
There went a good 50% of my plot hooks.
Bugger.
Downstairs, some of the party-goers were beginning to arrive. 90's Disco music was pounding throughout the building. Felix was prepping some salsa for the burgers. Martin was steadfastly refusing to serve anything other than neat whiskey and pints of bitter. Queeie was wandering around, enjoying herself. Tilly and Mr Hugs were looking for Tilly's big sister. No Rats was happily chewing through pages of my hard work.
Time to get this party started.
More to come...
-
Party Time
Time had now advanced sufficiently for the party events to start triggering properly. There were a good few dozen employees in attendance, the music, a horribly cheesy 90's party mix was being blasted out by DJ Smash (9 of Diamonds - he's just here because this crap pays well), and things were starting to grind into action.
At about this time, I received a note from Felix's player:
"We are adding a special ingredient to the salsa. Rat poison!"
Oh Jesus.
Across the room, Martin was reluctantly dealing with a few customers, including Joel, the archivist. Through some stilted and indirect conversation, with Martin maintaining a withering barrage of put-downs and stalwartly refusing to mix a cocktail to save his life, some more threads were dropped about what precisely Synergine was up to. Something was being translated in little pieces, before being recompiled into some kind of software or algorythm, and Joel was feeling so empty and useless now, he uttered the immediately regrettable words "I wish I was dead". Feeling like his use had come to an end, and hoping to do this walking tragedy a favour, Martin promptly lured Joel away to the disabled toilets, wolfed out and tore him apart before stealing some clean clothes and returning to his bartending duties.
First kill of the session, and it's a character I'd hoped would at least survive the scene, as I planned for them to do one important thing before they became a viable target. On balance, having an NPC express depression to the one character designed to kill absolutely goddamn everything was my own stupid fault. Oh well.
At about the same time, Queenie ran into Bob the janitor again and used her Signature move to implant the suggestion into his mind that he needed to seal the fire doors. Funnily enough, this turned out to be exactly what he needed to do, as Bob immediately began barking into his walkie-talkie that they needed to reseal the exits, apart from the one they planned to use 'when the time comes'. Making her escape quickly, Queenie made her way towards all the lights and music once again.
Side note: It was about at this point that I really should have cottoned on to the fact that the party were just focusing on finding a CEO. My idea of one not showing up was, therefore, going to cause some problems with their plans, and if I didn't expressly do something to highlight this, we were going to start freewheeling pretty soon. I didn't, so it did. Go me.
Returning to the party, Felix loaded up a burger with hot n' deadly salsa and sent it over to the DJ, who ate it with drunken relish, as Queenie, now making herself at home, tried to make the DJ thrash around enough to do some damage to himself. She whiffed it, so all she managed to do was make DJ Smash throw some eye-popping shapes as he put Scatman on the turntable. Horrible. In the background, more partygoers were drinking at the bar and chowing down on ironically lethal vegan food,
Up in the top floor, having gorged himself on some delicious plot, No Rats decided to have a bit of an explore, found the elevator shaft and immediately detected a vast, ancient, hungry presence stirring beneath the building. Which he promptly ignored and instead bit through the elevator cables, cutting off access to the offices entirely. I resisted the urge to ask if the player was actively trying to sabotage the game and just went with it. Fine. The failsafe 'just kill everyone' objective was still my backup plan.
With the exits being sealed, Mr Hugs and Tilly were now free to focus on their main objective of breaking up Tilly's big sister from her dick of a boyfriend and, you know, not getting horribly killed in the process by all the other terrible things happening. As La Macerena came on (one of the players put on a half-hour loop of the song, so I went with the idea that DJ Smash was now incapacitated, leaving the last track on repeat, as he ran to the toilets), Mr Hugs tried to find the big sis, but came up empty handed. To him, it was a room full of people in rows doing an identical dance. How was he supposed to pick someone out of that kind of line up?
Taking advantge of the situation, Queenie got up on the decks and began to play her own tunes. The sight of a 9 year old jumping up on the DJ booth at a corporate Christmas party didn't seem to faze anyone all that much, not least because she started dropping some actual tunes for a change, unleashing the barnstorming anthem that is MC Hammer's 'Can't Touch This', then used her ghostly mojo to get the crowd violently jumping around and battering each-other to the music.
Another side note: During setup, I allowed each of the players to choose one of their two signature moves, for the sake of seeing how each player would make use of them. In Queenie's case, this lead to heavy reliance on Harmony Of Souls, which allowed her Connect move to make people do whatever she wanted. It worked, but it highlighted that perhaps those moves should come at more of a cost.
Fluffing the roll, Queenie got the crowd riled up, but the chaos quickly upturned the DJ desk, trapping her underneath it. Seizing the opportunity to kick some ass, Martin used his Threshing Machine move to Traumatise the entire crowd for 1 Harm, as he Van-Damme-d his way through the crowd and srescued Queenie from the debris. Despite beating the tar out of several patrons, Martin still got some credit for saving a poor little girl, and the party went (mostly) back to normal.
As a quick aside, I narrated DJ Smash, now coughing up blood, stumbling to the bathrooms only to discover the butchered remains of Joel, then faceplanting into the gore, stone dead. Chalk up kill number 2 to Felix, then.
For the sake of flavour, I gave each player the card of the npc they'd killed. As the night went on, this started to get a bit out of hand.
With the chaos of Hammertime now behind us, Tilly found her sister and, with Mr Hugs acting as bait, lured out Michael, the sister's boyfriend, out somewhere quiet...
More to come.
-
Looking forward to part three. I didn't really expect the Swarm to be used quite so soon, if ever. However, from my point of view, any character can be played chaotic stupid if you really put some effort into it. Just because it's easier to play a swarm that way, doesn't mean you have to, if you know what I mean. Is there anything in particular that was total BS, and needs fixing right away?
-
I don't think anything was particularly broken, there was just a lot of clarification that needed to be put in, and maybe a little nerfing to prevent the playbook having a single OP build over all others. It may be that burning units of your Swarm might be a more robust mechanic for some of the moves, as with +3 Sly, the Swarm was pretty much annihilating everything it touched. I think it didn't help that the player in question is the kind of guy who enjoys building OP characters.
Blarg.
-
Know that feel bro. My best player plays well, but he also plays to win. My one caveat is that the Gremlin origin should poke through a little, so when you lose bodies, they're either dead, or distracted so utterly by the task that you can't get them to move on. MCs choice, but change whatever needs changing. I might run a playtest as well sometime.
-
Party Crashers
Time to take stock.
Through player action, I'd lost two of my key plot threads: the offices and Louis. Through my own ineptitude, I'd forgotten about Maisie, almost entirely lost track of several countdown timers and I'd basically decided that even if it was a crash landing, I'd still try and aim for a proper resolution.
My plan had been for the project to have been a ritual offering to an 'orrible beastie below the building, with the office party being used as a way of gathering sacrifices and tying up any loose ends with the whole translation business. The problem was, this ritual would have enslaved the beastie to Synergine, which would have been a problem for all concerned. Hep and his boss wanted the summoning to go wrong, so the beast would be free to wreak havoc, which required the players to glean some specific knowledge of what the ritual did so they could sabotage it, this being their optimal win state. If they just kill everyone, beastie awakens, but isnt freed, partial win. Ritual gets said properly, beastie gets bound to Synergine, party loses.
All of these were still possible, but now that some of the leads had been burned, I had to improvise.
In short, it was all going a bit wrong.
Tilly, in a remarkable spot of cold-blooded premeditation, plotted the perfect way for Michael, a musclebound gym bunny, to get taken out of the picture. Tilly approached her sister, asking for help getting Mr Hugs down from on top of a vending machine, too high for her, so the boyfriend got roped in.
While Mr Hugs prepared to ambush his quarry, a bunch of drunk, rowdy workers from a business down the road decided to crash the party. About 20 louts, headed up by their boss, John Colby (King of Diamonds), began drinking the bar dry, much to the utter indifference of Martin. Felix, however, saw John, with his penchant for vice and his crew of goons, too much to resist. Skinjacking was easy enough, but on the partial hit, he became aware that if he left, Felix's old host, Louis, would totally freak out about poisoning a load of people for no reason. Felix didn't give a crap, so he hopped into John Colby and Louis freaked right out.
Making a half-hearted announcement that the food was off, Louis realised that maybe this was more the kind of problem you ran away from, grabbed Hugo and legged it to the van. Thankfully, due to strenuous cleaning standards, there were No Rats waiting for them inside the van. All they left behind were shoes and greasy residue. Chalk up two more deaths.
Oh, there's a death tracker, too. That comes in later.
Back indoors, Tilly looked on as Michael groped blindly for Mr Hugs. Normally a smooth customer, Mr Hugs failed to keep his cool in such close proximity to a potential victim and went off half-cocked, only dealing incidental damage to his victim. Micheal, on the other hand, not taking kindly to getting shanked by a cross between Winnie the Pooh and a Nick Cave song, smashed him into the vending machine until it broke, dealing some more harm to the poor bear.
This was the point where the Vitality system kicked in, as although Mr Hugs had taken a beating, he could no longer take any more damage unless it came as Occult or Sacred harm, which allowed for players to be a little more reckless when pursuing courses of action like this, as although they could get bashed around or slowed down, they couldn't die. Any more than usual.
Regaining control of the situation, Mr Hugs ditched the knife in favour of his primary means of murder - smothering Michael with his thick, fluffy tummy. Weak from blood loss, fear and asphyxiation, the big guy finally went down for keeps. Gaining creep from his Vessel move, Mr Hugs did some running repairs, then went to fulfil the second part of his own personal mission, to get Tilly and her sister out of the building before evetyone else gets murdered right in the face.
Back at the party, with the room full to bursting and neither hide nor hair of a CEO in sight, the rest of the crew went 'screw it' and prepared to massacre everyone. Felix used his clout to start a brawl between the gatecrashers and the partygoers, giving Martin the excuse to weight in again and kick the snot out of everyone in sight once more. At about this time, Hep stepped in to contact everyone once again. Which is to say, I wanted one last chance to salvage the situation before we resorted to flat-out genocide.
More to come,
-
This Party's Dead
Taking a moment just before the bloodshed kicked off in earnest, Hep stepped in to ask what was going on- OH GOD WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING. To his alarm, the party had already killed five people, which was enough to set the underground monster to 'stirred'. Weird energies were about to be released and ideally, this would force Synergine's hand to start the ritual early. Hurriedly throwing in some exposition that I really should have just handed to the party right at the start, Hep explained that there was something very old and terrible below the building that was about to be awoken. If Synergine completed their ritual, things would, quote, 'go very badly', so they should just, er, kill everyone before that happens.
Just murder everyone. I don't know. I don't know any more.
Not really needing any more of an excuse, Martin wolfed out on the dance floor and began obliterating people in an unholy whirlwind of fuck. As is his wont.
Quickly jumping away from the horror for a moment, Mr Hugs helped Tilly and her sister find the one open way out, but had to ditch them at the last minute as a bunch of approaching footsteps suggested Synergine was about to respond to the ongoing butchery in no uncertain terms. It was a strangely touching moment - a homicidal teddy bear reuniting sister with sister, albiet via the medium of gruesome tummy-smothering murder. Bless 'em.
We returned to the main event to find No Rats joining in on the fun by bursting through the ceiling, effectively dissolving a whole bunch of people in a hail of tiny nibbling teeth and claws, cementing this whole affair into a Cabin-In-The-Woods-Level clusterfuck of supernatural oddities and carnage. As bodies dropped, Maisie's voice came on over the PA System, hurriedly reciting some bizarre series of vowel-like sounds. To Martin and No Rats, this wan't much of a concern - Felix was too busy trying to keep his shiny new body from getting ripped in half by Martin's bezerker rage, by the way - as they were happy enough to just keep killing until they ran out of targets. Mr Hugs had been abandoned and turned around, with no idea of how to get back to the rest of the team. Only Queenie had the presence of mind to try and intercept the ritual and stop things from getting any worse. For them, at least.
Cue Queenie spamming Harmony Of Souls like F5, using it as a master key to get past some surprisingly well-armed janitors because, well, a screaming, terrified girl covered in blood tends to get a pass with most people.
Speaking of heavily armed janitors, two of them arrived in the main room and lit up Martin with, surprise, blessed bullets which dealt Arcane harm to him. However, this didn't mean all the much, as between his ungodly damage resistance, Felix skinjacking one of them and trying to shoot the other, then Martin promptly disemboweling them both, they ceased to be a problem pretty much immediately.
So there went that hard move. Bah.
The last check of the night came down to Queenie. Their player had been red hot all night, and this was no exception - one more Harmony Of Souls and the ritual was fluffed discreetly enough for nobody to realize until it was too late. The sacrifices had been made, the ritual failed. We snapped to cinematic mode.
The whole building shook, then split. Bodies, living and dead, were tossed around with dolls. A ghastly stench arose from the abyss below, followed by a wet, ululating roar. Martin hurled himself bodily through a window in self-preservation, slamming into the roof of the burger van before blacking out. Inside, torn and helpless, Mr Hugs went limp. Everyone felt a sudden yank, dislocating themselves from that time and place, returning them to where they started.
Back in the MS Escher office, Hep, now torn, bloodied and missing a horn, was bedraggled but jubilant - despite the catastrophic cockups, everything went to plan. Ish. Enough of it did to count. He didn't get killed, and that was the important thing. The beast had been set free to stomp around the countryside and eat free-range farmers. Synergine was in ruins. Everyone had indulged in their murder boners quite successfully, with Martin and No Rats sitting on so many kills that I'd given up and let them tap as much Creep as they wanted for the rest of the scene. Hep was grateful for their help - he really was, but as Synergine tied up their loose ends, so he had to do the same.
A blink of darkness, and the team found themselves weightlessly drifting in a huge, inky black void, with a dim glow of light running all around them in the distance.
Only then did they notice, it wasn't a void. It was a pupil. In an eye larger than a galaxy. Belonging to something...other.
Skip forward in time and...across in dimensions. Rescue workers retrieve a miraculously unharmed Martin Clunes, stark naked and soaked in blood, from the crater he left in the roof of the Gutz burger van. Despite his best attempts to brush it off, this might take some serious explaining. Even for a Christmas party.
A little way away, buried under a heap of rubble, an emergency worker finds the torn-up, yet somehow whole body of a teddy bear. Cute little thing, they think. Shame to throw it away...
And there we go. Done. The whole thing took almost four hours, and a lot of flew right by from my side of the table. As for player feedback, the majority of the concerns they had were mainly on balance, better wording of the rules and a bit more prep, all things I could agree with. If I'd come to the table with better notes and a more focused plot, things would have moved a lot smoother, but as it stood, it was enjoyable, with plenty of laughs, horrible gore and people being generally awful human beings. I think the system has some potential, but it definitely needs more co-ordination to run over a vanilla AW game with the playing cards added to the mix.
A rethink and maybe a redo with some randoms on Skype might be called for in a few weeks with a tweaked setup. Who knows?
-
Great read. I think having the backup "plot line" of 'oh just kill everybody already, I don't care', is completely acceptable in this sort of game, though it should only ever give a partial victory. A few things that might be useful for nerfing the Swarm: Reduce the number of controlled bodies, make the use of uncontrolled bodies even harder, and remember that when someone attempts to squish 'em, they squish hard and fast. From a MC standpoint, make it so there is a very distinct tactical choice between spreading out, and grouping up. Group up, and you become, as you say "the biggest, nastiest blunt instrument of a character as possible". However, if you get caught, and people start stomping, you're really in a fix. Unless you kept a few bodies spare, or have Quarantine Buster.
Unless of course, you'd already done all of that. In which case, I'll start pulling the guts out of some of these moves.
-
I was waiting to hear from you before doing anything - it's your baby, I ain't gonna mess with it until I get your ideas.
I'll be tinkering with these playbooks today, I'll see what can be done.
I think the body of work's going to be pushing a bit more of the social side of things - as most of the playbooks ended up going flat out for aggro over all others, I think I need to take a minute and think about how to make social engineering pay off a bit more. Then again, the one-shot was inevitably going to boil down that way. Bah. Testing is haaaaaaaaard.
-
I'll cut you a deal, you can mess around with Swarm however you like, if you'll proofread this move for the Skinjacker:
When you come into direct skin contact with a viable host, even for an instant, you can switch bodies. Roll+sly. On a 10+, choose 1, on a 7-9, choose 2. On a miss, you can still switch if you want. If you are really, really sure.
- Spend 1 Creep
- Your new body is stunned for a moment
- Your old host isn't stunned for a moment, and realises they've been 'jacked
- Anyone paying close attention notices the switch
Not sure if this would be a normal move, or a signature. I just feel it needs it.
Regarding the social vs. aggro, perhaps encouraging RP etc. while in the Afterlife would be more in line through mechanics would be appropriate, because every single one of these playbooks is either a killing machine, or has a significant mind control/influence shtick.
I am perfectly fine with this.
You said it yourself: B-movie horror flick. Keep repeating that to yourself, and you'll see that everything is fine. The Afterlife is backstage. While in the mortal realm, things die. Things die hard, and messy, and in various hilarious and creepily creative ways.
This is a good thing.
Addendum: Have you asked any of your players how they felt it went? Confide in them that everything went off the rails (for you at least), and perhaps whether what they did resulted in that. See what responses you get. I'd certainly be interested.
-
Neat. I'd actually just finished tinkering (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5rAQzrerSj1bzdIS2RucG5fUWM/view?usp=sharing) with the Swarm playbook as you posted.
The Skinjacker move is a nice idea - the guy playing that skin never really had much a problem there, but I agree that maybe the skin needs more fleshing out. It suits a non-punchy player fine, but it could do with being a bit more adaptable.
Regarding the downtime/afterlife thing, that's definitely something that needs to be addressed if and when I can get a campaign rolling with this. As it stood, everyone behaved themselves while over there, and it all seemed to work out fine. They were well aware that this was a fragile build and there wasn't any point in hammering on the walls to see what broke. I'm very much in favor of letting the players work out the rules and locations, etc, of the world, much like your usual PBTA system game. If people decide to try and start a fight while over there, that's on the MC to say how that shakes out.
I basically don't want to rule anything out too quickly, because after all, in the mortal world, very few NPCs can inflict Arcane or Sacred harm. In the Afterlife, that's all anyone CAN inflict...
Regarding the after-game breakdown, I immediately admitted that things went off the rails, to which they all agreed that it was pretty clear, but it was still a fun ride to go through. The strength of the player's ability to get in character really helped, and for the most part, other than the Vessel's player getting salty that I allowed the Swarm to attack him (he'd marked the +Tasty Grudge against him, after all), I didn't get too many complaints outside of what I'd already discovered myself.
More prep, better wording and balance in the skins, a little refinement on NPC generation and I think we'll have something fun. It's just going to take a wee while to hammer it all out.
-
This looks much better. Perhaps reword Engulfed to: If you inflict harm using more than two bodies at the same time, add +1 harm for each controlled body, and +1 harm for every two uncontrolled bodies.
I like the balance between harm and swarm size. It seems like a pretty vicious nerf, but each extra body effectively grants an extra harm buffer... Hm. I don't know whether I like the new Exponential Horror move. I just feel that doing specific, detailed tasks like that requires controlled bodies. I find vague, but constrained moves are often the most powerful for players and MC alike. The lines about acting upon or against instinct in particular. Yes, this one has the numbers and specific actions, but... eh. I don't feel it.
I really like Rat Up the Drainpipe, thats just perfect in every way.
-
Tweaked Exponential Horror again to something a bit more flexible.
On a 10+ pick 3
On a 7-9 pick 1
o They're on the job, quick as a flash
o They pile in, regardless of the danger
o They do it without fuss, noise or complaining
o You don't have to send in a Controlled body to lead the way
On a miss, you over-commit yourself, expose yourself to harm, attract unwanted attention or lose track of your objective, the MC will tell you which.
-
Looks much better. I love the implied 'but if you don't choose this option, then... good luck!' The 'act vaguely upon instinct' is still in there somewhere, right? Part of the creation process. It needs that.
-
Yo. Tweaked a bunch of stuff, updated the playbooks, and accidentally spawned another.
I liked the idea of playing a lackey to some kind of far greater evil, so I threw together The Harbinger (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5rAQzrerSj1YlRBbGlFMUlza2c/view?usp=sharing).
-
Reckon you could whop out a changelist? Just so I know what stuff to redownload
-
Double post because OMG THOSE SIGNATURE MOVES.
I have no idea whether to play it straight, make everything a hilarious exaggeration or JUST MURDER EVERYTHING.
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD, SKULLS FOR THE SKULL GOD, MILK FOR THE KHORNE FLAKES!
I love it.
-
The changes were mainly to the Swarm, just tweaking some wording. The Gloom had some Creep costs added to their signature moves, as they felt a bit too powerful to just freely spam.
I had a lot of fun with the Harbinger, I really wanted something that could be played any which way, but still be effective.
-
Oh God I did another one.
This is what I get for re-watching Constantine.
The Diabolist (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5rAQzrerSj1Y0lCUlBpMHU5eU0/view?usp=sharing) - Because some mortals think they can play in the big leagues. How wrong they are.
-
Moar! Moar!
You left in some stuff with the Harbinger, which have me another idea: take ancient secrets or unholy power, play it hard and fast, die, then come back as a disciple of your power source.
Also, with the Harbinger, can I get a move that allows you to get spiritual supply packages? Like, spend a use of Conduit for a weapon that does 1 Physical, 1 Sacred at a range you specify. Lasts for a while. Or maybe armor, or get 10+ on a manifestation.
I just have 40K on the brain, and want undead shock troopers dropping in from space/the afterlife with the glory of the Emperor and a MASSIVE gun.
In fact, I may start writing The Crusader soon.
-
By all means, dude, go for it.
-
Where as the Harbinger is kind of a give and take between the Master and the Servant, the Crusader is a devoted worshipper of their master, and whenever... wait, whats that? HERESY!? SMITED!
^ is what happens a lot. Going for the Mad Paladin approach.
-
So, is this less 'I am an instrument of a higher power' and more 'I am an instrument of an ideal/cause'?
-
Hm. I'd say more the difference between "I am an instrument of a higher power, but only because I want a share." and "I am an instrument of a higher power, because I truly worship it. Anything I get out of the deal is just gravy, or things to help me worship better."
-
Man this stuff is brilliant! You guys mind if I steal some of it for my own game?
-
If you want to take some ideas, by all means - if you wanted to draft over skins/etc if you could credit this system, I'd really appreciate it.
-
Right. I think I want to organize a one-shot online, ideally with folks who are familiar with the PBTA system. Might record it for the youtubes. Is there a forum I can source that on? Ant seem to find anything thus far...
-
Live or PbP?
-
pbp?
Well, Live would be preferable. I have Tabletop Simulator, but straight Skype would work fine.
-
Play by post. Considering you are planning on filming it, I guess not.
-
I've tried pbp a few times before and it's not been too great. I much prefer live.
-
If you want to take some ideas, by all means - if you wanted to draft over skins/etc if you could credit this system, I'd really appreciate it.
Groovy - I mean stealing mechanics from here and there. Happy to credit you for it.
I'd love to get involved with this one-shot too!
-
Ah, that's all groovy. Dont worry about crediting unless it's wholesale.
I'll have a riot around the interwebs and see who I can find to try this out.
Also, minor update - a conversation with one of the previous testers brought up a good point. Gaining Creep for just straight-up killing kind of makes the brute force skins a little overpowered in comparison to the more thinky characters who have to manipulate NPCs. An alternative would be to play that side of things more softly on the MC, awarding Creep when the players do suitably horrible, macabre or disgusting things, or possibly only when mortal NPCs are actually scared or shaken.
Blah. Something.
-
Well, cutting Creep from kills actually doesn't impact the killy-slashy Playbooks all that much. Remember, exploding someone with claws bursting out is only interesting when you have someone watching. On it's own, it's murder. With an audience, its art.
That said, reward those who locate, stalk and finally eviscerate a target. Random murder is alright, but a good hunt is a nice touch.
-
That's exactly the point - it's kind of what makes a good slasher film. It's not the killing, but the build up and the tension beforehand.
KILL WITH SKILL
-
Right! Wee update. I've found a couple of people over on the Drunk & Ugly forums who are also down for some shenanigans. I think a Saturday night is a good idea, maybe a Friday, depending, so if people could let me know what their timeslots/timezones are, I can start knocking stuff together.
You guys are neat.
-
I'm GMT +11 at the moment (+10 + daylight savings), I could easily do American Saturday night.
-
That'd be ideal. Still getting details back from everyone.
-
Any news on the game??
-
Aw Christ, I completely dropped the ball on this - I've found a group that can do 1AM EST Tuesday, and I can totally fork you in if you're free, but I got completely sidelined getting those guys set up that I didn't update you.
I am all kinds of freaking dumb, I swear to God. If you can't make it, I'll see if I can arrange a BFA-specific session.
-
So hey, that thing I was trying to do actually happened. A couple of fine folks from the Drunk N' Ugly forums carved a bloody swathe through a small town in South Dakota, in an adventure we might finish a little later on, but as it stands, I think everything went rather well. Three hours of terrible people doing terrible things to perfectly nice NPCs, plus some really great critique at the end of it all. A great experience to play with these guys, and I can only hope I get to commit further atrocities in the future with people here, too.
One word of warning, there's some intermittent popping from the mic an other audio cockups throughout the recording. My b, yo.
The MP3 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/rf7p8z9kzmw723o/Snuffed%20Playtest.mp3?dl=0)
YouTube Links:
Part 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9087PZKJ874)
Part 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI2z133fjRA)
Part 3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zz5_fhObMo)
Aftermath & Critique (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR3mrIquK3U)
-
A key point that's been brought up in these playtests has been player motivation and bringing the group together, and now that I've had one 'mission' scenario and one 'sandbox' scenario played out, I've started to collate what needs fixing/fleshing out, so I'll keep a list here for keeping track:
* Give players more reasons to interact/team up with one another.
* Figure out how to make the playbooks more than inventive toolkits for causing pain.
* Collate moves into 'Public' and 'Specific' to help with cross-playbook move choices. Maybe alter/expand some playbooks to have viable selectable moves.
That being said, one thing I'm noticing right now is that this system lacks real long-term appeal. It's mechanically fine for one session, but I get the feeling that it's going to be hard for players to connect with, essentially, a bunch of antagonists whose only purpose is to hurt other people. It's essentially enforced murderhobo rules without the benefit of the cast being technically good guys. I'm kicking ideas around, and I'll come back to this in a few days ideally with a fresh perspective, but I'm getting this nagging feeling that this scenario and style would be better suited to a more intensive sit-down-and-play system than the more narrative-focused PBTA engine.
Blah. Here's hoping I can figure something out.
-
Two things. Firstly, do you think it's about time this got it's own sub-forums, the second is that being a murderhobo isn't always a bad thing, especially when you are literally a soul-eating monster. The issue for me is pressure. In AW, the monthly barter cost prevents turtling as an individual without significant preparation. Turtling as a group after gathering enough resources to be sustainable is excellent gameplay and strategy.
How about this: At the end of the session, spend X Creep (5, 10?). If you don't roll+barter spent instead. 10+, pick one, 7-9, MC picks two, 6- something bad. The options are related to the spirit fading, becoming less real, and leaking energy. Other players can boost you back up enough, but there is a constant pressure to "farm" the mortal realm for enough creep to survive. Using it to heal and boost is suddenly a serious cost. Teamwork is rewarded, but so is backstabbing to get an edge.
How does that sound?
-
Aw Christ, I completely dropped the ball on this - I've found a group that can do 1AM EST Tuesday, and I can totally fork you in if you're free, but I got completely sidelined getting those guys set up that I didn't update you.
I am all kinds of freaking dumb, I swear to God. If you can't make it, I'll see if I can arrange a BFA-specific session.
No worries man! It's just a game. I'd still love to play but if you mean 1AM Sydney time I don't want to stay up that late.
-
Two things. Firstly, do you think it's about time this got it's own sub-forums, the second is that being a murderhobo isn't always a bad thing, especially when you are literally a soul-eating monster. The issue for me is pressure. In AW, the monthly barter cost prevents turtling as an individual without significant preparation. Turtling as a group after gathering enough resources to be sustainable is excellent gameplay and strategy.
How about this: At the end of the session, spend X Creep (5, 10?). If you don't roll+barter spent instead. 10+, pick one, 7-9, MC picks two, 6- something bad. The options are related to the spirit fading, becoming less real, and leaking energy. Other players can boost you back up enough, but there is a constant pressure to "farm" the mortal realm for enough creep to survive. Using it to heal and boost is suddenly a serious cost. Teamwork is rewarded, but so is backstabbing to get an edge.
How does that sound?
I like the notion of putting players on a rolling platform to keep stuff moving, but I'm not sure if that might tip the balance in the favour of certain playbooks who can brute force Creep out of NPCs. I'm thinking maybe creating a new sheet for all the playbooks much akin to the 'Rage' section in the Revenant playbook, where you put down your drives, emotions, desires, etc.
You start off with some basic notes, then when you act upon them, you can flesh them out a little more. If someone helps you act upon them, you can expand your own, or agree to expand one-another's and mark XP for doing so. Once you've put, say, three or four notes into a section, you can work out what 'closure' would be to you, whether that's revenge, understanding, power, etc, at which point that aspect can be tapped to give you +1 ongoing during relevant situations.
Say, a Gloom has been developing their Desire route and they've come to the conclusion that they just want their work from their mortal life to get the recognition it deserves. Thereafter, whenever they use their skills as a performer to accomplish something meaningful to them, they can tap that Desire route to take +1 on the roll. MC caveat would still apply to prevent ludicrous spamming, as well as ensuring players create a specific enough end result.
No worries man! It's just a game. I'd still love to play but if you mean 1AM Sydney time I don't want to stay up that late.
Also, Spigot, totally sorry 'bout that. I do have another guy who was looking to play but couldn't make the session, so if you're interested in playing a one-shot, I'll see what I can whip up. American EST was what the last group were working on, but we only started that late because one of 'em finished work at midnight. Anyway, I'll see what I can do.
-
Definitely do all of that, but maybe have fictional rewards rather than numerical, or if anything XP/Creep/limited use bonuses. I feel that doing something like that should have it's own, equally obvious reward written into the Drive/Desire.
Regarding being able to brute force creep, invariably those playbooks find it most difficult to make and maintain useful NPC-relations. Sure, the Ripper might be able to head down to the mortal realm and churn out 5 Creep at regular intervals, but what about the Gloom that got a deal with a minor demon to provide entertainment at parties every second weekend and can get a loan of 10 Creep or more whenever they need it? I think if the afterlife was more fleshed out about deals, manipulations and negotiations, while the mortal realm is a combination farm/playground the non-murderhobo classes (especially not my Swarm) might have a more interesting time.
-
Totally agree on that. I think the afterlife needs to be the supporting foundation more than the mortal world - that's something entirely on me to actually do when running these tests, but maybe some way of adding this to the playbooks would be useful, too. I'll have to chew it over some more.
-
Another thing I need to think about is paring down some of the mechanics. The entire card-based NPC generation sounded fun on paper, but in practice it was clunky, hard to keep track of and didn't really add anything to the experience. This would mean rewriting some of the moves, the Gloom and Skinjacker in particular, but considering that we're considering adding more stuff for players to juggle, making some of the other stuff less cluttered might be a nice idea.
Spending Creep also might need less crunch to it - assigning limits to what's supposed to be weird ghost mojo feels a little stilted, whereas in-test last time, a situation came up where the Ripper's pet chainsaw gained a temporary supercharge by using the 'Drain Creep' aspect of the Traumatize move. It was a nice twist to the scene, it had a mechanical benefit (+1 to whatever Bert did next), and it was entirely organic without needing resource management.
Basically, I'm starting to think that rather than treating Creep like a resource that can be stockpiled, it could be simpler to treat it as a Surplus/Satisfied/Want balance.
You roll +Eerie at the start of the session. On a 10+ you've got Surplus. On a 7-9 you're okay, but you could be better. On a Miss you're going to start suffering if you don't feed.
Then, when you're in-game, you can declare 'I'm going to use my mojo to...' and then tell the MC what you want to do. The bigger the request, the more the player puts at stake, the more they have to gain and lose, so it's not a safe bet. That way Creep becomes a scarcer, but much more fluid and useful resource, without the need to stockpile it for future events.
Problem is, it winds up sounding a lot like the Influence move, which steps on another mechanic.
BLAAAAAAARGH this is hard.
-
I reckon just reducing the constraints would add enough fluidity. Using the surplus/want scale is fine and all, but what if the players want to set up some sort of trade? Without a numerical backing, barter becomes a little more difficult.
How about when you use creep you roll+creep spent. Means that you don't exactly know how much you will need to heal/supercharge, but you can just flood your essence with power and hope for the best. It would be awesome if 10+ had bonus effects as energy just pours off you.
Also, the same as barter: ask how each player gathers spiritual energy. Memories, life force, memes? Who knows?
-
Also, Spigot, totally sorry 'bout that. I do have another guy who was looking to play but couldn't make the session, so if you're interested in playing a one-shot, I'll see what I can whip up. American EST was what the last group were working on, but we only started that late because one of 'em finished work at midnight. Anyway, I'll see what I can do.
Oh in that case I can easily make it. Yeah I'm interested in whatever you can offer, thanks.
-
I REVIVE THIS THREAD WITH NECROMANCY MOST FOUL
And by that I mean Jesus it's been a while since I posted here.
So I've been knocking away at this system in the background for quite a while now, running playtests, etc, and I think we're nearly there. The playbooks are pretty much complete, although I've yet to get some skins played extensively, and the rules have been fleshed out and clarified to a reasonable level.
See below for the revised rules and playbooks (with artwork done by the fabulous Crazon of the Al Dente Rigarmortis podcast):
Core Rules WIP (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5rAQzrerSj1RmNtbzF5UVVhdnc)
Illustrated Playbooks (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5rAQzrerSj1ckttNmN1elZwdm8)
I'm now thirsting for playtests and thoughts on how things stand. If anyone has anything they want to bring up, please do!
-
The artwork, oh my. Very Fallout, matches the tone of the game perfectly. Since Ripper is my bae, I noticed that "Needs More Gun" has a reference to "Tenacious", which I haven't been able to find anywhere. Stay tuned for a playtest which may or may not occur tomorrow.