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Topics - neonchameleon

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Monsterhearts / Skinning again - The Avatar
« on: May 24, 2015, 08:42:59 PM »
To the coach and some of the teachers, The Avatar is the best athlete around. Many want to be The Avatar. Many others want The Avatar. But the most common description of them is probably "That arrogant jerk!"

I present The Avatar

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Monsterhearts / New Skin - The Mad Scientist
« on: January 28, 2015, 05:51:19 PM »
I was watching Carmilla and identified four of the five leads easily enough (even if most people IMO get it wrong) - but nothing seemed to fit LaFontaine. So I created The Mad Scientist.

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Monsterhearts / New Skin: The Initiate
« on: October 24, 2014, 06:27:40 PM »
I've got a new skin - currently in the first draft.  The Initiate started out life as an environmental activist - and ended up becoming someone with A Cause.  It's currently more religious than I'd intended I think; it's intended to cover more than that.  Currently in first functional draft state, and feedback is extremely welcome; I know it can be tightened further.  And broadened to get more of the environmentalism and politics the vision had in there.

The Initiate

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Monsterhearts / New Skin: The Banshee
« on: June 22, 2014, 05:49:32 PM »
Trying to keep control is exactly what you want to do in a game of Monsterhearts.  And it's always going to be possible.  Or at least the Banshee hopes so.  I wish it all the luck it can get.

The Banshee

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roleplaying theory, hardcore / How deep is the freeform influence?
« on: May 13, 2014, 01:54:18 PM »
When I play either Apocalypse World or Dogs in the Vineyard, one of the things I notice is that the moves fit in places that feel natural - when I'm going to hand over narration to someone else anyway.  This ... isn't always the case in tabletop RPGs, although fits with my experience of both online and RL freeform - the resolution mechanics are either fast and evocative (AW) or very evocative (DitV) and fit where you'd grind slightly anyway.  Is this a conscious mirror of freeform play?

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I've taken the Powered By the Apocalypse engine and cut it back almost as far as it will go.  No playbooks and characters that fit onto a post-it note.  Stats that are just the houses.  And I've tried to capture the feel of the Harry Potter books.  Five pages, and I think it all speaks for itself - I need to do a 1 or 2 page summary document.

Houses and Wands

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brainstorming & development / Silver Age Marvel
« on: March 24, 2014, 01:07:28 PM »
Supers is far too broad a genre to Power by the Apocalypse - but narrow it down to one specific subset and it works.  Here's a very early Silver Age Marvel hack - the Fantastic 4, the X-men, pre-death of Gwen Stacey Spider-Man, early Hulk.  Tony Stark doesn't quite fit - I've tried to squeeze him in there but it's too tight a fit.

8
I've made a few divergent choices for my first actually playable AW hack.  Firstly that I've dropped the playbooks because I don't think they fit the setting or the themes of the fiction - instead I've gone with a lifepath approach, with the idea that people are a product of their environment and relationships.  It's still at the unformatted stage and will make no sense if you don't understand AW (other than the character sheet at the end).

Other odd factors - the driving PC engine is meant to be the stress economy, and I've gone with AW:TDA style damage, and an Anti Hammerspace encumberance system (there's meant to be a blank character portrait but that will take time to get the proportions right).  The Read a Person equivalent move is adult only (until midseason) - and adults start with an extra stat and move but level at half rate.

I need to playtest the Stress Economy, and I'm seriously considering grouping the districts and making them less explicit to The Hunger Games.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IZN2EYB5p96fdbIdY5kiRujanNZDgaYZuvX6FGQGIVM/edit

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Monsterhearts / New Skins: The Gorgon, the Deep One, and the Kitsune
« on: March 06, 2014, 08:31:20 PM »
I've made my first three ever attempts at skins in the past week and thought I'd both show them off and ask how they could be further improved.

First up: If I were a Deep One - the first skin I ever wrote.  The premise of this skin is that you've heard about the evils of Deep Ones all your life, and how they are evil and in league with the Old Ones.  And you've just discovered you are one.  Naturally you're terrified about anyone finding out.  It was prompted by my spotting how weak the closet is in all the games I've played (I absolutely think this is a missing piece of Queer content for many game styles).

Next up: The Gorgon - a skin about social awkwardness, phobia, and dysfunction.  The fundamental feature of The Gorgon is that they can't meet anyone's eyes without slowly petrifying them.  And I'm especially pleased with the sex move here.  I posted this to one of my local groups - within three hours there'd been a game set up because someone wanted to play it that badly.

Finally the skin I started working on today: The Kitsune.  I know there are other skins out there called the Kitsune - if only one I wouldn't have used it, but I know of three and think there's a fourth.  At that point an all-Kitsune game becomes possible...  Anyway, the Kitsune is the Class Clown.  Tools to trick people (with one being taking things too far).  A move to give you 1 forward for corpsing the table as long as you did it while in character.  A phobia and an approach through the sex move, and a darkest self that fits.  It's not as intense as the other two - but the Class Clown skin shouldn't be.  I think it does its job pretty well - but as I say I only wrote it tonight, and there's been no feedback yet.

So these are the first three skins I've written.  All, I think, pretty good - but I'm sure there's room for improvement.  (I've had feedback off Storygames and put all three up on the G+ group).  Any advice?

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