Recently I have been thinking about the Red Planet, Mars and how much fun it would be to run a game on that planet. Now you might go for a sci-fi game, with spaceships flying around the solar system and Mars being just one of many places you could take the heroes. That would be a fun thing to do for sure. However there is another sort of sci-fi that used to be set on Mars, a popular RPG video game even set aside one spin off game to explore it. That is a Victorian era adventure to Mars, of course people of that era could not get to Mars so such a game would have to be set in some sort of semi fantasy steam punk world. I leave naming the video game to knowing readers, perhaps I will be surprised and find out there was more than one.
The setting of Mars would also of course have to be fantasy since in reality humans could not survive on the planet without a lot of effort and technology. Mars would be the version dreamed of by writers of the time, a land filled with ancient technology with canals running across the planet and with some aliens to work with and against. In my game it would be a group of heroes who have signed on for a rescue mission, a previous exploration attempt landed on the planet but has since gone silent. The lead scientist has decided he needs to make a rescue attempt and that if you want a job done right you need to do it yourself.
Aliens normally mean high technology but I think that would ruin a steam punk game. I think in my game the aliens will have regressed in technology. A great tragedy has slammed them back into using past technology and only small amounts of the much higher technology are around to be used by people smart enough to work it out. Maybe the guards of the towns will have ray guns, but they don't know how to fix a broken one and they only have so many left. No way would they sell the tech to anyone, they need to far more than money or trade.
Of course that leaves open abandoned facilities filled with technology for highly skilled scientists to puzzle over. For heroes to discover, to repel any monsters inside and protect the scientists from any harm while they investigate. That isn't to say the heroes can't do some scientific discover of their own but that is a slow process and I think most players would rather do small scale stuff quickly and move onto more adventures.
There is also the mystery of what happened to the other crew, the initial exploration of finding friendly and not so friendly aliens. Perhaps the other crew tried to do something a bit too advanced or merely ran into someone trying to protect the technology from outside interference. Maybe they were fine all along and it was their equipment that had failed and before they could fix it the zealous leader had launched the heroes on their trip.
The Red Planet I am thinking of would be run in the D20 Modern system using the Past book for some of the rules for guns and items of the time. However being such a unique setting the GM would have to willing to write a lot of the rules himself. Other games could run it, the Call of Cthulhu system would easily work for a steam punk setting of this sort.
Thursday 9 October 2014
Thursday 25 September 2014
The Life and Times of Rets Darkfinder
This here is a character I thought up during a moment of not being able to play a certain MMO, wanting to match the race of my character in that MMO I decided to play around with making a Goblin into an PC in Dungeons and Dragons 3.5. This led me into an area of the Dungeon Masters Guide I have not touched for many years and to thinking up an interesting character that after a poor set of ability rolls had some changes made to it. Have a good look at the images at full size to get a general idea of his stats as described by the rules of the game.
His name is Rets Darkfinder a Goblin ranger, at least that is what the rule book calls his class. He thinks of himself as a hunter, that is his job for his forest dwelling tribe. The forest is his hunting grounds, he hides in the shadows of trees and uses his (adjusted for his small size) longbow to provide meat for the tribe. Unlike most other tribes this tribe has been led by a cleric of Ehlonna and has not fallen to the evil ways other tribes use to get meat. Even so the local towns are not always happy to see Goblins in the forest, who would be with all the tales of babies stolen in the night and merchants robbed. Still some of the people living in a nearby town have had some interaction with Rets, mostly hunters for the town and wood cutters. With the amount of time they spend in the forest they know his tribe is not aggressive and at least don't steal too many things if you keep your eyes on them. With that interaction Rets has learned about heroes and the great adventures they go on, the money they earn and the mighty monsters they kill. Coming to the age of wandering, that being the age in his tribe when most Goblins feel the need to leave the tribe for some time and find themselves, Rets has started heading into towns with the goal of becoming a great hero. His goal isn't to amass riches for himself, but instead to hunt and kill some of the most dangerous monsters in the world. To prove he is a great hero and hunter. Rets knows that humans and other intelligent creatures don't trust or like Goblins, though he doesn't know how far that dislike can go, so he hides his features under a deep leather hood. In this manor he can be confused for another small creature the Gnome.
Rets has below average strength but good dex, so he has the Weapon finesse feat and uses a hand axe in melee. In roleplaying that is the tool he uses to finish off wounded animals and to skin and butcher them. In combat he much prefers to hang back and take shots at enemies with his longbow, only after wounding enemies does he engage in melee combat. At higher levels he will focus on getting feats that allow him to shoot further and more accurately into his allies melee combat. As a bit of roleplaying the feathers of his first kill are always tied onto his longbow, as he gets new upgrades he will retie his trophy onto the new weapon. Armour wise he uses studded leather armour and if I was playing him into higher levels I doubt I would wear anything heaver. I am almost tempted to say that really he should only wear leather armour to better suit his roleplaying story, that being that his first armour was gifted to him by his Uncle who took skins from his kills to make it.
Now I would like to talk about how to deal with such a character as a GM, for a Goblin is clearly going to have troubles in towns. Goblins are normally evil creatures so people will no doubt assume that Rets is in fact evil, maybe a spy for his tribe or an outcast looking for easy prey. To introduce such a character at the start of the game I would suggest having Rets surrounded by town guards and being harassed for his race. Even though he is a PC I would suggest asking the player to not tell the others that they are playing a Goblin and just that they will meet up with the group in the town somewhere. Thus the GM can create a situation where they play Rets as a NPC, for if the players knew it was a PC being harassed they would jumping in as fast as they could to help, as an NPC it opens up more chances for them to ignore Rets or for only some of them to want to help. This then allows the player controlling Rets to use this in roleplaying inside the group. If none of the players wants to help Rets out then the GM could have him be arrested and jailed either letting the player take over in the jail cell and work out how to escape or to have Rets escape under GM control and meet the group outside the town where he could call them on leaving him when he was clearly not evil. Of course there are other ways to add him in, perhaps on the open road the adventures find him dejected looking for anyone to vouch that he isn't evil or they find him in a predicament in a cave needing help from the group to kill a monster.
After you have introduced such a character as a GM you have a new and harder task ahead of you, how to deal with the fact that one of your players is playing a race that is normally evil. One way is just to ignore it to create a world where Goblins are accepted as being non-evil and are not assumed to be at any moment to start eating children and stabbing innocent folk. Or if you think your players and yourself are able to handle it you could go a route exploring racism and prejudice in the fantasy realm. This can be a hard thing to do, these are touchy subjects and not all players want to have serious real world things brought up in their game. Games are escapism after all. Going this route does bring up some interesting ideas and scenarios, merchants hocking up prices or refusing to sell to the Goblin the local guard harrasing and following the "monster" around town and the like. It also would allow you to explore the other side the rescued child learning that not all Goblins are bad, the watch captain coming to respect the hero or even a whole town defending the Goblin from an outside attack. Not everything in games has to be dark remember...and sometimes the best dark comes out of the shadows caused by the light.
His name is Rets Darkfinder a Goblin ranger, at least that is what the rule book calls his class. He thinks of himself as a hunter, that is his job for his forest dwelling tribe. The forest is his hunting grounds, he hides in the shadows of trees and uses his (adjusted for his small size) longbow to provide meat for the tribe. Unlike most other tribes this tribe has been led by a cleric of Ehlonna and has not fallen to the evil ways other tribes use to get meat. Even so the local towns are not always happy to see Goblins in the forest, who would be with all the tales of babies stolen in the night and merchants robbed. Still some of the people living in a nearby town have had some interaction with Rets, mostly hunters for the town and wood cutters. With the amount of time they spend in the forest they know his tribe is not aggressive and at least don't steal too many things if you keep your eyes on them. With that interaction Rets has learned about heroes and the great adventures they go on, the money they earn and the mighty monsters they kill. Coming to the age of wandering, that being the age in his tribe when most Goblins feel the need to leave the tribe for some time and find themselves, Rets has started heading into towns with the goal of becoming a great hero. His goal isn't to amass riches for himself, but instead to hunt and kill some of the most dangerous monsters in the world. To prove he is a great hero and hunter. Rets knows that humans and other intelligent creatures don't trust or like Goblins, though he doesn't know how far that dislike can go, so he hides his features under a deep leather hood. In this manor he can be confused for another small creature the Gnome.
Rets has below average strength but good dex, so he has the Weapon finesse feat and uses a hand axe in melee. In roleplaying that is the tool he uses to finish off wounded animals and to skin and butcher them. In combat he much prefers to hang back and take shots at enemies with his longbow, only after wounding enemies does he engage in melee combat. At higher levels he will focus on getting feats that allow him to shoot further and more accurately into his allies melee combat. As a bit of roleplaying the feathers of his first kill are always tied onto his longbow, as he gets new upgrades he will retie his trophy onto the new weapon. Armour wise he uses studded leather armour and if I was playing him into higher levels I doubt I would wear anything heaver. I am almost tempted to say that really he should only wear leather armour to better suit his roleplaying story, that being that his first armour was gifted to him by his Uncle who took skins from his kills to make it.
Now I would like to talk about how to deal with such a character as a GM, for a Goblin is clearly going to have troubles in towns. Goblins are normally evil creatures so people will no doubt assume that Rets is in fact evil, maybe a spy for his tribe or an outcast looking for easy prey. To introduce such a character at the start of the game I would suggest having Rets surrounded by town guards and being harassed for his race. Even though he is a PC I would suggest asking the player to not tell the others that they are playing a Goblin and just that they will meet up with the group in the town somewhere. Thus the GM can create a situation where they play Rets as a NPC, for if the players knew it was a PC being harassed they would jumping in as fast as they could to help, as an NPC it opens up more chances for them to ignore Rets or for only some of them to want to help. This then allows the player controlling Rets to use this in roleplaying inside the group. If none of the players wants to help Rets out then the GM could have him be arrested and jailed either letting the player take over in the jail cell and work out how to escape or to have Rets escape under GM control and meet the group outside the town where he could call them on leaving him when he was clearly not evil. Of course there are other ways to add him in, perhaps on the open road the adventures find him dejected looking for anyone to vouch that he isn't evil or they find him in a predicament in a cave needing help from the group to kill a monster.
After you have introduced such a character as a GM you have a new and harder task ahead of you, how to deal with the fact that one of your players is playing a race that is normally evil. One way is just to ignore it to create a world where Goblins are accepted as being non-evil and are not assumed to be at any moment to start eating children and stabbing innocent folk. Or if you think your players and yourself are able to handle it you could go a route exploring racism and prejudice in the fantasy realm. This can be a hard thing to do, these are touchy subjects and not all players want to have serious real world things brought up in their game. Games are escapism after all. Going this route does bring up some interesting ideas and scenarios, merchants hocking up prices or refusing to sell to the Goblin the local guard harrasing and following the "monster" around town and the like. It also would allow you to explore the other side the rescued child learning that not all Goblins are bad, the watch captain coming to respect the hero or even a whole town defending the Goblin from an outside attack. Not everything in games has to be dark remember...and sometimes the best dark comes out of the shadows caused by the light.
Tuesday 23 September 2014
The start of a new adventure
So this is the start of a new adventure, one of me posting and talking about tabletop RPGs. Talking about ideas I have for campaigns, missions, characters both PC and NPC and just general blather about roleplaying and storytelling in such games. Sometimes there will be images to go with those posts scans of my art, maps or character sheets and the like, however I am not an artist so don't be expecting great beautiful artworks but instead more functional and basic art.
This will also be a place for others to comment and post on my ideas with their ideas and thoughts. That might mean telling me that something I have said is wrong, or suggesting a better way of doing something. As long as the criticism is constructive I don't mind, if instead it is simply "I don't like this and you suck" well then don't expect a response.
There will be no sticking to anyone tabletop RPG, or any one setting. Many of my ideas can easily be changed to any setting and with some work to any other system. Some days I might be talking about a cool idea I had for a Call of Cthulhu story and the next a character for a Modern D20 Future campaign. Feel free to suggest ways that such ideas could be changed to fit other systems or about other systems I should check out.
Basically I want this to be a place for me to spew forth all the amazing ideas my brain has, a resource for others to pick up stuff they like and for constructive dialogue about all of that. On the internet...yeah really I know right asking for a bit much huh.
This will also be a place for others to comment and post on my ideas with their ideas and thoughts. That might mean telling me that something I have said is wrong, or suggesting a better way of doing something. As long as the criticism is constructive I don't mind, if instead it is simply "I don't like this and you suck" well then don't expect a response.
There will be no sticking to anyone tabletop RPG, or any one setting. Many of my ideas can easily be changed to any setting and with some work to any other system. Some days I might be talking about a cool idea I had for a Call of Cthulhu story and the next a character for a Modern D20 Future campaign. Feel free to suggest ways that such ideas could be changed to fit other systems or about other systems I should check out.
Basically I want this to be a place for me to spew forth all the amazing ideas my brain has, a resource for others to pick up stuff they like and for constructive dialogue about all of that. On the internet...yeah really I know right asking for a bit much huh.
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