Moni's catbox

Mythic Chartless

2010-01-15T13:03:00.003+01:00

I keep mentioning how I don't use Mythic by-the-book and most of my hacks are about adding or removing 10%. So here's an explanation of how I do Mythic rolls.

At first, I used the Fate Chart as provided, but it quickly dawned on me that I was annoyed by needing such a thing just to ask Mythic questions. So far, the good points of the chart I see in the long run are:

It gives you the extreme results numbers
It uses a curve that makes wide rank differences less potent

But I don't see these as incentive enough to keep using the Chart.

How I do it now:

I start at 50% (or a 50/50 rank if you will)
I add or remove 10% per rank difference between a skill and the difficulty (or another skill if it's a resisted question), giving a Target Number
I roll the d100 and look if I'm below or equal the Target Number (if so, it's a Yes, otherwise No)
I quickly check if I'm below 10 or above 90 (easily noticeable) and unless the Target Number was quite far from the average 50%, I consider it an Extreme Yes/No
If the TN is like 80 or 90%, it's a matter of adding +2% for each 10% shift from the average to know if I have an Extreme answer or not. It's not instant, but the case rarely comes up for me anyway... and I'm not too sad if I've missed a few Extreme answers here or there. Most of the time I eyeball it anyway.

What I like with this method is that as long as I have a d100, I can ask Mythic questions. Here's an example:

Does the archer shoot the apple in the tree?
We start at 50%
It's a small object and a bit of a distance away. Let's remove 20% because of difficulty. We're at 30%.
Our archer has the Bow skill at rank 3, which is +30%. We're at 60%.
There, we can roll our d100 : 25. Below 60, so it's a Yes, he does hit the apple. Woop!

If I had rolled 6, being obviously below 10, I would have known it was an Extreme Yes. Maybe he shoots three apples with that single arrow. If it had been 95, above 90, it would have been an Extreme No, and our archer would not be able to sit for a few days.
Finally, if he had been right next to the apple, it might have been a chance rating of 90%, in which case I might have been more careful with rolls below 20 and rolls near 100 (eyeballing it, 98 and above would be an Extreme No in that case?)

So there! That's how I do it. I have the nagging feeling I'm missing something cool about the Chart given how everyone seems to love it. If anyone could tell me what it is :)

GMing with Mythic - Player Emulation

2010-01-03T22:09:00.003+01:00

Today I tried something new I've been meaning to try for a while: emulating players with Mythic.

The concept is rather simple. You act as the GM and you host an adventure for X characters whose decisions won't be made by you, but by Mythic. The good thing is that it allows one to use premade modules, which is a nice change from having to imagine everything based on Mythic's answers. The "bad" thing is that it's just as tiring, if not more (for some reason), and it's a bit sad to see your characters escape your control (after all, you still have to create them, yet not control them).

Systems

Even worse is that I decided to try yet another system hack. I made a mix of PDQ# and Mythic. PDQ# is great in that a character ends up looking something like this:

Gruff, dwarf
Past: Senior Mechanics of his clan +2
Race: Dwarf +2 (techniques: stone cunning) (note: this is an addition of mine, races as a trait)
Motivation: Become a legendary dwarf +2
Main Forte: Warrior +4 (techniques: warhammer, brutal, charge, shield, thrown axes)
Prosthesis +2

Foibles: Overconfident, Mechanical prosthesis

Bam, that's it, you're done. No need for detailed equipment (obviously this one has a warhammer, a shield, probably some armor and some mechanical tools...), no need for detailed skills or feats or strengths or whatever (dwarves have darkvision, resist poisons and so on? that's all assumed under the "Dwarf +2" forte)
Techniques are (usually) linked to a forte and give a bonus if an action includes them somehow.

I've oversimplified things for my own hack, so it ends up going something like this:
Base chances are always 50%, modified by task difficulty. Any applicable forte gives a bonus rank (+10%). Any applicable technique also gives a bonus rank.

Mythic note: this is another of my hacks to Mythic. I don't use the Fate Chart. I just add or subtract 10% per rank. I'm pretty sure it messes up stuff here or there, but it's still fun.

Say Gruff wants to bash a door with his warhammer with brutal strikes. The door is somewhat strong, so I give a penalty of 2 ranks (-20%). He can use his Warrior forte for a bonus of 2 ranks (+20%) (I know, it says +4 but to fit Mythic I had to divide every PDQ value by 2). Since he's using his warhammer, his technique is valid (+10%). He's also doing it like a madman, so brutal goes too (+10%). He ends up at 50(base)-20+20+10+10 = 70% chances of making good damage to the door. With goblins, who are admittedly less sturdy than a door, it's more like 90%... Yeah, Gruff is a basher :)

What's great is that it's easy to create characters based on a concept... and it's easy to define bonuses to any action. As PDQ does it, you also get easy bonuses as long as you describe things the right way. The brutal technique will almost always give a bonus here, unless Gruff is trying to bash things silently (*chuckles*). It's not for powergamers, for sure :)

The Adventure

I ran a bit of the Dungeon of Akban, found in the free Quickstart for Sword and Wizardry. If you plan to play this adventure, stop reading now...

It was pretty difficult at first to switch from player to GM while still using Mythic. I had to think of what I would describe to these virtual players/characters... or in other words, what the characters themselves would see. Admittedly, this is only difficult because I've never GMed any D&D :).
Then, instead of deciding what the characters would do, I had to see what actions they might do and weight them for a question. I used 50/50, 33/33/33 and 25/25/25/25 when there were multiple possibilities. Sometimes, I had 50/40/10 because some options seemed much more logical than others (adventurers explore the room they're in before running to the new doors, right?)

The group of four (the dwarven warrior, a human pirate-adventurer, a gnomish alchemist and an elven swamp witch) started by exploring the first room. They happened upon a strange statue with magical flames. Here again, I had to ask if they were intrigued by the statue or not... They were. Were they intrigued by the flames? No... So they looked for some secrets hidden by the statue... and found none (I rolled the dice for them, as a GM would probably ask for rolls to keep some mystery as to wether there *is* something there or not... assuming clearly failed rolls would mean they were none the wiser).
At times, I had no idea what they might do, so I used Complex Questions (using a dictionary). It gave me some contradictory actions at times... They seemed uninterested by the flames... and a complex question just led them back to them... oh well! So they examined the flames some more... tried a stick in them... which burned... and then they got bored with it and tried the doors.

The door was chosen randomly, of course... Further directions too. They ended up in a room with giant ants which had digged tunnels from below. That's where Mythic did interesting things. As player, coming face to face with three giant ants, I might have not insisted much... or just attacked with simple tactics.
I asked if the group fleed, waited or attacked. They waited. They saw the ants didn't seem to mind them from where they were, but they had been clearly spotted. I asked if they fleed or attacked and, despite a low chance, they decided to attack. But next, the group closed the door (one of these contradictory Complex Questions). I asked if they now went back or had an attack plan instead, since they *were* about to attack... They had a plan indeed. But what?
I supposed they were going to boost themselves before the attack (among other things)... and asked which of the alchemist or the witch would do something. The alchemist apparently had an idea. Since I didn't describe any equipment linked to her skill (I went for a very freeform game àla FATE v3) she could come up with anything from acids to sleepy pills. Another Complex Question later, I had the answer: she would try to recreate the chemical scents used by ants to recognize each other, danger zones and such... Wow!

I assume most GMs, especially in a regular D&D game would just say "no way!". But hey, it seemed fun. I made the roll difficult but it succeeded anyway... and our gnome ended up with a vial of ant scent which everyone promptly spread on their bodies. I decided, as the GM, that it would only make the ants neutral.
The group went back in, searched the room without being bothered by the ants and ended up with gold pieces and a magic scroll (generated by my newly acquired D&D DM Guide :D). Lucky! I asked what they did then. I assumed players would usually be intrigued by the tunnels, so I included this in the possibilities. They were indeed... but thankfully not too much (I might have rigged that :P... didn't want to stray too far from the module... eh, railroading virtual players).

But what happened next was yet another surprise: apparently, they were not finished with chemicals. The gnome wanted to perfect her scent to make the ants friendly! I made it way more difficult but she still succeeded (really lucky roll...) so... she ended up with two friendly giant ant workers as bodyguards. I limited it by saying it was only for her, and would only last 6 minutes (1d10 mins). But wow...

The adventure went on with the discovery of a room full of goblins, their easy dispatching by the dwarf and the human pirate (no ants were used because of a very narrow corridor). Admittedly, it was 1) too easy, 2) rather boring because of this, 3) I had issues with my hack and went back to something closer to Mythic for the combat... which made this part quite frustrating. I was also getting quite tired by that point, which didn't help...

Conclusion

It was an interesting experience. I don't know if I really want to resume it later or if I will go back to what I did for Hollow's Last Hope. I mean, it's *really* fun to come up with strange plans thanks to Mythic inspiration, and it does feel like you have players with crazy ideas, but it's definitely not as fun as being in there and discovering things as you go or, at least, reacting to some rare Mythic surprises when playing through a premade module.

RP with Parents - UP, Part 2

2010-01-03T21:52:00.002+01:00

Contrary to my belief, we did end up playing the second session. Sadly, my mom was actually pretty tired and she had trouble focusing. She was also trying to think up a follow-up to the story bit she made up during the first session and, I think, lost a lot of energy/concentration on this. Once I knew, I told her she didn't *have* to... Mythic would help us build upon her seed. She just felt obliged to finish what she had started alone :|

Note: I haven't given details on what has actually happened in the story so far (nor even who the characters are), to avoid spoiling the movie "UP". I'll continue this way for now, but I might make a summary of the whole adventure in a clearly spoiler-marked post.

After some random obstacle from Mythic, the heroes actually reached their destination! And yet, things didn't seem finished. A bit of thinking revealed a new goal for my mom's character... but my dad's was pretty much done with his adventure and I was scared he would have nothing to do for the rest of the session.
Thankfully, that's when Mythic threw us a bone to gnaw at: a new character! It ended up being mine, meaning I would finally leave my GM seat for a player seat, leaving the obstacles fully to Mythic. My character gave an opportunity for my mom's to reach his goal... but they would have to stick together first. We used the occasion to bring my dad's character back in, too, and the adventure went on.

Not that much happened after that and we didn't have much time left. Obviously, we wouldn't be able to finish the new goals in a single session, so we just stopped at a quiet point. I seriously doubt we will ever finish this adventure either (it's hard to resume months after...) but it was quite fun while it lasted.

I also notice it's near impossible to describe anything interesting without giving details, so... I'll make a spoilery post later where I explain exactly what happened during the adventure.

RP with Parents - UP

2009-12-29T11:22:00.005+01:00

As my parents were here for the holidays, I couldn't help but get them into another roleplay session. At first we were going to continue the pulp adventures started during our last vacation, but then we watched UP, by Disney/Pixar. What happened is that we didn't like the movie that much... but we liked its beginning very much. After discussing this, I suddenly exclaimed: "I know! We should reset their story to when we stopped liking it and do our own version by playing the characters, and use Mythic to guide us." And that's what we did yesterday night.

Technicals

I didn't want to bog down enthusiasm with rules like the FATE ones we used last time, and since I've been into the Mythic rules lately, I went with a variation of these. The result was a mix of FATE, Mythic, Risus and recently discovered Lady Blackbird.
The characters were described through two attributes: Body and Mind, 0 being average, 1 above average, -1 below average, etc... These work like Mythic attributes. Then, I went "Risus"/"FATE v3" and simply described the characters with little sentences such as "Wannabe Explorer" and "Fan of that Cool Explorer Guy". It was pretty easy to find four or five short phrases describing each main character.
At first, I gave these ratings (1, 2, ...) but then I discovered Lady Blackbird that very day and used their system: if one of the phrases fits the situation, add a bonus rank to your roll (+10% with Mythic). If you're trying to calm down a wild animal and you have "Best Friend of all Animals" as a description of your character, you'll start with your Mind attribute and add a rank. If you have "Explorer of the Wild", you'll add another rank because, well, it's a wild animal.
Of note: I picked something from FATE v3 in that some of the phrases were goals and motivations rather than skills, just like Aspects might be. This would yield bonus ranks if your action happened to follow one of these goals directly.

Apart from game mechanics, Mythic was used to generate obstacles and the scene system was used with its characters and threads lists.

How it went

Pretty good! It seemed like everyone actually enjoyed the session more genuinely than it might have been last time. The "describing phrases" system was grasped very quickly and dice rolls were easy to prepare: pick Body or Mind depending on wether it was a physical or intellectual challenge, then go through the character description and add a rank for each fitting phrase. This would give us xx% chances of success, followed by the d100 roll of course.
I also kept Mythic's "Extreme Yes/No" rolls which gave us some interesting surprises.

Mythic's GM emulator was mostly used by myself, since I didn't have any character to play at first (I was waiting for a new NPC to appear and take its role). I asked questions that I hoped would yield some obstacles or fun situations. Following my lead, my parents soon started asking questions of their own. Furthermore, my mother came up with a story of her own at some point and I let her explain it. I only stopped her after some good exposition to keep her surprised by having Mythic decide a few of the finishing touches.
From that point on, though, Mythic took a nap because everyone was getting a good idea of where things were going. I tried to push Mythic forward once or twice to avoid having a single player tell the whole story, but it felt forced. I did use it still to settle some little disputes ("The next room is bigger" "Uhh, I'd have thought it would be smaller" -> "Is the room bigger? *roll*")

The GM emulator helped us a few times with its random events. Once it got us out of a rather uneventful situation and later it created tension where a character had to hide from a threat. The characters list was also used for these events. The threads list was updated with mysteries encountered during the story but didn't come up through events so far.

Considering how things went once everyone was comfortable with the story and mechanics, I think my parents would actually work better with a story-game. Probably not one with systems that push players to create stories within a framework (FATE Aspects were, I think, too restricting and meta), but one that allows everyone to chip in with bits of story. Heck, they might enjoy not *being* the characters but controlling them all "from above", so to speak. Collaborative storytelling... I know I found a game that used chips that players would use to introduce facts in a story and that could be payed off by others if they didn't like it... I bet this would work well for them.

The future

We're supposed to resume this game this afternoon but I don't know if it will be possible. My parents are leaving tomorrow and they're already tensed up (one day of car trip). If it keeps up like this, they won't be in the right mood for it and prone to bickering. We'll see...

In any case, I'll study the simplified system we used as I might enjoy it for my own games. It's easy to describe characters and very easy to find out bonuses.

Using Mythic with a module

2009-11-25T12:58:00.003+01:00

God I'm slow... Anyway, here's the first part of how I tried using a published adventure with Mythic and... got some issues at some point.

The adventure is the freely available (PDF) Hollow's Last Hope from Paizo. It's meant for D&D 3.5 with about four level 1 characters. I'll be spoiling things, obviously, so if you plan to play the adventure at some point and want all the surprises, you might not want to read this... I will try to keep to generalities most of the time, though, just because someone might want to try and solo it too.

I played with the four premade characters of the module, which I adapted to the FATE system (I hadn't bought the Mythic RPG rules back then). There's Valeros the fighter, Kyra the cleric, Seoni the sorceress and Merisiel the rogue.

The game starts with the PCs entering the town of Falcon's Hollow.
My group came in with a merchant whom they escorted. They got their salary and went on their merry way. I followed the module suggestion of linking at least a PC to someone from the town. Valeros thus knew a friend who he hadn't seen for years. Since this was not detailed in the module, Mythic was a good aid and my imagination was free to roam.

The friend's house hadn't changed and Valeros knocked. Follows the introduction of said friend's spunky young daughter, the bad surprise that said friend has caught a bad sickness and the whole town is actually touched. The local priests can't seem to do anything about it but the local herborist provides some potions to soothe the pain. It doesn't cure anything though.

All this previous part was made up as I went, and since I was writing on the computer for notes, I actually started writing a dialogue for all the characters and it was quite fun. It allowed me to develop personalities too. Mythic wasn't used here, but the game system was a few times.

Mythic interrupt! Yeah, we love these :P Absolutely outside of the original module boundaries, I came up with a bounty hunter stopping the group because he recognizes his quarry among them. Except he's wrong. Mythic was used here to define the bounty hounter (gender, minions, ...) and his actions. Random event! ... which I interpret as him suddenly getting the hots for one of the group ladies (I mean, "Create / Love"... c'mon!) and totally losing his cool. Some stuttering later, he's gone, but not before promising to return.
He was obviously added to the NPC list but hasn't popped up ever since. Which is sad.

This is where things went wrong. I tried to continue the adventure later, and wanted to try recording it as audio instead of typing (I don't even know why...) I was also tired, which didn't help with my patience and imagination.
Sadly, in a fit of exasperation, I deleted the recordings, so I have only my vague memories as proof of what went wrong. I remember having the group try to go to the herborist to learn more about the plague, but then fail somehow... and look elsewhere. This is where I went off the road of the module and tried to have Mythic help me. The biggest problem was that I still tried to keep to what the module explained about the town and the people in there, particularly the fact that there is a church with a main priestess and her acolytes. All I remember is that I was lost as to what to ask Mythic... I spent way too long reading the module to pick up details on the priestess (not much) and... I just gave up.

It gave me a cold shower at the time and I stayed cleared of the module for a long while. But it's obvious the context and I were at fault, not Mythic.

Thankfully, I ended up wanting to try again, forgetting about the mishap and starting over from when they tried to reach Laurel. By then, I had an eye condition that prevented me from looking at a computer screen for more than a few minutes in the bad days... so I wasn't going to type things... and I had to go audio once more. I was *very* wary of this, but it ended up going much better than I expected.

One thing I did was pull up the Neverwinter Nights game editor and select some audio background (music and ambient). It helped tremendously to set the mood and actually forced me to imagine the scenes to select the most appropriate sounds. I also tried to steer the story according to the module rather than push it offroad (I'm pretty sure that's what happened with the priestess part...) What I also did was switch to Mythic RPG. I converted the characters and used these rules for the rest of the game.

I'll listen to my recordings and make other posts sometime... soon... hopefully. But to sum it up: it went very well, with very cool surprises overall.

Summary of past weeks

2009-10-26T09:25:00.001+01:00

Again, it's been a long while... but I actually have lots to say about various things! I realize I should get started on them before I get overwhelm and post nothing at all ^^;

I'll have something to say about Mythic since I finally went back to trying premade modules played through Mythic. My first attempt had not been utterly satisfying but this new one went wayyy better. I don't think I have used any particularly clever trick to make it work, but I will describe things nonetheless, just in case. I keep screaming about lack of examples, so I better provide one ;)

I've also started a lunch-pause solo game at work and was surprised at what Mythic threw at me. I'll probably say a word about this one too soon.

Lately I've been reading through Planescape setting material as I took a new slap by Planescape Torment (which I've yet to finish!). The setting is just soooo different than the usual without being *totally* something else... Hopefully, I'll launch myself into a solo game of it soon, too.

And finally, I've gone back to Neverwinter Nights. Following my current obsession, I looked for Planescape modules. The first one was a big disappointment, but I still have another one to try. The other thing is that I suddenly wanted to play a Tiefling... and a properly stated one! I used LETO, character editor, to do it, adding custom items to simulate things the game wouldn't do on its own (racial resistances and powers). So far, so good :D... I'm actually going through the Original Campaign (/w Aribeth), which I found very boring the first time around (stopped at Chapter 2), and am now enjoying quite a bit. I'm roleplaying the character in my head (more or less) and try to do clever stuff with my familiar (oh yeah, she's a Sorcerer-Rogue tiefling) and... I can't explain why exactly, but I'm getting a very good vibe from the game.

I'll go into the Mythic games next time!

In the meantime...

2009-09-15T19:45:00.002+02:00

Wow, uh... it's been a while!

No, the blog isn't utterly dead, but I have not found interest nor courage to post about new things in detail. So here's a summary post instead!

Tired

First thing of note : I've been veeeery tired lately. Might be my allergy, a lack of vitamin or something else. In any case, it definitely affects my output.

DBZ game + Mythic

It's a strange thing but I have been having fun with it! I picked up Dragon Ball Z - Budokai Tenkaichi 2, a fighting game on PS2 which I've played quite enough to be almost bored with (I know the story from the manga, the anime and playing the game multiple times).
And then it occured to me I could use Mythic to create a whole new story. Instead of using a RPG ruleset, I'd push the story towards brawls and use the game (which is customizable to an extent) to play through the fights.

It worked rather well, providing a pace very similar to the source, with surprisingly lots of talking and searching around and not that many fights (in spite of my pushing!). What I really liked in the end was how it breathed life into a game I barely played anymore (a few fights once every two months) and how losing a fight is actually a possibility with an impact on the story (the provided story mode, of course, has you retry until you succeed... even when the characters are supposed to lose in the story).

I might apply this to other games in the future.

Planescape Torment

Got back into it after a lot of thinking back to how fun it was but how I never finished it. I had a renewed blast dicovering Sigil and its incredible setting and meeting so many interesting characters. Sadly, after some time, the game seems to throw a lot more dungeons at you than story and it's already making me less motivated :/. Hopefully I can muster enough motivation to go through them to grab at the better bits.

Planescape

Following my new Torment craze, I gave a more extended look at the original Planescape setting (AD&D 2e). I'd really like to get the original box and/or the book about Sigil but man have these gone rare and pricey (double and more the original price for new or almost new quality).
I hate this rarity thing :|...

Random dungeons

It seems I have finally found the game to play when I'm too tired for the rest! I went with something strongly inspired by Raiders of the Ruins of Kanthe, removed things, added new ones and ended up with something fun (for me at least).
RotRoK (grrmf) goes with a simple idea : create your own random tables ahead of the game (10 monsters, 10 room features, 10 types of traps, ...) and roll on them to generate your dungeon content.

Where Kanthe pre-generated the dungeon layout, I do room by room generation. Where Kanthe uses a pool matching system, I use a "dungeon skill" one (dungeon has Treasure +2, roll dice + 2 and try to beat a medium number; success means there's a treasure here). But the rest is pretty much all Kanthe and I'm probably going to grab a few more things from it like item generation.

The great thing about the core concept is that even though you're the one writing the tables, you have no idea when or IF something will appear during your crawl. And you don't know in what context. The mix of room types, monsters, their power, the treasures you might find, wether doors are trapped or locked, and so on and so on, makes for actual surprises, and yet does not have to feel terribly vanilla. The dungeon is what you make of it: good tables should end up giving good adventures.

Also, to avoid too much randomness and add a bit of logic in there, I associate features and other things with dungeon skill bonuses. You're more likely to find a treasure in a chest for example, so the Treasure roll is boosted for that feature. You are more likely to encounter opposition if you hear strange noises coming from the next rooms, so the Opposition roll is boosted.

The mapping is still rather random and it's certainly not worth a Mythic-run session, but it lets my brain rest by giving me clear cut answers to "what's in there?" and yet pleasing me, since I devised the answers beforehand.

My most lucky rolling so far was a dark room where I managed to sneak through, avoiding four goblin archers who could have had an easy shot at me through a metal portcullis.

Gutter Skypes

I have also gone back to my pre-sleep half hour of listening to the Gutter Skypes podcast. I'm very bad at going to sleep on time when I have nothing specific to do when nearing midnight, and the podcast gives me that clear cut "half an hour of fun before sleeping" (note: I split the session in half-hour parts myself; the actual stuff is usually two and a half hour long)

Oh and it IS fun. A loads of it! The Skypers have gone through games of Spirit of the Century, Starblazer, Hollow Earth Expedition, Cartoon Action Hour and Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies. The guys are hilarious, both with their asides and with their (good!) roleplaying. One of the listeners said it was "like being at the table with a group of friends" and it is utterly true. I highly recommend it!

Mythic - Location Generator

2009-08-04T16:32:00.000+02:00

I've been meaning to make posts about what I've added to the Mythic system for my personal use. After some more tests, I think I'm ready to show what I have come up with.

It is by no means final, but my current tests were satisfying. Also, it's nothing big: I'm just reusing what Mythic taught me and presenting a new tool among the Mythic tools. Finally, I can vouch it works for me, but not that it will work for everyone :). This said, I still hope it will be of some use to others, if at least as a springboard to yet other tools for Mythic.

Quick Mythic summary - People in the know, skip to the next paragraph!

Mythic is a system for roleplaying games (primarily) that allows you to determine things out of your control through Yes/No questions and a roll of dice. It offers additional tools tailored to specific situations such as Complex Questions, Scene Management and such... It is very useful to play a tabletop RPG on your own or with an all-player team (no Game Master), and can be used for wargaming too. I find it's an interesting tool for writing inspiration too.

Generating locations

The main system

I use a system initially created to generate dungeon themes (abandoned haunted mine, forest vine labyrinth, ...), now adapted to more generic locations and certainly adaptable to other things.

My problem: while Mythic answers Yes/No and Complex questions, I quickly realized it didn't really work for me when I was trying to come up with places, rooms and dungeons. Say you're walking through a forest. You ask "do I find something peculiar while I walk?" YES. Okay... but what? If you want to be surprised and have that peculiar something be something wholly new, where do you start? What kind of questions can you ask? There are so many possibilities that I found it mind-boggling myself, and I was rather scared I would keep coming up with the same questions, hence getting dull discoveries.

My solution: simplify the process by letting chance choose what to ask about. Then keep using Mythic as usual.

The issue : it uses random tables. If anyone can think of a solution that works similarly but without random tables... please share :)

Location types

I tried to come with things that would define a location quickly, yet leave an open field of possibilities. For this, I use an initial roll on the Location Types table which follows:

Portal
Lone dwelling
Dwellings
Camp
Utility building
Structure
Plane
Water source
Obstacle
Difficult terrain
Particularity

I know I can make this table better, but for now it will do. The main idea is that types are vague enough, yet not *too* vague that there would be a thousand questions left. "Water source" is currently the type I'm less fond of as it's already a bit too precise.

Attributes

Once the type is defined, I roll three times on the Location Attributes table:

Hot/Cold
Surface/Underground
Structured/Chaotic
Light/Dark
Solid/Unstable
Toxic/Pure
Natural/Urban
Clean/Dirty
Damp/Dry
Mechanical/Mystical
Divine/Demonic
New/Old
Visible/Hidden
Easy/Hard to access
Populated/Deserted
Decorated/Sober
Good/Bad shape
Big/Small

This table is also a work in progress and some entries might be left out depending on the setting, or taken at metaphorical value. You will notice each attribute is actually a "something or something" entry. Each entry is meant to be a Mythic question and can get YES, NO but also ABSOLUTELY and NOT AT ALL answers. This gives more variety than the usual tables where you'll see "Populated" and "Deserted" as separate entries.

Function or Fact

Tests showed that even with types and attributes, I was often left wondering about what location I had really encountered. This is where I'll use a single Complex Question and either get the Function of a building or structure, or ask for a Fact about the location (it can be something the location does to people or what people do to the location... it's very context sensitive).

Examples

All the tools lay bare... time to use them!

A)

Context : A lone adventurer explores a cave. Medieval Fantasy.

I roll for Type : Utility building (this is meant to be any building with a function and since we're in a cave, I'd be tempted to say it extends to any sort of "construction")

Populated/Deserted : (98 vs 50) Not at all -> There's not a single soul here, nor has there been for a long time.
Visible/Hidden : (98 vs 50) Not at all -> I'd fathom it's actually invisible!
Lit/Dark : (9 vs 50) Absolument -> And yet it's emitting a large amount of light? I admit this is peculiar.

Given how mysterious this all is, I go on and ask for the function of this strange building :
Oppress / Riches.

Lacking context, it's a bit hard, but since I'm thinking of some medieval fantasy setting, with bits of steampunk, I imagine this to be a very well camouflaged building. It's not lit right away, but if you happen to pass in front of it while carrying riches (gold, or maybe anything metalic), it lights up and sounds an alarm.

I admit, I have no idea what this would be doing in a cave... but it's hard without context. As is, this is not my best example to date but I really wanted to do it on the fly... and 'lo! I stumble upon a case where the results are not good. The thing with Mythic and sub-tools though, is that I never know if Mythic is to blame... or my lack of imagination at the time. So, any person out there saw something else in these attributes?

B)

Same context, to see what else we can get... hopefully better.

Type : Difficult Terrain

Natural/Civilized : (17 vs 50) Yes -> Natural, it was not created by anyone.
Mechanical/Mystical : (49 vs 50) Yes -> Mechanical, since it was not created by anyone, it will just mean that it's not magical and is based on simple physics.
Decorated/Sober : (20 vs 50) Yes -> Decorated. Again, since it was not created, I will say that the terrain has some visual appeal.

Fact : Oppose / Pain
(here I picked a fact because a natural occuring is not meant to have a function... it just is)

Admittedly, this one is also very difficult for me but I have come up with something, although a bit far-fetched compared to the results : the adventurer enters a large room filled with stalagtites and stalagmites. It's a very beautiful sight as the natural formations glisten like precious stones. But the room is dangerous! Not only is it difficult to walk through (many pikes on the ground), but any loud sound will shatter the fragile structure, making for a deadly trap to the unwary.

The "fact" is the one giving me the most problems. I pushed it towards "the terrain refuses to be hurt", and that's when I thought "if anyone breaks one of the spikes, the sound makes everything crumble". Now, though, the fact could be something very indirect : the minerals of which the rock formations are made is used in alchemical potions to help ease the pain (oppose pain). Will adventurers be bold enough to pull out tools and carve bits out of it? Tink tink tink CRASH! Risky endeavour.

C)

Now here's one of my early tests. Context : a fairytale-like setting where violent conflicts are reduced to a minimum. It focuses on the employees of a magical shop, one of which, Framboise, gathers ingredients in various locations.

Type : Difficult terrain

Good/Bad shape : (17 vs 50) Yes -> Good shape
Surface/Underground : (33 vs 50) Yes (*double*) -> Surface (since these are Mythic questions, there *can* be random events on a double -- we'll get to it after the attributes)
Solid/Unstable : (28 vs 50) Yes -> Solid/Stable

The random event : PC Positive (there's only Framboise here), Expose/Enemies

Fact : Carelessness / Fear -> The terrain makes you scared to be careless, because of the consequences.

From this, I came up with a stream running through the forest, with a slightly strong current. A large log lays across, allowing passage. According to the attributes, it's good wood, solid and stable: it won't break nor roll out of the way easily. Admittedly, not much of a dangerous terrain. But the random event made this fun:

Here I used FATE to know if Framboise crossed it: yes (it was an easy roll, really, even though Framboise is all but athletic). But there goes the random event : the terrain "exposes an enemy", which is a good thing for Framboise.
Said enemy is visibly clumsy as it falls down the log into the stream, revealing its presence.

Who is it? Why was Framboise followed? Will she help this stalker out of the waters?

Conclusion

Most of my early tests were more positive than A and B. C is where it's at most of the time. That said, there are clearly still issues. I'll work on them, but I'd be glad to hear some opinions in the meantime :)

Spirit of the Century with my parents - Part 2

2009-08-03T22:53:00.001+02:00

Report of the second session of roleplaying with my parents, using Spirit of the Century, with a Savage Worlds scenario.

We left our heroes on a trip to North Africa, Tobrouk. There they were supposed to meet a local guide who accompanied the Hunter Museum agent and would lead them to where he was seen last.

Upon arriving though, the only welcome they get is from a young taxi. The heroes don't believe he can drive his nice Peugeot and get suspicious, asking for proof. The boy does know the established password though. Thus, Alband takes the wheel and the group drives to the guide's location.

Or at least tries! Soon enough, two white cars appear, and one shot breaks the rear window. This is a pursuit!

Here I wanted to try the chase rules from Spirit of the Century. Their originality is that they put the driver in the... front seat, so to speak, and have every other ally act only as a helper: the driver picks the best roll among the PCs'.

Two things were awkward here :

My dad kept describing a bit too much compared to the rules. He would keep saying his action defeated the pursuing car, but the rolls showed only some damage was done. I can't blame him one bit though. First, it was still a "first time" with roleplaying games, and we all know one of the early mistakes as a player is to try to control too much of what happens. Second, he was just enjoying the game! The results he described simply made sense based on the action he attempted (and yes, he did succeed, just didn't do enough damage). For this, I have to say I felt bad for even trying to explain why it didn't work. I prided myself in focusing on what my parents would find fun, but there I failed, sticking a bit too close to the rules. My parents just wanted a fun story, and if "easier/quicker" means "funnier", then that's what I should have gone with.

The other thing was the rules themselves. I was not entirely satisfied with how it went. While the driver was put forward, Alband, my dad's character, was not *that* great at driving (+2 bonus where +4 or +5 would have been the very good value). He did have an ally (Aqua) with a gun and some wit, and he could also have had another ally in the form of the young taxi, but things went well enough that I didn't feel forced to use him. I had difficulties with how the rounds went. The driver has to decide on a driving feat to try for the round, and assign a difficulty (this was very hard for my father to do, and I tried to suggest things as much as possible). It's a game of gamble where you bet you'll do better than the pursuer (who had +0 for driving). We kept having +1 or +2 as a difficulty which was fair given Alband's skill.

What went wrong is that my dad couldn't come up with anything interesting after two rounds. He seemed really lost and I think he was getting frustrated that the run was still on. I'm still amazed at how much imagination they displayed these two evenings, but I can understand the well runs dry at some point, especially if the context doesn't change much. Help came from Aqua: as the "helper", she tried other things to slow the pursuers. She shot a jar of olive oil to make a slippy road, shot some tires and... oh yeah, predicted some road hazard (she has visions). According to the rules, though, I don't think the helpers are meant to create trouble for the driver, but it's what we did here, so my dad's roll would mean something. Jars of oil? Even though it was meant for the pursuers, the shot is too early and Alband has to avoid the oil too. The predicted road hazard also affects Alband. While it worked, it felt weird and I don't think that's what the rules intended. I don't remember the rules mentioning maneuvers from helpers either, even though it makes sense that one would drive, and another would place a "slippy street" aspect on the scene for example.

In the end, I think it would have been easier to do it as a regular battle, everyone helping everyone. I would have allowed extra actions such as shooting while driving if needed, and I would have put forward any cool driving action to make this a focus on Alband.

Finally, the two white cars have taken enough bumps from walls of market stands that they stop. The scenario suggested explosions but I wanted to keep it family friendly. It also suggested the players would go look at the wreckage... not my parents ^^;. So I had to put up a police barrage a bit further to put them back on the rails (ohhh bad, I know, but I'm a beginner too...) The point was not to have them look at the cars, but to have them arrested so the local guide (a man with relations) can get them out of jail.

I changed two things so far to tailor the scenario to my group: the taxi boy was supposed to be the driver in the chase, leaving others time to shoot and stuff. Since Alband said he wouldn't let the kid drive and I did want to have him at the center of the chase, I just went with this happily. Then, I had them arrested for all the ruckus (market day, quite a bit of damage, though not all their fault of course). But Alband, another one to have relations, didn't stay put in the cell and had a phone call to one important local guy. Of course they would be free anyway, but since he went through this trouble, I included this in the following scene where the guide only "made things a bit quicker". I hope it was enough to not steal their thunder.

Follows a long explanation of what happened with the museum agent, where he went, how they had troubles from the get-go and how he foolishly went into the desert once he got information on the whereabouts of the Lost Army (the Mc Guffin of the scenario). Of course, our heroes were not to be so hasty and needed preparations.
I first planned to stop there, but it seemed we could push a bit further, reaching a nice cliffhanger to end the session, and since everyone was go, that's what we did.

FATE not being too big on precise inventory, I just asked what kind of rather unique items they might bring with them. Alband hired a bunch of extra armed aides, bought weapons for them, and some for himself. Not sure what Aqua got anymore...

Here, the scenario has you go through the desert to reach a hidden temple. It contains the famed whereabouts of the Lost Army, key to finding our lost agent. But we didn't go there right away! My mom, during the first session, helped me find an incentive for her character's presence in this mission (she's an artist, not *really* an adventurer, even though adventure follows her): she would be looking for a rare pigment in a rocky region of the desert. So that's where we went first. I didn't want to drag things too much though, so the pigment was found and gathered easily enough. I think I had them do an Endurance roll for colors ("the sun is starting to get to you and you sweat much more than you can bear").

Finally, they reached the temple where a well was uncovered: it was the alternate entrance to the ruined temple. They went down with a rope, found a tunnel halfway down and started exploring. Lit only with a petrol lantern, they looked around old halls of stone, walls covered in hieroglyphs (which they couldn't read... oh well, just some background story missed). Once they reached a circular room, a slithering noise came from the walls: snakes! Why does it always have to be snakes?!

And that's where we stopped the session. I don't know when we will be able to continue, considering the vacation is over (it's been a week), but who knows... maybe next holidays :)

Lessons learned

Keep It Simple! Simple is fun. Still too many rules or too complex ones. Fights might not even be a good idea anymore: just roll some skills, freestyle.

Try to give some more narrating powers to my parents next time. More than once, I've seen them step forward far enough to start stepping on my GM toes. I could tell them "no" and explain how it's the GM's role and stuff, but I think it will be easier and funnier to just say "okay, tell me what happens then" and roll with it, possibly with a skill roll if it seems a bit too farfetched or controling.

Going even further than this, I'm tempted to try using Mythic to let us all play together as PCs. It might be a bit scary to them (and me), but at least it would allow us to have a truely tailored scenario. It's even more important given that the current scenario goes on in a very Mummy-esque way, with too much fantasy stuff for their taste... so Mythic would help veer this elsewhere without me having to come up with a whole new scenario on my own.

Murder in a Wheel

2009-07-22T10:30:00.006+02:00

Still going through my backlog of adventure games...

One of my latest tries was Murder in a Wheel. The title made me think of something very strange at first ("Planescape" came to mind). But it's a lot more down to earth than that. Here, let me steal the tiny introduction from the game's very page:

A Locked Room Mystery
Story: Roderick, Lady Blackwin's beloved Hamster, was murdered. It is up to you to solve the crime and find the killer.

It's as simple as that. Or is it?

The game looks very much like the LucasArts games I loved (Monkey / Indy / Tentacles), if not even better when it comes to backgrounds (they did something with colors and lighting that I like very much). The intro splash screen was enough to grab my heart and send me back 15 years. It plays like you'd expect it too: a bunch of classic verbs, an inventory, items to use and misuse and characters to talk to. The only differences come from the investigative genre: giving items to people is more about "what can you tell me about this?" than actually giving the item.

The game is not too difficult. I had to resort to a walkthrough only once, and only because I didn't do something more or less obvious with an item. Oh, there's one instance where you have to do something with no clear goal in view, but at least what you have to do is nonetheless obvious given what you know and the items you have. The game plays well, is very polished and very amusing too. Despite the contemporary and rather realistic setting, it does have a few fourth-wall jokes here and there but I didn't mind them as the laughs they gave were enough compensation for slightly breaking the illusion.

I have tried a few other indie adventure games after this one, and none managed to grab me as this one did. You can guess it's a highly recommended game from me :)

(also, I just noticed the title ends up as "MiaW", which is clever)

Playing Spirit of the Century with my parents

2009-07-17T11:29:00.005+02:00

Yesterday, I launched a new rpg adventure of Spirit of the Century (SotC)... with my parents.

We had already tried a game back in April, when they visited, as a way of showing them what roleplaying games are like, and because I felt like DMing a tabletop game, which I hadn't done in quite a while. Back then, sadly, my father was not really into it because he had something to do early in the next morning and it kept him preoccupied. But at my big surprise, my mother said she thought it was enjoyable, and not how she envisioned it. Of course, I made sure to cater to their preferences, avoiding big supernatural happenings, monsters or even combat. Even more surprising was when my mother asked, mid-game, if her character could use telekinesis. Accommodating, and happy to see such an unexpected thing, I agreed and we added this to the character: a toned down telekinesis power.

Back to now. I'm on vacation at my parents' and I brought my roleplaying materials, having asked beforehand if they were interested in a more complete rpg experience. And so we got to it last night. It started on a sour note as my dad was once again distracted by a coming storm (we're in the country and storms need to be prepared for). Thankfully, the storm was quiet enough and we got a whole evening of gaming.

I wanted to try an actual character creation (last time we just picked a few skills, vague character types and went on with it) and we spent about 2 hours on it. I limited it to three phases : youth, first adventure and common adventure. I introduced Aspects, but it was obviously a bit too complex so early on, so we worked together to work out what happened in each phase and I tried to come up with interesting Aspects from what had been said. We ended up with a famous french artist with mystic powers (mainly sixth sense and premonitions, but occasionally other things like telekinesis, by paying a Fate Point) and a bit of an investigative streak, and a son of a rich entrepreneur, all about charming and charging head on, not caring much about wasting money, but very attached to his own properties.

Once the characters were done, there was still some time, and I knew we could get the very first part of the adventure done... And I thought it was necessary to avoid the feeling that this session was "wasted" (apparently it really didn't feel like actual playing, and I can understand that).
The first part has the PCs called by a museum manager for a mission, but before anything is told, African tribal warriors crash into the room, looking for revenge upon the manager (who visibly stole some artifact from them). Combat ensues...

This was yet another new thing : battles. I knew my parents wouldn't be too much into such things, based on what they tend to like, and how they react to games I show to them, but I wanted to try it at least once. It went pretty quickly, with only 4 minions to beat up. Surprisingly, to me, my parents didn't hesitate using their firearms to get rid of the enemies. To keep things "clean", though, I always described things as non mortal wounds and without any gorey effects (I don't care much for them in a pulp setting, and I know it might have put them off). I tried to explain Maneuvers at that point, too, but it was too much, so we just ignored it.
In the end, two warriors were scared away as the mystical artist managed to tap into her telekinetic powers to crash a book shelf near them (she made incantation-like moves, pretending to be a sorceress of sorts), and the two others were taken care of by the rich son's rifle-cane. Very pulpy :)

The museum manager then explained the mission he had for them, and we just brushed over some preparations for the trip (we still had a few minutes and I thought it would allow us to jump straight into the action for the next session).

Overall, I'm very happy with this session! My father, in particular, who didn't seem into it at first, ended up with a well developed character and apparently had fun doing this. But really, even my mom seemed to get into it as I suggested possibilities for her powers and such (she doesn't like "weird stuff", but I guess some of it is fine).
I don't know how much the battle was enjoyed, if any. I'll have to ask. At least, it didn't seem to annoy at the time.

Next session will start with a car chase in the middle of a north african market, which should be quite involving since my dad's character has Drive as a skill :)

Addendum

The scenario played is "L'Armée Perdue", a french scenario for Savage Worlds.

The characters novels were :

Aqua Martre and the Phantom of the Louvre: about the theft of many paintings, then returned... but as fakes! Aqua reveals they're fake and goes after the Phantom, but he eludes her, and one painting is still missing.
Alband Duchiron in The Theft of the Trophy: where Alband's well deserved golf trophy is stolen as he is about to receive it. It is retrieved after a thrilling car chase and Alband discovers the trophy was actually an ancient artifact disguised by a coat of fake gold.
Aqua Martre and Alband Duchiron against the Pacific Pirates: where both heroes meet for the first time, battling against modern pirates as they were sailing towards New York. Alband shows he doesn't care for mysticism and Aqua makes use of her innocent looks to deceive the pirates.

Fate Heroes - Part 2 - Gnomes

2009-07-07T19:41:00.006+02:00

Follow up to Part 1. We left our hero, Minuteman, victorious over a group of disorganized bank robbers and running to the rescue of Man-o-War, one of his Freedom Force buddies.

Intent : Go to the St Johns church and investigate
d10 (6) : no change (I assume a permanent Chaos Factor of 5 by the way)

For the ones who don't know Mythic, the above is where you declare what the next scene should logically be, then roll a dice which result tells you if it happens as is, or with a twist (scenes can be Altered or Interrupted).

Minuteman reaches the church after a few minutes spent crossing the town.

Are there signs of conflict? No -> The church and surroundings look undisturbed.
Are there people near the church? No -> No one is explicitely at the church... just passersby.

"Odd, it is as if nothing happened!" says Minuteman with suspicion.

He tries to contact Mentor through their telepathic link.

Setting note : Mentor is an alien with mental powers (duh, uh? :p), co-creator of Freedom Force and provider of many technological wonders. For more : http://www.giantbomb.com/mentor/94-1212/

Does he reply? (very likely) Not at all

"Mentor? Mentor?! I... I don't feel the telepathic link at all anymore! What is going on?"
Minuteman is getting worried but decides to at least take a look inside the church before going back to the Freedom Fortress.

Is there something unusual inside the church? Yes
What exactly? (here I tried a random event to get an answer but it wasn't inspiring so I went back to questions)
Is the inside destroyed? Yes -> It didn't look like it from outside but the church is in a bad shape.
Does it look like the results of an explosion or hand-made destruction? No -> Furniture and statues have taken visible hits.
Is there someone visible in there? Absolutely -> There's more than one person!
Are they familiar? No
Do they look responsible for the damage? Yes -> They're still wrecking what's left standing.

What do they look like? (I tried picking a random word from the dictionary but, again, wasn't inspired, so I switched to a set of D&D monster types tables I adapted)
Came up with "Swarm Fey" -> It's a group of small humanoid creatures similar to lawn gnomes in size and garbs. They are crawling over statues, running around, smashing things and cackling. It's quite the chaotic vision!

They look busy enough and Minuteman would rather take them by surprise: he tries to sneak on the side, behind some intact benches.

Stealth vs Alertness : -1 vs 1. Not good for Minuteman!

FATE allows paying Fate Points in these cases and get either a +2 or a reroll. Problem is : you need to tag an appropriate Aspect (either of your character, of the scene or of another character). So at that point, I wanted to know more about the evil gnomes, in a slightly pushy way I admit:

Do the gnomes have an Aspect defining a focus on destruction such as "Destroy! Destroy!!!" (that could be tagged to mean they're not paying attention)? Not at all -> Obviously, it backfired ;)
Instead, they get an aspect for their "sensitive hearing". I also note to give them a few points in Alertness when I start defining their stats. In any case, Minuteman is not making this roll any better...

The steps of Minuteman echo through the church and the gnomes all turn their head at the same time, looking to the source of this noise.

Have they seen him?
Stealth vs Investigation : 1 vs 2

Yes, the gnomes have spotted Minuteman.

Do they attack? (very likely) -> Yes!
Are they 1 or 2 zones away? No -> They're near the altar while our hero is near the entrance, slightly to the side. That's 2 zones away.

Main skill of the gnomes : Melee or Athletics? No -> Athletics

Evil gnomes

Fair (+2) : Athletics
Average (+1) : Melee, Alertness

Aspects :
Sensitive hearing (invoke to notice sounds, can be tagged to confuse them with loud noises)
Creepy little brats (invoke for small size and persistence)

How many are there? 5+d6 (3) = 8 -> Two groups of 4 gnomes (+2 group bonus for each on all actions)

I don't want to go into too much detail for the actual fight, so I'll keep to the highlights. Mythic didn't have any role here, but FATE was there to provide some narrative incentive instead.

It starts with Minuteman lifting the bench he was trying to hide behind and waiting for the gnomes to come closer (2 zones is a bit far to throw items with FATE... not very superheroesy, but I'm planning to fiddle with this rule later). The gnomes all run towards our hero but (failing their Athletics checks) stumble over each other and fail to progress much.

Now that they're closer, Minuteman throws the bench on the bunch (huhu). He barely fails his roll though (gets a total of 0 which isn't enough to deal damage) and has to invoke "Might makes right!" to get some damage done, killing two gnomes (they're groups of minions so attacks "go through").
In their counterattack, none of the groups manages to get anything done to Minuteman. Worse! They fail so much that he gets spin... twice! (it's a +1 on your next attack or defense). Even though no actual damage was done on the gnomes as a result, I described it as them being roughed around, thrown against walls or crushed under boots. Just enough to keep them at bay :)

Next round, Minuteman kills two gnomes again, but has to resort to invoking "For Freedom!" (saving Man-o-War being, in a way, For Freedom... Force!) to get a +2.

Mythic was used here to know if the gnomes were artificial or organic : mechanical lawn gnomes or actual gremlin-like horrors? They turned out to be organic, so more "splortch" than "crack".

Once again, none of the gnomes manages to land a hit. Since they're minions, they can't use Fate Points until they get one through the tagging of one of their Aspects... which never happened, so... no FPs for the gnomeys.

Since the fight was getting a bit long, I really wanted to finish this quickly and used yet another Fate Point (I kept getting 0's for some reason, thanks dice!). This time, two gnomes go flying through the church, landing behind the altar.
Finally, one of the remaining gnomes clings to Minuteman's leg and gets a bite.

But it's their last action as they end up crushed in the ground the next round.

I tried to make the fight as cinematic as possible in my head, acting out status quo and even failures of the dice as positive actions anyway, just not terribly effective ones (and definitely mechanically neutral ones). I've found that doing this helps staying focused on fights (especially long ones) and gives some ideas on how to use Aspects or what kind of Maneuvers to attempts. I haven't used Maneuvers so far, but they're basically the alternative to attacks that allow you to place a new Aspect and invoke it for free once if the roll succeeds. It's especially powerful with a team of PCs.

This said, this is where I stopped so far, a few inches from the end of Scene 2. Next scene should have Minuteman going back to the Freedom Fortress... if Mythic is willing :). I might continue this during my two weeks vacation starting next week, depending on mood and other occupations.

Spooks & Nanobots

2009-07-05T16:18:00.007+02:00

After playing so much Dwarf Fortress, I obviously ended up slightly fed up with it (I just can't take things in moderation and that's how it usually ends up... thankfully I don't drink alcohol!).

Last time my friend came and made me want to try out Dragon's Lair again, he brought Still Life 2, an adventure game, to show it to me. I showed him one of the indie adventure games I discovered during the last years: Spooks. And yesterday, I felt like playing it again, knowing it wasn't extremely long. Once done, I remembered reading the author had made another game: Nanobots, and I went on to try this one too.

Spooks

Download link

The game was made with Adventure Game Studio (AGS) by Erin Robinson, aka "The Ivy" and is about a young ghoul named Mortia visiting the Carnage Val in the Land of the Dead. It's gray all around and looks like lots of fun! Well... okay, no, actually Mortia is quite bored there, and her cynical take on things is not helping, though it's the source of many laughs.

Soon enough, Mortia is coerced into playing a seemingly harmless game of darts. What she does win is beyond all imagination : a fish... that is "alive"! Why isn't the fish gray like everything else? What does "alive" mean? Why are these strange authority officers looking for it? This is just too mysterious for Mortia to ignore and she decides she will help the little fish get out of there. But first, she must find out more about the word "alive".

Spooks grabbed me way back then because it looked so much like the adventure games of my teen years. It's full of pixelly goodness and of rather good quality. What it might lack in graphical polish, it makes up for with its style (it has a somewhat Tim Burton feel, for lack of a better comparison). And of course, it has funny dialogues, unique characters to meet, and puzzles!

The puzzles are not terribly hard but not incredibly easy either! It's just the right dosage to get your brains running without frying them up in frustration. The game is not very long (a few hours) and considering I'm an adult with a job, it's something I appreciate now. I'd say it's possible to finish in one sitting but it might take two if you get stuck.

Overall, it's a very good mix of all its parts, making a very nice adventure game. Apparently there's a even a sequel in the making!

Nanobots

Download link

Nanobots is also made with AGS and, as I said, by the same author. It's not always obvious wether an author can follow a good game by another good game, but I'm glad to say Erin has been on a roll, and hopefully will continue to be :)

This time, the story takes place in a dorm where Groovy Greg, a hippie student, is trying to finish his project: build robots that can love. What he ends up with are the Nanobots, a group of specialized tiny bots with an attitude. So much attitude that they keep bickering instead of working together. Greg is desperate as it means he will fail his grade, which his thesis professor, Mr Killfun, is quick to remind him. He is also quick to reveal a nefarious plan as soon as Greg leaves to get some rest: the professor plans to crush the Nanobots so that *he* can reveal his own LoveBot to the world! Muahaha--*ding!* Oh, coffee, I'll be back in a minute.

A good thing for the Nanobots that the professor is so unfocused as it gives them the time to hopefully make an escape! Except... they're on a desk, very far from the ground, and with no obvious way down. And they're still bickering. But it's time for them to unite their strengths to get out of this in one piece!

The games I was reminded of by Nanobots is the Goblins series because of how each character has a specialty and must work as a team to get through trouble. It's not *just* like Goblins though, as there's no "timed coordinated sequences" at all, and there are way more characters in the team AND they're really specialized. I thought it was interesting because it challenged you to think a bit differently.

One other difference is that each bot can only carry one item and can't drop them. They need to exchange with another bot if they need something else. This particular aspect was not my favorite as it got frustrating after a while. I suppose one important thing in adventure games is to make sure the player is not slowed down by the interface as he's already busy trying to solve puzzles. It still worked, but it could have been better. The only good side of it I found is that it created some (possibly) emergent puzzles of the "how the hell do I pick that up when my hands are full and no other bot can pick what I'm carrying?" variety. But really, even though I'm mentioning it, it's definitely a *cough* nano-problem compared to the whole thing :)

As with Spooks, most of the fun is in the dialogues, unique characters and cute graphics. Oh, there's even a "hidden" hint system in there ;). It helped me quite a bit.

The game is moderately difficult. I got really stuck twice and had to resort to a walkthrough. One of these I could have found by myself but my brain got stuck in one way of thinking that just prevented it. The other, I didn't regret, because I just wouldn't have figured it out. But every puzzle is logical so I don't think the game is at fault here.

Again, another very good adventure game, although it needs a bit of interface polish to remove some unneeded frustration here and there. I strongly recommend playing the tutorial by the way, as it teaches you the concept through an amusing scene.

Fate Heroes - Part 1 - Bank Robbery

2009-07-02T19:44:00.005+02:00

The adventure proper! All mechanics will be in italics. Descriptions/narration will be in regular text.

To start this adventure, I wanted a quick set up to immediately get into something fun. Mythic (and even Fate actually) works with Scenes. Since I had an idea for how it would start, I just established it and went with it :

Freedom Force (the team of superheroes of this setting) has detected a bank robbery in progress downtown. Minuteman has been sent to deal with it.

That's it. That's my input. From now on, I use Mythic to know what happens. So I start with a bunch of questions to get an idea of the surroundings. How do Mythic questions work? You ask a yes/no question and establish a probability (Likely, No way!, etc...) Then you roll a d100 and look up the results on the Fate Chart (not related to the Fate v3 system). If the number falls under the middle point, it's a Yes. Over it's a No. And to spice things up, extreme results (very close to 0 or 100) get you an Absolutely! and a Not at all!
Let's see how it goes.

Are the bandits already leaving? (50/50) No -> They're still in the building
Is the Police here? (likely) No (double) -> The Police is not here yet!

Here I get a double (rolled 88). Usually you'd compare 8 to a "Chaos Factor" but I don't use it. For me, double = random event, always. Random events are rolled on specific tables. They give you the type and then they give you very vague words that you interpret given the context.

Random event : PC Positive, Be careful / Enemies -> The bandits haven't heard any sirens yet, so they are focusing on gathering money and not looking outside at all. They don't notice Minuteman one bit.

Are the glass doors tinted? (not sure of the word here : I mean hard to see through glass) Not at all -> got an extreme result here. The glass is crystal clear and one can perfectly see what's going on inside.

Are there many bandits in there? Yes. I roll a 2d6 and get 5, 1 = 6 bandits inside.

Do they have an apparent leader? Not at all! -> another extreme result I take as the bandits being terribly disorganized. Some of them might be tempted to turn on their pals if need be.

I get another double (99) on this question which means another random event!

Random event : Remote event, Betray / Investment -> One of the clerks, noticing how disorganized they are, tries to trick them with fake paper money.

(note : I didn't use "Remove event" properly here, as it's supposed to be something taking place quite elsewhere.... but hey, when it fires up your imagination, I call it fair game)

Do the bandits notice this? Absolutely! (double) -> Nearby bandits immediately notice it.

Random event : Ambiguous event, Create / Notoriety -> ambiguous events are meant to be "something rather irrelevant". Also, here I decided to pick a random word from a dictionary (some Mythic players use an encyclopedia or thesaurus) to get an idea about what it was. I ended up with "tour"
-> Out of nowhere, an advertisement van drives past the bank, with a booming announcement of some music band's next tour in town.

Not sure how the bandits might react to this, I ask a Mythic complex question (the Verb/Subject type you've seen for most random events so far) :
How do the bandits react? Oppress / Dreams -> The loud noise makes them jump and puts them on edge. Turning back to the clerk who tried to trick them, they get very threatening.

And that's my cue to act...

Minuteman, seeing things are getting ugly, decides to intervene, and quick! He will try to get the effect of surprise by charging through the glass doors.

Are the doors reinforced? (somewhat likely) Yes -> I use this to decide the glass Quality is not Poor (-1) but Mediocre (0)

Here I finally use FATE to roll skills and such. Crashing through glass doors will be Might (+3) vs Door Quality (0). I roll a +2 (FATE uses Fudge dice and you roll four of them, which gets you a result like so : + . . +, a plus, nothing, nothing, a plus = two plusses). This makes Minuteman's Might at +5 for this roll, against the Mediocre 0... It's a clear success and I even get spin (+3 shifts or higher over the target). Spin means it was a frank success!

Minuteman jumps through the doors bursting into many pieces, with a loud crash. He ends up in the middle of the room, met by a shocked silence. The bandits are so stunned they don't even react.

Minuteman gets a free surprise round thanks to his great roll (my decision).

He charges the thug nearest to the threatened clerk and smacks him with his staff, the Patriot.

Melee (+4) vs Thug's Quality (0) : roll -1 +4 = +3 vs 0

(note : I decided the thugs were just Mediocre, having 0 at all their stats for now)

The thug has no time to react one bit and is struck by the staff, sent rolling over the counter, on the clerk's side, knocked out. The five remaining bandits are finally getting out of their stupor.

(note : I also decided thugs would be Minions, which means they have no stress track ; one hit and they're gone)

Do some of the thugs have machineguns? Not at all! -> Actually, two of them only have knives. The others have regular guns.
Note : I decided guns would be "on par" with superheroes, while machineguns would start giving bonuses. A human with a knife, though, would get a damage malus.

So that makes one group of 2 thugs with knives and one group of 3 thugs with guns.

I roll init and get this order : Minuteman, Knives, Guns

Is one group at a distance? Yes -> random choice : the gun guys are further away

Minuteman runs towards the gun-equipped thugs, judging them more threatening for the citizens in the room.

Melee (+4) -1 (I moved to their zone) VS thug's quality (0) +1 (group bonus) : I get 4 vs -2, which gives 6 shifts for me, which is a spin (and even a double spin!).

The protector of the country moves lightning fast, no giving the thugs any time to defend. The strikes are overwhelming and three bodies drop to the ground, grunting in pain.

Note : when such weak Minions are grouped together, each stress you inflict takes one of them out. With 6 shifts, I could have beaten them up twice :)

Do the remaining thugs insist on taking on Minuteman? No

They look at each other... look at their pitiful blades... and decide a bunch of fresh air would suit them well.

End of fight.

Has the Police arrived since then? (Likely) No

But the Police isn't there yet and Minuteman can't just let these criminals run away : he goes after them immediately.

Since I had double spin on my last action and it couldn't be used in combat, I use it here to say Minuteman is already close on their heels before I even roll for pursuit.

Athletics (+3) vs Athletics (0) : 0 vs 0

The bandits run as if it was their last day on Earth... so much that even Minuteman can only keep up with them. Of course, Minuteman could hold this speed for quite a long time and wait until they tire, but there's no sense in wasting time this way. He raises his staff and energy crackles at the tip. In a wide sway, he launches the projectile, an energy eagle, towards the fleeing criminals.

Minute Missile power (+2) vs Athletics (0) : 4 vs 2 -> 2 shifts
Amusingly, the Minute Missile attack in Freedom Force is a chain one, and so it perfectly makes sense I would get two knock outs from this attack (they're Minions and even though it's not a proper battle, we can consider them grouped, thus damage "goes through" the whole group).

The eagle speeds through the air, smacking the first thug in the head before ricocheting to the second one. Both stumble from the shock and roll to the ground, out. Minuteman unhurriedly catches up and brings them back to the bank after taking off their weapons.

How much time does the Police take to come? I use a base of 1 minute and use the absolute value of 4 Fudge dice (they can yield -4 to +4, so 0 to 4 with the absolute value, with 4 being very rare). I get +3, which means 3 shifts on the time ladder, which gives half an hour.

Since the Police has not yet arrived after five minutes, Minuteman asks the bank employees for help in tying up the bad guys. It's only half an hour later that the first Police car makes an appearance.

"Glad to see you officer! But if you don't mind my asking... what took you so long?"

Complex question : Emprison / Freedom

"We would have been here earlier if we hadn't had to deal with yet another lunatic! One of your teammates got captured as he was fighting him off!"

I asked "is it a man or woman" to know if I should type "him" or "her". Also, I must note here that I first interpreted the complex question differently, thinking "some villain put most of the town cops in their own cells" or something. And then I noticed how "Freedom" could just be "Freedom Force", the team of superheroes... and it seemed much more interesting ;)

"One of my teammates? Who?!"

Here I made a list of heroes from Freedom Force and randomly picked one : Man-o-War. He's a gruff ex-sailor who got super powers as he was dealing with a stowaway on his fishboat, the Man-o-War. Both him and the stowaway, a young girl, got hit by Energy X and gained powers from it (which saved them from a large wave in a timely manner, of course). In the game, he has a Sean Connery like voice.

"It's the old man, err... Mano... Manu...?" replies the officer, unsure
"Man-o-War! I must help him at once! Where did this happen?" asks Minuteman, alarmed.

Complex question : Create / Love

"In front of the St Johns church!"

And so, Minuteman runs to the church, hopping from building to building, after leaving the bank robbers to the care of the Police. Man-o-War captured?! And who is this new villain? All will be revealed... in the next episode!

That's where I decide to end the first scene of the game. And thus, that's when I need to note down a list of open threads and NPCs. The lists are used by Mythic to define who or what is involved in some random events.

Threads : Investigate at St Johns church, Save Man-o-War!, Discover who the new villain is
NPCs : The Police force, Man-o-War, the new villain, the bank robbers

And that's where I'll stop for this post. I'll write up the second scene sometime soon!

Fate Heroes - Part 0b - Minuteman

2009-07-02T19:09:00.004+02:00

That's it! I'm finally ready to tackle my Fate Heroes report!

Read this if you don't know what I'm talking about. To sum it up, I will be solo-roleplaying a superhero adventure, playing Minuteman, a Freedom Force character, using the Fate v3 system and Mythic.

Minuteman

Here are the stats for Minuteman. I use the regular Fate ladder that goes from Mediocre (0) to Superb (+5).

Skills

Superb (+5) : Resolve
Great (+4) : Leadership, Melee
Good (+3) : Might, Athletics, Powers (10 pts)
Fair (+2) : Endurance, Alertness, Science, ?
Average (+1) : Ranged, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?

Everything else being at Mediocre (0).

Powers is a skill I use to represent how super powered an individual is. It's specific to my Fate Heroes variation.
The interrogation marks are skills I haven't decided upon yet. If during the adventure I see I don't have a skill I need to roll for and that Minuteman would likely be at least somewhat good at, I'll add it in these slots.

Health : ooooo oo OOO
Composure : ooooo ooooo OOO

I get into a bit more details about the Health and Composure track below but it's not mandatory read to follow the adventure, so feel free to skip if you don't like crunch ;)

The little circles (usually boxes but it's easier to type) represent stress. Each time you get physically diminished, you tick the box corresponding to the level of stress taken. If you take 1 stress you tick the first box. If you take 3 stress, you tick the third box (and only the third one!). If a box you should tick is already ticked, you "roll up", ticking the next free one.
Finally, when no more boxes are left, you get into Consequences, the big circles here. Whenever stress rolls up over your stress boxes, you tick the next Consequence box. While stress boxes merely represent fatigue or little nicks, consequences get more and more serious. You might be out of breath, then have a wide bleeding wound and finally broken legs.
If you still get stress past that point, you're Taken Out. Doesn't have to mean death, but you're still out of the picture.
For the composure track, it's exactly the same but with the mental (fear, keeping your wits about, etc...)

Powers (10 pts to distribute)

Hyper leap (+3) : regular characters use Athletics to run and jump like most people would. The Hyper leap power allows incredible jumps like hopping up to a roof and down from there, or crossing large distances with a single leap (possibly avoiding many land obstacles).
National Guard (+3) : not yet well define. My idea is that it puts a "Protected from bullets" aspect on Minuteman
Minute Missile (+2) : not yet sure either. For now, it's an alternative to the Ranged skill that can be used to damage or to place a "Dizzied" aspect on someone (the Minute Missile is an energy bold in the shape of an eagle that stuns people)

Aspects

For Freedom!
I must take care of Liberty Lad
The Reds must be stopped!
Might makes right
Protecting the people of Earth
The Patriot (his staff)
Used to conceive H-bombs
No one left behind
"I'm tired of these antics!"
Eternal Vigilance (tag to protect from bullets)

I won't go into too much details as these might change and because you need to know a few things from the Freedom Force game to get some of them. I'll try to explain them when I use them. But as for what Aspects are to begin with, well... here's the official description. To sum it up, it's a descriptor of the character's behavior, beliefs, and things important to him. In game, when a die roll is low, you can pay a Fate Point, invoke an appropriate Aspect and you'll get either a +2 to the roll or get to reroll it. It's a story tool that says "my character should do well on this task because..." the same way movie characters do. For now, let's just say it's one of the best parts of the Fate system as it makes non statistical elements have an effect on the game ;)

Fate Points

They allow me to invoke/tag/compel Aspects (Minuteman's but also others!) to get +2 to a roll, reroll or even force someone to act in a certain way. I get 1 point per defined Aspect (10 aspects maximum), which makes it 10 Fate Points.

There! I think I have it all. That's who I'll be playing through the adventure. Next post, the adventure itself! (never thought it'd take so long to get there)

The heat, the dragon and the dwarves

2009-06-28T15:24:00.007+02:00

The Heat

Imagine here an illustration of someone sweating or a picture of a blazing sun*

It has been rather hot in the part where I live lately and it's making my brain work rather slowly. I barely write anything and I tend not to touch anything too brainy. Sorry to the people I usually interact with! Hopefully I'll get over it... or you'll see me again in September :|

* I was going to have a public domain picture of it here but it's apparently hard to find. I might start drawing quick doodles to illustrate my posts when the Internet fails me so.

The Dragon

In the mean time, I have gone back to the Dragon's Lair series after an old friend of mine came for a visit and we shared a few bits about the game. I've first played the series on the Amiga adaptation and it was quite something at the time, seeing what looked like an interactive cartoon on "just" a computer. And I've learned now that it was indeed quite the technical feat too.

Dragon's Lair Amiga version

Far from perfect, but incredible considering the 64 colors, slow processor and floppy format

I also played the sequel, "Dragon's Lair: Escape from Singe's Castle" (funny title considering "singe" means monkey in French :p -- it's actually the dragon's name I think?), "Space Ace" (similar concept but in space), and "Dragon's Lair 3". I missed "Dragon's Lair 2", I'm not sure why... Given the room on the floppies of then, each of the original arcade games had to be split into two games, hence the four Dragon's Lair games on Amiga in the end.

Edit note : having watched a video of DL1 just now, I come up with two things to say : "oh the bastards!" and "still, good job". "Oh the bastards!" because the game cost about $150 at the time, and lasted about 7 minutes (loading times excluded, on a perfect run) and, the worst part maybe, doubled *every* scene except the finale. How cheap is that? ^^;... "Still, good job" because I'm still amazed this ran on an Amiga and how accurate they made it on some scenes (thankfully, the most important ones)

But originally, there were two DL games and one Space Ace game, which I only discovered years later through their CD-I versions, which, thanks to the Digital Video component of the console, were actually the same as the original arcade (at least in relative video quality).

So how did the arcade look and how did the games play? Well the following video will explain it better :

Edit note : unless I'm mistaken, the moves they give are total nonsense most of the time. Was it to explain how it work without actually giving the solution? Who knows... They also show the end of the game, which is... well... would be a spoiler if the game itself wasn't so cliché to begin with. In any case, I'm pretty sure the only ones actually interested in playing the game already did uh? (somewhat invalidating my post too, yay!)
Also, "proper" TV hosts in costume playing Dragon's Lair is..... mildly amusing *giggles*.

Do note how it came out not long after Space Invaders and Pacman. Gosh, what a shock it must have been at the time! That's quite the technical prowess! It even took years before the CD support took hold of the game genre and before we got games using full video such as Phantasmagoria (at least it's one of the first games I remember going for the movie feel, but my memories might be hazy on that one).

To sum it up : incredible visual quality, but a definitely awkward game system... if you even want to call it a "game". The closest game I can think of in recent times might be... Dance Dance Revolution. Really, Dragon's Lair was more of a "step in time with the music" kind of game, except the music was video on screen and you had to guess the right move yourself.
Oh, and of course, QTEs! They've popped up in games these last years, like in Shenmue and Indigo Prophecy or God of War : press the button on screen while your character does the cool stuff. It seems almost no one likes these and I'll admit I'm not *that* fond of them either. I think it's a matter of context : a game made of QTE can be all right, but QTE in an otherwise regular game is annoying. Go figure :)

Final thing on this topic : I have also read up on DL and discovered the initial plans for the game were much more complex with actual interactivity instead of the rather linear thing it is today : you were supposed to be able to choose your path, have alternatives here and there, etc... But even without this, I've realized the arcade version (compared to the CD-I version) was actually harder in some places, requiring logical timing : push towards a rope only when the rope comes into your reach, press sword only when the enemy is about to strike at you so you deflect it, etc... If you press the right move too soon, it's taken into account... but in a negative way! On CD-I, you can keep pressing the right move way ahead of time and it'll register all right. Funny.

Dragon's Lair at Digital Leisure

I might make other posts for Dragon's Lair II and Space Ace. If only to post videos... I like posting videos >.>...

The Dwarves

Hmm, I'll have to be short on this as heat + typing = headache. Meh!

Simply put, here's another game I keep coming back to year after year. Not often and never for long, but still, it says something about its quality.

Dwarf Fortress is about.... managing a dwarven fortress. Yup. It's all in ASCII (look at the screenshot), though more graphical tilesets now exist, and it's all about simulation depth. At first you're just trying to survive winter by building workshops, bedrooms and dining rooms... hunting, fishing, crafting goods, etc... It's very similar to the Settlers I think. But the more time goes, the more things pile up. After a while you get nobles and special dwarves who can manage the fortress, set export bans, make foolish demands, etc... You also have to deal with enemy invasions (goblins, humans, others...), floods, magma and other things I probably don't even know about. It just changes scope as the population grows. No more micro-managing, no more truly caring about those seven initial dwarves when you have more than 50 roaming around the halls.

I keep coming back to it because it's a quiet game, where many things can happen and it keeps evolving (I just discovered how much it stores about the world it generates the first time... so many details!) And I tend to give it up because it still has a rather obscure interface (only helped by the Wiki) and it's still a sandbox game with not a *lot* of room for mistakes (it plays like a roguelike, so when you're screwed, you're screwed).

Anyway, if you don't mind the graphics and think it sounds at least a bit fun, try it! It's free.

Oh and if there's one thing you should read, it's the Boatmurdered "Let's Play" of the game : http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Boatmurdered/intro.html
It definitely shows how hilariously crazy things can get :)

Dwarf Fortress (by Bay12games)

On the fly roleplay

2009-06-24T09:39:00.004+02:00

I did something a bit strange today. That is, stranger than roleplaying solo :P

I have this commute time in the morning (and evening, really) of about 40 minutes. I'll usually either vegetate when I'm too tired / still waking up or read some roleplay material on my Nintendo DS, or play a game on it, but it's become quite rare these days.

I have been eating tons of superhero rpg material lately and I guess it's slowly boring me now (the reading of rules and setting I mean! I want to play now!) And today I tried something new : using Mythic on the fly during the commute.

The only thing I need is a little imagination and a random d100 generator (since rolling dice while standing on a sidewalk is not practical). Solution? Reading numbers on car ID plates :D. And so this morning I was an elven ranger who got robbed by bandits and went to get his revenge in the nearby forest where they set camp. Worked like a charm!

Fate Heroes - Part 0

2009-06-18T19:09:00.008+02:00

Last time on Moni's Catbox...

I finished Freedom Force some time ago and started the second opus a few days later, just giving myself some pause to avoid getting sick of it (I tend to consume media as one would consume his favorite meal). But was it really a pause? I ended up picking up my solo roleplaying and what else but a superhero setting could I choose? :)

I have been spending weeks on reading Marvel Superheroes RPG material and with Freedom Force on top of this, let's just say I'm very much "Supers!" minded these days. I almost went with a custom character but then realized it would be simpler to pick a character I just learned a great deal about : Minuteman, the main hero of Freedom Force.

This first post, titled "part 0", will explain the RPG systems I use to play, without going into details too much. Next post will be the actual adventure.

How I do it

First, I should explain what I use for my solo roleplaying.

My RPG system of choice is Spirit of the Century, by Evil Hat Productions, a pulp pick-up game based upon the FATE v3 system (itself based on Fudge!). I allow myself to sprinkle it with bits of Starblazer Adventures, by Cubicle 7, the space-opera counterpart to SotC. And last but not least, I apply my own variations (which I call Fate Fantasy but it's nothing official) whenever I feel the rules are lacking something or are not to my taste (if there's something I've learned from RPGs, it's the "customize at will" advice!). For this particular superhero adventure, I have started a new set of variants I call Fate Heroes, which follows advice from Marvelous Fate, a Fate adaptation of the Marvel Superheroes rules.

Yes, it's fair to say it's a big mix of ideas, but overall, it's just FATE v3, adapted to a particular setting.

Last but not least, I use the Mythic GM Emulator from Word Mill Games. I know, I know, a GM emulator? Pfah! But you'd be wrong thinking that. It's actually a very simple but incredibly effective mini-system that allows a GM or players without a GM to come up with what happens in an adventure AND still get surprises out of it. While it does have a few tables for random picks, they don't provide anything set in stone and setting specific and rely on one's imagination and interpretation instead, not unlike tarot reading. The main part of the system, though, is based on asking questions (Magic 8 Ball like) and having the dice answer for you.
I won't get into it more than this as it will be more easily explained during the actual adventure write-up.

Well I guess that's it! All I can add is that I currently play by writing what happens in a notepad-like program to keep track of everything.

See you next post!

Freedom Force review

2009-06-07T20:09:00.002+02:00

Here is what I have been playing for about a week. It's, simply put, a superhero realtime tactical game with a coat of RPG.

I heard about the game for the first time when they released its sequel, "Freedom Force VS the 3rd Reich" and I tried the demo. I remember not being thrilled by it as it felt clunky and difficult, in spite of a bunch of charismatic characters and a nice superheroic homage feel. I know I wasn't much into superheroes back then either, which probably didn't help.

And then, I read that Steam has a promotional pack with Freedom Force 1 & 2 for a very small price, and I get curious again. I grab the demo again, but of the first game this time! And the little tutorial you get to play (Mission 1, really) was just what I needed to realize how fun the game was (the FF2 demo had tutorial bits too, but they were not enough).

The team takes on some bad guys

How does it play?
You go through a campaign which is a string of short missions (about half an hour each on average). You start with one hero and get additional ones as time goes. You can soon pick which heroes deal with the next mission. A bit later, you can recruit new heroes thanks to the Prestige you have acquired. The squad sent on missions can have 4 members max and sometimes one or two characters are forced upon you because of story requirements.

Missions take place on a single map or are divided in two or three chapters if there is a need for a map change. The game is in real-time but you can both pause it (ala Baldur's Gate / NWN) or slow it down at the press of a key... and it's more than needed as dealing with a whole team in real time is nearly impossible.
Objectives are varied : the usual "defeat all", check points to reach, artifacts to activate, time-limited activities, protect the civilians and/or buildings, etc... What you have to do is usually updated throughout a missions as you learn more about what's going on. We're not talking RPG quests though. It's more like the objectives you'd get in a RTS.

Man-bot and Alchemiss against... a bunch of bad guys!

Now, in all honesty, the game *is* clunky and even hard for various reasons. I didn't really believe the "tactical" part until I got my ass handed to me in one of the early missions.
So yes, it's tactical : there is a lot of friendly fire if you don't watch it. Beams, projectiles, explosions (eek!) and even wide melee attacks are all things you want to consider carefully and you should place your team members where it's safe. Then, there's the fact the game uses a physics engine for a lot of things and maps are not always flat, which makes elevation a good and a bad thing (mainly when it blocks attacks). And I will add that resistances and weaknesses can be the difference between win and lose in some missions. To summarize : it might be a superhero game, but it doesn't mean you fly through as an invincible group, which is nice for the challenge.

Mentor, the "brain" of the team, and his mental powers

About the RPG part. Even though we control superheroes, they are not set in stone from square one. Instead, you get to see them evolve through the campaign. Admittedly, their main attributes (Strength, Speed, etc...) are fixed, but they get new powers and abilities and can upgrade them.
This does mean they get XP, but it's based on a fixed rate : 300 points if they were in the active squad, 200 otherwise. As you can see, the game is not harsh on letting you try everyone out, though you might end up with characters who are not fully developed by the end of the campaign (happened to me).

Overall, it mostly means that you get a sense of accomplishment and reward for going through missions, but it also helps becoming familiarized with initial powers before getting new ones. So it's a rather good thing.

But wait, wait, wait! This is all good but that's not what superheroes are about, right? So let's focus on what makes Freedom Force really fun : mayhem!

Alchemiss sends enemies a-flying

That's what I discovered with the FF demo the second time around : the game does a lot of things to make you feel like you're in a superhero adventure.
First, it provides, through its main characters, many superhero archetypes you would expect in such a game : Minute Man is the usual Captain Something (strong, leader), Alchemiss is the mystical, reality-altering sorceress and Man-Bot is the slow but powerful human-in-a-machine. It's easy to recognize the inspiration for all of them, but the great thing is that they still manage to feel unique : more homage than rip-off if you will.

Traffic light, coming right up!

You also get the powers you would expect : beams of energy or elements, various melee attacks, mental control, regeneration, flying, high-jumpers, jet-fast runners, etc... And for the strong characters, you get the ability to pick up heavy things and either wield them or...

Mind the flying car, robot!

... throw them! Hell yeah! Not only cars of course : trashcans, postboxes, boulders and anything else that is not too incredibly heavy. I haven't tested the very limits of it... There's a bus I'd like to see flying one day :). Of course, what one character can lift, how far and hard he can throw it and how fast he is when carrying it is all dependant on his Strength attribute (melee characters can usually handle posts, strong ones will throw many things around and psy-types will keep to trashcans).

And that's where the physics engine shines. Objects fly, people fly, debris are projected all around, buildings crumble in a billow of dust. Even when you destroy your first building by mistake, it's more of a "woah, I can do that?" than "oh no!" moment. So yeah... the moment you realize you can pickup a streetlight to use as a bat and send three thugs flying... that's when it gets good.
But many other super-abilities give that "super!" feeling : flying around, jumping on tall buildings and crossing the city hopping from one to the other, sprinting like the Flash to avoid an explosion or do some hit & run... it's all there and it's fun!

All the classic themes are here too! It starts with thugs and then you get your first super-powered villain. But it ends with the epic stuff while touching all the usual pulpy stuff in-between (city-destroying robots is one I can "reveal" since it's on the screenshots).

Minuteman's voice is a bit on the "too much" side

The campaign story bits tend to look like the above : in-engine sequences with comics fonts and thumbnails. One thing that is a bit hard to get used to at first is how over-the-top everything is. The actors are good, but it's obvious they push it to make each character's archetype show. Minuteman is all "For Justice!" and "Whaaat is goooing ooon?" with a low-tone voice. It's almost annoying at times and realizing it's all about having fun without looking for something too serious can save the day. That said, the characters tend to be endearing after a while, partly because of that.

It had to be Russians! (aah, clichés...)

The villains fare similarly, with quite a few stereotypes thrown in, but again, they're fun to interact with (interaction being blasting them :D).

The campaign offers quite a few environements to visit, from the basic city and frozen parks to canyon deserts and pocket dimensions. The city is the one to appear the most often, albeit in various forms (snow, night, rubble, ...)

For more superhero goodness, all characters get a "The Secret Origin of" introduction sequence, either in-game or on demand for the heroes you recruit manually. They're all rather well done, using a semi-animated comics style and showing how everyone became what they are.

And to finish this long review, let's talk about... custom heroes!

Le Fantassin est là! (my minimal mod of Minuteman)

Once again, this is something I totally missed when I first tried the FF2 demo : you can create your very own heroes, stat them up, power 'em up and throw them into the fray. Only in skirmish? No sir! You can actually recruit them during the campaign!

Statistics allow you to make a slow Hulk, or a speedy Flash, or maybe you want a magically powerful witch. Then, you create each power individually, choosing which type it is (melee, projectile, beam, area, direct or special) and how it works : does it do electrical damage? Piercing damage? How much? How much energy does it require? Does it stun or knockback the target? How much? Is it accurate? Is a projectile like a grenade or homing? Does it explodes over a large zone? Does it spawn multiple sub-parts in flight? Let's just say it offers choice. And when you're done with this, you can pick the character animation and the associated visual effect.

That's how much you can customize (for projectiles!)

Sadly, the game doesn't come with many models or skins, nor that many effects. Thankfully, it was meant to be an utterly moddable from the very beginning! Making new skins is rather easy (they're TGA files, you just need an image editor and some talent). Making new models is much mode difficult, but there is a very good community which has done a big part of the job over the years :

http://freedomreborn.net/simple/index.php : the main community about the game
http://alexff.com/ : one of the first websites I found with new models, mods and with most basic questions about the game answered in the FAQ.

What did I forget? Let's see... it has multiplayer (though it's mostly skirmish I think), a Danger Room mode where you pick your team and the villains and the map and duke it out. Nice to test custom heroes but I don't think it stays fun for long given the little number of maps given. You can play through the campaign maps with a fully customized cast, though... aaand, that's pretty much it. That's the one "bad" thing for replayability : I hope the campaign will be satisfying with my custom heroes included because otherwise there's little "pick-up yet fulfilling" gaming on the side. Except for mods maybe. I will have to check it all out. Chances are I will go straight to FF2 now, though :)

Conclusion? It's not perfect because of some clunky design and even a few random bugs (stuck carrying a car), but it provides a lot of fun and a setting of its own in the purest superhero fashion. If you can get it on Steam, at the price it's at, there's barely a reason to hesitate (I mean... two whole games for $5!)

Here's the link to the Steam promo-pack : http://store.steampowered.com/sub/1662/

Monkey memories

2009-06-02T13:52:00.004+02:00

Of course, now that I have made this previous post, I find new things to mention. I don't know if it's better to edit or to create a new post. I suppose edits don't show up in aggregators, but tiny changes might warrant an edit.

So yeah, I don't know why but I keep thinking of Monkey Island as a "cartoony" series. And then I see the screenshot above and wonder... Is this what the art guys were picturing back then? Were the sprites made with realism in mind?

Also, Ron Gilbert talks about Monkey 1 : http://grumpygamer.com/8280380
I like how he goes over some choices that were valid back then and would make everyone cry nowadays.

Edit (nyargh!) : "P.S. I was always bothered by these close-ups. While they were great art, I never felt they matched the style of the rest of the game."

Now I know :)

Monkey Island... again?

2009-06-02T13:16:00.005+02:00

From http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/06/01/lechuck-me-monkey-island-returns/

Tales of Monkey Island : http://www.telltalegames.com/monkeyisland
Monkey Island remake : http://www.lucasarts.com/games/monkeyisland/

Looking good, Elaine!

I'm a big fan of the Monkey Island series. But let's be more precise : my first Monkey game was the second opus and I only played the first one later on. Was it because 2 was prettier than 1 or because it was my first? Who knows... Then came the third opus which I also liked, probably better than the first, but not as much as the second (or at least quite differently).
In order from best to worst for me :

Monkey Island 2
Monkey Island 3
Monkey Island 1

What about Monkey 4 then you say? Only played the demo. Puked at the 3D and visible drop in overall quality.

So what about these news?

Tales of Monkey Island doesn't look great to me. The 3D is once again quite subpar compared to what's being done these days. I'll never understand why they keep going 3D for a reason that seems to be "just because", when 2D packs so much more soul and with so little hardware requirements.

On the other hand, the remake of Monkey 1 is actually somewhat appealing. The fact that it's voiced doesn't do much to me, but it's still nice to have. The graphics are visibly hires and not horribly disfiguring our past memories. Looks like something in-between Monkey 2 and Monkey 3. I'm *not* fond of how it's animated, though. That is... yes it's incredibly faithful, but it's a case of "too bad" as it doesn't fit the remade graphics. It's also nice to see people who are *clearly* trying to modernize it while retaining everything that made it cool in the past (which so many claim but never do when touching old franchises). The new interface also intrigues me.
This said, though, I'm not the right audience for this and except for compatibility issues, I don't see much incentive to get a remake : I didn't mind the graphics and still don't... and the interface wasn't bad, so... New shiny graphics and voices wouldn't cut it.

Obviously, what I'd really want is something that looks like this remake, with better animation (say, Monkey 3) and, most importantly, which is actually in the same spirit as the first three Monkeys.

- Never happy Moni :p

Mini layout change

2009-05-29T19:36:00.002+02:00

I made a very slight change to the layout : removed some padding in the content zone so the content can be wider. It just bothered me how the column of next was so narrow so far.

I'm also quite happy to see how much you can change the layout. Given I know my way around HTML and CSS, I could change things quite a bit if needed in the future.

Neverwinter Night - Hex Coda 1

2009-05-26T23:32:00.001+02:00

Hex Coda 01 (NWVault page)

The files :
Hex Coda 01 - Module
Hex Coda 01 - Music Pack (optional)

From the NWVault page itself :

A Scifi/Fantasy Adventure for NWN by Stefan Gagne.

...modern civilization is one of prosperity and safety, with all magic legally controlled by a monolithic business called the Cathedral Corporation. As part of the underground magic movement known as the Hex Coders, every day is a race to develop new arcane technologies and evade persecution by the Cathedral. That alone would be trouble enough, but add the sins of an ancient civilization rising in the present day and you've got more than your fair share of problems. Can you lead the team through this interlocking puzzle across time and space, and avoid getting twenty to life for unauthorized use of magic..?

Early teaser here

Using the sewers tileset to make a polluted town? Brilliant!

My review

Preemptive note : I will try not to spoil the best parts and keep "revelations" to the very beginning of the module. I hate spoilers myself, so I tend to be careful about them.

I downloaded Hex Coda a long while ago but never played it. Not that I wasn't thrilled at the idea, since I knew Stefan Gagne, the author, was very good at this trade (Penultima series, Eternum series). No, I was simply a bit scared that this new "sci fi" universe wouldn't be my cup of tea. I expected something steampunk-ish, a forbidden-magic world... and it seemed a lot more serious than Penultima, for example, and a bit less "out there" than Eternum. I was just scared the good streak of great modules would end there.
Also, I had to be attracted to NWN again. Thankfully, this happens every few months.

This module requires a 10th level character OR a whole new one which will be leveled up. Given the unique universe this takes place in, I went with a new character : an illusionist wizard gnome female named Nayusimi Nayudunt. Um... Yeah, I only give pun names to my NWN characters. Easier to remember :)
I thought beginning at 10th level might be difficult, what with not being used to a mid-level character, but the game gives you plenty of time to get used to the world, battles and your capabilities and it never was a problem. And I know you could use an existing 10th level character, but it's not "just another D&D module" there, and I think it wouldn't work as well.

There is a recommended reading of the world story before playing. The most important parts are summed up within the game (good call!) and, while the reading is quite interesting, it felt rather separate from the adventure to me. It explains how magic is restricted and even goes to the length of explaining the place of the various classes in this universe, and more specifically in the Hex Coda (your fighter is probably interested in forging magic weapons). The Hex Coda being a group of dissidents who want to freely study magic (shades of "open source" development are all over this theme, which I found amusing) as opposed to the Cathedral, who wants to control magic uses to avoid repeating a previous magic war that destroyed the world (but is felt overcontroling by the rebels). Yup, that's your team!
But really, for a world where magic is so controlled, I imagined being a wizard... and a gnome at that (they're barely considered, according to the write up), would be quite difficult. I roleplayed it by not using magic in public and going with a torch even though I could cast Light. Admittedly, though, I misunderstood one point : magic is not forbidden. It's just that you only cast spells that are sanctioned and sold to you by the Cathedral. And of course, they wouldn't sell anything of epic proportions. I guess that's disappointment by misunderstanding.

Anyway...

The adventure begins in a most simple manner, in vitae : you are a wannabe member of the Hex Coda and have to prove your worth in a short mission. It's a very simple and short one but you're already given a few ways to solve it, which is already a sign of good module design (to me at least!)

Your first mission : will you be a worthy member?

From there, you slowly integrate the team, made of unique characters who will become your companions as the story unfolds. Tough blacksmith lady, always-smiling-and-secretive cleric and his not-quite-right endearing sister and a angsty rebel bard. The whole troupe is led by Dayvid, a gnome with a love for freedom and magic.
The second "quest" has you gathering the whole gang, allowing you to discover their personalities and already score a few points with them by acting the right way. They all appreciate a specific behavior which allows both metagaming "gotta find the best answer" and simple roleplaying.

The relationship points you get, very reminescent of japanese dating sims, are linked to one of the new mechanics of this module : the team powers. Basically, each member has a team power based on his style (heal the team by vampirizing the enemies, randomly boost team members, ...) and the efficiency of this power is based on the relationship level. The better you get along, the better the results.
These powers are limited by tokens (used up by each use) but I never it to be limitating because I mostly forgot about this new mechanic until I reached more difficult battles, towards the end. The game works well enough without them, so maybe they are a bit "tacked on", but in all honesty, I had enough fun just interacting with the team to miss a mechanical aspect of battles.
The other mechanic is based on gifts : throughout the game, you will find fluff items that have only little or no game use. Instead of dropping these or selling them, you can give them as gifts to your companions. There is no real way to "miss" these as they are described as potential gifts and you don't lose points for giving the wrong item to a person. It's just politely refused. While this removes a bit of gaming, it probably avoids frustration in the long run, which isn't bad.
Relationships are also made and unmade through dialogues, where you get the most points usually. I only ever pissed off someone once, but I'm sure there are more occasions in there :)

Team interaction is mostly done through these gifts actually. Once you've learned the basic background of each character (which can be done right from the beginning, through simple conversation), you will still get some automatic interjections from team members, but I felt they were rare. But I remember some of them were also very well integrated, and I probably missed how many there were. One great thing, at least, is that I remember feeling like, having chosen the cleric and his rogue sister, I was playing with the "right" duo. As if there was no way things would work out with other characters. It's when I knew the author had done something right.
I also remember you get special items for the companions at various points and they do intervene once or twice with a "I need to speak with you", so it's not like they fade in the background. They *are* present and you won't feel like you have cardboard henchmen once.

I won't touch on the story too much, but as the descriptive blurb indicates, it involves time and an ancient civilization (and oh so much more!). What I will say is how bluffed I was by this module in terms of length/content. I went in expecting a short "first episode" for a classic campaign àla Penultima and co. After many hours of play (a whole day and then some, it was the weekend), I reached a point that looked like a logical conclusion to the adventure. Things were getting wrapped up, we would beat up the big bad and be done with it, yay, see you in Hex Coda 2 (which is unfinished, not yay). I was satisfied and all, basically. And lo! It goes on. Team regroups and splits up again. Multiple times after this, I thought "this is the last sequence". And I kept being awed at how it just kept going and going! My main thought was "what the hell will there be left to tell in Hex Coda 2 ??". In the end, I've clocked well about 20 hours and more into this single module... quite a feat! It's definitely a very complete module, almost standalone if not for a few questions left unanswered at the end. But it's nothing of the cliffhanger variety that has you scream for the next part. It might have been bad for your usual campaign module, but considering Hex Coda 2 will forever be in an unfinished state, it's for the best! You get the sense of completion and yet some stuff to mull over with "what ifs".

The adventure grows into epic proportions, touches cool themes and pushes the "cool" forward a lot. It's full of amusing dialogues, lots of little details (item and monster descriptions, optional finds) and just full of fun. If you don't mind a universe that doesn't take itself too seriously, yet throws *some* serious topics at you, go get this module and enjoy!

Summary

The goods :
Great story
Epic feel
Team focus
Henchmen with a story and personality
New game mechanics with the henchmen (gifts and team powers)
Combat mostly well balanced
Good use of environment settings and some custom content to make things look unique
Nice background universe
Custom music
No breaking bug! Wow!
Replay value with other duos

The bads :
Main story is (probably) quite linear*
The background universe didn't come through that much for me
A few awkward design decisions with some quests (a particular back-and-forth I thought could have been avoided)

* I haven't played it twice yet, so it's speculation : I just don't see how terribly different the story and even most quests could go

Overall? Pure blast.

Current activities

2009-05-26T18:57:00.002+02:00

I have quite a few posts planned in the future (all saved as drafts, hm), but I haven't had much time / energy to get to them these days. I blame fleas and work. Yeah... fleas. And it seems they're not gone yet. Oh well !

Upcoming posts :

My review of Hex Coda, a Neverwinter Nights module (that's NWN 1)
The next part of my roleplaying history
Possibly some stuff about my solo roleplaying : how I do it and what happens in the various games
A very vague "need that game!" post about a type of game I'm yearning for... but can't find, nor easily describe
I may also discuss the Pathfinder adventure paths from Paizo and their various Game Mastery modules (which are strangely under a "Pathfinder modules" section on their website... hm)

My roleplaying history - Part 1 - The beginnings

2009-05-18T20:01:00.002+02:00

To give a better understanding of my future posts about roleplaying and RPGs in general, I thought it would be good to go back to the roots and see how I came to discover this fine hobby and gravitate around it until it grabbed me.
I can see it's going to be rather long, so I'll make this into multiple smaller posts and hopefully talk about other things in-between.

Gamebooks

I'm pretty sure it all started with the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. They introduced me to dungeons, strange humanoid monsters, traps and such things. Gamebooks in general were quite popular when I was around 8 and, in France, many series were published under the same hood, giving us quite a lot to have fun with, from heroic fantasy to space opera and survival horror.

Of these, the ones that I now hold in high esteem are actually from a series called "Destins" in french and "Virtual Reality Adventures" in the US/GB. One of the books is "Among Dead Men" and the other is "Heart of Ice". I'll certainly come back to these in a later post.

L'Oeil noir

The actual first entry into the world of roleplay... well... "-play" at least, was L'Oeil Noir, known as Die schwartze Auge in Germany and as the Dark Eye to english people. It's a gritty fantasy game that I discovered at my best friend's who got it from his older brother. I think he GMed the first game and... that's as much as I remember about how the game went. I think I wasn't entirely satisfied but saw potential. What I'm sure happened is that I bought the game from him later on (he didn't like it). I still have the box to this day, even though I've never truely invested myself in it.

Casus Belli & Backstab

I don't remember when it was exactly, but I started buying roleplay magazines with scenarios and articles about how to play and GM. I loved reading the various scenarios, discovering quite a few game systems through them, and reading the GM aids about such things as "how to deal with conspiracies in your game" or "how to introduce a circus troupe in your medieval adventure".
Accordingly to my personality, I spent a lot of time being quite content with just reading these, as if they were some kind of stories. I think I really liked reading about the possibilities within the scenarios, too (if my current obsessions are any hint).

Opening the blog

2009-05-12T13:37:00.004+02:00

What is this all about?

I have decided to open my very first blog as an outlet for all the things I want to share. I will start things as a pot pourri of most of my interests and plan to narrow things down when I get more comfortable with it and spot what I want to share the most.

The topics I have in mind for now are :

Roleplaying games (D&D, Fate, Spirit of the Century, Starblazer, ...)
Video games (from Left 4 Dead to Monkey Island and Super Robot Wars)
TV Series (Firefly among others)
Anime series
and also game design

If I realize the topics are too incompatible with each other to make a coherent blog, I'll consider splitting it up... but we're not there yet.

Who am I?

A 26 years old french coder. Hopefully you will excuse the frenchism in my writings and my nerdy approach to things.

Looking forward to this!