Community Post #146 - The Obsession continues, roll d20 for extra squeeing

Community Post #146​

So, if you've been reading my articles for a while, you'd have seen the growing interest I've had for tabletop gaming. I have no idea why it's a thing, only that it's a thing. I guess I'd found that, while I still adore computer games, there's something to be said for going out and playing a game with other people around a table. Both have their advantages. Heck! I feel social going to meets, just to play games together.

Though, can you blame me? What with shows like The Black Hole of Board Games, Tabletop and (in my opinion, because the players are at least well versed in on-the-fly banter and commentary) superior Tableflip coming into prominence, because of the wealth of Board Games, both laughably awful or amazingly engaging to delve into, that has bubbled away but seemingly only now found a foothold. Sure, there's been shows for Tabletop Games before but nothing like the pomp and circumstance of Tabletop.

Even if the conversations feel stilted as these aren't a group of friends playing together, but a bunch of random people we likely know having to play something they barely understand against each other. And even if Will Wheaton's delivery of every opening address is both lovably cheesy and uncomfortably forced that I'm not sure where they sit.

Sorry, but give me The Grumps any day of the week. They're just better at this than Sheldon Cooper's Arch Nemesis and his phone book of internet celebrities (the only ones I ever cared about being voice actor Tara Strong, Sauce Boss of Epic Meal Time and Michael Swaim from Cracked.com).

Anyway, random mini-review of unrelated things aside, this form of gaming is a thing I do now. Any previous version of myself from two or three years ago would have considered me bonkers as I had suddenly become interested in both Dungeons and Dragons as well as Snakes and Ladders, it would seem to them. A few of them would have been all:

'Dude, why do you have a pony on your bag? Also, you have a HD Special Edition of Kingdom Hearts II, why haven't you finished it yet?'.

Ah...That would be a fun conversation: "Umm...In essence, you realise that it doesn't matter any more and decide to just do whatever you feel you want to. The older you get, the less *squee!*s you have to give. Hence, adorable Dinky Hooves bag." Then hastily add: "Kingdom Hearts II on the PS2 wasn't that good so, I'm a little more leisurely about it. The first one was completely compulsively as quickly as I could, however."

And then I'd tell them all about both considering collage and that there's a Pokemon Tabletop system and why he ought to start learning about it right now.

Yeah, I know! I'm talking about Pokemon Tabletop United again. I just still can't believe it exists!​

Back on track! I wanted to ramble on about another RPG system I've been learning about and playing: Ironclaw.

If you thought that DnD was complicated, highly detailed and required a large amount of effort and understanding to play correctly, then you'd be right. DnD when it's played properly is a game where the rules are just the limitations imposed by the GM, the rules of the book and your imagination. Can you parley your way out of an attack by thinking around it or are you going to just smack everything till they stop moving? Like, you could collapse a bridge to avoid a fight or cause a cave in.

Ironclaw seems to have a similar mindset but focuses way more on how the story pans out rather than the myriad of rules DnD has built itself on for years now. It strips out a lot of the mathematics and rules, aiming to make a far, far more straight forward system where success is measured in just dice. There's stats and such too but mainly, it's your dice that pull you though. Everything else, is in Roleplay. For those that like some structure to your system, this isn't for you but I'd highly recommend it to anyone that wants to try out Tabletop RPG's for the first time because the more technical aspects of such systems are simplified without removing their impact or illusion of power. You can still swing a sword or fire a bow. You just don't have to worry as much about range, armour classes, positioning and other mathematical miasma that the DnD model is steeped in.

You play just with dice and a stat sheet. You create your character by choosing their species, career and goals.

It's manual is pretty goofy looking. It was released in the 90's, oddly enough. I figured everything was supposed to be gritty or EXTREME back then.​

Species have...some impact but it doesn't seem to effect too much, thankfully. This means you can pretty much choose what you like without any major impact except to a few specific skills or abilities. Some species are definitely better at some things than others. It's still not enough to tip the balance more than it just being a bonus rather than a full-blown boost.

Now, this is a game without humans. Yes, it's anthropomorphic characters only. If your not down with the possibility of having a tail or claws, then this might not be for you. For me? A complete non-issue. Heck! It's a massive plus for me, which should come as a shock to no one, but it might be deterring to someone else. Talking animals is a step too far for some people's fantasy worlds so, OK.

Though, I think there's some common ground that I can look pretty bad-ass when done right!​

Now, your Species changes some things like natural skills you can excel in. For instance, a rat is not going to be as good as a gorilla at climbing. A leopard is going to be better at running or dodging than a tiger and so on. As an added bonus, the core book adds in details about how each species is perceived within the universe everything is set, helping you get an idea of how to build your character's back story or mannerisms. Might even slant how they're built and what they'll excel in. Other effects include things like diet, sleep cycle (whether your nocturnal or not) and unarmed weapons. Some species do have teeth and claws, making them pretty vicious without so much as a blade.

Heck! A cheetah in our group managed to mortally wound a guard by accident. A slight pounce caused fatal injuries for a beginning character. Beats the hell out of an elf or goblin just starting out and their meagre power.

Actually, I should mention the universe. It's a little bit of a mishmash but seems to be roughly based on Georgian Era stuff but with other time periods thrown in here and there. For example, our DM told us that there was such a thing as a motor car in this universe, though they were rather expensive. Definitely much, muuuuch further on from the ol' typical medieval settings you'd expect. Which makes things unusual. After all, magic and sorcery exist at the same time as highwaymen and muskets. Though, Wikipedia says it's 'Renaissance-inspired' so, I have no idea.

For 'Inspired', read 'Uses it as a base but ultimately messes around with to fix whatever is perceived to not make it fun or fall in line with modern sensibilities'. See also any bad movie about civil rights.​

The upshot from this is that there's some clear classism at play. There are tones of noble houses and they're all scrambling for power and wealth. Meanwhile, your likely just messing around, doing whatever. Some races are painted as pretty cool, some are considered hard working or noble and some are just downright horrible. Take your pick!

Next, there's your Career. For 'Career' read 'Class'. Sort of.

Careers come with their own strengths and weaknesses as well as their own suite of Gifts. For 'Gift', read 'Ability'. These are actions you can take that allow you to do stuff. Everything from passive bonuses to special attacks to magic spells. These have different effects and some are 'spent' when used. Some recharge at the end of events or fights, some need your character to rest for around 8 hours before you can use that action again.

However, none of these have any complex maths or statistics applied to them. Each and every Gift has an outline of what it does. Just what it does. Your not told what it's for, your not always told when it can be used either. The idea seems to be to promote thinking outside of the box. You use your fire spell to entertain or surprise someone or you use your strength to hold something up. Maybe you can use your stealth abilities to move around a fight and get a better spot. Maybe you can bargain your way out of being clobbered. There's only what it does and pre-requisites for activating it. It's up to you (and your GM) what you do next.

That's awesome! Without a metric ton of seemingly impenetrable numbers and figured, you can just concentrate on playing. It means your not flicking through books or having to mesmerise all that much. It seems very accessible because it uses a lot of assumed variables to achieve it's goals. Spells often aren't given much information on range and most abilities don't have them outright because they're unnecessary, for example. Most spells just work because Magic. The further away someone is, the luckier you have to be with your shot unless the GM deems it pointless. Maps are nice but my group have been playing this perfectly well over Skype. It works perfectly well because of this lack of necessary variables and variants. All you need is to use your GM as a living, speaking Text Adventure game and away you go!

Meanwhile, almost everything else needs maps, measurements, terrain to be visible and enemy placement in constant sight so that the player's can plan and move accordingly. To play DnD today over Skype, you'd need software like Roll 20 or the whole thing would fall apart because confusion during a parties placement in a map would culminate in frustration if it wasn't omnipresent for all players to see or discuss.

GO BACK TO WARHAMMER! WE DON'T NEED YOU HERE!​

It's these elements that does push Ironclaw towards roleplay and interaction between characters rather than fighting because it's hard to give many variables to actions like attempting to lie or perform to a crowd of people except the chances of everything being in that character's favour.

That said, you can fight and battle to your heart's content, but there's no hit points or anything like that. You have a relative, sliding scale of how screwed you are instead. If you take damage, you slide down a scale towards hurt, then injured, then in big trouble, then dead. There are dice and mechanics like 'Soak Dice' that allow you to mitigate some of the damage your getting, as your character doesn't need much to die. Armour and dodging are now very powerful skills that you need to consider if you value your character's limbs being in the right places.

Otherwise, your skills are more to do with completing an objective. Talking is a powerful tool as now you can either just talk, or gossip to spread rumours, or intimidate, or persuade and so on. There's jumping, climbing. There's crafting abilities. There's deception. Yes, lying is a big skill you can utilise. It could save your fur/hide/scales! There's the ability to draw on academia or tactical prowess to complete a task. Lots of mental processes or faculties to add a unique slant on the game.

Most of these don't include much for smacking anything with anything else. The focus is placed on getting to know characters and character interactions as fighting or exploration is a little more straightforward and quick paced because most of the Maths aren't there any more. You get to be quicker with this stuff but they replaced it with a tip towards abilities that could keep that gameplay pace high for longer. And what's faster than a conversation in these sorts of games? Roleplay skills are vital for characters rather than just handy. Due to the higher chance of a character being killed due to a smaller, more relative scale of Damage, even abilities that can either mitigate damage or find traps have added value. Defensive measures have greater weight as your warrior bad-ass might get that same said ass handed to them because the enemy was able to worm around their almighty attacks.

"Come on! Why can't I use my Two-Handed Sword skill to ask for directions? Wouldn't you give accurate directions to a guy brandishing a sword like this?"​

After Career, you then build everything else. Such as adding Marks to your skills, adding Goals for your character and assigning Stat Dice.

You see, while the system is probably much closer to most of the stuff you've ever done in this site's fine RP section at the bottom of the front page, they do replace all those numbers with something: Dice.

Everything is determined by how many dice you roll over a certain threshold. Each that reaches higher than that threshold his considered a 'Success' and the number of dice you roll determines how many successes you manage. So, one success means you do so but with effort. About 3 or 4 successes means you breezed through it and it hardly seemed like an effort.

Your Species and Career lend dice for certain actions but there's also dice to represent your body, mind, will and speed for different situations too. Then there's skill dice. Species and Career dice will add extra dice to certain skills but they're mainly controlled by Marks.

A Mark in a skill, increases the size of the dice that skill uses. So, you start with nothing and move to a d4, then a d6, then a d8 and all the way up to a d12 at 5 Marks. At six, you get another d4 on top of your d12. How many times you can succeed is what's measured, so you want all the chances you can ever get.

It's pleasingly straight forward. There's no d20 rolls and you are often rolling far more dice but the meaning behind it is clearer. Your increasing your likelihood of success by getting more chances to succeed, not boosting it with extra numbers here and there. I like that.

Experience is awarded and then spent on either new marks for different abilities or new Gifts for your character. There's no levels, just experience. Gifts tend to be far, faaar more expensive than a Mark. Though, while a Mark contributes immediately towards a skill, making them rather enjoyable to get as you throw together that little menu of things your character can and can't do well, Gift's tend to grant either larger bonuses or ones that a Mark can never grant: like new schools of Magic, bonuses for trying to gossip with someone while drinking with them or simply better social connections that you can call on when needed.

Still, a gift isn't used as often as a Mark is likely to be. So, remember to stock up on dice.

These are your gods now!​

Still, I think the best endorsement on the game is a little on my experience with it. I want to talk about Guinivera and The Hooded Figure.

Guinivera is Foxytail's character. She's a large bear that works as a Town Fool. This means she's pretty much a clown and can do plenty of tricks to entertain passers-by. She's a rather kindly soul and appears to have no interest in fighting anything she doesn't have to, even though she'd more than capable of dealing out some vicious damage. Foxy built her so that she's able to both frenzy to fight harder than usual, and become frightened to allow her to dodge attacks more effectively like a bi-polar bear boxer.

The pun was too good to pass up.

Guinivera simply wants to make people happy. Oh! And fix the hole in her bucket. She has a bucket with a hole in and some shiny rocks. Her Life Goal right now is to fix her bucket. Why? Because it's a bucket. It's one of the trappings she's afforded as a Town Fool so she might as well try and make some use out of it. Just don't question it.

The Hooded Figure is my character. And he's self-serving, intelligent and somewhat paranoid. After a few games where I ended up as a fighter, I wanted to try being a weird mage. So, I discovered a few traits that made up this weird character. For one, he's psychic. The Cognoscenti (a Mind Wizard, to you or me) are able to perform Mental Magic to mess with the minds or bodies of any one they meet. My character's most devastating move right now is Mesmerism, where I can hypnotise a character. This opens them up for either a direct attack or to be given a suggestion and bent to my will!

Yeah! I'm not playing my character as necessarily a good guy. In fact, I'm playing my character as paranoid of leaving any impression what so ever that could be traced back to him. This stems from a Gift called 'Anonymous', which means that The Hooded Figure gains bonuses against Magic if I don't give him a name. The idea sounded so interesting to me that I expanded the idea of relinquishing a name to every part of his character. He hates having anything identifiable, even down to covering his fur and face, hoping that the only thing that's allowed to be recognised, is the purple cloak he's enshrouded in. Couple that with the description of his species and I just had to try and make up some screwed up kid that has way more power than he should.

The Hooded Figure is a Grey Fox. They are considered a race of noble blood and high aristocracy. This also comes with everything else the Aristocracies of the past had such as inbreeding and backstabbing. Grey Foxes are known for being heartless, ruthless and generally tactless to anything they don't consider worth the effort of pleasanties. These are unpleasant creatures, by all accounts.

Seemed to fit a mind controlling lunatic rather nicely.

Just short of adding a moustache this fantastic to twirl​

In short, Foxy had created this well-meaning tank that had simple goals but no idea how to achieve them, so wonders aimlessly. She could draw the attention of enemies and then take that damage, smacking back just as she needed to with her strength. She was able to switch between all out attack and pulling back to avoid damage when needed so that the party could land as many hits as they can while she distracts them.

I'd made a heavily supportive character that needed the protection of the group to survive, but didn't trust any of them. He was able to create his own allies or use his abilities to force a target to do what he needed them to do but had little else to offer in combat except a Quicksilver Rod and some heavy headaches. Outside of battle, he could sway minds, lie, cheat or use his obvious gifts for academics and supernatural knowledge to attempt to better understand situations. Otherwise, The Hooded Figure was given a few Marks in stealth as well as a bonus from his Species. This means he's a Mage with the rare ability of being able to slip out of the way of a fight unnoticed, choosing his moment to unleash a counter carefully. Outside of a fight, The Hooded Figure is indispensable, even if he's not overtly eager to share his talent with anyone but himself.

I tell you this because it's caused one interaction that made me love this game.

The Hooded Figure and Guinivera has walked out into the town together. Guinivera had set up and was now entertaining the passing pedestrians with her tricks and such. She'd managed to earn a few coins. Pleased with her day's work, she returned to the inn where the rest of the party was.

However, The Hooded Figure had been watching and followed her back. He finally plucks up the courage and taps Guinivera on the shoulder.

"Excuse me! I saw that you were performing many varied tricks. I've been attempting to perfect my own. Could you watch me perform it? Perhaps give some direction on how it might be improved." The simple bear nods with glee and The Hooded Figure pulls her down an alleyway.

The Hooded Figure then pulls out his wand, raising it in front of Guinivera. With a flash of magic, The Hooded Figure had turned on his own party, mesmerising the Foolish Bear. Immediately, he plants a suggestion into her mind that she should prioritise protecting him above the others. After all, this was a large, strong bear and he was a rather gangly thing under the purple cloak. He'd need the muscle, she just didn't need to know that.

A moment later, the deed was done. I'd made another player change one of the goals they were determined to complete in the game to something I wanted. I had forced another player's character to become my bodyguard. I had attempted something despicable and succeeded.

It was a hell of a moment. Nothing else I had ever played has allowed me to do that before. Especially not as a character just starting out! I'd gotten a huge, defining moment for my character. I'd shown, for the entertainment and benefit of the group, that my guy wasn't to be messed with. And that he might be the most dangerous of them all.

And yes, Guinivera has been doing a very good job protecting the nameless maniac mage. She's not put it together that she's been altered mentally at all but there's an upside to being forced into guarding him: he has a vested interest in keeping her alive. Heck! He'd more likely to trust her than anyone else in the group too.

I liked the idea that The Hooded Figure would only trust you if you had been altered by him, so I made it a central quirk. Like a backhanded boon only he could give. He'd know that you'd be far less likely to hurt him so, he'd be more comfortable. Utterly bonkers behaviour but I've been enjoying playing him because he's just unlike anything else I've played before. He sees the others in the team as mainly potential tools as well as his only form of protection at present. All he wants is to be fed, sheltered and to grow his abilities. And he's willing to do whatever to get that done. I find that fascinating as an ethos to play by as now I'm looking to see what I can get away with.

That is why I'm so happy with Ironclaw. I'm playing a total arse and loving it.

- Site News
Ugh...I wish this was back under better circumstances. Ah well...

By now, I'm sure your aware of our latest dilemma: Eight Star has been arrested and is being held in custody, pending a hearing.

And that's all we really know for sure. I'm putting it right here to ensure that this is known to everyone. We don't know anything about the case. This is just as much a surprise to all of us and we know no more than what the news has said. Because of this, we won't be answering any questions on this. It would be unfair to Eight Star and you as we'd be just as likely to have no idea what's going on. So, we're going to keep to things only we can report on: how this effects the site.

For now, Eight Star is no longer a member of staff.

There is one question I'm sure someone's going to ask though: are we looking to mess around with Staff. Well, yes and no. It's unrelated to the above information, though I'm sure you don't believe me much. We're sorting out fine details but we do have an idea of things we'd like. One new idea was a 'Contributor'. While sort of kinda staff, your aim would be to do what your doing.

It's for anyone that's got a regular thing on the site, like an art thread or a review blog or whatever you like. We'd provide a few bits and channels to promote whatever you make, when you make a new element. We'll stick it up for all to see.

We'll throw up a thread at some point.

OK, got that? Yes? Yes.

- Recommended Reading

Time for your turn!

Oh fer...The First Transformers Movie Morphin'? Eh, it's crap but explosions I guess. As long as it's not the thrill and excitement of the mind numbing sensory overload that was the third movie that I had to watch because of a girlfriend's grandmother, then I guess you can say what you like.

She was a lovely woman but she did like to watch a lot of crap.

So, remember when the Equestria Girl's dolls came out and we all saw it as a naked attempt to muscle in on Barbie's patch now that Bratz wasn't so prevalent? Remember how the dolls looked a little...stylised or heck! Completely different to the character they're meant to represent in some cases. And that the Rainbow Rocks ones were the same just covered in glitter?

I am a Soft-Toy kinda fox. The only dolls I like have little microchips and work with my Wii U.

Anyway, it's Morphin' again with these...things. And it will bring about the end of everything. I mean look at them! That jumper is the wrong shade of purple! Huh! Do they have any respect for purple! Sorry! Lilac! Heck! Harumph! I can just see the world exploding and then turning into another Earth again, just to explode once more to show how much it's disappointed in us! I mean, a hoodie? On a male character? No Brony looks like that?! Where's the neck-beard? These people are way too pretty to represent such a...And I'm out of puff on that one.

Yeah, I don't care. They come from a very high end doll maker, which is something I didn't know was a thing till just now. I mean, the site Integrity Toys has make it seem like your buying dresses that cost the same as a small car, not a doll. So, hurray? I'm not buying one as I don't want to invest in a doll that my dog will likely just see as a chew toy that cost three months worth of pay.

Speed painting! It's like if ants could draw while hyped on sugar!

Lastly, a joke.

Right! See you

 

Yeah, I forgot, honestly. I'm a dopey twit sometimes, especially when I'm writing and tweaking at 1AM. For your curiosity, here's an article. If you have relevant information to the case, contact the police, explaining that it relates to this story on the Camp Hill raid. We don't have the investigator's information as it's not been made publicly available, so talking to us doesn't help much.

As for anything more info from us on this, we honestly don't know any more. For us, Eight was there, then he was quiet for a while, then someone brought the article to our attention. We have nothing we can report on the situation other than "Doesn't Eight look kinda scary in that photo?". It's not because of fear of repercussions; this is as much of a surprise to us as anyone else. Possibly more so.

Oh cool! Are these actual characters or just random illustrations?

Sweet! Glad to know.

 

Whoa! Due Process, mate! He's innocent till proven guilty. Remember, there's the possibility he'll be coming back one day.

 

...Yep. Me Yammering about a Game I like has been drowned out with talk of Eight Star. Saw that coming and yet it still bums me out a little.

 

Yes...There is a part of me that's screaming out the hypocrisy of that but, I'm going to hold back and instead, do this:

​

 

Intimate groups aren't bad. They're easier to do things in and wrangle a team together to do something.

So would I.

That is pretty awesome. My experience with DnD is 5th edition only right now (except a little bit of a Pathfinder, that I hear is mainly 3.5) and the book's art is pretty epic looking.

I we have our own Tabletop System for use over the Chat. Once I'm done messing around with it, we could try getting them back up and running. You can try it out there!