Thrythlind aka Luke Green – Page 7 – Powered by the Apocalypse G+ Archives

A rebuild of a Streetfighter RPG character I made a LONG time ago back in the late 90s.

Reiko Satomi

Charm -2, Cool +2, Sharp +0, Tough +0, Weird +3

Japanese Girl, Bestial Aura, Ragged Martial Arts Robes

Spirit Eater – Pure Drive: Devour

Claws 2 Harm, Hand

Water/Ice/Steam Blast 1 Harm, Close, Magical

Shapeshifter: Into pool of water, normal form is a jaguar girl. (while water +1 to sense things in a larger pool of water she’s in. While jaguar girl +1 to sense with smell)

Unholy Strength (Ninja martial arts)

Reiko was born into a ninja clan that originally assumed that she had been blessed with powers over the control of water when she miraculously survived a near-drowning as a child and developed water-based powers. Then, on her first mission she was the only one of the team to return as it turned out that they had been hired to recover a cursed idol and the rest of the ninjas on the team had been possessed by a jaguar spirit and turned into bestial but intelligent jaguars that ran off. Reiko came back as partially a jaguar and her elders realized that she had fought and consumed the jaguar spirit attempting to possess her. Fearful that she would continue to devour other spirits, perhaps even ancestors or protective kami, they exiled her without explaining to her what she was (and some elements secretly set about to kill her out of sight of the rest of her clan). Reiko is still trying to assimilate her new instincts and occasionally can be fairly bestial but mostly she acts like a teen girl. However, encounters with supernatural entities, especially spirits and possessing entities, make her hungry.

Okay, so I recently sat down and worked on the coming up with reference sheets for the PbtA version of Just a Game…

Originally shared by Thrythlind aka Luke Green

Okay, so I recently sat down and worked on the coming up with reference sheets for the PbtA version of Just a Game and in doing so wrote down an actual agenda and set of principles.

In doing so, I realized that the agenda that most fit trapped-in-the-game style stories (at least in my opinion) did not complete fit the MotW base that I had used in the original playtest.

I’ve mentioned this in another post earlier this week.

I what I found came up with for agenda was this:

Make the world dramatic.

Make the player’s lives center stage.

*Play to find out what’s real.*

And among the standard PbtA Principles, I had this:

*Blur the line between reality and simulation*

*Apply video game logic*

*Make the normal absurd and the absurd normal*

Let the characters punch out Cthulhu

*Leave the truth always in question*

And this is what occurred to me.

Trapped-in-the-game is really a cosmic storyline. I’m not going to say cosmic horror because really, these sorts of story teeter between wonder and horror. But the cosmic part, that’s certain.

Stories like Tron, Captain Power, dot/Hack, Sword Art Online, Log Horizon, Ready Player One, The Gamer, Accel World and so on are stories where the basic foundation of reality is in question.

Even in as outwardly simple situations as “stuck in a VR simulation that will fry your brain if you die in game” such as in SAO the question of just what the dividing line between real and simulation is comes into question.

Mostly these stories end up focusing on the beneficial potential of these realizations and so they generally tip over towards cosmic wonder but there are almost always individuals that get sucked down into insanity as well as any Lovecraft character and, for that matter, the people that decide to embrace a digital life or even dual life might be regarded as insane by people who haven’t witnessed their story directly as we, the audience have. While we can see that they’ve taken a healthy, rational approach (based on the idea that their experiences and conclusions are real) the majority of the world might consider them just as strangely imbalanced.

In any case, this realization has shown me that I need to rework the PbtA version of these rules (this is to be expected as it was a first version playtest).

This isn’t really a new thought…I never really liked the Harm mechanic in the PbtA version. It works well for MotW, but given the ridiculous way health and endurance fluctuate in video games it felt a poor substitute. The Stress/Consequences system of Fate Core and the Health/Stability system of GUMSHOE still work well (though my GUMSHOE experience is limited). But Harm/HP for this PbtA agenda doesn’t feel right.

There’s also nothing in the MotW base I pulled to simulate the potential downward spiral of a character into an UNHEALTHY reaction to the fabric of reality becoming uncertain.

Having encountered Masks and heard about the Airbender-esque IGoA and their methods of using Conditions rather than HP/Harm helped me figure out what was giving me trouble, but what settled it was the making of the agenda.

So since this is Golden Week now, I’m going to take some time to rework the Persona and Avatar books as well as the basic moves.

I don’t own IGoA, but I am pulling my copies of Urban Shadows by Andrew Medeiros and Masks by Magpie Games to compare some notes between that and Michael Sands MotW as well as Spirit of ’77. Though I admit that the majority of what I’m taking from Spirit of ’77 is the use of characters being a combination of two types of playbook. For another example of that and dealing with powers and another example of binary playbook construction, I plan to look at Worlds in Peril as well.

The binary playbook really looks to fit the feel of a character that is split between two perceptions of reality and trying to find a balance of what is actually real and what isn’t.

In that regard, I’m not sure either Worlds in Peril (where the binary is Origin and Drive) or Spirit of ’77 (where it’s Role and Story) are exactly right. Spirit of ’77 is closer to what I have in mind (which is the RL Persona matched with the created Avatar) but still not quite right.

So I might likely have another PbtA playtest version out in a little bit. Mostly just reference sheets and playbooks though, similar to what Masks has released so far.

Though given my resources I imagine my finished products won’t look too much different save for being more cleanly edited, more focused each particular game system and with a fair bit more examples.

I hope also to get this out to some of the AP podcasters I watch to see if they might be interested in helping me with some playtests. But we’ll see.

Having seen and played around with Masks and Urban Shadows I’m considering reworking some of the rules from the PbtA…

Originally shared by Thrythlind aka Luke Green

Having seen and played around with Masks and Urban Shadows I’m considering reworking some of the rules from the PbtA Version of Just a Game.

I still like the Persona / Avatar match similar to Spirit of ’77. But I think the Debt mechanic of Urban Shadows and the Condition based rather than Harm based health of Masks befits the genre better and makes it easier to adapt between Death is Cheap and Death is Real gameplay styles.

More goofing about while waiting for the full pdf’s to be released to the Backers.

More goofing about while waiting for the full pdf’s to be released to the Backers. This is a revamp of the character I’m playing in a Strands of Fate magical girl themed game.

——

As VR became more and more well done and released into the public, one experimental system seemed to create a much fuller simulation than any before. It wasn’t until later that it became obvious that the system was creating a bridge to a separate realm of reality, or several related realities, known as the digital worlds. Some of the natives of that world began finding ways to manifest in the physical realm, but there was another instance. Due to the nature of some of the games and simulations these systems were creating, it resulted in certain dalliances that produced individuals that were a cross between the digital and biological worlds.

Eva Tarr is one such “digi” born to a biological woman.

Mostly she specializes in dealing with mindless digital beasts drawn from the realms that are most like action-games and manifest sometimes in the physical realm now that there are all sorts of bridges open between the two sides. Eva has to spend time in both worlds in order to stay healthy, since she needs both biological and digital food.

The Outsider – a woman, a body that trails pixels when she moves, video game physique and hair, “real” world clothes

Stunning Beauty, Radical Shapechanging (She can “mod” her form to temporarily take on powers from various video games – she retains her general physical appearance with wardrobe and hair-style changes…for example, she can mod herself to be like Simon Belmont or an Indiana Jones clone or the like…such mods are short-lived and take some effort however)

Freak +1, Danger -1, Savior +0, Superior +2, Mundane +1

Belong in Two Worlds

Alien Tech

Not So Different

This weekend’s session of Monster of the Week….I don’t have photos yet.

Originally shared by Thrythlind aka Luke Green

This weekend’s session of Monster of the Week….I don’t have photos yet.

http://thrythlind.blogspot.jp/2016/03/m-com-mission-report-operation-private.html

An idea for a Spooky.

Your character was formerly possessed at one point. The entity used your body to fuel several powers. You were exorcised and seem normal for a while but then weird stuff continues happening. Worried you might be possessed again, you got help and were told that you weren’t possessed but that your body, mind and soul remember how to do the supernatural things the possessor used you to perform.

Basically the idea that lost power can always come back but being afflicted with power you don’t understand enough to control is exceptionally dangerous.

So this is a vague concept right now. Something that I thought of a couple decades ago now:

To all appearances, a group of amateur demonologists/cultists have managed to some a demon. The demon is mostly humanoid with the stereotypical red-skin, horns and such but not really very grotesque or inhuman. Probably has the sexy-demon thing going on.

It seems this demon has taken over and is leading the cult into further evil.

In reality, however, instead of reaching into Hell or a similar supernatural realm, they’ve snatched a mortal from a timeline where sentients evolved slightly differently. Their summoning spell is imposing on the summoned individual the subconscious expectations they have of a demon while the victim is a passenger in their own body and a helpless observer as their body speaks alien words and does things that they thought physically impossible. For further matter they haven’t eaten, drunk or taken care of other necessities because the summonses don’t think demons need to eat, drink, sleep or answer nature.

If the summoner is defeated the “demon” would likely collapse into pained, sobbing lump in the ground in dire need of medical attention. This is especially true if the players have injured them.

Is anybody running a one-shot of this over the next couple of weeks?

Is anybody running a one-shot of this over the next couple of weeks? I’m in limbo while my company renegotiates with the local school board.

What playbook best suits this character?

The Animated Woman

Basic backstory is that she was attending a convention and ran across some strange man in an unused room who told her about people with story magic that could bring stories to life in powerful ways either by bringing the characters themselves, affecting the world or else making their own body alter to fit the story told. At the end he asked her which magic she preferred and being a cosplayer she noted the ability to alter herself towards the story. The strange man later turned up murdered and she’s been able to partially shapeshift into something like the characters from her favorite anime and cartoons. Usually this is a character she has a heavy emotional connection too, the first such character was a seductive werewolf villain she finds despicable.

There are some limits, she doesn’t just completely become the character. It’s more like she’s herself seen through a filter of the character. So when she adopts the werewolf’s persona she gets a Scottish accent and becomes something of a lady-killer but stays female and (importantly) not-evil. She does gain some of their gear though, so when she becomes a martial-artist cop character, she acquires a police baton from somewhere as well as getting a bit like a loose cannon.

My initial thought is Bull.

Katja is the fourth of the five characters I made using Masks RPG and several random background generators.

Katja is the fourth of the five characters I made using Masks RPG and several random background generators.

Katja is the oldest child of a large Swedish family living in Japan. Eventually she discovered that she and her siblings were adopted, or maybe appropriated is a better word. Her “parents” task was to monitor them growing up and prepare them for the experimentation that would later result in giving Katja her powers. When she was about eighteen, Katja was subjected to something that was a combination of a magical ritual and a scientific experiment. The end result was an ability to transform into a larger, more physically powerful monster-like form with glowing yellow lines along her skin. Her adoptive parents were appalled at the procedure and helped Katja and the other children escape though they died in the attempt.

In the two years since then, Katja and her family have been trying to stay under the radar and getting money where they can to live. They have fully naturalized identities within Japan, but are still cautious to avoid official attention because they don’t know who was running the experiment that they were living in. Katja provides most of the money and tends to short herself before any of her brothers and sisters, as a result her human form is scrawny and malnourished. It is likely that her monster form places a heavy strain on the body as well, but since joining the Chimera Sirens, she’s been getting a salary and medical treatment so she is slowly recovering. In the meantime, in her monster form she is still incredibly dangerous.

Katja has strong regard for both honor and justice separately. She tends to get rubbed the wrong way by Minako, the Jade Chimera, who she thinks only is concerned with justice as an outgrowth of honor and whom is also a bit officious and bossy for her tastes. Katja has talked to Kyou about training her, however.

http://thrythlind.blogspot.jp/2015/11/chimera-sirens-bull-onyx-marble-chimera.html