Friendship & Fukus: The First NONPLAYABLE Game

This is not a review, nor a character creation walk through. This is, in fact, semi-original content!

Sometime in November, my gaming group started expressing some interest in a "magical girl" themed game, akin to something like the shoujo anime staple Sailor Moon. I've turned the idea over in my head several times the last few months, but most of the generic systems I've looked at have felt unsuitable, and my general dislike of "anime themed" game systems warded me away from things like Big Eyes, Small Mouth and its ilk.

Then I remembered the brilliant, single page Lasers & Feelings from One Seven Design. L&F is a simple, quick playing system using only a single stat, a handful of dice, and a success-counting pool mechanic based on rolling either over or under your target stat. It runs fast, relies on lots of narration, and takes only a minute or three to learn and get started, making it perfect for a social-and-adventure-based one-shot shoujo anime game.

I spent a few hours bashing hacking together some genre-appropriate attributes and scenarios, hung them more-or-less appropriately on the L&F framework, slapped it into a PDF and called it

FRIENDSHIP & FUKUS

Like Lasers & Feelings, Friendship & Fukus should be considered available under a Creative Commons / Open Gaming license. Feel free to download, play, hack, modify, and comment with your feedback.

It's entirely possible that other original or semi-original content will come down the Nonplayable pipe in the near future. I don't know. But for now, I hope you enjoy this.

Teenagers From Outer Space (1987): It's Funny, Right?

Oh, Mike Pondsmith.

You gave us Interlok and Lifepaths. You gave us bleeding edge Chromatic Rock music and calculating the amount of thrust needed for a giant robot to overcome inertia in microgravity.

You also gave us this.

Teenagers From Outer Space (TFOS from here on out) was extraordinarily popular among some of my friends back in the mid-90s, back when the North American consumption of Japanese cartoons was starting to expand beyond Voltron and Robotech. Before Cartoon Network and Fox Kids started importing the stuff en masse, anime (or "Japanimation" as it was briefly called, for some godawful reason) was typically shoved into the Special Interest section of the video store (though Media Play had its own section), or ordered from the phonebook-thick specialty catalog behind the counter of the rental shop with little more than a grid of titles and single sentence descriptions, all of which nestled titles like Speed Racer and Demon Beast Invasion comfortably next to each other. The bulk of the longer or more esoteric series, you acquired on generations-old VHS tapes, copies of copies of copies with matted-on yellow subtitles translated and synced by a Canadian college student, hunched over a LaserDisc player and a bank of VCRs in his basement. I still dust off Ed's Dirty Pair translation every once in a while. The point of this long and rambling sentence is that this was a fandom composed of intensely devout, serious nerds, gobbling up whatever scraps of this seemingly bizarre foreign media they could buy, borrow, or steal, and TFOS targeted this group with laser accuracy.

Teeangers From Outer Space is a science-fiction comedy game designed to emulate the popular "harem" style anime series of days gone by, particularly the alternately surreal and bonkers works of Rumiko Takahashi, such as Ranma 1/2 and Urusei Yatsura, along with the American productions which they inspired, like Ben Dunn's long-running comic Ninja High School. For the uninitiated (and if that's you, I'm not entirely sure how you got to this corner of the internet), a "harem" series has a basic premise that should be familiar to anyone who ever picked up an Archie comic book: there's a handsome teenage boy with a singularly defining personality trait (honest to a fault / total schmuck / self-centered jerk), and an improbable number of attractive teenage girls who want to be in a relationship with him, with a sort of implicit theme that adding more vertices to the relationship-polygon adds additional comedy value. TFOS and its progenitors heap on further complications in the form of beautiful demon princesses, super-powered alien girls with only the most tenuous grasp of acceptable human social behavior, and pretty much any other bonkers idea the authors can come up with. Based on the established harem principles, this should help turn the resulting love-triangle/hexagon/triskadecahedron into a non-stop slapstick dramedy train, alternating between hilarious misunderstandings and angsty heartbreak (but only briefly straying into the latter). I've always been of the opinion that it rarely works in comics and TV, and it almost never works in roleplaying games.

The reason that "comedy" games so frequently fall flat (in my opinion, that is; your mileage may vary) is very simple: you can't enforce Mandatory Fun. The way to run a funny RPG campaign (again, in my opinion) is to get a group of not-so-serious-minded players together, let them feed and play off each other during chargen and during sessions, and let them come up with goofy ways to solve the campaign's challenges. Comedy is, by nature, spontaneous and (as the tabletop nerds say) "system agnostic." There's room for comedy in anything from Old D&D to Dungeon World to Eclipse Phase, with suitably clever players and suitably deep reserves of beer. TFOS, on the other hand, wants to make absolutely certain that you're getting your chuckles in its own specific way, a pretty remarkable feat for such a comparatively rules-light system. The game weaves its comedy mechanics into just about everything you do, from character creation through conflict resolution, and while quite a few people enjoyed it, I've always felt it was trying too hard.

Character creation (which is still ostensibly the purpose of this blog) in TFOS is relatively quick and simple. Each character has eight statistics, valued with ranks from 1-6, and each statistic is generated with 1d6 rolled down the line, no re-rolls. Stats are sort of an odd duck, combining both analogs to your typical RPG abilities like Intelligence or Strength with scores that would normally be skills. The statistics, as laid out in the 1st Edition book, are: Smarts (intelligence), Bod (strength and sometimes constitution), Relationship With Parents (exactly what it says; since characters are high school students, this will vary from its initial score throughout the game), Luck (used to mitigate failed rolls), Driving (used for..driving. What? What did you expect?), Looks (how attractive you are to members of compatible species and genders), Cool (sort of Charisma + Wisdom), and Bonk Index (HP, sort of). While some of the stats, like Bod and Smarts, speak to the irreverent tone of the game, Bonk Index is really where the comedy mechanics come into play. Characters in TFOS don't take damage the way characters in other RPGs do; there are no debilitating injuries, ongoing penalties, or character death mechanics in any way. Instead, when characters are successfully struck by an attack (either physically or socially), they lose an amount of "Bonk" points equal to the strength of the attack. When a character runs out of Bonk, they are incapacitated - dumbstruck, paralyzed, unconscious, or horribly embarrassed - until after their next game turn, at which point their Bonk Index resets to normal. In order to facilitate the Bonk mechanic, all of the weapon descriptions and stats laid out in the game are for non-lethal hardware, like Zap guns which stun characters, Boy/Girl guns which change their sex, and Goo guns which fire globs of pink bubblegum. Where actual, dangerous weapons come into play, the rules state that characters never actually get hit, but instead run screaming for cover (suffering an appropriate amount of Bonk for being terrified and having their homework riddled with bullets). This keeps the stakes of the game extremely low, and in theory, keeps people's fun from being spoiled by losing a character they'd grown attached to.

On top of the basic statistics, characters also get 1d6 points to spend on Knacks, essentially skills that the player gets to make up themselves. Points can be poured entirely into one Knack or spread across as many as the player chooses until the pool runs out, and it's up to each player to decide if they're really good at one thing or okay at a bunch of things. Knacks at a bonus equal to their value to any dice rolls the character makes for a related statistic, for example, if you have a Knack for Souping Up Interstellar Hot Rods (2), you'd add 2 points to your Smarts score when making a roll to add a new four dimensional supercharger onto your old jalopy of a flying saucer. All rolls are made on 1d6 with the goal of beating the GM's target number (the GM wins all ties). Fail the roll by a point or two, and your saucer stalls out somewhere in low-Earth-orbit. Fail by three or so, and the warp engine blows up in your face and you're riding the bus til you can get it fixed. On the opposite side of the equation, the game's comedy mechanic ensures that the GM also tacks on unintended consequences for rolling too well: Beat the GM by more than an arbitrary, random value (determined by rolling 1d6 at the start of the play session), and your new supercharger works flawlessly, but you stuck it in backwards, so now you go damn fast in reverse. Roll perfect sixes while trying to ask out the cute alien of your dreams? You've now got a jealous extraterrestrial stalker who's never gonna give you up. The stakes are always about increasing complications and never about life or death, though the characters should always treat them like life-or-death situations, since they're a bunch of dramatic alien teens, after all.

In addition to their randomly rolled statistics and chosen modifiers, characters also get access to a number of super powers or special abilities. Aliens make three random rolls of 1d6 each on a super power table, gaining abilities like Super Strength or Super Bounciness, while humans roll 2d6 on a single table for a more Earthly ability, like Filthy Rich or Super Cute. Players then assign their characters three personality traits to define their character's behavior (such as Insanely Jealous, Sneaky, Eats Cars), roll up their starting allowance (the game includes printable funny money to use as a prop, instead of just writing down the value), immediately spends their allowance on goofy teenager crap, and gets to playing. Most of the adventure paths laid out in the book deal with the aforementioned teen romantic comedy situations, like dealing with unwanted suiters, being an unwanted suiter, or trying to get your sweetheart away from his or her younger siblings or parents. I've always thought inter-character romance was a little weird and vaguely skeezy, and somehow dressing it up with desperate, hormonal teenagers just makes it weirder and skeezier to me from a roleplaying standpoint, rather than zanier and funnier.

Despite what I perceive as flaws, though, TFOS was pretty darn popular by indie (ie not D&D, Shadowrun, or GURPS) RPG standards, and maintains a fanbase to this day. It even spawned a MUX, so fans could play online in a persistent campaign world, and which is still operating as I write this! With nine whole players, even! Considering the game was last updated in 1997 and all but abandoned by R. Talsorian Games in 2002, that is some very impressive staying power, right on par with the best Submarine Racer to dive off Lover's Leap*.

The first edition copy I had access to while working on this post was missing its character sheets and TFOS allowance money props, so I've used a third party sheet this month. Hipster Monster artwork shamelessly stolen from DeviantArt user Crown-Heart, without permission. Gasp.

And of course, my amazing and ever-willing-to-humor-me wife has also created a sheet this week, which I know is the only reason you've actually read down this far.

Teenagers From Outer Space is currently available in its 3rd Edition from RPGNow. All artwork in this post is snipped from the out-of-print 1st Edition.

Several supplements are also available, including Field Trip from R. Talsorian Games and the technically-stand-alone-game-but-also-kind-of-an-expansion Star Riders from Dream Pod 9 (makes of Heavy Gear), as well as various rules in old issues of Protoculture Addicts.

Teenagers From Outer Space MUX is also somehow still in operation, and if people still roleplay there, it might be a good place to get started in the game.

*That is seriously the term the game uses for sex, like, several times.

Polaris (2009): Courtly Tragedy & Crippling Depression In A Frozen Kingdom

"Long Ago, The People Were Dying At The End Of The World"

This phrase, spoken aloud, is intended to begin every play session of Polaris: Chivalric Tragedy at the Utmost North. Polaris is a strange game, and I hesitate to call it an RPG, considering its lack of elements like a GM, turns, and a formalized conflict resolution system. It falls into the realm of mechanically light, narrative heavy games like Fiasco, emphasizing storytelling and emotional drama (fluff) over mathematics and die rolls (crunch), and requires a group of dedicated, creative players to weave a satisfying narrative.Similar to Fiasco, the game lacks a dedicated referee, with GM duties being distributed across multiple players depending on the situation. Its core mechanic is a rudimentary 1d6 roll-under system governed by four stats, of which two are combined to generate a target number from 1 to 5, but I'll get into that a bit more later.

The real focus of Polaris is on forging an atmospheric, heartbreaking narrative, and the setting positively drips with both. The world of the Utmost North is gripped by the slowest apocalypse ever, a steady, implacable decline from unspeakable splendor and terrible beauty into decadence and ruin, in the mold of Moorecock's Melnibone, played out over centuries or perhaps even millennia. Citadels carved from ice and song, lit by prismatic bursts of starlight look out over glittering, glacial landscapes, while each turning season brings a horde of abominations flooding from a gaping wound in the Earth, a slow melt under the glare of the cruel sun, brave and doomed crusades by gallant knights, and cut-throat politics which shatter the bonds of society. The protagonists are thrust into the midst of this maelstrom of horrors, passions, and treacheries, playing the part of newly minted knights sworn to protect this failing civilization to their last breath.

As this is a game of tragedies, they will fail.

Failure is where Polaris's mechanics come into play. Every roll of the die brings each protagonist closer, by degrees, to an inevitable fall from grace, succumbing to either the literal demons spilling forth from the smoking hole in the glacial ice, or the metaphorical demons dwelling in their own hearts. Or both, of course, because the two could be one and the same. Each protagonist (PC) is governed by three of four Values (stats): Ice, which is used when the character enters battle on behalf of others, Light, which is used when the character fights for or by himself, and either Zeal or Weariness. Each character begins play with Ice and Light scores of 1, and a Zeal score of 4. As the character advances through conflict (but not necessarily combat) scenes, the player may increase either the Ice or Light score by 1 at his or her discretion, while the Zeal score invariably drops by 1. Once Zeal reaches 0, it is replaced by a Weariness score of 1, which steadily advances up to a maximum of 4, at which point the protagonist has succumbed to a fatal, moral flaw. This advancement is not entirely steady, the way an XP system would be, but rather is based on situations and conflicts organized along a protagonist's particular story themes. Each protagonist will have several themes, either relationships, or duties, or some sort of important life event or trait, which major conflicts will center around to force the character into a decisive choice or action. Once a theme is explored during a conflict, it is considered "expended" and cannot be used again until it is "refreshed" on a die roll.

The rolls themselves are, strangely, not frequently used for conflict resolution; resolution is based on consensus, with the involved players negotiating an agreement that serves the good of the story. Once this agreement is reached, the player controlling the protagonist's actions (referred to as the character's "Heart") rolls 1d6 against a target number generated from either the Ice score (if fighting for others) or Light score (if fighting for herself), adding the Zeal score (if present) or subtracting the Weariness score (if present). Rolling under this target causes Advancement as described above, with Ice/Light and Zeal/Weariness incrementing by 1 point, while rolling over this target causes a Refresh, where neither Ice nor Light improve, Zeal/Weariness remain unchanged, and all previously "expended" themes become usable again. On die rolls, the protagonist's Heart has the option to edit various elements of the character if they feel the character should gain or lose any aspects as a result of the conflict.

Now at this point, you're probably noticing some nonstandard terms being thrown around, namely the reference to a player as a "Heart." This is part of Polaris's particularly novel character creation and conflict resolution systems. Although the game is designed to play with four people each controlling one of four protagonist characters, each player also participates in some way with every other player's characters. The player who controls a character's actions, as mentioned earlier, is the protagonist's "Heart," and it is his or her job to negotiate in the character's favor during conflicts. The Heart is responsible for naming the protagonist, and describing the themes and aspects which will guide her conflicts and personality. The player who sits directly across from that protagonist's Heart is the "Mistaken," and he or she initiates conflicts with that protagonists, controlling the demons that besiege her and negotiating against her interests during the conflict discussions. Conflict resolution is adjudicated by the players sitting to the left and the right of the Heart, referred to as the "New Moon" and the "Full Moon," respectively. The New Moon is in charge of refereeing the protagonist's emotional and interpersonal conflicts, and controls minor female NPCs, while the Full Moon referees societal conflicts and controls minor male NPCs. Neither Moon player can directly determine the outcome of a conflict, but instead mediates and makes suggestions to the Heart and Mistaken players to foster an agreement about the way the story will proceed.

Rather than a full blown, detailed combat system, Polaris makes use of various "key phrases" to facilitate conflicts. Each scene begins with a player stating "And So It Was," followed by a scene description. That player's opponent (his or her Mistaken, if the initiating player is the Heart, or the reverse) can then modify the scene with phrases like "But Only If" (describing a terrible cost) or "And Furthermore" (describing a complication), which the initiating player can either accept ("And That Was How It Happened"), request a different circumstance ("You Ask Far Too Much"), force a die roll ("It Shall Not Come To Pass") or scrap the entire scene ("It Was Not Meant To Be"). The Moon players may offer suggestions for the conflicting players to agree upon, which can either be accepted (both players state "We Shall See What Comes Of It") or rejected (one player states "It Was No Matter"). The entire process becomes oddly ritualized, and I am not entirely convinced that I could play through this with a straight face.

Despite the weird, half-ritualized, almost Jack Chick-like gameplay, (the rules even suggest lighting and extinguishing candles to mark the beginning and end of play), there's something about the milieu of heartbreakingly beautiful people marching inevitably to their doom in a soul-shattering, starlit tundra, their breath condensing into snowflakes as their blood turns to ice, that I find oddly appealing.

"But All That Happened Long Ago, And Now There Are None Who Remember It."

*No character sheet this week, since it requires three other people to write one.



All artwork taken from Polaris: Chivalric Tragedy at the Utmost North, Starlight Starbright Edition, which is available either as an e-book from These Are Our Games, or in print from Indie Press Revolution. A Spanish-language eBook is also available from RPGNow.

Shadowrun, First Edition

The 1980s were a strange decade.  For those who don't remember, or tried to forget, it was an era of electronic music, strange makeup, and unfortunate hairstyles.  It was the era of Reagan and Gorbachev.  It was the era when the depths of corporate greed and influence were not only laid bare but even lauded and glorified, and when authors and directors started to predict that multinational conglomerates could become laws unto themselves, their readers and viewers could believe it.  Blade Runner and RoboCop were in theaters, Neuromancer was on the bookshelves, Max Headroom was on TV, and ShadowRun sunk its mechanized appendage into the hearts and minds of pen-and-paper gamers and never let go.  This was the era of the cyberpunk, when the Information Age seemed to hold unlimited potential to both unite, and alienate.

ShadowRun may not have been the first cyberpunk-themed RPG on the market - R. Talsorian Games' first edition of Cyberpunk (2013) came out shortly ahead, and Iron Crown Entertainment's Cyberspace shipped around the same time as FASA's entry - but it's the game that has been most successful in cross-marketing itself.  In addition to four published rules editions, the world has seen at least 40 ShadowRun novels, four video games, and a line of action figures with optional miniature wargame rules.  What makes ShadowRun so unique, what makes it stand out from all the other neon-bathed, robot-armed, rock & roll hacker games, is its overt inclusion of supernatural, Tolkienist fantasy elements.  Alongside souless company men and marginalized gangers with New Wave haircuts, one finds a cavalcade of orcs, trolls, elves, and dwarves, with magicians hucking fireballs and Native American shamans performing world-altering spirit dances.  The result is a little bit like that old Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercial, with two disparate genres colliding into one, hopefully delicious morsel.
For those requiring visual aids, this is what "normal" cyberpunk looks like:

This is what ShadowRun looks like:

According to the ShadowRun backstory, the Earth's magical energies ebb and flow across five-thousand year periods, roughly corresponding to the Mayan sun cycles.  For the last few millennia, magic has been weak across the globe, resulting a dependance on technology, culminating in the Industrial and Information ages. When the current cycle came to an end in 2011 (an error on the part of the author and editor which later editions decided to run with. They meant 2012), humans began spontaneously mutating into fantasy races and the Native American tribes (and other practitioners of "old" religions) kicked off a magical revolutionary war against plutocratic governments and mega-corporations.  Reading between the lines, you'll see that this is the exact same concept - indeed, the exact same setting - as Earthdawn, with the clock advanced around 10,000 years.  Earthdawn, as noted in a previous post, is laced with phenomenally atmospheric prose and descriptions, and an imaginative take on high fantasy that makes it unique in both tone and mechanics.  ShadowRun, being an earlier effort, lacks most of this development.  Magic works roughly like every other skill, the fantasy races could easily be replaced by mutants or genetically engineered humans, and the entire backstory of Native Americans organizing an enormous Ghost Dance to devastate the technological world feels both a little bit racist and a little contrived, as though the writers flipped a coin between it and a 'nuclear war' storyline.

Just a little bit racist.
Aside from their setting, SR and ED have nothing mechanically in common.  While Earthdawn requires a full set of polyhedral dice and a working knowledge of algebra, ShadowRun makes all of its rolls on the lowly d6.  Lots and lots of d6 to be precise.  Using a roll-over, dice-pool system, you'll be throwing handfuls of these venerable cubes around, which is probably why the designers went with a die than be acquired cheaply from basically anywhere, rather than specialized gaming stores.  Every dice-test in ShadowRun is given a difficulty or target number from 2-6, with the player selecting a number of dice from his associated pool to roll for the test.  If he hits or exceeds the target with at least one die from the pool, the test is a success; more successful die rolls improve the quality of his success, from skin-of-the-teeth to critical.  The number of failed dice is usually not an issue, unless the player both fails a test, and more than half of his dice come up 1's.  This results in a "glitch," a sort of critical-failure where the GM gets full discretion on determining just how badly the character's life has been ruined.
Character creation in ShadowRun is an odd duck.  The game comes with a number of pregenerated characters, called Archetypes, which it recommends players use, with provisions to swap certain attribute and skill values around to suit your needs.  The bulk of character customization comes from purchasing gear and equipment; generally speaking, one Decker (hacker) will be statted out just like any other, every Merc will be approximately the same, etc.  Options exist to modify each pregenerated Archetype to change its race (for example, switching from a human Wage Mage to an Elvish one, or creating a Dwarf private detective), and there is a brief paragraph and table for designing your own archetype from scratch, however.  For a custom archetype, the player must first jot down the following broad categories: Attributes, Skills, Tech, Magic, and Race.  Each category will be ranked by importance, from 0 to 4; the number of points a player can spend on Attributes and Skills is directly dependant on how each respective category is ranked, while the character's Tech ranking determines how much cash he has to spend on Cyberware, Contacts, and other starting equipment.  Race is Human unless the player gives it a rank of 4, in which event he can choose one of the Meta races (Ork, Elf, etc).  A Magic rating of 3 provides a Meta with magical power, while 4 provides a Human with magic.  0-2 provide no benefit.  It isn't that different from the Storyteller system, all told, though it works on a much lower end scale than the average Vampire or Exalted character.

I'll be exploring the game's relatively deepest character generation option here, building an Archetype from the ground up using the game's ranking point buy system.  Here are the ranks:

Attributes 1 = 17 points
Skills 3 = 30 points
Tech 2 = 20,000Y
Magic 0
Race 4 = Elf, +1 Quickness, +2 Charisma
For my purposes here, I've decided to try to make an Elf rock star.  We'll see how this goes.  As a Metahuman character, I have to roll up a magical allergy (like Vampires with sunlight, or Werewolves with silver).  Rolling 2d6 on the appropriate allergy table, and I find my character is sensative to Iron, which is highly inconvenient as this extends to all ferrous materials, including steel.  Rolling on the severity table, I luck out and hit Mild.  My character should be fine as long as he remembers to wear gloves.
For starting cash, all characters roll 3d6 x 1000.  I wind up with 9,000 nuyen to start with, in addition to the 20,000 from my Tech score; the 9k is used to determine the character's income level (lower class), and can be used to be stock items, but cannot be used to purchase any custom gear; no contacts, no cyberware.  Just about every other attribute and skill from here on out is a point-buy, with a handful of exceptions: the character's Reaction is determined by adding Quickness and Intelligence, dividing by 2, and rounding down to the nearest whole number, while the character's Essence starts at 6, and is reduced by Cyberware installation.


So there you have it.  ShadowRun.  One part Gibson, one part Tolkien, two parts this:

ShadowRun, First Edition can be purchased at RPGNow.  All images are sourced from the First Edition (except for Labyrinth's David Bowie).
ShadowRun is currently published by Catalyst Game Labs, and is now in its fourth edition.
The current, 20th Anniversary Edition of ShadowRun's 4th Edition rules is available as a PDF from RPGNow, or as a hardcopy from BattleCorps.
Non-Playable Characters is raising money for the Children's Miracle Network!  If you've been enjoying this blog, please consider a donation.  Every single penny goes straight to helping sick kids at East Tennessee Children's Hospital.

RuneQuest, Second Edition

In the mid 70's, a small games company called Chaosium Inc was founded, for the sole purpose of publishing a fantasy-warfare boardgame called White Bear and Red Moon, set in the fictional world of Glorantha.  Unlike miniature wargames, such as the phenomenally popular Warhammer franchises, White Bear and Red Moon was essentially a self-contained box set.  There were no miniatures to buy or paint or convert, no terrain to build, no additional rulebooks to buy; all the rules, a playable map of the entire known world, and a pile of cardboard unit counters all came in the box.  Like Warhammer, the game was complex, unbalanced, and missing a sizeable portion of the rules at its first printing.  From this humble beginning, however, Chaosium would expand its interest and eventually gain hold of some of the biggest licenses in the roleplaying game industry, including Call of Cthulhu, a game based on the horror stories of H.P. Lovecraft, along with Stormbringer, based on the dark fantasy works of Michael Moorecock.  Most of Chaosium's RPG titles are powered by a roll-under percentile system known as Basic Role Playing, or BRP, which has its origins in 1978, with a black-and-white sourcebook that revisits the low-fantasy, wartorn world of Glorantha.

With RuneQuest, Chaosium attempted to expand upon the history and mythology of Glorantha, detailing a long and storied path in which empires rose and fell, and wars were waged on which the fate of entire civilizations hinged.  Unfortunately, most of this history unfolds in a very distinct "tell, but don't show" fashion.  Events like the Dragonkill War ("named," the book says, "for what the dragons did.") and concepts such as the Lunar Empire's need to extend something called the Glowline are mentioned for a few brief sentences, but never explored or explained in any detail.  1600 years of Gloranthan history is crammed into three pages, with the first thousand or so taking up just about a half page.  The result resembles a modern Wikipedia stub, with almost no time spend developing an atmosphere or tone for the world, except for a brief mention that Glorantha is a Bronze Age society, similar to Robert Howard's Hyboria or Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar (which are both, technically, Iron or even Dark Age societies).

What RuneQuest does bring to the table, however, is the Basic Role Playing system, which Chaosium claimed was the most flexible, adaptable, and universal system of the time.  According to the book, BRP can be easily adapted to any setting or time period.  Players were invited, indeed encouraged, to create their own expansions, monsters, and spells for use with the system, and even to submit their creations to Chaosium for publication, in exchange for free copies of whatever splat books were produced from their submissions.  This open and accepting attitude towards fan submissions and fan-developed material crops up very rarely in pen-and-paper gaming, and I don't believe it ever took off on any sort of appreciable scale until Wizards of the Coast published OGL D20 in 2000.  In this respect, at least, Chaosium was ahead of its time with BRP.

"Have fun," it says.  We'll see about that.

Player-characters in RuneQuest have seven primary Characteristics, and nine derrived Abilities.  The Characteristics are randomly rolled, and include RPG mainstays like Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, Dexterity, and Charisma, while also adding in two new stats: Size and Power.  Size is exactly what it sounds like, indicating the character's height, weight, and/or physical mass.  Characters with high Size can take more damage, while characters with low Size are stealthier and harder to hit.  Power, meanwhile, determines the character's magical ability and his or her in-tuned-ness with the mystical world.  Each of RuneQuest's characteristics advance in slightly different ways: Strength and/or Constitution can be raised up to match the highest rolled value assigned to either Strength, Constitution, or Size.  If either Strength or Constitution has the highest rating of the three, then that Characteristic cannot be raised at all, except by magic.  Similiary, Size can never be increased through non-magical or non-divine means, as a character is assumed to have finished growing by the time he begins adventuring.  Dexterity can be increased as the campaign goes along, up to a predefined, racial maximum.  Intelligence, like Size, can never be altered through non-magical means, while Charisma can rise and fall based on the character's success or failure in adventures.  Finally, a character's Power score is spent whenever he casts spells, while also influencing his starting hit points, as well as modifying various derrived combat abilities.  As all of these scores are randomly generated, it is possible to create characters who are multitalented and versatile, though it's just as easy to wind up with a character who is mild to moderately incompetent across the board.

As noted earlier, each Characteristic is determined by a random dice roll.  For humans, we roll 3d6 on every Characteristic, resulting in a starting score from 3 - 18.  As RuneQuest is a percentile based game, these values are largely meaningless for making tests.  In order to generate useful target numbers, the system relies on nine Abilities, whose scores are determined by a series of tables converting Characteristic ranges into percentages.  Each Ability is modified by several characteristics, with Intelligence and Power showing up in almost everything.  As an example, a character's Attack Ability is based on Strength (his ability to swing a weapon), Dexterity (his ability to aim the swing), Intelligence (his knowledge of fighting techniques), and Power ("A Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him.").  In this case, higher Characteristic scores provide a 5 to 10 percent increase to the target number, while lower scores lower the target number.  Remember, because we're using a roll-under system, higher targets are better.  Now, let's start rolling some numbers so we can see this in action.

STR: 14

CON: 16

SIZ: 8

INT: 12

POW: 7

DEX: 11

CHA: 12

Constitution is my top score, and will provide a handy little bonus to several Abilities.  Strength comes up next, also higher than average, and will help out with damage dealing. Strength can also be raised up to a maximum of 16 if I have the money for training.  Power comes in pretty low at 7, but not low enough to penalize me.  The Size score of 8 will penalize my damage output and hit points, while providing a bonus to stealth.  These Abilities will be shown in more detail below.

Attack: +0%

Parry: +0%

Defense: +0%

HP: 15

Damage: +1d4

Perception: +0%

Stealth: +05%

Manipulation: +0%

Knowledge: +0%

In other words, this character gets +5 to any Stealth target number, and deals an additional 1d4 damage when successfully hitting with any weapon.  He suffered a -1 penalty to HP but still came out higher than average, and everything else is squarely average.  At this point, the character is roughly mechanically complete, though depending on starting cash there's still room to improve certain Characteristics through training, as well as altering abilities through Equipment.  Starting cash is determined by the character's background, which like everything else in this creation process, is randomly rolled, this time on a d%.

Background: 54: Townsman

2d100 Starting Cash: 32 Lunas

32 L is not enough for training, unfortunately.  However, I do get the following generic starting equipment:

GENERIC CLOTHING: Tunic, breeches, boots, underwear, cloak, hat.

GENERIC EQUIPMENT: Belt knife, and tinderbox.

TOWNSMAN EQUIPMENT: Flasks, torches, lamps, rope, trade/craftsman tools.

Now, in order to survive a life of adventure, I'm going to need some weapons and protective gear.  32L isn't a whole lot of money, but it's enough for a pair of Leather Pants (10L, absorbs 1 damage), a Leather Vest (10L, absorbs 1 damage), and a Quarterstaff (1d8 Damage, 20% hit rate, 15HP).  You might notice that my staff has 15HP; that's the amount of damage the staff can parry before it breaks.  At this point, the character is ready to go out and adventure, and likely get himself killed.  To help improve his chances, RuneQuest offers a set of optional rules to allow for a certain amount of "pre-game" experience.  I've decided to have him join a mercenary company in order to get a leg up in life, allowing me to roll percentage for a chance to improve his STR, CON, DEX, POW, and CHA.  My results are listed below.

STR: 61: +0

CON: 64: +0

DEX: 72: +0

POW: 12: +1

CHA: 71: +0

So after some time on the march with a band of disparate mercenaries, our Townsman has increased his Power level by one point.  Not that impressive, but he does get other benefits.  Working with mercenaries provides access to better armor, weapons, and training, as well as a shot at looting some cash from sacked villages and such.  Rolling another d%, I wind up with a score of 91, putting him in the company's Light Cavalry.  This automatically gives him an 80% riding skill, 50% to another cavalry skill of his choice, and 30% to all other cavalry skills.  He also gets 2500L worth of spells, along with access to a level two "xenohealing" spell automatically.  For spells, I've purchased Healing at 2 points, Detect Enemies, one point of Bladesharp (+5% to hit, +1 damage), and Speedart (adding +15% to-hit and +3 damage to non-enchanted arrows).  Rolling a d6 for equipment, I find he gets access to a bow, a one-handed sword, and a small shield.  He also gets some additional armor: cuirboilli cuirass, greaves, and vambraces, leather skirt, and an open helm.  He also scores another 756L in spoils and pay.  Things are looking up!

For this week's sheet, I've actually left out a few things.  The character wound up with enough cash on hand to purchase some additional skill training, but to be entirely honest, I've written most of this with a bit of a hangover, and find the system to be too fiddly to deal with at the moment.  I've also left out a few places where I'm supposed to fill in equipment properties more than once.

A "Player's Edition" (excising the monsters and encounters) of RuneQuest Second Edition can be downloaded for free at this fansite. The cover of this edition is NSFW

Moon Design Publications publishes HeroQuest, a successor to RuneQuest using the same Glorantha setting, but with a new system.  HeroQuest can be purchased at the publisher's site, or at RPGNow.

Chaosium Inc, the original publishers of RuneQuest, have since released the Basic Role Playing system as a stand-alone, generic product, also available from RPGNow.

If you're just interested in seeing the NSFW RuneQuest cover, click here.

Now, it's time to call it a night.

The Doctor Who Role Playing Game: Adventures Through Time & Space

This week, one of my favorite television shows returned to the air for the second half of its sixth season, after what felt like an eternity on hiatus.  I am referring, of course, to the 21st century revival of the BBC's long-standing Doctor Who franchise, with which I've been perhaps unhealthily obsessed since I was a small child, staying up far too late with my eyes glued to PBS.  In honor of this particular, cultural phenomon, let's step into Non-Playable's own gaming time machine and vwoorp back about 26 years.

It is 1985, and FASA is riding high on the success of Battletech, their giant-robot miniatures-based wargame.  In a few short years, they will publish Shadowrun and Earthdawn, forever cementing them as the go-to gaming company for people bored with AD&D.  In the meantime, they came up with this.

For folks not familiar with Doctor Who, it is perhaps the world's longest running science fiction television program, running for 26 seasons between 1963 and 1989, two theatrical spinoff films starring Peter Cushing, a television movie on FOX in 1996, and the aforementioned revived series running from 2005 onwards.  Wikipedia claims a total of 777 episodes for the series as of August 2011, which is pretty impressive in its own right.  The program - and the adventures for this game - run the gamut from adventure, to horror, to mystery, typically with a science-fiction bend (such as the vampire inhabiting the gothic mansion high in the mountains turning out to be an alien, etc), while de-emphasizing the direct application of violence as a solution to problems.  The heroes typically triumph by out-thinking and out-manuevering their opponents, using creativity and ingenuity to turn the villain's plot back against him in some way, rather than simply overwhelming him with force.  This is a stark contrast to the dungeon crawls and other, combat-heavy, "GM vs. Players" style of gaming that once dominated the market, and it's an idea that we don't see much more of until the cooperative storytelling games from White Wolf come into their own.

Although time travel is a central idea to the Doctor Who RPG, it features only sparsely into the mechanics.  The time machine is simply a way for the party to arrive at the adventure, and leave upon its completion, and maintaining causality is typically not something the players or characters need to worry about.  For the purposes of this game universe, time is recorded objectively by a mindblowingly advanced and extremely pompous race of Time Lords, and history is effectively immutable, although the recorded outcome of events hinges on the player-characters' involvement.  For example, William Shakespeare was obviously not murdered by ancient aliens on the eve of the performance of his lost play, Love's Labour's Won.  However, this outcome was only due to the intervention of two resourceful time travellers, who happened to be in the right place at the right moment.  For the few times where time travel may be required as part of the game's plot, the characters make a skill roll to pilot their time machine to the correct spacial and temporal locations, and the results are compared against a difficulty table; successes place the characters when and where they want or need to be, failures can put them off by degrees from "a few feet" to "somewhere on the same planet," or "within a few hours" to "within a few decades."  The same interaction table is used for roughly every skill usage or saving throw.

This same success/failure table is used for all dice-related tests in the game.  All of the player's attributes (strength, endurance, dexterity, charisma, mentality, and intuition) are recorded with a Performance Rating, and all of their skills are recorded with a Proficiency Rating, both of which are leveled from I to VII.  Each rating costs a certain number of Attribute or Skill points, from 1 - 30, and both skills and attributes scale at the same rate.  Each character begins play with a score of 6 points in each Attribute, and 36 + 2d6 Attribute points to distribute in order to raise those scores.  To purchase Skills, the character begins with a Skill Point pool equal to the total number of Attribute Points (including the 6 "free" points in each Attribute), plus a number of Bonus Skill Points for skills based around Attributes, depending on that Attribute's score.  For example, if the character has a total of 15 points in Dexterity, they'd have Performance Level V, and get a bonus of 5 skill points to spend on DEX-related skills (like shooting a rifle, picking a pocket, etc).

In addition to Attribute and Skill levels, players will randomly roll for a Special Ability for their character.  Most results (except for 10 & 11) result in some additional ability, ranging from an enhanced Attribute (confering additional skill points and mastery), to supernatural psychic powers.  Appearance, age, and number of Regenerations used (if playing a Time Lord) are also randomly generated, though with the exception of Regenerations, these don't have any direct impact on gameplay.

Doctor Who uses a roll-under system, in which the player rolls 2d6 for all skill and attribute tests, with the goal of either meeting a target number, or scoring below the target number.  The lower the player's result is from the target, the better the success; if the target is 7 and the player rolls a 2, it's a massive critical.  On the other side of things, the higher the player's result is from the target, the worse the failure; rolling 12 with a target of seven is a massive fumble, with serious consequences.  Target numbers are determined by comparing the proficiency or performance rating of a character's skill or attribute, located along the Y-axis of a difficulty table, with the task's difficulty rating on the X-axis, modified for various penalties or bonuses.  The target number is at the intersection of the two axes. I would normally reproduce this table below, but as it takes up at least half a landscape page, and forms at least 50% of the game's core mechanic, I've decided to cut it for space concerns.  Instead, have some Daleks

.

The list of factors that modify a skill challenge is extensive, to say the least.  In addition to the usual concealment and range modifiers one expects out of a game, penalties are enacted if the attacker is moving, if the target is moving, or if the attacker is using a weapon other than the exact one he is skilled in; for example, if a UNIT commando from the 1960s is trained to Professional proficiency in submachineguns (as such soldiers are frequently seen using in the TV series), but has to attack with a laser rifle captured from an evil, invading Cyberman, he can't use his entire Level V proficiency, though may get to use half of his rating due to the weapon being similar.  In addition to these modifiers, further crunch comes into play when determining the number of actions a character can take during a turn.  Each action available to the character costs Action Points (AP), with different actions having different values.  The total number of AP available to the character is determined by his DEX value, divided by 3, rounded down, plus 4.  Are you still following along?  Using our earlier example of someone with a DEX of 15, we get:

(15/3) + 4 = 9 AP.

My current attempt at a mechanically complete character sheet is below.  I am relatively certain that the character is playable, per the rules of the blog, however due to organizational issues in the book (the rules for the game are spread across three different volumes within a single box set, with most but not all character mechanics discussed in the Player's Manual, while other's are described in the GM's Operation Manual), I'm not entirely confident that I haven't missed something. 

My eternally-supportive future-wife also attempted a sheet this week, apparently having a high tolerance for pain and unpleasantness.

Okay, maybe not that high.

A new Doctor Who: Adventures in Time & Space game based on the new series is available on RPGNow.  I believe it uses an entirely new rule system, rather than a revised edition of the game reviewed here.

The BBC's official Doctor Who website contains more information about both the current television series, and the original version.

Earthdawn, 1st Edition

First released by FASA in 1993, Earthdawn was the game for several of my internet acquaintences back in the day.  My friend Joe was such a fan that he formed his own gaming company, Living Room Games, and acquired a license to produce splats, and later an entire Second Edition.  As I don't have a habit of being nice to the games I review, I will not be touching LRG's Second Edition out of deference to my old pals, and the Third Edition from Red Bricks LLC is too new for the purposes of this blog, so we'll be examining good ol' First Edition today.

Earthdawn, in all its incarnations, can be described as a sort of post-apocalyptic fantasy.  Hundreds of years ago, the background goes, the world's magical aura peaked, allowing mindnumbing Horrors from the astral plane to cross over into the material world and wreak all manner of chaos and destruction.  This was the time of the Scourge, and during it, most life on the surface of the world was erradicated.  However, the "Name-giving" (sentient) races of the world (humans, elves, orcs, trolls, dwarves, etc) were warned of this impending disaster by various wizards and shamans and prophecies, and constructed elaborate, underground cities called "kaers" in which to hide and wait out the destruction.  The kaers were sealed shut for centuries while the Horrors plagued the earth; some cities survived unharmed, others were breached by rampaging monsters or natural disasters.  The setting's "present day" is about four centuries after the start of the Scourge, when the magical aura has started to subside, and most Horrors have been forced to retreat back to the astral plane.  The majority of the surviving kaers have opened and civilization has returned to the surface, though some vast, underground cities remain closed, their populations unaware of the changes taking place over their heads.  For those playing along at home, you may have noticed that you can replace "kaer" with "vault" and "Horror" with "atomic bomb," and suddenly you're playing Fallout, four years earlier.

All of this is detailed in the book's extensive background fluff, primarily written "in character," as anecdotes, histories and oral traditions recorded by denizens of the fictional world, and punctuated with beautiful art, ranging from fully realized paintings to atmospheric pen-and-ink drawings.  Beyond its postapocalyptic tone, however, Earthdawn sets itself apart from most other fantasy RPGs by largely doing away with linear character progression.  Rather than levels, character advancement is measured in "Circles," with each Circle containing a new set of talents and abilities that the character can access.  However, acquiring a certain about of experience does not automatically advance a character to the next circle.  Rather than the usual XP systems, Earthdawn awards players "Legend Points," which can be used to purchase Karma (which can be spent to improve dice rolls, similar in some ways to Action Points and Action Dice in various d20 flavors), or used to improve Skills, Talents, and other class-related abilities, or finally to gain a new circle alltogether.  Furthermore, in the Earthdawn system, dice rolls increase in magnitude by "Steps," representing increasingly potent combinations of dice.  The number of dice rolled when a character, for example, swings a broadsword, would be determined by adding their appropriate, governing attribute (Strength) to the Damage Step of the sword.  In other words, while most games would assign a static dice value to that big, two handed greatsword, Earthdawn simply assigns it a modifier that improves your overall attack and damage rolls. The degree of improvement corresponds to a combination of dice, noted on the Step/Action table, a portion of which is reproduced below.

Unlike the previous games reviewed here, Earthdawn uses a point-buy system for generating attributes, allowing players a customizable, yet objectively measurable way to design their characters.  All characters begin with 66 attribute points to spend.  A score of 5 costs 0 points, scores below 5 grant additional points, scores above 5 cost points.  My initial attribute array, before adding in racial modifiers, appears below.

Attribute Points: 66

 

Dex: 11

Str: 9

Tough: 11

Per: 17

Will: 18

Cha: 11

 

I've buffed up Perception and Willpower, having decided to create a Nethermancer (a magic-user focusing on spirits and other planes of existence), whose spells rely heavily on those two attributes.  I've decided to build a T'skrang, part of a race of flamboyant lizard-people.  While not entirely optimized for spellcasting, my gaming group has a tradition of off-type lizards, and I felt like joining in.  Now, the T'skrang gets a +1 to Dex, Toughness, and Charisma, making my racially modified stats look more like: 

 

Dex: 12

Str: 9

Tough: 12

Per: 17

Will: 18

Cha: 12

With that sort of array, he's strictly a back-row character, but we'll see just what he can do shortly.  Before we get to skills and spells and talents, we need to derrive our character's Death Rating (hitpoints), Wound Threshold (amount of damage he can take before suffering an injury), and Unconsciousness Rating (amount of damage he can take before being knocked cold), along with his carrying capacity, movement speed, initiative, and other secondary attributes.  Fortunately, there are no complex calculations here; everything is based on the Attribute scores above, converted via a massive table on page 52 of the book.

With that out of the way, now we can get to skills and talents.  At start, an Earthdawn character gets one Rank 1 "Artisan Skill," and two ranks worth of "Knowledge Skills."  Magic users get one Artisan Skill, Robe Embroidery, so there you have it.  Artisan skills are more or less mechanically useless and under normal circumstances, an Earthdawn character will never actually have to make an Artisan skill check; according to the background fluff, individuals who are corrupted by Horrors are unable to concentrate long enough to perform artisan tasks (such as sculpting, weaving, etc), so having an Artisan skill proves the character is uncorrupted.  Now, because Nethermancers deal with weird magic from other realities, I'm going to go ahead and spend two ranks on Knowledge: Horrors.

With skills assigned, we get into the real mechanical meat of the character, Talents.  Talents are where each discipline becomes mechanically distinct from one another; an archer will have talents for aiming and evasion, a cavalryman will have talents for riding and melee combat, etc.  In the case of my Nethermancer, he starts with access to the following First Circle talents: Karma Ritual, Read & Write Language, Read & Write Magic, Spellcasting, Spell Matrix, Spell Matrix, and Thread Weaving (Nethermancy).  The character has 8 rank points to distribute among these talents, which affect the rate at which he regains Karma points, his ability to learn new languages and spells, and the difficulty he has casting those same spells.  I'm pouring two points into Nethermancy,one into each Spell Matrix, two into Spellcasting and one each into R&W Magic and Karma. This allows me to store one First Circle spell in each Matrix, regain one Karma point each time I use my ritual, and increase my steps for casting a spell by 2, my steps for weaving a complex spell by 2, and my steps for learning a spell by 1.  For the spells themselves, I have access to 7 "Spell Points," (equal to the Perception step), which can be used to purchase spells from any circle.  First Circle spells cost 1, Second Circle cost 2, etc; since this little lizard can only cast First Circle spells, I'm focusing on those, though you can purchase from any circle; you just can't access those spells to your character advances to the required Circle himself.

Spells:
First Circle:

Bone Dance (one point)

Command Night Flyer (one point)

Spirit Grip (one point)

Undead Struggle (one point)

Insect Repellent (one point)

Shield Mist (two points)

Of these, I can't cast Shield Mist yet, but it never hurts to be prepared for later.  Spirit Grip and Insect Repellent go into the Matrices for immediate access.  Now, for actually casting these spells, the rulebook suffers from a serious case of vagueness.  Spirit Grip requires no threads, and can be cast by a Spellcasting test, rolling dice for the character's Perception step + his Spellcasting rank.  In this case, that would be Step 9, or 1d8+1d6.  Insect Repellent, however, requires a Thread to be Woven first; so, the character spends one round Weaving the spell, and then makes his Spellcasting check once he's done Weaving.  In order to Weave a Thread, the character must pass a Thread Weaving test. The book, however, does not say what to roll for a Thread Weaving test, in any section that I could find detailing the magic rules.  Presumably, one rolls the appropriate Attribute (probably Perception) + the Thread Weaving rank, as with Spellcasting, but it could also be designed so that I just roll on the Thread Weaving rank.  If Rank + Attribute, then I'd be rolling 1d8 + 1d6 again and casting fairly consistently, but if I'm supposed to just roll on the Thread Weaving rank, that's 1d4 - 1, which produces fairly unfavorable casting results.

 My inability to locate the Thread Weaving Test information is indicative of a larger problem with first edition Earthdawn, that being the complete lack of organization in the rulebook.  The book is heavy on fluff - beautiful, well written, incredibly atmospheric fluff - which lays out a world that is, quite frankly, one of the most exciting that I've ever seen in a stock pen-and-paper campaign.  However, while the writers and editors have an amazing talent for creating fiction, they were pretty bad at laying out mechanical information in a way that makes it easily accessable.  The book discusses the same features, such as Thread Weaving, in multiple sections (Talents, The Working of Magic, and Spellcasting), each section referring back to the other sections for more information, no single section providing all of the needed information to use the mechanic.  Hopefully, later editions resolved these organizational and editorialerrors.  Certainly, if I were going to actually play the game, I would grab the more recent Third Edition.  

My ever-supportive fiancee will not be joining in the character creation this week, as her new, absurdly early work schedule is kicking her ass at the moment.  Hopefully, her sheets will return next week, as things settle down around the office.

All images above are sourced from the now out-of-print Earthdawn First Edition, published by FASA.

RPGNow offers both Earthdawn Classic Edition, an edited and revised version of First Edition, and the fully updated Earthdawn Third Edition for sale, both published by Red Brick LLC.

Earthdawn Second Edition, from the largely defunct Living Room Games, is also available at RPGNow.

This ancient, Earthdawn fansite from the 1997 Internet contains a good portion of the First Edition rules.