Ritual of Links (or stuff I like and you should like too)

Here is a list of stuff I have been reading this week, that I am going to be using in my sunday game.

Roleplayingtips.com has several great ideas that turn hero points into drama points

 

Treasure Tables: Here is something that sits in my favorites and I use it to create a NPC name on the fly when I need one.

 

Dungeon Mastery: Al-Quadim and Arabian Nights, when I think about the first game I ever played that did not depend on alighnment for black and white morality it was a cross between Al-Quadim and Thomas Covenant.

Enworld Blogs: I run an improve game, and while I disagree with things like dice fall where they may because no one likes to die stupidly, I do like alot of Reynard's Rules

Ars Ludi: I a design philosphy very close to my own, Would I lie to you?

If you know a blog or site I should be reading let me know!

Steve

Off to enjoy the weekend

The Churning Storm

Quick update today

I am working on an article for A Witch's Choice Patronage Project, about Midnight on the Firing Line, 

The idea is that A Witch's Choice is the calm before the storm, and that thier are events hidden in it that will have a huge impact on the Myth Arc of The Rituals of Choice Adventure path. 

This is close to what I wanted A Witch's Choice to be but I am trying to take it a bit futher as I feel it is the start of a Churning Storm, that will become a super cell that will lay waste to Diamond Throne and all of Serran 

Thanks to Jesse Butler for the spark that got me thinking about this article. 

Five Feats (XV) : Character Building

Its been a while since I did a 5 feats article but i had some new ideas I wanted to play with. 

There are never enough feats, (expecially if you use the Book of Experimental Might feat rules). This is the fiftteenth article of 5 feats a week (75 total feats!), some are original feats others are from OGC sources, converting them to AE and editing the feats in an attempt to improve balance and avoid "feats that suck", the idea being "why take this feat when I can take power attack? " *Balance Disclaimer: these feats have not been playtested. Skill Focus is a perfectly balanced feat, it is also boring. These feats are designed to be "cool" first and "balanced" second.

I start back up with feats that would help develop a unique type of background, while still exploring the themes of Arcana Evolved.

AKASHIC ANCESTORY [Talent]

You are well versed in the history and ancestor worship of your family; you can tap into the akashic memory of your ancestors

Prerequisites: You may only take this feat as a first level character, one of your ancestors must have possessed the skills selected below (DM adjudication)

Benefit: you select two skills that are not normally class skills, they are no considered class skills you gain a +1 bonus to each of these skills.

 

EXEMPLAR OF AWARENESS (Ceremonial)

Prerequisites: Wis 13, Listen 10 ranks, Sense Motive 10 ranks, Search,10 ranks, Spot 10 ranks,Truename, In a special ceremony 10 special objects are hidden from you by a trusted friend, who must lie to you about their location, when you discover them these objects are consumed as part of the ritual.

Benefit: You may take 10 with the Listen, Sense Motive, Search, and Spot ranks even if stress and distractions would normally prevent you from doing so. Once per day you can take a 20 with each of these skills, regardless of stress or distractions.

 

EVOLVED WARD (Ceremonial)

Prerequisites: Truename, a runethane or runeblade in a special ceremony places a special rune upon that does not count against his normal allotment of runes.

Benefits: at the beginning of each day choose one of the following extraordinary, spell, spell-like abilities, or supernatural, until the beginning of the next day you gain a +2 bonus to all saving throws against this type of effect.

 

Art by Eric Lofgren, copyright 2009 Rite Publishing. 

NOBLE FAVOR (Talent)

Your aristocratic breeding, training or wealth has given you a powerful personality among others. You know how to recover from and make the best of your social gaffes.

Prerequisite: Charisma 13+

Benefit: You may re-roll the result of any of your Charisma-based skills up to three times per day, using the most favorable result.

 

RITUAL OF THE HEART [Ceremonial]

You can cut out and eat the heart of a defeated enemy to gain its strength.

Prerequisites: 5 ranks in Heal skill or 5 ranks in survival, Truename, In a special ceremony you must eat the entire heart of an opponent you have killed by yourself without becoming sick.

Benefit: Once per day, you can eat the heart of an animal, humanoid, magical beast, or monstrous humanoid that you have defeated in combat (subject to DM adjudication). Eating the heart will heal 2 points of damage per character level of the defeated foe. You also gain a +1 enhancement bonus for every three character levels of the defeated foe (max +6) to a singular ability score of your choice during your next encounter.  

Special: You can take this feat multiple times to gain additional uses per day.

 

 Hope you enjoyed

Steve

Brainstorm: Akashic Nodes, Memes, and Doppelgangers

“A meme is the manifestation of a specific belief, societal institution, or potent emotion.” Akashic Nodes: The Home of Memory.

Sometimes I just like to read rpg material and see where my imagination takes me, here is where this singular line (written by Michael Trice, I believe, I will have to ask Bill Collins about it.)

Think of an Akashic Node that is created by a group of like-minded people, now go a bit further make them all doppelgangers, they can read each other’s thoughts so they are nearly all the same mind. In the black and white world of D&D they would be a conspiracy plotting to replace all the people of the world with doppelgangers. 

In the gray and grayer world of Arcana Evolved I think of them as a group of spies created by the giants in the same way that they created the sibeccai, but the doppelgangers were created in wartime they were not afforded the status because war demands expediency not morality.  They accept people into their society who have lost their sense of identity, humans often become mojh but the other races don’t have that choice all they have left are the doppelgangers. 

 The node becomes the meme of the forgotten, an institution of acceptance and secrecy, where you often feel a sense of release and new beginnings, here anyone can start over and begin anew.   Yet what terrible secrets lie hidden here cast off like skin shed by a snake.   Could even a dramojh that hated demonic dragon-scions have shed their skins, memories and sins?  The Doppelganger your talking to could have been anyone, anyone at all.

Well it was just a thought.

Steve “Qwilion” Russell

Rite Publishing

Encounters: That something extra

In Media Res

How do you start a roleplaying game in the middle of the action, well you can’t really, but what I am trying to do in Adventure #1: A Witch’s Choice is have the players arrive during what would normally be the middle of an encounter.

In this case I literally plan on changing the encounter as it stands. In the current encounter a monster attacks a guard, freeing another monster.

I have decided to change this up. The Monster will be pursuing a nobleman, the reasons why are the beginning of Adventure #2: To Kill or Not To Kill, Why the monster is pursuing him will not be uncovered until the end of that adventure.

To make this even crazier I am going to have this all happen during the middle of another encounter entirely, I am going to have a man run up and then hid behind a PC begging him to save him from a horrible monster… that’s where the fun really begins.

Here is the thing, you don’t know what is going on you are already dealing with one problem and someone you don’t know is asking for your help and then you confronted by a monster that is usually on the side of the angels, and it wants to kill the man asking for help.  A complex moral situation, that won’t really be resolved till next week’s episode J

Yeah I with some work this will be a much stronger encounter that the way it currently stands. 

Adventuring Tropes and PCs (part II)

Here is an example of a trope (storytelling devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations.) that I used in my own game. 

 One of my players Chirs is playing an mojh magister named who is missing 2 days from his life after a undersea race decimated the eastern naval fleet of the diamond throne, when he came to the undersea race had stopped attacking and were asking to meet with reprentatives of the throne including Chis's character at a newly discovered city called Io-Delethon (a city that may have been part of the old giantish empire. In my current game each of the player characters has a secret event he player does not know about, that has been added to the Jigsaw Puzzle Plot of the campaign Myth Arc.

 One bit of Myth Arc you will need to know is that every PC is unstuck in time, this explains where a PC goes when the player is not there, and why PCs suddenly appear when  a PC arrives at a game late.  He is moving forward in time to an unknown destination, but always returns near other PCs.

In the case of Chis's character I have set up an Either Or Prophecy that sets him up as either The Chosen One or The Anti Messiah

the PCs choices will be what decides the outcome, as I have added a number of destiny specials that go along with the chosen one, marking him in a number of special ways as the messiah-like character.   The Name he goes by in the game is "The Scion of Dusk and Dawn"  with a nice little rune of either a rising or setting sun, with what is either the morning or the evening star.  With a number of intelligent sea chreatures recognizing him by this name, and passiing on a special talisman of Dusk. 

I set up a vague prophecy that has outcomes that are both vague as to weather they are good or bad based on your point of view.   If you read it from the charaters point of view or the undersea races point of view it makes a vast differance on which outcome is prefered.

In this way it becomes an outline for the future without being a railroading script, he can still go far afield from the outline but its alot easier to put something that is part of the outline out in front of him and still maintain the illusion of choice.   

I have taken a bit of this idea from the second chronicles of Thomas Covenant, where you hand somone emmense power but with an immense lack of control

which reminds me I need to start adding in the Wild magic stuff I wanted :0

The DM's Primer to The Rituals of Choice Adventure path

Rite Publishing has released a free introduction for game masters to the myth arc of its patron driven campaign saga.

Its about the PCs, Stupid.

I had this wonderful idea for an encounter in A Witch's Choice your basicly a 1st level PC encountering a 25 CR + monster. I really hated this encounter though because it kept coming off as a stupid encoutner no matter what I had the monster doo.

I came to the realization that it was because the PCs were not in any meaningful way involved in the encounter, nothing they did in anyway affected the outcome. It was not about what the monster did, it was about what the PCs did.

So I changed the ecounter around if you help the BBEG you get an ally in the final fight with the true vilian of the campaign, if you don't then there is a big explotion and the BBEG's head ends up in your parties collective lap.

I really hope they don't help him.

Adventuring Tropes and PCs

Here is an example of a trope (storytelling devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations.) that I used in my own game and how the trope evolved over the course of play.

 One of my players Doug is playing an akashic/litorian named Alejandro Breezestalker who works as a tracker and seeker for the Jaren, his basic character idea was a master who is seeking the right apprentice. In my current game each of the player characters has a secret event he player does not know about, that has been added to the Jigsaw Puzzle Plot of the campaign Myth Arc.

 One bit of Myth Arc you will need to know is that every PC is unstuck in time, this explains where a PC goes when the player is not there, and why PCs suddenly appear when  a PC arrives at a game late.  He is moving forward in time to an unknown destination, but always returns near other PCs.

 In Doug’s case I always had his PC arrive from a direction the party was headed, and later when they went that direction they would run into traps set by a manipulative bastard named Duskin Pitt who had killed Doug’s mentor.

 In reality Doug is dealing with a combination of the Tomato in the Mirror, Demonic Possession, and The Puppet Masters.  Duskin Pitt is actually a Soul Rider (See Ptolus or think of the Ravers from Stephen R Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever).  Duskin is using Doug’s PC as one of its many hosts; in this case they are attempting to stop the destruction of civilization by an alliance of Heralds of Annialation, Rune Reavers, and Shadow Fey.

His apprentice comes in to the picture as a host in training, someone Doug's PC will have to defend, and is likely to be the "face" of Duskin Pitt in the future should Doug succeed in ridding himself of Duskin Pitt's possession.  If you a comic book fan think Wolverine, Kitty Pryde and Ogen.

 This is the limit of my outline so that Doug is not railroaded into any course of action, he could ally with the soul rider seeking to assist its work or it could seek the help of the shadow fey in removing it, or finding a third option it’s up to him.

 I can tell you the player loves the idea that many of the things that have been happening (Including the assassination of the lady protector) he has been an unknowing and unwilling participate in, you can really see his emotional investment not just in his character but in the campaign that character is part of. 

I found it fascinating how this piece that could have easily been misused and railroaded down the characters throat, has been embraced by the player and has become a wonderful part of our sandbox, 

I encourage you to pic a trope and see what you can do to tie a trope to a PC without railroading him.  Next time I will show you want I did with Either Or Prophecy 

 

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