Maid: Impressions

So, as mentioned previously, Maid was played yesterday. It was... not nearly as bad as I expected. Both mechanically and thematically it flowed reasonably well and did what it's supposed to do.

As you may have noticed, the post when  I commented on the core mechanic was at 3:30 in the morning and so I am reserving the right to retract what I said about it due to not thinking it through properly. What the multiplication mechanic does to set itself apart from most mechanics to my mind is twofold. Firstly and most importantly it means there is a real difference between a skill 2 and skill 3. Whereas a + modifier would be the norm in *many* systems, the multiplication does make a difference. That is, a roll +2 is not significantly different to a roll +3, at least not when compared to a roll x2 and a rollx3. This didn't really occur to me when I was reading the rules before play, hence dismissing it as inflating the numbers. The reality is it allows a larger range of target numbers for challenges.

Secondly, the multiplication means that anyone with a skill of 0 cannot use that skill for anything. This was quite poignant coming from what might be regarded as a 'casual' game. Many games allow bases chances for success, even if it is just the roll of a dice. It was refreshing to note that as the skills are randomly generated it was possible you were going to have to work with a character that (like mine did) had 0 in a crucial skill (Athletics in my case). This is mitigated by the fact that whenever you perform an action you describe it in such a manner as to decide which attribute you roll on. If you emphasise the physical parts of an activity then you roll Athletics, if you emphasise precision and technique then you roll Skill etc. This is the main engine that drives the roleplaying aspect of the game and it works well as you have to work out how to proceed in the way that best emphasises your 'talents'.

As to the actual game: it was fun but a little disjointed and hectic. It specifically says in the rules that it could be used as a long-term game but I can't see it working that way for any group I've played with. It's fun as a distraction between other things but unless you're really into the theme (you know who you are) the ruleset is not really tight enough to facilitate campaign play and the kooky characters (lolita assassain ninja?) and plots would probably wear thin after a while. They certainly would for me anyway. But as always, YMMV and I know a few people who could probably get a kick out of it for a good long while.

"I Reject Your Reality And Substitute My Own!"

In which I discourse on the remainder of the available races and, perhaps more importantly, show my working as to why some more traditional choices have been shunned from my world.

Trolls: The descendents of the mountains themselves, born from the great rocks struck from the cliffs by magic in time gone by. I have a soft-spot for Trolls (ironically, as they have literally no soft-spots. This stuff writes itself.). As mentioned previously, they have no spirits and are essentialy immune to spirit magic and cannot interact with the spirit plane at all. By this I mean things such as disease spirits cannot possess them or directly interact with them, but ice spirits (for exampe) can still affect them indirectly with their icy spells. A nice little touch I think, that should make them interesting to play. Obviously, strength is a plus, but dexterity suffers as they have a lack of fine motor skills. Lack of a spirit also means POW is a bit below average too, so expecting these to be fighters mainly with the odd priest of the Trollgod thrown in. That said, camoflage abilities in natural/stone-based environs might make highwayman or thief a viable option?

Pixie: Having thoroughly examined the stats from as many angles as possible, this is one race that I want to include as it brings a completely different perspective to the playing field. However, it is going to be pretty much limited to magical classes due to small size and thus low strength, and crucially tiny weapons. So she's going to get a load of extra points to buy common magic with and probably get a free starting sorcery/divine/spirit skill too. Still can be specialised to either out and out combat (although not a front-line character, with an average of 2hp per hit location...) or infiltration and espionage fun.

 Myrmidon: Ant men (but not from Mars)! Minor telepathic abilities? At least something akin to aura sensing or similar will feature in this race as a unique ability to represent the hive mind. Otherwise, they're essentially centaurs but with mobility and armour instead of strength and speed. The myth behind the name is excellent too: they were a group of Greeks who were (reputedly) descended from a princess who was seduced by Zeus in one of his lesser known forms, an ant. It must be true because you couldn't make this shit up. Cannot exist in chaotic society for too long, needs the security of a daily grind once every six months or so. Patroling guard is an ideal occupation for these guys. Can only interact with lawful spirits and deities.

Which brings the total to 8, including humans. I think that's enough to be going on with for now.

Now the rejects:
Elves, Dwarves, Halflings. I just can't justify them being there. Dwarves still exist in my world but are vicious and bestial in their pursuit of shinies. Only just tipping the scale to 'sentient'. Halflings are just depowered dwarves and I don't see any advantages to that. Elves are boring. Actually that applies to all these in their Tolkienesque forms, they've just been so overdone that they're pretty much just caricatures now. And the associations with a single class are too great as well. Elves are just really old people anyway. All the traditional bonuses to magic and archery are cultural rather than innate. Strip them of their high-and-mighty attitude and they don't really have any interesting or unique quirks of their own. Play an albino human with pinned ears if you must, but there'll be no elves in my land...

Grotaron. I really wanted these to be playable. I really did. But I can't do it. They're just too big and too good at what they do. And frankly I couldn't stop laughing long enough to write stats for them. They worship a Wooly Mammoth for goodness sake. So no, they're not going in I'm afraid. I doubt there'll even be any in the world to be honest.

Yes, those are eyes. Delicate sensory organs on your grappling limbs, what could possibly go wrong?

Slarge: Glorantha's Lizardmen. A nice, if a little overpowered, race by all accounts. But it seems redundant with the Dragonewts. Especially as the Dragonewts are a bit more variable rather than wanting to smash everything. Oh and Slarges are hated by every other race because they have a reputation as backstabbers so it'd be more trouble than it's worth. Especially as the town must be safe.

Satyrs, Goblins, Orcs, Assorted humanoid generic evils. Boring and more to the point, wouldn't be accepted in most societies so pointless anyway. I did try statting out some gargoyles but they were just insane. At base they have 5d6 strength. Even massive compensations didn't change how broken that was when combined with natural claws...

That concludes the selection of playable races. Any good suggestions will be noted and possibly added. Probably take a break from this world for a while as I work on the map for the PCs area.

Picture (C) Mongoose Publishing, No challenge on it's ownership is intended. Any problems with my use of it and give me an email or a message, I'll take it down.

You Want To Play As A What...?!

The title being my reaction when one of my players decided he wanted to play as a pixie. Granted it was in response to my questions from yesterday's post, but even so...

A few of my issues about balance and such I have worked out now. This link gave me a good insight into what my problem was. I was trying to work this as 'Combat as Sport', where any one individual can take on any one other individual. In the real world (and as this will be a sandbox, it is attempting to emulate at least vaguely the real world in this respect) Combat is War. Thus it is all about strategising and logistical maneuvering. Your pixie mage might get flattened in a mano e mano with an ogre, but level the playing field with a varied support group (the party) for the pixie, and the group of ogres that all have the same specialties are screwed. Ergo, as long as your character is useful, it doesn't have to epitomise one particular aspect of anything. Also, doesn't even have to be a fighter at all. In many cases the party may be first contact with another species; diplomacy is a useful skill too. Combat's just easier to write quick examples for.

These are the first species I have decided to include in my world as playable. Part 2 will conclude tomorrow:

Human: Duh. Balanced, doesn't suck at anything in particular but has no hugely different skills either, save a slightly higher affinity for common magic than most (10%) and possibly some sort of innate ability if i can think of one that doesn't suck... EDIT: I think I've got it! Humans can be the most technologically advanced PC culture (absence of dwarfs make this pretty much a given anyway) and thus they shall have bonuses to that sort of thing.

Broo: 'Chaos' influenced beastmen. I'll be rewriting the history on these a little for my world as it sounds too much like a GW ripoff at the moment (as seaofstarsrpg points out below, RQ chaos was around much before GW, but the association is still too strong for my liking). Suffice to say, these are tolerated in most societies only as long as they are useful. They smell bad and look evil but have a nice affinity for spirit magics. Can't settle in any lawful society for too long though or they go a bit nuts. Combined with natural weapons (horns) makes them perfect for adventuring and mercenary work. Innate traits are 1d2 Chaotic Traits rolled on the table in the RQ monsters book, 50/50 good and bad. (Word to the wise: Don't image search 'Runequest Broo' at work. With safe search on strict, the 7th image was NSFW).

Centaurs: I have a great love for all things 'tauric. I think I shall include Wemic under this general heading (possibly the barbarian/primitive race for centaurs? Same species, but different races have different hind quarters? Evil Counterparts too). Normal centaurs obviously can't climb as well as many bipedal creatures and that's actually quite a big detriment. Though they are fast and sure-footed over even rocky terrain, so I think that balances itself really. Big obviously. Somewhat stronger than humans probably but easier to hit. May give them a free nature spell or similar as an innate ability though they're fairly well balanced as is.

Dragonewt: Technically Glorantha specific, but I'm stealing them. I really like how their primary culture can basically be implemented as a cult, with them getting bigger and more powerful as they gain status rather than just through gradual improvment like everyone else. Start off a bit tragic, but a minor breath-weapon and the ability to grow wings and other nice abilities makes them eminently playable anyway. Also, access to their own magic Lores and common magic spells is a nice bonus even to non-mage players.

Birdmen: I refuse to call them Ducks. No really, they are not even based on ducks dammit. In my world, they're closer to the Aarakocra anyway. They can fly, though low starting strength means they won't be hauling their friends around at all. Calm Animal (Birds) as an innate ability that can also incite flocks of birds to follow them around.

On The Frustrations Of Diversity In FRPGs

(Apologies to anyone who started looking at this for CoC content, I'm on a bit of an RQ binge at the moment, the indescribable horror will return eventually, honestly...) Little thing first: I'm always amazed at just how often posts like this are actually needed by the community. Surely it's common sense that you should ask your players what they're comfortable with and not push those limits. I mean really? I'm not mocking the author by any means and he makes good points, it just seems like it should be something we know by now...

*Ahem* Anyway, now I've got that off my chest onto the meat of the post:

Non-human PCs. Can these actually work?
I really like the idea of being involved in a game (on either side of the screen) where you can play as non-human species (they're not races, it's a stupid use of the term etc. etc.). This needn't be limited to the usual elf/dwarf/halfling set and similar 'human but with a single defining characteristic' crowds (I'm looking at you, planetouched). More like trolls and pixies. I'm not talking necessarily even bipedal characters e.g. centaurs etc.

As part of my worldbuilding for RQ, I'm looking to provide a decent - around a dozen probably - set of playable races for my players, each with unique builds and traits, rather than just reskins of the same template. I also want to make it so that different races can also do different things, otherwise it just becomes an unofficial class system i.e. all elves are mages and similarly playing any other race as a mage is pointless. I have however run into a few potholes with this, both mechanically and in-universe.

The term balance gets thrown around a lot both positively and negatively, and I am resigned to the fact there are going to be optimum builds no matter how I work it out. However, I am determined to not make each race only useful in one role. The difficulty lies in making this feasible and still having interesting and significant differences betweeen them. Thus I can think of two options here:
A) Specifically reverse this, instead of building the species to fit a role, build them to NOT fit a particular role, with compensatory bonuses to relatively general areas. For example, Trolls in my game are pretty much descended from boulders and thus have no spirits. No spirit magic for Trolls then, but to compensate they gain some physical bonuses that emphasise the very material flavour of these beasts, don't prohibit anything. So you can still play a Troll priest, Troll scout/thief or a Troll tank fighter. Flavourful and not too restrictive.
B) Pretty much balance the rollable characteristics equally but give each species interesting and flexible racial abilities that give them unique abilities that are preferably not tied to a specific style of play. Though this is easier in some cases than others.
Pour exemple, Humans have all their normal stats +30% in common magic representing their diversity and power over the natural world. Trolls have the same stats, but have natural armour at AP1 on all locations because of their trollhide. Elves have the same stats but have Charm Animal as a free ability etc.

Both of these break down when you have more variation. For example B) doesn't work with species that are substantially smaller (halflings/dwarfs/pixies) or bigger (Centaurs/Trolls if they're to be interesting/Myrmidon). A) still pigeonholes players. I think this is inevitable really though, and I'm just going to have to accept that species is basically class by a different name. Besides if they're all the same it's boring isn't it? I like the idea of a tiny pixie magus, who would be flattened by anything that hit but can flit around so fast and fire spells off so she's not in anymore danger than the trollkin barbarian with her greataxe and the Centaur wielding his recurve bow or the human thief who is swiftly fleeing with all the loot while they are distracted.

I think that overall, I'm going to deal in a sort of one-up-one-down, advantage/disadvantage system to prevent things that are huge and magically inclined as then there is no real reason to play any other race. If something comes out as being a rubbish version of another race or a broken version, it'll get binned. That said, some species are built for specific roles. Using a centaur as a moutain climber is not going to work, so he'll get some counterbalancing to compensate.

Some more fluffy restrictions that I'm also using to pare down the list of available creatures to play:
The species must be capable of integrating with general (human) society. They don't have to get on well with humans, and in the case of groups like the Dragonewts, will possibly have been exiled from their own communities. Having the groups pet minotaur having to be shackled by the gate of every town is not going to fun for the player and is a pain in the ass for me to administrate.
Similarly, the race must not be overtly evil, stupid or undead. This rules out things like Satyrs who are openly malevolent towards humans and cave trolls who are too stupid to understand any quests given to them. Again, for everyone's convenience and I've never heard of a campaign with evil PCs going well.

When I have finalised my list, I'll post them here. Meanwhile I welcome any suggestions that might arise both for cool races and

Character Concept: Mikal

A nice little concept for a shamanic character that came to me when I was reading through the Runequest II rulebook. Feel free to steal and/or disassemble as its only a skeleton profile.

 

Mikal is a Shaman who is obsessed with ascending to join the ranks of the anscestor spirits. His shamanic trainer instructed him that while the ancestors are perfectly happy to teach and instruct, the aspiring shaman should aim to remain rooted in the material plane so as to further teach humanity the virtues that are necessary to progress its relationship to nature and the spiritual world. To symbolise this bond, his exclusive weapon is a ball and chain which he wields to great effect. His spirit animal is a gazelle, which represents the freedom he has spent his entire existence craving. His eventual goal is to become inviolate to all earthly harm so he can spend his time nurturing his connections with the spirit plane and passing this knowledge on.

 

Due to his nature,he refuses to partake in any practices involving reincarnation of himself or others, viewing death as a sort of spiritual promotion. His Ball and Chain is shackled to his wrist and has a guardian spirit bound to it who aids him when he is attacked and can calm some wild animals when they are enraged.