Weekend Recap

My big birthday weekend is coming to an end and it was a blast.

Pathfinder
Finally leveled up in Pathfinder yesterday! Yeah!  We are all still making tweaks to our characters which is to be expected. Still enjoying this game but there are some minor rules tweaks we are still getting used to after 3.5 and 4.0.  I am also playing a Paladin.  Something I have not done in maybe 20 years or more, so I have to get used to being a front line fighter again and not the sneaky arcane type that fires magical bolts from the background.  So I have combat tactics to read up on.

New Games
Got Dresden Files.  Wow that is a good looking book, can't wait till the dead tree version is out.  Great stuff and I love the city creation guidelines and it does have one of the most detailed character creation systems I have seen.  I am not sure if I will like it as a game yet, but it goes a long way toward's selling Fate to me.

Mentioned this one on Friday, but I am still loving my new Monster Manual 3 for D&D 4.  The guys over at Wizards know their audience, all the monsters in this book appeared (more or less) originally in the various AD&D modules from the Golden Age of AD&D.  So there are your GDQ monsters, your S series ones (some, not all) and more.  It was nice to see some old faces.  There were new ones as well to keep things interesting.

I worry about D&D 4 though.  It seems to me that the wind is gone out of it's sails (and maybe sales too).  I like the game, but I see why some gamers don't.  The market is more factionalized than ever before and it is somewhat due to the one thing that was supposed to bring us all under one system to rule them all; d20.

I have new Witch Girls Adventures book on the way, so I want to talk about that soon too.

Wedding
Next week I have a Civil War reenactment wedding to go to.  I am in the wedding so I'll be wearing my Victorian suit.  I will be wear a full wool suit, in Illinois, at the start of Summer, outside.  I must be insane.
I want to get XP for this like it was a LARP and be able to apply to any of Ghosts of Albion characters.
In any case I won't be posting near the end of the week.

Random Stuff before the Weekend

So some little posts today.

Monster Manual 3 for D&D 4
Picked this up earlier in the week.  I love it.  You can never get too many monsters or monster books.  IT's too bad we are not playing D&D4 in my adult group.  I might have to move to D&D4 in my kids group just so I can use this.

I am torn. My kids' game of D&D 3.x is going great I almost hate to change things on them.  But then there are all these nice new D&D4 books...

Pathfinder

As typical tomorrow is ENWorld Game Day at my favorite local game store, and I am going to be at home in my game room playing a marathon game of Pathfinder.  Not that I am complaining mind you! I will just have to be there in spirit.  Anytime there has been an EN World Game Day or a D&D Game Day we are gaming at my place instead.  I am fully expecting my paladin, Johan Werper the V, the great-great grandson of my first ever D&D character to reach 2nd level tomorrow.  One can always hope.

I am totally digging using Hero Lab for this as well.  Great to keep track of things and even explore "what ifs" on skills or class choices.




Tempting FATE
Bet that title hasn't been overused!  Anyway. I have a bunch of new(ish) Fate and Fudge games that are screaming at me to try out.  I regular GM is bringing over his printed out copy of Icons, I have Dresden Files and few others.  I am still not 100% sold on Fate/Fudge even if they are Indy darlings.

More Games
Look for reviews, overviews and commentary of games like Dresden Files, BASH, Icons, Cartoon Action Hour 2  and more.  Plus I have a stack of old games I want to go over.  Mostly horror.

AND....
It is my birthday this weekend!  So happy birthday to me.

Willow & Tara: OVA

To wrap-up OVA I present my two witches.

Now at this point you might ask what is that OVA brings to the table that I didn't cover in BESM 2, 3.0 or d20?
And the truth is, not a lot, but that is fine.  It presents the material in a new way. By focusing on the concept of the character first, not just what the numbers add up to, was a good way to think about what the character is supposed to be.

The OVA sheets should sit nicely next to all the flavors of BESM and should be used with those games as well as a reminder of what the character is supposed to be.  I guess this is the reason that some many people like Fudge and Fate so much these days.

That is also what I like most about Anime as a genre/medium.  Emphasis is placed on the character.  Take the recent Witchblade anime and compare it to the Witchblade American comic.   In the anime we get to know Masane first as a mother. Ok a bit of an air head, but she is not an ass-kicker.  Sarah Pezzeni is.  As the series progresses we see Masane as something more than just the Witchblade wielder.  Just like Robin is more than a firestarter witch or Kiki is more than flying.  There is character development that you just don't quite see in American fare.  Now granted, sometimes I want a plot driven show or just watching stuff blow up real good.  That is fine.  But in game I want it to be more character driven.  I invest in these characters; I want to know what they will do.  I want to be pulled in and even surprised.

Shall we?
For the witches I wanted a more powerful game, so I set my power cap at 15.  That is crazy, but I think it works here.  In Mutants and Masterminds terms that could be between PL 12 and 17.

Willow Rosenberg

Human Intelligent Super Witch
29 years old (2010)

Abilities and Weaknesses
Beautiful +2, Filthy Rich +2, Item, Doll's Eye Crystal (adds to Endurance for casting) +1, Inventor +2, Magic, Arcane +6, Occult Knowledge +5, Smart +5, Telekinesis (part of magic) +6
Guardian (Brianna) -2, Loves (Tara) -2, Minority (Lesbian Jewish witch) -1, Quick temper -1

Attack
Blast +6
Spell +6, by spell type

Defense
Barrier +6

Health 40 Endurance 40

Tara Maclay

Human Empathic Witch

29 years old (2010)

Abilities and Weaknesses

Animal Companion (can talk) +1, Beautiful +2, Magic, Witchcraft +6, Occult Knowledge +5, Perceptive +2,  Psychic +2, Sixth Sense +3, Telekinesis (part of magic) +6

Guardian (Brianna) -2, Loves (Willow) -2, Minority (Lesbian witch) -1

Attack

Blast +6

Spell +6, by spell type

Defense

Magic Circle +6

Health 40 Endurance 45

This is obviously much later in the future than my previous builds.  Nothing new here really except for the addition of their dependent daughter Brianna (long story, I'll share it someday).  I gave them different types of magic, something I tried a bit in d20 Modern.  I think in future builds or revised ones I will explore this more.  I would like to see how it works in-game.

Now that I have OVA builds for Willow, Tara, Ivy, Rachel and Robin I should figure out a one shot to use them all in.  Maybe STN comes to Ohio?  Wow, that is even a stretch for me.

While I am on the subject of OVA I might head over to the American side of Cartoons for a bit and do Cartoon Action Hour.  It is a similar game in terms of character creation and I want to compare them while this is still fresh in my mind.

So many games.......

Outlaw Press is back and still stealing art

Like a bad case of herpes that flares up to piss you off, James Shipman has poked his head back up and is trying to sell his books full of stolen art.

The new details are here: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=519805

You can read what was said before here:
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/01/more-from-outlaw-press.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2009/12/outlaw-press-uses-stolen-art-and.html
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=483885

This is so irritating that this guy continues to do this.

Any Witch Way You Can: Ghosts of Albion / Unisystem

So to follow up on my OVA post on Rachel and Ivy I thought I would post Rachel and Ivy in my favorite system, Cinematic Unisystem.  since Eden has gone back online and Ghosts is due out soon, this is a great choice! (ok, biased I know).

Actually stating up the characters for Unisystem worked out fantastic.  I might be biased but I am really pleased with how they worked out.   While I am very pleased with the OVA stats, I am thrilled with the Unisystem ones.

The world of Ghosts of Albion (or even Buffy/Angel) is a good fit for the world of Rachel and Ivy.  Demons, faeries, pixies, witches and vamps are all similar to those in Ghosts.  There are "living vampires" in The Hollows series, but I figure they have many of the same stats as regular vamps, only not as much.  So instead of +3 to Strength they only get +2 and +1 to all the other affected stats and skills.  They can move about in the daylight and are not affected by holy items, but are no more in a hurry to die than a human.  Plus they still need to feed.

Vamps in the Hollows can also "pull an aura" which is more of an Emotional Control than a full on Hypnotize.   I reflected this in Ivy's stats below.
Jenks of course is a Pixie and almost a by-the-book one.  Trent is an elf and can be built like the Royal Fae in the Ghosts core book.  Al is pretty much a demon out of the Angel book with some fae qualities like Glamour (only used as a spell).

Of course the big difference in Rachel and Ivy's world compared to say Willow and Tara's is magic is known to be real to everyone.  If Willow and Tara were in Rachel's world I would suspect that Tara would be an Earth Witch completely.  Willow of course would have started out as an Earth witch but moved to Ley Lines quickly.  Willow would almost certainly have some imbalance on her aura ("smut" in the books) and maybe a demon mark.

Rachel Morgan

Witch
Str: 3 Dex: 3 Con: 2 Int: 4 Per: 4 Wil: 5

Life Points: 36 Drama Points: 10

Qualities
Attractive 2, Contacts 3 (Weres, Demons, Witches, FIB), Hard to Kill 2, Heightened Senses (Witches in the world are more sensitive) 1, Magic 5, Magical Philosophy, Earth, Ley Line, Demonic (in Rachel's world you can have more than one), Nerves of Steel, Occult Library 2

Drawbacks
Addiction (Bad relationships) 1, Adversary 5 (nearly everyone wants her dead), Emotional Problems (hard for her to trust others) 1, Haunted (Pierce), Honorable 1, Obsession (Help Ivy), Reputation 3, Risk Taker, Secret (witches are really stunted demons, can do demon magic) 3

Skills
Acrobatics 3, Computer 2, Crime 2, Doctor 1, Driving 3, Engineering 1, Getting Medieval 2, Gun Fu 4, Influence 2, knowledge 4, Kung Fu 4, Languages 2 (English, Latin), Notice 3, Occultism 5, Science 1, Sports 2

Combat
by spell +15, special
Splat Gun +7, target falls asleep (paint balls filled with a sleeping potion)

(Image of Rachel found at http://valliantcreations.com/images/galleries/color.html)

Ivy Tamwood

Living Vampire

Str: 7 Dex: 7 Con: 5 Int: 3 Per: 5 Wil: 4

Life Points: 36 Drama Points: 10

Qualities

Attractive 3, Contacts 2 (Vamps, FIB), Emotional Influence ("pulling an aura"), Fast Reaction Time, Hard to Kill 3, Heightened Senses 2,  Iron Mind, Nerves of Steel, Regeneration (1 LP per hour), Resources 6, Vampire (Living).

Drawbacks

Adversary 2 (mostly other vampires), Fear (of dying and losing her soul) 1, Fear (of Rachel's magic) 1, Honorable 2, Love, Unrequited (Rachel), Obligation 1, Reputation 1 (living with Rachel has it's downside too)

Skills

Acrobatics 5, Art 2, Computer 4, Crime 4, Doctor 2, Driving 4, Engineering 2, Getting Medieval 6, Gun Fu 1, Influence 6, knowledge 4, Kung Fu 6, Languages 1, Notice 3, Occultism 2, Science 1, Sports 1

Combat
Sword +13
Hand to Hand +13

(image of Rachel and Ivy found at http://thwippersnapple.deviantart.com/art/rachel-morgan-and-ivy-tamwood-41669160)



All in all I really like these builds.  I think they capture the characters well.  I would love to add them to my Unisystem game, I just have not figured out how to bring them into the story yet.

I think I should put these two on the list of builds to try out for when I review Dresden Files.

Greyhawk Grognard: AD&D's Lost Second Edition

Here is a proper link-back for Blogger tracking.

Greyhawk Grognard: AD&D's Lost Second Edition

What if Gygax had done 2nd Ed?

Quick one for now. I am on my way to campus.

I have been following the OSR scene now for a while and have seen the attempts to do retellings of the most famous RPG in history. Associated with that is the wave of nostalgia for all things from the hands of the Old Masters (Gygax, Holmes, Arneson) and this had gotten me thinking.

What would 2nd Ed AD&D have looked like if Gygax had still been at TSR?

  

I suppose we should look at the variables.  What was TSR doing at the time (late 80s), what was Gygax doing (Mythus, Dangerous Journeys, and later Lejendary Adventures) and how would that have all blended into what could have been the 2nd Ed AD&D as written by Gary.

This is all speculation; I am not a Gygaxian scholar by any stretch of the imagination. But I am curious to know what you all think.

Would we have seen more classes? (I think so) More skills? (certainly) and I also think given the direction that TSR was headed and what Gygax did in DJ/Mythus that we would have seen more "world" books for different genres of play.  So instead of Spelljamer (D&D in space) we would have gotten a Space Opera game that used the AD&D 2ed rules.  Or not.

Thoughts?

EDITED TO ADD: Thanks to Herb and Jason Vey.  They uncovered this link for me.
http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2009/02/ad-second-edition.html
I will have to read that in detail when I can.