Zatanna Saturday: Zatannurday!

I am a huge fan of the special features of some blogs out there.  I love Harley Qwensday over at Toyriffic and the respective Wonder Woman Wednesdays at Hero Press and The Happy Whisk are also faves.
When I do my morning blog reading it is something to look forward to.  Well I have wanted to do something similar, but I already contribute to both the Amazon Princess and the Red Sonja: She Devil with a Sword blogs, so I didn't want to do something that conflicted with those.  Given my likes, I would want to want to do something magical, maybe a little horror themed and something I could use in a game.

Plus I have noticed that a fair number of you are reading my blog on Saturdays, a day I don't often post since that is my day to sleep in!   Of course this all lead to obvious choice: Zatanna on Saturdays. Thus Zatannurday is born!

So what's my plan?  Not much of one really.  Just post some pics, links maybe some game stats.  We will see what happens.

So for this first Zatnnurday I'd like to share one of my favorite pics of the Mistress of Magic by David Reynolds, aka MachSabre aka one of the Daves from ShadowGirls.

I am not sure what the deal is with the crab, but I like it.

Gen Con 2011 - Ghosts of Albion

So Gen Con 2011 is only like 194 days away!  Where did the time go!!

I am going. I am going to run some games.
Here is my issue though.

Should I run Ghosts of Albion?

Every year I go I run Ghosts of Albion, I provide everything people need to play including sheets, a printed rule book and dice.  AND I let people keep the cheat sheets, character sheets and dice.  I do this on my own dime because I care for this game a lot.

But it seems I am the only one.

Look I don't want to get snarky here, but I run this game all the time I promote it, I make sure that people leave the game feeling like they had a great time.  Not to brag, but I get people telling me it was the best game of the whole Con for them.  I work hard on it.

Is it too much to ask then that the publisher actually you know, have books to sell?

I am not asking for free books. I just want the book that has been done for YEARS (that I still have not been paid for) to be out.

This year it is weighing on me.
I want to run Ghosts, but the joy is getting sucked out of me every time I have to say "no, you can't buy it yet. No I don't know when."  It is very discouraging.


So.  Anyone out there want to play Ghosts of Albion at Gen Con this year?
Should I run something new?

Season of the Witch: Episode 2

Episode 2: This Blessed Plot

Summer 2004
Willow & Tara travel to England (courtesy of Cordy) where they discover the secret of the "Journal of Tamara Swift" and their suprising connection to the Protectors of Albion.  They also run into two groups of supernaturals, one wants the Awakening to happen the other does not. Which side should Willow and Tara choose when they still don't know what the Awakening is?

Synopsis
Now unlike “the Dragon and the Phoenix” adventures, these are not as well playtested or developed. My group was breaking up about this time, I was getting a new job and I was moving back to playing some more D&D. The first half of the season, the “Road Stories” portion, was well thought out, but after the girls get back home was when we all started doing different things. You will notice a lack of cover art for many episodes for example.

“This Blessed Plot” is actually the first “proper” episode of Season of the Witch. While “Semi-Charmed Life” sets up the “rules” of the new series, the actual adventure is not part of the full arc. This is something Charmed did often, an aperitif before the main course.

This episode is an homage to “Coming Up Roses”, a Willow & Tara fan fic site that first convinced me that these two characters were worth playing in a game. I then created a WitchCraft RPG game based in that world (not really Whedon’s). While that was fun, it didn’t last. But that game really shaped how I playtested the Buffy RPG and how I wrote the characters. TBP is also a nod to my own playtest group. We had switched over fully to Ghosts of Albion by this point and this was our way of bring the worlds together. There was a desire to keep the girls in England for a while and make that the series. But in the end I wanted to pursue the “Road Stories” idea some more.

The episode begins with the Cast (Willow, Tara and Cordy) “orbing” (teleporting) to England. The book Tara bought, “The Journal of Tamara Swift” contained a letter addressed to Tara telling her to come to the Swift home in Highgate. When they arrive they discover that the Swift mansion is now a museum of witchcraft and magic. There they meet the curator, Millicent Stuart, and discover that Tara looked exactly like Tamara. They also meet a teen-ager, Sennen, who looks like the newest Slayer. Sennen works with Millicent, but “Millie” is not her watcher.

While in England Willow & Tara are contacted by Anya who tells them that her employer wants meet them. They are surprised that Anya knew that they were coming. I have a great seen were Anya and Cordy meet for the very first time. They don’t actually care for each other. Long story short, Anya is separated from Xander and working for Lilith’s human corporate empire. They meet Lilith (played by Angie Everhart) and Lilith informs them that they are central to the Awakening and she wants to make sure that they do nothing. She does not want the status quo to change. The Awakening could mean the end of humanity and she is rather fond of humans. She promises to make it worth their while and has Anya wipe out their student loan debt. Anya walks them out and tells them they can trust Lilith, after all they trusted the Mormo and those are her children. Upon leaving “L’Enterprises” the girls are intercepted by a van (Anya is knocked out), thrown in and driven off. They can’t use magic in this van at all, even Cordy can’t orb out. When they stop they are greeted by a woman, Morgan (played by Mia Sara), who claims she is the leader of a group known as “The Witches Committee”. She wants to make sure that the Awakening happens and that Willow and Tara are firmly on her side when it does. Morgan tells the girls that they can trust her.

The girls are found by Lilith’s agents and begin to attack the Witches’ Committee members. A magical “turf war” breaks out with Willow, Tara and Cordy in the middle. Millicent shows up and stops the fighting, we discover she is current Protector of Albion. Both sides agree to leave Willow and Tara alone, but they will be watching them.

Millicent tells the girls they are going to need to discover what the Awakening is on their own; not even Tamara figured it out. Millicent does reveal that the Veil is getting weaker. The Veil is what keeps non-magical people from learning about the magical world. As long as it is in place then any magical occurrence will always have a non-magical answer that people will believe. The Veil was not constructed by William & Tamara, but in the 1880’s they helped make it stronger. The last time it was threatened like this was the late 1970’s, but something happened then and the magic that was supposed to be used to fix it never got used. Millicent tells them that their destinies, the Veil and the Awakening are all intertwined and only they can see it all through.

The girls Orb back to the states (“Air Cordy”), once there Tara’s cell phone rings. It is Dawn, she tells her she has been trying to reach Tara for days. Tara’s father has died and she needs to go home to Alabama.

Notes:
Ok setting up the big plots here. Like I said, no big bad, but I do have some lesser antagonists. I wanted to keep the players guessing on which group was really an ally and which one was not. In the end it would depend on what the Cast decided to do.

I make the William/Tamara and Willow/Tara connection more explicit here. Yes. They are reincarnations of the other. Now a couple of people felt it was a little squicky that Willow had been a man in a previous life and the brother no less. I get that really, but I also wanted to go with the idea that as Anamchara they would go through many lives in many different guises to experience love in a number of ways, including platonic sibling love. I won’t spoil the books for you all, but William and Tamara don’t have the best of luck with paramours. My idea is they gave that up and went back to what works in their next lives.

Millicent had been “the Guardian” in Coming Up Roses. Here she becomes “The Protector”. She ran a museum of witchcraft, which I decided was the old Swift mansion. Millicent and Sennen are detailed here, http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/01/sennen-saranta-living-in-love-of-common.html

The Witches Committee look like a bad Rosicrucian rip off, but in my WitchCraft Games, they are Wicce that want to protect all the Gifted in the world. It is just some have decided that the best way to do that is to control all the mundanes. They want the veil to drop and magic to be out again. This way they are poised to be humanities “protectors” from the evils of the magical world. Lilith wants the status quo to remain, but she certainly has plans in place to take advantage of any situation. There are two other factions that need to be introduced and all of them are watching Willow and Tara.

The Veil is a glamour that keeps us from seeing the effects of magic in the world. But it has been weakening for years (thus the proliferation of all the TV shows about the supernatural!). It’s going to fall. The question is what will happen when it does.

Next up, a strange sort of homecoming…

Willow & Tara: True20 and Blue Rose

I like True20.  I do.  I am also rather fond of Blue Rose.

In terms of game play and ease of use it is the closest thing I have found like Cinematic Unisystem.  Back in the mid 2000 (2005 - 2007 or so) I was looking for another system.  Not that I was tired of Unisystem or D&D, I just wanted to try something new.  I had played Mutants and Masterminds and I liked it.  I had heard of Blue Rose, but had not tried it yet.

So I picked them both up and did some playing I really liked them.  I wish I could have gotten more people into both games, but it didn't really work out that way.

I have detailed already why I think Blue Rose is a perfect setting and system to do Ravenloft, but you can read those posts here: Black Rose.

I did get a chance to play an online game of True20 set in a modern supernatural world similar to that of Witchcraft/Buffy/Ghosts of Albion and it went great.  It was about a seedy area of Vancouver that was a front for a demonic brothel and swinger's club.  Not for the faint of heart or immature of mind.

True20 has some great untapped potential and to me at least it is a shame that more people don't see that.

Part of the idea of "Vacation in Vancouver" started out for WitchCraft.  Soon though I converted it to True20 and I was pleased with the results (even if I had a couple of people drop out).  Here are some notes from that process.

Converting Unisystem and True20

For attributes take the True20 score (-5 to +5) add 6 and divide by 2, round up.  The table below helps.  I am working on the idea that +5 in True 20 and 6 are both the human maximums and very few people have those.

True20	Unisystem
-5	1
-4	1
-3	2
-2	2
-1	3
0	3
+1	4
+2	4
+3	5
+4	5
+5	6

All True 20 feats would be qualities, skills are skills.  Skills work like M&M skills, so 2 points of True20 skills equal 1 point of Unisystem skills.

Converting Characters
Converting characters is not too bad really.  True20 tries to do a lot of the same things Unisystem does, just in different ways.  I convert characters to get a rough idea of what I want, but then I stat them up from scratch.  It works better than a direct conversion.

Given that my interest in True20/Blue Rose was right after finishing up with Season of the Witch I did do Willow and Tara versions for True20.  No, they did not appear in "ViV", but I did toy with the idea of Vampire Willow and Vampire Tara showing up in it..

These builds are based on the girls during Season of the Witch.   I used True20 as a base but I also like the Calling aspect from Blue Rose, so I am using that as well.

Willow Rosenberg

Human
Expert 2 / Adept 10

Abilities

STR:	-1	INT:	+5
DEX:	0	WIS:	+3
CON:	0	CHA:	+3

Combat
Initiative: 0
Defense: +6
Base Attack bonus: +6  (Melee +6, Ranged +6)

Saving Throws
Toughness: +0
Fortitude: +3
Reflex: +6
Will: +8

Virtue: Curious (Queen of Rods)
Vice: Domineering (Nine of Rods)
Calling (Blue Rose): The Adept, Master of Arcane Arts
Reputation: +4
Prog Skill: Business Owner

Skills
Acrobatics +2, Bluff +7, Computers +16, Craft (Chemical) +13, Craft (Electronics) +13, Diplomacy +6, Disable Device +10, Research +13, Intimidate +6, Knowledge (Science) +15, Knowledge (Occult) +16, Medicine +9, Perform (Ritual) +10, Notice +7, Search +8, Sense Motive +7, Sleight of Hand +4, Concentration +13, Survival +7

Feats
Contacts, Talented (computers, craft electronics), Master Plan, Attractive, Wealthy, Innate Power (Move Object)

Powers
Computer Link^M, Fire Shaping^F, Elemental Blast^F, Illusion^{FC MC}, Light Shaping^F, Manipulate Object^F,M, Mind Shaping^{F, MC}, Mind Touch^M, Move Object^FM, Ward^C

Special Abilities
Expertise

Other
Languages: Latin, French, Hebrew, Greek, Russian, English
Equipment: Dolls Eye Crystal (Empowering Focus)

Conviction: 8

Notes: Starts out as an "Expert" to reflect her computer hacker skills but picks up "Adept" pretty quickly.
Adept powers are based on Intelligence.
Philosophy: Witchcraft.


Tara Maclay

Human
Adept 9 / Expert 1

Abilities

STR:	+1	INT:	+4
DEX:	-1	WIS:	+4
CON:	+1	CHA:	+3

Combat
Initiative: -1
Defense: +9
Base Attack bonus: +4  (Melee +3, Ranged +3)

Saving Throws
Toughness: +2
Fortitude: +4
Reflex: +2
Will: +10

Virtue: Devoted (Queen of Chalices)
Vice: Inhibited (Three of Chalices)
Calling (Blue Rose): The Star, Artistic mastery (Though The Moon is also good here)
Reputation: +4
Prof Skill: Teacher (Art History)

Skills
Acrobatics +1, Bluff +6, Computers +8, Craft (alchemical) +6, Concentration +9, Diplomacy +5, Research +9, Handle Animal +6, Knowledge (Art) +11, Knowledge (Occult) +12, Medicine +8, Perform (song) +8, Perform (dance) +8, Perform (Ritual) +9, Notice +13, Search +7, Sense Motive +8, Ride +4, Survival +7

Feats
Attractive, Supernatural Talent (Heart reading, second sight)^B, Empower, Defensive Roll (+1)

Powers
Cure^F, Enhance Senses, Heart Reading, Light Shaping, Manipulate Object, Aura Reading,
Mind Touch, Move Object, Plane Shift, Second Sight

Special Abilities
The Talent (use convection for any power)

Other
Languages: Latin, French, Hebrew, Greek, Russian, English
Equipment: Dolls Eye Crystal (Empowering Focus)

Conviction: 8

Notes: Starts out as an "Adept" and picks up a level of "Expert" to cover her monster hunting days (gains defensive roll).
Adept powers are based on Wisdom.
Philosophy: Witchcraft.

So the idea here is I did Willow and Tara slightly different than their Unisystem counterparts. Here each approached their magic from a different point of view. While this has no real in game effect, it does give each a different feel, and something I really liked about these versions. I did in fact stat up a witch that uses Charisma as her power source too.

Makes me want to do more with this game.

Sennen Saranta: Living in the Love of the Common People

Sennen has the distinction of being the first EVER Slayer-in-Training character created for the Buffy RPG. I made her in the first month or so of the Buffy RPG playtests. The date on her sheet says Feb 25, 2002. I have updated her a bit now that she is a full Slayer. Sennen's original stats still live on as the Slayer-in-Training stats in "The Slayer's Handbook".

I based a lot of what I think her life was like on the old song "Living in the Love of the Common People" made popular to me at least by Paul Young.

I wanted to post this as prep for my Season of the Witch postings.

Thanks to Kirk if he ever reads this!

Sennen Saranta

Sennen was a character in a group of stories set in 2005 (and written back in 2001) dealing with Willow and Tara called Coming Up Roses. The girls are given a Museum of Witchcraft when its old curator, Millicent Stuart, dies. The museum is actually a nexus point between magical realities and Willow and Tara, with new characters Mel and Sennen, as its guardians. Before the Buffy RPG ever got into playtest I spent the summer of 2001 playing a WitchCraft RPG game based around Coming Up Roses. Willow and Taras official stats look an awful lot like the stats I came up with then.
Coming Up Roses though never went past its first season, but I recruited a few of their writers to help me on The Dragon and the Phoenix. My later season Season of the Witch brought back Millicent and Sennen as special guest stars. Millicents role changed from a Guardian to a Protector, and Sennen was a full Slayer. In both timelines (CUR and SotW) Willow and Tara went to England in 2005. The differences were that Millicent didnt die (I did not want to base them in England) and Sennen had already ditched her Watcher in favor of working with Millicent.

Appearance
Sennen stands 5'2" (157 cm) tall. She has dark hair with a streaks of blue in it, a pierced nose, labret and navel. She also has a tattoo of a black sun on her left shoulder. She is dark skin with dark brown eyes.

Background
Life has not been great to 15 year-old Sennen Saranta. Born in an Indian neighborhood on Londons East side Sennen had to cope with a lot of the same things her friends did. An out of work and alcoholic father and an overworked mother, and she was a minority among minorities with her mixed Sri Lankan (father) and Londoner (mother) racial mix.

Her family life is bad, but no worse than her friends in the same situation. Her dad is a drunk, but he is not a mean one (he never would touch her or her mother) but he is a lazy one. Her mom is overworked, so no one even notices when she leaves the house at all hours of the night.

The night of Sennens calling was memorable. She goes out one night ends up drinking a little too much, taking a little too much X and finds herself at an after hours party. Soon she discovers that everyone around her is a vampire and she was brought as one of the snacks. With her friend already dead something in her snaps. She sobered up in flash and ended up killing ten vampires before getting out. The next morning she meets this man who looks a lot older than he actually is who identifies himself as her Watcher. Soon Sennen finds herself stuck with James Jimmy AKA Jimmy the Perv Grey and his twisted witch girlfriend Karen Kent. Karen is a witch, she says she is training Sennen to fight evil, but in reality she just likes to torture her. Jimmy likes to watch.

Things change when Jimmy asks Sennen to kill an old witch by the name of Millicent.

Sennen won't ever kill any human, no matter how evil they are, but all demons and vampires (good or not) are fair game.

And dont call her Sen. She hates that.

Sennen Saranta
Character Type: Hero
Life Points: 81
Drama Points: 10

Attributes
Strength 7
Dexterity 6
Constitution 7
Intelligence 3
Perception 4
Willpower 6

Qualities
Slayer
Attractiveness 2
Contacts, Criminal 1
Contacts, Supernatural 2
Fast Reaction Time
Hard to Kill 5
Nerves of Steel
Regeneration

Drawbacks
Addiction (Temazepam) 1
Adversary 5
Emotional Problem, Depression 1
Emotional Problem, Fear of Commitment 1
Emotional Problem, Fear of Rejection 1
Mental Problem, Recklessness 1
Mental Problem, Obsession, self-mutilation (cutter)
Screwed-Up Adolescent

Skills
Acrobatics 4
Art 1
Computers 0
Crime 3
Doctor 1
Driving 0
Getting Medieval 4
Gun Fu 2
Influence 1
Knowledge 1
Kung Fu 6
Languages 1
Mr. Fix-It 1
Notice 2
Occultism 3
Science 0
Sports 1
Wild Card 0

Combat
Maneuver Bonus Base Damage Notes
Punch 12 14
Kick 11 16
Stake 10 14
Knife 10 12
- Thrown 9 6
Break neck 5 28
Dodge 10 None Defensive Move

Note: I suppose if I had kept up with Sennen she would be 21 by now (and closer to the pic above).  Though I never really used her much after this.  Re-reading over these stats it is kind of a pity really.
I did have this idea that after the events in Season of the Witch that Sennen later went on to become the new Protector of Albion when Millie dies.  I kind of like that idea really and maybe that is the version of the character I should investigate further.

Hmm.  Actually now that I am writing this I am thinking of a new modern Ghosts of Albion game featuring Sennen, maybe one of the older Ghosts or Nigel and throw in Dirty Nel just for the fun of it.

Hold Me Closer Tiny Dancey

Ryan Dancey, the spiritual father of the OGL and in many minds the guy who saved D&D is on ENWorld speaking his mind.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/columns/299860-4-hours-w-rsd-who-am-i-2.html
and some commentary here, http://trollsmyth.blogspot.com/2011/01/ryand-on-4e.html

Now Ryan is a very knowledgeable guy but he has been accused of Dooming and Glooming in the past (see here as one example).  But he does make a very good point and one WotC needs to answer a bit better.

If I were a noob getting into D&D4, where should I start?  The obvious answer is "the Red Box", but the trouble is the Red Box doesn't look anything like the rest of the line.

If I were not such a noob and want to get started with D&D4 then where do I start?  Essentials? PHB?

These questions are trivial to me and really anyone that reads this blog, but they are not trivial to someone with 20 bucks to spend and wants to play D&D.  They could buy any game, WotC needs to be clear (and clear to whom is also a good question) what someone needs to buy.

Now I *think* that what WotC wanted to have happen is have everyone go to Essentials.  Which is fine and I can see that.  Can everyone?

Here is a quasi-related question that I would like to hear some thoughts on.

If D&D were discontinued what effect would that have on the RPG landscape?

Conventional wisdom says that as D&D goes, so goes the industry.  The same had been said of IBM too.  But is that still true today?

ETA: A similar post by Jason Vey.
http://wastedlandsfantasy.blogspot.com/2011/01/d-demise-would-be-good-for-industry.html

Little Witches, Part 2

My little witches are being discussed over at Get Geekt on how to paint minis.
http://getgeekt.blogspot.com/2011/01/miniature-mondays.html

It also reminded me that Alisha has her own blog here, http://alishaard.blogspot.com/, though her minis have not been posted there yet.