Zatannurday: Traci Thirteen

Traci Thirteen is another member of the Homo-magi race and thus a distant relative to Zatanna.

http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Traci_Thirteen_%28New_Earth%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traci_Thirteen
http://www.comicvine.com/traci-13/4005-46538/

I always liked the idea of Traci Thirteen.  I liked her "urban magic" and felt it was it fit in well with the gritty feel of the earl 2000s.  I have also always thought she would be great as a YA, Modern Supernatural book heroine;  a character somewhere in between Harry Potter and Harry Dresden.  Only female of course and give her a whole set of unique problems.  DC has demonstrated they can de-couple their worlds when it comes to magic (see Hellblazer) and still tell a great story.

While a "Young Zatanna" story would be fun, a Traci Thirteen one might actually be better. You could even include, or work up to, her boyfriend Jaime Reyes to current Blue Beetle. Plus Traci has a different outlook than Zee does and it might work to bring younger readers in.

Traci Thirteen
Cinematic Unisystem (Buffy/Ghosts of Albion)
Life Points
Drama Points 10

Attributes
Strength 2
Dexterity 3
Constitution 3
Intelligence 3
Perception 5
Willpower 5

Qualities
Attractiveness +2
Contacts (the Justice League) 2
Contacts (Supernatural) 3
Hard to Kill 1
Fast Reaction Time
Magic 4  (Homo Magi race)
Magical Family
Nerves of Steel
Occult Library (Impressive)
Resources 3
Situational Awareness
Supernatural Senses (the Sight)

Drawbacks
Adversaries 3
Honorable (Minimal)
Mental Problems (Fear of Commitment)
Obligation (mundane humans, Important)
Secret 1 (really uses magic)

Useful Information
Initiative +4
Actions 1/2
Observation 1d10 + 11
Lesser Sensing +14

Skills
Armed Mayhem/Getting Medieval 2
Art 6 (stage performance)
Athletics 2
Crime 1
Computers 2
Drive / Ride 1
Engineering 2
Fisticuffs/Kung-fu 2
Influence 4
Knowledge 3
Languages 3 (English, Cantonese, Latin)
Marksmanship 3
Notice 5
Occultism 5
Physician 2
Wild Card

Combat

Maneuver	Bonus	Damage	Notes
Dodge / Parry	+5	-	Defense Action
Grapple	+5	-	Defense Action
Punch	+5	4	Bash
Magic	+14	per spell	additional +1 to +3 with various artifacts
- Deflect	+14	Special	Deflects spell 45 degrees
- Hold	+13	Special	Deflects spell 45 degrees
- Dispell	+11	Special	Deflects spell 45 degrees

Traci and Zatanna

Traci and John

Flashpoint Traci

I should do some more writeups for her.  She looks like a really fun character.

Friday Night Videos: Led Zeppelin

Welcome to the Friday the 13th edition of Friday Night Videos!

If Iron Maiden represents AD&D 1st Ed. Then Original D&D is Led Zeppelin.

Led Zeppelin were the pioneers of what would become "Hard Rock" and even "Heavy Metal".  Though it would take bands like Black Sabbath to really provide what we think of when we consider 70s and 80s metal.

Led Zeppelin was heavily influenced by jazz, blues and folk music. Plus a rather healthy dose of themes from J.R.R. Tolkien, they have long been associated with the 70s occult scene (backward masking, drugs, lyrics) and by association D&D.

Let's start with what was start for many my age, Led Zeppelin's 4th album from 1971.  Sometimes called "4", "Sticks", "Zoso" or "Symbols". I prefer "Zeppelin IV" myself.   This song was on the B side and is often overlooked due to the fantastic set on the A side.  Pack your bags for the Misty Mountain Hop.



The same album gave us two other greats. Well it gave us a lot of greats, but two in particular.

Honestly I doubt there is a more D&D song than Battle of Evermore.  This song features the amazing vocals of Sandy Denny, the "fifth" symbol on this album.



Zeppelin IV also gave us one of Led Zeppelin's most enduring, if not overplayed song. Stairway to Heaven.


This one song fueled more D&D games of mine than I carry to consider.

Going back a bit to 1970's "Led Zeppelin III" another great song is The Immigrant Song.  What it lacks in length it makes up for in Saxon fueled energy.



Finally no Led Zeppelin discussion can happen with out a nod to the near Moorcock-like visuals of Kashmir from 1975's Physical Graffiti.




This barely scratches the surface of their catalog.

Post 2600!

Why pick such an arbitrary posting milestone?

Well as many gamers my age might recall the "2600" was the part number of the first Atari home video game console.

The Atari 2600 changed how looked at home entertainment forever.

Given the general feel of 80s nostalgia we have here on the Other Side and other related blogs I am a little surprised that the Atari is not mentioned more.  Maybe it could be that unlike some others my age (or older) I always *liked* the idea of computers and video games working with D&D.
I am sure we all (or most) remember this game.

Yeah, it was a weak ass version of "D&D" but hey for the late 70s/early 80s it was the best we had and I played the hell out of it.  I even played again it here just recently (like a month ago) on my Atari Flashback 5.  Yeah I still had fun.

Though some of my most favorite memories of playing "D&D" is playing "Rogue" on my TRS-80 Color Computer 3.

Sure. It wasn't D&D, but it was still fun.  Plus we know that there would not have been any of these games had it not been for D&D.

So yeah while I am looking up old RPG books from the 70s on eBay I have been looking up old computers too.  I have an Atari (and an emulator) but I keep looking at the various Tandy Color Computers too.  With the recent news that Radio Shack is closing I have been thinking more and more about it.

I know it is a stupid idea. I can get emulator and run them on my phone that 1000s times faster than the original machines.  There are even browser based emulators to play the games I liked. But I also have a program I worked on back in the day to manage and run a party of AD&D characters that would be fun to dust off.  I still have the source code in fact.

 For me at least, D&D and computers have always gone hand in hand.

Wizards of the Coast Sale at DriveThruRPG

Right now every Wizards of the Coast D&D product at DriveThruRPG is now on sale.

And there are some great deals.

D&D Rules Cyclopedia (Basic) for $5.00
Seriously, if you don't have this grab it now. Just do it.

Rules Compendium (3.5) for $7.00
For D&D 3.5.  I don't even have this (was burned out on 3.5 when it was published) but I am grabbing it now.

D&D Rules Compendium (4e) $5.00
I have a post coming up that the 4e might find a new life online thanks to cheap PDFs.  This is certainly a good place to start.

I would also like to point out the World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting (1e). This thing is really high priced on eBay, but here it is only $8.50.

Grab these and more now.

Updates

I am booked with meetings today.  So I only have some minor updates today.

Over the week I updated a few pages.

• Witch Links
• Mystoerth
• Downloads

I also added a Twitter feed to the lower right.  For those that need to read my opinions all the time.  It mirrors my Facebook feed and other things.

Tweets by @timsbrannan


Let's see how it works out.

They Might Be Giants!

My kids are going to be going through the Classic G series modules here soon (I am hoping to do it by Gen Con) in our 5th Edition Game.  I have a great memories of this adventure and I really looking forward to it to be honest.

Yesterday Tenkar posted a link to the wonderful "Extended" series of the Giants adventures by R.C. Pinnell, aka +Thork Hammer.

I have had a copy of G4, Sanctum of the Stone Giant Lord.  I liked this one because it was short and it included Stone Giants, something I always felt was missing from the original.  I knew about some of the others (G5 and G6), but only recently discovered the others (G7 to 9).

Well thanks to Thork, Tenkar and +Vincent Florio I now have all of them.

All together the adventure is over 100 pages.  This is a bit more than I wanted to be honest.  The Giants are tied up pretty close to the Drow of the next series. So for me the Giants are just the pawns of the Drow.  The Stone and Mountain giants I can see.  Maybe even the Cloud, if they are more on the evil side.  I have not read all the adventures yet, but maybe the Cloud Giant queen has something to do with the Sun being blocked out in my adventure.

My feeling on these is that would work best as pure Giant themed series of adventures divorced from the GDQ series.  That being said, I am very, very sure there is something here that is perfect for my game. So for me it is worth printing this all out.  Given what I am planning I am a touch disappointed I don't have the 4th Ed D&D adventure, Revenge of the Giants.

The really nice thing about running these classics so many years later is all the material out there to support them.  For a while there WotC was publishing maps for the Giants series (among others).

I might need to print these all out and get them into a binder or something.

Links

• The Original Against The Giants, G123
• G4-9, at DriveThru (not free)
• G4-9, offered for free on Google Drive
• Map a Week from Wizards of the Coast
• Against the Giants -- May 2006
• Against the Giants -- July 2006
• Crumbling Hall of the Frost Giant Jarl

So lots of great stuff out there.

Conan and Roll-under systems

There is a new Conan game coming out.
http://www.modiphius.com/conan.html

While I am sure it will look great and have a lot of things going for it there are a couple of things that bug me off the start.

First I like my systems anymore to be simple. I like rules that "get out of the way" and let me play like I want.  Presently the only rules-heavy system I play is D&D and that is only because I have absorbed the rules to the level of abstraction.

Secondly I don't care for "roll under" mechanics either.  The new Conan is a 2d20, roll under system.  Generally speaking roll under games require lesser rolls to be considered better than higher ones.  There is an counter-intuitiveness to this.
Yes there are some great games out there that are roll under such as BESM 2r and anything using the Chaosim Basic Role-Playing (Call of Cthulhu, Runequest).
And there are some games where you need to roll high but still keep in under the targeted number.

I am just not a fan of those.

If I want to play a "Conan" game then I want something that has the right feel to it. Like Original D&D or better yet, something like Spellcraft & Swordplay.  Simple mechanics (2d6 roll over). It is both grim and cinematic at the same time.

What are your thoughts on Roll Under games?