Superhero RPGs: Welcome to the lower shelves

I started out this year on a Super Hero high.  I picked up Icons, Bash!, the new DC Adventures RPGs.  I was looking forward to the Mutants and Masterminds 3.0 and all was good.

Then today I put all my Mutants and Masterminds books on the lower shelves.  My lower shelves have these nice doors and look really sharp, but the games are there are ones I have not touched in a very long time.  Mutants and Masterminds 2.0, Hero High, Freedom City Source book and the Book of Magic all went down below today.  They were replaced with the Mentzer BECMI books I got at the auction recently that had just been sitting on my game table (much to chagrin of my wife).

The hierarchy of my games are the Upper Shelves, these are the games I play all the time.   The ones at the level the kids can reach are usually D&D related.  Out of their reach are my horror games and Unisystem games.  The Lower Shelves are closed off, so out of site, out of mind.  These games can sit there for months or years before I even recall I have them.  Then there is the selling shelf.  It is the same level as the Unisystem stuff, just a different part.  I am planning to sell these soon either at the game auction or Half-Priced books.

I am not sure when I going to play a supers game again.  I know I will, but I just have no ideas at the moment for one nor do I think my various groups will want to do one any time soon.  M&M joins some high quality games in the dark of my lower shelves.  The "new" World of Darkness books (Vampire the Masquerade remains on the higher shelf), True 20 (really wanted to love that game) and all my Anime games.  Dresden Files and Little Fears are there too, but I expect I'll be be pulling them back after a bit.

There are still some things I want to try though.
I have a character that is the daughter of Superman and Wonder Woman for this Next Generation supers game we started.  I am basing it on the events of Kingdom Come and Batman Beyond.  I wanted to try her out in a bunch of systems (M&M2, DCA, Bash, Icons) to get a good idea how the games stat up against each other. Plus I liked the character.  She was raised on Paradise Island, trained by Bruce Wayne and my main influence for her was...Ally McBeal.  Sorry. I just thought it would be neat if she had decided to be a lawyer.

Ok so you know how much I love Willow & Tara?  Well my oldest is the same way.  His obsession though is Fire and Ice. He has Fire and Ice figures and even Hero Clix that we use in his Dragonslayers game (in this game they are elemental wizards).  I feel like I owe it to him to stat them up at least once in some system.

Maybe I'll still get them up sometime.
I can go with their Pre-Crisis incarnations what are more magic based.

Is 2nd Ed the next wave of OSR?

I posted a couple days back on the growing 2nd Ed AD&D love I have been seeing on the net and in the blogs. Not a lot of it mind you, more like a few vocal people in a crowd still going on about how the LBBs are the "best thang evar!"  (Ok for the record NO one has ever actually said that, that way.)

But the OSR movement has slowed down to stead pace now and we are not getting Yet Another OD&D Clone this month and I think people are giving 2nd Ed another look.

I have mentioned in that past that 2nd Ed is the game I ran the most but hardly ever played.  I was very much a DM only with that game.  In fact I was one of the early adopters of the game, buying it on the day it came out and not even taking any of my 1st Ed books with me back to college.  But sometime in the late 90's that (and I) changed.  When 2nd Ed came out I was a single college kid, living in the dorms and surviving on the the money I made tutoring others in math and physics. When 3rd Ed came out I was married, living in a house with a brand new baby and just laid off my teaching job because the grant funding at the university dried up.   I was two completely different people.    In the middle I nearly gave up on D&D all together and even sold off 80% of my collection in favor of games like "WitchCraft RPG" and "Vampire" and other horror games.  All that I have left now for 2nd ed is the three cores, the Celts guide and some Ravenloft stuff.  Though the PHB and DMG are my originals and I got them the day they were rel

Why is any of that important?  It's important because it has permanently colored how I view AD&D 2nd Ed. for years.  I did remember the joy of the getting the latest Monstrous Compendium supplement, I only recalled the dreck of the Skills and Powers books.

But as time goes on and I wax on about earlier systems it is only natural that eventually my rose colored glasses gaze on 2nd Ed. Others seem to be doing the same.

2nd Ed as a retro-clone though has some issues it must deal with first.
- First, 2nd Ed is mechanically not all that different from 1st Ed.  One could in theory play a "2nd Ed Game" with nothing more than OSRIC.  One of the big selling points behind 2nd Ed was it re-organized the material from earlier editions.  It is in a sense the first Retro-clone.
- What made 2nd Ed special to many were the campaign worlds, and those don't fall under the OGL at all.  Plus most of the OSR folks seem to prefer sandbox worlds so anything created by them would naturally fit into any other world.
- The Proficiency system of 2nd Ed is needlessly complicated.  Note I am not saying it is complicated itself, it's not, but it is more complicated than it needs to be for a game.  3rd Ed's Skill system is superior in nearly every respect, and 4th Ed's is better still.  Reverse engineering it would not be difficult (premise, not every skill is worth the same amount) but I'd have to ask why?

The monster's in 2nd Ed were a nice improvement over 1st ed. I like the one monster per page format, something that 3rd ed dropped but 4th ed picked back up.

Personally I think it is only a matter of time before someone does a full on 2nd Ed clone.  I know there are some in development now.   I know of and have looked at the beta of Adventures Dark and Deep, a sort of "what-if game", as in what if Gygax had developed AD&D 2nd ED the way he had planned.

Blog pimpin'

So I have been adding blogs in my blog list to various social book marking sites like Digg and Delicious.

I don't know if it will help drive hits to these sites, but it can't hurt right?
Here are my bookmarks.  Still adding to it.
http://www.delicious.com/timsbrannan/?page=1

To follow up

On yesterday's post about Tarot, Witch of the Black Rose.  I have seen some issues now and I see that both sides have some valid points.

But I am afraid of becoming this guy...
http://ourvaluedcustomers.blogspot.com/2010/10/as-he-was-paying-for-2-newest-issues-of.html

More later.

Well, that's odd.

It occurred to me this morning while I was running (what, I can run!) that I have never done a post on Tarot the Witch of the Black Rose.  I mean it seems to have everything that ends up in my games; red headed witch, lots of supernatural and fantasy creatures, scantily clad women and at least lip service to real practitioners.

Maybe because I haven't actually read any of the comics.

Reading synopsis and overviews online though, "Tarot" or Rowan sounds like what is typically called in my games a "Witch Guardian".  Sorta like a Warden of the Dresden Files, but more focused on protecting the coven than being the Wicce secret police.  I like that she has a winged cat, that is something I have used in my games too.

I am a fan of Holly Holly Golightly's webcomic "School Bites" and she is one half (or two/thirds even) of the Tarot creative team.

Other parts of it though look fairly cliche'd and even drifting into softcore (neither of which I mind, but everything in it's place after all).

I have seen that includes such notables in witch/wiccan community as Fiona Horne and Raven Grimassi.  Not that it matters that much to me, but I have to admire Balent's attention to detail.

The reviews I have seen are somewhat mixed.  There are lot of positive ones to be sure,  but there are others complaining about the cheese-cake factor, nudity and sex.

So have any of you read it? Is it any good?
Can you give me your thoughts, comments?
Anyone know where I can buy the collected editions?

Test post

 this can be ignored really.


Bookmark this on Delicious

The Houri for Basic D&D

A few posts back I mentioned the Houri class as a follow-up to the posts at Dangerous Brian. 

http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/12/houri-class.html
http://dangerousbrian.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-osric-class-houri-part-i.html
http://dangerousbrian.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-character-class-houri-part-ii.html

The class is an update of the Houri class from White Dwarf #13 by Brian Asbury back in June of 1979.
In my discussion I felt that the class had certain qualities to it that would work as a race as well as a class. Well since I have been experimenting with Basic D&D of late I thought I would give this a try. 


Since this based on the work of others it is NOT released as part of the OGL. 
 
The Houri Class

The Houri is the offspring of a human or elf and a nymph. Nymphs are known for their unearthly beauty and lascivious natures so the offspring of a chance liaison with an attractive human or elven male is not only expected, but often the way of things. Most of these children are nymphs themselves and continue their lives with their mothers. Every so often though, a child is born that is not wholly nymph. She is not wholly mortal either, but finds a way to live in the world of mortals. Such a creature is known as a Houri.

The typical houri appears as a very attractive female human with elven features, or as an elf with something human about her. Many will claim to be "half-elfs" to avoid any confusion about their racial make up. The houri knows a bit of magic, not as much as a full magic-user or elf and she knows a bit of thief skills, but the main power of the houri comes from her powers of seduction. The Houri has a natural Charm Person like ability that is modified by her own preternatural Charisma.

(*Whitewitch by Tommie Lejis, http://www.elfwood.com/~tommie)

Minimum Ability Scores: Cha 15, Dex 10, Int 10

Hit Dice Type: d4 (maximum level 11)

Alignment: Any

Experience Bonus: Dex and Cha both 15+

Armour/Shield Permitted: Leather Armour and Small shield (which often features in certain erotic dances) only.

Weapons Permitted: Dagger, Concealed Pin, Flaming Oil, Scimitar (again, all used in certain performances)

Level	Title	XP Required	Hit dice (d4)	Special		1	2	3	4	5	6
1	Novice	0	1	Seduction		1	-	-	-	-	-
2	Flirt	1,200	2	Thief 1		2	-	-	-	-	-
3	Charmer	2,400	3			3	1	-	-	-	-
4	Allurer	4,800	4	Thief 2		3	2	-	-	-	-
5	Temptress	9,600	5			4	3	1	-	-	-
6	Enchantress	20,000	6	Thief 3		5	3	2	-	-	-
7	Vixen	40,000	7			5	4	3	1	-	-
8	Courtesan	80,000	8	Thief 4		6	5	3	2	-	-
9	Seductress	160,000	9			6	5	4	3	1	-
10	Houri	260,000	10	Thief 5		6	6	5	3	2	-
11	Nymph	360,000	11			7	6	5	4	3	1

 

HOURI SAVING THROWS
Level	1-4	5-8	9-10	11
Death Ray or Poison	12	10	8	6
Magic Wands	13	11	9	6
Paralysis or Turn to Stone	13	11	9	5
Dragon Breath	15	12	9	7
Rods, Staffs and Spells	15	12	9	6

 

CHARACTER HIT ROLLS (on 1d20)
Level	Target's Armor Class
Houri	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	0	-1	-2	-3	-4	-5	-6	-7	-8	-9
1-4	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	20	20	20	20	21	22	23	24
5-8	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	20	20	20	20	21	22
9-10	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	20	20	20	20
11	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	20	20

Special Abilities


Seduction: the Houri may attempt to seduce a single humanoid of the opposite sex or aligned sexual orientation as per the Charm Person spell. The seduction may only focus on one person and their saving throw is penalized by -1 for every level of the Houri. So for example a 6^th level houri would impose a -6 to the target's saving throw vs Spells. The seduction is not a spell, but rather a natural spell like ability of the houri.



Thief: At 2^nd level and every other level after the houri can use thieves' skills as a thief half her level. The skills are mundane and still require the proper tools.



Spells: The houri may cast spells as per a Magic-user or Elf. Her spells though are more limited in nature and are listed here. Houri record their spells in a spell-book as do magic-users. Note: A houri may also use cantrips if the Game Master allows them. Houri gain bonus cantrips based on her Charisma score rather than intelligence.


As a Monster

Houri
Armor Class: 9
Hit dice: 1*
Move: 120' (40')
Attacks: 1 Weapon
Damage: By Weapon (typically 1d4)
No. Appearing: 1 / 1-2
Save As: Elf 1
Morale: 10
Treasure: Same as Nymph
Intelligence: 10
Alignment: Neutral
XP Value: 10

Monster Type: Demihuman (race)
The Houri are the offspring of a nymph and a human or elf.  There are fey creatures, but the more mortal ones choose to join the worlds of humans and elves.
A Houri can cast Charm Person any number of times a day, but can only have one charmed "thrall" at a time.

Houri that are closer to their elven parent are sometime indistinguishable from other elves.  Houri's are often found with Gypsy Elves whether their lineage includes elf or not.