Yesterday I spent some LONG overdue time with Prowlers & Paragons Ultimate Edition. It is a ridiculously fun game that is really easy to learn and play. I want to give it some more trials, but one of the first things I always do with a game is to see how well it emulates one or two of about a half-dozen or so characters I am always throwing at a game.
I choose these characters because I know how I want to play from the start, the question is can I make the game do what I want. Today, with the Fall Equinox knocking on our door and my 100 days of Halloween still on my mind, I am going to do witches. Shocking. I know.
BUT there is a good reason for this. I always want to check out the "magic" power of any supers game since that is the place you can really break the system. Also, I want to use characters familiar to readers here. This way you can compare and contrast between the various systems. They all do very similar things, but they all also do something different and it is in these differences I make my decisions.
So, let's get back to some old favorites of mine!
Click on the sheets for larger.
Taryn Nichols, AKA "Teen Witch"
Taryn is my young, "Teen Titans"-esque superhero character. She needs to be on the low end of the supers scale. Her purpose is to see what I can do with the fewest amount of points. In P&P I started her off at "Low" which is 100 hero points.
Larina Nichols, AKA "Witch Queen"
Larina is always my "rules as written" witch. To get her the way I wanted I had to jump a level to "High" at 150 hero points. I wanted to do 125 but she kinda got away from me. Plus I would like to see the interplay of mother and daughter here in a supers game.
She gains the extra Super Senses (Magic) power from her cursed left eye.
Tara Maclay
Anyone who has been here for a while knows of my undying love for Willow and especially Tara. They are largely retired now but would still be magical powerhouses in any game. I set Tara at "Legendary" with 175 hero points. She puts some points into her ability to heal by touch.
Willow Rosenberg
Willow sits at the highest end of my experiments. She is at "Iconic" level with 200 hero points. Like Tara she no longer has Burnout or Concentration con modifiers to her powers the Nichols girls do. They have to focus, magic to Willow and Tara is like breathing at this point.
I like how they turned out. As with any game you might do things a little differently and that is fine. These builds work for me and give me a good idea of what the Omni-power can do for Magic.
I used the character sheets instead of typing them all up because I wanted that visceral feel of pencil on paper. Also so you all could an idea of what the sheets look like.
It is the start of Vigilante City Week here at The Other Side for my unofficial Super Hero month of September.
Vigilante City has been sitting on top of the computer I use as a home server forever. I figure now is a great time to let everyone know about this great street-level supers game.
PDF and softcover book. 292 pages. Color cover, black & white interior art. For the purposes of this review, I am considering the PDF from DriveThruRPG and the soft-cover books I picked up either via Kickstarter or from Bloat Games' own store.
Vigilante City, or more accurately, SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City #1 Core Rules, is a street-level supers game for the SURVIVE THIS family of games from Bloat Games. The same folks that gave us the awesome Dark Places & Demogorgons and the amazing We Die Young RPGs. So right away these rules feel familiar. But this game is more about teenage angst in the 80s and 90s. There are mean streets out there.
The game really is a great starter for anyone that has played D&D/OSR-like games and wants to get into a supers game. Like all SURVIVE THIS!! games this one in class and level with levels topping off at 10.
Right from the start, this game lets us know what it is all about. These are street-level supers. While there might the occasional mutant, anthropomorphic otter, Super Soldier, or power suit we will not be seeing the likes of Superman or Wonder Woman. This is Batman, Captain America, and Tony Stark down all the way to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and some guy with a baseball bat. If this sounds like your kind of game (and really who wouldn't want to play this?) then buckle in, because this is going to be fun.
The Core Rule book covers the basic hero classes (this is a class/level system derived from the SRD) and basic rules. I am going to point out here that the rules are very much the same as other Survive This!! games with notable areas to aid heroic play. While in the past I have pointed out that teens of the 80s in Dark Places & Demogorgons can grow up to become the young adults of the 90s We Die Young, there is no logical progression here from those games. To be fair that is also not the designer's intent. I *can* see a world that involves all these games (that and their newer What Shadows Hide line) but let's first appreciate this game for what it is right now and not what inhuman creation I'll make with it later.
The Basics
We start off with the basic rules, or maybe I should say "Basic" rules since these rules are designed from the d20 SRD to feel like old-school D&D, D&D Basic in particular. As mentioned before it shares this design with all the other Survive This!! games. You generate attributes, the usual six plus a seventh "Survival," you generate your saving throws, pick your alignments, calculate your Vigilante Points, work out your Origin/Background (every good hero has a backstory!) and then comes the time to choose your class.
Human Classes
Basic D&D's DNA is peaking through here. You have your normal human classes and then a section on "Mega Humans." But let us talk about humans first. Essentially these are the roles that an everyday, but not really average, human could pick up and say "I am going to fight crime as a ..." Yes a lot of these require training and/or to be born with the right genetic lottery (smart, rich, or both).
These classes are: Athlete, Crime Fighter, Dark Avenger, Gadgeteer, Genius, Hardboiled Detective, Knight Nurse, Martial Artist, Mentor, Mercenary, Protégé, Sharp Shooter, Street Preacher, and True Vigilante. Most, if not all are fairly self-explanatory. Each gets 10 levels of advancement where they gain certain advantages. Like the comics that inspired them the character classes are fairly 2-Dimensional. THIS IS APPROPRIATE. You fill in the blanks with your backgrounds and skills. You can choose "Street Preacher" but you have to figure out if you are Jacob Fuller (Harvey Keitel's character in "From Dusk til Dawn) or Jesse Custer from Preacher.
Mega-Humans
Much like the split between Demi-humans and humans in D&D, and Meta-humans/Mutants and humans in comics, we get our section on Mega-Humans. Mega humans are both a "species" and a "class" they can pick up skill packages to differentiate themselves, but largely this is what they are. Again, this fits the tone of the X-man comics.
Our Mega-Human classes are: Anthropomorphs, Borg, Mutant, Mystic, Powered Armor, Psion, Super Soldier, and Super Speedster. Lots of choices here.
These classes and their powers (spells for the mystic, psionics for the psion) cover the first 210 pages of or 2/3rds of this book. That is expected really.
The classes are followed with Skils & Skill Packs, XP/Leveling, Gear, Vehicles, Game Terms and Critical tables.
There is a solid index and the PDF is bookmarked.
The game has a feel of Villians & Vigilantes mixed with Mutants & Masterminds with the difficulty of Icons. Any veteran of either of those games will pick this one up fast. Anyone that has played D&D or other Survive This!! games will pick it up even faster. That is already given the fact that this is a quick and easy game to learn and play. There are groups out there that are searching for the perfect Supers game and this could very well be it for them. I find it very, very appealing.
Like all games from Bloat Games, there is a lot of support online and in other books for this line.
Larina Nix for Vigilante City
Give me a magic-using class and I am going to try it out with my Drosophila melanogasterof magic, Larina.
Given this is an old-school game I opted to go old school with dice, a printed character sheet, and a pencil. I spent longer troubleshooting my scanner than I did on this character build!
I like how she came out, to be honest. And I like how fast it was to create a 10th-level character too. I'll pick her spells later. I figure she would have access to all of them.
I'll do this for the other books in the series as well, adding what each book adds to the game. This will be quite fun really.
All I could think of while doing all of this was this song. So play us home Steve!
Again, more than one character means more than one date, but that is cool.
For Sinéad and Nida it was in January of 2021 that I rolled them up, making them some of my newest characters. Though both had concepts prior to this and Nida at least had a name.
For my others, well I got in the habit early on to put the date I made the character on their sheets.
Johan I was 1/9/1980 Johan II was 1/30/84 Johan III was 1/2/86 Johan IV was 9/13/2000 Johan V was 6/13/2008 Johan V Pathfinder version was 2/19/2011 JohanVI D&D Next PlayTest 8/17/2012, converted to 5e proper on 9/13/2014
Larina, despite all that I post about her, was not my first character. She was created on October 25 (or 26), 1986. I have been saying October 25th forever, but some details on her sheet lead me to believe that it was more like the 26th.
While every new edition means the next in line for the Weprers, Larina moves between the editions. Advantages of being a quasi-immortal witch.
Busy day at the day job today (Fall term is starting) so a quick one today. I picked up the Icons of the Realms: Dragons of Stormwreck Castle minis over the weekend. I mentioned these back in June and had hoped they would at least include the thief Shelia. Well...they didn't.
I do like the way they all look.
I was never a big watcher of the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. I worked on Saturdays and often missed it. BUT I picked up the DVD boxed set back in the early 2000s and my kids LOVED it. It was the set with the 3rd Edition stats for everyone.
You might notice that this set is missing Bobby, Uni, and Shelia. I will get to that in a bit. It does include someone just labeled "Cleric."
I can't help but think that this Cleric is none other than Aleena.
The outfits are not perfect. And I thought I read somewhere that Aleena was a blonde. But this certainly works. I have been using Aleena as the Patron Saint of Adventurers for a while now. Though like the D&D cartoon, the D&D Red Basic set for BECMI was not something I was into then.
Since Kelek was in the D&D Cartoon and Skylla was supposed to be they seem to work well with this set.
I said I did not watch the D&D cartoon much, but I was aware of it. I can't help but wonder if the red-headed girl with a penchant for wearing purple and hoods in 1983-85 didn't somehow influence my red-headed witch with a penchant for purple dresses and black hoods in 1986? I honestly can't say.
In fact, I did even think about it until I scored this D&D Cartoon "kids" book at my local game auction. It is called "The Witch's Spell Book."
The basic plot is you have the Golden Wood by finding Agnes the Witch's Spell Book. For reasons, only Shelia can read the spell. You would think Presto, but no it is Shelia.
Now not to go out on a limb too far, but those that make Shelia an initiate witch? It would in my games. She is 13 in the show, the age witches often "hear the Call of the Goddess" in my game worlds. (BTW this is what makes Larina special, she heard the Call at age 6.)
But sadly I don't get to add Shelia to my War of the Witch Queens yet. But all is not lost thanks to Hero Forge!
I could get the print from HeroForge and for the Invisible Sheila download the STL and print her here at home in clear resin. Like I did for my "Ghost" of Aleena. Click on the pictures above to buy your own from HeroForge.
So that only leaves a question for me. Should I introduce Shelia to my War of the Witch Queens campaign? I might need to revisit the dual classing or multi-classing rules from OSE Advanced.
They do all fit on my shelf rather nicely together.
One thing I never quite understood was the assumption that anyone has just one character at a given time. I have dozens! I might be playing them all, but they are there. Here are some of my favorites.
D&D 5e
This is my current 5e character, Johan Werper the VI. He is a cleric/paladin. He is the great-great-great-great-grandson of my first ever D&D character Johan Werper, the Cleric. Johan the First was followed by Johan the II (Paladin), Johan III (Cavalier), Johan IV (Cleric, Prestige Paladin 3e), Johan V (Paladin, multiclassed feat Cleric, 4e) and to the new generation.
It has been a real joy to have a multi-generational arc for my characters and great to play with this concept of the Lawful Good paladin across all generations of the D&D game. Each has given me something slightly different and all have been a blast to play.
Some of my other characters for 5e that jump between PCs and NPCs are Tayrn Nix, Half-elf Warlock (Fey Pact), Celeste Holmes, Human Wizard (Sage), Cassandra Killian, Human Sorcerer (Divne Soul), Jassic Winterhaven, Gnome Bard (College of Lore), Sasha, Cleric (Knowledge Domain), and Áedán Aamadu, Human Druid (Circle of the Land).
I have two I have been working with. I was just telling my oldest last night I need to pull them out again and do more with them. Both are AD&D 2nd Ed interpretations of a Witch, Goodwife Sinéad (Witch Kit) and Nida (witch of Hala/Witch of Rashemen kit)
This is version 2.0 of the game. The price is 3.50€ for 10 pages. Converting that over to what I spent, about $4.00 US (back in February) that comes to about ¢40 a page. The PDF is full color and there is a print-friendly version.
The design, writing and layout is by Steffie de Vaan. The cover was edited by friend of the Other Side, Elizabeth Chaipraditkul.
The introduction from the game:
"You’re a coven of witches running a cupcake bakery together. You’re fantastic at your job and swimming in orders, so it would be really great if the local demons could cut out their bullshit.
Yes, demons—the actual, literal kind from Hell wreaking havoc upon humanity."
Ok! Many of you know I love witches and my oldest kid is a pastry chef now. So honestly this gets all sorts of immediate buy-in for me.
Requirements for the game outside of the rules? 2d6 per player and all the cupcakes. Tea or coffee too. Again. This has my attention.
The game discusses the use of the X-Card mechanic. Fine. No problem with that. What follows is a description of the world. We have all seen this one before "it's a world like our own but magic is real..." the default supernatural world then. Character creation as after that. You describe your witch, what power(s) they have, motivations, and so on. There is your role in the bakery and a neat little mechanic called Approach. This is Sugar, Spice, and Sprinkles. These are, try to get things done as nicely as possible, getting things done in a forceful manner, and saying "the hell with it" and using magic. Respectively. Every witch has a 1 in each and then 3, 2, and 1 points to put into the three categories. So scores of 4, 3, and 2. You decide how you want to approach each problem.
There is a nice little table of relationships. You roll d6x2 (not exactly a 2d6) and get two relationships. You work with other players and characters here. So a roll of 1 indicates you have another character who is your bestie. This one is worked out with another player.
There are demons, hunters and other witches that can come into your lives and bakery. You must deal with them.
The idea is to be a fun little game (it is described as a micro-RPG) to spend an afternoon with. Personally, a rainy and cold afternoon in the fall would be perfect. Bake some cupcakes or muffins, put the kettle on, and have some fun.
There is even a nice random plot generator that honestly is flexible enough to use anywhere.
This game also shares mechanics with de Vaan's other game, Wights which also looks fun.
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I would use this as background material for figuring out some major NPCs in my War of the Witch Queens. I can see taking my members of the Tredecim and working out "Cupcake Stats" for them all.
It is a fun little game and would be an amusing time with the right group while say making cookies or cupcakes. I would say everyone has to decorate a cupcake to be a spell and then you get to eat it when you use it.
Testing a few things on my social media manager, but I figure this is also a good time to show off the latest art I had commissioned from OdinDoesArt. I am quite pleased with it, to be honest.
Time for another Featured Artist post. I discovered today's artist, Brian Brinlee, in one of the fantasy art groups I frequent on Facebook. He had a great style and something about his art made me think of some of the old D&D books from the late 90s. So I got him to commission a piece for me I was calling "Tea with the Witches." It featured five witches from various D&D worlds and it takes place in The Simbul's castle in the Forgotten Realms.
Here are the witches pictured. Left to right (clockwise, never widdershins when dealing with witches):
Sagarassi the Sea Witch (Krynn/Dragonlance), Iggwilv the Witch Queen (Oerth/Greyhawk), The Simbul, Witch Queen of Aglarond (Toril/The Forgotten Realms and where this is taking place), Larina (my OC), Feiya the Pathfinder iconic witch (Golarion/Pathfinder).
They are playing Pentacles, a game played with five people using Tarroka cards.
I loved this one so much I wanted to share more of his art with you.
You can find Brian online on his Facebook, Instagram and DeviantArt pages.
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