Planescape - The Update

So, I now have my full complement of players for both my games.

Recruiting over the internet poses its own problems - it's a lot easier to tell someone in person that they're behavious is disruptive to the group, for example, without sounding aggressive. You also attract a less... predictable group of people. The guys I have seem to be great, and have provided a lot of interesting material to work with in the game.

In the RPG.net corner, we have:

Bilal, a Fire Genasi (built as a Fire Elf) Duskblade, mixing spell and sword. Brought up in the City of Brass, son of a hooker and a Djinn. Known for his wit and desire to attempt to procreate with most things...

Tam'lin, an Erinyes devil (built using a customised version of the Tiefling, which was worked out between me and they player...) who has been cursed to have a heart (and, in the process, stopped being evil)...

And Tik-Tok, a Rogue Modron (creatures of Law) exiled from Mechenus, becoming a Wizard and studying life on the Planes.

Like I said, lots of cool things to work with, depending on what I saw as the main points in their background. Moral problems for Tam'lin, problems of heritage and the seedier side of life for Bilal, and perhaps metaphysical questions about the (demi-)human condition for Tik-Tok.

As for GiantitP, we have:

Sol'Kanar, Ice Genasi Wizard, descendant of Cryonax, one of the Princes of Elemental Evil, and his younger cousin, Ja'Kanar (the player homebrewed a cohort Feat, we'll see how it turns out).

Xybapi, who was just another basher, until he was kidnapped by a group of demons and transformed into an Incubus, somehow managing to keep his old personality and memories. Looks like David Tennant...

Jon, a Champion ("homebrew" class created by Rich Burlew) who calls upon his Celestial ancestry to kick all manner of ass.

And Alliana, a Lillend travelling the Planes to find the perfect song.

So, Alliana already has a built-in quest - find the perfect song. A lot of encounters with a variety of weird and unusual musicians and performers (as well as maybe some... unique sounds) across the Planes should keep her going, questions of faith for Jon, wheelings and dealings with Devils and Demons for Xybapi, and questions of the nitty-gritty of the streets for Sol.

The two games started similarly enough, but are starting to diverge at a rate of knots... we will see which group comes out of their first adventure the worst!

Planescape

So, I've ended up setting up two different Planescape games - one at RPG.net, and one on the the Giant In The Playground forums.

For those of you not in the know, Planescape is a fantastic D&D setting, based around the idea of numerous (somewhere between "many" and "lots") planes of existence, held together by The Great Wheel. Right at its centre is Sigil, the City of Doors - a "hub" where many of these planes overlap, and you can find anything down the right back alley.

Planes can represent the building blocks of creation (Like The Elemental Planes of Fire, Earth, etc. and the Para-Elemental Planes, where they overlap to form things like The Plane of Ice (Air+Water) or Magma (Fire+Earth)), concepts like Life and Death (the Planes of Positive and Negative Energy), or can be afterlifes according to what you believed in in life - if you were all sweetness and light and Boy-Scouted your way through things, you would reach Celestia (fluffy-cloud Heaven) - if you raped and pillaged and kicked puppies every day of your life, it's The Abyss for you!

This is the kind of game that doesn't allow you to pull out old classics like "Bugbears are attacking the next village over!" as plot hooks - Planescape is all about the character's motivations, exploration, spirituality in a place where you can go and see Heaven and Hell (and possibly wander into either while trying to find the loo!), politics amongst the Factions that populate Sigil, interactions amongst all the races of the rainbow you'll find spread across the Planes (the monastic Githzerai, the demon-blooded Tieflings, the Elementally touched Genasi... the list goes on) or, in some spectacular cases, the politics between these races (the millenia-long Blood War between the Lawful Evil Devils, and Chaotic Evil Demons, provides a brilliant in-depth background for a thousand campaigns, or just general fluff for others).


Pretty heavy stuff. But fun, none the less! And of course, sometimes it's still the case that bugbears are attacking the next plane over.

NPC Relationships

So, for me, part of building a world for an RPG is knowing how the world worked before the players came along, and how it'll work after they go. Yes, some places will be greatly affected by the presence of the PCs (current fantasy homebrew has several "Mixed-Race" settlements, humans are a minority - several of the distinctly non-human settlements will treat any newcomers with suspicion and interest), but I hate the idea that, no matter how large the city you want to portray is, it'll always come down to existing when the players need it.

One of the main cities in the Human/Halfling settlement will be a classic Hive Of Scum and Villainy - the kinda place where the Big Bad has a strong influence, the bars are dirty, the magic black, and a trip down the right back alley can net you anything. This seems to me to be the definition of a bustling metropolis, and I'd hate to see it stagnate and bore my players, or worse for somewhere I pictured to be so vibrant and chaotic to end up revolving around their actions.

I want mystery, intrigue, politics and more, all for the players to dip into if they wish - but I want it to be about the city, not them.

In an effort to make this happen naturally, I plan on wholesale lifting the Relationship mechanic from West End Game's Smallville, except for the dice-ing part (that might be silly). However, by having a chart of who interacts with who, how, why, etc. I can make the place seem way more... alive, I suppose.

So, yeah - I will post up the first draft of the map when it gets worked up!

One-Shots Galore

So I fancy a bit of DMing practice before I try and run a proper game, so I'm going to run a few one-shots and such to get back into the swing of things.

Things I'm planning:

Roadies - a game where the players take the role of various members of a super-massive band's road crew (groupies, managers, roadies etc.) trying to get a show to actually run. Using Risus for fast, fun and non-combat oriented play.

Cyberpunk - Another Day, Another Job - using some kind of stripped-down system (Shadowrun and Cyberpunk don't scream one-shot to me) to run some kind of criminal activity gone wrong - well planned to start with, but watch as chaos slowly creeps in... the plan is to use the basics of Unknown Armies system (chargen and the roll-under-skill percentile system) and add some elements of Cyberpunk 2020 (they said I was mad... MAD!). If I can find it, and convince the group, maybe Fiasco! would be perfect... although, the 1KM1KT Free Cyberpunk RPG competition has just been announced, and some of those games look a blast to run - FUBAR looks to be quite similar in style to Fiasco!, but with a different take on the whole thing...

Monster Hunt - like Hunter: The Vigil, with bigger balls. MiniSix all the way!

... and I dunno what else, as of yet. Time will tell...

One-on-One Gaming, Or How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love Funny Accents

So, as previously mentioned, I'm running a short Duet campaign with my girlfriend, to introduce her to the hobby. Last night was the first session, and we both had a blast.

While I love writing adventures, planning worlds, and generally being a DM, my previous attempts have been met with... mixed success. From the player who wanted to do nothing but punt gnomes and get drunk (in character, luckily), the two newbies who were put off by the other players attitudes (i.e. wildly breaking the rules and making shit up to justify it), and a variety of Play-by-Post forum games that collapsed after naught but a few weeks, I was worried that possibly I just wasn't that great at GMing.

But, at least, I rock at duets.

The Microlite 20 system is a small joy to run. It strips out the splat-bloat of the 3e era, and brings things back to 4 classes, 4 races, and very light rules, with a distinctive 3e feel (AC, not THAC0!). Even then, I've found it great for freeforming with - you can easily drop a few rules here and there and still get a perfectly serviceable framework for quick and dirty fun. NPCs can be made in seconds using PC rules, or just ruled on the fly (I work a three-tier system - you're either Bad (no bonus, maybe a penalty), Decent(no bonus to +2), or Great (+3 or higher). Makes for very easy NPCs, and most rolls can be ajudicated at the roll (i.e., Halflings have Bad strength, but wouldn't incur a penalty to pull themselves up a rope). Simple.

For the adventure itself, we started with a classic - "You all meet in a tavern." The lady doesn't even play RPGs, and she's heard that line before! After making her entrance, and chatting with an ex-adventurer dwarf (whose missing eye made her mindful to always check for traps) about the abandoned Wizard's Tower atop The Great Big Ominous Hill Outside Town, Twiggy the Witch (nee Twiggy the Epic) set about collecting a party of merry misanthropes to join her for some looting and plundering.

- Dave the Unsubtle, Halfling Rogue - tiny, aggressive, mercenary - a Kender in all but name. Known for his entertaining asides, cynicism, and being barred from more taverns than there currently are on the continent.

- Harry the Half-Orc - Fighter by name, Fighter by Intelligence score. Was promised a new sword for joining the party, and first grab of any non-magical pointy things found in the Tower. Loyal, but not particularly well-kept.

- Iona, Elf Druid - was originally concieved as a River Tam-style combat/nature savant, but ended up as a haughty vegetarian with a dickish streak.

So, after resting for the night, and getting any last-minute needs from one of the local caravans in the morning, our intrepis heroes set off, for glory and adventure!

I wanted the game to have more of an "adventurey" feel - less combat, more puzzles and discovery. While there was a brief fight with some Kobolds, the first session was made up of finding out about the tower, the inhabitants, and a few clues about the wizard (Mordenkainen - but not that Mordenkainen!) from his diary. She also managed to find a ward to protect her from the nasty beasties in the basement (Thoqqua - she expressed an interest in the weirder D&D monsters...) and even managed to prise enough clues from the Wizard's diary to bind one of them to her service (her party might need a bit more muscle, so I thought it would be a lovely flavourful way to do it mid-dungeon).

After running the first combat, Twiggy's style started to become apparent - let the others do the fighting, try and back them up with arcane artillery/find ways to turn the fight to their favour. I think the next couple of combats will have some more set-dressing, to allow for a wider variety of indirect combat actions to spice thing up a bit, or I might suggest a Wushu-style "stunting" mechanic, maybe even a FATE-style level of narrative control... but we'll see.

So, positives: Adventuring, discovery, interacting with NPCs, being clever with puzzles/traps

Negatives - too much dice rolling (she had a bad streak, which I think threw her a bit).

Next session will be next week - I will keep you posted!