Continuing Heartbreaker notes on my AS remix-hack
Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 8:03 pm
Since the last thread I posted devolved into people exploiting their privilege and hate speech, it obviously got locked.
K's note that what I want to do is a minefield is completely justified; most male Caucasian inhabitants of the United States of Aristocrats don't actually know what discrimination is; and are generally completely misinformed about how to discuss people without being reduced to using racism and culture appropriationing parody.
Regardless of that, my objectives for my project are to be more along the lines of National Geographic, not ... Dungeons & Dragons, or Warhammer Fantasy RPG. If you are unwilling to speak of different genders, cultures, faiths, and ethnicity with a neutral journalistic level of respect and tolerance, then you can go kindly caress away to educate yourself on race and gender privilege before spreading your kyriarchy-induced fear-mongering in this thread.
This is my Heartbreaker, and my goals are to talk about actual Earth cultures, because truth is stranger and more interesting than fiction; and I personally would prefer to talk about existing cultures that I could present to players, than to make up cultures that I know are always going to be some pale imitating culture appropriating copies of actual Earth cultures.
Personally, I do not trust my imagination to create original content; and prefer to be a researcher and storyteller of actual original content; which is why I decided to take this direction.
The two major benefits that I hope this has are that: 1) this projects vidjya gaem and larp formats have "almost infinite expansions" and 2) I, and potentially other people, who are developing content for this project will have a wide range, and a structured model, for what can be added to this project.
In any case, some of the rough notes I was writing last night based on the thread that I've come up with; as well as some additional After Sundown based remixes are....
Okay, so far, this is what I'm thinking might work:
Start:
Okay, so far, this is what I'm thinking might work:
Start:
1) Don't even pretend to do Earth historically. At least not in the last two thousand years or so. My setting will have to have diverged radically from Earth, and be an alternate Earth setting.
A) The specieal, ethnic, gender, sexuality, egalitarian movement has to be a thing that already happened, ages ago.
I) Technology should have hit Gibsonian Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, or Frank Trollman's Asymmetric Threat levels of technology; at least. Ideally surpassed it. As well as inherently been the source of its own collapse.
Middle:
2) Don't even begin promoting a Euro-centric, or possibly a Eurasian-centric, power structure model. Australian Dreamwalkers, First Nations Medicine-workers, and African Rainmakers should be just as important as Hellenic steam-mech inventors; Chinese Nano-Tao granite-makers; and Indian Hindu iron-priests. However, these examples are are just conceptual descriptions.
B) Apply the "Everything is Monsters" aspect of "Dead Man's Hand"; via the After Sundown lens (everything is Spawn; all the the AS types have to be restructured along biological groupings (so Troglodytes are Primates; Gnolls are Bagheera-Ocelotol); Witches, Transhumans, and Frankenstiens are based off of Spawn types; Lycanthropes can be spawn now).
Further to this; all of the existing creature/monster types need to have their biological types vastly expanded, as far as they can, without overlapping with other monster types, and the assumption is that the setting is a fantasy kitchen sink.
Creatures of any specific species originate from their species native environment, and their culture vaguely resembles what their human analogs of the early paleolithic to early iron age did (or bonze/iron age, if the region developed bronze before iron).
Then the world goes cyberpunk/quantum-tech; avoiding the colonialism period of our Earth which is incredibly harmful to the presentation of human cultures in an equitable manner.
Vampires:
-Drakes [All Chirpoterans (bats), Possibly Soricmorpha (Shrews, Moles, Hedgehogs and other insectivores; yes that fact that Mi Go are the prey of Infernal vampires isn't lost on me as being a happy coincidence]
-Kraken [All invertebrate Aquatic organisms that are not Arthropods]
-Dragons [All Reptiles, turtles, crocodiles, snakes, dinosaurs, birds]
Lycanthropes
-Hell-cat/Ocelotol-Bagheera [Felids; includes Hyena] (note: are Infernal now, and take the formerly Nezumi power)
-Berzerkers [Canids, Ursines, Pinnipeds (seals)]
-Kobalt-Gnomes [Rodents; also moles] (note: are Orphic now, and take the formerly Bagheera power)
Transmortals
-Erased* [Demon/Fairy slaves]
-Shaman [Take body/mind altering substances; change appearance]
-Reincarnated [Can basically 'be' anything else in their backstory; so a Macaw spawn could have been a Berzerker champion; and will now always look/act like a Berzerker, even though they still look like a Dragon]
Animates:
-Simulacra [Gender neutral replacement of Android; also more accurate to the intention; since "android" is often used in mainstream entertainment when they usually mean a robot that barely looks like a person; which should be a golem-robota; Data/Lore; Galatea; Talos;]
-Golem-Robota [Robots that look like robots; Transformers, Johnny 5; R2-D2]
-Frankensteins [Any of the other spawn that have been: made into a cyborg, cloned, stitched together]
Witches
-Warlock [An english literature friend of mine who was taking a course on the history of witchcraft in literature that I've been talking to about my AS remix project pointed out that the Disloyal disadvantage, and my original labelling of Baali as Warlocks is correct; since the word warlock essentially meant traitor; this creature type 'could' be used to represent something like Dominions Abysians; or simply the fact that there is more mass of biological life within the Earths mantle, than on it]
-Druid [Ungulates, and their cousins cetaceans; which neatly fixes a problem that I had of "where do minotaurs go" (instead of them being Chimeras; which almost anything can easily be placed); and also covers whales and dolphins
-Khaibit-Liche [Dead things; look like their type; if they pick up animal form they'll be limited to corpse eaters; includes Tasmanian devils, vultures (possibly corvids); I'm reluctant to include carrion eaters; as most predators are also carrion eaters opportunistically]
Lovecraftians
-Mi Go [Arthropoda in general; crabs, spiders, ants, bees, scoprions; yes this is a divergence from AS in that 'blood suckers' are in here; but Krakens already get nice things like cephalopods, anemones, urchins, nudibranches, and hagfish]
-Deep Ones [Aquatic/Amphibian Vertebrates; included lampreys, eels, most species of 'fish', sharks, frogs, newts; making Altanteans from Dominions 3 able to look like frogs, or angler fish]
-Troglodytes [Primates; I didn't think of where to put this type of mammal until I was looking up Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes); and it works; more "cannibal cave hominds" than "mole men" now; but Luminary Troglodytes are seriously "Cave leaders"; Dom 3's Argatha would be classified as Troglodytes; this classification also gives me the side benefit of "always" being able to classify players/cast at a larp as a type of 'monster' without makeup (but only as an Extra, you need to 'look' like a Ghoul to count as a luminary); and makes players much more respectful (and slightly more immersive) of non-participating people; since they inherently look like "cannibal mutants"]
*: I'm still not happy with this name
II) The three worlds + earth model is to be reduced to "three worlds" instead. The Astral is also traditional views of Heaven, and our universe (really it's all about the EM specrtum; where the Heavens represent other bandwidths of energy/light/aether). While the Charred Reflection is a quantum universe spinoff where all things that reached 100* C are copied to (the first time that happens; if not it'll be flooded or overly humid). While the Frozen Reflection is an other quantum universe where all places that have reached 0*C (again, the first time) and/or have had no sunlight touch its surface. The Charred reflection often looks like the floor is lava; and the Frozen Shadows often have massive glaciers.
End:
3) The existing power structures are locked in a thousands year old war with the Charred Reflection, the Frozen Shadows; and plant & animal monsters from other stars. They control regions; but the wilderness is filled with ruined cities that built too large; and were then conquered when the fires of industry summoned Infernal forces; the dreams of the masses spawned an Astral rift; or a single winter brought too large of a zombie horde. Tech is asymmetrically advanced (and it's not a disadvantage or advantage); but civilization isn't able to get too large without destroying itself.
C) Characters 'start' as Extras (or at least the general population is made up of extras); and go out to slay monsters; or capture enemies who will work for their captors for a socially established amount of time. This gains the characters power or respect. Killing monsters unlocks a characters powers, and killing enough monsters of a certain type turns them into a fully fledged version of their spawn-type of creature; unless they become a witch, transmortal; or get transformed into a Cyborg (frankenstien).
III) Technology has to be both super primitive; and quantum tech. Feather armour-wearing Deep Ones with obsidian macuahuitls should also carry looted Ancient micro-fusion laser-projectors over their shoulder, and access the controls for war-mechs via Nadesico/Lensman hand-implants, or SR style head-jacks.
Edits to the AS rules.
.... I've also been hacking the After Sundown character sheet (first hack p1p2; replaced with this hack; and have been able to rearrange the information into three major columns; Form (Retro); Abilities (Stupid); and Resources (Pretentious); instead of the 2 sheet method that is in use.
[additionally; I did some basic copypasta to arrange the tables in Lokathor's pdf into three semi-related pages p1(danger, equipment); p2(resources/obligations, advancement); p3 (Magic tables)]
Additionally; I've stripped the six attribute system; and replaced it with a 4 attribute system. Removed 'combat' as a skill; and re-organized the existing 20 skills into 4 hard-locked categories based on the 4 attributes I'm now using.
Combat is sort of in limbo, as to how a creature generates a combat dice pool (I was using Earth + Water for melee; and Air + Fire for ranged; but that's only been for 2 sessions, and only one party combat so far).
I'm considering having a character pick which skills they use for their Combat dice pool. With [P]hysical being used for melee; ocial used for unarmed (and small weapons); and [T]technical for ranged. Thrown still hinges off of the Athletics skill, b/c I like that a lot; and Archery may also hinge off of it as well (or be a 'pick and choose' option; where a creature can use a Physical skill, or a Technical skill to use a bow and arrow; grenades, javelins and using an atlatl is never going to change from Athletics).
As for magic; and characters using magic that "they don't know"; but have a book for.... earlier this week I thought that the D&D model for wizards could/might be a good idea.
The character has to carry their book(s) with them (a liability); and either carry expensive focuses for some spells, or use appropriate material components for (not sure how to adjudicate which spells gets used for what; I'm thinking basic spells use components; and advanced use foci; elder powers require an artifact; and the book that has an elder spell doesn't work for casting said elder spell).
With the general idea being that Astral needs living things (or once living things?); Infernal involves burning things (plus other options?); and Orphic involves dead things (or killing things?).
This doesn't mean that the spell will even work; merely that the character can make a roll to see if it works; and needs to get 6 hits for the spell to even go off. Basically, all spells you 'don't know' count as having -5 Hits; even if you're spending components, and carrying expensive foci.
Which brings in the elements of "Doubt" that I wanted magic to still have.
I'm probably going to also have spells that you don't know, cost +1 power points. Which means normally 'free' Sorceries cost Power Points to use.
==========
Of course, if no one likes any of this, I won't be surprised; I'm only partly sure on most of this; and I've been slowly spit-balling this and bouncing it off of players in several play test games in the last few years.
I would appreciate advice and critique though.
K's note that what I want to do is a minefield is completely justified; most male Caucasian inhabitants of the United States of Aristocrats don't actually know what discrimination is; and are generally completely misinformed about how to discuss people without being reduced to using racism and culture appropriationing parody.
Regardless of that, my objectives for my project are to be more along the lines of National Geographic, not ... Dungeons & Dragons, or Warhammer Fantasy RPG. If you are unwilling to speak of different genders, cultures, faiths, and ethnicity with a neutral journalistic level of respect and tolerance, then you can go kindly caress away to educate yourself on race and gender privilege before spreading your kyriarchy-induced fear-mongering in this thread.
This is my Heartbreaker, and my goals are to talk about actual Earth cultures, because truth is stranger and more interesting than fiction; and I personally would prefer to talk about existing cultures that I could present to players, than to make up cultures that I know are always going to be some pale imitating culture appropriating copies of actual Earth cultures.
Personally, I do not trust my imagination to create original content; and prefer to be a researcher and storyteller of actual original content; which is why I decided to take this direction.
The two major benefits that I hope this has are that: 1) this projects vidjya gaem and larp formats have "almost infinite expansions" and 2) I, and potentially other people, who are developing content for this project will have a wide range, and a structured model, for what can be added to this project.
In any case, some of the rough notes I was writing last night based on the thread that I've come up with; as well as some additional After Sundown based remixes are....
Okay, so far, this is what I'm thinking might work:
Start:
Okay, so far, this is what I'm thinking might work:
Start:
1) Don't even pretend to do Earth historically. At least not in the last two thousand years or so. My setting will have to have diverged radically from Earth, and be an alternate Earth setting.
A) The specieal, ethnic, gender, sexuality, egalitarian movement has to be a thing that already happened, ages ago.
I) Technology should have hit Gibsonian Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, or Frank Trollman's Asymmetric Threat levels of technology; at least. Ideally surpassed it. As well as inherently been the source of its own collapse.
Middle:
2) Don't even begin promoting a Euro-centric, or possibly a Eurasian-centric, power structure model. Australian Dreamwalkers, First Nations Medicine-workers, and African Rainmakers should be just as important as Hellenic steam-mech inventors; Chinese Nano-Tao granite-makers; and Indian Hindu iron-priests. However, these examples are are just conceptual descriptions.
B) Apply the "Everything is Monsters" aspect of "Dead Man's Hand"; via the After Sundown lens (everything is Spawn; all the the AS types have to be restructured along biological groupings (so Troglodytes are Primates; Gnolls are Bagheera-Ocelotol); Witches, Transhumans, and Frankenstiens are based off of Spawn types; Lycanthropes can be spawn now).
Further to this; all of the existing creature/monster types need to have their biological types vastly expanded, as far as they can, without overlapping with other monster types, and the assumption is that the setting is a fantasy kitchen sink.
Creatures of any specific species originate from their species native environment, and their culture vaguely resembles what their human analogs of the early paleolithic to early iron age did (or bonze/iron age, if the region developed bronze before iron).
Then the world goes cyberpunk/quantum-tech; avoiding the colonialism period of our Earth which is incredibly harmful to the presentation of human cultures in an equitable manner.
Vampires:
-Drakes [All Chirpoterans (bats), Possibly Soricmorpha (Shrews, Moles, Hedgehogs and other insectivores; yes that fact that Mi Go are the prey of Infernal vampires isn't lost on me as being a happy coincidence]
-Kraken [All invertebrate Aquatic organisms that are not Arthropods]
-Dragons [All Reptiles, turtles, crocodiles, snakes, dinosaurs, birds]
Lycanthropes
-Hell-cat/Ocelotol-Bagheera [Felids; includes Hyena] (note: are Infernal now, and take the formerly Nezumi power)
-Berzerkers [Canids, Ursines, Pinnipeds (seals)]
-Kobalt-Gnomes [Rodents; also moles] (note: are Orphic now, and take the formerly Bagheera power)
Transmortals
-Erased* [Demon/Fairy slaves]
-Shaman [Take body/mind altering substances; change appearance]
-Reincarnated [Can basically 'be' anything else in their backstory; so a Macaw spawn could have been a Berzerker champion; and will now always look/act like a Berzerker, even though they still look like a Dragon]
Animates:
-Simulacra [Gender neutral replacement of Android; also more accurate to the intention; since "android" is often used in mainstream entertainment when they usually mean a robot that barely looks like a person; which should be a golem-robota; Data/Lore; Galatea; Talos;]
-Golem-Robota [Robots that look like robots; Transformers, Johnny 5; R2-D2]
-Frankensteins [Any of the other spawn that have been: made into a cyborg, cloned, stitched together]
Witches
-Warlock [An english literature friend of mine who was taking a course on the history of witchcraft in literature that I've been talking to about my AS remix project pointed out that the Disloyal disadvantage, and my original labelling of Baali as Warlocks is correct; since the word warlock essentially meant traitor; this creature type 'could' be used to represent something like Dominions Abysians; or simply the fact that there is more mass of biological life within the Earths mantle, than on it]
-Druid [Ungulates, and their cousins cetaceans; which neatly fixes a problem that I had of "where do minotaurs go" (instead of them being Chimeras; which almost anything can easily be placed); and also covers whales and dolphins
-Khaibit-Liche [Dead things; look like their type; if they pick up animal form they'll be limited to corpse eaters; includes Tasmanian devils, vultures (possibly corvids); I'm reluctant to include carrion eaters; as most predators are also carrion eaters opportunistically]
Lovecraftians
-Mi Go [Arthropoda in general; crabs, spiders, ants, bees, scoprions; yes this is a divergence from AS in that 'blood suckers' are in here; but Krakens already get nice things like cephalopods, anemones, urchins, nudibranches, and hagfish]
-Deep Ones [Aquatic/Amphibian Vertebrates; included lampreys, eels, most species of 'fish', sharks, frogs, newts; making Altanteans from Dominions 3 able to look like frogs, or angler fish]
-Troglodytes [Primates; I didn't think of where to put this type of mammal until I was looking up Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes); and it works; more "cannibal cave hominds" than "mole men" now; but Luminary Troglodytes are seriously "Cave leaders"; Dom 3's Argatha would be classified as Troglodytes; this classification also gives me the side benefit of "always" being able to classify players/cast at a larp as a type of 'monster' without makeup (but only as an Extra, you need to 'look' like a Ghoul to count as a luminary); and makes players much more respectful (and slightly more immersive) of non-participating people; since they inherently look like "cannibal mutants"]
*: I'm still not happy with this name
II) The three worlds + earth model is to be reduced to "three worlds" instead. The Astral is also traditional views of Heaven, and our universe (really it's all about the EM specrtum; where the Heavens represent other bandwidths of energy/light/aether). While the Charred Reflection is a quantum universe spinoff where all things that reached 100* C are copied to (the first time that happens; if not it'll be flooded or overly humid). While the Frozen Reflection is an other quantum universe where all places that have reached 0*C (again, the first time) and/or have had no sunlight touch its surface. The Charred reflection often looks like the floor is lava; and the Frozen Shadows often have massive glaciers.
End:
3) The existing power structures are locked in a thousands year old war with the Charred Reflection, the Frozen Shadows; and plant & animal monsters from other stars. They control regions; but the wilderness is filled with ruined cities that built too large; and were then conquered when the fires of industry summoned Infernal forces; the dreams of the masses spawned an Astral rift; or a single winter brought too large of a zombie horde. Tech is asymmetrically advanced (and it's not a disadvantage or advantage); but civilization isn't able to get too large without destroying itself.
C) Characters 'start' as Extras (or at least the general population is made up of extras); and go out to slay monsters; or capture enemies who will work for their captors for a socially established amount of time. This gains the characters power or respect. Killing monsters unlocks a characters powers, and killing enough monsters of a certain type turns them into a fully fledged version of their spawn-type of creature; unless they become a witch, transmortal; or get transformed into a Cyborg (frankenstien).
III) Technology has to be both super primitive; and quantum tech. Feather armour-wearing Deep Ones with obsidian macuahuitls should also carry looted Ancient micro-fusion laser-projectors over their shoulder, and access the controls for war-mechs via Nadesico/Lensman hand-implants, or SR style head-jacks.
Edits to the AS rules.
.... I've also been hacking the After Sundown character sheet (first hack p1p2; replaced with this hack; and have been able to rearrange the information into three major columns; Form (Retro); Abilities (Stupid); and Resources (Pretentious); instead of the 2 sheet method that is in use.
[additionally; I did some basic copypasta to arrange the tables in Lokathor's pdf into three semi-related pages p1(danger, equipment); p2(resources/obligations, advancement); p3 (Magic tables)]
Additionally; I've stripped the six attribute system; and replaced it with a 4 attribute system. Removed 'combat' as a skill; and re-organized the existing 20 skills into 4 hard-locked categories based on the 4 attributes I'm now using.
Combat is sort of in limbo, as to how a creature generates a combat dice pool (I was using Earth + Water for melee; and Air + Fire for ranged; but that's only been for 2 sessions, and only one party combat so far).
I'm considering having a character pick which skills they use for their Combat dice pool. With [P]hysical being used for melee; ocial used for unarmed (and small weapons); and [T]technical for ranged. Thrown still hinges off of the Athletics skill, b/c I like that a lot; and Archery may also hinge off of it as well (or be a 'pick and choose' option; where a creature can use a Physical skill, or a Technical skill to use a bow and arrow; grenades, javelins and using an atlatl is never going to change from Athletics).
As for magic; and characters using magic that "they don't know"; but have a book for.... earlier this week I thought that the D&D model for wizards could/might be a good idea.
The character has to carry their book(s) with them (a liability); and either carry expensive focuses for some spells, or use appropriate material components for (not sure how to adjudicate which spells gets used for what; I'm thinking basic spells use components; and advanced use foci; elder powers require an artifact; and the book that has an elder spell doesn't work for casting said elder spell).
With the general idea being that Astral needs living things (or once living things?); Infernal involves burning things (plus other options?); and Orphic involves dead things (or killing things?).
This doesn't mean that the spell will even work; merely that the character can make a roll to see if it works; and needs to get 6 hits for the spell to even go off. Basically, all spells you 'don't know' count as having -5 Hits; even if you're spending components, and carrying expensive foci.
Which brings in the elements of "Doubt" that I wanted magic to still have.
I'm probably going to also have spells that you don't know, cost +1 power points. Which means normally 'free' Sorceries cost Power Points to use.
==========
Of course, if no one likes any of this, I won't be surprised; I'm only partly sure on most of this; and I've been slowly spit-balling this and bouncing it off of players in several play test games in the last few years.
I would appreciate advice and critique though.