Making less-terrible Cthulhutech-esque RPG

[hyzmarca]

The thing where magic gets more difficult as you get older is so that you can do the other side of the source material, which is Anime.

So boring people like me, who think giant robots and transvestite teenagers are not the most exciting thing to have in a game, could just cut out that part. Ok.

Nah, boring people like you deal with cultists, investigation street-level combat and have sorcerers on team Black Hat for the most part. You're basically playing Arkham Horror: the RPG.

In this thing, mainline casters have to be magical girls for the same reason mainline robot pilots have to be Children of Evangelion; it makes no goddamned sense to have children out on the front lines besides lolanime otherwise. Having adults be more rigid and all too cognizant of the gibbering horrors that grant them their abilities is a fair tradeoff to keep the setting sane and still anime.

You've also got special forces cyborg with spider-tanks, potentially. And regular military units. And high-level diplomacy. There's probably room for a logistics game if want to play it as strategy rather than an RPG.


Incidentally, a picture from Toth Amon's most recent State of the Nation Address.




Does anyone mind if I post the timeline elsewhere? We don't need more cooks, but it would be nice to gauge interest and opinions on a board that has heavier traffic than this one.

[Grek]

I have no objections and fail to see why they should be taken into account even if I had one.

[Avoraciopoctules]

You should absolutely do so wherever you want. Nobody owns this idea.

I would be interested in seeing the places you link it, however.

[hyzmarca]

I've also found some inspirational art for the various Throne classes.

Rook Class Humanoid

(Obviously)

Bishop Class Quadruped

Knight Class Enhanced Mobility Humanoid

[Avoraciopoctules]

So there's one or more nefarious Old One cults operating around the Nazca Lines in Peru. Who should they worship, and what kind of agenda should they have that puts them at odds with both branches of Team Yig?

[hyzmarca]

So there's one or more nefarious Old One cults operating around the Nazca Lines in Peru. Who should they worship, and what kind of agenda should they have that puts them at odds with both branches of Team Yig?

Ghatanothoa. Giant amorphous Medusa originally from Yuugoth, buried under a mountain on the lost continent of Mu (which would be in the Pacific).

The Nazca lines are associated with Ancient Astronaut theories, so we can say that they were used as landing strips by the Mi-Go, who originally brought him to Earth and he's trying to phone home, specifically to awaken his pal Cxaxukluth and convince him to to mount a rescue operation. The Mi-Go do not want this, because they're scared shitless of Cxaxukluth (and rightly so, he's a mean cannibalistic Outer God).

Ghatanothoa is bad news all around, and is explicitly one of the threats that Yig, Nug, Yeb, and Shub-Niggurath would ally with humanity to stop (though this is comes from the mouth of one of Shubby's priests, so it's accuracy is uncertain). Cxaxukluth is worse, and we do not want him coming to Earth for any reason.

[hyzmarca]

It occurs to me that our Conjurers should be more like these guys.

So instead of merely giving them pokeballs, we should give them cards which they can use to buff their mons. This gives them something constructive to do in the actual fight, other than yelling out orders that probably aren't necessary. It's also a good reason for them to use a winds of fate resource system.

[RadiantPhoenix]

It occurs to me that our Conjurers should be more like these guys.

So instead of merely giving them pokeballs, we should give them cards which they can use to buff their mons. This gives them something constructive to do in the actual fight, other than yelling out orders that probably aren't necessary. It's also a good reason for them to use a winds of fate resource system.

Well, Pokemon trainers use items too, so sure.

There's temporary stat-boost items (e.g., X Attack, Dire Hit, Guard Spec)
There's healing items (e.g., Lemonade, Revive, Lava Cookie)

You also crib something from RPGs with less flexible parties, and have items that use moves (e.g., Necklace of Fireballs), but that would sort of defeat the point of having mons.

[hyzmarca]

It occurs to me that our Conjurers should be more like these guys.

So instead of merely giving them pokeballs, we should give them cards which they can use to buff their mons. This gives them something constructive to do in the actual fight, other than yelling out orders that probably aren't necessary. It's also a good reason for them to use a winds of fate resource system.

Well, Pokemon trainers use items too, so sure.

There's temporary stat-boost items (e.g., X Attack, Dire Hit, Guard Spec)
There's healing items (e.g., Lemonade, Revive, Lava Cookie)

You also crib something from RPGs with less flexible parties, and have items that use moves (e.g., Necklace of Fireballs), but that would sort of defeat the point of having mons.

One thing that Digimon Tamers did, though not very often, was have cards that caused the mon to execute a technique that isn't available to him naturally. So when Juri slashes her Lady Devimon card, Leomon uses Energy Drain, even though Leomon can't learn Energy Drain.
So in this set up, a conjurer can play an "attack card" and the mon uses that attack.

[RadiantPhoenix]

One thing that Digimon Tamers did, though not very often, was have cards that caused the mon to execute a technique that isn't available to him naturally. So when Juri slashes her Lady Devimon card, Leomon uses Energy Drain, even though Leomon can't learn Energy Drain.
So in this set up, a conjurer can play an "attack card" and the mon uses that attack.

Yeah, but that's for conjurers who don't have pokeballs.

If you have pokeballs, it's more appropriate to just catch a Lady Devimon and add it to your party than to use a Card of Energy Drain.

(TMs and HMs are different because they're moves that it is appropriate for the 'mon to have)

[JigokuBosatsu]

To chip in on the "magic age" thing, I read a cool take on this in the books Bitter Seeds and Coldest War by Ian Tregillis. The magicians in the book have to be taught how to contact the eldritch horrors (in Enochian) in childhood, as only plastic young brains are able to fully deal with the mind-affecting consequences of learning the magical language. Most of the wizards seen are old men, and are reasonably powerful, but the truly powerful wizards are seen in the second book:

a group of children who are raised from birth with Enochian as their natural language, and are basically tuned into the great old ones 24/7.

I think this dovetails nicely with the divide between, say Wilbur Whately vs. Robert Suydam.

[Almaz]

Yeah but we're not going to implement a mon-by-mon TM system that allows people to use TMs based on whether they're truly appropriate. We're either going to be more restrictive (only within a certain type of monster) or less (fucking anymon).

I propose simultaneously that they be less restrictive, but also that monster TMs and cards or whatever be things that actually modify the monster in question. You stab a syringe of Vampirism or whatever into them and they grow a bloodthirsty maw.

[Username17]

Pokemasters can carry around books full of glyphs and seals and signs and sigils that they can tear out and throw at things. That they would in fact literally have decks of cards out of which they hurl a Yellow Sign at something. It's a great excuse to have a bizarre color wheel in which different kinds of symbols affect different kinds of monsters differently. I mean, obviously if you have a pocket Cthonian you can buff it with a Red Sign, but they wouldn't respond well to a Yellow Sign.

-Username17

[Username17]

So basically, when you turn into a majokko Scout, you get totally trolled by Nyarlothotep and then you have a glowing symbol that shows up on your forehead and gives you powers based on the type of magical girl you turn into. If you turn into a majokko Ranger, that's basically the same thing except that you have a third form which is a giant monster and able to box it out with Dark Young.

Now if you take up the path of the summoner, that's a bit different.





So you get cards, and those cards have magic symbols on them, and you use them to summon monsters or invoke effects. Also you are charged with capturing monsters and spirits into cards.

Honestly, it's looking like I could dredge up some of the old stuff me and The Mathew did on Witch: the Transformed. The whole elemental halos deal would work just fine. I mean, it was written as a joke and it uses nWoD mechanics, but it wouldn't be that hard to convert some things into something that wasn't ass.

-Username17

[Almaz]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7Jd6Cpl_bA So. . . ?

[Grek]

Honestly, it's looking like I could dredge up some of the old stuff me and The Mathew did on Witch: the Transformed.

Can I get a link to this? Sounds interesting.

[Username17]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7Jd6Cpl_bA So. . . ?

Yes. Hyzmarca's plan for conjurers does seem to boil down to Zatch Bell. Personally, I think I would like to see them more like Card Captor Sakura (even though I absolutely hate the dubbing on that), which is to say like a Final Fantasy Summoner (or a high end Disgaea magician). That while they can produce direct fire and forget magical effects, they do so by summoning a spirit that produces the effect and then fucks off.

Anyway, looking through the old notes for W:tT, we had five sub splats because it was on the nWoD engine. Those were:

• Sage Knights. These were like a combination of Rayearth and Utena. They had special weaponry they could pull out of their hearts called Athame, and could enchant their weapons to do stuff and change form through a process called Sanctification.
• Rune Seekers. These were unabashed Card Captor knockoffs, and had a thing called Rune Binding where they got themselves Clow Cards.
• Stellar Oracles. Yes, before they appeared in After Sundown they were here. Still Sailor Moon knockoffs.
• Spinners of Fate. These guys were Oh My Goddess characters, and had fate related powers called Weaving.
• Daughters of Gold. Based on Disney Princesses, they had access to Alchemy.

In addition to the power you got from your mini-splat, you got two more powers, one of which was based on your "Fate", and the other of which is based on your "Element". The Fate was based on the strong emotion you were displaying when you transformed the first time, and it gave you a related power. The Elements were Blood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water - which is the Chinese Five but with Wood changed to Blood to make it creepier. Each element had three paths, which were Consuming, Nurturing, and a unique one for each (Forgiving Blood, Grasping Earth, Cleansing Fire, Persisting Metal, and Demanding Water). You also had a spirit animal that was chosen off a short list based on what your element was.

Now, obviously there is a fair amount of baggage tied up in there because it was being hammered into the nWoD framework and that not only doesn't need to happen but it shouldn't. But it was an emergent property of the system that Sailor Mars could hit things with a giant bird shape made of fire and Sailor Jupiter could call upon the Thunder Dragon. And that is, I think, pretty important.

The Athame system in particular seems extremely appropriate. Reaching into your heart and pulling a sword out seems extremely in-genre for both Anime and Mythos. And transforming the heart arsenal into power armor or even a giant robot is a good way to bootstrap such a character into different combat tiers.

-Username17

[Darth Rabbitt]

The thing where magic gets more difficult as you get older is so that you can do the other side of the source material, which is Anime.

So boring people like me, who think giant robots and transvestite teenagers are not the most exciting thing to have in a game, could just cut out that part. Ok.

I think any game is made better by including those things.

Anyway, looking through the old notes for W:tT, we had five sub splats because it was on the nWoD engine.

Out of curiosity, do/did you have anything more than notes on that?

[Almaz]

The Athame system in particular seems extremely appropriate. Reaching into your heart and pulling a sword out seems extremely in-genre for both Anime and Mythos. And transforming the heart arsenal into power armor or even a giant robot is a good way to bootstrap such a character into different combat tiers.

-Username17

Well first you need to have the powerup where you stop pulling the sword out of your girlfriend/tsukaima and then realize you are the sword, and then after that you can get one hell of a make-over.

Or whatever level the story starts off at.

( That is: Actually "becoming" the mecha, even if mostly in some sort of metaphorical sense where it is overlaid on you directly as super-armour, rather than being something you overtly drive, actually seems most appropriate with the majokko motif of transformation. )

[hyzmarca]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7Jd6Cpl_bA So. . . ?

Yes. Hyzmarca's plan for conjurers does seem to boil down to Zatch Bell. Personally, I think I would like to see them more like Card Captor Sakura (even though I absolutely hate the dubbing on that), which is to say like a Final Fantasy Summoner (or a high end Disgaea magician). That while they can produce direct fire and forget magical effects, they do so by summoning a spirit that produces the effect and then fucks off.

I've never actually seen Zatch Bell. I was thinking more like Yu-Gi-Oh, but with a smaller selection of monsters. Because we're not a collectible card game company and have no incentive to write up 4000 mechanically different monsters.

I was also thinking about Sakura in capturing monsters and carding them.


But having a small number of at-will perma-summons means that we don't need to provide enough monster cards to fill up a deck, which is less work for us, and lets the summoner focus on support rather than on army building. It also means that we don't need to stack multiple resource management systems on top of each other.

[Korgan0]

If we're going to have some kind of class that specifically captures monsters a la Pokemon, do we want to have the monsters that they can throw out specifically tied to the monsters they fight?

[angelfromanotherpin]

If we're going to have some kind of class that specifically captures monsters a la Pokemon, do we want to have the monsters that they can throw out specifically tied to the monsters they fight?

I think so. Maybe their power of friendship converts the monsters into chibi versions with less horrifying flavor text on their abilities when they go into a card, maybe not, but either way, having the monsters that you've beaten go on your power list is a big part of the genre. Also, having byakhee and so forth on both your side and the enemy's adds a lot of coherence to the setting.

[Username17]

Out of curiosity, do/did you have anything more than notes on that?

Well, it was from six years ago, I don't have all of it anymore, and what I do have was pretty seriously cannibalized. For example, your main enemies in that work were "The Shattered Kingdom", "The Architects", and "The King With Three Shadows". If that sounds somewhat familiar, there is totally a reason for that. But I do have bits and pieces. But the mechanics are all NWoD crap, because at the time I was trying to make a NWoD splat that was compatible but less terrible, and only later did I decide that the NWoD mechanics could just go fuck off entirely and were totally not worth saving even tiny bits of.

Example: Amelia is a Stellar Oracle whose element is Water. As a starting character, she begins with one level of an elemental paradigm, which could be the lowest level of The Halo of Consuming Water, the first level of the Halo of Nurturing Water, or the lowest level of the Halo of Demanding Water. Her player chooses Demanding Water, and Amelia is able to use the powers of The Grasping Mists. If she were to learn The Force of Neptune later on, it would cost her 5 Experience Points because it is the first "dot" of a new paradigm (Consuming Water). If she were to learn Blizzard of Abandonment it would cost her 10 Experience Points because it is the second "dot" of a paradigm. Since she is of the Water Element, she can never learn the Halos of other elements such as Earth or Fire.

Using Halos: Halos can normally be used an unlimited number of times and have no cost to activate. Activating a Halo is normal an instant (or contested) action. Because Halos have tiers rather than dots, their dicepool is increased by Dominion rather than the number of dots in the paradigm. If a character ever suffers a dramatic failure while attempting to use an Elemental Halo, she loses the ability to use that Halo for the remainder of the scene.

Some of the stuff gets really arcane. You have a Dominion score which is your blood potency analog, you collect and spend Craft points, and you have drawbacks to Witchiness called Shadows. Things have overly complex names because it's supposed to sound like a NWoD product. So when you take Consuming Earth you get things called "Avalanche of Stone" and "The Rain Into the Sky" rather than things with sensible names. While if you go Grasping Earth you start with "Briars of a Century's Neglect" (which is like Entangle, but with a more pretentious name) and if you go Nurturing Earth you get "Gravity of Love and Fear" (which is essentially Sailor Venus' Heart Chain, but with enough pretentious WoD style rambling that that you might not notice).

Unfortunately, I don't think I have the expanded bits on most of the sub-splat factions or their ritual magicks (with a k, because White Wolf) anymore.

---

Anyway, the overwrought naming systems could actually be of help. I mean, in Mythos, spells are called "Sigil of Hermes Trismegistus", "Mists of Releh", or "Call the Azure Flame" and not "Fireball". So if your higher level Nurturing Earth power is called "Bonds of Longing and Guilt" that's actually fairly genre appropriate for both Mythos and Anime.

-Username17

[Darth Rabbitt]

OK, thanks Frank.

[Username17]

Anyway, old nWoD splat projects are probably a decent place to look for ideas. After all, we're looking at a game where people are expected to play a wizard, a werewolf, a synthetic person, and a demon in the same party while solving mysteries, having occult adventures, and getting into fights with supernatural creatures. White Wolf mechanics suck monkey butt, but a lot of White Wolf (and White Wolf inspired) concepts fit right in.

On Tiers. Obviously, if you're going to be doing simple police procedural cult investigation stuff, you can play a normal human. You have some skills: maybe you read some ancient languages, maybe you can handle a plasma rifle, but you're basically recognizable as a mundane human. And that kind of character is what we'll call the "Police Tier". But you don't have to be a mundane human to play at that level. If you have arcane knowledge or abilities that are not especially better or more useful than the ability to fix broken electronics or hack cellular phones, then you could still be in the Police Tier.

The important thing is that while humans who aren't mighty majokko and don't have athames in their chests or demon grafts or anything are Police Tier by default, that is not necessarily true for some of the aliens. While I would say that Deep Ones and Ghouls should default to Police Tier as well, I could very easily accept the argument that Goat Spawn and Oni actually default to the "Supers Tier"* instead. That simply by being an Oni, you are tough enough that when a rampaging Nightgaunt hurls you into a wall you aren't dead. Also you have inherent powers sufficient to hold your own in Space CQC.

But if you're a human (or for that matter a Ghoul or Deep One) and you want to participate at the level where people are doing Space CQC, you need a Power Source. And that is I think where the nWoD concept of the "supernatural template" comes in handy. You choose one of the things that you can transform into, and then you grab that template and you can participate in those sorts of campaigns. So far, your choices are Majokko (magical warriors), Summoner (casters with pokemon), and Monster Hybrid (The Hulk). But we could easily enough make room for Cyborgs or other creatures that have appeared in the Mythos such as Lamia, Werewolves, Vampires, or whatever. And then proper Zord-using Sentai are probably just Majokko who have an additional template that lets them fight at the Kaiju Tier as well.

The Kaiju Tier is pretty much mandatory. And no one plays a character that defaults to this tier, it's all handled through templates. As a Majokko, you can go Sentai and either Zord it up or Ultraman it. As a Summoner, you just get your own Kaiju and call in Mothra to settle things. As an otherwise normal human (or Changeling), you can pilot a Throne. As a Deep One, you can Maclon yourself. Seems like maybe there should be other options, but this is less open to possibilities than the middle tier.

*: I am 100% willing to entertain other names for the tier that involves playing a Sailor Scout. Hell, it could even be called "Scout Tier".

-Username17