thryth-gaming

[thryth-gaming]

Spotify-Based Hunter Team

Team Playbook: The Last Survivors

For those that haven't played Nioh 2, the Sohaya are a clan of demon hunters living in the mountains. During the game, you encounter a number of them acting as mercenaries for the enemy, but also one of your closest friends is an important member.

The song is a slow-paced, melancholy tune that first plays in the game when you come to a Sohaya village your friend was raised and trained only to find that it has been devastated and is filled with yokai.

So I'm going to lean toward that melancholy feeling and the aftermath of a great loss so for the Team Playbook, I'm going with....

.... The Last Survivors

First, let's define the event that our hunters survived.

I'm going to choose the "Something else" option and go with this:

Monsters supported by soldiers slaughtered our isolated hometown.

Decide who the allies were who fought alongside you and died in battle. One for each of the four hunters we're making.

Chosen: Your Mentor

Professional: A monster hunting teammate.

Monstrous: A lover... and themselves.

Wronged: A brother.

In the end, they won out in the end by triggering an avalanche that buried the town. This has left them persons of interest in a possible act of terrorism, so they have to keep their heads low. That was the additional cost they paid.

For Style, I'm going to go with the way Mumyo feels determination to stop the violence consuming Japan and go with "Wardens"

Wardens: We won't let what happened to us happen to anyone else. At the end of each session, ask: "Did we save people, no matter the cost?"

For Team Enemy, I'm going with one of the pre-built examples:

Metaphysical Exploitation Holdings (MEH), a corporation that profits from ill-advised experiments and exploitation of the supernatural.

For Team Ally, I am going with another of the pre-written examples:

Zhu, a law enforcement officer. They can help you with legal difficulties in their jurisdiction.

I think Zhu knows the truth of what happened and gives the team heads up about the investigations and search for them.

For the first move, they're all good, but I think I'm going for "Determined Guardian"

Determined Guardian: When one of the hunters protects a bystander, the target never takes harm: even on a miss, that bystander is totally safe. The hunter doing the protection still suffers the full effects of the miss.

For assets, I'm just going to straight to the first in the recommended list: Mobile Base.

Mobile Base: A truck or bus with bunks and mystery investigation supplies on board.

So... now on to the actual hunters.

The Chosen

Immortals is a far more hopeful and upbeat song than The Sohaya. And it talks about big dreams and being great, so I'm going with The Chosen here.

I'm going to say they're young, with a hopeful face, and travel-wear. And they are missing an arm.

For stats I'm going with:

Charm -1

Cool +1

Sharp +2

Tough -1

Weird +2

They are good with magic, observation, and study. They are not so good at dealing with people or fighting. And they are decent at dealing with dangers.

Given they lost their mentor in the attack, I think they already knew about their potential. And I think they learned about it from an ancient cult that found them.

For Fate tags, I'm choosing the following:

Heroic: You can save the world, Magic powers

Doom: Doubt, A nemesis

For hunter playbook moves, I'm going to just stick to listing them rather than writing out their mechanics completely. There are two Chosen moves that are automatic and the third is chosen from the list of remaining.

Destiny's Plaything

I'm here for a reason

Dutiful

For the Basic Weird Move I'm going to go with:

Use Magic

Usually, Chosen are built as warriors, this one is being built as more as a support ritualist. Very much more Neese than Buffy. And I'm building her Chosen weapon accordingly:

Form: Staff

Business End: Empowered (serves as a Big Magic requirement), Blessed, Sapient

Material: Bone

Final Stats: Staff (1-harm hand/close, holy, sapient, ally)

I'm going to say that their staff was created in the lead up to the end of the attack on their town. They had no useful materials... and so they sacrificed their own arm to embody the weapon and its spirit sent to aid them.

They also have some protective gear in the form of 1-armor. I'm not sure what form it would take. Kevlar is fine, but enchanted clothing feels nice.

Histories, I'm adapting some of these from the standard list.

The Professional patched them up after the ritual to summon a weapon ripped the Chosen's arm out.

The Monstrous and their SO were their best friends who died buying them time to perform a ritual.

The Wronged is their cousin who learned magic from the same mentor.

The Professional

Warriors is a bit more melancholy and more in line with The Sohaya, but it is also very action oriented. I was considering Professional, Initiate, and Hard Case for this, but decided Professional. This seems to go against the idea of them being on the run from Law Enforcement, but the agency doesn't have to be a government one.

Look: Dark veins stand out in the skin, paramilitary uniform

I'm going to go with this rating line:

Charm +0

Cool +2

Sharp -1

Tough +2

Weird -1

They are very good at dealing with danger, teamwork, and fighting. But they're not so good at investigation or the weird stuff. And they're no better at dealing people than anybody else. The person who talked well was their partner, who is now dead.

The Agency has the following Resources and Red Tape

Resources: Like Family, Non-Human Integration

Red Tape: Besieged, Isolated

The Professional's agency includes both human and non-human agents who care about each other, but they are scattered and targeted by other organizations. When they find another agent, they're trustworthy, but finding one is difficult.

For Moves, all Professionals get Deal with the Agency and three other Moves.

Deal with the Agency

Tactical Genius

Battlefield Awareness

Medic

For a basic Weird Move:

No Limits

So they're able to get a read of the tactical situation pretty easily and avoid damage well. And they can patch people up afterward. Going to say that their weird move came from them injecting themselves with an experimental mutagen in desperation. Going with the flak vest which is normally 1 armor, but due to Battlefield Awareness, that goes to 2.

Gear: Submachine Gun, 9mm handgun, Big knife

Histories

The Chosen was on the Agency's watch list since they weren't sure how the related prophecies would play out.

The Monstrous pulled them out of a terrible situation by guiding them in The Event (posthumously).

The Wronged was in the military with them before they went their separate ways.

The Monstrous

Now we come to this transcendental rising song of many voices that usually plays after your character has died and you're about to come back to life at the last shrine you prayed at.

The idea here is that this person is a ghost of one of the people that died in the initial event. Their significant other also died along with them, but only they remained behind as a ghost and have chosen to help the hunters.

Look: normally invisible, but when visible, a bloody translucent figure with a pleasantly smiling face. Sometimes their actual injuries appear, especially when they're upset.

For Ratings:

Charm +2

Cool +0

Sharp -1

Tough -1

Weird +3

I could have used a move to let them be charming with Weird, but I want them to be honestly charming. So they're good with people, but not good with investigating or fighting. And only okay at dealing with hazards. Now, onto the monstrous bleed:

Breed: Ghost

Curse: Spirit

Natural Attack: Magical Force (1-harm magical close), Life Drain (1-harm intimate life-drain)

Because they're a spirit, they have difficulty making use of their high Charm. Most of the time normal humans can't see them. They have two weak natural attacks rather than one stronger one. They can communicate with the other hunters well enough, but

For Moves, Monstrous gets two and the curse I chose means I have to take Incorporeal

Incorporeal

Something Borrowed: Telepathy

For the basic Weird move they'll have:

Sensitive

So, now they can talk to normal people, but only through the weird means of talking directly to their mind, and probably only one at a time, unless they use some method to become visible and can just talk to them normally. Too bad they're not great at investigation or they'd be a great scout. But they can make a very discrete messenger. And they have a sense for other supernatural things now.

Next for the Gear. And I'm actually going to forgo the weapon as part of the Spirit curse. They can't use one.

Histories

The Chosen is tied to their origin, they died trying to help the Chosen.

The Professional and you fought together against the odds to reach and help the Chosen.

The Wronged saved the Monstrous from other ghosts commanded by one of the attacking reapers.

The Wronged

And now we come to the artfully and emotional dissonance of Emilie Autumn's song about someone who has been betrayed and tormented by someone and their demand to be given their innocence back under threat of terrible violence.

Look: Angry Eyes, ragged clothes

For Ratings, I'm doing the following:

Charm +1

Cool -1

Sharp +0

Tough +2

Weird +1

This person is good at dealing with people and magic, but they are very good at fighting. They are only okay at investigation and they are reckless and emotional, prone to diving into danger.

For the Loss I'm going with the following:

Who did you Lose? A sibling, their brother. And also their entire town.

Who Did it? A reaper. A creature that slays mortals to harvest their souls.

Why couldn't you save them? Scared

For moves, all Wronged are studied on the kind of monster of their prey, so this wronged knows a lot about reapers. And then they have two other moves.

I Know My Prey (Reapers)

NEVER AGAIN

What does not kill me...

For a Basic Weird move I'm going with:

Trust Your Gut

So, they are very good at protecting people (at cost to themselves) and also can turn pain into motivation to try harder. And they have some minor divination skills in the form of Trust Your Gut, to lead them to key elements.

On to Gear, they get 1-pt of Armor and I'm going to give them a plain pickup they can drive alongside the mobile base, or take to places an RV can't go.

Signature Weapon: Specialist weapon against Reapers: a silver sickle, ritually purified. (4-harm hand against Reapers, 1-harm hand against other targets)

Shotgun - 3-harm close messy loud

Hunting Rifle - 2-harm far loud

Histories

The Chosen also lost friends and families to the Reapers.

They recognize The Professional has more experience fighting monsters and respect their advice.

Because of the Monstrous, they recognized the Reapers for what they were and was able to properly arm themselves to fight back.

#spotify monster hunter team #monster of the week #ttrpg #character creation #Spotify

[thryth-gaming]

When I started writing fanfic most of the advice I got was from women authors writing for fandom where the lead character was a woman (Lina Inverse from Slayers) and after that for Ranma 1/2. So thank you all the college girls and adult ladies that helped an unknowingly ace/ND college guy learn how to hone his writing.

sometimes the best fanfics are written by middle aged adults with years of writing experience who simply know how to craft a good story. but also sometimes the best fanfics are written by a sixteen year old girl with something deeply wrong with her

[thryth-gaming]

Load-file storytelling

#the load-files tell a story #legend of grimrock 2 #dungeon crawler #I'm going to go some place else for a little bit #there surely can't be worse monsters in the unexplored parts of the island - right? #video games

[thryth-gaming]

About a TTRPG character of mine...

CW: sex, sex workers, non-explicit

Recently, Gumroad and other platforms have pushed sexual materials off their platform and made the lives of thousands of legally working individuals that much harder to carry out. So that has me thinking about a character I played in the last couple of years.

Okay, so below here is Caress Melani, a character I first conceived about seven or eight years ago and first got to play in 2022.

She is an Oath of the Ancients Paladin devoted to Sharess, the Faerunian (Forgotten Realms) goddess of festhalls, hedonism, and sensual fulfillment. Or as I've quipped: the goddess of BDSM, sex workers, consent, abuse survivors and war veterans.

Since discovering Sharess in the 90s with the 2nd edition books of Faiths & Avatars and Powers & Pantheons and I was taken with her story. First, she was a sex goddess with a Chaotic Good alignment and usually associations with sex in D&D got put in the Neutral and Evil alignments. So I thought that was interesting. I was more so enthused that Kelemvor was marked as Lawful Good and having a good aligned death entity was amazing.

They eventually walked Kelemvor back to being Lawful Neutral, I think the reasoning was because a death-god had to be fair. (What does the "good" alignment even entail if not "fair"?) But Sharess remained as she was, probably because she was such a minor character in the setting that almost nobody had heard of her. Heck I'm surprised she's an allowed option for choosing a god in NWN2 and as I got older, I was even more interested in her.

Sharess is a version of Bast in Faerun. Now, I'm going to be flat out here that while Faerun uses a lot of Earth gods in its pantheons... and they're supposedly the same entities that were worshipped on Earth, none of them have any but the most superficial similarities to their equivalent real-world religions. That established, let's move on.

At some point (Faeunian)Bast, as part of the Mulhurondi (Egyptian) pantheon, was involved in a war with the djinn that resulted in the Mulhurond gods being defeated and forced out of the nation. She was a warrior in this combat and as it came to an end, she started wandering the realms in a physical Avatar. Along the way she found other gods who were fading into nothing as their worship was dying. She took it upon herself to take on their portfolio, essentially merging with them and having an impact on her personality. This included an elven goddess known as Zandilar the Dancer.

She began to associate with the pursuit of sensual/sexual fulfillment and those that involved themselves in that. Eventually she came into the orbit of the goddess Shar. Shar was a toxic and abusive relationship and came close to hollowing out and absorbing this Mulhrondi goddess entirely until she was helped by Sune to realize what was happening.

Sometime either during the dalliance with Shar or after it, she began to be known as Sharess and was associated with even some of the darker elements of hedonism and sexuality. Though she herself remained Chaotic Good.

So, the story of Sharess is the story of a survivor of a lost war finding purpose and meaning in giving other people release and joy. She survived an abusive relationship, and moved on from it to still love mortals and others. Adult me found this very compelling.

And then came the yuan-ti as described in Volo's Guide to Monsters. There's a section going on about basically their psychology and why they're evil. However, a lot of their reasons why their thoughts were different from most people and, thus, evil were relatable to my particular brand of neurodivergent. (undiagnosed but almost certainly autistic with many signs of also being ADHD) And as someone who already liked doing good versions of evil characters as an F-you to the "Always Chaotic Evil" trope and enjoyed the aesthetic of snake people... well, I took "they're neurodivergent and thus evil" dropped the "and thus evil" and ran with a number of yuan-ti characters.

I was also coming to the realization that I was ace/aro. This took a while, because for much of my life I didn't even know what asexual was, much less than I was it. I had made some perfunctory attempts at asking someone out for a date, but mostly because it felt like an obligation to do so. It was always a relief to get a "no". After I know about ace it was a little bit longer because hey, I have fantasies. I get aroused sometimes. I may have no interest in having sex and tend to skip ahead in a book when sex scenes happen or look away from sex scenes in movies, but I love romance and shipping. And I love the idea of people deeply in love with each other fulfilling each other.... I just don't have any interest in writing, reading, or watching it. And I didn't realize that "ace" didn't mean 0-arousal or fantasies for a long while.

As the realization of my ace-ness grew, yuan-ti write-up in Volo's that I associated with being ace as well as neurodivergent. Identification deepens.

Somewhere, it wasn't Volo's but otherwise I'm not sure where, I found the name "Caress" on a list of random Yuan-ti names. And at that moment my interest in Sharess merged with my growing appreciation for yuan-ti and I had the idea of a yuan-ti worshipper of Sharess. This was pretty much a mild joke to start but it percolated.

Around this time, professional sex-workers started being more open and public online. And several were involved in rather high profile RPG Actual Plays such as Vivid Vivka and Harli Kane (please support them where you can). And the idea of Caress sort of grew into the question: how would someone like me ... a neurodivergent ace/aro ... interact with worshipping a goddess like Sharess and why would this person do so?

Now, for a while this was just a theoretical and I didn't really feel comfortable playing it... or even really talking about it. But eventually I was able to play her for most of 2022 and into 2023 (unfortunately, one of our players unexpectedly died, so those characters were tabled after we wrapped up the final battle).

I did some homebrewing of rites for Sharess (why yes, the oath of service an acolyte/priest takes to Sharess is very similar to the rite of handfasting/marriage... I wonder why) and I definitely wanted to avoid the nonsense of a sacred prostitute being obligated to give their services to all askers. Given they were marked as CG, I concluded that consent was hugely important to the group. I also highlighted the idea that the full courtesans would also be trained in emotional therapy (including what we'd call psychotherapy) and other such things.

All in all, Caress's occupation as a sex worker was brought up maybe three or four times. And nothing explicit was ever on-screen. Though there was a point where we implied that the local leader of the Order of the Gauntlet had interrupted a session Caress was having. And there was the very fun scene my GM gave me where a more stereotypical paladin type started making condescending/snide remarks about Caress's race and occupation which I had a fun bit of response to.

In any case, I'm still a bit hesitant to talk about sexual stuff or sex workers. But I was appreciating a world where talk of sex as a healthy and natural thing was becoming more accepted and I'm sad that this is yet another place where we seem to backtracking to a more repressive time. It is so often done in the name of morality and decency while giving people the excuse to be so extremely immoral and indecent.

So... well, I'll copy this to my gaming blog as well, but I wanted to get some post here about how some very people putting themselves out and public encouraged me to push my comfort zone on what sort of character to play with other people. I plan to tag them... which is its own sort of nerveracking because I'm absolutely certain they get a bunch of nonsense directed their way.

If I had the money I'd support them more than just saying "hey, you helped me" but I'm living paycheck to paycheck myself. I hope to be in a better position in a year or so. But I'm uncertain.

[thryth-gaming]

Rites of Sharess

Some homebrew stuff for my paladin of Sharess, the Faerunian goddess of hedonism. Definition of Clergy: Any of the "official" members of Sharess's worship in as much as the cult has official ranks. Examples would include Clerics, the Acolyte background, and the "Courtesan of Sharess" background I homebrewed for Caress

Will add to this as I think of others.

Initiation as a Clergy

I pledge my path to walk entwined with Sharess. At her word my body is bound. At her wish my pain is given. At her need my wrath is directed. At her whim my passion is unleashed. Her loves shall be my blood. Her foes shall be my prey.

Handfasting / Life Oath / Twinning

Repeated between both/all bonded individuals

I pledge my path to walk entwined with yours. At your word my body is bound. At your wish my pain is given. At your need my wrath is directed. At your whim my passion is unleashed. Your loves shall be my blood. Your foes shall be my prey. 

Funeral Rites

All dancing comes to an end in time.

All revelers must set their feet on the path home.

Rest lies in the wake of the setting sun.

Take with you all the echoes of the joy you built.

Leave behind the sorrows that you gathered.

Hold on to the wisdom of this life.

To carry back when next you join the dance.

Clergy and Duties

Courtesan of Sharess

A Courtesan of Sharess is highly trained in the tasks of dealing with supplicants including helping move past their inhibitions. They will engage in a certain level of probing questions, but will not push the envelope far if the supplicant does not consent to a full therapeutic session. In such cases, they'll simply focus on the immediate physical, emotional aspects of giving the supplicant a rewarding time. When among other sex workers, a Courtesan of Sharess may step in to take a troublesome client as they are often better capable of taking care of themselves should such a person get out of line. 

House Acolytes

A number of Sharessan clergy act in support of the workers in a festhall but don't necessarily take part in such activities themselves. They most often act as healers, handling facilities, vetting supplicants and general protection. If they are willing, they are not forbidden from taking on supplicants, but they don't have the training in therapy and sex that the Courtesans do. This is made transparent.

 Wandering Clergy

There are a number of wandering clergy of Sharess, some of them may hold one of the other two titles, but many have never acted as a sex worker themselves. 

Sharess and Her Cult

Between the small numbers of the clergy and Sharess's proclivity for wandering the Realms and dallying with mortals, there is a very unusual portion of Sharessan clergy that have interacted directly with Sharess as compared to the priests of other faiths interacting with their own gods. 

Asexuals and Sharess

With the cults hefty focus on consent and using sexuality and sensuality for positive reasons, no Courtesan or Acolyte is forced to take on supplicants. Asexual Courtesans tend to specialize in non-sexual interactions such as bondage, massage, or simple companionship. There are asexual Courtesans that frequently take on sexual interactions, but this is never forced on them. The cult is generally accepting, but this doesn't mean that all the worshipers are equally understanding of asexual members, especially with the lay worshipers compared to the clergy. Non-worshiper supplicants have a varying level of awareness and acceptance, but generally Courtesans try to be transparent and clear before a session begins so as not to break the flow.

Note: Caress is generally willing to do sexual stuff, but does prefer the non-sexual sessions mostly. She has some enjoyment from sexual sessions. The shared body heat may be part of it, the satisfaction she gets from pleasing a partner is a bigger factor.

#roleplaying games #rpg #ttrpg #d&d #Sharess #homebrew #paladin #sex-worker paladin #faerun #forgotten realms

[thryth-gaming]

Daggerheart - What I've Seen So Far

Template-Based Character Builds

This will be familiar to players of D&D, Pathfinder 2e, Monster of the Week and similar systems where you choose from one of several existing classes, playbooks, ancestries, backgrounds, and the like.

The selection of templates here come in three categories:

Classes

Ancestries

Communities

Classes

Classes are built along lines familiar to D&D players with the following options.

Bard

Druid

Guardian

Ranger

Rogue

Seraph

Sorcerer

Warrior

Wizard

Most of these are what they appear to be, with Fighter and Barbarian bundled together across Guardian and Warrior, with one being more tanky and the other being more damage oriented. Cleric and Paladin are represented together by Seraph.

Each of these classes has subclasses similar to D&D with each currently having two options. These subclasses start with a "Foundation" ability, moving to "Specialization" and then "Mastery". I'm curious at this moment whether in the future each subclass will have multiple Specialization and Mastery options but currently there's only one to each subclass.

Each class also has two "Domains" which determine the selection of other skills they can draw from. This has similarities to both City of Mist's themebooks, with the exception that the Domains are hardlocked to each class, and Pathfinder's Class feats, with the exception that each class is going to overlap their abilities with other classes.

For example, Warrior and Ranger each have access to the "Bone" Domain abilities while Druid and Sorcerer all have the "Arcana" Domain.

Initially, a character will have two of these abilities but they will get more as they level up, with the ability to have at most five active at any given time, with a cost to switch abilities out if you suddenly decide you need X instead of Y.

This smacks a bit of Vancian casting, spell-slots and the like, however there are two closer mechanics, one of these also from Darrington Press. In Candela Obscura you have a list of items which you can declare you have at any point, but only up to three-items. Then there's Scion 2e, where you can buy as many Knacks as you want, but you can only have a number active equal to your ranks in associated Callings.

Ancestries and Communities

These represent the character's genetic heritage, what D&D currently refers to as Races. These have a basic ability like a Daemon's "Dread Visage" helping them to intimidate others. At current moment, there doesn't appear to be a list of future abilities connected to Ancestry similar to Pathfinder's Ancestry Feats.

Similarly, Communities are similar to Backgrounds in both D&D and Pathfinder and come with a similar power to those found in Ancestries. Again, there doesn't seem to be a sign of other powers based on Community as you level up. But this is no different from Pathfinder or D&D.

Analysis

It's familiar enough to D&D and Pathfinder that a lot of people are going to be comfortable with it. The use of cards feels a bit like a gimmick, but I imagine it will make parsing through abilities a bit easier for a lot of people since you can cut down to just your abilities rather than look through the entire book. Assuming more abilities get put out as the game moves on, this is essentially not too different from D&D/Pathfinder Feats or Scion Knacks.

From a design perspective it's also a good move since new classes will only require building the basic class features and subclass features and the majority of the abilities will come from the same pool.

All in all, it's easy for D&D players to pick up and appealing enough to those of us whose home games are more of the narrative variety.

Health and Defense System

The Health System is probably the most innovative part of this game.

First, the parts of the system that are elements I've seen before:

Separate Evasion and Resilience is a thing that has been around for ages. Champions/Hero System has done it since the early 80s and it also shows up in Storyteller, Storypath, Cypher system, Mutants and Masterminds, and so on.

The combination of Stress and Wounds is also something I've seen before. Notably in City of Mist and Fate.

Armor as a resource that gets expended also is something I've seen in The Fellowship, Scion 2e, and several other such things.

Capped damage... and this is initially the one that stood out to me as the that's cool... appears in Scion 2e where the most you can deal with any attack is 2 Wounds... in a game where one Wound is enough to take out most enemies.

Low Health totals are a common build design for PbtA games, Fate, Scion 2e, World of Darkness, City of Mist, and several other games.

It's the Damage Thresholds added in here that makes this most interesting thing and where it avoids the pitfalls that affect some of these other systems (note that Fate, MotW, Scion 2e, and City of Mist are the systems I consider my "home games" so yes, I'm pointing out their pitfalls.

The Damage Thresholds allow for the fun of rolling huge numbers and building significant differences between squishies and crunchies without making balance too difficult.

Capping the damage at 3 where all players have 6 HP at base means that you're never going to have a player be one-shot. It shares this feature with Scion 2e. Though Scion 2e has the options to spend extra success on other things beside damage, so allowing for a more scenery chewing, cinematic, superheroic style of fight (the developers of the game point to the fight between Kratos and The Stranger/Baldur at the start of God of War as what they wanted for Demigod tier combat).

However, the Damage Thresholds and rolling damage are likely to be more intuitive to players only familiar with D&D.

PbtA matches low Harm/HP counts with static damage: a knife will always deal 1 Harm, for example. Similar to Scion 2e, this prevents characters from being taken out in one blow ... you know, unless the static damage is something like 6 or 8... which feels like a bad choice on behalf of the GM. But not rolling damage can be a little jarring the first couple of times you encounter it.

Those are minor issues. Scion 2e, City of Mist, Monster of the Week, and Fate were all built in a world where the big risks were already apparent and demonstrated. The differences between them and Daggerheart is significant, but which you prefer is largely going to be a matter of preference.

Hero System and old Storyteller system is where the danger of separating evasion and resilience. Hero System tanks become incredibly difficult to damage even when you do hit them because their resistances cancel out all the damage. Building attacks to get around that tends to be expensive. Likewise, high Speed or Defense characters can be just impossible to even touch... though you can counter that with area effect attacks.

In a lot of Storyteller (World of Darkness, Scion 1e, etc) systems Dexterity got marked as a "God Stat" usable for both attack and defense and where their armor mechanics were far less reliable.

Daggerheart gets around both those major balance issues. It does have the potential for some psychological downside in that rolling especially high damage rolls may feel like you're wasting effect. However, it looks like part of how they do multiple attacks or area of effect is let you roll damage and split it up between multiple attacks as you desire. So if you did a massive amount of damage, you can apply the bulk of the effect on a main enemy and scatter the remaining damage to several of the minions around them.

As far as resisting goes... a Warrior is going to be a lot harder to damage once you hit them than a Rogue, but they will still have to deal with being slowly nickel and dimed down. High Evasion characters will avoid most attacks, without the risk being pasted by a single strike.

This reduces the scenario design burden on the GM since they don't have to worry as much about overwhelming the tanks or flattening the dodgers (or casters) in a single roll.

Death Move, not Taken Out

One side note is that Daggerheart does not use a Taken Out mechanic. When your HP go to 0 you have three options:

Go out in a blaze of glory.

Risk a scar and resist death, scars are more likely the higher level you get.

Risk it all and roll hoping your Hope die is higher than your Fear die at the risk of dying flat out.

This is in comparison to Scion 2e and Fate where getting Taken Out mostly just means that you are out of the scene and death is a matter of choice and negotiation between player and GM. This presents the players from being blindsided by death and getting drama out of defeat such as being captured or separated from the group. Or... they can let their character die if they feel it is narrative enough.

Daggerheart similarly has ways to avoid death blindsiding the group and derailing campaign progress with the need to introduce a new character and the loss of story arcs that had been built up. But death still remains a risk, similar to City of Mist or Monster of the Week. (Though Monster of the Week has a significantly dramatic resurrection mechanic.)

Action Resolution System

The d12+d12 system is a bit interesting. You roll 2d12, each a different color called "duality dice". One of the dice is Hope and one is Fear. If your Hope die is higher than the Fear die, then you gain a Hope (the meta-currency of the game), but if the Fear die is higher, the GM gains a Fear (the GM's version of Hope). If the two dice are equal, that's a critical success.

They list Genesys as a Touchstone, and I can see its DNA here. Genesys uses a number of signature dice and you roll large dice pools of positive dice versus large dice pools of negative dice generating and cancelling out resources. It was not nearly as bad as I expected it to be and, in fact, I found it quite a fun system to play, but it is intimidating to a newcomer. Heck, as implied, I was doubtful of it before I played it.

This is more similar to rolling Fate dice where you roll 4d6 where the sixes are each marked with 2 blank, 2 minus, and 2 plus sides. Add those together and you get a range of effect from -4 to +4. But again, they haven't listed Fate as a direct Touchstone, so I don't think this is deliberate. If it was Hope minus Fear the comparison would be almost exact.

As a note, this d12+d12 method creates a slightly higher chance of getting a critical hit. As seen here in an Anydice comparison, the chance for a critical hit on this method, where the dice roll the same number, has an 8.33% chance of success compared to a 5% chance with rolling a natural 20... and no chance for a critical failure.

The "with Hope" and "with Fear" also allows the GM to describe a success that yet promises coming danger (succeeding with fear) or a failure that yet gives a sign that all is not lost (failing with hope).

As a note, it appears that the GM rolls a d20 instead of d12 + d12. This means that they have a narrower and more swingy success rate compared to the far more consistent and reliable PCs. PCs are going to find their results cluster around a die roll of 13, making bonuses more impactful. This is a benefit of game systems that don't use a flat curve (single die).

The choice to make rolling pairs the critical hit result neatly avoids the downside of crisis resolution methods that avoid flat curves where critical hits are either very rare or else come about as a result of a player just spending tons of resources at once to turn a good roll into an amazing on as happens in Fate (granted, I love that a lot of the success and failure of Fate is hinged more on the player choice to spend resources than on random chance, but there is something to be said for the natural 20 moment).

Speaking of Fate and spending resources, this is the point where I point out that Daggerheart is a Fortune-at-the-End system. To explain this:

Fortune-at-the-End: Barring a few special abilities, the die roll is the last step of an action resolution. Spending resources comes before you roll. D&D is Fortune-at-the-End

Fortune-in-the-Middle: Rolling the die is a middle step and the player can choose to spend resources after the die is rolled. Fate is Fortune-in-the-Middle.

Fortune-at-the-Beginning: Rolling a die would come at the start of the action, generating resources which the player then spends to accomplish things. 7th Sea is Fortune-at-the-Beginning as in it you roll dice at the start of a scene to generate "Raises" which are then spent as the scene moves forward.

A good way to describe it is as follows:

In Fortune-at-the-End when you are jumping a chasm, you gather yourself up and rush forward and then leap. The die roll happens once you are in the middle of the air and unable to do anything to alter the results.

In Fortune-in-the-Middle, you move forward taking some preparations, but die roll happens at the last possible moment you have to abort the choice. The die roll then basically determines just how much success is going to cost you. Do you abort and stay on this side? Or do you risk a minor injury to hit the other side? Will you need those resources later?

In Fortune-at-the-Beginning, the die roll happens before you decide to jump and you check to see if your roll gave you enough resources to make the jump... and then judge whether making the jump would leave you vulnerable to consequences.

I tend to favor Fortune-in-the-Middle game play and have even tended to treat D&D 5e with Inspiration (when I remember it) as a Fortune-in-the-Middle situation. I also allow players to take the Help Out move in Monster of the Week in response to other players rolling poorly.

There's a psychological element to knowing that your failure comes because you chose not to use the resources to succeed and there's a question as to whether or not you made the right decision. Especially if you choose to spend and later find you lack the resources you need to follow through to completing the overall objective. To me, random chance deciding failure can feel just frustrating... but with this, it's my choice that caused the fail.

However, I'm not inherently opposed to Fortune-at-the-End.

Narrative Initiative

Daggerheart uses a Narrative Initiative style, this means that there is not a set turn order as you would see in D&D. Rather, the characters take actions as the players at the table, including the GM, feel that it makes sense for actions to occur.

Some versions of Fate use this method, but by and large the most common style of gaming that does this are Powered by the Apocalypse games and their descendants: Forged in the Dark or... it doesn't really have a generalization since only Son of Oak is designing with City of Mist's system... but lets call it "Made in the Mist".

Scion 2e uses initiative where there are Hero turns and Enemy turns, but the Heroes all choose who goes in which turn, so in one round, the players can decide the child of Kali takes the lead while the child of Loki sets up and then reverse that order next time where the child of Loki takes advantage of the set up to give the child of Kali an opening for a big hit.

This is probably where most players are going to have the most confusion about "whose turn it is". I've already seen second hand people responding to statements of "if there's no turns then it's not a game." But again, I point at the fact that there are numerous games that now play exactly this way.

Meta-Currency

There are several Metacurrencies in gaming. In fact, when you come down to it, most RPGs run on meta-currencies including D&D with it's spell-slots, hit points, and action economy, but mostly when a gamer refers to "meta-currency" they are going to be talking about points which are used to modify rolls or trigger effects.

Fate Points might be the ur-example of this type of meta-currency, but there might be something older. Fate points are used to activate Aspects either to make a task easier or harder. Both players and GM get Fate points to do this, and they can also use Fate points to add narrative elements.

Scion 2e basically does this but names the player meta-currency "Momentum" and the GM currency "Tension". 7th Sea has "Hero Points" and "Danger Points". Fabula Ultima has "Fabula Points" and "Ultima Points". But where they name Genesys, I'm suspecting they are coming at this from there and the original version of Genesys: Star Wars FFG with it's "Light Side" and "Dark Side" points.

One of the key things that make Meta-Currency work well or poorly is in managing the economy of the points.

Fate Point economy is largely controlled by the GM and players and it can be difficult to manage. Fate Points refresh at the start of each session but are also gained by suffering inconveniences based on your Aspects. However, Fate Points are so central to the game and most Fate advice points out that the game's success hinges on making sure to keep Fate points flowing into the characters as well as making it clear to the players that when they play up the downsides then they generate resources.

In Scion 2e, Momentum is gained when the PCs roll poorly or suffer consequences from their injuries or other conditions and Tension is generated when the PCs accomplish some success, keeping a good ebb and flow between the heroes and the villains.

7th Sea, Fabula Ultima, and Genesys also all have very clearly defined ways that the meta-currency is generated.

The only meta-currency strict D&D 5e only players probably have encountered is Inspiration which is basically a Fate Points poor cousin. It feels largely tacked on and the method of gaining is so poorly sign-posted that it was almost a decade of playing the game before I learned that you're supposed to get Inspiration when you play up the personality traits from your character's Background.

So, D&D players have experience with a poorly implemented, largely unnecessary to its system, and forgettable metacurrency. This has caused the idea of metacurrency to have a bad reputation with some gamers. So Hope and Fear may be a point that generates doubt and concern from some potential players.

That said, Hope and Fear are generated in very clearly outlined methods and they are both very central to the game so that they are not easily forgotten the way Inspiration is.

Overall

Daggerheart draws from a lot of sources in terms of mechanics, but it so far blends things together quite well and most of the mechanics are fairly well-trodden ground, often with at least a decade of prior history.

I've seen games that cobble together mechanics from multiple sources rather shoddily... the 1st edition of Numenera comes to mind. This beta is much better condition that that game was finished.

It looks like a good half-step between games like D&D and narrative games. Probably hitting in the same general region as three of my home games (Scion 2e, MotW, and City of Mist) but just closer to D&D than Fate (my fourth home game).

#Daggerheart #tabletop roleplaying #rpg #ttrpg #Critical role #Darrington Press #analysis

[thryth-gaming]

For people that pick up Nioh 2.

#nioh 2 #video games #youtube #Youtube

[thryth-gaming]

Emma Terreal is a sin-eater I played for a Chronicles of Darkness game that included a Hunter, a Beast, a Changeling, a Mage, and my Sin-Eater.

She was made using Geist 1st edition and I had expected that when Geist 2nd edition came out (about 4 years ago now) that it would be a relatively easy conversion. And I was wrong.

While some mechanics did change, that's not the primary issue that slowed me down revamping her. A lot of the terminology in the Lore change. Most important of all "Reapers", who in 1st edition were a player faction, were now an NPC faction. Which affected me because Emma was a Reaper in 1st edition.

So, what's the difference?

Well, in 1st Edition, Reaper was a philosophy of how some Sin-Eaters approach dealing with the living and the dead. They were all about justice, writing wrongs, punishing sins, and all that sort of stuff. Not necessarily involving violence. A Reaper financial expert, for example, might leverage their expertise in getting money to charities or people down on their luck and... diverting it from business owners abusing their employees. Also, the Reapers are equally concerned with the living and the dead. It's very much "reaper" as in "Reap what you Sow".

In 2nd Edition, however, the Reapers denote a group that feels ghosts don't belong in the world of the living. Which could be fine if they went about their task humanely. But from what I can tell, they generally show up, beat up a ghost, drag them to the underworld, and toss them out in a random spot bereft of aid or explanation. They're very much reaper as in "Grim Reaper" and not the guy from Discworld.

But I think now it's time to redesign her for the 2nd edition.

Step One - Concept

The game advises figuring out who the character was before they died and what they're like now that they've died. And I have a clear image of this, as this isn't really that much different between the two editions.

In life, Emma was an accountant working as a personal banker for a local branch that existed in a particular part of the town such that it had clients from both businesses and the working class. She was nervous and worried about her own continued survival and so she mostly kept her head down even as she began to suspect that something shady was going on in the bank. Her breaking point came when her boss forced her to communicate a decision to a poor couple that would shatter their lives. From that point she began to investigate and study and she thought she was getting somewhere.

That's when the robbery happened. It came after hours when she was working late. The thieves killed one of the security guards and locked her in the vault, shutting off the fans. By morning she'd suffocated and made her deal with The Auditor.

After death, Emma has found it difficult to express or handle emotions. She is dour, her voice lacks intonation, and she is angry. Very, very angry.

Emma suspects that her bank president was working with the robbers and that she was targeted, but has no proof, either for herself or anybody else.

This comes to Aspirations. She needs three, two short-term, one long-term.

Short-Term - Tell a funny joke.

Short-Term - Help someone in need.

Long-Term - Prove for herself whether her boss is a villain or not

Step Two - Attributes

This is a matter of prioritizing. In this case, the damage she took when dying has made socializing very difficult for Emma, so Social is her tertiary. She's also still primary about intelligence, so Mental is Primary, which leaves Physical as Secondary.

Each attribute gets 1 dot for free. Primary gets 5 more dots, Secondary 4, and Tertiary 3.

Mental: Intelligence 3, Wits 2, Resolve 3

Physical: Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 3

Social: Presence 1, Manipulation 1, Composure 4

I'm not usually one for such heavy low scores, but I do love the idea that her changes have made her able to handle emotions very well, but expressing herself is extremely difficult.

Step Three - Skills

Similar, this is a matter of prioritizing. And this is actually going to be a little bit different. Emma is new to all this thing with fighting and sneaking, so Physical is going to be her low priority. Mental is still going to be the biggest priority, but as much as her near death a emotional and physical trauma have changed her personality, she still has skills for interacting with people.

Primary (Mental) gets 11 dots, Secondary (Social) gets 7 dots, and Tertiary (Physical) gets 4 dots. Skills all start at 0 dots.

Mental - Academics 2, Computer 1, Investigation 3, Occult 1, Politics 2, Science 2

Physical - Athletics 1, Firearms 2, Stealth 1

Social - Empathy 3, Intimidation 1, Persuasion 1, Socialize 1, Subterfuge 2

Step Four - Skill Specialties

She gets three specialties so:

Investigation - Finances

Empathy - Identifying Needs

Firearms - Pistol

Step Five - Adding the Sin-Eater Template

This is a lot of steps bundled into one thing. The first of which is "The Burden" which deals with what driving need binds the Sin-Eater to life. This one is obvious.

The Vengeful - She was murdered and she seeks to address that.

Burden Aspiration - Punish an Evil

Now come Root and Bloom which are what replaces Virtues and Vices for a Sin-Eater. This represents how the the character deals with the Dead (Root) and the Living (Bloom). I'm going to use the pre-made versions for now.

Root - The Anti-Hero

Bloom - The Advocate

In this case, the Anti-Hero tends to ignore rules and advances on their objectives directly without caring much in the way of politics or societal expectations. And when dealing ghostly matters, Emma is the sort to shoot a hole in someone's foot to make a point. However, she also hopes to make life better for people somehow.

Next we come to Touchstones

There's an issue here. An item heavily associated with Emma was "The Unending Account" which was connected to her Geist. Unfortunately, in 2nd edition Geist, the Remembrance Touchstone doesn't happen until Synergy 3... and characters start at Synergy 1 and have to spend a lot of resources to get past that.

I can sort of put it in as a Memento later when we come to Merits though. For her first Touchstone, I'm going with:

The Bank - There is something going on at the bank where she died. She doesn't believe the thieves showed up after hours when she was working late on accident. Somehow, her death was planned and it is hiding something more important than the life of a young accountant. She means to expose this secret and avenge her death.

The Synergy of a new Sin-Eater, the ability they have to cooperate with their Geist, starts at 1.

Haunts are the supernatural powers associated with the Sin-Eaters. A starting character gains three dots, two of which have to be associated with their Burden. For The Vengeful, that's Memoria, Curse, and their unique Haunt: Rage. So for Emma, she's also based on a joke for "Immaterial" so she's getting the Shroud because that's the Haunt associated with passing through walls. For the whole:

Memoria 1

Rage 1

Shroud 1

Next come Keys, which are modifiers to how the Haunts work and the first key is usually associated with how the character died. In Emma's Case, The Key of Blood certainly fits, but as her actual means of death was suffocation, I originally gave her the Key of Silence, but that seems to be in the Key of Cold Wind.

Key of Cold Wind

A Sin-Eater starts with full Plasm based on their Synergy, in this case 10.

Step Six - Merits

Now we're on to a new step and a new Sin-Eater gets one free Merit: Tolerance for Biology and 10 dots. So now we're going to assign some for Emma.

Tolerance for Biology

Professional Training 3: Accountant (Asset Skills: Investigation, Academics, Science), Contacts 2

Momento 3: The Unending Account

Resources 2

Retribution 1

Trained Observer 1

And lets build that Momento

Key - The Key of Stillness

Description - An ancient ledger that seems thin, but readers never come to the last page. The construction and style places it sometime in the 16th or 17th century and shows damage from extreme cold. The pages within are an accountant's ledger with strangely non-numeric values compared. A thin, struggling handwriting, as if written by someone on the last edges of their life, describes the deaths of people going back hundreds of years. Sometimes it continues to describe the knock-on effects of their death.

Effect - When studying the Unending Account you can learn things about the means and impacts of people's deaths. For unknown reasons, most of the recorded deaths happened on a Tuesday. In fact, Emma has found that the only recorded deaths that aren't on a Tuesday are deaths that she has witnessed or investigated since gaining the Account. The extent of information a person can get depends on their abilities to study.

Step Seven - Advantages

These are simple calculated stats.

Defense: 3

Size: 5

Health: 8

Willpower: 7

Initiative: 6

Speed: 9

And now, we're going to build the Geist, The Auditor.

Step One - Concept

A skeletal figure with abacus beads in their hair. They are obsessed with balancing accounts, something which they share in common with Emma.

Step Two - Remembrance

The sound of clacking wood and beads.

Step Three - Remembrance Trait

The Auditor's Remembrance Trait is a skill: Academics.

Step Four - Attributes

The Auditor, as a Geist, has simiplied stats of Power, Finesse, and Resilience. They have 1 dot for free each of these and 12 dots to distribute. I'm going to lean into the Auditor being about intelligence more than force.

Power 3

Finesse 7

Resilience 5

Step Five - Crisis Point Triggers

The Auditor needs a thing that will trigger an extreme reaction. It has to be a discrete event or moment of realization. So while they have a general distaste for inequity is not appropriate. Instead I'm going to go for, False Witness. Not lying, but entering falsehood into an official report or testimony. Up til then, the Auditor may be convinced that inequities are an error, but once someone does that then it becomes deliberate.

Step Six - Ephemeral Entity Traits

Time to give the Auditor it's mechanics

Rank 3

Ban: Burning receipts will force The Auditor to leave the area.

Bane: Old coins (at least 50 years old)

Innate Key: Blood

Step Seven - Advantages

And back to the figured stats

Defense: 3

Initiative: 12

Speed: 10

And that's Emma Terreal and The Auditor.

[thryth-gaming]

Nioh 2 plot summary

SPOILERS BELOW Seriously

Yup.

Consider moving forward.

trying again to summarize Nioh 2… very spoilery, obviously

yokai mother tells bedtime story, gets stabbed to death by creepy red-eye who then stabs you.

create your character

meet merchant friend

meet spunky blacksmith girl

meet tsundere yokai hunter

meet and let human father know who you are… then he dies.

meet half-sister… don't tell her who you are, she's married to Oda Nobunaga.

working for Oda Nobunaga can't possibly go wrong… wait I've read history books.

meet sickly strategist friend

meet your twin, their soldiers and yokai killed dad… they get melted by red-eye

meet other people corrupted by red-eye who get melted

Nobunaga and half-sister die.

Merchant friend turns evil

Kill merchant friend

Get killed by merchant friend

Talk to mom in the afterlife

Come back to life for a super sword

Kill friend again, fight evil possessing him.

Seal self away for eternity with the evil.

Someone. Woke. You. Up.

Fight evil again… kill it this time.

Merchant friend is back and not-evil. He walks to heaven.

Renuited with tsundere yokai hunter. Are you both immortal?

Live… something ever after?

#Nioh 2 #plot summary #silly #spoiler #ninja #samurai #yokai

[thryth-gaming]

Pathfinder 2e - Nure-Onna

The Nure-Onna is a monster in the game Nioh 2 and it looks a bit like this.

They have a rather distinctive fighting style and they're fairly difficult if you're not used to them, moving about in hard to manage ways.

So, I'm going to do a 1-20 build of a character like this in Pathfinder 2e. I've messed with this a little bit, finding out you could make this sort of character by accident. Some things I'm going to put on priority:

The paralyzing stare (actually, I can get a legitimate petrification ability)

The association with water.

The forceful attacks and focus on grappling.

I'll try to work in the thing with the darts, but not sure I'll be able to make it. I could try for the whipping hair, but I think that would requiring taking a dedication into Witch and I'd rather keep the Feats.

1st Level

Basics

Ancestry: Nagaji

Heritage: Sacred Nagaji

Background: Song of the Deep

Class: Monk

Ability Boosts

Nagaji: Constitution and Strength

Song of the Deep: Strength

Monk: Dexterity

1st Level: Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, Charisma

Skill Training

Acrobatics: Trained

Athletics: Trained

Intimidation: Trained

Lore: Ocean: Trained

Performance: Trained

Stealth: Trained

Saving Throw Proficiency

Fortitude: Expert

Reflex: Expert

Will: Expert

Class, Defenses, and Weapon Proficiency

Perception: Trained

Simple Weapons: Trained

Unarmed Weapons: Trained

Unarmored Defense: Expert

Monk Class: Trained

Features

Low-Light Vision (Nagaji)

Brawling Tail (Sacred Nagaji)

Flurry of Blows (Monk)

Powerful Fist (Monk)

Speed: 25 ft, 10 ft Swim

Feats

Ancestry Feat: Water Nagaji

Class Feat: Reflective Ripple Stance

Bonus Feat: Breath Control

Reasoning: Song of the Deep gives the ability to breathe water, Water Nagaji gives a Swim Speed. Water Nagaji also gives Breath Control which seems extraneous when she can breathe water, but it's useful against gas too. I originally opted for Gorilla Stance and while it points to the raw strength of the attacks, it also limits to only the gorilla slam attacks. Also, just the name evokes what I'm thinking of.

Performance is just for fun due to a bit of art a friend of mine shared me. Not familiar with the artist, so won't place it here.

2nd Level

Class Feat: Crushing Grab

Skill Feat: Slippery Prey

So she can do damage in a grapple and also avoid being grappled.

3rd Level

Skill Increase: Athletics

General/Skill Feat: Titan Wrestler

Mystic Strikes

Incredible Movement

So she can grapple bigger things.

4th Level

Class Feat: Ki Rush

Skill Feat: Underwater Marauder

Ki Spells: Occult

For more movement options. Underwater and speed in general. Went with occult because yokai feel more like something on the darker side.

5th Level

Ancestry Feat: Serpent's Tongue

Skill Increase: Stealth

Ability Boosts: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence

New Skill Training: Diplomacy

Alertness

Expert Strikes

6th Level

Class Feat: Ki Blast

Skill Feat: Assurance: Athletics

Well, so, with Ki Blast basically lets me do the dart volley. (Though it doesn't have the paralytic aspect of the attack in the video game) Assurance Athletics to make her attempts to grapple and trip more reliable.

7th Level

General/Skill Feat: Wall Jump

Skill Increase: Athletics

Path to Perfection: Fortitude

Weapon Specialization

More proficiency with Athletics, better Fortitude saves and more movement.

8th Level

Class Feat: Dragon Stance

Skill Feat: Quick Squeeze

Ability to get through tight spaces quicker and another stance to use when I need it. Also, this will be interesting later.

9th Level

Ancestry Feat: Serpentine Swimmer

Skill Increase: Intimidation

Metal Strikes

Monk Expertise

Faster swimming and scarier.

10th Level

Class Feat: Dragon's Roar

Skill Feat: Say that Again!

Ability Boosts: Exterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Charisma

An intimidating roar appropriate to the Nure-Onna from the game, an ability to punish someone trying to scare you.

11th Level

General/Skill Feat: Battle Cry

Skill Increase: Intimidation

Path to Perfection: Reflex

Another scary scream and increased scariness.

12th Level

Class Feat: Flurry of Maneuvers

Skill Feat: Quick Climb

A quick ability to climb. Flurry of Maneuvers lets her do grapples and trips for Flurry of Blows.

13th Level

Ancestry Feat: Disruptive Stare

Skill Increase: Acrobatics

Graceful Mastery

Master Strikes

The acrobatics helps her move better and the disruptive stare lets her interfere with enemy spellcasters.

14th Level

Class Feat: Winding Flow

Skill Feat: Too Angry to Die

Too Angry to Die basically describes a lot of yokai, and Winding Flow is more movement.

15th Level

General/Skill Feat: Feather Step

Skill Increase: Athletics

Ability Boosts: Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom

Path to Perfection: Will

Greater Weapon Specialization

Her Athletics is now Legendary, which means she now has a Climb speed through Quick Climb and she can step into difficult terrain.

16th Level

Class Feat: Medusa's Wrath

Skill Feat: Terrified Retreat

This completes the list of things she can do with gazes and people will flee from her as well.

17th Level

Ancestry Feat: Venom Spit

Skill Increase: Intimidation

Adamantine Strikes

Graceful Legend

And this gives us the ability to have the poison spit ability from the Nure-Onna (could have taken this a while ago, but it was low on priority). And now she's legendary in Intimidation.

18th Level

Class Feat: Diamond Fists

Skill Feat: Skeptic's Defense

Diamond Fists increases the amount of damage she can do while Skeptic's Defense can punish casters trying to scare her.

19th Level

General/Skill Feat: Scare to Death

Skill Improvement: Stealth

Perfected Form

20th Level

Class Feat: Fuse Stance: Dragon+Reflective Ripple - Nure-Onna

Skill Feat: Swift Sneak

Ability Boosts: Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma

So, this is why I wanted both Dragon and Reflective Ripple Stance, the 20th level Class Feat allows for fusing their benefits into a single form. And now she scan sneak very quickly.

End build:

I'm sure I have some inefficiencies in here since I'm new to the game, but I was building more toward flavor.

#Pathfinder 2e #TTRPG #theorycrafting #character creation #roleplaying games #rpg #roleplaying #nioh 2 #Nure-onna #Youtube

[thryth-gaming]

Sentinels of the Multiverse Definitive Edition: Spite

Okay…. so post-game report.

Spite in the prior edition is a fight I tend not to like running because it tends to be a long, drawn out slog. So I've held off on trying him in the new edition even though they've worked hard to clean up a lot of decks.

This was the team I took on this fight:

And I some what unwisely took them to Rook City

Anyway… this time, the game took me four rounds… but admittedly… I got lucky.

Spite got one round of damage off (because villains always take first turn) and then he was unable to deal damage for the next two rounds because Alpha kept him Hamstrung (darn pesky reporters turning out to be werewolves) and peeked at his plans (cards).

Expat went right into dealing the hurt out by power of gun (dang French-Canadian gun-enthusiasts)

Wraith used the clues Alpha dug up to cancel some of his plans and started digging into her utility belt right away for some throwing razors and targetting computers. (dang billionaire vigilantes)

Setback's bad luck kept feeding Expat ammo and guns, getting attention directed at him, and upseting some of Spite's ongoing set-up (dang supportive boyfriends who are probability vortices)

And that left Mr. Fixer to get all zen and martial arts up with his Hoist Chain. (dang old man martial artists mechanics)

Rook City tried a couple of smear campaigns, but we kept that under control, though Fixer had bop a racketeer upside the head just before we got the serial killer under control by power of werewolf, gun, throwing knives, luck, and martial arts.

Okay basic notes here.

The three biggest changes to Spite:

His enhancement drugs are no longer indestructible.

Bystanders are no longer sent to a safe haven.

His flip-side is no longer a permanent change.

So, let's talk about Bystanders first.

There are three varieties as shown above, two copies of each. Now, when they take damage, you can redirect that damage to a hero. But, as long as they remain in play, they also give the heroes a benefit. This can be healing, peeking ahead at a deck, or drawing a card.

Spite's end phase has him dealing damage to the Lowest HP target, meaning the Lost Child is generally going to be the one in the most danger at any given time. But this did immediately put me in a nervous mind because I foresaw soaking up a lot of damage to keep the bystanders protected.

The drugs now being destructible less extreme but significant. Spite's drug cards being indestructible was one of the most fun draining aspects of the old villain deck, along with how incredibly difficult it is to protect Bystanders from being turned into a bloody smear.

Now, it's still harrowing (well, my initial reaction was this, but you'll see why this particular game I didn't have much issue later) because you're draining your life to keep Bystanders alive when Spite is capable of dishing out a large amount of damage. But it feels a bit more like you being in a bad spot and having to make choices rather than just having the rug constantly pulled from under you.

But the drugs often just make it next to impossible to do anything... at all. You feel constantly paralyzed and unable to do anything about them.

The next thing is Spite's flip-side:

In the prior edition, once Spite flipped, that was it. He stopped playing cards. instead just dealing damage when he would otherwise do so. And there was no way to flip him back.

Now, he does increased damage, but there is a built in countdown based on how many tokens he built up on his other form. The minimum is 3 tokens, which is when he flips, but it's possible for him to play a card that adds tokens to him. In my game, he had 8 tokens when he flipped.

This has both gameplay and thematic benefits in that there is now a strategy to the idea of whether or not you want to keep Spite here or push him quicker back to his Slasher side and this also represents his body burning through the effects of his enhancement drugs.

Also note that the drugs themselves cause him to burn through his tokens faster, which feeds in again to the question of whether you want a brief bit of pain that you think you can weather or else a prolonged, but less dangerous period due to the choice of leaving the drugs in play or destroying them right away.

Now, let's move on to the team I chose.

In first position, I chose werewolf reporter Tabitha Taft, aka Alpha. I chose the reporter variant of the character specifically for her power. The base version of Alpha is more what you'd expect from a werewolf: dealing damage and getting more wolfy. (see below)

Instead, I wanted the ability to look at Spite's deck and see what he was going to do, and maybe determine some ordering. I didn't end up using this power for that as much as I wanted, either because of opportunity (you need to bury an Aspect to do it) or need, but I did still find it useful.

This was also a BIG risk, because when I chose this character, I did not understand how Bystanders worked... namely that they are now targets with low HP. And given how Tabitha's Aspects work, it was possible that she'd end up targeting the Bystanders herself and doing more damage to my team.

As you can see, as soon as Alpha has 3 Aspects in play, she starts targeting the lowest HP character on the field. Fortunately, by the time this happened, Spite was on 1 HP and thus WAS the target.

As it turns out, I drew Full Moon first round. As a Suddenly! card that immediately played whether I wanted it to or not. This brought Lupine Senses out giving her another tool to watch Spite's deck and control it. One that didn't require me to use either a power or card play.

So, Tabitha was doing the job I took her for, which was spying out Spite's plans so I could cut them off. However, it turns out the thing that really turned my luck in this game was the two copies of Hamstring I drew in her starting hand.

This allowed me to RUIN Spite for two whole rounds during which time I was able to set up and dealing damage.

He could not deal damage, so he could not even threaten Bystanders, much less damage my team.

This brings us to the next member of the team.

Expat is one of the decks that has seen a lot of redesign. In the prior edition, she is still one of my favorite characters, but her deck is a bit sluggish and prone to stalling. Not so much anymore. I've played her deck a couple of times now and she moves quite well. She also now has a lot of team-lead support card shenanigans going on.

Granted, I didn't use her for support in this game. I used her for gun, mostly shotgun, as it came into her hand by the end of the first round (more on that later). But I also used a bit of Assault Rifle since it now gives the ability to give someone else a card draw.

By the end of the game I did have all her guns in play. (Setback's doing) I didn't use Pride and Prejudice (if I had a global damage bonus to all heroes I would have as that global would have applied twice then) because in the situation it was doing the same as the shotgun. I didn't use the Modified SMG because it would have targeted the Bystanders and that was counter productive. I DID use the Assault Rifle because of the "up to 3 targets" language meaning I didn't have to chose more and it gave an ally a card draw.

I kept her in Ammo pretty constantly. This was both due to her own cards and (yes) Setback. (Supportive boyfriend is supportive)

She did the vast majority of my damage (as a note, I did early on forget base Spite had damage reduction, so at some point I healed him for 10 due to some of my people using irreducible damage.)

This brings us to the next team member.

I went with Detective Wraith. Basic Wraith would still be very useful for protecting Bystanders from plinking damage, but I specifically had a plan for using Alpha to look at Spite's upcoming card and then use Wraith to remove cards I didn't like.

As it turns out, once Lupine Senses came out, Alpha was able to handle both sides of that plan without even using her Power, but it was nice to have the option. Wraith has also gotten an update, but her function in this game played within the lines of her past edition's playstyle. Or rather, one of her playstyles.

Wraith is character who can serve many roles. In this case, I used her for a mix of deck control (she did get used that in the first round) and damage dealing since both her Razor Ordanance and Targeting Computer hit the game early.

Though I did benefit from three changed cards:

Utility Belt - has been improved from just granting an extra Power use to also giving a power to deck-dive or extra card play.

Grappling Hook - has been shifted from it's second half being "may draw a card" to "may draw 1 card or play 1 card". Some might note the first half now reads as "Destroy Environment or Ongoing" but Environment cards now have ongoing as a tag so it can still be used to remove troublesome environment cards, more on that later.

Smoke bombs - changed from a redirect damage to just blanket causing Heroes to take less damage while also improving Wraith's damage... but it now only lasts a single round.

Still, like Expat, she was mostly on dealing lots of damage since she got her big weapon and targeting computer out.

And that comes to the next character, Expat's beau, the golden retriever dude of this set:

Setback is a bit of an airhead with massively good intentions and a loveable personality. He has some moderately superhuman physicality, but his only innate power is the absurd effect he has on probability. His luck is never mild, it is either extremely bad or extremely good. And this is how he got his enhanced physique actually:

Loses job and has to pick up a janitor job in the meantime.

The janitor job is with an evil corp fronting for evil scientist person who sticks him in an experiment that has killed everyone so far.

He actually survives and gets properly enhanced.

Anyway, I'm going a bit into his premise and story because the game does his absurd luck very well. First note that his basic power is just play a card off the top of his deck... blind.

Allow me to show you the first card I played as a result of that.

And I absolutely pushed all three of those card plays resulting in this:

Among several other cards. And yes... I was absolutely using that to feed Expat ALL the guns and ammo. Flavor win go!

So the way his cards work is he has Unlucky and Lucky cards. The Unlucky cards have a downside and a good side. Mostly the downside keeps happening while the good side is only immediately useful. But then you can play a Lucky card which gives a benefit and then allows you to destroy up to 3 Unlucky cards for increased benefit.

I had some decent damage dealing in there, but honestly, I was mostly going with blind card plays. I even played Push Your Luck on its own deliberately once. So I didn't particularly have a plan for him. He was just feeding other people card plays and soaking up damage for them.

It was really useful and let me set up Expat very quickly as well as get things moving for other characters pretty fast.

And that brings us to the last member of this team.

Mr Fixer is another very powerful character from the original edition who can be hard to set up and can also stall or feel meh if your luck is bad. He's now been given some easier ways to search through his deck for Styles and Tools.

Depending on which Styles and Tools you set him up with, he can serve a number of roles. In my case, I was using the Hoist Chain and Alternating Tiger Claw. The Tiger Claw was just the first style I drew and never had another turn up. But the Hoist Chain was a deliberate choice and Harmony was something that Setback called up via his absurd luck.

Where as the first two rounds were about Alpha shutting Spite down entirely, round three was about Wraith and Mr. Fixer keeping his damage reduced to pretty much zero. In his last turn he got two attacks in applying a total of -2 to Spite's damage, with Wraith's smoke adding another -1 dealt to heroes for a total of -3.

He did this by a combination of his base power and the Charge one shot card.

And that's the villain and all the heroes so let's move on to the environment.

Rook City from the first edition has something of a reputation of being one of the harshest environment decks. It the past it only had two allies for the heroes and all the rest of the deck was varying degrees of nasty.

The deck now has three allies for the heroes (one of whom used to be a bystander in Spite's deck). In my game four cards came up.

Tony Taurus showed up first and helped me get rid of one of Spite's ongoings. I unfortunately lost access to him due to Setback's card plays destroying an environment card when he was the only target. Anti-Hero Sentiment then showed up after him but I was able to remove it early. Media Pressure was revealed and discarded via Lost Child's bystander benefit so never entered play and Ambitious Racketeer ended up getting backhanded by Mister Fixer when he showed up right at the end.

I've looked through Rook City's other cards a bit and yeah, it has a very bleak outlook in a lot of cases.

Overall.

Spite is no longer a slog, plays well, works thematically and gameplay.

Rook City is mostly the same with the Smear effects being a new wrinkle I only saw a hint of here.

Expat, Mister Fixer, and Setback's redesigns work very well.

Reporter Alpha digs through her deck so fast and I just got lucky with her. So extremely lucky.

Wraith still plays much the same though with some of her weaker cards tightened up.

#Sentinels of the multiverse #Greater than Games #Sentinels of the Multiverse: Definitive Edition #Superheroes #Card Games #Cooperative Games #Werewolf #Werewolves #Serial Killer #Beatdown #Finally Spite is a fun play experience.

[thryth-gaming]

How my various campaigns are becoming a multiverse:

Whateley Academy Shared Universe - Fiction - Jay Donohue is a character.

M-Com - Monster of the Week - Violet McNeil is an NPC

Scion 2012 - Scion 1e - Dr. Tom McKay is a PC.

Sydney Scion - Scion 1e - Juri Como, my PC, writes/draws the manga "Combat Hurricane". Ryoko Satomi is the protagonist of Combat Hurricane. Explicitly the same setting as Scion 2012, Kaji Souta, a PC, is explicitly a new alias of Dr. Tom McKay.

Everyday Life of Monsters - Chronicle of Darkness - Bel and Deme are PCs in the homebrew city of Blackmouth.

In Shadow of Black Wings - Chronicles of Darkness - Also set in Blackmouth. I played Emma Terreal. Ames is a PC from this and linked to Jay Donohue as in may be a variant of them.

Tales of Blood and Water - Chronicles of Darkness - Set in Blackmouth, I played Cheyenne Belmont.

Shougnai Mists - City of Mist - Patricia Althius, Hayley Hayami, and Lady Eldred are PCs

Divine Blood Playtest 4 - Divine Blood: Fate - Ryoko Satomi is an NPC cameo

Golden Ticket - Patricia Althius, Hayley Hayami, and Lady Eldred are NPCs, Random with the Hunter's Garden is a PC

East Texas University - MotW - A player stumbled into The Hunter's Garden, Violet McNeil is an NPC, Aetherials and Bloodsworn are antagonists (they're from the Grim Dawn ARPG)

Late Start - Fanfic - Kasumi Tendo is an oni working for the Templars

Turquoise Plains - Scion 2e - Combat Hurricane is in stores, the players may have created the Hunter's Garden, Canopy Research is a major antagonist, Late Start version of Kasumi Tendo does the visitation for Rei Mochizuki

Estonia Divine Blood - Divine Blood: Fate - Bel and Deme appear as NPCs

Ghost Bros - Monster of the Week - Canopy Research is a minor antagonist, Bloodsworn are major element/minor antagonist, Violet McNeil is an NPC

Erika - She has appeared in multiple D&D games, Estonia Divine Blood, Blackmouth, and Shadowrun

#ttrpg #table roleplaying games #multiverse #monster of the week #urban fantasy #chronicles of fate #divine blood #Fate #City of Mist #Scion 2e #Scion 1e #Scion #Onyx Path #Evil Hat #shadowrun #east texas university

[thryth-gaming]

Can't find the original post, but had to comment. I think I may the ace version of this... gaming and writing for literal decades.

let's make magical TF "virus" that turns people into sexy superheroes, but treat actual sex as a "if I feel like it"

create a fantasy species inspired by succubi that are predominately ace and the sex thing is external reputation unrelated to their actual nature.

buy erotic supernatural novel, skip/skim past the sex scenes because they're boring.

lose interest in a movie when there's sex.

Absolutely love shipping characters but write fewer and fewer sex scenes as I get less influenced by genre expectations

thoroughly disappointed every time a monster-girl or transformation themed comic or anime is heavily sexualized

always felt relieved when rejected on asking people out

years of describing self as "broken" romantically

finally say "I think I might be ace" at 42

Get reminded by one of my oldest friends that "the first time we had a conversation you said 'I'll probably get married because it's expected but I'm not really interested in that." at least 15 years prior.

#ace pride #asexual #wcdonaldo #slow learner

[thryth-gaming]

Love the aesthetic here.

porcelain prince

[thryth-gaming]

Fact 1: In most versions of Dungeons & Dragons, when infected – as opposed to natural-born – lycanthropes transform under the full moon, they assume the default alignment of their type during the ensuing mindless rampage.

Fact 2: In most versions of Dungeons & Dragons, the default alignment of werebears is Lawful Good.

Conclusion: When an infected werebear transforms under the full moon, they go on a mindless Lawful Good rampage.

[thryth-gaming]

A bit more theory-crafting - Sentinel Comics

Okay, so recently I had a commission for an urban fantasy character from Rachel Denton aka Tallinier and I let her go where she wanted with the direction. She ended up going for a deep-one/merfolk inspiration and also something a bit more colorful than the drab appearance deep ones usually get.

Rachel Denton's links:

Instagram

Patreon

Artstation

The Husk of Twitter

As a note, this reminds me of some past concepts of my own (which I resisted showing her until she was done because didn't want to influence her) but also reminds me of a video game named Call of the Sea.

In any case, I'm going to build a couple of characters off of this picture. And, because I feel like rolling dice. I'm going to start with Sentinels Comics.

Step 1 - Background

Roll, 7 and 10.

Options

7: Academic

10: Military

17 (7+10): Interstellar

I've done Academic recently, there is an amphibious alien species in sentinels, though they don't look like the picture above.

But it does mean that the idea of aquatic aliens is there. And I'm not sure I've done an Interstellar background, at least not in easy memory.

I think I will put the d12 into hmmm.... I'm going to say Deep Space Knowledge, and the d6 into Investigation.

For Esoteric principal, I'm grabbing Principal of the Sea:

And now on we go.

Step 2 - Power Source

Roll, 3, 5, and 6

Options

3: Genetic

5: Mystical

6: Nature

8 (3+5): Powered Suit

9 (3+6): Radiation

11 (5+6): Supernatural

There's a few magical interstellar characters in the canon of the setting, the picture doesn't seem to point to Powered Suit everything else seems likely. I've done a Genetic recently. I generally enjoy doing Supernatural... but I think I might do Radiation this time. No, actually, I am going with Mystical.

Okay, I'm going to assign the d10 to Awareness, d8 to Toxic (from Materials category), and d6 to Telepathy (from Psychic category).

For abilities, I'm taking Sever Link using Awareness and Modification Wave using Toxic.

For the extra Information quality, I'm taking Magical Lore.

And to the next step.

Step 3 - Archetype

Rolled 1, 7, 8

Options:

1: Speedster

7: Armored

8: Flyer

9: Elemental Manipulator

15: Wild Card

Hmm, I think I'm going to go for Wild Card.

I think I'm going to go with d10 Vitality, d8 Persuasion, and d8 Close Combat.

For abilities I'm going for Multitask with Vitality and Gimmick for Close Combat.

Then for the yellow ability, I'm going for Expect the Unexpected.

For the Principle, going with Justice.

And now for the next step.

Step 4 - Personality

Rolled: 8 and 9.

Options:

8: Fast-Talking

9: Inquisitive

17 (8+9): Naive

I've been having the image of her as an interstellar explorer, so I think I'm going to go with Inquisitive.

The background quality will be Star-Hopping Deep One.

Step 5 - Red Abilities

For Red Abilities I can choose.

Athletics powers

Intellectual powers

Materials powers

Psychic powers

Information qualities

Mental qualities

Physical qualities

Social Qualities

I think I'll go with Push Your Limits and Aware Response.

Aware Response goes with Investigation.

Step 6 - Retcon

Going to take a third Red Ability in the form of Impenetrable Defense with Toxic.

Step 7 - Health

8 + Vitality 8 + Red Status 10 + 4 = 30

Green: 30-23, Yellow: 22-12, Red: 11-1

Step 8 - Finishing Touches

Time to fill in the character sheet.

#ttrpg #roleplaying games #rpg #urban fantasy #theory-crafting #character creation #sentinel comics #sentinels of the multiverse

[thryth-gaming]

Sa for MotW

It's another theory-crafting of another older character.

That said, Sa is only one of a line of permutations of an original inspiration. Karasu (another Ranma 1/2 next gen character) > Heigou (D&D character) > Sa. There've been a couple of other permutations as well, but this one is going to come a bit off of Sa.

So, particulars:

Her and her sister kidnapped at an early age by a serial killer who was looking to leave a legacy by training new killers. They were identified as potentials.

Her older sister tried to run and get help and got killed.

She waited, managing to survive while killing in self-defense. But also saw a lot of innocents killed that she did nothing about.

When the numbers got down to a handful and the teacher, she moved to end things. To her knowledge she killed everybody else.

She's been drifting on the fringes ever since. Currently works as a locksmith.

However, she tends not to be able to tolerate the presence of predators. She would prefer not to kill again, but can't stand to stand by and let people get hurt.

Has visions of her sister's spirit. The spirit warns of her things and also sometimes appears when things are hard. Keeps her from losing herself. She's not entirely sure the ghost is real or just a manifestations of her conscience and subconscious awareness.

The spirit never says anything, generally just stands there and looks at things or at Sa. The longer she remains, the bloodier she looks. Despite not talking, Sa usually understands her quite well.

I played Sa in a Scion game a while ago. And she did have one seen of stealth killing her way through some mobsters and leaving blood messages in her wake. Basically she got herself into the backrooms of a club and found terrible things and she decided to do terrible things as a result.

There are four playbooks I'm considering for her. The Hard Case is up there and was my original thought. The Crooked is also there, specifically the Assassin background. The Monstrous is a very good fit for her as well. So is the Wronged, with a prey of Serial Killers.

So issues with each:

The Crooked's Heat and Underworld connections define a very different introduction to things. If I was to permutate her again, I might go that route, however. (different name of course)

The Wronged implies she is actively hunting serial killers, but she'd prefer not to be drawn into that. Because she's concerned with losing herself to violence.

The Hard Case comes with an Ally, but I'm not actually sure that works the best. If the ghost is demonstrably an ally it makes the question of is she/isn't she real a bit less up in the air (not really of course).

So, I think I'm going to go with Monstrous.

Okay so let's start.

Ratings first.

Charm, she avoids contact where she can, so this is low. Intimidation is a thing she does, but not with purpose. Not to socially manipulate people it's just something that happens when she starts in. In fact, if she tried to Batman it, she would probably go overboard and scare people too much causing them to over-react.

Weird is obviously +3, all Monstrous are.

Cool is going to be high, at least +1, which narrows things down a lot.

It would be nice to get Tough high, but not necessary due to one of the moves available. Also, the only high Tough option is low Cool so that's out.

Sharp doesn't need to be high, I have a solution in mind if it isn't, something that would go with her spirit issue.

I think I'm going to go with the second rating line.

Charm -1

Cool +1

Sharp +1

Tough +0

Weird +3

Now the Breed, she's basically a horror movie Slasher. Though, the difference between a slasher and an 80s action hero is basically who they consider appropriate targets and the ability to turn it off... most of the time.

Curse: Pure Drive (Rage)

Natural Attack: Killing Techniques (Fangs) 4-harm intimate (she kept keys around as an improvised weapon, but is skilled with killing at short range in general)

Now, to moves. Unholy Strength is a must to represent what she is. Now she's not going to be good with protecting people. Her general method of protecting people is to end the threat before gets close to anybody.

I'm considering a choice between Invincible and Unquenchable Vitality and I think I'm going to go with Unquenchable, because it's a bit more of an unusual track for this and I have an idea for a development heading toward Hard Case.

Gear: I don't usually see the characters from this inspiration line using guns, but the melee stuff isn't that then again, giving her brass knuckles would give her hand ranged options.

Oh, it occurs to me that I didn't mention her weird move. I'm going to pick something a bit obscure from an alternate weird move. Tradecraft now, normally this would be something like the scenes in the recent Equalizer movies were McCall is analyzing everything, or in video games like Hitman or the Arkham Asylum games where objectives and targets are outlined.

In this case, it's the spirit, whether it's real or not, pointing out avenues of approach and attacks.

So, the final character looks like this:

Charm -1

Cool +1

Sharp +1

Tough +0

Weird +3

Breed: Slasher

Curse: Pure Drive (Rage)

Natural Attacks: Killing Techniques (4-harm intimate)

Moves: Tradecraft, Unholy Strength, Unquenchable Vitality

Gear: Brass Knuckles (1-harm hand quiet small)

#monster of the week #roleplaying games #ttrpg #urban fantasy #rpg