ParanetOnline
The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Bosh on February 14, 2010, 04:13:38 AM
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I know we won't get our hands on our pre-order PDFs until at least April, but I have too many ideas bouncing around my head that want to get out. Due to my one year-old son and my bizarre work schedule it’s going to be hard for me to schedule many games with my regular playgroup so I’m going to try running a forum-based (or possibly play by e-mail) game. My schedule is too unpredictable (especially when summer hits) to have regularly scheduled voice chat games but I have a good bit of random free time in between my various jobs, so I'd be able to run a forum or email game at a good fast pace.
The sorts of games I’d be interested in running:
A. Dresden in Asia: Asia would be a great place to run a Dresden Files game since there’s so much fodder for supernatural plots and being set well away from Chicago lets the players keep out of Harry’s shadow. The Dresden Files calls out to be set in a big city and I know Seoul very well and it’s really a great setting for an RPG.
Seoul was chosen as the site for the capital because it is supposedly a nexus of geomantic forces (in Dresden Files term: ley line central). Korea has a long history of being caught in the middle between great powers so there’ll be all kinds of Russian, Chinese and Japanese influence as well as the local Korean stuff as well as there being an American army base smack in the middle of the city. For plot fodder there’s a Stalinist dictatorship just north of the suburbs, Buddhism, very strong Christianity, Taoism, Shamanism, strange cults by the fistful (Moonies!), incredibly powerful corporate conglomerates run by secretive families that mostly marry each other, wacky internet culture, plenty of awesome movies (Korean cinema is incredible) to steal plot ideas from and a thousand urban legends. Also I can go out and take pictures of some adventure locations.
The general tone of this campaign would be pretty similar to that of the Dresden Files (Noir-ish investigation). The party could either be a miscellaneous group united mostly by their desire to keep people from being hurt by the supernatural (like Dresden & friends), mortals in over their heads or members of a supernatural faction of some sort.
B. Viking Age Historical Campaign: Vikings are a lot of fun to play since stereotypical Viking hero behavior often sounds a whole lot like stereotypical PC behavior. More than any other book I’ve ever read when, when I read the Saga of Egil Skallagrimsson, I hear a GM in my head yelling at the main character, “you’re doing WHAT now?” and reaching for something strong. Viking magic is also a good fit for Dresden magic since a lot of it would carry over without any work at all (just tone down the flashy stuff, focus a lot on Thaumaturgy and swap out potions for runes while keeping the rules basically the same).
For this campaign I’d run something long on the Icelandic Sagas and short on the Eddas, i.e. lots of bloody local conflicts, telling people who killed your father to prepare to die, Viking raids, runes, berserkers, shape-shifters, witchery and the undead but keeping the large-scale mythical stuff in the background. The overall feel would be low-powered, gritty and relatively historically accurate.
C. The 17th Century Turned up to 11: take the 17th Century and then throw out historical accuracy and base things on the Rule of Cool and Dresdenisms instead. That means Jesuits with secret kung-fu brought back by Matteo Ricci, The Pirates of the Caribbean, The Three Musketeers, Solomon Kane, the Thirty Years War, witching burnings, Red Court conquistadores vs. Mayan human sacrifice, etc. etc. The PCs would be globetrotting adventurers of some sort.
D. Sword and Sorcery: from what I’ve seen so far the Dresden RPG magic system would work well for more traditional fantasy and the stunt rules seem flexible enough to cover all kinds of critters and powers. Trying this would with some Sword and Sorcery (inspired by Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser especially) could be fun. We could use the Dresden city rules to create a Lankhmar/Ankh-Morpork-style fantasy city state to start in and the rest of the world would be full of corrupt tyrants, wild tribes, degenerate semi-humans, the remnants of lots civilizations, cults of demon gods and all of that fun stuff. The map would mostly be left blank except for various cool locations that the players would think up (most world creation would be done by the players, not me) and would be slowly filled in through play.
What are people interested in?
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I'd be interestede in the Asia option. I have little to no information about Korea so you'd have to put up with a lot of "how do you pronouce that?" type of questions (thankfully there is google (and google maps)) when it comes down to needing more information. From your descriptions of your Seoul ideas in other threads I'd be excited to see them in action. Forum based works well for me also because of work (54-60 hours a week).
Chung-Hee Smith:
Born in the United States (2nd generation immigrants) Chung-Hee listened to stories of his family's homeland growning up from his Grandmother (Soon-yi) while his parents worked. Both parents were killed when he was still young (15) and he was raised by his Grandmother until her recent death. Chung-Hee has become disillusioned with the US and he wants to immerse himself in the culture described by his Grandmother. Chung-Hee has used his remaining money from his parents/grandmother's life insurance policies and the proceeds from selling his parents business to finance his move. What he doesn't realize is that Korea has changed radically in the last 50 years. He has no relatives (that he is aware of) living in the south but has decided to begin his new life in Seoul.
More thoughts on concepts later.
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In our on line RPG: We've done Old West Dresden. Pirates Dresden (Cap'n was known as Shirtless Tom.) Roaring Twenties Dresden... (Well, Roaring Twenties Thomas and Murphy.)
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C would be *awesome*
I just read Les Trois Mousquetaires (in French) from Dumas, so I think that would be all sort of cool. There are a lot of hermetic mages and alchemists active at the time, the beast of the Gévaudan isn't that far off, there are all sorts of cool stuff from overseas being imported, Richelieu, Oliver Cromwell, the man in the iron mask... it just reeks with possibilities.
Unfortunately, I personally wouldn't able to commit to such a game (well... maybe depending) but I just wanted to speak out on how cool such a game would be.
Ancalagon
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I'd be interestede in the Asia option. I have little to no information about Korea so you'd have to put up with a lot of "how do you pronouce that?" type of questions (thankfully there is google (and google maps)) when it comes down to needing more information.
Well, one of the benefits of a text-based game is you don't have to pronounce anything :) Seriously though, the broad outlines of Seoul are pretty easy to get, it's the closest thing there is to a generic Asian megapolis, since in a lot of ways if you take China and Japan and split the difference you get Korea. If this game starts up, I'll make some posts like "Learning everything you really need to know about Seoul in 5 minutes" and stuff like that :)
Chung-Hee Smith:
With that last name I'm assuming his father isn't Korean-American. Being ethnically half-Korean opens up a whole bunch of complications. Although things are getting better these days, for a long time there's been a tendency to not treat half-Koreans very well unless they're very successful, in which they get embraced on a national level. See for examples the good work (ethnically half Korean football star) Hines Ward is doing here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/sports/football/09ward.html?_r=1&ref=sports
What he doesn't realize is that Korea has changed radically in the last 50 years. He has no relatives (that he is aware of) living in the south but has decided to begin his new life in Seoul.
More thoughts on concepts later.
Sounds like a solid concept. I've met some people like that at work :)
One possibility, if you want him be trying to throw his money around, is that's he's invested his money in some kind of business partnership (import/export, software design, etc.) in which his partner will hire the local work and he'll cover the international business aspects (talking to non-Korean clients, etc.). That could give some good hooks to pull him into the Korean business world and a lot of plots that come with that (Korean corporate culture often seems like something out of a CyberPunk novel).
C would be *awesome*
Indeed. I think that C would be the hardest to pull of but the most awesome if it actually worked.
Just reading about some aspects of the Spanish Empire in the Americas at this time period is just a bit mind blowing with its immense size, wealth, how little outsiders know about it, etc.
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Crap...the forum ate my first attempt at this.
I will change his last name to Bak. Smith was more of a placeholder until I could identify a "common" name. It's part of his invisible in a crowd concept.
Using his money for an investment sounds good. I was trying to figure out how much work he could actually get as an interpreter and figured he'd be living in the low income section of town. Plot hooks abound if the corporate culture is anything like the zaibatsu of Japan, good times indeed.
Wikipedia (not always the best source for these things) says that Kkangpae involvement in Seoul is less than other parts of the country. A Dresdenized Seoul sounds like it might be a nightly battleground between the police, the Kkangpae, Yakuza, and Triads (with magic!).
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I am currently playing a Korean American reformed necromancer named Julian Park. His family has ruled Koreatown in Chicago for many centuries... Since the late 1600s.
It is a lot of fun to bring in a Asian world view. Because of course, the Asian mindset regarding death is very different than the European. His specialty was necromancing people before they were actually dead. They would hire him to keep them going at the point of death so that they could finish an important task. His goal was to keep body and soul together just a bit longer than nature intended. So of course he had to align himself with the bad guys, because the good guys would have just chopped his head off summarily.
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SoulCatcher78: in Korea just three family names make up the majority of the population: 김 (pronounced Kim or Gim) 이 (pronounced "Ee" but usually spelled Lee in English for some reason) and 박 (pronounced Bak but usually spelled Park for some strange reason).
So Bak/Park is about as generic as you can get and Chung-hee is hardly rare, the only problem is Park, Chung-hee is the name of South Korea's most influencial president so maybe Kim would be a better last name if you want to blend in.
Plot hooks abound if the corporate culture is anything like the zaibatsu of Japan, good times indeed.
Indeed, the Chaebol (the Korean equivalent of the zaibatsu/keiretsu, Chaebol and Zaibatsu comes from the exact same Chinese characters) are VERY strong and VERY similar to the old zaibatsu (more similar to them than the more modern keiretsu, since they're centered around holding companies instead of banks, just like the zaibatsu were).
For example the biggest Chaebol is Samsung and if you add up all of their subsidieries they have 276,000 employees, not counting a couple other large corporations with tight family links (owned by wives, ex-wives, younger sons, etc.) that own all kinds of other stuff. The Chaebol are massive, very influencial and pretty much immune to the law (one of the smaller Chaebol boss's son got thrown out of a bar and down the stairs and to get revenge he had the bouncers kidnapped and beat with metal pipes for a few days and got off with community service and some fines IIRC).
Wikipedia (not always the best source for these things) says that Kkangpae involvement in Seoul is less than other parts of the country. A Dresdenized Seoul sounds like it might be a nightly battleground between the police, the Kkangpae, Yakuza, and Triads (with magic!).
In reality, they are a bit weaker than in other bits of the country since the city is so big, the people are richer (so less need to turn to organized crime to get what they want) and the local institutions are a bit too big for gangsters to bully, but in Dresden Seoul that would just mean that the underworld is badly fragmented and engaged in some nasty turf wars like you say (don't forget the Russian and the Nigerians either :) ).
Also a lot of the Japanese Yakuza are ethnic Koreans so they'd definitely be a big force.
Blaze: um, not to nit-pick but neither Korean-Americans (in any capacity) nor Chicago have existed until WELL after the 1600's, but the idea of pre-emptive necromancy sounds like a fun application of death magic, I'll have to steal that :)
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I voted Vikings, but by the looks of this, its almost ensured that Seoul will be our playground for this, so I'm going with that. I'm going to follow Soul's lead and throw a character out there so you guys with more knowledge of the city can help me knit pick at it until its perfect.
Someone mentioned Russian underground, so I'm going with a character with that background. ;D
Concept: The usual suspect that the police can't touch.
Name: Anton Alexandrov
Quirks: Thrill Seeker, Germaphobe, Enjoys Dangak
Anton's family had always been on the edge, of his father's three brothers, two had joined the mafia and one was already dead. His father, Alexander, however, was determined to keep Anton away from such influences, and he was like-was protected from his extended family's activities until he joined a University. Two weeks after he'd left home, he got a call telling him that his father had been killed in his burning office. Anton rushed home immediatly, only to find that his mother had (suppossedly) abandoned their home, she was no where to be found. He then fell under the wing of his uncle, who had offered him a job, this clashed with his University studies, so he was forced to drop out. He's worked for his uncle and been given his fair share of mafia exeperiences for his age. His talent for hiding 'hot' individuals from many people impressed his uncle and he was sent to their Seoul wing recently to assist in setting up a cross-national operation. Sadly, for the now thrill-seeking Anton, most of it had been dealt with by the time he'd arrived in Seoul, with the family already sitting on a comfortable piece of territory. Anton was left to entertain himself, getting called in by the family for this or that every few days. He adopted the practice of attempting petty, but risky crimes as practice for himself, and this occupied most of his time until a clothing store that had been owned by the family burned down, and Anton saw who did it... and man.. they weren't ******* human. Anton has now taken it on himself to dab into the magical underground with only two goals, keep all the magical creepy crawlies of the family's doorstep and have himself a hell-ofa good time.
Sorry for length XD
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Bosh before you nitpick, ask! The original Park ancestor who came to the area we know as Chicago, was from the Joseon period of Korea's history. Technically he was from Ulleungdo Island, off the coast of the Mainland. He first went to Chicago's area with Jesuits who ere trying to convert the Algonquin Peoples, and was there with Father Pierre Charlevoix, who first mentions Chicagou in a journal in 1671.
I always do my homework. Any decent game master ought to. ;D
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Blaze: my apologies, that is some impressive research. I'm trying to think of how that guy ended up with the Jesuits. I'm guessing it was via Japan (kidnapped by Japanese pirates? POW or something in the Imjin War?). Any more info on this guy, I'm curious :) He was probably the first Korean to set foot in America.
breaker: yes, it looks like Seoul is in the lead, it would probably be the easiest for me to run since I can recruit people here and then use the people I know IRL to fill up any empty slots if/when people drop out (online games usually have pretty high attrition over the first month).
Quick and dirty history of the Russian underworld in Korea (pretty hazy since I'm not exactly an expert):
After the fall of Communism in Russia, Russians started coming over to South Korea in BIG numbers mostly to get big bags of consumer goods wholesale to take back to sell via commercial airlines to Russia. That big burst has mostly dried up these days but a lot of wholesale import/export companies remain (mostly dealing in clothing) and they're most of what exists in the Little Russia neighborhood in northern Seoul (walked around there one time, not much to see these days).
What the Russian mafia is mostly involved in these days is car theft (buying stolen cars from the Korean gangs and sending them to Vladivostok), a few nightclubs and prostitution (with attendant human trafficing). They also seem be in charge of most of whatever illegal stuff is going on (in cooperation with local and Nigerian groups) in the foreign areas.
From the sound of your character he'd probably hang out in Itaewon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaewon which has traditionally been sort of the Mos Eisley of Seoul (although it's gotten a bit gentrified since the 24 hour US military curfew after 9/11 hurt the red light bit of Itaewon while it was in effect and you get a lot of things like nice used book stores in what used to be brothels).
Anton would probably hang out at Rio, a Russian nightclub right at the base of Hooker Hill (you can see some Russian clothing stores across the street from it in the second picture):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/curoninja/464995544/in/pool-itaewon
http://ronandrachel.blogplugs.com/Korea%20Pictures/ItaewonJPG.jpg
Of course in a Dresdenized Seoul, Itaewon would be back to the bad old days (or worse) and be a fun mix of creepy crawlies from EVERYWHERE, down on their luck backpackers, drunk GIs, Russian and Nigerian gangsters, hookers, black markets, burned out craaaaazy alcoholic English teachers who can't get work anywhere else, confused Japanese tourists, random fist fights in the street, etc.
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The whole of it was part of an adventure... PM me if you want a link to read it. He ran into some interesting circumstances.
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Thanks Bosh, you gave me more than enough to work with. I'm pretty excited about it now, so defintely count me in.
Also, I got the clothing store thing completely on random, I didn't know it was a prevailing business in the area. God I love talking to smart people.
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This sounds like a lot of fun especially the Seoul game, I've been working on a character that I had intended for a game taking place in the states but I think I could adapt him to Seoul as well plus he has the whole flawed do gooder thing going on, his hearts in the right place but he's a bit of a lech and little gray on what he thinks 'Justice' is. If the interest keeps up I'd love to be included I'll just have to research the area a bit. :D
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Set the Korean thing about 50 years in the future and include a larger American presence and you have a sweet deal there.
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Chung-hee Kim. Sounds very workable. Depending on the power level you plan on running, I'm looking at either a minor talent (dealing with either spirits or veils...maybe both) or something similar.
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Blaze: that would be much appreciated.
breaker: cool :)
Wizard H: you don't necessarily have to do all that much research if roll up a character who doesn't know much about Korea. The main groups of Westerners in Korea (in roughly descending numbers):
-English teachers (probably the single biggest group, estimated at about 50,000).
-GIs (there's about 8,000 soldiers in the Yongsan Garrison in Seoul, right by Itaewon).
-Military contractors
-Corporate types, mostly in the main business area in southern Seoul.
-Embassy types.
-Professional sports players in the Korean leagues (especially basketball).
Also lots and lots of ethnic Koreans with foreign passports working in various capacities (including a good number of people who were sent abroad in international adoptions and are now coming back), especially since a lot of richer families have their kids born abroad in order to get foreign passports for them so that they can avoid military service.
Set the Korean thing about 50 years in the future and include a larger American presence and you have a sweet deal there.
Setting things in the future always gives me a headache, but if some of the character live in the Yongsan region of Seoul (which Itaewon and the US military base are part of) there'll be quite an American presence
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SoulCatcher: the power level will be based on what makes the most sense for the kinds of characters that the players think up. Right now it seems that people want either pure mortals or people with just minor magical talents so that means a relatively low-powered game.
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Chung-hee Kim:
High Concept Aspect; Minor Power (TBD)
Trouble Aspect; Lonliness of the long distance runner.
Phase 1 Aspect; Stranger in a strange land.
Phase 2 Aspect; I'm just a face in the crowd.
Born in the United States (2nd generation immigrants) Chung-Hee listened to stories of his family's homeland growning up from his Grandmother (Soon-yi) while his parents worked. Both parents were killed when he was still young (15) and he was raised by his Grandmother until her recent death. Chung-Hee has become disillusioned with the US and he wants to immerse himself in the culture described by his Grandmother. Chung-Hee has used his remaining money from his parents/grandmother's life insurance policies and the proceeds from selling his parents business to finance his move. What he doesn't realize is that Korea has changed radically in the last 50 years. He has no relatives (that he is aware of) living in the south but has decided to begin his new life in Seoul.
"Stranger in a strange land" You're suprised that most of what you thought you knew about your new home is either outdated or based on a more idealized memory.
Invoke: When dealing with older beings (spirits, older humans, etc) you are able to adapt to their expectations easier than the typical "younger generation" group which you belong to.
Compel: Dealing with people your own age can be difficult because of your expectations of others (honor, duty, self sacrifice, etc).
"I'm just a face in the crowd" Being able to become one of the faceless masses gives you a sense of security and belonging.
Invoke: You can blend in with a group and use them as a natural camoflage when in crowded areas (on the train, at the market, etc).
Compel: People have trouble remembering you unless prompted .
"Lonliness of the long distance runner." Chung-hee needs to find someplace that he fits in. He needs it so badly that it often leads him into situations better left alone.
Invoke: Able to dive headlong into conflict for the sake of a friend without hesitation.
Compel: Drawn to helping others, even if it's not the best option.
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Good character draft.
High concept is still fuzzy for obvious reasons :), I like his phase aspects they very clearly give him some edges in things that could be useful while tying into his history and causing him problems. I can feed you information for the stranger in a strange land, if you want to do research for that an awesome source is Andrei Lankov's Korea Times column "The Dawn of Modern Korea." Unfortunately, The Korea Times has a crappy website so they don't keep many articles archived and I'm not finding a good archive of the columns on google, I'll look more later.
"Lonliness of the long distance runner." hmmmmmmm, I like the idea but maybe make it a bit more personalized. Being lonely works well, but maybe try to work in why he's lonely and what he does about it into the text of the aspect?
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Concept: The usual suspect that the police can't touch.
Name: Anton Alexandrov
Quirks: Thrill Seeker, Germaphobe, Enjoys Dangak
Anton's family had always been on the edge, of his father's three brothers, two had joined the mafia and one was already dead. His father, Alexander, however, was determined to keep Anton away from such influences, and he was like-was protected from his extended family's activities until he joined a University. Two weeks after he'd left home, he got a call telling him that his father had been killed in his burning office. Anton rushed home immediatly, only to find that his mother had (suppossedly) abandoned their home, she was no where to be found. He then fell under the wing of his uncle, who had offered him a job, this clashed with his University studies, so he was forced to drop out. He's worked for his uncle and been given his fair share of mafia exeperiences for his age. His talent for hiding 'hot' individuals from many people impressed his uncle and he was sent to their Seoul wing recently to assist in setting up a cross-national operation. Sadly, for the now thrill-seeking Anton, most of it had been dealt with by the time he'd arrived in Seoul, with the family already sitting on a comfortable piece of territory. Anton was left to entertain himself, getting called in by the family for this or that every few days. He adopted the practice of attempting petty, but risky crimes as practice for himself, and this occupied most of his time until a clothing store that had been owned by the family burned down, and Anton saw who did it... and man.. they weren't ******* human. Anton has now taken it on himself to dab into the magical underground with only two goals, keep all the magical creepy crawlies of the family's doorstep and have himself a hell-ofa good time.
keeping up with soul here XD
"This ain't my home, but it'll do" You're rather adaptive when it comes to living in out of the ordinary, unusual, or downright strange places. You know how to relax, and the troll in the room isn't going to stop you.
Invoke: You are able to stay calm in unusual places and continue thinking logically. You can also demand attention in a crowd of strangers or strange things without breaking a sweat.
Compel: You have a habit of making yourself at home in places you shouldn't and often leave a negative impression on people who are as hard-headed or as territorial as you.
"I'm not touching that, are you kidding?" Your fear of many things unclean sometimes inspires you to go great lengths to avoid doing literal dirty work. You can be quite persistant and unbudging on the subject.
Invoke: You're used to talking your way out of things that include getting grit under your nails. Sometimes a new option will present itself when you politely tell the informant that if he doesn't cough up another way into the baddy's hideout that doesn't involve the sewer then he'll soon be eating the bribe money.
"Danger makes life worth living" The value of your own life comes second to a descent challenge of your criminal skills. You jump at the opportunity to show off or show up authority.
Invoke: You're good at walking the metaphysical tight rope. You can keep your cool in dangerous situations and often know better, all be it flashier, ways to get out of them when the time arises.
Compel: There isn't such a thing as an unnecessary risk.
Phase 1: This isn't my home but it'll do.
Phase 2: Danger makes life worth living.
Vanilla human, young, arrogant, acrobat and mugger. The bigger and shinier the gun, the better. Also Russian ( character in a nutshell)
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"Lonliness of the long distance runner." hmmmmmmm, I like the idea but maybe make it a bit more personalized. Being lonely works well, but maybe try to work in why he's lonely and what he does about it into the text of the aspect?
"Lonliness of the long distance runner." Chung-hee needs to find someplace that he fits in. Growing up in a small rural community in the US, Chung-hee was always the "different one". The only people who he could identify with (his immediate family) are now dead and his need for belonging drives him to do rash things in the name of friendship.
Invoke: Able to dive headlong into conflict for the sake of a friend without hesitation, this blind determination can push him past all sensible reasons not to (bonus against intimidation attempts, even by obviously more dangerous beings).
Compel: Drawn to helping others, even if it's not the best option (brins him into direct conflict at the worst possible times).
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Setting things in the future always gives me a headache, but if some of the character live in the Yongsan region of Seoul (which Itaewon and the US military base are part of) there'll be quite an American presence
The reason I said you might want to is the freedom of choice you have in terms of what happens between now and then. NK might have attempted an invasion and the US/China intervened. It would mean a short but game changing war that ended with a major occupying force and no NK. It would make it much easier to blend in international flavors since the UN would probably be involved and SK would have to be involved in reconstruction in a major level. There's a lot of possibilities inherent in how things workout. However, if you think its to much of a hassle it will be fine.
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Sorryman15: the thing is that I'm enough of a history geek that if I made a 50 year future timeline I'd want to do it RIGHT and have everything be realistic and once I got my head down that rabbit hole I wouldn't come out until I had a twenty page history write up that nobody would want to read through :) In any case, for me the main benefit of setting things in Seoul for me is that I live here that unless we change something the setting is damn easy for me to figure out (for example in a bit I'm going to teach a lunchtime English class to some doctors at a hospital, so if the PCs end up in the ER and get attacked then I KNOW the location since I walk past the ER four times a week).
If I did a future game I'd probably set things in Boston or something since it would be easier for the players to get the hang of the setting.
In any case in a game set in the present there's no reason why NK can't be up to all kinds of fun stuff (passages through the Nevernever to send spies past the DMZ, etc.).
SoulCatcher78: looks good, a rural location is great since it helps the fish out of water feeling and it keeps him away from other Korean-Americans growing up.
breaker:
re: Dangak, you might also want to check out Bbong-jak ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trot_(music) ), especially the stuff from the 1970-80's, it's like listening to the mutant offspring of Sinatra and Big Band Jazz, especially the stuff with a strong brass beat. Cheesy as all hell, but fun and a hell of a lot better on modern K-Pop (think Britney Sprears/Backstreet Boys with even less soul/authenticity and more techno/voice editing).
breaker: like the aspects, very evocative. I can imagine him putting his feet up on a vampire's desk or doing his best to keep his suit clean through an entire adventure.
Maybe have your high concept aspect mention something about being part of a Russian crime family, that way you can use it for relatives that show up to help and/or cause problems, anti-Russian prejudice (like "Boris" in Season 2 of The Wire), sticking out like a sore thumb in an Asian crowd, having Koreans have a hard time remembering much about your facial features besides you being foreigner ("all those foreigners look the same"), being good at intimidating criminal small fry (they're mostly scared of the Russian mafia), etc.
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Sorryman15: the thing is that I'm enough of a history geek that if I made a 50 year future timeline I'd want to do it RIGHT and have everything be realistic and once I got my head down that rabbit hole I wouldn't come out until I had a twenty page history write up that nobody would want to read through :) In any case, for me the main benefit of setting things in Seoul for me is that I live here that unless we change something the setting is damn easy for me to figure out (for example in a bit I'm going to teach a lunchtime English class to some doctors at a hospital, so if the PCs end up in the ER and get attacked then I KNOW the location since I walk past the ER four times a week).
If I did a future game I'd probably set things in Boston or something since it would be easier for the players to get the hang of the setting.
In any case in a game set in the present there's no reason why NK can't be up to all kinds of fun stuff (passages through the Nevernever to send spies past the DMZ, etc.).
I know what ya mean and for the record I would read the 20 page history.
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Hey I read the whole Silmarillion so that I understood my Elven Cleric's religion (when I was 20.) It came in pretty handy too. Ever god call Eluvitar and crap out and end up with Loviatar? Bummer!
I always have full motivations and back drops for all the main villains/npcs and broad strokes on secondary ones. Just as if I was writing a history. Shakespeare may have trundled into Motiveless Malignity1, but I need my bad guys to have purpose. Or think that they do.
History in an RPG world is very important to me as a GM. It doesn't matter if most of the PCs don't get it. Look at how many people run around in the real world and never bother to figure out why the things that are happening are happening! After all, it is so common for people to NOT learn history (or from it) that we have the old adage.
1 - I have a book somewhere about his villains with that title, which I love-- the title not the book, albeit a decent book.
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I'm sure most players are willing to do a lot of research to get their characters right but I think expecting them to have a good grasp of the Dresden Cosmology AND Korean culture AND a 50 year future history timeline/tech outline is probably just a bit too much to ask unless some of those elements aren't needed in order to play the game (for example Post-Apocalypic, a game that isn't too heavy on social interaction, etc.).
If I was to run a FATE sci-fi game I'd either avoid magic and focus on the sci-fi elements or have it be a Space Opera game inspired by The Dragon Never Sleeps By Glen Cook crossed with a bit of Dune and adapt the Dresden rules for aliens and whatnot.
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I'm sure most players are willing to do a lot of research to get their characters right but I think expecting them to have a good grasp of the Dresden Cosmology AND Korean culture AND a 50 year future history timeline/tech outline is probably just a bit too much to ask unless some of those elements aren't needed in order to play the game (for example Post-Apocalypic, a game that isn't too heavy on social interaction, etc.).
If I was to run a FATE sci-fi game I'd either avoid magic and focus on the sci-fi elements or have it be a Space Opera game inspired by The Dragon Never Sleeps By Glen Cook crossed with a bit of Dune and adapt the Dresden rules for aliens and whatnot.
You wouldn't really need a perfect grasp. Most of that would be found out as you go. A player just need to know the current events and enough information to form a background.
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OK, to the original list of four games I'll add two more futuristic ones:
E. Near-future Apocalyptic: An apocalyptic event brings human civilization tumbling down and things get very messy very quickly. I'll keep the exact nature of the event under wraps, to give the players some surprises but it's one that (I think at least) is quite a bit nastier than your standard Zombie Apocalypse. After the initial adventure play would continue (with some big time skips in between adventures) into the Post-Apocalyptic period so players could do some society-building and whatnot (if that's what they're into). Low-powered, nasty, brutal and depressing but focusing a lot on what hope remains in the ashes.
F. Far-future Space Opera: basically the specifics of the setting would be mostly player created but the broad outline is that it's (mostly) science-based but science that's damn weird and functions a lot more like magic than the sort of science we're used to (i.e. psychics, nanotech, strange bio-engineered creatures, trans-dimensional critters that live in the warp that function a bit like Nevernever critters in Dresden, etc.):
Inspirational sources would be:
-The Dragon Never Sleeps http://www.kentaurus.com/dragon.htm
-Dune
-In Conquest Born http://www.amazon.com/Conquest-Born-Daw-science-fiction/dp/0886771986 and some of C.S. Friedman's other sci-fi books to a lesser extent.
-Star Wars
And Dresden of course :)
Higher powered and a bit gonzo but also a bit more philosophical (what does it mean to be human?), etc.
Anyone interested in those two? Those are the sort of sci-fi games I'd be interested in running. Other sci-fi games not so much...
Oh and this is required viewing for anyone interested in the Seoul game ;) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KWBMx-jg0c&feature=related
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From the looks of it, about 20 people have voted, so I'm wondering when we'll start seeing other auditions for characters.
Also, Bosh, I'm loving the amount of work you're putting into this, especially for a text based game. Thank you.
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So are you settled on Korea?
17th century turned up to 11 sounded really alot of fun.
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From the looks of it, about 20 people have voted, so I'm wondering when we'll start seeing other auditions for characters.
Hmmm, maybe. No real need to rush it since the pre-order PDFs won't be available for over a month at the earliest. However, with what we know about the game so far it should be easy to make at least outlines of our characters without the exact rules, so I'll get a recruitment thread posted before the pre-order goes up to get at least the groundwork laid.
So are you settled on Korea?
17th century turned up to 11 sounded really alot of fun.
Looks like Seoul has a solid lead and I'm leaning towards that since I've gotten two solid character write-ups for that setting but nothing really concrete for the other three. I agree that the 17th century game would be exceedingly awesome but for that one I'd need some ideas from potential players since that's the only one of my four options where I don't have a solid idea of what sorts of things the PCs would DO (Seoul = mostly supernatural troubleshooting Viking = squabbling for power within Viking society with a big side order of "you killed my father prepare to die" Sword and Sorcery = go on adventures for gold and glory against evil cults, mad wizards, etc. etc.). If (aside from Seoul getting more interest) what's holding me back on the 17th century option is that I don't have anything concrete to work with as far as what aspect of the 17th century people would be interested in (Musketeers? Pirates? Salem witch trials? 30 years war?), at least as a place to start with.