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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: arsieiuni on March 14, 2011, 12:20:33 AM
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It's been a while since I posted here. I really loved this forum last year when I was running my DFRPG game but that fell apart pretty quick due to lack of interest from one of my main players (he was really trying to get me to run one of my other games instead... sad because he's a huge Dresden Fan and he just didn't give the game a good try. Sigh.)
Anyway, what I've been doing lately with DFRPG is a little weird probably. My mate and I had a White Wolf Scion game running for years between the two of us and we loved it but it was such a bloody mess to run because... let's face it... White Wolf did a poor job of creating a storytelling system. Combat in that game got ridiculous fast. So finally we had the idea to move the characters and setting into a system that might run smoother. We got this idea briefly after my DFRPG fell apart. And guess which system I had fallen in love with for its ease of movement at that point...
So we started attempting to re-write each of our Scion characters (11 between us...) into DFRPG. You know what we found?
DFRPG housed those Scions and presented their concepts EASIER and BETTER than White Wolf's Scion system ever did.
We created all the same powers, re-worked the mechanics into Fudge, and found that we had more room to work with on each character as well as that we could balance them much better.
I am still floored at how well this worked out. Fudge is a fantastic system. Never underestimate it! But the DFRPG specifics are more flexible than you might imagine also and that's one of the points I meant to make here.
Anyway, I'll share some of those writeups later if anyone is interested. :)
Arsh
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I'm definitely interested.
I haven't played Scion, but what I've heard says that it's a high-powered game along the lines of Exalted.
Exalted, by the way, is super hard to translate into DFRPG.
So I'm surprised and interested when I hear that Scion translates well.
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Ironically we've talked about how easily Exalted could be run in DFRPG also. lol
There again, my mate is an actual genius with a super-talent for breaking down systems (and is working toward publishing a gaming system that we've had in the works for 8 years now) and is responsible for our conversions mainly.
Scion is a White Wolf setting that casts you as the child of a god or goddess from any pantheon really. Your main nemesis are the Titanspawn, or essentially, anything that hates you which is mostly everything except other Scions and maybe humans of some sorts. Generally, you're a heroic character who will ultimately become a god if you work hard enough at it. It translates amazingly because there's even a system in Scion similar to Fate Points (Called Legend) that power most of your abilities. They are even explained as being very similar to Fate points. They are the scion's pull on destiny.
Albeit, before anyone jumps me, my mate and I tend to houserule and homebrew a lot... But this works well for us. And as an idea... these aren't horrible things to do in a DFRPG game either, just powered down if so.
We ran with 45 Skill points and 15 refresh to start because by the time we converted them, our Scions were nearing Demi-god level (a changeover that seriously jumps their power in Scion).
That and we built like 4 of them and agreed upon the average refresh NEEDED to recreate what they already had for powers in white wolf.
Here's one example:
Tora Thorsdottir (Pantheon: Aesir) (Pantheon Power: Unstoppable(One extra stress box of each type))
High Concept: Honorable Warrior, Daughter of Thor
Trouble: Is This What's Right? (She's conflicted over her morals.)
Other Aspects:
Family First
Thifnir (Her magic hammer)
Always Up For a Challenge
Indomitable Defender
Stubborn as a Norseman/Short Fuse
Skills: (Cap: Fantastic)
6 Might, Endurance
5 Conviction, Intimidation
4 Athletics, Presence
3 Discipline, Rapport
2 Survival, Stealth, Alertness
1 Craft: Metalworker, Driving, Scholarship
Stunts and Powers:
-4 Supernatural Strength
-4 Supernatural Toughness
-1 Bless This House
-1 Flight
-2 Righteousness
-1 Tora Smash (Stunt: Might for Weapons or Fists)
-1 Thifnir: +2 (Weapon 3)
-2: Channeled Lightning Evocation
-1: Never Far From Reach (Returns)
Total 14 Refresh Adjustment
Notes:
(+6 For lifting/breaking, +4 Damage, grapple+2 and 3 stress, +2 when using might to modify another skill check)
Stress:
P 9
M 5
S 5
Armor: 2 Natural, 2 Physical
Consequences:
+1 Mild Physical and +1 Mild Mental
Here's her Character Phases Worksheet. The stories are such a short summary... there's a lot of depth to these characters.
Background:
Phase Aspect: Family First
Raised on a farm in Canada by a gothi of the Norse reconstructionist faith, Tori Erikson's only real friend was her cousin, Senna. Her father taught her the ways of her heritage and she grew a deep love for her family, small though it might be. If there is one thing she will always fight hardest for it is her kin.
Rising Conflict:
Phase Aspect: Thifnir
When a Valkyrie attacked Senna calling her "Lokispawn", Tora defended her without question. Unexpectedly, the hammer she always wore at her throat grew to a rather large size in her hand and mimicked abilities credited to Mjollnir such as returning when thrown. It's not the same thing, but it's not to be disregarded, for sure.
The Story: (First Adventure)
Phase Aspect: Always Up For A Challenge
Story Title: Apparently, It's Good For Some Things (This is a joke on the lyric "War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!" and is kind of an in-joke with my mate.)
Guest Starring: Aaron Aristaeus, Scion of Ares
Since childhood, Tora has never been able to turn down a good challenge. It's just in her nature. However, when she and Senna learned they were descended from Thor and Loki, it kinda upped the ante. Meeting Aaron, Scion of Ares, really helped Tora to realize what heights she could rise to. Since then, she never balks at an opportunity to challenge herself.
Guest Star:
Phase Aspect: Indomitable Defender
Story Title: Hel's Come Home (sic)
Whose Story? Who Else was in it?: The Scion Band and the Dark Scions
Once she'd joined with the Scion Band, Tora knew that she would do her best to protect her new friends. They were like new family to her, and she would never let them down while she was still breathing. One fateful encounter pitted her against a sea of undead souls and she simply showed her friends what it means to be a living bulwark.
Guest Star Redux:
Phase Aspect: Stubborn as a Norseman/Short Fuse
Story Title: At Least She's Honest
Whose Story Was this? Who Else was in it?: Senna
Tora has finally accepted the fact that she bears the classic Norseman traits of stubbornness and having a short fuse. Of course, Senna helped her grow those traits, especially in the latter case. It's worth it to have always had Senna with her. And now she realizes Senna's purpose may be annoying, but it's necessary.
Anyway... If you want to see some more, just let me know. That's a good example though of how we've been able to represent the same powers. Very easy actually.
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Exalted in DFRPG? I'll believe it when I see it. Motes =/= Fate Points. How would you model Heavenly Guardian Defence? Or Infinite Archery Mastery? Or Wyld Shaping Technique? Or Harmonious Academic Methodology? And those are just Charms, not full characters.
Anyway, Tora looks good, albeit overpowered. Tora Smash is definitely more than one stunt, and the pantheon power really shouldn't be free.
And yes, I want to see more.
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I haven't any evidence to back that one up. It was not my idea. I don't know Exalted actually. Just saying. I should be fair on that. Sorry...
Tora isn't overpowered for our setting or for the balance of the game. It runs like a dream this way. Unstoppable (The pantheon power) is pretty much just exactly the same power as her pantheon had before translated into DFRPG (albeit we did NOT use the core book's pantheon power for Aesir in Scion because it was retarded. Our version was a fan-made power that was actually in line with all the other pantheon's purviews in power and usefulness).
All the Scions get one free pantheon power. It's not something they can choose and it's offset by the balance of being BOUND to their divine natures.
Essentially, they get some kind of support from their pantheon in the form of a very appropriate power. (Each pantheon has it's own specific power. No choices here. Senna, also of Aesir, also has Unstoppable. All the Greek Scions have "Arete" which gives +1 skill to a certain skill set.)
Tora Smash might be more than one stunt... Technically. But we did this for a very specific reason. It's because Tora works entirely off of her strength in a fight. One stunt lets you use Might instead of Fists or Weapons. Essentially, letting it be both was more of a flavor thing for her because she mostly just hits things with her hammer... but she's not particularly skilled with a hammer. There's just a lot to be said for a super-strong person hitting you with a hammer, however.
Anyway... it's just the two of us playing so as long as we're both happy with the power balance it's fine. I rather like how much smoother this runs than Scion though. :)
I'll post a few more then. :)
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One of my mate's scions...
Aaron Aristaeus ("The Best") (Pantheon: Dodekatheon(Greek)) (Pantheon Power: Arete: Combat (+1 to a specific Skill Set ))
High Concept: Scion of the Soldier (Ares)
Trouble: But War... War Never Changes
Other Aspects:
Raised in an Olypian Training Camp
Durendal - Blade of Roland
Master of Weaponry
Wants To Be A Hero
The Slayer of Canopus, Undefeated in Battle
Skills: (Cap: Fantastic)
6 Weapons
5 Athletics
4 Might, Discipline
3 Endurance, Conviction, Presence, Intimidation
2 Scholarship, Lore, Stealth, Survival, Contacts
1 Alertness, Performance, Rapport, Empathy, Driving, (Resources*)
*We didn't charge for Resources. They were just placed for free in the appropriate place, as long as they maintained the skill pyramid. This is because in Scion, resources are not paid for. They are just a part of the character's background. There are many reasons for this.... But anyway, just fyi.
Stunts and Powers:
-4 Supernatural Speed
-2 InhumanToughness
-2 Inhuman Strength
-2 Inhuman Recovery
-1 Any Weapon Will Do (Any attack can use Weapons at -1)
-1 Off Hand Weapons
-1 Wall of Death
-1 Armor Breaker (Negate 1pt Armor for Scene per Fate Point Spent)
Total 14 Refresh Adjustment
Notes:
Durendal: weapon 2+3
Desert Eagles: weapon 2+3
Thanatos bracer & boot blades: weapon 2+3
also: grenades, assault rifles, sniper rifles, etc
ballistic armor, armored trenchcoat, bracer & reinforced hag-toe boots
Stress:
P 6
M 4
S 4
Armor: 1+2 Physical
Consequences:
Normal
I'll also comment at this point...
We are more concerned with mimicking the same abilities they had in White Wolf and it running smoother than the overall power level.
Instead of refreshing at a rest however, they refresh off of something directly relative to their natures (As per refreshing Legend in Scion).
So for example, a rest doesn't give a refresh for Aaron. He gets a refresh when he truly excells at something.
Tora refreshes when she successfully defends someone. (This doesn't happen per enemy or anything. It's more like... when a refresh would occurr normally, they get one if they have fulfilled the requirement. Possibly during an ongoing encounter if something that REALLY DEEPLY fulfills their requirement happens.)
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Exalted in DFRPG? I'll believe it when I see it. Motes =/= Fate Points. How would you model Heavenly Guardian Defence? Or Infinite Archery Mastery? Or Wyld Shaping Technique? Or Harmonious Academic Methodology? And those are just Charms, not full characters.
You do it mostly by converting the Exalted setting, and ignoring the Exalted system. One billion unique and kludgy charms would indeed by difficult to directly convert.
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This one is one of mine. Kinda funny. He's a reincarnate of Ravana. (The Hindu Scions are considered to be reincarnations of the gods rather than children of them. This is extra funny because one of the other scions is a Scion of Rama. If you don't know, they're mortal enemies in the Hindu lore. Ravana totally stole Rama's girl. Protip: Ravana is typically considered a villain, except in Sri Lanka where he's considered a great ruler and generally awesome.)
A fun thing to know going into reading this one... He recently joined the Scion Band by double-crossing a guy he was originally helping to screw the Scion band over. He did this because during the part where he was supposed to be sabotaging a part of the Scion Band from rejoining the rest, he fell absolutely head-over-heels in love with Layla, the Scion of Anubis, a very innocent and shy Buddhist. (Yes, Scion of Anubis and Buddhist).
Samae Ravas (Pantheon: Brahmain (Hindu)) (Pantheon Power: Instant Karma *(Freely Tag an Aspect per Person Per Scene) )
High Concept: Sovereign Hedonist (Scion of Ravana)
Trouble: Layla's Chalk Line
Other Aspects:
Prince of Sri Lanka
Sword of Ravana
Playboy Charmer
Haters Gonna Hate
You Got Me On My Knees (Loves Layla)
Skills: (Cap: Fantastic)
6 Endurance
5 Rapport
4 Presence, Resources*
3 Weapons, Conviction, Deceit, Contacts
2 Discipline, Performance, Intimidation, Might
1 Alertness, Athletics, Driving, Lore, Scholarship, Empathy, Fists
Stunts and Powers:
-2 Inhuman Strength
+1 (Human Form)
-1 Cloak of Shadows
-3 Incite Emotion: Corruption
+Lasting Emotion
+Range
-1 Beast Change (4 arms)
-1 Inhuman Recovery
+2 Catch: True Heroism (Which is pretty rampant in this setting)
-2 Superhuman Composure
-1 No Pain, No Gain (+2 Mild Physical Consequences)
-1 Wall of Death (Spray Attacks with Melee)
-1 Lush Lifestyle (Resources at equal level)
-1 Sex Appeal (+2 Seduction)
-1 Shameless (+2 Mild Social Consequences)
Regain Fate: When someone learns by his example.
Total 14 Refresh Adjustment (Base 16. Samae was a little more powerful than the rest of the Scions due to story.)
Notes:
Sword of Ravana: Not an item of power. All it does is replicates itself into the hands of the wielder to fill all of their hands. So if he has 2 hands, he has 2 swords. If he has 4 hands, 4 swords. It's a cosmetic advantage. He could just carry more swords if he wanted. At least, it didn't seem worth making a whole item of power over. I was planning instead to possibly upgrade it when they get some more refresh awarded and thus have him to have unlocked some more of its powers via understanding and at THAT point make it an item of power.
Stress:
P 4
M 4
S 6
Armor: 2 Social Armor
Consequences:
+1 Mild Physical, +1 Mild Social
I do have the background sheet for him. (Yay!) But I'll note his back story wasn't as tied in with the others because he came into the game rather later on.
Background:
Phase Aspect: Prince of Sri Lanka
Samae was born Prince of Sri Lanka. He worked up a double as soon as possible and left him to officially rule the country in his stead. He still pulls some strings and he's rather wealthy from this background, however it's more likely to be used against him than for him.
Rising Conflict:
Phase Aspect: Sword of Ravana
Being the re-incarnation of a man said to have 10 heads and 10 sets of arms would kinda suck... unless you also had an artifact weapon that made all of those arms you'd inherited kinda useful. Maybe there's more to be learned of this item's power later on...
The Story: (First Adventure)
Phase Aspect: Playboy Charmer
Story Title: Bruce and Tony are My Homies
Guest Starring: The Ladies...
Samae's whole life has been an adventure. If by adventure, you mean sex. Samae is the ultimate lady's man. Cool, sexy, tall-dark-handsome and supernaturally desirable. Samae was born with a silver tongue, and he knows exactly how to use it. Puns all intended. He has spent most of his life to this point enjoying the luxuries of being a wealthy, attractive man.
Guest Star:
Phase Aspect: Haters Gonna Hate
Story Title: They See Me Rolling...
Whose Story? Who Else was in it?:
Samae is so used to people hating that he really just doesn't give a shit anymore. It makes it very easy to deal with criticism and to maintain a very high level of self-esteem when you've learned to let everything roll right off. Samae has no trouble shrugging a shoulder at the hatin'. It's hard to make him look the fool.
Guest Star Redux:
Phase Aspect: You Got Me On My Knees (Loves Layla)
Story Title: Darlin', Won't You Ease My Worried Mind...
Whose Story Was this? Who Else was in it?: Layla
And then... everything changed.
He was supposed to sabotage her group from making it to their destination and deliver one of her friends into the hands of one very villainous man... But there was just something in her eyes and the way she looked at him... Maybe he could be the settling type after all... Maybe.
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I suppose that converting the setting of Exalted is doable. But I think you'd lose the feel of the game, since so many setting elements are perfectly represented mechanically in Exalted.
Anyway, I probably shouldn't have used the word overpowered for Tora. It has pretty negative connotations, and I didn't mean to bring those in. What I was trying to say is that she's got more power than her refresh indicates.
Ironically, these guys are probably about as powerful as the PCs in my current game. Who had to pay for everything, and got more refresh to do so with.
By the way, I like this Refresh requirement idea.
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I should talk to my former-Scion-now-TORG storyteller about this. The DFRPG system would easily remedy the old Glass-Jaw Ninja issue we had with the Scion system.
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I think that while these characters would be considered overpowered if inserted in a standard DFRPG game, they are probably just fine in a DFRPG-powered Scion game, since the extra benefits (like the Pantheon power) are additions to *all* of the characters. Ie, the characters are balanced with respect to each other, not with respect to DFRPG characters. You could just as easily charge X refresh (whatever amount that is) for the Pantheon power, then give every character an extra X refresh, but why bother, if every character has that? Well, unless you wanted to mix characters from both systems into a crossover campaign.
Great idea! I hope it works out, and perhaps you could jot down a game summary or two some time...
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I should talk to my former-Scion-now-TORG storyteller about this. The DFRPG system would easily remedy the old Glass-Jaw Ninja issue we had with the Scion system.
I am not sure what you mean by a Glass-Jaw Ninja issue. Ninjas (being quite literally faceless mooks) are supposed to have glass jaws. I think that a god versus a horde of ninjas is supposed to be more a case of Mace Windu versus droid army rather than Malvora versus ghouls.
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Glass-Jaw Ninja is a term that describes a character that is ridiculously difficult to hit, but should you manage to make that hit, goes down easy. This is a common problem in White Wolf games because the stats and abilities used to hit/avoid being hit are the same while the stats and abilities to do damage/resist damage are different.
In our Scion game, for instance, everyone in the party had magically enhanced dexterity making it insanely difficult for us to hit and insanely easy for us to hit others, but none of us had magically enhanced stamina which made being hit a very bad thing or magically enhanced strength meaning that when we hit the bad guys (all of whom had enhanced stamina) we didn't do much damage. This made combat situations terminally long and boring.
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Instead of refreshing at a rest however, they refresh off of something directly relative to their natures (As per refreshing Legend in Scion).
So for example, a rest doesn't give a refresh for Aaron. He gets a refresh when he truly excells at something.
Tora refreshes when she successfully defends someone. (This doesn't happen per enemy or anything. It's more like... when a refresh would occurr normally, they get one if they have fulfilled the requirement. Possibly during an ongoing encounter if something that REALLY DEEPLY fulfills their requirement happens.)
So how many FPs do you get during a refresh? I really like this idea.
-EF
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Exalted is not that hard to mod to DFRPG here is an example of a charm I have done previously
Borders of Kaleidoscopic Logic Form (Requires: A 50 Refresh Sidereal)
-20 Refresh
When you spend a fate point you can do a mental attack on your enemy at weapons 20 (roll conviction) if the enemy is taken out they become a clone of you which you can control.
You see not overpowered at all ;)
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Becq: Exactly! Thank you for stating that! Since they all get a balanced free power, it's essentially the same as giving them all an extra refresh or two and a power bought with it. But instead, we just gave them the power since you also get that power for free in the game they converted from.
EldritchFire: Their refresh rate, naturally. It's just instead of receiving your refresh rate every time you rest, have long down time, etc... They receive it only when circumstances are appropriate. In other words, if you're a slowly budding godling, instead of needing only a good night's rest and a little time to get fate back on your side, you have to actually act the part of your godly nature to wrestle destiny back into your own hands.
It's a really good way to replace the mechanics of Legend and Nature from White Wolf. I honestly can't even remember Scion's natural rules on Nature (but everyone who's played any White Wolf Game will know what I mean when I say Nature). But we house-ruled a lot of things because Scion runs very wonkily RAW. So in our Scion, Nature was very important. Each Scion is bound to his nature. That nature COULD adapt over time as they learned and grew, but they will always be bound tightly to whatever their nature is.
So for example, as Tora approaches Demi-god status, she's learned more and more of the truth that the world isn't all what she imagined it to be when she was an innocent young farm-girl in Canada with her dad. People aren't as good-natured everywhere as she thought they'd be, not everyone will stand up and defend their bretheren, and her own gods, the gods of her father, the gods of her people, the gods she grew up believing in, believing were the examples of her world... They aren't all as nice as she had imagined. She'd glorified the Aesir in her head to these great heroic beings, all selfless and beautiful and wonderful in nature. She was wrong about them. Not because the lore on them is misleading so much as because her own heart has a tendency to hold belief of the goodness in others. As she's growing up a bit, and as Senna is doing her best to make sure Tora learns better, Tora's having to come to the hard conclusion that Odin is always out for himself, Frigga is a vindictive bitch, and her father, no matter how much she wants to believe he is nothing but a hero and awesome, has never given her any indication that he cares at all. Not easy for her. Senna feels Tora would be better off without the rose-tinted glasses when viewing the deities from whom she sprang... But Tora clings, childishly at points, to those cherished beliefs.
Now if Senna eventually manages to give Tora a proper lesson in Norse Gods 101, or if circumstances prove to Tora the things she's beginning now to slowly learn and fears are true... Her nature could change.
Hence, her current Trouble (Is This What's Right?) could change to something more appropriate for her at the time because she may not be as conflicted over morals at that point. Her high concept could even shift/adapt/change over time if the changes in her emotions/personality/morals are strong enough.
A random (off the cuff) idea of where it could go... (Because all Scions are destined to become Demi-gods and eventually even gods in their own right if they survive...)
Tora, Kin-Guardian (Goddess of protecting ones own)
Trouble: Can't Win Them All (In reference to the concept that as a god, she would have perhaps even an immense number of followers, and she can't literally be a guardian to each and every one of them all the time. Meaning she'd have to learn to let go of a little responsibility for everyone else in the world. Not easy for Tora. She's one of those... weight of the world on my shoulders types.)
Or if things go a bit darker...
Tora, Steel-Armed(Goddess of Strength, even Goddess of Strong Women)
Trouble: Win Them All (In reference to a deep-seated need to overcome all challenges.)
So in the one case, she'd continue refreshing at successful defense of someone, perhaps at some point that would particularly refer only to "her own" and not to just anyone. (Demi-god onward, it can get a bit more specific).
In the latter case, her refresh would have completely changed at some point and she'd have gone instead to refreshing when she overcomes a challenge (particularly a challenge to her strength, and that strength is not just physical).
My Scion of Morpheus, Eve, is more likely to go toward being a Goddess of Nightmares than anything. I think it'll be amusing when her refresh is something like "When she has inspired someone by causing them to face their deepest fears." or even "When she has enjoyed observing a really good fright". Lulz.
It's going to be extra fun in that one since Eve is so child-like... Children can be very cruel.
Again... in thinking of converting any system to another, you have to be willing to accept that you're not trying to get the same FEEL as the new system. You want to keep the FEEL of the old game, and use the new mechanics... So if this sounds like it kills the feel of DFRPG, that's kinda okay. We're going for the feel of Scion, but with a smoother session and more fun in combat. Because combat in White-wolf... well it sucks. (to me anyway) So it's okay if the refresh isn't really what it's supposed to be in DFRPG. I think the mechanic of giving a triggered refresh really helps us to keep the Scions in line with their natures which is supposed to happen (and it happens much more forcefully in Scion RAW... to a point I'd never want to play Scion Raw. The game controls your actions toooo much!). But Anyway...
I'm honestly just writing all this to share it a little and see if anyone else can enjoy the ideas or is inspired by this some. I'm rarely a contributor of original content to forums like these because I never know what to share... so I just decided to share my conversion kinda randomly. I'm glad if anyone can enjoy it.
Also realized last night I may have to re-write Samae just a little. He would work marvelously with a Feeding Dependency on Sex and Corruption. It would REALLY just fall right in line with his character and make a lot of sense. Really, though, I could imagine that given the nature and cause and purpose of Scions, that by Demi-god, they should ALL have a feeding dependency, at least a mild one, tied to their natures. By God, they should all have one that includes worship/belief. Something I need to toy with more, but it would really express them well.
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Glass-Jaw Ninja is a term that describes a character that is ridiculously difficult to hit, but should you manage to make that hit, goes down easy. This is a common problem in White Wolf games because the stats and abilities used to hit/avoid being hit are the same while the stats and abilities to do damage/resist damage are different.
In our Scion game, for instance, everyone in the party had magically enhanced dexterity making it insanely difficult for us to hit and insanely easy for us to hit others, but none of us had magically enhanced stamina which made being hit a very bad thing or magically enhanced strength meaning that when we hit the bad guys (all of whom had enhanced stamina) we didn't do much damage. This made combat situations terminally long and boring.
Oh, I understand now. I didn't quite have that problem at my table. Everyone had something that could neutralise an enemy (either via Mental or Social, if Physical was not the character's main shtick), and Epic Physicals were par for the course for the combat guys. At my table, it is implicitly understood that if you do not build your character for physical combat, the spotlight wouldn't be on you.
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We tried running through the Ragnarok scenario with a combat character, a social character and a mental character. There's really not a lot of mental or social interaction one can have with frost and flame giants, at least not in that setting.
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We tried running through the Ragnarok scenario with a combat character, a social character and a mental character. There's really not a lot of mental or social interaction one can have with frost and flame giants, at least not in that setting.
In Ragnarok, there isn't much mental or social interactions but stuff like Fight with your head and Blinding Visage should still work.
Which reminds me: How are you porting the various Knacks over to the DF rule set?
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We're not running any pre-made material. We run our own story.
As for knacks, we're not really. We're just porting our current Scion game, representing them as best we can with the mechanics available, just as we chose Knacks to represent them as best as we could when we were using that system. I don't port things piece by piece.
I can represent the same characters as still very much whatever they are without individually taking every single ability. Some abilities are very system-specific. For example, a power that let you gain a certain number of Legend couldn't port straight to gaining Fate. It's similar, but not the same thing. It could be represented similarly, but it's not the same exact thing.
Unless it's a signature power of the character (Like Tora's flight) I don't worry about it so much. She had "Raging Bull" for example in White Wolf, just because that was a way to represent that she just keeps going and doesn't go down easily. In DFRPG, it's just awesome to be able to portray this through her having a nice number of stress boxes and conditions instead. I don't have to make the exact same mechanic to portray it. I just render things to the base idea. Why did I give that Scion that power in the first place? What was I trying to portray? And portray it newly in DFRPG as I would if I were building the character for the first time.
Also, as for knacks in WW Scion... we often had no reason to take knacks except that the rules said we got another. Sometimes we'd stare at the list, sigh repeatedly and just end up shrugging "I guess I'll take that one... none of them are really that appropriate... but I don't want to short-change the character either..." or some such. I don't have to do that so much in DFRPG. If I don't need the extra points... I just get a higher refresh! :)
I love that.
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Interesting. My players often had a wish list of knacks to take after they increased their Epics. If none of the knacks are actually appropriate, then it may not be appropriate to improve that Epic attribute in the first place.
Taking your example of Raging Bull, instead of just portraying it as a way to keep going and not going down easily (which the Epic Stamina would have already done), it is a way to portray her as getting stronger each time she takes damage or in the case of DFRPG, it could be that each time she takes a physical Consequence, she gets a free tag on it (and Epic Stam alone probably means that no one can tag a physical Consequence to adversely affect her).
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I really like your suggestions.
In our case, it was more that the knacks weren't that great for the characters. We made some knacks up for ourselves because the list just wasn't that awesome.
Also, epics gave auto-successes and the like which made them worthwhile with the knack or without it. The knacks mostly weren't the main reason we went for epics. That was a way of showing a character was REALLY great in a particular stat.
I do like your idea for how to handle Raging Bull in DFRPG. :) I must consider that for future upgrades, mwaha!
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EldritchFire: Their refresh rate, naturally. It's just instead of receiving your refresh rate every time you rest, have long down time, etc... They receive it only when circumstances are appropriate. In other words, if you're a slowly budding godling, instead of needing only a good night's rest and a little time to get fate back on your side, you have to actually act the part of your godly nature to wrestle destiny back into your own hands.
Ok, I wasn't sure since both sample characters had the same refresh worth of powers. Since you didn't say what refresh you were starting with, I thought that maybe you had a set refresh like some other FATE games.
-EF
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Sorry EF! I didn't mean that to come off rude or anything.
They started at 15 R, 45 SP, Fantastic Cap.
A couple of scions had a slightly different Refresh depending on how far along they were on the track to Demigodhood.
Samae, for example, got 16. He's a bit more enlightened.
I'm currently writing up possibly the most interesting one to write... Kyoufuu Konnichihime, Scion of Amaterasu. She's actually a Demigoddess but she didn't comply with her mother's wishes for herself, and so her mother bound her powers down so that she's pretty much right back to Scion level. So in White Wolf she had a purview (custom made) that let her essentially stretch the binding a little and get a bit of her old power back (in the form of temporary buffs). I'll have to figure a way to do that in DFRPG. :)
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In Ragnarok, there isn't much mental or social interactions but stuff like Fight with your head and Blinding Visage should still work.
Yes, but if you're fighting a giant with epic toughness, you *need* epic strength to damage it. And if you have epic dexterity and your opponent doesn't, they will *never* hit you. Every combat we had came down to this. It wasn't SUPER ridiculous when we were able to use terrain against them (like collapsing a mine on the frost giants, f'rexample). But in a straight up fight: we could always hit them but not damage them and they could never hit us (but if they did we would be a smear on the ground).
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Sorry EF! I didn't mean that to come off rude or anything.
They started at 15 R, 45 SP, Fantastic Cap.
A couple of scions had a slightly different Refresh depending on how far along they were on the track to Demigodhood.
Samae, for example, got 16. He's a bit more enlightened.
I'm currently writing up possibly the most interesting one to write... Kyoufuu Konnichihime, Scion of Amaterasu. She's actually a Demigoddess but she didn't comply with her mother's wishes for herself, and so her mother bound her powers down so that she's pretty much right back to Scion level. So in White Wolf she had a purview (custom made) that let her essentially stretch the binding a little and get a bit of her old power back (in the form of temporary buffs). I'll have to figure a way to do that in DFRPG. :)
No worries, no rudeness came across! I just wanted to make sure I knew what was going on. I get lost and distracted very easily...hey, shiney! :p
-EF
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Yes, but if you're fighting a giant with epic toughness, you *need* epic strength to damage it. And if you have epic dexterity and your opponent doesn't, they will *never* hit you. Every combat we had came down to this. It wasn't SUPER ridiculous when we were able to use terrain against them (like collapsing a mine on the frost giants, f'rexample). But in a straight up fight: we could always hit them but not damage them and they could never hit us (but if they did we would be a smear on the ground).
That is mostly true but like I said previously, the characters in the band I was GMing for didn't have such troubles. Either they could "lock down" an adversary (Blinding Visage), or they could simply stealth pass the giants (eg. Epic Dex + Phase Cloak), or they had some way to damage bypassing the enemy's Epic Stam resistance (Epic Stam + Infect) or they had Epic Strength and Aggra knacks.
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Okay in dealing with Fuu (Kyoufuu menthioned above)'s interesting ability to break out of her mother's bindings and utilize a bit of her demi-goddess power, I gave her a very small, very cheap specific magic pool (like channeling) that lets her use self-only buffing effects (like shifts to damage and blocks etc) and nothing else.
As she grows in power and begins to fray that binding even more, I think that pool should grow, adding more functionality back in, until she hits Demi-goddess level at which point that power will be replaced with some of her actual abilities that have been locked away by her mother's binding.
I'm almost done with these! Just have a couple of npcs to finish now. Currently working on a really interesting villain. >:3