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Messages - Auronculari

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DFRPG / Re: Dresden Files RPG in New Orleans
« on: October 20, 2010, 01:09:57 PM »
I live in Baton Rouge, and I've just been voluntold to run a game set in New Orleans. Some of my quick notes on the setting are...

* Neutral ground: Jean Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop. It's one of the oldest buildings in New Orleans, and for a long time was run independent of the local powers because of Jean Lafitte's influence (he was a local privateer big-wig back in the day). It's also small, crowded, dark, musty, and thematically perfect for a hole-in-the-wall meeting place. Practically, you might have to invent a side room or second floor to segregate the supernaturals from the normal patrons, but that wouldn't be too hard.

* St. Louis Cathedral: I've been in there a few times, and I think it would be more interesting to have it be holy ground but not be controlled by anyone. A place of rest and temporary refuge, but not true safety.

* Garden district: This is a good place to have some sort of stabilizing, positive influence. This area is very near to some bad areas but is actually rather nice, leading nicely to a setup where something is protecting it against the corrupting influence of its surroundings.

* French quarter: I want this area to be *full* of stuff. You have neutral ground at Lafitte's, surrounded by White Court holdings, holy ground at St. Louis, graveyards infested with ghosts and/or necromancers, and tons of tourists just to make things interesting.

* Farther afield: Outside of the Quarter and the Garden district you have the Superdome (which I think should definitely be haunted or corrupt in some way after what happened there during Katrina), the remnants of Charity Hospital, and the CBD, which are all ideal settings to play into the overall theme of corruption.

* Antagonists: I've been working a few angles on developing antagonists. The Black Court (maybe even Mavra) may be trying to establish a foothold
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, while Ghouls are in the ruined areas of the Lower 9th and New Orleans East, possibly some Kemmler disciples and other dark sorcerers/wizards hiding in the shadows. The more ubiquitous, theme-level antagonists would include the White Court (primarily in the Quarter) and ghosts. I am intentionally avoiding the fae, because they don't suit the themes I'm going for, but I can see how they might fit into some games. Instead, the spirit world will be more strongly populated with ghosts and other spirits (especially Lwa), because I think they suit NOLA's character better.

* Allies: It would be foolish to ignore New Orleans's connection to Voodoo. Setting up the voodoo community as evil or corrupt is too obvious, though, and I thought it might be a bit flat. Instead, I'm going to turn the Voodoo cultural center and the current high priestess into New Orleans's version of Father Forthill - a strong, faith-based practitioner and servant to the Lwa. She can also be one of the links in the Paranet, holding the supernatural community together. The PCs will round out this category; I don't want there to be too many allies, or the game wont be as overtly corrupt as I'm shooting for.

I'm still working the details right now. Still though, I hope this helps. :)

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DFRPG / Re: Spitballing re: a Codex Alera RPG
« on: August 16, 2010, 08:34:22 PM »
Lord Riva is Lord Riva, why move him? You could say that Riva died without an heir and one of Bernard and Amara's Children was appointed HL Riva afterwards.

Aquitane needs a new HL... simply appoint one of the normal Lords to be HL.

Phrygia has an Heir, the Stammering Boy who impressed Tavi and Kitai so thoroughly, nobody would stand for Crassus being installed over him.

Crassus takes over Antillus... he is the legal Heir.

the others are free to be filled at leisure

All excellent points, and stuff I probably should have thought of myself. :P

I'll keep those in mind when writing the post-FLF history. They're definitely worth remembering.

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DFRPG / Re: Spitballing re: a Codex Alera RPG
« on: August 16, 2010, 08:32:36 PM »
To make a CA RPG, I'd just modify DFRPG Fate system.

Don't get me wrong: I like the Dresden Files RPG. I'm going to get myself a copy once I have the money, and I'm certainly going to play the heck out of it.

It seems an injustice to put a coat of spray paint on one fandom to support the other, though. Dresden and Alera are completely different in style and theme. Dresden is intentionally a world of greys, of blurry lines and moral ambiguity, where the hero is the hero because he steadfastly refuses to give in to the darkness all around him. Alera is a world of history and tradition where the law is the cornerstone of society, and being the hero means standing up for it against those who would twist it or use it for their own ends. Having no clear definitions makes sense in Dresden, because the world is so blurry and noir. Doing the same thing in Alera doesn't fit as well, though, because it is a world of definitions and castes and borders.

The world lends itself to classes and levels, so I figure why not use them?

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DFRPG / Re: Spitballing re: a Codex Alera RPG
« on: August 16, 2010, 05:55:58 PM »
In a feudal system its not really practical to take land away from a lord and move him. All the underlings are sworn to him and have loyalty to him. Land is granted to a man and all if his descendants for all time. Taking land, even to give him something better is a slap in the face.
 You can't practially move High Lord Riva, a lot of his power comes from the generations his family has built up connections in the area. Promotions are fine, promote the two you were going to put in Riva in Aquitaine, but a High Lord is technically a High Lord.

Yeah, you're probably right. This part's still being worked on. What I put up months ago was an earlier draft of the narrative post-FLF, which could probably be done better. That's just the results of a few days' brainstorming. :P

City dwellers should be Urbanus from the Latin for "city" not Civilus meaning "citizen".

Yeah, whoops. This comes from my not knowing Latin at all. Civilus sounds a bit better to me - the relation to 'civilized' makes 'paganus' sound slightly derisive by comparison, and adds a nice touch - but you've got a point.

I think the concept of level based games is a step backwards in roleplaying. As is being more numbers heavy with attributes and skills. Rather than having backgrounds, jobs, magic just give people points and let them build a unique character.

The market for alternative types of RPGs is certainly there and there's a great many folks who like them, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that role-playing in general is headed that way. D&D is still plenty popular, and it's completely level-based with a huge emphasis on numbers. People are writing non-level-based, non-numerical, high-story RPGs right now but most of those RPGs are also modern, punk, and/or noir, which naturally lend themselves towards that sort of system. Medieval epic fantasy is a completely different beast.

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DFRPG / Re: Spitballing re: a Codex Alera RPG
« on: August 16, 2010, 03:55:53 PM »
Okay, I've been working on this for a while and I think that I have a good core system worked out.

Character generation:

It's based upon a few different factors. You first choose a Background - Barbarus (foreigner), Paganus (country-dweller) or Civilus (city-dweller). That determines your starting Attributes, Skills, Merits, the Races you can choose from and the Magic you start with. Barbarus is the only Background that allows you to play as a Canim or a Marat. Paganus starts out with more Physical Skills and more focused Magic, while Civilus starts out with access to more Merits, Mental Skills, and access to a more diverse array of Magic. Once you've got that picked you figure out your Race (if Barbarus), then move on to Attributes and Skills. Like While Wolf, you divide up your dots in these within limits that your Background provides.

After that you choose your Job. There are 16 Jobs to choose from - 4 Warriors, 4 Rogues, 4 Scholars, and 4 Others. The Warrior Jobs are Soldier, Knight, Scout and Duelist. The Rogue Jobs are Thief, Spy, Mask (master of disguise) and Assassin. The Scholar Jobs are Academic, Arcanist (specialist in ritual magic), Politician and Legion Officer. The Other jobs are Tradesman, Merchant, Performer and Farmhand. They each give you access to Feats, and allow you to pick up new dots in certain Skills/Attributes.

After that you choose your Magic. Paganus choose two 1st level and two 2nd level magics. Civilus choose four1st level magics. Barbarus choose one 1st level and one 2nd level magic from their race's special magic, and two other 1st level magics from either their special magic or Furycrafting.

Finally, you choose your Creed. Your Creed represents the core value or ethos that your character follows. Every time you make a heroic sacrifice or reach a milestone for your Creed, you get a Hero Point. Hero Points can be spent to do Magics you can't normally do, refresh your energy, or do other appropriately epic stuff.

Character growth:

You grow by earning xp. As you earn xp you pass certain thresholds, where your character effectively "levels up." These happen at 10 xp (Apprentice), 30 xp (Journeyman), 60 xp (Hero), 90 xp (Master), and 120 xp (Epic). You can also spend the xp you earn to get new abilities, though. Experience can be spent to buy levels in a new Job, to buy new Magics, to buy new Feats, or to Upgrade Magics you already know to make your character better at them.

Magics:

There is no "spell book" for the Codex Alera. Each character crafts their own powers within the mechanical and thematic guidelines given. Each higher level power builds on a lower level one, ranging from something like fury-assisted acrobatics at level 1 to flight at level 3 to epic feats of windcraft at level 5. Each power can also be upgraded, to make it more effective without raising its level. In this way, being better at one use of furycraft is distinguished from knowing many different uses of furycraft.

There are also 2 racial magics for each non-Aleran race. The Marat have Sun Chala (which makes their Chala stronger) and Moon Chala (which makes them stronger in the vein of their Chala). The Canim have Red Sorcery (curses that feed on Hit Points) and Green Sorcery (blessings that feed on Willpower).

The World:
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There's still a whole lot left to do, but I have really enjoyed the effort and thought I'd share. I'm at the stage now where I'm playtesting the basics of the system with a few friends of mine. Unless somebody buys it (which I highly doubt) I'm never going to do anything commercial with it... but the idea has been burning up my mind for months, so I thought I might as well share my progress with you all. :)

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DFRPG / Spitballing re: a Codex Alera RPG
« on: March 31, 2010, 03:54:03 PM »
Fair warning to those still reading: much of this is spoiler-y, since it all builds on the end of First Lord's Fury.

Lately, I've had the idea of a Codex Alera RPG in mind rather strongly. So I've been working to develop a system and setting for it, to make it into something very much in keeping with the tone of the books but also new enough to be interesting for those already familiar with the series. I'd like to spitball some of the ideas I've got and see what y'all think.

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As far as the system goes, I think it would be best to do something entirely novel to try to capture the 'feel' of Alera better. I've been kicking around ideas for a composite system that's level-oriented but also based on White Wolf's 5-dot Attribute/Skill setup, although I've labored under the assumption that Mental and Physical would be the only categories. 6 Attributes per category - one tied to each element - would form the basic strengths and weaknesses of a character, while their learned skills would be defined by 18 different skills (9 each in Mental and Physical). Additional powers would come from one of three places: fury-crafting, class skills, and racial skills. Everyone would have the ability to Furycraft (though Alerans would be categorically better at it), provided that they had the right furies at their command. 8 character classes (Warrior, Soldier, Diplomat, Performer, Rogue, Hunter, Artisan, Scholar) would each get 1 signature skill that they could add to the sheet, which would give them special maneuvers and such related to their class's purpose. Racial abilities would break down to things like the Chala bond or Canim sorcery, each of which would provide new tricks signature to that race.

Each time a character gained a new level, one of their furies or their chala would also gain a level. This way, they get increasing advantages from their furies/chala over time, and there is a differentiation made between the paganus ways of steadholders (who often only have 1-2 furies of high level) and the more cosmopolitan furycrafters (who often have many furies, each of which is lower level), while the marat's chala grows in power right beside them.

I haven't figured out the details yet, obviously, but I've been kicking the idea around for a bit and it seems fun. What do y'all think?

Luke

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