Magic_Octopus
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 11
Preferred Game Systems: GURPS, Earthdawn
Currently Running: Earthdawn 3rd Edition
Favorite Species of Monkey: Sunda slow loris
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Post by Magic_Octopus on Feb 3, 2017 11:48:37 GMT -8
Cool. I agree that it is perhaps best to just hand out the info. Now I am thinking to reveal the place of the tomb first, and nudge the characters to start the journey to the jungle. The make additional reveals on the way. Good idea or not?
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Magic_Octopus
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 11
Preferred Game Systems: GURPS, Earthdawn
Currently Running: Earthdawn 3rd Edition
Favorite Species of Monkey: Sunda slow loris
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Post by Magic_Octopus on Feb 3, 2017 11:10:17 GMT -8
Any suggestions on what kind of information?
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Magic_Octopus
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 11
Preferred Game Systems: GURPS, Earthdawn
Currently Running: Earthdawn 3rd Edition
Favorite Species of Monkey: Sunda slow loris
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Post by Magic_Octopus on Feb 3, 2017 10:40:14 GMT -8
One of the characters can read the books, although it is difficult. He needs to succeed in a difficult check, and each attempt takes a day.
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Magic_Octopus
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 11
Preferred Game Systems: GURPS, Earthdawn
Currently Running: Earthdawn 3rd Edition
Favorite Species of Monkey: Sunda slow loris
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Post by Magic_Octopus on Feb 3, 2017 10:21:15 GMT -8
Need some advice! Due to my shoddy preparation during our Earthdawn campaign I have put myself in a situation where I need outside input.
The characters are on a quest to find out what happened to this legendary troll conqueror, Sonia. They have Sonia's 3 diaries. What happened was this: Sonia had a necklace that gave her tremendous power, but also contained a Horror demanding innocent souls to torment. Slowly all Sonia's loved ones fell to the Horror, while Sonia's expeditions were successful and her domain grew. Finally, she wanted to end it all. She sacrificed her own soul in order to lock herself with the horror within the neclace, trapping both of them within. But slowly, in the span of hundreds of years, the horror has managed to influence people outside, and cult worshipping the horror has formed outside Sonia's tomb in the middle of a jungle. The diaries contain a ritual spell that will free the horror from containment, and the cult is looking for the books.
What I should've done is have different adventures for the characters to discover the 3 books, and thus slowly revealing the plot. When they would've gotten the last book, they would've known where to go and what to do.
But I messed up and now they have all the books. They are written in an ancient troll dialect, so it'll take a while for the characters to read them.
What should I do know? I would not want to reveal the plot right away. What I would like to do is have the characters go on adventures, slowly edging towards a conclusion of this campaign. My only idea is to have someone (clueless) steal the books and sell them to different customers, forcing the characters to recover them.
Any better ideas/advice?
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Magic_Octopus
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 11
Preferred Game Systems: GURPS, Earthdawn
Currently Running: Earthdawn 3rd Edition
Favorite Species of Monkey: Sunda slow loris
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Post by Magic_Octopus on Apr 29, 2016 0:10:23 GMT -8
It is one of the best RPG books I own. So far, I've only used it for the syntactic magic system when I ran GURPS Shadowrun. The player requested a more freeform system. One of my long term goals is to create separate magic systems for mages and shamans in the Shadowrun world. I'm not very familiar with Shadowrun, except for a super-basic word association vomit (Shadowrun--runner?--fantasy races back? -- magic and tech? -- giant ass corps? -- dragons? See?) Do you have any idea which system(s) you want to use for mages and shamans? In Shadowrun, mages are your classic bookish wizards. They have libraries and base their magic on learning. Shamans have "totems" (powerful animal spirits) that give them power, and the shamans are nature oriented magicians. The shamans also adopt the personality and sometimes even the appearance of their totems (e.g. rat, dog, cat etc.) Mages can summon elementals while shamans work with localized nature spirits (for example, a house might have its own spirit). In my Shadowrun the syntactic magic system is a nice fit for mages. It is kind of an amalgamation of flexibility and predictability. I would make the elemental summoning just another magical working (spell), like it is in the default magic system. With shamans, the focus would be summoning nature spirits. Rather than casting spells, they would harness the power of spirits to create magical effects. I haven't thought this out yet, but it would probably work with the ritual path magic system. In the game I ran previously, when the shaman summoned a spirit there was a negotiation. The spirit wasn't automatically a slave for the summoner, but rather the shaman would have to communicate with the spirit in order to persuade it to give services. Now, the attitude of the spirit was generally positive towards the shaman, but I liked to keep things a bit unpredictable. I also liked to give the spirits some personality.
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Magic_Octopus
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 11
Preferred Game Systems: GURPS, Earthdawn
Currently Running: Earthdawn 3rd Edition
Favorite Species of Monkey: Sunda slow loris
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Post by Magic_Octopus on Apr 12, 2016 1:13:10 GMT -8
It is one of the best RPG books I own. So far, I've only used it for the syntactic magic system when I ran GURPS Shadowrun. The player requested a more freeform system.
One of my long term goals is to create separate magic systems for mages and shamans in the Shadowrun world.
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Magic_Octopus
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 11
Preferred Game Systems: GURPS, Earthdawn
Currently Running: Earthdawn 3rd Edition
Favorite Species of Monkey: Sunda slow loris
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Post by Magic_Octopus on Nov 10, 2015 0:30:27 GMT -8
I haven't played or read the 4th ed. But I've read enough about it to know that it is basically the same system as the previous editions, only a refined version. It's probably the best iteration of the system. If you read the designer notes at Panda Gaming Grove you will find plenty of well reasoned posts on how the game has changed.
The game isn't complete yet, because the GM's guide isn't yet out. It will be soon, though.
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Magic_Octopus
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 11
Preferred Game Systems: GURPS, Earthdawn
Currently Running: Earthdawn 3rd Edition
Favorite Species of Monkey: Sunda slow loris
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Post by Magic_Octopus on Aug 13, 2015 3:59:43 GMT -8
Making characters JUST using Central Casting sounds crazy to me. We always created characters first, and then used CC to create a background. If something didn't fit we rerolled. It's by no means perfect, but as far as I know the only system neutral random character creation system.
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Magic_Octopus
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 11
Preferred Game Systems: GURPS, Earthdawn
Currently Running: Earthdawn 3rd Edition
Favorite Species of Monkey: Sunda slow loris
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Post by Magic_Octopus on Jun 16, 2015 2:17:59 GMT -8
I can't believe Stu didn't recommend GURPS for Twilight 2000. I think it would be ideal. GURPS is at its best with modern settings.
Magical items: A big part of the setting of Earthdawn are the magical items. You can imbue them with more power as you gain levels, essentially leveling them up as you go. This encourages you to stick with the same sword for a long time, instead of going shopping every time you gain a level.
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Magic_Octopus
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 11
Preferred Game Systems: GURPS, Earthdawn
Currently Running: Earthdawn 3rd Edition
Favorite Species of Monkey: Sunda slow loris
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Post by Magic_Octopus on Jun 2, 2015 3:15:28 GMT -8
Regarding GM screens: I only have experience with the GURPS 4th edition screen, but that has been very useful. I constantly use the hit location chart, size/range table, reaction roll table, horror check table etc. But I do have the same problem that Stork has that I often forget what is on the screen.
If I were to design a GM screen, I'd have a space for the characters' perception stats that would be easily modifiable/erasable.
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Magic_Octopus
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 11
Preferred Game Systems: GURPS, Earthdawn
Currently Running: Earthdawn 3rd Edition
Favorite Species of Monkey: Sunda slow loris
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Post by Magic_Octopus on Dec 16, 2014 3:59:19 GMT -8
I'm running a GURPS Shadowrun game for three players. The characters are brothers. The premise is that the youngest character had to take a loan from the Yakuza in order to finance his attempt at pro football. That failed, and now he only has the debt. He asks his brothers to help, and with the guidance of their ex-mercenary uncle they are starting a Shadowrun career.
Because the idea is that they are new to the business, they've only done low level runs so far. And I had a Mr. Johnson screw them over, just to teach them something about the importance of legwork and trust in the criminal world.
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