Da Dominion: Home of DOMINIONCAST!

Remember the homebrew setting I was developing, The Jovian Chronicles? Wondered if it was just another of those “what if” masturbatory conceptualizing many designers do? Know how I’m always mentioning what a great GM I am? I’m starting a series here where I post the story summaries of our session for your entertainment and my own glorification.

Prologue: The PC’s are the survivors of the Europa Explorer, which crashed on in this acidic bog on this land they’ve never seen. Security specialist Jerrith, Engineer’s Mate Alan Hatchett and a ferret name Squeezil - now possessed of sapience - narrowly escape the sinking vessel with the aid of some small frenetic alien. They travel in a direction of the creatures insistence, having a close encounter with voracious native insects, and arrive in the home village of their savior, “Taka” she likes to be called.

Initial contact with Taka’s species proved hindered by the lack of communication. The females present readily accepted the child’s return, after her inspection. Jerrith’s innocent demonstration of his carbine put the mature agrarian males on the defensive, understandably. Alan’s analysis of their native tools revealed sophisticated machining and carpentry. The hoe’s head was apparently made of finely forged titanium, quite unusual for such a seemingly primitive people. Violence wasn’t the response, however the team was escorted to the village central plaza by a close contingent of the men.

The walk through the settlement attracted many onlookers and showcased the diversity of these aliens. All were of modest height and slender to wiry builds with finely scaled skin in earth-toned coloration from sand to slate with an iridescent sheen present in the light. Homes were plant fiber huts with ceramic mortar and woven mat doors. All in all, these beings were not much unlike pre-industrial cultures of Earth. Family based societal organization was observed. A lodge composed of several interconnected huts sat on the plaza, out of which issued three apparent elders bedecked in beads and ceremonially painted to show rank. The eldest invited them in.

The team participated in a ceremony led by the eldest in which they imbibed a strange beverage that had a strong adverse reaction to the two humans, though Squeezil seemed immune to the worst effects. The hosts tending to their sickness followed a throbbing headache and vomiting and now able to communicate with the team via some form of verbally initiated limited linguistic telepathy. They had been given “The Voice”.

The Erven are a simple people with a reverence for the preservation of nature whom toil essentially as peasant labor. Illiterate, they pass on treasured histories orally and don’t possess the “documents” (also a rough translation of the concept of technology). Apparent herbivores, without even domesticated animals, they are avowed pacifists whom highly respect life and are grateful for the care given to Taka. They have no concept of anything above the corusea (the sky spanning plasma phenomena) and very little of events on other shiffs (floating continent like land masses which emanate an anti-gravitational field and moving over some kind of field called the elemir). Skimmas are some kind of machine capable of navigating the space between shiffs, but the Erven have none.

There are other sapient species present in their world - “Others” like the Myessi and Cappodans are mentioned - but this village is under the “protection” of the Ceph Nior. A warrior race that is wary of threats and “takes life”, the Nior lost their homeland in a catastrophe and have warred over it with others. The crash landing of the Europa attracted Taka’s curiosity and no doubt would attract their overlords from a nearby outpost, perhaps arriving in a ryzma (local day measured by a full color cycle of the corusea, 30 hours).

The team considers leaving to spare the Erven the anger of their masters, but there is little place to go. The shiff is only 3 to 4 rymas wide on foot. It is decided that fealty must be sworn to the Ceph Nior when they come to prevent violence. In the meantime the team go about trying to share their advanced technical knowledge with their generous hosts. Alan attempt to improve their central irrigation pump. Jerrith shows how to form clay into bricks. Squee attempts to give them a language, but meets difficulty the telepathic nature of communication. Things are interrupted with the feared arrival of the lords.

Upon domestic riding beasts called striders, lithe quadruped saurian reptiles, a squad of Ceph Nior enters the village. More humanoid then the Erven, with hair and ears, their lavender hued skin features deeper pigmented striations and dark bony plates that can extrude from the skin to form a keratinous natural armor besides the leathery chitin armor they wear. Armed with halberd-like darglaives, the five receive the reception of nobility with the whole village of 80 turning out with offerings. A central figure in decorative amber colored armor holds himself as the commander. He immediately orders the team and the eldest into the lodge.

The team is interrogated about their home shiff, but being mystified as to where this realm is aren’t helpful. Offerings are demanded and replied with a candy bar, which the Ceph find not particularly good. The team is ordered to come with them when Taka comes running into the lodge, perhaps fearful for her friends, and his harshly struck by the officer for the disturbance. Noticing the team’s reaction, he wishes to further demonstrate his power and order the girl killed. Jerrith intervenes to offer him their only luxury in exchange for the child’s life, his vodka. Identifying the clear liquid as poison, and believing this to be an attempt at assassination, smashes it to the floor and orders his men to attack.

The elder spirits away Taka while the team fights to defend themselves. Jerrith gets to his hidden carbine and takes down one, while Squeezil surprises a second with a grievous bite to the neck. Angering the warrior, she runs to hide in a stack of rug rolls. The Nior return fire with their weapons, which project some kind of molten slug like a musket. Alan rushes a third but is easily repelled before having his legs sliced out from under him by a heavy darglaive swing. Closing to melee range the Ceph outnumber Jerrith. His gun stock a por match for their axe-like weapons. Turning with a blow to the back swings him into a hard blow to the chest - he succumbs to shock. Squee, swiftly moving to hide on Jerrith‘s person, is able to apply some bio balm to his wound but it’ll take a while to heal even with it‘s accelerated effects. Alan is given treatment by the officer, not wanting to loose his quarry so soon.

The warriors begin to bind their captives.

To be continued …

To be heroes protagonists need adversaries, really they do. No matter how much pocket change you drop in the Salvation Army bucket it doesn’t make you a hero, just an individual prone to guilt and a decent. Don’t go running off to stop gun-wielding muggers with your memorized Jet Li choreography - or at least leave your wallet with the charity Santa first.

There is the arduous quest across country to acquire some saving boon, but after a while inclement weather becomes boring in a story. If there was a blizzard - more blizzards is tiring. Sleet storm yesterday, you can’t believably have a heat wave the next day, nor a monsoon after that - unless the adventure takes place in Michigan. Vaudeville era weather jokes aside, protagonists need antagonist hate to become great. This is why gaming companies provide you with bestiaries and monstrosity laden manu … guidebooks for low cost, in the pursuit of fueling our hobby.

The real monsters wear suits.

Communist sentiment aside, some of the best villains do wear suits or other forms of opulence. This is just one of the several categories of death dealer. Let’s focus on the most common:

Dire Threat (pg. 243) There’s the creature entries from the danger book you’ve bought from the same company that published your game - like a dealer that sells pipes too. Where is the adventure set? Find creatures that live in that environment. Choose a few that are around the power level of your heroes. Put several of the weaker ones in the beginning, a few less of others about even with the party in the middle then the worst mafucka at the end with a few more of the weakest working with them. Warning: the Sorrowsworn Deathlord is not the best choice for all parties, merely a random coincidence of page 243 citation.

The story that links all of these encounters is beyond the scope of this article, but you can hit up the search function to find another article that does. The previous is the most basic method of creating enemies in a simple session. For more interesting encounters, we have to customize.

The Personal Nemesis. Choose one of your heroes to get reamed and create a character specifically for their weaknesses and durable against their strengths. It’s best to give the villain some motivation that isn’t personal - he got a scroll from the Evil Guild and took the assignment to kill the party. It just so happens that he trained his whole life to defeat the class of the target. Alternatively, and less cheesy, the hero character has been especially annoying in foiling neighborhood evil schemes and some mastermind is more than willing to pay extra for a specialist. A few extra coins for support minions to busy their friends is no big issue; the Evil Guild offers discounts on packs of six and twelve - a dozen for the price of eight once a month with coupon. Being specifically targeted by an adversary can give the hero a feeling of proud accomplishment - even when he’s bleeding.

The Mastermind. A villain for the long haul. This one gets made to be the most powerful enemy the party will ever fight. After they fight him, roll credits - campaign over. He’s got the connections to pull of everything and pay for those that will be dealing with the heroes one on one. For that extra touch make sure to kill any helpful NPC that the heroes may revisit; others will get the message. His whole organization is a ladder for the protagonist to ascend, without slipping on the blood to be shed. I believe it best to give this caliber of asshole some kind of twist. “I AM your father,” is a oldie but goodie but cliché - ey. One of the most inspired would be if your benefactor from the beginning turned out to be the mastermind, whom used the party to cull the weak from his herd - that’s pretty fucked.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if the Pope was behind it all? If under that dress, he was muscled up with glowing infernal tats and piercings? Predictable, but interesting.

Last Saturday I played in a game of Dark Conspiracy, a horror RPG set in a stygian near future that could be imagined to be the US after two more Bush terms.

The chilling mystery the party was involved in appeared to be a conspiracy to corner the boneless chicken market by adding a chemical to the feed that liquefied bones once exposed to certain radiation. Really.

There were also contaminated wild dogs that prowled the facilities fence poaching a few of the free-range birds. The dogs were basically regular dogs that became puddles of fur when killed - as they all were handily with standard issue shotguns. After securing some chemical reactants to the de-bone goop, a sample of contaminated chicken - with a biscuit and a side of slaw - and a swab of one of the alien’s … juices, we fled on ATVs without pursuit and fulfilled the minimum requirements of the mission.

Yeah, the game had some problems.

Before you laugh too hard, ridiculing reader, keep in mind that this GM only runs occasionally, not with our group in a while and is preparing to finish his doctorate. Many of you suck on a regular basis. Instead of picking apart this game with the cruel humor I routinely wield, let’s offer an ounce of prevention - the first hit is free.

What’s a GM to do? You’re the GM so you’re the storyteller, and storytellers are performers and performers work to elicit a reaction from their audience (the four to eight lazy fucks sitting around the table.) THAT LITTLE BITCH ANNE FRANK GOT WHAT SHE HAD COMING!! You had a reaction to that, hopefully negative, but you had a reaction. It’s simply a matter of evoking the desired feeling for the right setting. Horror: curiosity grotesquely building into fear. Action: a situation getting more and more fucked up. Intrigue: paranoia about relationships getting more and more fucked up and perhaps leading to … Action?!?

How’s the audience? Weeping, after catching a nice thick game book’s bound edge to the corner of their eye for not paying attention. You’re not a TV! TV actors get paid an assload! The most satisfying solution, but not the most effective. Check out each and everyone of your players - if they aren’t listening to what you’re saying or pondering what you just said, you’re not engaging them. Ask them to roll a check for something and if they roll well give them a hint of what’s going on beneath the surface, or a foreshadow of what may come. If they roll bad over describe something at let them wonder. Can’t come up with anything on the spot? Ask them something that makes them look at their character sheet. Don’t get caught up in any one player that may be super interested. It’s not an orgy, but all should be involved.

What’s going on? Given the definition of universe, characters are always somewhere. Define this nook of existence. They can’t see it, but you can and should relay it to them. Give a sentence each for every passive sense: sight, sound, taste/smell and feel in that order. Paint an image: “You hit him for 6 damage” or “Your blade draws a red ribbon of blood across his bicep, but he grunts with exertion whipping the wounded side away to jerk his own weapon forward”. Verb choice is key, although key is an adjective in this sentence.

This a style that works best for me, you - sadly - are not me. If you’re visual, watch a movie or TV show of the genre you run and pay attention to what the camera shows when. If you’re auditory, read a section of fiction that you’ve enjoyed. Listen to which words move you and how they form an image.

Every player you drive to MMO’s is one glob of spit on Gygax’s grave.

A half a month ago I started on this little project to update D20 Modern to the general rules philosophy of fourth edition Dungeons and Dragons - to the casual interest of a dozen readers. Tonight we will conclude the design.

“What the hell does it matter? The Vancian magic system has been great for the past 30 years.”

No, grognard, it fuck’in sucks.

For the newb, let me explain this system in brief. You‘ve got a book full of cool spells/powers with various effects. Every day you have prepare your spells, meaning you’re game avatar/character must memorize most of the elaborate stuff that goes into actually making the magic work when you need it. Based on you’re level of magic awesome, you can prepare X amount of spells. When/if you need a certain power - like throwing globs of hot acid at a Troll or needing to run away like a cheetah when it doesn’t down the monster - you cast the spell, it does something, then you forget the spell completely. If you’ve prepared it again you can cast it again; if not, you’ll need a night’s sleep to be able to prepare it the next day.

Thank you non-gamer for reading that. Let’s illustrate using popular fiction: Gandalf from the Lord … that’s reaching too far maybe … Neo from the Matrix has got sweet ass powers cause he knows the Matrix is a big fucking video game and he OWNS at fuck’in video games. Neo beats up fifty Agent Smiths then … he takes a nap? Nah. Like any special power hero he does something kind of cool all the time - besides boning Trinity - like reading small patterns in the Matrix. Mr. Anderson every few scenes can do something really badass, say fly like Superman. Once per movie, Neo can do the absolutely awesome: come back from the dead, resurrect somebody he loves, or reboot the whole damn corrupted Matrix from the inside out.

This is how fourth edition D&D breaks down power usage into at will, per encounter (scene) and per day powers, which are concisely described in a paragraph or less on a little card you refer to. The old way looks decent on paper but can suck 15-30 minutes out of the game time with player research on what they should prepare or looking up a short article on exactly what the power can do. Example: third edition Web spell and fourth edition Web spell. Which game looks easier to break into for RPG-curious readers?

Here’s how we work it for D20 Modern

Three new talents open to all classes are created to reflect training in the three power categories of Arcane magic (esoteric equations), Divine magic (prayers to a higher power) and Psionics (mental powers). Whenever you take the talent, available every odd level starting at one, you gain access to a certain number of powers/spells equal to your relevant ability modifier (Arcane - Intelligence, Divine - Wisdom, Psionics - your highest modifier) plus 1. These are chosen from the power lists in the D20 Modern Core Rule book. .

The highest-level power you can choose from is half your character level rounded up for Arcane and divine casters, rounded down for Psions. You must have one more lower level power than higher level powers: if you get three powers, to have one power at level 1 you must have two powers at zero level. Your lowest level powers are usable at will, the remainder are usable on a per encounter basis (you’ve got to take a short rest before getting them back). Once you get access to level 2 powers, the zero level are yours at will, the middle levels beneath your maximum allowed level are encounter frequency and the highest level you have access to are available once a day.

Instead of targets rolling saves versus the power’s effects, the user rolls a check with their relevant ability versus the target’s Defenses to determine if an ability works.

There we go. A happy ending to a prolonged rules rub down without the sticky hands afterwards.

WAIT!!!

Before you tabletop d20 role-playing game non-fans conclude: “Ah, another uber nerdy D&D treatise that even I‘m too cool for,” then leave this article like you would an undesired plate of free Brussels sprouts (another rare taste craving), let me explain the importance of this hobby - and apologize for not reaching out to you whom don’t role play sooner. I should have revealed this Truth long ago.

Games are exercises in strategy creation to serve esoteric goals, getting the most players across home plate or owning the most property and board assets in Monopoly. The rules of the game are the parameters under which these methods of success must obey, no knocking out the umpire and having the bench merely cross home in a single file line nor snatching all the cards and plastic houses/hotels from the box top when know one is looking - you cheating bastard.

Role playing games (RPGs) are aimed at the mysterious objective “fun” by means of collaborative story creation, often tales emulating the action movie genre, with rules that set how certain events in the narrative can happen. The rules represent conventions of the genre that permit what a story can do. Your elf wizard can fly, if they know and cast the right spell based on their class (um, think job description) and level in that class (abstraction to represent their expertise in their job field). They are meant to convey a certain versimilatude or realism to the stories created, although you don’t risk being a raped by a dragon to move up - this is just a game, the professional world holds far worse violations.

So RPGs sit between the make believe games of children as a sort of improvisational theatre mediated by limited options like poker card combinations or allowed maneuvers on a basketball court. I’ve described it to non-gamers as being like chess where every piece has a background and ever move forms a movie scene, mostly eliciting polite changes in topic at best and accusations of Satan worship at worst - either way the odds of a second date take a sizable penalty under the rules of social life.

When rolling a d20 (twenty sided dice) to decide your chances of date two the average roll is 10, 1 is horrible “I’ve gotta go; please don’t ever call me” and 20 is superb “Let‘s take this to my place“, such a statement subtracts 8 to10 from your roll making the average response “You‘re not really my type; does eHarmony give refunds?“

It’s called “game” for a reason.