Eleven Samurai

 I just finished this movie a while ago. Very good stuff, the kind that gets me on the GMing mood.

 Some usable ideas:

 1. The whole movie is a very interesting plot hook: The spoiled brother of a Shogun kills a random peasant; the local lord recriminates this behavior and the Shogun's brother kills him too. The lord's clan wants revenge, but the Shogunate wants to incriminate (and expoil) the clan themselves so they don't lose the moral authority for having such a psychotic member on their family. The PCs (eleven samurai) want to vindicate this injustice, 

2.  Cannons can be made from bamboo. Easily enough, it seems, to prepare an ambush with a day of anticipation. Also cutting some trees and dropping them at the precise moment can split a retinue in two. 

3. One of the samurai is a woman who comes to the party to replace his dead brother. It seems to me a very original background. It also made me wonder how exploitable it is, on historical or other settings in which women are not expected to be warriors, to present yourself as a harmless lady and avoid all attention in ways that veteran men with the 100 yard stare cannot; while having by rules the same combat stats. Even if it happens one time in a hundred, the existance of this unexpected warrior women can entice superstition and legends; maybe granting them a name (kunoichi or something like that) and place on the world's inner bestiary.

 4. Its surprising how the whole movie, set as it is on the XIX century, features katanas, bamboo cannons and some bombs as the only weapons (and some bows on the hunting scene), It this were an rpg everybody would wear at least leather armor. Feudal japan seems like a pretty lawless place to the point that a trifle involving lords and high nobility seems a little like a street gang war. Special importance is given to the Chambelains of both nobles, so probably is a good idea creating interesting assistants when making noble NPCs. Technically is easier for normal PCs to interact with those intermediaries than with the nobles themselves, so giving them depth will make them easier to portray and easier for the PCs to find ways to interact with them meaningfully. 

5. At some point, there is a scene where people is inside a cabin while some stalking group is outside hiding in the rain. In a game this would not be an important fact, but in real life, every minute spent in the cold rain decreases the pursuers health and energy, while the people inside recovers hp. However, getting into the cabin and making fire is a tricky choice when you are being pursued. I really must make things like rain matter on a game. If I was running a campaign and I cannot transmit the importance of "thinking as humans" on a situation like this, I would fail as a GM. Be it rolling for rain damage or something. In fact, I think this kind of situations can be as interesting as combat if not more, if done well.

 

 

Vampires and Crosses

Dracula has been my summer book. I had read it long ago, in my goth days; but only now have I "lived" it. Back then, I was probably dissapointed because "the movie was better" and because there was no Lestat on it. Warning: I'm not sure if this post is about rpgs at all. 

But now, let's admire the fact that all the old D&D books put a crucifix or two on their equipment lists. I had a player ask me recently: If I have a crucifix, it means that Jesus existed on some form in this world? 

I answered: yes. It's something a bit strange and that I don't know how to elaborate, but even though the healer priests on the cities are always female, the clerics themselves in the end behave like chistians deep down. They have white magic beacuse they channel the good god's will. But if a cross works, and specially if it works on the hands of the most alignmentwise neutral of the laymen, is because there is a Jesus there who died for our sins. 

Nowadays, the cross is not on the list; it just says "Holy Symbol", and is meant to be something the cleric uses to turn undead. There is a current on vampire-related media that says that is the faith on the Holy Symbol, not the symbol, what repels vampires. I do not think so. 

If we analyze deep down what is the core nature of the vampire, their key trait is not the sunlight weakness (actually, on Bram's Stoker book, it just removes the vampire's powers) not even their undead. The important thing is that they feed on the living to overextend their unlife. They should have died long ago, but they want to "abuse" the gift of life by stealing it from somebody else. Paradoxically it doesn't really work, as they are by their very nature uncapable of truly live. 

Jesus, on the other hand, gave his life. You might say he died for "us"; that he died for his passion or for the great work. The sight of a cross puts the vampire face to face with their sin, and the shame that they try to drown in lust and cruelty is then violently exposed; rendering him paralyzed by the small part of yang inside the yin that is their dark nature. All of this happens mostly subconsciously, and most of them only rationalize as "this cross burns"

 

You can see how in his eyes, the cross draws the sight of the true life he craves; the acceptance of the kingdom of heaven inside one. Yet that life is forever banned to him, enacting a mockery of it instead. 

It could be argued that other deities can achieve the same effect too, of course, but not just any. Archetypically speaking, Jesus is a "Sun" type god, so maybe its a good idea to search in that direction. I love comparative mythology but I am a christian and my knowledge is better on my territory. I am sure that your average buddha has reached enough understanding of love, surrender and devotion that could turn a vampire without any symbol at all. But Jesus could make it so every peasant could have a vampire-repellant cross in their drawer beside the bed (Thats why non-clerics can use crosses in D&D against vampires) 

I think that Ghouls could also be affected depending on their nature. However, turning zombies and skeletons is different. They are not sin-driven creatures, but rather puppets of one.

 

Ryuutama's Weapon Types

If you haven't read about it, Ryuutama is a pastoral japanese RPG about travelling and living small adventures under the protection of some dragons called Ryuujins. While I love the concept, the system seems a little clunky to me by reading alone. Still, I love how it condenses the whole of the possible weapons into six categories:

 

 

 

 

It made me reflect on how our classic visions, inherited from D&D, base weapons on their interaction with different armors; which is logical in a game that was born from a wargame. Ryuutama shows that weapons can be classified using a different paradigm. Maces are ruled as axes as per the rules if I remember well (weapon with low accuracy that benefits from strength). I think that Light Blades are sort of redundant: a knife can be used as an improvised weapon. Instead I find one-handed or versatile spears somehow forgotten in this aspect.

 

I am already creating this autumn's new game for my group, I am focused on not doing any D&D derivate and go fully into my JRPG autism. Surely I will de-emphasize armor and do something very similar to this.

 

Fantasy Dog Breeds

Dog chad

 

Last year I went into the rabbit hole of reading about the history of hunting and dog breeding (fascinating topics, alongside a personal favorite being the domestication and integration of the horse in human life)

TLDR: 1. Medieval dogs breeds were radically different from today's and 2. There is no reason to think that in a made up world with monsters and magic there would be the exact dog breeds we have today. 

 Frequently I ponder on what would happen if I gave all good sighthounds in my world the ability to blink, as their species were breed out of blink dogs. The impact on the gameplay is minimum, but the impact on the world and its implications is sublime. It's got weight. It tells you straight away that this is not earth, this is something else. 

 At first I thought I would write some deep-thought dog breeds for trow fortress. Not today: I'd rather have you do it. 

Roll 1d6 to find the dogs HD. 1 HD is a purse dog, 6 HD is a scary dog. 

If you want, roll another 1d6 to see how well adapted is the dog to the current area or climate. If you don't have a game, use your real life location. On a one, is not suited to the place at all. On a six, it will struggle living anywhere else.

Interpret results alongside this table: roll 1 to 4 times and tell me what kind of dog you got. Do you think is it very popular in your world? rather unique or useless? you can roll separately for the breed traits and for those which are specific to a given animal.

 1. Sighthound: this dog is all speed and will pursue prey by visual tracking.

2.  Scenthound: this dog has a specially gifted smell sense, and can be trained to detect a specific one.

3. Pointer: this dog will subtly point towards his target without alerting it

4. Retriever: this dog is trained to retrieve and bring game or other objects

5. Water dog: this dog performs quite well on an aquatic medium.

6. Shepard: this dog is trained to drive and control cattle.

7.  Terrier: this dog is trained to find and storm burrows, of a size adequate to the dog.

8. Spaniel: this dog knows how to flush game out of his hideouts, towards the hunter at least.

9. Tough: This dog has increased attack rate for any reason, and +1 HD

10. Kawaii: This dog is considered cute by most, and/or has a unique beauty.

11. Strange: This dog is good at detecting the unseen, ghosts and other paranormal things, great empathy also.

12. Nervous: This dogs are very playful and seldom quiet; will bark for anything.

13. Guarding: This dog is naturally loyal and brave.

14. Obedient: It is very easy to teach tricks to this dogs.

15. Emo: this dog likes to be alone and is very hard to grab his attention.

16. Crazy: this dogs are very possessive with their master or their territory, normally very annoying otherwise.

17. Sickly: this dogs need specific care or diets in order to remain healthy, not suited to adventure. -2 HD, to a minimum of 1.

18. Clumsy: either short legged, too long, too heavy or any other thing that lowers their DEX.

19. Magical. they have one magical power proper of a spell, a monster, etc. This propierty is very patent.

20. Subtly magical: as the previous one, but the power is not obvious at first sight, or maybe ever. 

 

Lets do the first one to test it: This is the dog you see it's being sold at the equipment shop, 1d12 of them.

3 HD (as big and strong as a fox)

Adaptation to temperate spanish levant: 4. Probably a versatile race. 

10, 11 and 5: These are some Kawaii and empathic friends who also love to play on the multiple irrigation ditchs in the area. Their hair changes significantly from black to sky blue when wet. They lack an obvious utility but the seller says they can wake you up if they detect you are being target of a magical attack in your sleep. 

 

 

Artemis and her blink dog - A. Wurts

 

Four Styles of Hunting

Currently dropped the shadowrun campaign for the summer. I'm thinking again on old ideas as a GM, and into the Trow Fortress thing.

In the middle ages of our games, you can find 4 major types of hunting:

1. Traps

This one is perpetrated by kobold societies, mostly. This skillful little people play the role of peasantry in this universe. Trapping rabbits or even bigger stuff puts meat on their tables when there is game around. The noble Trow can put these too, of course, helped by their kobold courtesans. But they will only use this methods if there is some major necessity to exterminate a pest such as wargs, never for food or pelts. For example, in real life, wolves were lured with bait into merciless hooks tied to trees. 

 

 

2. Bow + Stealth, in any proportions. This is mainly used by elves, which more or less live for and by it. Of the three races, elves are the most prone to use poison. Kobolds can also practice this discipline by taking advantage of their stealth bonus, but with shorter range bows or slings and aiming for smaller game. They make for good poachers, too; though of course, hunting or even being caught with a bow in somebody's woods is a good way to get a ticket for being hung alongside the wolves (as an interesting note, 1/3 of all england was considered at a given time to be Royal Woods). Trow can, of course, hunt with bows and even crossbows; unless they want to hunt in a more "social" way (see below)

3. Trained Animals

Falconry, often combined with horses and or dogs, is a staple for Trow houses that settle the prairies. The type of bird used is a symbol of status: hawks for the lesser nobles, falcons of varying colors for the greater; rocs of different sizes make good gifts for Lords and Kings, even if they are unwieldy to use. The advantage of birds is that they have massive reach and speed, and can fetch prey who is already flying or swimming on the water.

Dogs are also appreciated for all their obvious skills. There is an upcoming post about dog breeds! I should write it at anytime, THIS YEAR. But lets not forget about ferrets and moongoses, used by kobolds mainly, but are also a favorite of Trow kids.

Elves never use animals for hunting. They embody the animal instead.

 4. Hunting Par Force 

 This is a great rite that can take one day or more. Only big game is hunted this way; deer, boars, bears or higher (its a fantasy world, go wild) 

The Lord of a land sends invitations to a group of nobles to participate into it from time to time. This serves many purposes: the first one is, of course, the social function: there was no Whassap groups or MSN in the middle ages, so this served to check on everybodys disposal and their overall strength: How well can X ride at his age? How strong are his sons? I wonder if he will bring that hot concubine from last year. Lets check on Y's loyalty; is he too flattering or on the contrary, is he disrespectful? let's propose Z an alliance to invade X's lands, and maybe arrange some matrimonies. 

Everybody could seize this chance to do the same, should they attend.

The second purpose was to train the green young warriors: for that day they would do for the first time many things that they would later do in war: tracking, chasing, riding in armor into a pack of unknown men. One or two groups of riders had to circle behind the selected prey and push it towards a third group using dogs and, sometimes, bows or javelins; so the third group would meet the animal tired and debilitated, with little HP. Then a man would battle the animal 1v1 in melee using a sword or a spear; and then blowing a horn in respect to the deceased beast (it was, however, considered disrespectful when killing female animals unless they were wolves)

The third function was obviously to display and test one's power. 

 I like to run genre-appropiate social situations and in the last campaign, the PCs killed a king in the middle of one hunt, after scanning the loyalties and gaining the favor of a group of nobles. 

 I want to run more huntings, of all four types when appropiate, as I want to focus from now on on the more boring parts of an adventure. I want to make slice of life interesting, if you want to put it that way. I have learned that is not hard to do with the right group, as the shadowrun campaing has taught me. Still, I want to make a list of things to do to spice up a hunting session. Of course, players that investigate correctly should know about the twist prior to the hunting; much more when I have habilitated scrying spells being somewhat common: it is easy to find somebody in this world to lend you a cryptic oath. (More on this on next entries)

1. The animal being tracked is actually a witch shapeshifting as an animal.

2. The animal is cursed by a demon and is very dangerous to tamper with

3. The animal is actually divine and will put a geas on one or more of its harrasers, probably the killer. 

4. Elves are angry about the whole hunt. They cannot fight the whole squads but will attack small groups or men that separate from the party.

5. Somebody's kobold is trying to sabotage somebody's performance subreptitiously, maybe YOURS. Drugging your horse, blunting your arrows or similar. Make up something based on the NPCs personalities. 

6. Something is dangerous at the forest and nobody told you. Quicksand, a deadful canyon, a river to be forded.

7. More monsters than the tracked one are nearby

8. Something magical is happening in the forest. Maybe there is a sleeping spell around a clearing and it makes your group to fail finding the prey on time.

 9. and more to be added.

 

 

Shadowrun dreams (player POV session reports)

My last Shadowrun session (I am playing a campaign as a player after YEARS) is still fresh and I am so hyped right now. My samurai elf has chromed the last part of his body before going below the critical Essence threshold that can get you easily into cyberpsychosis: now I have nightvision, legs with enhanced jump, some body armor and a retractile blade on the arm, alongside the big tits with white led nipples.

The GM runs the game without the book at hand, he seems to make up most of the things and is actually very forgiving, I am sure he has spared my character from death at least once or twice (I made it clear that I was ok with rolling another character after that battle on the morgue, but he rolled something in secret and some random doctor there attended me miraculously). 

As a very succint summary of the campaign: one elf, one dwarf and two trolls were hired by a fixer to find the assassin of his friend. The leads took us to another city, where somehow we joined a gang that was the most probable perpetrators, and escalated slowly into the ranks. In our first mission, we were requested to scare some homeless away from a metro station, as they were interfering a bit with the drug dealers there. After a bit of negotiation, I hurled one of them under a train, and told the rest that I would do the same every day until they all left. The next day they rebelled on me, and I killed them all, soaking the katanas in the blood of old, sick and/or mostly disarmed men and women. That brought me a lot of respect in the organisation, but I knew my character was only pretending being heartless to himself. Little by little, the lawful in me got into the elf.

After weeks investigating, we found out that a high-rank member of our gang, a doctor, is using a fully chromed berseker to kill people and record it on BTLs (some kind of videos that are filmed through the eyes of a person, in this case, the assassin), and then sells them in the black market. We soon found out that it was the lead that hinted to our "main mission" which was almost forgotten at this point. My dwarf friend achieved for us a trial to work for the doctor personally, as assistants. We only had to undertake a simple mission of slaying a family who had a money debt with our employer. I knew I wasn't doing that mission, and my elf found out as soon as he went into the place and saw the man at his electric appliances shop. I enjoyed roleplaying how I gave him 10.000 yens for them to escape. 

"But with this, I could pay the debt with the doctor"

"He doesn't want you to pay. He asked me for your heads for his collection. The money is so you can get out of the city by nightfall, because tomorrow, another assassin will come who wont be me. I have done what I could, but the decision is on you" 

 I am enjoying a lot this kind of roleplaying moments. I love having a character arc with angst, loneliness and nihilism, then some regrets, redemption and honor. I like that it contrasts with the dwarf, who my friend is roleplaying as the classic hyperpractical character, but we get along well (in character, i mean, though the guy is a good friend ooc)

Today we were determined to survive the gang's attempt of execution, as they would surely know by morning that we had betrayed them. But before that happened, some havoc started in a nearby shopping center: Several squads of Lone Star (the setting cops) were trying to reduce a berseker'd assasin, which we assumed it was our target (It wasn't the exact one actually, we found out shortly after that there were multiple of them). 

Onane, the dwarf, managed to shot some srynge that stopped the cyberpsychosis WITH A SLINGSHOT into the guy's head. This gave a cop a chance to climb the guy and blast it from atop of his shoulders (losing his leg to the monster's final attack). The last thing recorded in his BTL is my friend making the sign of victory (he genuinelly did it without remembering he was being recorded. I really enjoyed that detail hahah). The doctor called us in our PDAs to yell at us and tell us we were dead men; as his best man was hunting our heads from that very minute.

Without access to the gang's headquarters, we had to find a place for the night, and was dead set on sleeping at the metro station of St.Mary, where I had killed all the homeless. I bought some auto-heating ramen (they are ubiquitous and serve as rations in our game) and invited some homeless people there, who didn't recognize us as they were new dwellers. After some rolls by the master, they were moved by the ramen's offering and, figuring out Onane was the hero of the shopping center, took us to a secret place where nobody could find us. We spent four days amongst the homeless and we bought them 18 medikits with the totality of our money. They cut our hair (my emo elf hair, and the dwarf's beard) after that time, and disguised as homeless men, we went back to our former city, where the campaign started.

Back home (the local brothel) I gifted our whore friend Coyote my old katanas, now obsoleted by the armblade, and she hung them behind the bar, sticking the nails with a big whiskey bottle. It brought me a true feeling of ¿accomplishment? realising how my character had changed from a clumsy samurai who failed all fighting rolls and whose only dream was having breast implants, then delving into evil trying to find some place in the world, and then disregarding everything, even my own safety, towards making what I thing the elf feels its good. Its really fun. I even put voices and act sometimes.

Parallel to all that, we invest trash a lot of our yens into making a Trap Band: We are keeping a list of song titles and we spend money to record and air them into some shitty channel. It's a cool sidegame because the songs are named after things we have lived in-game. No more explanations, but the current list:

1. More money than faith
2. Automatic ramen
3. Hot as the wasteland nights
4. Railways to heaven
5. Rooftop watch
6. Broken memories
7. Cayman and Caywoman
8. Doctor Richards is an assassin

I have been a GM in cyberpunk games before, and there are some points that are worth remembering for my/your future games.

1. Fame. We randomize stuff for our Trap Band: the quality of the songs or the fame we get every now and then. On the last session, we went viral on the city: everyone knew us, even though our music is shitty and we are seen as a joke band. I think that is interesting to portray fame as something easy to win and lose in this settings. Maybe by naming one or two names of recently famous singers/samurais/gladiators/whatever, make them appear tangentially on the plot and then allowing the characters to become the recent celebrity for a while, realizing that they are now where the other guy was. Just to be forgotten in a while by most. 

2. The importance of the analogic in a digital setting. Analog motorbikes cannot be hacked and found by GPS. Analog weapons cannot be neutered by an electromagnetic field. Digital shit can and will always be tampered with, remotelly even, at the GMs discrection. And this is OK and is genre-appropiate. But this is also very cool because it allows you to put there some unique/custom vehicles, weapons and artifacts. See pic below:

 

"Roll Under" Combat System

 

 

This is just a concept I came up with, that I like and may become part of a ruleset someday. Numbers are improvised but I want to give an idea of the chance proportions more than an exact measure.

Premises: 

* Health of common human NPCs goes from 1 to 4 points (lets call them "hearts" as I am playing a lot of Zelda lately). Beyond four hearts, you can only find adventurers and monsters, with no limit at all.

* Worn armor adds to your hearts. 

* Everyone has a "fight" skill, that ranges from 1 to 4 in common humans (with 4 being strong ones). Characters that are worthy of being a shonen anime character can raise their fight skill beyond that (6,7,8...). This should be rolled randomly, but leveled during the game.

* Melee checks are done by rolling 1d12 equal or under that score. A hit means you deal your weapon's damage (a fixed number of hearts: like 2 for a punch, or maybe 4 for a sword). On a miss, you might still deal 1 damage. This way, variable damage is achieved with a single roll,

* Initiative is simultaneous for now. Lets see what happens. If two hits would happen mutually, the highest number happens before the other (and if that means that the enemy is killed, his attack doesn't happen). It would still happen if there is a tie.

* If your opponent hits you and you miss, you don't deal the 1 damage, and viceversa. As an addendum to this, i'm thinking that spears should increase your fighting skill by 1 or more, maybe. So they are good at stopping attackers and have a reason to be lent to unskilled levies both as in mimicking the real world as in gameplay.

* If there is a sensible reason for which a miss would not deal damage, it doesn't.

* Some armors might substract 1 damage from all attacks, negating damage on a miss. 

* Ranged combat doesn't need special rules or it seems so.

* Receiving no damage from an attack is possible only if you choose to evade (and spending an action for it). Roll under your evade skill, dexterity or whatever there is, to do it.

*  An enemy moves too fast, and you can't represent it through AC? you can represent it by giving the attacker disadvantage (roll 2d12 and take worst). Maybe two misses are no damage, miss and hit is a miss, and two hits are a hit. Yeah, that sounds good.

* Giving advantage (roll 2d12 and take best) is also easy to do. Power ups from feats or magic weapons can also take the shape of multiple attacks, chain attacks (extra attacks on a hit), damage multipliers (like "you deal 2x damage if you spend a turn charging the attack") amongst others.

* Shields should work as negating damage on a roll of X I guess. I'm having samurais all the time on the mind, so I havent thought about that, but im sure that shields do not give more "hearts". It doesn't work conceptually.

* I like that this system makes the low-ranked fighters be careless about what weapon they wield, as the increase in damage per turn will be very small for a PC of fight:1. No matter which weapon he gets, he will tend to deal 1 damage per turn ever unless he rolls a 1.