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Brink Of War


ghost-angel

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Re: Brink Of War

 

Because in this world there is no proof that Gods exist at all.

 

A Magi-Priest could easily use Healing Spells and call it the Will Of The Gods. But there would be no third party proof that any God anywhere got involved. You have the priests word, and the healed parties belief.

 

A Cleric here is a title of office, no more. Some Cleric also study magic, some do not.

 

So, any priest "talking" to the Gods is no more verifiable than in the real world.

 

As an example, Qliian (played by Solron) is a Magi-Priest. He has spent many years studying magic, and happens to hold a title of Priest, giving him some social benefits in some areas - and some social issues in others. How he chooses to explain his ability to perform magic is his business. And certainly there are several who attribute their skill with the Gift to the Gods.

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Re: Brink Of War

 

The idea is to remove some common assumptions from Fantasy Gaming - namely that Titles themselves are just that; Titles.

 

A Cleric is an officer of the church - not an archetype.

 

All Magic is cast one way. Mages can be called Shamans, Witches, Sorcerers, Wizards, et al. - and all of them can cast a spell a similar way.

 

The only defining difference I made was High Magic is studied and Hedge Magic is more an oral tradition. Theoretically a Hedge Mage could adjust his style to match that of a High Mage. But they start with different base assumptions on how arcane energy is manipulated.

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Re: Brink Of War

 

Thing is - And I'm going to go into a bit of a theory of mine - RPGs are both role-playing and game. So, anything that exists in the game world has to exist in both 'sets'. A role-played encounter is essentially meaningless without mechanical consquences; mechanical consequences are meaningless if they don't relate to IC roleplaying.

 

Of course, IMO. :)

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Re: Brink Of War

 

I think you're missing my point - and falling into the trap of Fantasy Gaming.

 

Almost every single Fantasy Setting assumes Gods Are Real. I find the concept repulsive.

 

Gods are not proven to be real, nor at they proven to not exist. This is the state of the game world. Priests take it on Faith.

No proof = no defined predictable actual provable consequences.

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Re: Brink Of War

 

I think you're missing my point - and falling into the trap of Fantasy Gaming.

 

Almost every single Fantasy Setting assumes Gods Are Real. I find the concept repulsive.

 

Gods are not proven to be real, nor at they proven to not exist. This is the state of the game world. Priests take it on Faith.

No proof = no defined predictable actual provable consequences.

 

A little like Eberron then.

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Re: Brink Of War

 

I think you're missing my point - and falling into the trap of Fantasy Gaming.

 

Almost every single Fantasy Setting assumes Gods Are Real. I find the concept repulsive.

 

Gods are not proven to be real, nor at they proven to not exist. This is the state of the game world. Priests take it on Faith.

No proof = no defined predictable actual provable consequences.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree - I'd find that annoying to GM. I'd end up figuring out why that was; either they don't exist or they're being deliberatly obscure or you have to have X to percieve them or something else.

 

* Where X = Faith, a 'mark of the gods', 'divine authority', etc...

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Re: Brink Of War

 

Nol if your schedule gets to where it allows you could maybe join our FH group until you are ready to resume the GA campaign. A foursome would be very cool' date=' we could really use a good rogue, warrior, bard, ranger, etc. :D[/quote']

Nol I agree with Starwolf if you could find a way to jion us that would be awesome. A fourth player would really round out the group.
The idea is certainly interesting. I am somewhat worried that I might enjoy being a player too much to work on Gemini though. ;)
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Re: Brink Of War

 

We all need a break from this or that and it might also get your creative juices flowning for Gm'ing again . :rolleyes:
Actually it is out of game stuff that has hampered my creative juices. The new boss at work has decided that to get the maximum performance out of everybody is to foster an environment of paranoia and fear. I refuse to play that game, but it has caused me to update my resume and start looking for alternatives. The axe is going to fall. The questions now are "when" and "who will be holding the axe?"
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Re: Brink Of War

 

Sorry to hear that but I understand as I've been there. Hopefully you'll be the one holding the axe when it's all over.
With any luck. How 'bout we drop the nearly unemployed subject and get back to the whole Brink of War thing. :)

 

In regards to playing, that would depend a great deal upon what ghost-angel says. At any rate, probably wouldn't be today. Today, I build the "set" that Ta'Rang and Alvarez are fighting on. I want to be ready to resume in a few weeks. g-a is probably going to need a break eventually and I want to be ready. ;)

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Re: Brink Of War

 

This campaign is an interjection - I want to get back to watching Sam drag the universe around by its nose.

 

Also, at the moment this story in Brink Of War has a total life span of approximately 20 Sessions. Give or Take depending on player actions. I tend to write Epic Arcs that are more like books - when they end, you could walk away and feel moderately satisfied. (put another way, usually when the story ends I've run out of ideas . . .)

 

Anyways, heck yeah Nol is welcome at the virtual table. As far as I'm concerned it's your table, I'm just keeping it warmed up.

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Re: Brink Of War

 

Ok... as we saw upgrading to 1.3b53 did indeed fix my connection problem. The platform was much more stable. I am looking forward to testing the new macros I setup. They will make the Hero mechanics much easier to implement and manage from both the GM and the Player prespective.

 

Nol I have setup macros that auto deduct END for spells, powers, etc. And if you run out of END it starts eating your STUN :D

 

When you take a recovery, simply click the recovery macro button, and viola it adds in your proper REC to Stun/END but will stop once you are fully recovered.

 

The SOAK macro applies damage and takes into consideration defenses and hit locations.

 

I have figured out the initiaitive tracker... and it rocks.

 

There is a new functionality to target NPC Icons and have the damage auto apply, but I have not figured out this aspect yet.

 

All in all just letting MT track Damage and END/REC is pretty cool without the other bells and whistles.

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Re: Brink Of War

 

Session 6

 

Picking up right where we left off, the group is around a Gypsy campfire, one of the smaller side ones. With them, most to keep an eye on them than any other reason, is a single Gypsy Guard and their new companion Lorgeth, a northern Barbarian.

 

Qliian starts off by musing he would like to learn to use a weapon, since the Barbarian has cautioned them against the use of too much magic in this area. Lorgeth wonders why he doesn't want to use a sword - Qliian states he didn't think that was a proper weapon for Priests (caught the GM off guard on that one, gotta be a DnDism holdover), since Lorgeth pointed out that Knights used swords all the time (and the Barbarians natural prejudice that hitting people with a sharp metal stick is only right and proper). Qliian pressed that Priests and Knights were different. He mentioned the use of a staff.

 

Lorgeth proceeds to produce a weapon he calls a Taber (I made it up, if there's a real weapon called a Taber this has nothing to do with it), a stick about 2 feet long with metal caps and bands on the end. It is surprisingly heavy for a piece of wood with metal end caps. . . Qliian shows that he is, in fact, a thin man compared to the Barbarian.

 

It is during dinner that a young Gypsy woman comes to join them at the fire. Mia, the groups Seer, doesn't speak their language very well, almost at all really. She produces a pouch with five small flat stone. On each stone is written a single symbol.

 

Shania, the Elven trader's daughter, immediately recognizes the symbols as House Seals most commonly used by Elven Traders. From an Elven point of view they are merely symbols to show whose house (or Trading Outfit) they come from. The markings on the stones aren't a perfect match - sometimes a line is added or removed, or in a different place. But they seem to be unmistakeably Elven. So she thinks.

 

Shania, it should be noted, is on this misadventure because her personal House Seal was stolen on a trading voyage and she is tracking is down.

 

Mia informs them that the stones are keys. And that they really seek one person, not the two they think they are after. Mia puts the stones back in the pouch and hands them to the Elf, who seems to hold the most interest in them. And she goes away. They ask the Gypsy Warrior with them to see if they can get a little more info from her. He goes off to try and get better answers to translate for them as he does speak the local language.

 

The group deduces that perhaps the symbols are much older than the Elves - who have a lifespan twice that of humans and whose Island Nations have been around maybe a thousand years longer than the nation's of Men. Qliian thinks perhaps the ancient Dwarves (of whom he's only read in books) might be the originators. Of course that just leaves the question of how symbols of a race so long dead that even the Elves only have vague references to them became Elven Seals in the first place. . .

 

The Gypsy Warrior comes back, and they also find out they must travel far into the North East. Lucky for them that Lorgeth is going that way on his way home. There's an interesting side discussion between Lorgeth and Shania here; Lorgeth keeps referring to Qliian and Chaz as "Southmen" and Shania's world view is that all men live North. Lorgeth explains that his people live REALLY far North and calls himself a Northman, them Southmen, and her simply An Elf. She's the first Elf he's ever seen, so before this they were simply a distant land spoken of in stories.

 

The next day they head off. Here in several days worth of tidbits are scrunched into maybe thirty minutes of gaming. Lorgeth begins instructing Qliian in the use of the Taber, and each day goes off to hunt with one of the group so they can learn to forage for themselves and not starve to death should something happen to him.

 

After about a week, some of which is spent traveling along a lake, they come across a big castle sitting on a bluff. Lorgeth notes that it's a bit out of place this far north. It's too east to belong to the Goblin Nation, too North to belong to the human Nations, and his people don't build such massive things.

 

Because they can't possibly resist a huge plot hook (whew!) they approach Castle Machicol, and are greeted at the front gate by a human warrior. He welcomes them inside and they are transfered to the care of Marjordomo, who shows them to the dining hall as it is (conveniently!) evening and supper time.

 

This is where I ended it. I wanted to get a little more into settinling into the castle (whose Lord is out on a hunt and won't be back for a few days . . .) but a dumping of snow in my area turned the roads into crud and I knew it would take an extra 20 minutes to drive to work the next day (Denver, you retards, plow!). So I called it just before the group was served a nice welcoming dinner.

 

Naturally, they suspect something is up. You'd think they didn't trust a massive castle in the middle of nowhere. . . One of them suggested Vampires. I'll have to give that some thought. (Choose the face of your destructor!)

 

Anyways, everyone gets 1 XP for last night.

WF: Taber = 1pt.

 

When Qliian learns more he'll see that the wood is some kind of extremely hard wood from a forest in the far east, and has been hollowed out to fit an iron rod giving the thing it's heft. The metal caps keep the rod inside the wooden shaft.

 

Taber: Hand Attack +4D6; "weapony type Limitations"

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Re: Brink Of War

 

At what rate? It should be 1D6 Stun Only Damage per "2 END" used this way. Which is how I implement it.

 

Well crap!!! I thought it was a straight 1 for 1. I have the macro set to use a certain amount of END. Say a given spell uses 2 END. If you have 0 END and attempt to cast the spell the macro uses 2 Stun in its place. When you reach 0 Stun the tokens "state" becomes unconscious, and a little graphic appears over the token showing the unconscious state. Perhaps... puhlease... (sad puppy eyes go here) :o, could we house rule this one for at least the short term. I am not sure how or if it is possible within the automation to have the macro convert from a static END to a calcualtion of how many dice to roll and apply to Stun based on negative END. Though I will work on it, and seek help from the macro gods... Oh wait there are no gods that we know of in this campaign :eek:

 

I will set up a macro for Qliians taber.

 

IRL the weapon sounds like a cross between a modern police baton, and an Irish Shalleighla. The PR24 is almost what you descfribed. a wooden tube with a metal rod inserted then capped and wrapped in leather. Of course the PR24 also has the 90 degree handle to give it tonfa like martial strike capabilities. :ugly:

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Re: Brink Of War

 

Yeah, it's kind of built like a baton. But you know - fantasy-ized.

 

As for the END/STUN issue - sorry, I like the rules as is. Once you get into used Stun for END I want the penalty to be noticed significantly. You start taking STUN Damage, no Defenses.

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