Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Tephra the RPG

I'll say this upfront.  Tephra is everything that Shadowrun Fifth Edition should have been - a science-fantasy role playing game with technical marvels, demi-humans, and a simple game mechanic.

I avoided this game for a long time, despite it being available at my FLGS, despite my friends playing it, and despite even the fact that the game designers came from half a state away to run a demo game four blocks  from where I live.  Tephra is steampunk.  I did steampunk way back in SPACE: 1889, and didn't have much interest in diving back in.

Well, last weekend a game of All Flesh Must Be Eaten fell through due to involuntary DM double-shift, so us stragglers sat around debating what to play.  The local Tephra evangelist was there, so I said 'What the heck' and we played a game.

Character creation can be a bit overwhelming at first, as there are no classes, or templates, or nothing.  It's best just to have an idea for the character, and then have someone who knows what they are doing help build it.  But after I had made a character once, I think I could make just about anything now.

Kalisandra the Satyr
aka the Encylopedia
(due to a few well-rolled knowledge checks)
So, Tephra takes place in a fantasy world gone steampunk.  Races include humans, the aquatic ayodin, gnomes, fallen elves that are more like trolls, and 'fixed' elves called the farishtaa.  There are also satyrs.  I've never once thought about playing a satyr in any role playing game before, but I found their background intriguing - being a genetically modified slave race recently freed, so I chose one for my character.

There are five attributes; Brawl, Cunning, Science, Dexterity, and Spirit.  Each of the attributes have a variety of skills - and you put your points into the skills - not the attributes.  Then you select some specialties that are under the skills you bought.  Attribute scores are derived from the skills, and not the other way round.  This method of creation lets you pinpoint exactly what you do well, and everything else falls from that.  Specialties range anywhere from driving with your knees, building steam power robots, to paralyzing people with your touch.

The game mechanics center around a twelve-sided die.  One twelve-sided die.  That's all you roll.  It explodes out the top for larger numbers, and you add your attribute or skill.  Usually it is a contested roll with the biggest result winning.  Very simple and quick.  I like it.

Of course, there is a lot more to it.  There are many background options and the skills and specialties systems really help to make your character into an individual.  My satyr character is a spy and assassin who bullshits her way out of trouble, strikes with her octopus-hilted daggers around people's armor, and if all else fails, can craft her own poisons - delivered by little mechanical octopi -  to finish people off.

Throw all of this into the world of Tephra, a setting designed to support many shades of Steampunk - from Victorian England, Wild West, Colonian Africa, or the Far East - and you get a really nifty game.  It has resparked my interest in steampunk - a genre that I never really thought I'd be interested in again.

So yeah, I'd recommend it. :)

- Ark

Friday, August 2, 2013

Shadowrun the Fifth

Soooo . . . the guys have playing that new Shadowrun video game and are hungry for some Shadowrun role play.  I wasn't real happy with 4th edition.  Don't get me wrong - I love love love the Shadowrun universe.  But the mechanics were a pain in the ass.  Fifth is coming out - and they have some Quick Start Rules up for it, so I said what the heck, I'll run it for them - most have never played before - and we'll see if it is worthy.

I haven't finished reading the QSR yet and I'm already . . . gritting my teeth.  Despite a rules overhaul, it still looks like we are tossing around anywhere between ten to twenty six-sided dice bombs for offensive actions AND defense of said actions.  Not my favorite part of the game.

To top it off, the intro adventure . . . geez . . . where to begin.  Okay, so obviously the guy who wrote  the thing and the guy who drew the map for the adventure didn't talk.  The map - and it's a map of a fast food restaurant - doesn't match of with the descriptions.  Heck, if the map had even a vague resemblance to a fast food joint, that would help.  But it doesn't.  Why is the food prep area in the middle of the frikkin room like a Benihana?  Surely a Shadowrun McDonald's would NEVER want the customers to know what they are actually eating?  And the bathrooms are big enough to store school buses in.  Arrrghhh!

(Deep breaths, deep breaths.  Relax, Ark.)

So, I'm trying to stop myself from going out and dropping 200 bucks on GURPS books and tweak it's knobs until I can run Shadowrun RIGHT.  Okay, I don't' have 200 bucks, so that fixes that.

But I'll run the QSR alright, dammit.  And we'll see how it goes.  Who knows - maybe I'm over-reacting and everyone will love it.  :)

- Ark

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Petty Landscapes

Three or four months ago, I had an idea to draw weird landscapes for Gorgonmilk to use, should he need them, as filler inside of the Petty Gods book.  Layout can be a bitch, and strange shaped art could only help, right?  Well, then I burnt out my hand drawing too much in an unhealthy way, and a strange, artistic malaise/depression set in as I healed.

Well, my hand hurts a heck of a lot less and I gave the old Wacom a twirl tonight.  Whatdayya know - I finished one of the Landscapes I had sketched out a while back.  Yay me!

Anyway, here it is - Petty Landscape #1 (aka First Date.)  Use is as you wish, Gorgonmilk!

Click to Embiggen
Okay, now some ice for the hand . . . :)

- Ark

Arting


Still arting, trying to learn how to make shapes . . .

- Ark

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Antipode System

Below is the star system that The Boy and I worked on during vacation for the Star Wars game:


"Details are sketchy in the galactic databases on the Antipode system.  It was a member of the Old Republic, settled by a mix of sentient races.  Due to a nearby supernova approximately 1,000 years ago, the hyperlanes connecting Antipode to the rest of the galaxy shifted, causing it to be unreachable.  During last days of the Clone Wars, CIS scouts detected a large hyperlane shift and rediscovered Antipode.  The last official records indicate that at the close of the Clone Wars, the Antipode system was absorbed into the Galactic Empire as an Imperial Species Preservation Zone with extremely limited civilian access."

This should be interesting, as it will be the core setting of an Edge of the Empire campaign. :)

- Ark

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Star Wars for Kids Only

The guys get serious as they plan to steal a freighter.
I've been wanting to run a kids only game for a while.  Before vacation I talked to the owner of the FLGS and she helped me set one up.  Last night we had our first game.

My son and two other boys played. Neither of the two other boys had played a role playing game and were a bit apprehensive, but they knew it was Star Wars, so they were willing to give it a go.

I'm amazed how a strange movie I fell in love with 36 years ago can still hold the attention of young and old alike.  Rather than overwhelm them with the 450 page rulebook, we played the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire - Beginner Game.  I had some issues with the beginner game earlier - but those all melted away as I saw the completely fresh gamers dive right in.

They seemed to really like the pregen character packets - especially after I told them that the character's names and genders were flexible - they could change them how they liked. Well, no one picked the droid doctor - so maybe he has a different target audience.

It fascinates me how quickly people pick up the funky proprietary Star Wars dice.  Within a couple of rolls they had it down and were chugging along, determining their successes and advantages with ease.  While they took to playing very quickly, they couldn't convince any NPC of anything, blowing their social type rolls catastrophically.  So they brute-forced their way along, bashing heads and making a general nuisance of themselves.  In other words, they behaved like seasoned RPG veterans.

I had great fun running the game, and to hear "when can we play next?" is just one of those things that money just can't buy.  In following games, I'll bring out the big book and let them rework their characters with the advanced rules.

It went really well. Most issues were minor - such as frustrations brought on by failed rolls.  The biggest problem with the game came to the fore as one of the boys asked "Can I play a Jedi?"  Yeah.  There are no Jedi in the Beginner Game.  There are no real Jedi in the Edge of Empire game at all, for that matter.  There are force sensitives - proto-Jedi perhaps - but they are expensive point-wise and rather ineffective at low levels.  Which is the way I like it.  But, you know, it's something iconic to Star Wars - especially those who grew up on the prequels - and seems like a gaping hole that will take two years to fill.

I explained the reasoning behind the missing Jedi, and that he could play a Jedi in training if he wanted too.  When we concluded the game and I told them about customizing their characters with the advanced rules, I asked the boy if he wanted to make the character a Jedi.

"No," he said, "I think I'd like an assassin better.  He wears all black and sneaks around.  He needs a jet-pack too.  I'm going to go home and draw him.  Is that okay?"

"Um, yeah, sure. That's just fine," I smiled.  Perfect, actually.

- Ark