lilfluff

The world of solo role-playing games has a concept called the oracle (almost certainly named for the ancient Latin word for one who makes prophecies and not for the modern corporation*), a tool used to replace the game master without simply having everything to however the player chooses. These can be as simple as reducing any issue to one or more yes/no questions followed by one or more coin flips ("Is there an inn in this village?" "Are there any rooms available in the inn?" "Do I stay up far too late listening to other adventurers telling tales?") to the use of cards to entire books and collections of books of random tables.

Earlier this year Bundle of Holding had one of the card deck versions available, the Gamemsster's Apprentice, or rather a collection of card decks ranging from a generic one to ones flavored for generic fantasy, steampunk, cyberpunk, etc. Where each card has numbers to represent the rolls of different sizes of dice, levels of success or failure for questions on a very likely to very unlikely scale, a scatter chart, some names, various other words, etc. The idea being you can use the deck of cards in place of dice by drawing one of more, get the answer to a yes/no question but deciding how likely it is then drawing a card, get a couple of words to help decide what you find somewhere, get names for characters, etc. All with one really pocketable deck of cards. And this isn't the only card deck oracle out there (also, journaling games often use a standard deck of cards or occasionally even tarot cards).

There are some that so a single chart, with a few columns for yes/no/maybe questions, directions, and whatever else the table maker decided belonged on a universal table. The books of tables are generally your standard collection of specialized tables. A table for weather conditions, a table for landscape types, multiple tables for dungeon/spaceship/etc generation.

It's been some years since the last time I actually got together with a group for a tabletop RPG, so I got interested in solo RPGs recently but now I think I may actually be more fascinated with oracle systems than the different games. I'm even getting tempted to try crafting some. Maybe a card deck, maybe a table or two, or a python program, or HTML+JavaScript program one could download and run locally. Hmm, Arduino + 4 line LCD? So many possibilities.


*a modest attempt at humor

So Thursday I asked if anyone would be interested in a game of Lexicon. Three people have responded so I think we've got enough to start (but more are welcome to jump in!). Just a few questions first...

• Lexicon looks like it works best with a wiki... and I just noticed that the wiki hosting service I have an account on no longer provides free non-education wikis.


• I don't mind people recovering operating costs and making a profit but seriously, $50 for the lowest cost plan?


• Wikia brings my browser to its knees if I have Javascript on so it's not my first or second choice for an alternate wiki host.


• Anyone have a suggested service? I could potentially set up a wiki on a subdomain of lilfluff.com, but that would likely delay things.


• Lexicon starts off with only a broadly brushed theme, but I don't see any reason not to ask what general categories people are interested in. So what do you think, should this be a fantasy world? Science fiction? Previously unknown past?


• ...Something else?


• Shall we go for the baseline Lexicon or would you like to bring in one of the alternate rules?

Today Ryan Macklin has posted a playtest pdf file of the Character Creation chapter for Mythender. I'd heard the game's concept (Become a hero of legend who takes on the Myths and gives them what's coming to them. "...or it’s about stabbing Odin in his good eye and telling him how much of a little punk he his. It can go either way." is a quote from the website), but it wasn't until he posted the sample of the rules that it really grabbed me. Now I'm quite interested in seeing this out and ready for play.

Link to the Character Creation Playtest PDF file: http://ryanmacklin.com/2011/05/mythender-character-creation/

Quick TL;DR summary of character creation: Pick a Heart & History (what kind of Mythic character are you and what were you before you became Mythic), say what your weapons are that you fight Myth with (personal qualities, relics, and companions), your Fate (basically what's the archetype of your characters Myth: Judgment, Death, War, Life, etc.), then state state how you connect to the others in the group of game.

Note: This is all by answering questions. No random stats and only a touch of, "Pick one from column A and one from column B".

Here is what I came up with while reading through the chapter. This guy is incomplete so far, no name, :



Heart - Bearer:



- How did you gain your relic: After the fall of my village I was left for dead, waking at the side of my forge with my broken hammer in hand. I walked about my village in a daze and did not return to my senses - if I ever truly have - until I found myself back before my forge with metal scraps from all my neighbors and the few murderers who fell. I did not know what I was seeking when I woke my forge's coals again, only that I must work what I had collected. For three days and three nights I worked without sleep. When I was finished I looked upon my new hammer. It was shaped neither like my old hammer nor like the usual warrior's hammer but more like the rune Lagu.



What does your relic whisper to you when you touch it: Justice must be. Justice will find all. Those who wrong will right themselves or be made right. No one may escape justice, no one.



Do you trust your relic? Why/why not? My hammer has served me well since the day its forging was complete. The iron and blood of my neighbors and kin are within it. But I never forget that some of the scraps came from the brigands who murdered them. If the souls of my kin are within, might not theirs be as well? My relic whispers, but I will always be wary of the softest whispers.





History - Mourner:



What did you lose? The last day of my old life ended before the dawn. Brigands fell upon my home village thirsting not merely for gold, but the iron of blood. I woke to the shouts of my neighbors and grabbed the hammer from my forge. To my undying shame I did not wake soon enough to save even a single one of my people from the sword. I have lost my family, my neighbors, my home in all its forms.



What should you have done to prevent this loss? I should have woken earlier. I was the strongest of my village. I should have stood between my people and the murderers. I should have saved them or died trying.



How has losing maimed your soul? I know to the deepest core of myself that I have nothing to return to. My family is dead. Those I grew up with are dead. The land has either gone fallow or is now home to strangers. And if I dare to take others as new friends or family or new land as my own, is this a betrayal of those I lost? Do I dare risk losing all again?



A Mourner's Bonds:
(Characters would be listed here in an actual game)
- _____ gives me a reason to continue.

- _____ reminds me of what I've lost.

- _____ gives me solace.

- _____ joins me in suffering.



Your first weapon: My Hammer is my weapon. I use it to end myths crushing the weapons of those I face forcing them to face justice. (Relic: Strength 4)



Your second weapon: My quest for justice is my weapon. I use it to end myths by bringing an accounting for their actions. (Intrinsic: Strength 3)



Your third weapon: My endurance is my weapon. I use it to end myths by bearing the unendurable. (Intrinsic: Strength 3)


Mythic Heart: New, still in the first months of being a Mythender.


Myth: The Myth of Judgment



- The Dream of Judgment: I seek to bring balance to those who approach in my dreams. The victims give me those I must seek for redress. When I find their wrongdoers in life or dream I can give their victims peace. The unjust face judgment. Those who will acknowledge their wrongdoing may hope for some mercy. Those who will not repent will be made to regret their choice.



- The presence of Judgment: A sense that the Fates are close seems to happen around me.



The forms of Judgment:

- Mortal form: I appear as one longer a child by not long a man. I have muscles easily seen from working hammer and forge. Dark hair and black eyes and a face frames by roughly trimmed hair at the sides. Hair kept short for the heat and sparks of the forge.



- Godly form: I appear as a tall man, almost half again my usual height. My muscles do not appear to have grown larger but instead seem hard as iron under my skin. In one hand I have my hammer, grown in size with me, in the other a simple balance scale made not of gold or silver but of unpolished steel. Likewise my clothes as well are without gold or silver decoration. A sleeveless shirt and pants made or fine but undecorated cloth are covered by a heavy leather work apron.



- Paragon Form: I appear much as I do in mortal form, with a hint of the muscles of my godly form.



- Supernatural form: As I approach my fate I grow in height, my clothes somehow growing with me, as if I always had this size and my mortal form a trick of the eyes. What clothes I have grow in the quality of their making - losing any needless decoration at the same time. Muscle and build show strength. Not that of one who builds them for vain show, but the strength of work.

Oops.

My Urban Dead character just fried a zombie at a revive point. In his defense however he A - didn't notice until afterwards the graffiti stating it was a revive point, B - that it was a church and thus fell under the sacred ground policy, and C - There was a survivor with a mere 12 hits left and the zombie in question was flagged as Cortex Damaged on his DNA scan (of course later I checked the profile and see that despite having taken Brain Rot the guy wants to be revived. Ah, buddy, you can't get that at a run of the mill revive point, only powered NecroTech facilities can give you that. Good luck having anyone lower the barricades for you too.

Um. Oops. I did use a first aid kit on that 12-pointer survivor. Of course a check on that guy's profile shows a heavy load of zombie rather than survivor skills.

But I think my guy shall avoid that neighborhood for a while...

Oops?

Heh, just came across a post where I was snarky to one of TSR's netreps. Fortunately he took it in good humor (or at least posted like he did).

Then again 90's TSR needed to be snarked at. When I think about the money and effort they put into games they had to know they were dooming from the start -- Such as the entire Amazing Engine line. Where they pretty much told everyone up front, "Nothing in this line will have any support beyond articles in Dragon Magazine, and then that plural is only if we are feeling nice." How about just pouring lighter fluid on the drafts of the books and burning them in front of the authors, that might have almost been kinder than to say, "Hey, we're going to put your work out in a line where we are shooting each game in the foot. Would you rather have your work shot in the right foot or the left foot? Never mind, we're using a shotgun so it will get bother feet anyway. And the legs. Probably a little in the gut too..."

I would have loved to have seen some sort of second edition of Amazing Engine, it had some interesting ideas (such as the core character/setting character split).

You read that subject line right, there is an RPG being made about the various -tans. You create your own cute little mascot character and send her through cheerfully odd and possibly sanity reducing adventures.

I'm going to get a copy printed by the next THEM meeting since this really needs to be tried out at a reconvene. :} I mean really, an RPG that suggests Dragon Half, Excel Saga, Kodocha and Yotsubato as good things to turn to for inspiration sounds like a good THEM game. And of course there's the matter of it's using rock-paper-scissors instead of dice (sure, some LARPS do that, but how many pen & paper RPGs?).

Has the Lord High's axe been seen recently? Perhaps it became...

Axe-tan
Girl Type: Dungeon-Punk Catgirl
Athletics: 3
Cuteness: 4
Determination: 1 (Poor girl can't make up her mind who should be Lord-High)
Smarts: 2

Gimmics: Catgirl, Transformation (into the Lord High's axe), Special Attack: Shush of Doom!
Popularity: 1

Looks: Axe-tan is a short gray haired girl with a spiky collar (with a spiked bell), pink chainmail bikini, no less than three leather belts at any one time, and studded pink leather cat's paw boots and gloves.

Thoughts: EEEEEE! Someone's talking during the meeting nya! Oh. Never mind nya. SIG report. Someone else it talking! Nya! Quick, hit him! Hit him!

Popularity: 1

$1000 in unmarked electrons has been delivered to Greg Stolze via fundable.org. Now the poor innocent game Executive Decision can be freed from captivity. Soon, soon the Executive Decision page will hopefully include a download link.

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, Greg was using the ransom model of project funding to raise money for disaster relief. The ransom model is fairly simple. Someone has something such as a game that simulates internal white house politics. They decide how much they need to make creating and distributing it worth their time. When that much is raised and handed over, the product is made freely available. An interesting way of sidestepping the piracy issue.

I've been having fun reading the archives of Aleae Iaciens, where LJer edg is developing a Cowboys in Space SF role playing game. One of the interesting twists is that rather than using dice as the element of random chance, the player(s) and referee face off with cards using a modified version of Texas Hold'em that edg is calling Baltimore Hold'em.

The setting involves an abandoned colony world, the decendant organization of the abandoning government's security agency, and the remnants of the failed first colonization attempt. All these groups struggling to survive and prosper when the colony wasn't intended to be self sufficient, and the effects of the terraforming efforts start breaking down.

The flavor seems something in the family of Trigun or Galaxy Rangers.

(Now I shall hope that in the morning I don't find myself once again wishing I could lock out post-midnight posting attempts.)