A Monstrous Heartbreaker! Part I

 Alright...I think it's time to start constructing my own little fantasy heartbreaker.

I suppose I could be a bit kinder to the effort and think of it more like my friend Tim's "Frankengame," the goal of his long quest to piece together his ultimate fantasy RPG system, and which he has seemingly chiseled into a thing of beauty with his own big personal stamp on it.  (It looks like the Frankengame is politely stepping aside to give Tim room to dive into his superhero universe with the rules of the new Amazing Heroes, but I'm betting all of the effort to shape his perfect fantasy game is going to keep giving fruit as time goes on...)

I'm not sure that I have that sort of focus and discernment in me, though.  So I'm just gonna call it what it'll probably turn out to be:  A big ol' fantasy heartbreaker.  A monstrous one, in fact.  The goals?  I'd like this game to:

1.  Be a little more proof of concept for an RPG built upon classes that fit OSR games derived from Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox, along with races built for fifth edition D&D.

2.  Serve as the "core" system upon which I can base a variety of gaming projects I'd like to one day bring to a state of public presentability.

3.  Comfortably represent the set of mechanics, assumptions, and quirks that I could call my own personal baseline for a fantasy RPG.

4.  Give me an excuse to explore an original fantasy setting in some amount of detail.  (I'm not completely sure what that setting will be, nor if this is actually the route I should take vs. keeping everything within the framework of a generic fantasy world...but I do think I'd like to have a specific setting to accompany the ruleset.)

Snagged this image from HERE...

So here's step one.  I ask myself the question:  What classes should my fantasy heartbreaker include?  And then I answer...that clearly the place to start here is with the four classic roles of a D&D adventuring party: the Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric.  This is pretty convenient, as it's basically the four we get (using a slightly different naming scheme) in the excellent Swords & Wizardry Light.  So...cut, paste, done!

Eh...not quite done.  I'll have to make a few changes.  The Fighter shall become a Warrior, taking care to ensure that there are no rules that tie it to a fantasy setting.  I know this seems like a ridiculous move considering the premise of the project, but I have a real affection for the idea of a time- and place-less Warrior archetype that can cover everything from dungeoneering fighters, to Paleolithic scrappers, to battle-minded folks of the modern day and beyond.  I guess it's mostly just a name change.

Now, for the Rogue.  I'd say that much of the exact same sentiment applies here, so if I take that last paragraph and make just a few edits...

The Thief shall become a Rogue, taking care to ensure that there are no rules that tie it to a fantasy setting.  I know this seems like a ridiculous move considering the premise of the project, but I have a real affection for the idea of a time- and place-less Rogue archetype that can cover everything from dungeoneering thieves, to Paleolithic sneaks, to subterfuge-minded folks of the modern day and beyond.  I guess it's mostly just a name change (and really not even that except relative to old school games that still call this character a thief).

And so we move on to the spellcasters.  It would be very tempting to fold these two into a single class that can cover any variety of magic, whether arcane, divine, or of whatever other origin a setting allows.  I definitely see the elegant beauty in the triangular approach to character abilities seen in games like True20 or Warrior, Rogue & Mage.  Related to this...in Magic: The Gathering, we have recently seen a slight shift in the designation of creature types such that each of the game's five colors has a spellcasting class most closely associated with it:  Clerics in white, Wizards in blue, Warlocks in black, Shamans in red, and Druids in green.  I really like the symmetry of this arrangement, and it has a lot of value in the game's newest set, Strixhaven: School of Mages, which features tons of magic-users from all around the color wheel.  A bit ironically, this division points to the unity of all of these creature types under the title of mage (as we see in the name of the set).  And wasn't that maybe even the point of wizards in Original D&D getting the generic appellation of "Magic-User"?  To give players the freedom to imagine their mages with whatever sort of background they wanted, while still tying them all together with the same set of spell rules?

Ultimately, though, I'm just not sure I can have my own core of a D&D-type ruleset without giving the religious spellcasters at least one class of their own.  It's a trope that's just so strongly bound to the heart of the game at this point that I think the whole thing would feel incomplete without having archetypes for both divine and arcane (or at least other) magic.  I'm not completely sold yet; the implication that all magic comes from the same source, whether it's prayed for or learned from books, is still tempting to strive for.  I'll see where it goes from here, but for now, I'll work on the assumption that the Monstrous Heartbreaker will separate Wizards and Clerics...perhaps even with those class names.

Alright...any more classes to add?  A nature type, perhaps, to work in some Druid and Ranger tropes?  Surely I'll want animal companions, right?  Do I want a Monk, or can Warriors and Clerics cover everything I'd really like to see in it?  I do love music...should I go ahead and codify a Bard?  And why does some sort of Artificer keep popping into my head as a potentially strong choice as a base class?  (Seriously, I don't know that I've ever even played in an adventuring party that included an Artificer, let alone played one myself.)

I have a feeling this decision could be influenced by whether or not I include a specific fantasy setting in this little work...so there's a bit more thinking to do on this.  More to come in Part II...

One more trip to the Paleolithic...

Last weekend, the gaming group I have recently infiltrated finished up our first little trek through fantastical Stone Age Earth (Glaciers & Glyptodons).  I'm obv biased because I GM'ed the adventure, but I really do like some of the details I'm left to think about with the game.

Before that, though, let me note some of my own shortcomings as a GM and adventure designer that became obvious during play...

As someone who feels like I take a fairly combat-centric approach in understanding what RPG rules (especially old school rules) are meant to provide for us, I think I might just not be very good at combat!  There was at least once in running a skirmish that I was ready to jump right back to the PCs' acting a second time in a row, without even giving the enemies a chance to move, attack, etc.  Possibly related to this:  I think I tend to load up combat encounters with way too much same-yness, so that they just amount to slogging through attack rolls until we see how the numbers allow things to play out.  I say it's possibly related because I also think that part of my issue with running combat is realizing how monotonous they have a chance of becoming and immediately trying to compensate for that by speeding things along as quickly as possible - even if it means I lose control of the order of battle in the process.

Ah, well, lots to reflect on in that rambling...

The game had some huge positives for me, though!  First, as a setting I'd been wanting to tackle for a while, the Paleolithic holds a lot of promise for further adventures.  The PCs were set up as inhabitants of a region known simply as The Valley, which I intro'ed with this image...

Stolen from HERE...

...and which hardly got any attention except as the background for the adventure's setup.  The Valley has a lot left for exploration...and coupling this notion with another area I need to improve on as a GM (the balance between sandbox play and railroading), I would really like to work out some hex crawl guidelines for Glaciers & Glyptodons that go beyond the few wilderness encounters I prepared for this first adventure and provide players with more of a chance to feel like they're interacting with a truly open and dangerous world.

With that said, I do like the high points of the story that was told with this adventure, as the PCs were summoned by the Hidden One (read: Denisovan and/or Elf) Drelon to go on a quest to investigate and possibly destroy a metal(!) ring found near the coast to the west of The Valley.  Here's Drelon...

I definitely went as LotR-esque as possible with this setup to emphasize the Stone Age Earth/classic fantasy connection I wanted to see in G&G (heck, "Drelon" is just a barely-rearranged Elrond...😐).  However, I was also able to work in another trope I've kind of obsessed over for years at this point...Atlantis!  In this adventure, the players were ultimately led (read: railroaded) to the nation of Atlantis, named as the "Island Home" of a dying race of Saurians who possess magic and metallurgy beyond that of the mammalian humanoids that existed during the era.

The end result was a small party of Hidden and Sturdy Ones (Elves and Orcs) helping to defend Atlantis from an invading band of Humans, which nicely set up an invitation from the Saurians to the adventurers to bring more of their kind to the ancient city.  This fits into a little mythology I've worked into my headcanon in which explorers/escapees from a multispecies, magical Atlantis serve as an origin for other fantasy realms.  It's all stretching, I know, but I don't get a chance to run this kind of stuff very often, so I pulled out as many stops as I could in satisfying the stories I've been telling myself for years...!

Finally, my biggest takeaway from G&G is probably how happy I am that I tried the combo of races in the style of 5E and classes at a LightBox power level.  I can't quite put my finger on why I like it so much.  Maybe it's that extra bit of flair that 5E races give a character, compared to the...ahem, lighter treatments they're given in Swords & Wizardry Light.  Or maybe it's because it lets me look at all of those 5E race options out there in a new...er, light...or even just because it makes Ravnica easier for me to visualize running.  Whatever it is, I'm excited to explore it more moving forward, and it seems like an approach that could unite a number of the mini-projects that I've thought about and then ignored on this blog over the years, from running Ravnica, to Light City, to Underground Elemental Beastfighting, to Project 5.5.  I'm even tempted to cobble together my own little Fantasy Heartbreaker to ground the other projects.  Hopefully more to come on this...!

Glaciers & Glyptodons

 One of the very first things I blogged about (more than five years ago...geez...) finally got its shot on the videoconferenced tabletop last night.  The awesome online gaming group I've fallen in with took on the setting I've wanted to try for quite a while now...fantasy reskinned and shifted around a little to resemble our own prehistoric world...

I've had a blast putting this together and hope the crew are truly enjoying it, as well.  They SEEM to be, but they're all really kind people who would probably never let on if they hated it. ;)

At the very least, the group really seemed to embrace the mashup of classic fantasy tropes and prehistoric humanity.  When the Neanderthals in the party (called Sturdy Ones in the game) are named Smashpunch and Blork! (with exclamation point), I figure the Orc-ness is coming across decently.  (Of course, they really are just reskinned Orcs...)

If you think you'd enjoy seeing what I provided to the group for character creation and the tiniest core of the setting, you can check out the doc HERE.  It's pretty basic and could use a lot of editing, adding, and testing, but I'm glad to have something to work from.

It also makes use of the 5E race + Old School class approach that I mused about HERE...and it actually worked pretty well so far.  I'll have more on that at some point soon.  Well...hopefully...

My favorite comic book scientists

 It's becoming clear to me that my posting here will slow a bit now that I've finally started a new job here in Jersey.  But first, to celebrate the fact that I'm back in a lab doing SCIENCE! again, I was thinking of statting out Reed Richards for Light City, to fill out the FF a little more and focus on a pillar of comic book scientific grandeur.

And that got me thinking...is Mr. Fantastic actually my favorite comic book scientist?  Hmm...he actually might be...!  Obviously, comics are filled with folks who do literally fantastic things with their hypotheses and experiments.  I've almost always been more of a DC guy in general, but I realized that if I start to list out my favorite four color science nerds in my head, the DC reps, while probably outnumbering those from elsewhere, fit into some specific niches.  Reed, though...well, I'm not sure I can think of another character who has the ability to carry the weight of ridiculous comic book superscience quite like him.  I guess Ray Palmer would probably come the closest...

For the record...kind of off the top of my head and in no particular order...I'd list my top 10 comic book scientists something like...

1.  Reed Richards
2.  Ray Palmer
3.  Kirk Langstrom
4.  Bruce Banner
5.  Barry Allen
6.  Tina McGee
7.  Hank McCoy
8.  Leo Quintum
9.  Lex Luthor
10.  Jon Osterman

If TV universes held the most weight, I'd put Cisco Ramon in there somewhere.  I guess it's a decent list overall, although the publishers and I should both probably look into expanding representation in the character type a bit.  Lots of nerdy white guys there.  Of course, I'm a nerdy white guy myself, so that aspect of the character type's common form really hasn't been so obvious to me until right now.

Also...I know, I know...Bruce Wayne should probably be there.  He's just also too much of everything else to fit the bill for some reason...

Oh yeah!  And here's Reed for Light City:

Huh.  Okay, here's Reed for Light City using a class that hasn't been built yet, but which will maybe support a Mr. Fantastic that looks something like this...

Mr. Fantastic

Real name:  Reed Richards

Level 4 Rubber Band

AC 6[13]    HD 3d6 (10 HP)

Saving throw: 13, +2 to rolls to dodge objects

Move 12 ft.

STR 12    DEX 19(+1)   CON 12    INT 20(+2)    WIS 14    CHA 12

Attack:  Punch with a bigass fist (1d6 damage, reach 96 ft.)

Flexi-powers:  Gliding, Absorb Explosion (2d6 damage)

"I'm here live...I'm not a cat." Okay, yeah, this is funny...

 If you've been on the internet in the past day, you probably haven't been able to avoid seeing this video.  But really...why would you want to avoid it?

It could be an innocent mistake from a Texas attorney.  Or it COULD be an early sign of the cats' upcoming cultural infiltration.  I'll see if my contacts know anything.

If it is a feline Secret Invasion, I'll bet this cat is something like this...

Whiskers, Attorney Undercover

Level 3 Super-Pet

STR 4     DEX 16 (+1)    CON 8     INT 12     WIS 10     CHA 15(+1)

2+1 HD (8 HP)     Saving Throw 12    Move 12 ft. (climb 12 ft.)

AC 8[11]

Attack:  Bite or Claws, +2 to hit, 1d6 damage

Super-Pet Tricks:
Speech (obv)
Too Cute (Charm 1x/day)
Climb
Tool Use (+2 to saving throws to use human technology)

(I used Justin Isaac's Super-Pet class once again for Whiskers...)

This is Tulip

Tulip came from a hoarding situation in which around 80 dogs were living together trapped in a barn.  Laura and I worked with a number of these kids in a program to rehabilitate highly fearful dogs, and they are some of the most amazing beings you could ever hope to meet.

We adopted Tulip in 2019.  For the last year and a half, she's been my unofficial emotional support animal.  She deserves everything good that comes to her in life.  She has unicorns on her collar and tag because she is our barnicorn.

Like her sister Celery, Tulip deserves to be made into an RPG character.  Here she is using Justin Isaac's awesome Super-Pet class for Light City.  (I'm not sure that I've noted it on the blog, but as I've looked back over this class, I've come to love it even more than when I first read it.  It's solid and modular, and the "Tricks" are such a nice approach!)

Level 5 Super-Pet
First appearance:  Tales From the Barn (limited series) #1
STR 8     DEX 11     CON 15(+1)     INT 8     WIS 6     CHA 14
4+4 HD (18 HP)     Saving Throw 10    Move 12 ft. (flight 24 ft.)
AC 9[10]

Attack:  Bite or Horn, +3 to hit, 1d6 damage

Super-Pet Tricks:
Speech (yeah, why not, we seem to assume that all of our pets have this...)
Those Eyes (Too Cute) (Charm 1x/day)
Hero Support x2 (Cure Wounds I 2x/day)
Flight (again...why not?  she's got the horn for it...)
Getting the Hang of This (Tool Use) (+2 to saving throws to use human technology)

With one magic canine word, Tulip is transformed into even more of a Wonder Dog.  She has a horn.

(A note:  I realize that playing up the "barn" thing with Tulip may seem like a weird celebration of something terrible in her past, but with all of the precious kids we worked with from her case, "barn dog" has practically become a synonym for an amazing dog for some of us.  It is almost a badge of perfection.)

So, why am I just rambling about Tulip?  Well, besides the fact that she absolutely deserves to be rambled about, she's especially on my mind these days because of this girl:

This is Helen.  Laura and I fostered her around the end of 2018.  She is from the same fearful dog program as Tulip, and is another survivor of a hoarding situation.

One thing that has become clear over our time connected to these exceptional pups is that when they are separated from their families, they often don't react like you might expect a typical "lost dog" to react.  The fear kicks into overdrive at times.  Heck, we saw it with Tulip during our move, when we walked her at a rest area.  The interstate traffic was in her head, and she tugged on her leash with a look in her eyes that made me worry that if she were to get free, she might run for a while before even taking stock of where her loved ones were.

We found out about two weeks ago that Helen went missing from her home due to an unfortunate but understandably human mistake on the part of her family.  After at least one initial sighting, things went quiet for over a week before she was finally spotted again, more than once, and hope picked up.  Then...right when a major breakthrough seemed almost inevitable...we got this insane winter storm, and the effort has become more difficult.

I'm not the sort that questions the seemingly absurd unfairness of reality, but for some reason, this just doesn't fit the way I need the world to work.

If you are the sort that goes in for any sort of thoughts, prayers, or positive vibes for others...or even if you're not, actually...I would ask that you keep Helen in mind.  I know that we live in a world that's filled with pain, cruelty, and injustice, and it might be offensive that I ignore so much of that but take the time to fret over a lost dog.  If you feel that's the case, I'm sorry.

I just think Helen deserves a happy ending to her story, and I wanted to share it.  Thank you for reading.

Stacking up Bricks: The Thing

Here's another straightforward Brick.  Really, he's just about the brickiest Brick of all, I guess...

The Thing

Real name:  Benjamin Grimm

Level 4 Brick

AC 6[13]    HD 5d6+10 (28 HP)

Saving throw: 13

Move 12 ft. (leap 12 ft.)

STR 30(+4)    DEX 12    CON 23(+2)    INT 10    WIS 8    CHA 11

Attacks:  Melee - Punch +2 (1d6+4 damage)

Brick bonus: Enhanced CON x1.

----------

And while I'm at it, here's a slightly toned down build of his good buddy Johnny...

The Human Torch

Real name:  Jonathan Storm

Level 4 Elemental

AC 6[13]    HD 3d6 (10 HP)

Saving throw: 12

Move 12 ft. (flight 24 ft.)

STR 14    DEX 15(+1)    CON 13    INT 11    WIS 8    CHA 16(+1)

Attack:  Fire Blast, +3 to hit, 1d6 fire damage, range 60 ft.
Elemental Powers (4x/day):  Flame Missile, Radial Blast (all medium-sized creatures and unattached objects within 30 feet are moved 1d6 feet away from Johnny)

A note:  For my table, I'm making the "Learning to fly" ability of The Elemental a little easier to satisfy going forward...probably a d6 roll under [level + DEX mod + 2] to successfully fly, so that it becomes second nature a bit sooner in the advancement of a character...

Variant Class: The ______ Fighter + Billy Butcher for LightBox

 While posting Yoshimi, Robot Fighter (of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots fame) on Musical Monday, I was struck by how simple and flavorful a "Robot Fighter" class is.  Sure, you could make Yoshimi a Ranger with robots/constructs/machines as a favored enemy...but isn't it more fun to call her a Level 3 Robot Fighter?

Well...I think it is.  So here's a Fighter variant class for whatever systems you like tinkering with.  I'll probably use it for LightBox style games.

______ Fighter

Weapons/Armor/HD/Attack Bonus/Saves:  As a Fighter.  If using a single saving throw, go ahead and drop the Fighter's bonuses to specific saves and, if you feel like it, try to describe a bonus to saves related to the character's favored enemy.  I'm just coming up with awkward phrases when I try to do it.

I'm Your Worst Enemy:  The ______ Fighter gets +1 to attacks and damage vs. ______s at 1st level.  At each odd level, she gains an additional +1.

A Very Specific Cleaving Technique:  When a ______ Fighter drops a ______ with a melee attack, she may immediately make another melee attack this round.  (Replaces extra attacks vs. 1HD enemies, if applicable.)

Seems simple enough.

Here's Billy Butcher:

From Screen Rant

William Butcher

Level 5 Supe Fighter

AC 8[11]    HD 5d6 (19 HP)

Saving throw: 12

Move 12 ft.

STR 11    DEX 12    CON 13    INT 14    WIS 15(+1)    CHA 16(+1)

Attacks:  By weapon (+4 attack bonus); additional +3 to hit and damage on all attacks vs. Supes

When Butcher drops some ****ing super **** with a melee attack, he attacks again.

Musical Monday: Superman's Best Songs (Part IV) + Yoshimi, Robot Fighter for LightBox gaming

 There are a lot of Superman songs out there.  Here's another one I like.

The Flaming Lips did some interesting shows in Oklahoma this weekend...keeping their audiences safe by installing everyone in giant plastic bubbles...

From the BBC

The Flaming Lips are no strangers to taking their own approach to things.

One thing they do have in common with a lot of other artists, though...and relevant to this post and blog...is a song about Superman.  A pretty darn good one.

Sometimes I think you have to listen to the Flaming Lips for a song or two in order to calibrate your brain to singer Wayne Coyne's voice...it sometimes takes a few listens to realize how epic, fragile, and beautiful some of their works are.

As far as RPGs go...and that's what I'm looking for excuses to talk about, after all...there's clearly one Flaming Lips song that lends itself to game material perhaps better than any other...

Just classic.  Here's the heroine herself...

Yoshimi

Level 3 Robot Fighter

AC 8[11]    HD 3d6 (11 HP)

Saving throw: 14

Move 12 ft.

STR 17(+1, she's gotta be strong to fight them)    DEX 15(+1)    CON 12    INT 14    WIS 10    CHA 12

Attacks:  Melee - Unarmed attack +3 (1d3 damage; she's a black belt in karate) or by weapon, +3; Ranged - By weapon, +2; +2 to hit and damage on all attacks vs. robots

When Yoshimi knocks out a robot with a melee attack, she may immediately make another melee attack.

A Swords & Wizardry Light variant of the Fighter...

Stacking up Bricks: Bane

Taking another tiny step in examining builds that I'd like to see possible with the Brick class for Light City...here's Bane...

My expertly rebased Bane mini in that classic supervillain pose, standing in a puddle of gray marshmallow goo.

Bane

Real name:  Unknown

Level 4 Brick

AC 4[15]    HD 5d6+10 (27 HP)

Saving throw: 13

Move 12 ft. (leap 12 ft.)

STR 26(+3)    DEX 21(+2)    CON 22(+2)    INT 18    WIS 12    CHA 8

(All stats under the influence of Venom.)

Attacks:  Melee - Punch +2 (1d6+3 damage)

Hindrance:  Addiction (Venom)

Brick bonuses: Enhanced DEX x1, Enhanced CON x1.

Stacking up Bricks: The Hulk

Continuing my experimentation with the Brick class for Light City...here's another important one to take into consideration that also matches one of my haphazardly rebased HeroClix that will (hopefully) soon find a place on my tabletop.

The Hulk is really one of the most classic of all superheroic Bricks, I think.  He's also fairly straightforward as far as Bricks go; he's big, strong, and tough.  I'm thinking his accelerated healing should maybe be taken into account.  He can also jump really high and far, but that's covered at least slightly in the base Brick class.  And while I don't follow Hulk comics very closely, he's apparently immortal these days.  I won't worry about that one.

As for drawbacks?  I don't know that a transformation into superheroic form is a drawback in itself; I should probably do a little survey of other supers RPGs to see how that's treated in general.

The uncontrollable rage, though...that's probably a hindrance.  Let's see...

The Hulk

Real name:  Bruce Banner

Level 5 Brick

AC 6[13]    HD 6d6+12 (34 HP)

Saving throw: 12

Move 12 ft. (leap 12 ft.)

STR 36(+5)    DEX 12    CON 24(+2)    INT 10    WIS 4    CHA 10

(All stats in Hulk form.)

Attacks:  Melee - Punch +2 (1d6+5 damage)

Special:  Regeneration 1 (heal 1 at the beginning of each round); 5 in 6 chance for a Feat of Strength

Hindrance:  Rage 1 (Before taking an action, roll 1d6; on a roll of 1, the action is lost to blind rage.)

Brick bonuses: Enhanced STR x1, Enhanced CON x1, Regeneration 1.

Musical Monday: Superman's Best Songs (Part III) + Sunshine Superman for Light City

There are a lot of Superman songs out there.  Here's another one I like.

Well...I'm pretty sure I like it. It has a certain resonance with me.  I had a phase long ago in which I listened to a lot of popular music from the '60s, and this eventually became a familiar tune that had the added bonus of name-dropping not only Superman, but also Green Lantern...!

Whatever your take on it, I think it's hard to deny that this one sounds very Sixties...

Sunshine Superman is also the name of the Man of Steel hailing from Earth 47 (or, in his earliest appearance, Dreamworld), the psychedelic superhero universe that can owe its groovy existence to Grant Morrison and Chaz Truog.

He's in a pretty happenin' version of the Justice League, too...

Without any evidence to the contrary, I'm going to assume Sunshine Superman has access to all of the standard Supes powers...and I'll take this opportunity to stat him up for Light City in such a way that I can use the basics for any old Superman in a tabletop superhero skirmish.  Maybe I can even figure out a way to reconcile these numbers and abilities with a rational way of having the Brick class play out over several levels...

Sunshine Superman

Level 5 Brick

AC 6[13]    HD 6d6+6 (28 HP)

Saving throw: 12

Move 24 ft. (flight 24 ft.)

STR 30(+4)    DEX 12    CON 18(+1)    INT 14    WIS 12    CHA 14

Attacks:  Melee - Punch +2 (1d6+4 damage); Ranged - Heat Vision +2 (1d6 damage), medium range

Vulnerability:  Kryptonite

Brick bonuses: Super Speed x1, Flight, Energy Blast.  Thanks to Justin Isaac and his Super-Pet class for helping me visualize this method of building a hero in a Light City context, and to soner du for confirmation that "exaltations" to build a hero isn't a terrible idea...

Because it just seems like a good week to think about Captain America

So much division.  At least we have this guy that I think most of us can get behind in one way or another.

Captain America
Real name:  Steve Rogers

Level 5 Supersoldier

AC 3[16] (light body armor, shield)    HD 5d6+10 (28 HP)

Saving throw: 11

STR 20(+2)    DEX 20(+2)    CON 20(+2)    INT 12    WIS 15(+1)    CHA 16(+1)

Attacks:  Melee - Shield +6 (1d6+2 damage); Ranged - Shield +6 (1d6+2 damage), medium range

(A few notes:  1. The Supersoldier class is found in The Assembly and expanded upon in L'Assemblee.  2. Justin previously posted Sam Wilson as Captain America for Light City over at the Halls of the Nephilim...I definitely used that to cheat and check my work over here. And, who doesn't love Falcon?  3. There's a big argument to be made that Steve Rogers should make it past level 5 pretty early in his avenging career, but I'm scaling back some of these Light/White Box characters in order to stat them out for a miniatures skirmish, where I want to keep their numbers a little more under control.  4. Be kind to each other out there, please.)

Happy New Year! + Joey Ramone for White Box

And now, I finally get around to wishing a happy and healthy new year to all of the good people who stop by this blog!  (I actually wish it for everyone else, too, but I'll need some help passing the message on to them.) 

To celebrate, here's something I never really get tired of...the Ramones' New Year's Eve 1977 show in London, which was later released as the live album It's Alive.

Johnny would later say:  “I think our peak, our greatest moment, is that New Year’s Eve show of 1977 into 1978. I think that’s our greatest moment as a band.”  Strong words!

And here's Joey for White Box/Light/Continual Light gaming.  Man, I really need to find a miniature of him.

This pic is actually released under a CC-BY-SA license...

Joey Ramone
Level 3 Bard

AC 8[11] (Leather Jacket)    HD 2d6+1 (8 HP)

STR 11    DEX 10    CON 14    INT 14    WIS 14    CHA 16

Attack bonus +1, damage by weapon

Charm Person 1x/day, Detect Magic 1x/day

Inspiring song:  Once per combat, may give all allies +1 to attack rolls for five rounds

(I went to Swords & Wizardry Continual Light for this one and basically just replaced the Thief's attributes with those of the Bard, rather than adding them on and extending advancement...)

5e Races (or Ancestries/Cultures) in OSR games...why not?

 I recently picked up this book when I found a really good deal on it:

This is kind of a rarity for me, as I don't normally pick up the nice, big, hardcover books, and...although I am probably a bit of a jerk for not patronizing my FLGS (which I haven't even had a chance to visit in my new home, FWIW)...I am REALLY enjoying reading over this.  Ravnica is probably one of my favorite fantasy settings in general and is almost certainly my favorite plane for Magic: The Gathering.  I really love how one of the most crucial aspects of the card game's identity--the five colors of mana--are an integral part of the setting, as the colors pair up to form 10 guilds that vie for control of the plane-spanning city of Ravnica.  No matter what game system a Ravnica campaign is run in, it's still going to have at least a little bit of the feel of MTG the card game (especially if there are any planeswalkers involved).

So, I'm really looking at starting up an online game set in Ravnica, but I'm not sure I want to run Fifth Edition.  I'm just not as familiar with it as I am some other systems, and if I'm already adding on the "frills" that come from gaming online, I might as well make sure the system I use is as no-frills as possible while still hitting the points I'm looking for.  Honestly, Swords & Wizardry White Box/Light/Continual Light seem just fine for such a game, and it can double up by keeping me in a Light City state of mind.

Classes seem like they'll be easy enough to handle.  Races, though...that's a different story.  Ravnica probably needs to include Loxodon (elephantfolk), Centaurs, Goblins, Merfolk, Viashino (draconic lizard-type-folk), and maybe hybrid beings from the biomantic Simic guild.  (EDIT: Oh yeah, and Vedalken!)  I'm not against creating them on my own, especially since some of that could just be reskinning stuff that's already out there.  But...and maybe I'm weird in feeling this way...there's something about reskinning races that just FEELS wrong, like it's breaking through the shared imagination of the game in a way that can't be ignored.  It's cool to say, "This is what a Ravnican goblin is like."  It seems relatively lame to just say, "Eh, play a halfling and we'll call you a goblin."  That's just...I dunno, less fantastic and more gamey.

But then I realized...why can't I just tack on 5e races to the classes of just about any OSR game and use them pretty much as-is?  I'll have to buy into some 5e-isms like Advantage/Disadvantage (which it seems gamers have accepted quite well as a mechanic fit for broad use), and I'll need an established way to resolve skills so that any skill-related benefits will have meaning...but those are minor concerns.

Movement rates should convert very simply.  Proficiencies?  If it's a weapon, that means you get to add your attack bonus when you use it.  For other stuff, it means you get to add your level to rolls.  Alignment?  There doesn't seem to be any harm in just ignoring the 5e recommendations, or in simply adopting the nine-alignment system for the game.

As examples, I think a "basic" Human build would just gain +1 to all stats and get to learn an extra language.  Or we can look at...say, the Kor from Plane Shift: Zendikar, the first of Wizards of the Coast's free PDFs bringing 5e rules to MTG:

There doesn't seem to be anything game-breaking there, and it could be fun to actually play the "official" takes on MTG's races.

Have any of you tried something like this?  Other than the "danger" of having starting characters a little more powerful than they would be otherwise, are there any big pitfalls I'm missing here?

Geeky SKAturday: The Aquabats

I've mentioned the Aquabats at least once previously on this blog when I posted one of their cartoons (which I see is now no longer available on YouTube...).  This band is really the primary thing I had in mind when I thought about doing a "Geeky SKAturday" series.  They're a team of heroes from the island nation of Aquabania.  After an attack by the evil Space Monster M, Professor Monty Corndog uses Science to give them powers that will help them defeat their archnemesis.  They also happen to be a band!  They're a pretty perfect convergence of catchy ska tunes, superheroics, and...well, pretty much everything that's fun about being a geek.  Here's one of their older tunes...

You can find episodes of their award-winning, tokusatsu-inspired TV show at the series site HERE and learn more about their story at their wiki over HERE.

And now...let's look at an Aquabat in Light City!

The MC Bat Commander

Pic from The MCBC's wiki entry...

Normal Human  (when asked what power he got from The Professor, he told the kids to "mind their own business")

STR 10    DEX 10    CON 11    INT 13    WIS 10    CHA 10  (I just rolled these...)

1 HD (2 HP)    Saving Throw 17

AC 8[11] (Aquabats rashguard)

Attack:  by weapon

Possesses an Anti-Negativity Helmet to protect vs. negativity, bad vibes, and "playa hataz."

The Lore of Chess Rush: Flamecaller

So this is something I've been meaning to link to for a while now.  Last year, I really became a fan of the auto battler genre of video games (sometimes called auto chess after its first major representative).  As I've mused previously, it's really hard to pin down exactly what it is about these games that's so addictive...but man do I love them.

Three of the genre's heavy hitters - Teamfight Tactics, Dota Underlords, and Hearthstone Battlegrounds - are built upon established IP with well-developed universes.  However, my two favorite auto battlers - Auto Chess and Chess Rush - have been building their worlds pretty much from scratch.  I say "pretty much" because their characters, at least initially, were largely tweaked and reskinned versions of the heroes from Dota 2, since it was a mod of that popular game (created by Drodo Studio, the current developers of Auto Chess) that set off the auto battler craze.  (Also, I think the Chess Rush characters - or character models, at least - may be from a previous game by Chinese mega-developer Tencent, but I have no idea how much effort may have been put into making the overall worlds similar...)

Screenshot from Chess Rush

The directions that these games have taken their heroes has granted a lot of opportunity to develop interesting worlds for gaming.  I have often thought that a game might be able to help distinguish itself from the others in this fairly crowded niche by tailoring the experience toward immersion in a fantastic universe.  And aside from that, I just like reading game lore.

So, I decided I'd pester these companies a bit, letting them know I'd like to see more lore and offering my own feeble attempts.  Well, the kind crew at Chess Rush was gracious enough to link to a short story I wrote from their official Facebook page once I posted the story on their subreddit.  So...I am happy to share that I have semi-officially added a bit of lore to the Chess Rush universe with a short story about the hero Flamecaller that you can find, if you're so inclined, right HERE! :)

And...since I'm on a bit of a Light City kick lately, here's Flamecaller for Swords & Wizardry Light...

Flamecaller

Level 3 Magic-User

AC 8[11]    9 HP

STR 10    DEX 15(+1)    CON 11    INT 18(+1)    WIS 7    CHA 16(+1)

Attack:  Dagger +0 (1d6-1 damage)

Spells known: (1) Detect Magic, Light I, Magic Missile; (2) Knock

The Fall of Phoenix Jones

I have long found Phoenix Jones to be an interesting figure in the Real Life Super Heroes (RLSH) effort.  He carved a solid place for himself as founder of the Rain City Superhero Movement and arguably the first RLSH to actively fight crime like the ones in the comics we read.  I had never known many of the details of the path his career took until I watched this documentary the other night.

I obviously recognize why he's a bit of a controversial figure, but it's really hard not to pull for this guy.  According to the YouTube comments (yeah, I know), there may be some critical history missing that relates to his reaction to the MMA fight with his brother, but this is overall very well done.  His story is complex, just like many of the greatest superhero stories.

And...because of what this blog is, here's Phoenix Jones for Light City (taking the liberty of giving him a signature item a little early)...

Phoenix Jones

Pic from his Twitter feed...

Level 5 Brawler
STR 15     DEX 13     CON 12     INT 14     WIS 11     CHA 16
5 HD (18 HP)     Saving Throw 10
AC 7[12] (light body armor)
Attacks:  2x Unarmed Strikes, +6 to hit, 1d6+1 damage; Pepper spray 1x/fight, range 10 ft., +7 to hit, 1 damage, target must save or be incapacitated for 2 rounds whether the attack hits or not; Special Improvisation 1x/day.

E is for Earths

...of the parallel variety, that is.

I'd love for Light City to be accessible for all sorts of supers gaming.  I also just love a good, wacky multiverse.  Here's a little sample what's been discovered so far by the fringe physicists of Light City:

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Earth-Alpha:  The "prime" Light City universe.  In my head, anyway.  Heck, maybe every individual game world is its own Earth-Alpha.  That's the beauty of a prime universe: It's forever malleable, ready to be retconned, revised, and updated for the present time!

Earth-Beta:  The first parallel universe to be found, when Nature Man traversed the elemental planes and found his counterpart from this alternate Earth.  The boom in superheroics occurred much earlier here (in the 1940s...folks with masks and powers were a huge part of the Allied victory in World War II).  Some heroes, like Black Lion, are fairly similar between Earths Alpha and Beta, aside from age.  Others, such as the Flame, differ enough that it's hard to even trace how they're connected.  Still others have no known counterpart on the other Earth.

Earth-Beta

Earth-Gamma:  An Earth where The Assembly is the premier superhero team rather than The Association.  Cities don't all have the word "City" in their names.  And the movies tend to be a lot better.

Earth-Theta:  Here, an aged Black Lion came out of retirement in the 1980s to clean up his beloved Empire City after it had fallen deep into a crime wave.  He ended up facing off against his old pal Wonder Man, who has become a tool of the American government.

Earth-Mu:  A world of anthropomorphic cats.  And superheroes.  So, yeah, superhero cats.

Earth-Mu

Earth-Nu:  This universe has many of the same figures as Earth-Alpha, but the age of heroes began in the mid-1950s.  There are lots of apes, and Wonder Man is kind of a dick who spends a lot of time making his girlfriend look like an idiot.  Scholars of the Multiverse aren't quite clear on whether or not this is actually the same world as Earth-Theta.

Earth-Xi:  Pretty much everything on this world appears to be made out of toy bricks.

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There are a lot more of them out there!  (You might even say they're infinite...ba dump bump.)  I'm definitely interested in knowing what sorts of parallel Earths you would want to encounter in a superhero multiverse!

D is for Dogwood City

I'll make this one quick!  The world of Light City, and really the project itself, is a pretty natural extension of the the trip through the alphabet that I took on this blog two years ago, when I made my first attempt at constructing a superhero setting out of public domain characters.  The focus that year was Dogwood City, based in my mind upon the large southern city that I lived in at the time.

I guess I sort of fell in love with the process, because shaping the details of such a fictional world in my head has become almost an addiction over time.  Seriously, I think about stuff like...oh, how different heroes' debuts should fall on a timeline a LOT more than you'd probably think someone should consider such "facts."  At least Light City is giving me a bit of an outlet for it now!

Anyway, there's really no reason that Light City and Dogwood City shouldn't be on the same map.  (In my little section of the multiverse, anyway...!)  Perhaps there'll be a chance to look at geography in a little more detail in the coming days.  For now, let's take a quick second look at the flagship hero of Dogwood City...Nature Man!

Oh.  Yeah, that was it.  That WAS the quick second look.  Maybe we'll take a slower look when the letter N rolls around.

Up next:  EARTHS!