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Synnibarr Sunday: evil mutant baby

Sunday, April 10th, 2011

“By the time Synnibarr was finished and ready to take off, the stellar storm was only 2 months away. But before Synnibarr could depart, a child was born whose heart was as black as hell itself. The young child was born a Mutant. Her powers were unknown and never fully understood.

After she was born, she aged to adulthood within 15 minutes. She appeared to be drawn, for no known reason, to the fusion reactor as a moth is to light. Once in contact with it, she attempted to draw and contain its power, but this proved too much for her abilities to handle; the resulting disaster almost forestalled the launch of Synnibarr.”

-The World of Synnibarr, introduction (page 2).
Excessively awesome passages are highlighted.

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Crossroads Adventures: stats

Friday, April 8th, 2011

I’ve mentioned Crossroads Adventures, the 80’s choose-your-own-adventure series. As far as I know, it didn’t have a D&D license. On the inside of my copy of “Warhorn”, it says “CROSSROADS Adventures are authorized interactive novels compatible for use with any role-playing game.” “Any role-playing game” is remarkably similar to D&D, because the Crossroads mechanics involve +1 swords, healing potions, and Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma, all rated 3-18.

Each Crossroads book includes an essay explaining a bunch of gaming terms, including the six D&D attributes. The best part of this essay is that, unlike D&D, it explains each of the 16 possible values for each attribute, and for most of them, includes a real-life example. The examples are worth the price of the book. They’re pretty well thought out; they do a better job of letting you know what it means to have, say, a 15 in an attribute than does D&D. They’re also hilariously 80s.

Here are some highlights:

STRENGTH:
15 A top athlete or football running back [OR? Dis on football running backs?]
17 Changes tires without a jack
18 Wrestles Arnold Schwarzenegger and wins [OK, why not just peg Arnold at STR 17?]

The essay goes on to point out that an elephant “has a Strength of 23.” How do they know?

INTELLIGENCE
6 Curly (The third Stooge)
13 College professor/good quarterback [a lot of football in here!]
15 Indiana Jones/Carl Sagan
18 Leonardo Da Vinci (Isaac Asimov?) [Really? The author of the essay thinks that Asimov is maybe as smart as Da Vinci? I liked The Caves of Steel but let’s not go overboard here. Also, is Asimov verifiably 3 INT points higher than Carl Sagan?]

WISDOM/LUCK [Here’s where Crossroads becomes slightly incompatible from “any game”: it rolls “luck” into the Wisdom stat.]
13 Lee Iacocca
15 Captain Kirk (wisdom) / Conan (luck) [I take issue with both of these. Kirk, as far as I can tell, succeeds entirely based upon Charisma and maybe Luck. I don’t ever recall him making a wise decision.]
17 Sherlock Holmes (wisdom) / Luke Skywalker (luck) [Again, Sherlock Holmes’ skill is clearly Intelligence. And Luke Skywalker, luck? Apparently the author of the essay doesn’t believe in the Force. He thinks that hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side.)

CONSTITUTION
15 Olympic Athlete/Sam Spade [Sam Spade? I guess he has a lot of constitution… I don’t remember much about the Maltese Falcon but I’m willing to believethat Sam got knocked out a few times and survived it.]
16 Marathon runner/Rocky [I agree that Constitution is pretty much Rocky’s strong point.]
18 Rasputin/Batman

DEXTERITY
13 Good fencer/Walter Payton [ah, more football!]
15 brain surgeon/Houdini
16 Flying Karamazov Brothers
17 movie ninja/Cyrano de Bergerac
18 Bruce Lee

A dexterity of 20 is possessed, apparently, by The Waco Kid. From Blazing Saddles. BLAZING SADDLES.

CHARISMA [This one is my favorite.]
7 Richard Nixon today [I wish they had statted Nixon’s Charisma at various points in his career. In China, 14! Jowly appearance vs. Kennedy, 8!]
14 Magnum, P. I. [Only 14???]
16 Henry Kissinger/Jim diGriz [one of these is the Stainless Steel Rat]
18 Dr. Who/Prof. Harold Hill (Centauri) [I have no problem with Dr. Who, but it never would have occurred to me to chart his CHA as 18. And apparently Centauri is a lovable character from the Last Starfighter? and Prof. Harold Hill is from the Music Man? OK, The Music Man is (arguably) timeless, but The Last Starfighter must have JUST COME OUT when this essay was written.]

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Mazes and Monsters: magic charms

Monday, April 4th, 2011
This entry is part 31 of 34 in the series Mazes and Monsters

Gear up your Hanks with a chapter of magic items! Here’s the PDF of the full chapter.

Click to download the pdf.

As a sample, here’s a charm that, for sheer baroque old-school madness, knocks the Eye of Vecna into a cocked hat:

Graven Eye of Gellor. Level 8 charm. This is a faceted ruby with twelve faces. (It looks much like a d12.) On each face is carved the iris of an eye, along with a unique magical rune. To use the Graven Eye, you must actually put out one of your own eyes and put the Graven Eye in its place. From now on, you will probably want to wear an eye patch a lot of the time.

At the beginning of every day, a different face of the Graven Eye will face the world, and you will have a different power when you gaze through the Graven Eye. Each morning, roll on the following table:

Table 9-1: Graven Eye of Gellor
1: Eye of Understanding: You gain the benefit of Read Strange Languages all day.
2: Eye of Fear: You can make an attack on people in throwing range or closer. If you hit, they are Mazed (RONA 6). While Mazed, they fear you. They may either stand where they are, not moving, or spend their turn moving away from you.
3: Eye of Seeing: You gain a trait die on all RONA checks involving seeing or perception. Also, you can see invisible creatures.
4: Eye of Truth: When people are lying, you see them surrounded with a red haze.
5: Eye of Light: You can shine light from your eye as if it were a lantern.
6: Eye of Lies: You can change your appearance to that of any person or monster that is approximately your size. Whoever you change your appearance to must have the Graven Eye of Timor visible as one of its eyes. The change of appearance does not affect your abilities or the appearance of your clothes and equipment.
7: Eye of Change: For the entire day, whenever you go through a door you’ve never been through, you roll on this table (rerolling 7s), temporarily taking on a new power. Passing through the same door multiple times has no effect.
8: Eye of X Rays: You can see through anything within throwing range (walls, curtains, etc) except lead. This doesn’t let you see in the dark, so you can’t, for instance, see the coins inside a dark coin purse or treasure chest.
9: Eye of command: You can make an attack on someone within throwing distance. If you hit, you do no damage, but you may issue them a short command. They are Mazed (RONA 4). As long as they are Mazed, they must follow your order. The Maze ends when the order has been fulfilled. The attack will fail if following the order will obviously lead the creature to immediate harm. (Near future harm is OK. The Mazed creature will not stab itself but will insult a dragon.)
10: Eye of the Mind’s Eye: You may make any images or visions you want appear in the sparkling surface of the Eye.
11: Eye of Darkness: You are blind in this eye. You gain a weakness die on all RONA checks involving seeing or perception.
12: Eye of Flame: As an attack, you can shoot a fiery red beam from your eye. It can attack at bow range, but unlike a bow, can also attack people next to you. It does fire damage. You gain a Trait die on the attack roll.

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Synnibarr Sunday: adventurers

Sunday, April 3rd, 2011

“After the avatar rested, it teleported all the animals from Earth to the new world. It then selected 400 men and women and transformed them into adventurers who were gifted with special powers and abilities. Each class of adventurer had different powers, yet each class was dependent on the others for survival. It created these adventurers to defend the seeds of Earth from potential dangers.

During the generations of deep space travel, the avatar knew that radiation could possibly alter human and animal life. It also knew that an alien race could discover Synnibarr and attack. Therefore, to defend the adventurers, it created a well-protected city for them to live in and enclosed the Worldship in a Werestorm to protect it during its initial takeoff and while in flight.”

– The World of Synnibarr, page 1 (introduction)
Things that I expected to be game terms, but are actually world terms, are highlighted. Also Werestorm.

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Maze Controller’s Guide

Monday, March 28th, 2011
This entry is part 30 of 34 in the series Mazes and Monsters

The Maze Controller’s Guide section of the Mazes and Monsters manual contains a lot of advice, some of it sound, some of it very bad. Perhaps the worst piece of advice is

If a player is becoming uncomfortable, terrified, confused, or frenzied, DON’T BACK OFF! Keep on challenging the player by upping the stakes in the fantasy. Don’t let a player leave the fantasy until they solve their issue! If players can’t handle it, they will freak out, flake out, or drop out. These are acceptable losses! You can’t make an omelet without driving some people mad.

But hey, it doesn’t go much further than Dogs in the Vineyard.

Here’s a section of the manual about designing Mazes:


(click for a larger version)

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Synnibarr Sunday: Venderant Nalaberong

Sunday, March 27th, 2011

“The powers of darkness had won the aid of the God of Time. This unholy alliance threatened to destroy the universe from the dread dimension of Shadarkeem.(1)

(1) Shadarkeem is the birth dimension of the Gods. Only Venderant Nalaberong power works there. The Gods become mortals whenever they are in this realm, and no normal mortal can survive there because the dimension drains all forces, including the life force, except for God Power and Venderant Nalaberong.”

-The World of Synnibarr, page 1 (introduction)
Highlighted items have never been mentioned before.

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the cave girl: earthquake fight!

Friday, March 25th, 2011

The Cave Girl by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Cave Girl by Edgar Rice Burroughs

In Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Cave Girl, lovely cave girl Nadara is saved from the clutches of hideous cave man Thurg by a well-timed earthquake.

An earthquake during a fight sounds like a fun complication to me, but we can’t be relying on all sorts of coincidences. Our D&D must be rigorously realistic!

The obvious way to stage an earthquake fight – the way these things usually go down – is to have the PCs trying to stop a ritual.

In order to provide full scope for earthquake fun, the fight should be in a setting with lots of earthquake-destroyable scenery. Perhaps a Greek-style temple with lots of pillars. Let’s put a river through the temple too: water or lava, depending in the god!

After a turn or two, if the PCs haven’t killed the ritualist, the ground shakes – a fortitude attack that knocks people prone. A few turns later, the same thing happens, with a stronger fortitude attack and maybe some damage. If the PCs haven’t stopped the ritual by the third check, the whole battlefield changes.

When the major earthquake happens, suspend the battle and, ignoring the battlemat, run a skill challenge where people try to avoid being swallowed by rents in the earth, run to high ground, etc. When the skill challenge is done, whip out a new map – a post-earthquake map, complete with chasms, fallen pillars, a water- (or lava-) fall, and a few pieces of unbroken ground. Depending on how everyone did, they’re at various places on the battlefield: hanging from exposed roots in a chasm, trapped under a pillar, or standing on one of the untouched areas of ground.

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Posted in 4e D&D, advice/tools, fluff/inspiration, news, other systems, RPG Hub | 3 Comments »

Mazes and Monsters manual: I wrote 40 spells

Monday, March 21st, 2011
This entry is part 29 of 34 in the series Mazes and Monsters

…and tricks and powers. Here are 14 of them.

I changed the way the Mazes and Monsters magic system works. Spells, Tricks, and Powers are now much more differentiated from each other. The changes were based on my RIGOROUS RESPECT FOR TEXTUAL EVIDENCE, not whimsy.

Spells: Rory, who read the novel, told me that in one scene, spells were referred to as one-shot items, like scrolls. Now spells are fire-once items, available to any class, as opposed to tricks and powers, which are learned permanently, and class-specific.

Powers: I originally had powers be unique to Holy Men, but I’d forgotten that Jay Jay says his Frenetic has “tricks and powers to take him far and keep him safe.” Now, Frenetics and Holy Men both have access to powers: healing powers are still unique to Holy Men, and I’ve added some tricky powers, like Sonar, for Frenetics. Some powers can be used by both classes.

Tricks: To make Tricks unique, I made them work a little bit like Blue Magic from Final Fantasy: Frenetics learn them by harvesting items from defeated enemies. This adds a form of treasure that the Maze Controller doesn’t have to worry about placing. It also adds another income source: every time you kill a Dragon, you can harvest its magic tooth and sell it in town.

Here’s Page 37, which contains half of the Tricks (along with the monsters they’re stolen from).

Click for larger PDF version of this page

Here’s page 39, which contains half of the Powers.

Click for larger PDF version of this page

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Synnibarr Sunday: In the beginning

Sunday, March 20th, 2011

In the beginning, 800 million years ago, on a small planet, a mage was born. This mage became the most powerful mortal ever known – so powerful, he was granted Godhood. His name was Aridius, The God of Hope and Command.

-The World of Synnibarr, page 1 (introduction)
Phrases that can only be said in a faux British accent are highlighted.

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mazes and monsters page 33: winning

Monday, March 14th, 2011
This entry is part 28 of 34 in the series Mazes and Monsters

I’m working on Chapters 6, “Experience and Leveling”, and 7, “Spells, Tricks, and Powers”. Here’s a page from Chapter 6.

Mazes and Monsters Manual page 33

Mazes and Monsters Manual page 33

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