Sol comments below and points out some of the difficulties of making shadow interesting to players:
1) The game rules spend too much time emphasizing how insignificant Shadow is. Zelazny's books make it secondary, but still important and challenging -- the game tries to make it fluff.
2) It's really quite hard to come up with a one-shot game where the PCs are Amberites and the action is out in Shadow. Six or so Amberites are getting together out in one Shadow -- why? What makes it interesting to them? Without some sort of greater context, it tends to seem small and underinteresting.
As far as how the game rules making Shadow sound insignificant, I think that can be easily remedied by the plot. If the GM makes what is going on in the plot a threat to the PCs and possibly even Amber itself, Shadow...and the happenings in Shadow....become a lot more significant.
If the PCs aren't all the typical self-serving Amberites that people typically think of Amberites as, they could even help out of the kindness of their heart...if the GM plays up the fact that Shadow-people are "real people" too.
The second point is the real tough one. Amber PCs tend to cling to the known shadows and if they do go to new shadows, they don't tend to go as a group. There's a million ways to get the PCs (and players) interested once they are there, but how do we get them there?
For the StickySerial, my original picture of the game would have all the elders having settled into different shadows, not all of them like Amber or Earth. If an aunt or uncle lived by the bird-people and their Library Tree, then there is a good reason to have the PCs there. Games could start with several PCs gathered at the Elder's estate to see a newborn baby, enjoy a party or whatever. As they leave, they pass the Library Tree and stumble on a mess that the bird people are in or whatever the shadow-plot may be.
Perhaps, travelling shadow is dangerous. The PCs are more wary of shadow travel but need to travel for the good of Amber. So, they begin travelling in larger groups than the elders do in the books. Safety in numbers.
Amber could have ancient pacts with certain shadow kingdoms to provide help if needed. From looking at Oberon's funeral procession, he certainly had contact with a lot more shadows than Corwin or the others were aware of. What if a dragon, like the ones seen in Oberon's funeral procession, shows up in Amber demanding that Amber uphold the treaty Oberon made and send their best warriors to the dragon's shadow to aide them from some clockwork beasts invading their shadow?
The PCs could have a sentimental attachment themselves to certain unusual shadows. If a one-shot game uses pregens, this could be built into the character.
Magical shadows may know ways to summon Amberites to their shadows. Do the PCs help the wizards that called upon them or slaughter them for their arrogance? Now that they are out there, to they walk shadows home?
One of the tougher things to deal with if using shadow as an adventure source is the ability to trump home. If you want the characters to sweat the situation as "strangers in a strange land", it will lose the effect if they trump their favorite uncle and go to his place...or just trump home to Amber.
If they can't trump everywhere they need to be, then the simple fact that they have to travel through shadow can make the adventures possible.
I don't have the answers to all the problems that spring from trying to make shadows more important in Amber but I'll be thinking about it.
This week's Monday Mashup is the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov.
Funny enough, I mashed Foundation years ago, when I was in high school. I was reading the series at the time and I started thinking about a setting where some rich guy on 20th century earth, decided to build a special colony of scientists and leaders hidden deep in the Mountains, to survive a Nuclear Holocaust. As a special twist, the thing that actually brings the apocalypse was a disease developed by this Foundation. The scientists accidently discovered a deadly new disease. They immunize themselves against it, but somehow an animal or something catches it and carries it to the outside world. With all the best scientists in the Foundation, the rest of Earth doesn't find a cure and most of humanity is wiped. Cut off from the rest of the world, the Foundation never knows the fate of humanity until it is too late. All that is left are the survivors and most of them were mutated. At the time, I was planning this to use the Palladium (aka Rifts) rules. These days, I can think of a lot better rules systems and probably would use GURPS, Masterbook or Unisystem. Using Unisystem, this could make a neat twist on an All Flesh Must Be Eaten setting if the disease actually turned the victims into zombies. Anyways, now the Foundation is left to pick up the pieces and help humanity rebuild.
I've started playing the PS2 game, Castlevania: Lament of Innocence. The game has a few really cool place names that have got me inspired for some new locations to use in roleplaying games:
The Forest of Eternal Night- In the game the Forest of Eternal Night is literally a forest where it is always night. The moon always shines. This could also be used for a forest so thick that the sun can never be seen from the forest floor.
Garden Forgotten by Time- This is the one that I was really excited about. In the game, it is just a level that is a huge garden. Of course, there are some man-eating plants. However, it makes me think about a location where all around it is the ruined remains of an ancient castle with vines growing over crumbling rock. When the PCs approach the center of the ruined castle there is a garden that still seems to still be kept by some caretaker and the closer to the center of the garden, the more it seems like the castle around it still resembles its former glory. At the very center of the garden, the PCs can see the banners still hanging from the castle walls and guards looking out from towers. Perhaps this location is a place where temporal energies don't work. Perhaps it's haunted by a former caretaker. Whatever the reason, time has forgotten it.
Anti-soul Mysteries Lab- Like Kirby's Anti-life Equation, this just sounds neat. "At last! I have unlocked the secret of the anti-soul!"
The whole StickySerial conversation originally started as a conversation on why noone seemed to be playing "traditional Amber" games.
Then, Paul comments below that "it is the setting, the milieu, the potentials which make ADRPG work."
Years ago, long before I got involved in the Amber-playing community or played in a game, a friend gave me a copy of the Amber RPG book. He had bought it because he really wanted to try diceless roleplaying but decided that he would probably never get around to running a game. He was hoping that I would run a game.
At this time, none of us (my gaming friends) had read the books.
I read the RPG book and my mind was filled with wonder at the thought of games where things could happen in all sorts of realities. The game had given me a way to run a game that could span a multiverse of realities and a mechanic through which the characters could travel through these shadows. I started planning a game with no clue about what the books were like outside of the blurbs and descriptions in the RPG book. With so little to tell me what a "proper" Amber story was like, I saw infinite stories since there were infinite shadows to play in and I planned a game that would span the shadows. It wasn't about the Pattern dying or Brand returning. Those thoughts never even occured to me. It was about our original PCs and would take place in all sorts of worlds. When we started building characters, noone even thought about who there Amberite parents would be. We were just looking forward to adventuring in this grand "multiverse".
That first campaign never got off the ground.
Eventually, Carla and I were invited into MK's Amber campaign and would start going to Ambercons. By the time we started going to the Ambercons, very few people were running traditional games. The impression I've been given is that all the plots that could be done have been done, so people have moved on to new settings and alternate Ambers. I've been going with this idea myself and have been reluctant to run traditional Amber games, lest I rehash something someone has done before.....and probably better than I could. "Brand's back." Yawn.
Between thinking about the StickySerial and Paul's comment, I've started thinking about my original Amber campaign that never was. Why can't we tell new stories in a traditional Amber universe? We still have that multiverse to play with.
It's the same problem I've seen with all the writers who have tried to tackle Jack Kirby's comic book creation: The New Gods. The writers, intimidated by the greatness of Kirby's creations, would rather bring back his villains than create their own original characters. (Steppenwolf, Kalibak and Desaad were all killed during the Kirby run only to be brought back later by other writers. Few writers after Kirby created their own original "fourth world" characters.) Amber GMs also have a lot to live up to when they try to tackle a game set in Zelazny's Amber. Trying to give it the Zelazny feel, it can be easy to fall back on the same types of plots and scenarios that Zelazny told. Hence, "a fellow Amberite is the villain" or "something is wrong with the pattern at it needs to be fixed."
There's still that infinite universe out there, but every Amber game I've played in has centered around Amber and the characters and settings that Zelazny created.
Zelazny gave us a huge playground to play in. Maybe we need to start exploring it some more. I can't believe we've run out of stories. There's too much out there.....outside of Amber....in shadow.
(By the way, does anyone out there recognize how big a geek I am from the title of this entry? Some times I scare myself.)
Flipping through the Fall 2003 issue of Black Gate (a magazine for Fantasy Fiction), I saw a page with the cover of Stormbringer. It turns out it is an article surveys several sword & sorcery authors, including Zelazny and Moorcock. It refers to the first Amber series as "a high water mark for fantasy and sword & sorcery alike," but unfortunately doesn't go into much detail. It talks a little more about Moorcock. One of the things that suprised me in it is that it says, "Moorcock's prose is frequently brilliant, shot through with moments of sad, lyric beauty." While I can see the "sad, lyric beauty" in his books, I just said in the comments below that I never thought of Moorcock as a writer of great prose. Maybe, I'm defining prose incorrectly, but I always pictured prose as being all the extra "flowery" description that a writer writes. Tolkein, while not one of my favorite authors, is someone I think of as great prose. In contrast, Moorcock reminds me of a pulp writer who writes just enough description to give you the basics but the magic.....the lyric quality...is in what is said, the characters and situations, not how it is said. This is the quality in their writing that I was referring to that Zelazny and Moorcock have in common in my mind. I may have to look again at the definition of prose. I think it's another word that I've made up my own definition in my head: "That flowery stuff."
The post in which Nuadha will likely offend several of his Amber-playing friends
Recently, a friend's Livejournal had someone post in his comments that Michael Moorcock was dead. I replied letting him know that MM was alive and well, living in Texas. The person came back with an apology, that they had mixed up Moorcock with Zelazny.
Between that and my last post on Chaos, I was thinking about the many similarities between the two. Personally, I'm not the huge fan of Zelazny that many of my Amber-playing comrades are. At the same time, I am a fan of Moorcock's work. While both share a similiar writing style and the ability to create Cosmic adventures with original ideas and settings that don't just seem like rehashes of Tolkein, I find Moorcock's stuff infinitely more enjoyable.
This isn't to say I haven't liked Zelazny's works. I have. I've enjoyed his short stories in particular. However, there was something missing and I've known for some time what it was.
Character.
Zelazny's characters are interesting and all-too human but too often his characters don't appeal to me. Ther is something in Michael Moorcock's many apects of the Eternal Champion and his many aquaintences that speaks to me. They think philisophically about their lot in life and the world around them. They speak like people I would like to know and because of this I begin to identify with them as I read. They struggle and fail and struggle some more and I'm there for the whole roller coaster ride.
The Amberites are like a bunch of bratty children. From the beginning, I disliked Corwin and as the Amber series went on I struggled to find a character, any character, to identify with. In the end, I didn't care for any of them. Squabbling children. Sure eventually, they work together and stop Brand but still there is no sense of these are people that I should like.
In Nine Princes in Amber, Corwin starts out with amnesia. Perhaps Zelazny did that in the attempt to help us identify with him and it worked for a little while, but by the end of the book, Corwin becomes like his brothers...a character that I have no wish to identify with. A character who is not real to me because I can not understand his needs or motivations.
In Elric of Melnibone. Moorcock introduces his most famous character, Elric. Reading it, I immediately could identify with Elric. Elric feels at odds with the world around him and I read it at a time when I felt the same. His motivations are not too achive a throne. In fact, he throws his away in pursuit of his goal: to understand the world around him and find his place in it. These are motivations I can identify with and I think many can.
They are both great writers but in the end I read the author who gives me people I like to read about. I guess it's the same for everyone.
(EDIT- Before someone asks "why do you play Amber then?", I just want to point out that I do really like the setting of the Amber books and that is why I play the Amber RPG. That, and I believe in diceless gaming.)
some rambling thoughts...
The wizard and good neighbor, Himmaggery, talks in his journal about how he pictures the first series Chaosians as something more like the Fair Folk of White Wolf's Exalted setting. I don't know a whole lot about Exalted but he hits on something that I've thought for sometime: Chaos is too bland in the Amber RPG. Since most GMs and the RPG use the second series as a source, Chaos never seems as mysterious and strange as it does in the Corwin chronicles.
In the games I have played in, few GMs have managed to to bring a little strangeness to Chaos and come close to making Chaos how I pictured it should be.
Arref managed to create an excellent Chaosian society for his Bloody Grievance game that he runs at Ambercon North. His Chaosians had many strange rules and customs that confounded all the players and their characters. Sitting down to eat with them became a deadly event as the Chaosians, offended somehow, would kill themselves to regain their honor, while the Amberites looked at eachother confused. It was a blast to play and one thing was certain to all the players. This Chaos was not just a reflection of Amber. Still, with all its rules and customs, I was left feeling that this Chaos was more about Order than its namesake. When I picture Chaos, I picture something...well.....a little more chaotic.
Michael Kucharski's Methuselah's Children game came close to my vision on a few occassions, especially with his NPC: Nestor. Nestor was a minor noble of the courts and one of the greatest shapeshifters. My character, Alexander, ended up going to Nestor for training in the art of shapeshifting and while training with him, Michael painted a picture of a very dark side of Chaos. A shapeshifter that has been alive for so many centuries, Nestor no longer needed food to survive and....beng in control of every molecule in his body, did not find pleasure in the normal things in life anymore. What are the pleasures of the flesh to someone that can change everything about himself. Nestor, and later Alexander, learned to feed and take pleasure from the raw emotions of others. Terror being one of the strongest emotions, he appreciated most causing that emotions upon others, but all pure emotions were worth feeling. It was this touch and a few others that made MK's Chaos stand apart a bit from most. His was still somewhat rooted in the Wujick Chaos, but was different and strange enough to give it a bit more mystery.
I offer you my basic views on Chaos. I warn you that a lot of my views on them come from one thing: the name. Chaos.
Personally, I like to think of Chaos in terms of....no suprise here....Michael Moorcock's Chaos. While not evil in the traditional sense, Moorcock writes Chaos as agents of change. Moorcock's Lords of Chaos have a constant need to create. They create beauty and suffering but how they differ from Order is nothing stays the same for long. Many think of Chaos as evil and the Chaos Lords are often referred to as Princes of Hell. (see The Warhound and the World's Pain) They are seen as evil because in order to create, they need to first destroy what has come before. They destroy entire universes to create a clean canvus to work from. In contrast, The Lords of Order represent stagnation. They fight to preserve the status quo even if the status quo is not good or worth saving.
I picture the Nobles of the courts as being much like Moorcock's Chaos. They have armies of slaves and servants so they rarely need to involve themselves with the mundane stuff. They are purely creators. Some are dark and create shadows of pain and suffering while other create things of beauty. Still, they are creatures of whimsy. They will quickly grow tired of their latest creation and feel the urge to change it....even if it means destroying a world or two in the process. Even their sevants are often warped and changed by the will or the Chaosians. This is why they move in on Amber. Amber represents order. The Pattern makes it harder to change things and the closer to the Pattern one gets the more difficult change becomes. Half of the Amber universe ends up falling outside of the control of the Chaosians and a new power.....a new plaything...lies out there in Amber....waiting for them.
The majority of creatures in the courts serve the more powerful Logrus masters, the masters of creation. They do this because they want to or because they have to, but most of them will never see the masters that head each house. That is usually fine with them because they know whom they serve and that service to the house is their place in life. It gives their life a form of meaning.
The majority of the armies of Chaos are made up off all sorts of beastly people of the sorts Zelazny describes as part of the army of the black road. They have been twisted and shaped into the creatures they have become by the powers of Chaos.
The basic grunts of Chaos are nothing in comparison to an Amberite. They have no great mystical powers, perhaps knowing a few minor magical cantrips at the most. They are stronger than humans from shadow but not by much. They attack in hordes and that is where the danger lies. On the other hand, the nobles stand as equals next to the Amberites. While their magic powers tend to be greater, the power of the pattern helps an Amberite resist the powers of Chaos. It is what the Pattern was meant to do.
In response to the most recent edition of the Monday Mashup,
a new curse for use in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG
The Bosox Curse
aka The Fenway Curse, aka the Wrigley Curse
Power Level: 4
Quick Cast: No.
Requirements: The ritual begins with the burning of rare, hard-to-find herbs. The caster sacrifice a goat while calling upon the demon-lord Babarouth (who according to legend cast out from his original hell dimension and ended up leading armies from another dimension to victory against his former home dimension). With the offering of the goat's life, the demon should grant the caster the effects of this curse on the target of his choosing. The curse may be placed on a single named group or a single person.
Effects: The strength of the curse is equal to the success levels of the casting. Whenever the cursed group or person is about to achiecve something that will bring them acclaim and respect in the eyes of their peers, they will suffer from a negative modifier to all rolls equal to the strength of the curse. For example if someone like say....a sports team.... were to be cursed with a Bosox curse with the strength of three and they were to get to the playoffs for a championship, all of their important dice rolls for the playoffs would receive a -3 penalty. The only way to remove the curse is to be successful despite the curse.
It's been a little bit since the game, so my memory is a tad hazy, but I believe there were only two spells researched and used in last week's game of Gillian the Vampire Slayer. One was a simple I Ching divination that I don't think requires a write-up, but the other was a protective ward that Andrew and Amy placed on their dorm rooms. I promised myself I would try to get all major spells written up in this game with "official rules" as soon as possible afterwords, so here they are.
Helsing's Ward Against Vampiric Influence and Other Demonic Possessions
Power Level: 2
Quick Cast: No.
Requirements: Caster(s) must place an image of Thesula's Circle of Spiritual Protection above all possible entrances of dwelling on which ward is being cast. Garlic bulbs or cloves are placed over and around entrance. Caster(s) meditate on an Amethyst for several minutes and place a single amethyst by one of the rooms entrances. A short prayer is made for God (Pagan's often use the protective deity of caster's choice) to protect the dwelling.
Effect: The Ward's strength is equal to the amount of success levels made in casting the spell. The ward remains until the strength is reduced to 0 and teh spells effects dissapated. Spell may be recharged in the future by simply meditating on the Amethyst and repeating the prayer. A new casting roll is required and the new ward strength replaces the old strength.
Whenever a demonic entity (including vampires) tries to cast a spell on the occupant of the room or try to mind control them in any way, the spell is modified by -2 for every level of strength in the ward. If a demon tries to enter a room protected by this ward, it must make a willpower x2 roll to enter, subtracting -1 for each level of strength in the ward. Whenever the spell protects against a new demon, even if it is the same species as one that it has protected from before, reduce the strength by one. When the strength is reduced by 0, the spell will protect the dwelling no longer. A witch can sense whn the ward's strength has run out with a roll of Perception+Occultism. Non-witches have no way to sense this and are advised to recharge the spell regularly.
Notes: It was discovered many years ago that some vampires, while unable to enter a home without invitation, could entrance a potential victim and compel him or her to invite the vampire into their home. This spell was created sometime in the 19th century to protect against this unusual ability. It has since been found to be useful as a protection from all sorts of demonic powers and has been extremely popular amongst both vampire-hunters and witches.
(Game Note- Since once of the descendents of Quincy Harker is one of the PCs in our game, there's obviously a bit more truth to Bram Stoker's than most people think. Could this spell have been created by a certain Abraham Van Helsing to combat the hypnotic powers of a certain dark prince? Unfortunately for Buffy in "Buffy vs Dracula" the power of her ward had worn off years ago. Let this be a lesson to you. Keep your magickal wards updated.)
I'm just talking about current evenst in my Champions campaign. If this doesn't interest you, feel free to skip. There's nothing earth-shatteringly insightful here. Then, there really isn't anything earth-shatteringly insightful in this blog in general.
So, Chango's teammate and friend, Locke, is upset at him. This crossing the threshold thing is something that Locke has known for sometime could be a really bad thing and Locke, having had the chance, turned it down. He feels that Chango went and did something apocalyptically stupid and ignored everything he told Chango about crossing the threshold and why it should not be done.
My Champions group is a face-to-face group, but with all the big stuff going on the roleplaying has spilled into emails. This stuff has made for some great email
Now, Locke is surrounded by the old gods returned and he's telling them all off. He says humanity doesn't need gods anymore...that they are like petty children squabbling amongst eachother. He threatens to use his own power to remove them from earth permanently. (A bluff, I think.)
Then he telpathically thinks to Chango: It never does seem to go right for you, does it, Chango (It is important to note that Locke refers to him as CHANGO, and not DANTE, his real name)? It's always someone elses fault. Well, now this one IS your fault. YOU CROSSED THE LINE. You were warned about what would happen. You heard how they warned me, and you ignored it. Those people in New Orleans didn't die because of Codex. They died because you were selfish. You CHOSE to throw in with Samedi. You CHOSE to ignore all the warnings, all the advice. And now I am forced to do what I never wanted to do. All because you couldn't look at the long term, had to act NOW. You have destroyed any hope Sanctuary had of making peace with the United States. You have destroyed everything. You trully deserve to stand among the rest of the Gods.
The thing is: Noone ever warned Chango. All the other characters talked about this crossing the threshold thing and they were warned about the dangers, but Chango/Dante was not there when they received the warnings and was never included in their conversations about the threshold. There is no doubt that the deaths of thousands in New Orleans was caused by Chango throwing in with Baron Samedi and the game, but Locke is probably madder at him than he would be because he thinks Chango knew. Sometimes its these kinds of miscommunications that make for some of the best roleplaying moments. When the other members of Vanguard showed up right after Chango's "ascension" and started fighting with him and The Loa, Chango had no clue what was bothering them. Now, he has seen the death toll in New Orleans and is pretty upset himself, but he truly did not know.
It works though. Chango is all about change and action, both in real-world Voodoo and my character.
(By the way, if anyone stumbles upon reading this while looking for information on the Voodoo religion: If you haven't figured this out yet, I'm referring to a roleplaying character. Voodoo is a real religion and I have a greatdeal of respect for its practitioners, but the Chango I'm referring to is a fictional character with some ties to the Voodoo Loa.)
An idea for alternate Nobilis rules
The experience in Neil's Champions game got me thinking about a variant for Nobilis.
At one point, Chango and the supervillains he used to hang out with, the Loa, did the ritual to allow the real Vodoo Loa to bond with them. Once the ritual was complete, Neil told me that Chango could do anything he wanted. I just had to describe what he did. Of course, each time I did that, Neil marked down how many active points I used. He was keeping track of how much power I was tapping into because at a certain point, Chango would cross "the threshold" and there would be no turning back.
This was neat, knowing that there was no limit to what my character could do, but still trying to keep all my actions within reason.
So, I started thinking. What if the Powers only had an limited amount of power in Nobilis and once they use it all, they die. Characters in Nobilis could start with a set amount of Miracle Points that only the HG (aka GM) knows. The HG would keep track of them and at certain points along the way he would give the players hints of how far along they are to using up the last of their power. Once the character uses his or her last miracle point, the character dies (living long enough for a good-bye) and the power passes onto another mortal.
I think the HG should also set certain circumstances where the Power gets back Miracle points as well, but they should be even rarer than it normally is and the players should have no clue when they get them back. The only hints they should get to how far they have gone towards ending their existence as a power is subtle suggestions by the GM that they are now starting to struggle with miracles that once were simple.
Then, you throw in the crisis. The Powers are strugling to fix things gone wrong, but they know that if they push themselved too far, they'll be taken out of the fight until a replacement mortal is found...and by then it could be too late.
The stars that shine brightest......
Nei's RDU game is getting a little crazy. Chango has decided to cross this "threshold" and do what the supervillains usually do: try and become a god. (It's somehow fitting that Chango is an ex-supervillain.) Now, the most destructive member of Vanguard (the superhero team) is playing with the power of a god. By doing this, he has heralded the return of all the old gods and everyone from Coyote to Loki is returning to Earth. To make things even more dangerous, many of the other PCs have the option to cross the threshold and attain godhood themselves.
(If you don't know much about Champions, be warned. I'm talking out loud about variant rules for playing Nobilis/Champions.)
Neil mentioned that he likes the idea of using Nobilis, except he's not comfortable with diceless system. I had a thought, then. What if every character had miracle points, but theirbase form and dicerolling mechanic were based on Champions as they were before? Every miracle point, could buy 50 active points of superpowers, essentially acting like a Variable Power Pool with a one time usage. Want to transform the moon into cheese? The GM determines about how many active points in the Transform power it would cost and divides it by 50 and boom! The moon is made of cheese! Isn't godhood fun?
Chango's been keeping his powers mostly just a little above his normal abilities, so he never would have spent more than one, maybe two miracle points. He's been flying faster by transforming himself into lightning and throwing around a little more power than normal, but he's just found the corpses of all the people who died when he crossed the threshold. My first thought: How many active points would it take to transform dead people into living people....with an area effect? Scary stuff, godhood is. This can't end well.
Ginger asks:Recommend three non-RPG games for RPGers. Why do you recommend these three?
Settlers of Catan. OK, it's a game I recommend to everyone, but I recommend it to gamers because of the political aspect of wheeling and dealing with your fellow gamers.
Wiz-War. A Jolly Rogers game. It's back in print and it's a classic. Players play wizards fighting to steal treasures from eachother in a magical dungeon. Cards are played representing magical spells with which players can effect themselves, others and even the dungeon! It's a blast to play.
Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures. The new collectible miniature game from WotC is a simplified version of my favorite miniature game of all time- Chainmail. It's a fun strategy game that is played with pre-painted plastic miniatures and best of all you can use the miniatures for roleplaying as well. (There's not a lot of call for Warhammer 40K Space Marines in most roleplaying games but fantasy minis never go out of style.)
On the Angel RPG message board there has been some conversation about the current season and ((SPOILERS!)) why Wolfram & Hart seemed to want Angel to take the amulet. It was suggested that the Spike we see now is old soulless Spike and that as a reward for his actions, his sould was allowed to go to heaven. It was further suggested that they wanted this to happen to Angel so they could have Angelus in charge of the L.A. branch of W&H. SJV's reply:
I'm not too sure that was W&Hs motives at all. Even they were afraid of the unpredictability of Angelus. They'd rather have the uncontrollable nuke sealed away in a box. Plus, they gave over the office to Angel before giving him the necklace. I don't think it was their idea at all to hand the keys of the city to someone who they knew would become Angelus. They know how to manipulate Angel. Angelus is a wild card they have no method of controling.
Angelus is the Stormbringer of the Vampire world.
"Farewell, friend. I was a thousand times more evil than thou!"
-Stormbringer
There's a good point. Spike and most Buffy-verse vamps, while evil, are not the type that will destroy the world. Angelus is and has tried before. Not exactly somebody you want released, even if you're W&H.
I just posted this here because I like the Angel as Stormbringer reference.
"Remind me to change roommates." -- George, waking up the morning after being poisoned during a demon attack
"I don't think it's so much your roommate. You just need to learn how to dodge." -- Nigel
GtVS 1.2 "That's Entertainment!"
((I could not even begin to give all the details of all the roleplaying that went on. There were plenty of simple "character moments", where player characters were just interacting...discussing their reactions to things and what-not.))
The episode begins the morning after "What Fresh Hell?" Amy wakes up, believing that the spell-casting of last night was just a crazy dream. She gets ready for school as Gillian wakes up and thanks her for the help with disposing of the demon body the night before. Amy freaks a little. The two go to breakfast where they run into Jessica. Jessica avoids them, trying to not think about what happened the day before. They approach her. Amy has a visual flash (via cheesy science fiction movie effects) and sees the symbiote inside Jessica. She comments on it and Jessica hastily leaves.
First period on Wednesday, the PCs find that many of them (Amy, Jessica, Gillian and Andrew) share another class together. Nigel Harker's Anthropology 101. After class, Amy, Gillian and Andrew approach Nigel and tell them about Amy's visions. She seems to be able to see the supernatural.
That evening, Amy and Andrew work together to cast protection enchantments on the two dorm rooms. Amy seems very excited to learn that magic really is real. She plans to check out her Grandma's books this weekend, since she now realizes that her Grandmother is a witch literally as well as figuratively.
Gillian goes to the police station to try and get more information from the frat boys about the vampire that claimed to be Spike. The yound frat-boys seem to know little. She confronts one of the older ones, Billy Peterson. He seems to know more but refuses to talk to her even under intimidation. His parents pick him up and he leaves to go to his home in Sterling Heights, MI.
Jessica goes to Gymnastics practice. She slips up as she notice Professor Harker is in the audience and quickly goes to the locker room before Harker can get to her. Harker, who has been doing some research on the symbiote shouts the name of its last owner, "Faru Khan!" The symbiote reacts underneaths Jessica's skin. She looks in the mirror at the symbiote, moving on her side and collapses on the floor. Crying in the locker room, she notices something in one of the shadows. It looks like a person, but when she goes to look closer, the person is gone. She rushes out and speaks with Nigel. Nigel lets her know that he has learned that the item shown in the book he found is "The Glove of Faru Khan", a hand shaped artifact which is supposedly the arm of an ancient Asian warlord who led his armies against a demon invasion. It was said that the had a demon inside him that made him invulnerable to the demons he fought. The symbiote was manifested outside of him as a gauntlet when one of his own men betrayed him. They destroyed his body but the glove remained in the form of black stone shaped like a clawed hand.
Nigel convinces her to try moving the symbiote with her mind. They start to test this, when they notice someone in the back of the bleachers watching them, a man in a dark trenchcoat, hat and gloves. They leave and return to his office.
Gillian calls George and has him check Billy Peterson's records. She calls Billy and Billy informs her that he was told not to talk about his case by his lawyer, Miss Gwen Archer of the Detroit branch of Wolfram & Hart.
Gillian checks out the crime scene from the last episode. She finds a small bowl in the basement where the symbiote attacked Jessica. Leaving she meets a vampire in a black trenchcoat. He says he heard the roomer that there was a "new slayer" in Ann Arbor. He wanted to see her with his own eyes. He warns her to be careful and leaves before she has a chance to stop him.
Gillian goes to Nigel's office where he finds her training Jessica. (a musical training montage from some eighties morning....complete with inspirational power chords) With Nigel's help, Jessica has figured out how to control the symbiote. It seems to allow her to create armor that makes her extremely tough (Armor 25!), create weapons that protrude from her hands (the gauntlet), increase her strength or her dexterity. However she can not do more than one of those effects at a time as the symbiote moves around for the effects. Also, the symbiote seems to be able to cut off physical pain from her nervous system. Gillian and Jessica spar and Gillian soundly beats Jessica. While Jessica is fast (beefing her dex), the slayer out-strengths her. While Jessica beefs her Dex, the slayer out manuevers her. Still, Jessica resiliency is impressive. The two do a bit of damge to Nigel's office.
Nigel gets a call from Samantha (the demon that works at the UofM hospital). Someone has stolen some blood from the hospital. A group of guys broke in.
Amy reads more of the Slayer's Handbook. Now that she knows it is more than some RPG thing, it is much more interesting.
"I'll go back to my room and read (Gillian's) Slayer's Handbook. Because apparently this is something important." -- Amy
"Oh good. At least someone will have read it." -- ?
"Then she can tell me what it says!" -- Gillian, excited
The weekend comes and Amy goes to breakfast with her family. There she isasked by her grandmother to pick her up from temple in the afternoon. While Grandmother is at temple, Amy sneaks a peak at Grandmother's occult books and reads a book on Chinese divination techniques. She picks up grandmother and drives her by a yard sale that her grandmother wanted to go to. At the yard sale, she uses her sight to pick up some occult items found there, including some charms, an Assyrian "Devil Trap" (a clay disk with Assyrian writing) and a remote control that seems magical.
That night, while on patrol, Gillian and Nigel run across a bunch of vamps heading into Connor O'Neil's, an Irish pub in Ann Arbor. They fight them when the "mystery vamp" shows up and kills one. A van peels out of the parking lot and the mystery vamp poofs into a mist, appearing on top of the van. He cuts into the roof of the van with his katana blade. Gillian runs after the van as the van crashes. Ripping off the door, she finds the mystery vamp killing vampires inside. Inside are several packets of blood and boxes of Twinkies. She demands to know he is. He tells her his name is Dorian as he mists away. Nigel has her remove the sword that he left in the top of the van.
Jessica goes to a party. As she walks by a darkened bedroom, she peeks inside to see a girl crying on the bed with several of the "dark men" gathered around her. Jessica enter the room and turns on the light. The "dark men" leap into the shadows and disappear. Jessica talks to the girl and find out that her name is Sue and that her boyfriend had just dumped her. She convinces the girl to leave the room and have soem fun when the light turn off. She whirls around to see several of the dark men by the door and one shuts the door. Blocked from escape, she and Sue exit out of the window where they see several of the darkmen gathering. They look to jump off the roof and see some of them on the ground, under the shadow of the tree, looking up. They are expressionless creatures with black skin and eyes with no irises. They rush into one of the other windows on the roof and into the safety of a well-lit room.
Back in the dorm, Andrew plays with the remote while waiting for Amy to come over so they could do a divination about its origin. Pressing the power button a demonic-looking blue face appears on his television set and talks to him. He hands his roommate, George, the remote and rushes to get Amy. They three find out from the creature in the TV that it is "a Djinn" and it was trapped in the remote. It will give Andrew or any of them wishes. They go into another room and call Nigel while talking about this. They do a ritual to divine the nature of the remote and find out that it was a storage vessel and that it has the potential of great "yang" energy. It has changed hands many times since the Djinn was trapped in it.
((NOTE- The Buffy rulebooks and sourcebooks have a series of related adventures where the big bad is a Djinn. I didn't like the idea as djinn as a season villain, but liked him as light-hearted occassional villain. I altered him drastically and took bits for this scenario from the adventure in the back of the Core rulebook, "Sweeps week". I had a completely different adventure planned but after all the roleplaying scenes, there wasn't much time for a full plot in this game, so I decided to wing a Djinn scenario and had the remote control show up at a yard sale.))
Getting bored of waiting inside Andew's TV, the Djinn starts working a little magic. There is a knock on Amy and Gillain's door shortly after Gillian and Nigel arrive. Amy looks outside to see the actor Scott Bakula dressed as his character Capt. Archer. Archer tells her that the Djinn is getting bored and wants a wish right away. The character talk some more. There is the sound effect of a transporter from Star Trek and the TV materializes in the room. It is the Djinn and he looks upset.
The Djinn snaps his fingers and Lucy Lawless appears in front of the set, dressed as Xena. Xena and Gillian fight. The Djinn smiles. "Now, THAT's entertainment!" Andrew, Amy and George fight over the remote, with the remote sent flying under Gillian's bed. Nigel confronts the Djinn asking to know by which demonic laws his deal was made. Gillian and Xena end up tumbling as Andrew pushes a crossbow out of the way of the remote. As George pulls him away from the remote, Andrew uses telekinesis to pull the remote to him like Luke Skywalker. Amy intercepts the remote and wishes that she had never bought this thing. The Djinn, who was holding up a scroll to the tv screen for Nigel to read looks suprise. "Isn't that clever!" The remote, Xena and tv disappear. Andrew finds the tv back in his room.
Andrew overhears the Watcher telling Gillian how dangerous Andrew is. Andrew is upset.
Gillian is upset after getting chewed out by Nigel, so Amy and George take her to Amy's parents house where they sneak some of Amy's dads beers.
The show ends with a scene of ayoung boy excitedly showing his mom a remote control he bought at a yard sale.
The second game of GtVS was last night and I think everyone had a good time.
Kris has put up a page on her website to collect the humorous quotes from the campaign and it can be found here.
Every week, the Monday Mashup challenges us to mix a given bit of pop culture with a roleplaying game of our choice. This week's Monday Mashup is Silence of the Lambs.
Since we just played the first session of our Buffy campaign and the next game is this weekend, Buffy's on my mind. I thought of a few scenarios for Buffy where the Hannibal Lecter-type was a demon either being held by the Initiative or in a prison dimension like the one seen in an episode of Angel. However, since Bryant already covered Buffy I offer a mash with Isaac Asimov's Robot series.
For the uninitiated, the Robot series are Isaac Asimov's version of the buddy cop movie. The books are set in the future. The people of Earth live in crowded cities Elijah Bailey is a good cop who, like many Earthers, has a dislike for Robots. After a Spacer (someone from one of the human space colonies) is murdered, the Spacers want one of their people to accompany Elijah on the case, a robot that is indistinguishable from humans named R. Daneel Olivaw (imagine Data from Star Trek and you have Olivaw's personality).
The game would be a one-shot for 3 players (maybe more, but I'm not sure how to work them in). The characters would be pregenerated. For the system, I would use GURPS. GURPS works really well for mystery and suspense games and the Robot setting would be extremely easy to create for GURPS. As an alternative, Unisystem (Buffy, All Flesh Muste be Eaten, Witchcraft, etc.) or Masterbook (WEG's amazingly well designed, but short-lived Universal System) could be used. Neither system has as detailed of a skill system but make up for it with ease-of-use and a better combat system than GURPS. Of course, a "Silence of the Robots" game would not be about combat.
Bailey and Olivaw are once again sent to a spacer colony where a murder has occured. This time, it is a serial killer... something unseen on an off-worlder colony for decades. This time the Spacers attach a third person to the team, a Spacer named Clarice Starling, an attractive, physically fit and perceptive woman from a rural colony. She has heavily studied psychology as well as being one of the Spacer's best detectives.....but this is her first time dealing with a murder. (Murder and violence are almost unheard of on Spacer colonies.)
It appears to be a copy-cat murderer. A year ago, an Earth robot named R. H. Lecter did something that was thought to be impossible. He killed a human. The positronic brain of robots was designed so that no robot could ever be created without three rules that are integral to their being. A robot would shut themselves down before ever disobeying one of the rules:
R. H. Lecter killed several people before he was caught. An oddity, he was deactivated and his brain was studied by scientists.
The copycat could be a robot or a Spacer...but either way there seems to be only one way to understand the mind of this new killer. Reactivate R.H. Lecter and talk to him. The team is warned that talking to him is dangerous, but he is shipped to the Spacer colony and reassembled in a secure location. (Alternatively, the Spacers may not be ready to allow this risk and the team may return to Earth where Clarice is allowed to interview from behind a glass seperating Spacer-town from New York.) He is extremely intelligent and seems to have a greater understanding of human psychology than any human being has probably ever had. The team returns time and time again to interview Lecter, but he only seems to really open up to the Spacer woman.
Things get more complicated, when R. H. Lecter escapes. Little does the team know that Lecter is more interested in killing the copycat than resuming his killing spree right away. "There is nothing worse than a lack of originality...." He investigates on his own while leaving clues for Clarice...to the identity of the killer.
The D&D miniature handbook has a picture of a Red Dragon from the next expansion for their D&D Miniatures game. You can see it here.
Ginger asks: Have you ever played in or GMed a game with more than one GM? What was your experience with it? What were the strengths and weaknesses of having multiple GMs? Was it positive or negative? Would you do it again? If you’ve never tried it as a GM or player, would you like to? Why or why not?
I've played in a few multiple GM games and GMed in a few.
Back in High School, I had my regular gaming group with which I played Palladium Fantasy RPG and Heroes Unlimited (a superhero game by Palladium). We originally started with Heroes and for a little while all of our adventures shared the same world. They were episodic adventures of the Global Guardians, an international team of superheroes. We were all new to gaming and we were told that GMing was such a chore that noone ever wanted to do it, so taking turns as GM made sense. Since the episodes were episodic, and the powers and abilities were much more defined than a game like Amber, where every power could have millions of variations on how much a GM can allow it to do, we never had much of a problem of consistency. Nightshadow's Energy Blast did 4d6 damage. It didn't matter who the GM was. These games were a lot of fun as each GM brought their unique ideas to the game. Eventually, I became the primary GM of the Global Guardians universe. It seems these games often work that way, as I am currently a player in Neil's Red Dragon Universe (RDU) superhero game which I am told started the same way. I guess everyone slowly decided over time that either a certain GM was preferred or that they were tired of GMing and tapped out of ideas while the remaining GM was still coming up with ideas. Whatever the reason, the Global Guardians eventually became identified so much as my campaign that the other players started clearing scenarios and ideas with me before GMing them.
Years later we attempted a short-lived Fantasy campaign where we decided that each adventure was required to have a different GM. Like the game where one person tells a story and the other continues it, we required that the new GMs continue the story while the GM of the last game sits back and plays, unable to complain about where the next GM takes the story as long as it build off what has come before. Now, this probably sounds like a recipe for a disaster, but it worked....for a while. It was on its second round through the GMs and was going fairly well in it came to a screeching halt. One of the GMs, Jay, was a great guy with a lot of cool creative ideas. However, he would often introduce the ideas whether it would be fun or not. He did a game that so completely altered the concept and feel of the campaign world AND the PCs that it actualy killed all of the interest people had about the game. It wasn't as much the fact that he altered the world. That was the idea of the game world, but he made changes to the abilities and theme of other PCs so much that players were left with characters nothing like what they had created and wanted to play. I've said it before and I'll say it again. One of the most important jobs of the GM is to allow the character a chance to play the character they want to play. Giving the character challenges that they must overcome is one thing, but significantly altering the character concept and turning in to something that the player has no interest in playing is another.
Our third attempt came a few years later. I had finally gotten this group to change over to Champions and we decided to give the rotating GM thing a try again. I started the campaign with the concept that all our characters would be super-powered teens going to a high school in the fictional city of Vermillion, LA. (I found out some years later that there really is a Vermillion, LA.) The world concept was that there had never been super-powered people before and now suddenly many kids under the age of 18 were getting powers....no adults. The game followed the same pattern....and my friend, Jay, once again acted as the Angel of Death for the game and in a very similiar manner. This time we started the game with the basic concept that it would be a light-hearted game that we played in between soem darker adventures of Palladium Fantasy I was running on opposite weeks. Jay made the world all dark and gritty and in one night he changed the concept from dealing with going to a high school when several of the students have superpowers to on the run from the law as the US Government tries to put us in holding facilities. His reply when other GMs and players complained was "I didn't make it that dark. Japan was killing their superpowered kids. I didn't have the US do that!"
So, the episodic thing worked, but the GMs HAVE TO discuss and agree on major changes to the mood/theme of the campaign before they are implemented. This is not the same as saying that the world can't evolve, but if your going to change the world from "happy-go-lucky" to "please-don't-kill-me!" you may want to talk to your co-GMs and see how they feel about that.
The few other multi-GM games I've played in have been at cons where the GMs are GMing at the same time. These have been successful as well. It seems that the GMs always had a clear chain-of-command or an organization where one GM handles certain scenes, locations or NPCs. I've never experienced any of the horrow stories that many people have with these, but I can see how problems can develop. On the positive side, it has allowed players more time to actually play their characters instead of waiting for the GM. Also, with one game I played in I witnessed one GM start to fall into a trap that he often does. He often has a whole session where lots of character interaction happens but nothing exciting happens. The other GM pulled her co-GM aside and when they returned, suddenly something happened that ended the game on an exciting note, resulting in transforming a good game into a great game. The one GM was able to recognize the other GMs weakness and reminded him that the game needed that climactic moment.
I would play in multiple GM games still and plan to try my hand at multi-GMing this year. I have invited a co-GM for the Morpheus Calling series and I think it will only improve the game experience.
Superheroes is a very visual genre, so if you're GMing or playing a superhero game it is extremely useful to have images of your superheroes. However, it can be very difficult to find good superhero images that are not already recognizable as an existing superhero. I've been luck enough to play in a campaign with Storn Cook who has illustrated some of my Champions characters, but I still try and keep an eye out for existing images that can be used for inspiration for new characters. This website is an encyclopedia of International and obscure American superheroes that would certainly be useful for a GM or player of superhero RPGs.
(OK, to be honest- I very rarely look for images of a superhero before creating them. Most of the time a think of a set of powers saying "wouldn't be cool if he could...." and build an image and personality around that concept. Chango is one of the few exceptions. Chango's image and personality was developed first.)
I wrote up the official version of spells that were used in the first episode of Gillian the Vampire Slayer. I'm sharing them here for any other GMs of the Buffy RPG.
Demon Banishing
Source:GtVS 1.1 What Fresh Hell?
Quick Cast: No.
Power Level:2
Requirements: Sea Salt, Chalcedony (a type of crystal), Magic Circle, four coins (any type as long as they have monetary value). Circles are drawn with Seas Salt and the coins are placed at four points on the circle. Demon must stand/lie in circle as the casters (minimum of two) chant the incantations.
Effects: After about two minutes of chanting, the demon disappears...as well as the four coins. The Demon is sent to a hell dimension. Scholars are unsure which dimension the demonis sent to, but it is believed they are returned to the dimension that their sepecies originates from.
Aspect Analysis: Dual Casters (-1), Scope: Noticeable (+1), Requirements: Unusual (-1), Harm: Major (-3)
Word of Vataran
Souce: GtVS 1.1 What Fresh Hell?
Quick Cast: Yes.
Power Level: 2
Requirements: A short incantation in the demon language Vatari. A witch may simply say "Obey" in a commanding tone. Caster must have a higher willpower than the target. Roll for success is modified by subtracting 2x creatures willpower. Some demons, mostly hell's footsoldiers have shown a weakness against the Word of Vataran. In order to quickcast, caster must have finished the original incantation successfully before.
Effect: Spell places a demon under the control of the caster for an amount of turns equal to levels of success. Creatures may follow simple commands, but if given a command that is completely against the demons nature, (such as telling a Shurago demon to sing a love song) the demon may break out of the spell. (A 2x willpower roll.)
Notes: This spell is a popular spell amongst sorcerors who practice demon summoning and considered a must-learn. Vataran Demons were often commanders of demon armies, but none have been seen for centuries.
Aspect Analysis: Major Effect (+3), Recitation (+1), Can be Quick Cast (+1), Scope: One Demon (+1), Duration: Short (-1), Caster Requirements: Caster must have higher willpower (-1), Caster Penalty: Subtract 2x target's willpower from roll (-2)
Slow Metabolism
Source: GtVS 1.1 What Fresh Hell?
Quick Cast: No.
Power Level: 3
Requirements: Candles, a mixture of common herbs includied Valerian Root and Chamomile. Target must lie down as caster sprinkles herbs over chest and recites a prayer to Hypnos.
Effect: The target's metabolism is slowed down for one hour per success level. Their heart rate drops and their breath is shallow. Spell may be cancelled early by the caster or any other person who know how to call upon Hypnos to end the spell. This spell can slow the effects of poisons and aging.
Aspect Analysis: Effects one person (+1), Duration: long (+1), Effect Strength: strong transformation (+1)
Not really gaming news, but news that appeals to my inner geek:
In what may be the first example of synergy from their proposed merger, NBC and Universal have agreed to develop a dramatic TV series, Transylvania, inspired by director Stephen Sommers' upcoming Van Helsing movie, based on Universal's classic monsters, Variety reported. NBC has given Universal Network Television a pilot commitment for a drama that, while not a spinoff or sequel, will be set in the same universe as Van Helsing, the trade paper reported.
There is more at Sci-Fi Wire. Not sure about how good the TV series sounds but the movie sounds better and better.
For anyone out there who is running or may run a Buffy RPG, I've found this site to be extremely useful: Restless: The Buffy Trivia Guide. Of course, you don't need to be running Buffy to enjoy this site. If you're a Buffy fan at all, it has a lot of neat information.
Speaking of Buffy trivia, I watched the season one episode "Nightmares" Friday. ("Nightmares" is the episode with the kid in the coma and the gang experiencing the kid's and their own nightmares.) You may already know that in the Buffy musical, they are (sorta) referring to "Nightmares" in the "I've Got a Theory" song"
I've got a theory,
some kid is dreaming,
and we're all stuck inside
his wacky broadway nightmare
-Willow
Not a big trivia-bit there.
However in "Nightmares," Willow asks Giles something along the lines of "So, we're experiencing his dreams?" and Giles replies "Dreams? That would be a musical comedy compared to this."
((Warning- there are some spoilers of the ending of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series ahead. Also, this is a LONG summary. I put it up here for the future reference of myself and my players.))
The premiere episode of Gillian, the Vampire Slayer begins with a scene somewhere in the woods of Michigan. The scene is peaceful looking, but there is the sound of siren klaxons in the air. A pile of leaves moves as a metal hatch beneath it is pushed open. Demons and Vampires pour out of the ground. A blue skin demons runs next to a Vampire shielding himself from the son and thanks him for "the help in there." He asks the Vampire his name. The Vampire speaks from beneath the blanket. "Spike. Now bugger off."
The beginning credits run, followed by shots of a reporter describing the destruction that took place in Sunnydale two months before and the mystery that still surrounds one of the greatest tragedies in American history, the day a city was swallowed whole....a city that the Spanish once called Boca del Inferno...."The Mouth of Hell."
We cut to a scene of a young girl alone in a graveyard. She looks bored. An attractive man approaches. "What are you doing in a graveyard all alone at night?" The man turns out to be a hungry vamp and attacks the girl, but gets more than he bargained for....a vampire slayer. He is quickly dusted. Faith makes a guest appearance and visits with the new vampire slayer, Gillian. She gives Gillian a message from Buffy that Andrew has enrolled at the UofM and Buffy is asking her to keep an eye on "the geek." The two go to a party.
The next scene introduces George Carver as he meets his new roommate, a geek named Andrew Harris. (At least that's the name on his paperwork.....) Andrew has already covered their dorm room in Star Wars poster and a poster of Captain Archer of Enterprise. Andrew throws a fit. "I wanted a single! I was supposed to get a single!"
Gillian gets in so late that she doesn't meet her roommate and by the time she wakes up, her roommate is gone for the day.
The next morning is class. Professor Koerner's European History class. Gillian sees Andrew in the class and drops off an envelope to him, a gift from Faith. Andrew finds some really nice fake IDs inside. An hour into the class, there is a scream inside. A woman has found a dead body in a trash can. Gillian runs around to the trash can outside the window of the class and looks at the body. A man, he has marks on he arms that looks like something either bit him or cut him. The class watches, horrified as this morbid girl examines the body. The police show up and ward them back as Gillian snaps a shot with her phone to send to her Watcher.
Between classes, Andrew finds some kids playing a new collectible card game, "Magestorm." He makes some friends and plays the game.
After all the classes are done, Gillian returns to her dorm to meet her rommate, an Asian girl from her History class named Amy who had been particularly discussed by her morbid behavior earlier. Nevertheless the two hit it off very well.
Down the hall, Andrew and George are getting along better after George discovers that Andrew is old enough to buy beer. The two go on a beer run and on the way back sees a girl from their class being abducted by some guys in black sweaters and seatpants. They run to the alley they pulled her in to see her being shoved into a van. A demon with blue skin blocks their path. They try fighting it and are losing badly when Andrew realizes that it is a Logora demon and they are weak against magical suggestion. Andrew casts a "Control Demon" spell. From the demon, he finds out that they were taking her to the Delta Phi Omega fraternity house. They run and call the slayer. Andrew explains the reality of the world to George and what really happened in Sunnydale. George takes it fairly well. "That explains a lot."
Gillian gets the call. She tries to distract her roommate while she gets an axe out of her chest, but her roommate will not leave. She takes the axe out in front of Amy and leaves. Amy notices that Gillian left the trunk open and peaks inside. She finds "The Slayer's Handbook" (the book Giles never bothered giving Buffy) and starts reading. She determines that her roommate is some freaky roleplayer. It explains the axe.
Nigel, Gillian's watcher was coming home from the airport in a cab when he got the call from Gillian. (He had just returned from his brother's funeral in England. His brother, a watcher as well, died in the explosion of the Watcher's Hall.) He meets Gillian and the gang and they go to save the student. Andrew calls the police as well.
Jessica, the girl who was kidnapped, wakes up in a basement. A man with blonde hair has his lackeys leave and reveals that he is a vampire, but for some reason when he goes to feed, he gets this horrible headache. He has had the frat boys fetching blood for him and has promised them immortal life. A vampire lackey commented before leaving the room that "we're still gonna kill these brats when you're better, right boss?" Jessica, who was afraid the lackey was referring to her and another girl who was tied up in the room, seems only slightly relieved that the guy is killing someone else.
The slayer busts in the door and the gang charges in, except for Nigel. Nigel sneaks around back where he witnesses some guys with hight tech weapons hauling an unconcious Logora demon in the back of an exterminator van. Is the Inititative operating again?
There is fighting inside. Jessica tries to escape, but unsure of who is on her side and who is not, she feels trapped. A frat-boy picks up a cup to use as a weapon and is prompyly incenerated. Andrew knocks a frat boy down on the cup and the frat-boy is also promptly incenerated. Gillian confronts "Spike." "What's wrong with you." He seems not to know her. She dusts him.
George is trying to untie Jessica's hand when a little black spider things runs up at her. She tries to escape but the thing latchs onto her chest. Sirens are outside as the police arrive. Nigel rushes the group outside and they escape. Jessica runs away from them. The thing is under her skin and she is freaking. She goes to the hospital.
Nigel has already called a colleague at the hospital and the colleague, a shapeshifter with healing powers and a fatal sun allergy, finds Jessica and talks to her. Nigel arrives and the two try to calm her down. Nigel explains to Jessica that it is some sort of demon symbiote and admits that there is distinct possibility that she is doomed to one of three hells. This does not calm her down.
Gillian arrives home and talks to her roommate, Amy. She tries to explain that she is not some freaky roleplayer, but she would not listen. Amy reveals that her grandmother thinks she's a witch, but the old lady is just crazy.
One of the demon lackeys that was at the house shows up at Andrew and George's room and attacks them. The two defeat the demon but the demon stung George with his tongue and poisoned him. The two end up at the hospital. Nigel and Andrew hunt for an antidote as George and Jessica discuss what a bad night they are having.
They find an antidote and rush it to the dying George. Meanwhile, Andrew and Gillian convince Amy to help them with a banishing spell to get rid of the demon body in his room. Amy reluctantly goses along, wanting to go back to bed. She does not believe them even when she sees the demon body. She glances over the spellbook Andrew uses and memorizes the spell, fixes a few mistakes Andrew made in drawing the circle and recites with him the incantation. The body disappears. Amy returns to bed, certain she was dreaming.
The next morning, Jessica wakes up and looks in the mirror. There is no sign of the symbiote underneath her skin. It must have been a freaky dream. The camera pans behind her and we see something moving under skin on her back.
Roll credits.
I still think it is an excellent system, but it is going to take some adjustment for me. Not as much as D&D, maybe, but some adjustment nonetheless. The GM almost never needs to roll dice, which takes some getting used to, but will speed things up in the long run. (All NPCs are basically considered to have recieved an average roll and the PCs compare against that.) Several times in the game's major combat, I felt like I should be rolling dice as well and picked up a die only to get confused at what I was going to roll for. It's an excellent idea I think.
The one thing I think is missing is a good initiative system that determines when everyone goes. Otherwise, I think the system is as close to perfect as I've seen a roleplaying game ever come. It won't for every genre or for every game, but it comes close.
Giles: We few....
Giles/Spike: We happy few...
Spike: We band of buggered...
-BtVS 5.22 "The Gift"
I ran the first session of "Gillian, the Vampire Slayer" tonight. The game had (I think) a shaky start, but once the demons started showing their ugly mugs, the players went to town. There was some excellent roleplaying and a lot of laughs as the uninitiated learned how all those faerie tale monsters really do exist. At least one demon works at the local hospital!
The characters for the game are:
Gillian Black (Hero, played by Carla)- Once a slayerette. Now, a full-fledged Slayer. An art student at UofM and someday heiress to the Black-family fortune.
Nigel Harker (Hero, played by Jack)- A watcher from a long line of watchers that began with Quincy Harker, the son of John and Mina Harker. A teacher of Antropology at the University of Michigan.
Jessica Pierce (White Hat, played by Kris)- A student at UofM on a Gymnastics scholarship. Has bonded with some sort of demon symbiote.
Ming Yue "Amy" Nguyen (White Hat, played by Matthew)- Student at UofM and Gillian's roommate, she is the grand-daughter of a powerful witch and has great potential.
Andrew Wells, currently using the name Andrew Harris (White Hat, played by Jarrod)- Andrew from season six and seven of Buffy. Living under a "made-up" last name with fake indentities and enrolled in UofM as he tries to make an honest life.
George Carver (White Hat, played by Mark)- A computer engineering major with a major crush on the Slayer. Roommate to Andrew.
NPCs introduced so far (by episode 1.1):
Humans-
Admir- Engineering Student and friend of George's.
Fang Nguyen and Dun Tan- Amy's parents. They own and run a Chinese Restaurant near the UofM campus, which Amy is forced to work on Saturdays.
Jia Li "Julie" Nguyen- Amy's sister.
Tim Koerner- European History teacher at UofM.
Rebecca Quinn and Dan Bowler- Homicide Detectives.
Seth and Pete- local LARP players who play a Vampire game.
Dr. Jonathon Post- A Watcher searching for the legendary cup of Judas, "the unholy grail."
Evelyn Pembrook- (flashback only) Nigel Harker's deceased wife.
Constance Meriwether- (flashback only) A slayer potential that Nigel failed to protect.
Cynthia Anderson- Local witch that gives Andrew some guidance.
Vivian- Tarot reader who offers Andrew a free reading.
The Vampires:
Spike imposter- A vamp that looked a hell of a lot like William the Bloody, he claimed to be the big, bad himself. Was working at soem ritual to bond with a demonic parasite before he was dusted by Gillian.
Dorian Graham- Local protector. A soulless vampire that still seems to be fighting on the side of good, for whatever reason.
The Dark Lord- Hell of a reputation, he turns out to be a big wuss.
Dracula- (seen only in flashback) The Dark Prince, himself.
Drusilla- still a bit batty.
The Demons-
Unnamed Logora Demon- captured by some military looking guys with high-tech weapons. Is the Initiative back? Logora Demons are foot-soldire demons with a weakness to suggestion and very tough skin. Nigel Harker had killed one before and it had taken two blows to chop through its neck
Karatha Demon- A demon with a long poisonous tongue. Now dead. It's venom kills within 20 hours, melting the victims skin.
Pimply-Face Demon- A breed of demon that is usually peaceful. Grey skin with little yellow dots. Many of his "clan" are still being held by the Initiative base. (He has a name and a name for his breed, but I can;t fid where I have that written down. If anyone in the game has it, please email it to me.)
Samantha Keystone- A demon with healing powers, she works at the emergency room in the hospital.
Belial- The big, bad Vataran demon. He is a powerful demon with powers to bend reality and command other vampires.
Balorian Demon- A hunchbacked demon with one large eye that seems to be serving the Vataran demon.
Yuan-ti- Snake-woman with power over dreams.
I ran my first session of Dungeons and Dragons on Tuesday. The group consists almost entirely of people I've never gamed with before. Carla is playing in it, but everyone else is new. I was worried how it would turn out having seen more than once where one or two players can disrupt a whole group. (If anyone reading this is worrying that I may be referring to them, don't worry. I am not. I'm referring to people I have gamed with back in my Palladium Fantasy/Heroes Unlimited days.....my foolish youth.) It ends up that everyone was fine and a fun time was had.
The campaign has started with a group of characters from the small village of Glendun. All of the characters are between 14 and 20. Having trained with a mercenary who settled in the village years ago, the characters all know a little about to fight and a few have learned some magic from the town's magic user or cleric. So, when a farmer's son was attacked by some large wolf-like creature, the characters felt confident enough to go out on their own to hunt the creature.
The PCs are:
Frederick, a half-orc who was abandoned at the door of the pub as a baby. He was adopted by Torian, the village's wise man and dreams of someday being a knight. (His character class is Paladin.)
Serena, a half-elf who has been learning the bardic arts from a bard that travels through the town a few times a year. Her father, an ex-mercenary named Brevin, settled in Glendun years ago. Serena knows little about her elven mother and Brevin seems to find it too painful to talk about.
Sarek, a young human ranger who loves to hunt.
Verna Goodberry, the daughter of the local brewer and beginning priestess of Mara.
Arden, a young Roguish man.
Arillion, Torian's student he has finally mastered some of the easier spells Torian would teach him.
In the woods near the farmers home they were set upon by a large pack of wolves and some goblins. The wolves herded the PCs to a cave where they found a statue. The PCs prodded at the statue and accidently helped release an ancient spirit trapped within. By the end of the night, the PCs had returned to the village, fearful of what evil they may have released upon their town.
Originally, my plans for the first adventure was something a little more subdued as the PCs would get to know the townspeople and meet some of the farmers that live near the woods with the cave- Lovecraftian style crazies who are plagued by nightmares. I was hoping to build up to the first confrontation.
However, as I started planning further, I decided it was D&D and the players were probably itching to use all those neat combat abilities and spells on their character sheets, so I scrapped the slow build up to give them more action. The characters fought of several wolves and goblins, sited some sort of unnamed hell-beast and finally witnessed the hell-beast banished by some wraith-like creature recently returned to our world.
Their are big things coming to the world of Connemara and these poor village kids will find themselves sucked into a dangerous quest....to save the world.
The next game is in two weeks. Depending on what the players decide, they may end up travelling to the Elysium, the land of the wood elves where mortal man is not welcome or east, to the Baron's castle. Of course, they may decide to stay and protect their village. No matter what they decide, I have something ready. Part of me hopes they seek help from the elves as I can't wait to introduce the elves of this world to my players, but they'll meet the pointy-ears soon enough.
((EDIT- I forgot to mention. At one point, Carla asked me "Are you sure this D&D and not Cthulu? That made me smile. ))
There has been a lot of conversations in the Amber blog community about mutipe GM, shared-serial campaigns. One of the things I like this idea is that it allows players to build a history for their character while being able to experience several different GMs and games.
I have several thoughts on this and will try and put them down here as I have the time to type them up.
One of the things I immediately thought is for a serial campaign like that to be as successful as it can be, the GMs should think about and discuss where they see their strengths and weaknesses are as a GM, so they can plan around those. Already, I am sure we all realize our strengths and plan around them, but it is good to know the strengths of those everyone involved and more importantly, I feel it is important to look at my own strengths so I can think about what I could bring to such an experiment.
I think I'm a very visual GM. I tend to think of settings and their visual impacts and many of my scenarios may have scenes put in, just so I can work this cool "set" into the story and let the characters play in it. From Castle Amber to the Courts of Chaos, I know exactly how I want something to look. I think one of the things that players are most likely to walk away from my games with, is a strong feeling of how a city or location looks and feels.
I also think I am very good at making action-packed scenarios. It probably comes from years of GMing superhero games, but I think I have a fairly strong grasp on how to set up an action scene for the most excitement.
I think I do a good job of building mysteries and allowing the players to unravel them. Some of the best games I have ever run have been mysteries. From the Dreaming City to Champions, every campaign I ever run has at least one mystery adventure and several little mysterious subplots that run through the length of the campaign. I've run one-shot mysteries with great success. Two of my most successful campaigns were basically a series of mysteries. I ran a Bloodshadows campaign where the PCs were private eyes and a Star Trek game with some alien mystery in every episode.
I think my chief weakness is dialogue. Juggling several NPCs around, I feel that many of my NPCs don't come off sounding the way I want them to. Particularly if I want the PCs to come off very intelligent as, inevitably, my communication skills break down at some point. At other times, I will make a PC come off more threatening or heavy-handed than I mean to. I often pick the wrong things for them to say.
The exception to this is when it is a character I have played as a PC before or have thought a lot about. Before I ran "Morpheus Calling," I thought about Morpheus and how he speaks for weeks. The result was that he came off well. He, however, is the exception.
Because of my dialogue problems, I think I also have problems with political scenarios.
My biggest GM weakness is something I have mentioned several times before: bookkeeping. So much of a game is in my head. All the NPCs and plot-points there. I have said before that not writing it down makes me more flexible, but it also causes many problems. Also, I don't write down enough notes about what happened in the games after I run them so I often forget important details. Hopefully, the need for inter-GM communication and discussion will cut down on that bad habit. I also have my special "GM notebook" now, a spiral notebook with pages of notes from the two campaigns I'm running, Connemara and Gillian the Vampire Slayer.
While doing some searching on the internet for the official pronunciation of Claimh Solais, I ran across this Xena fanfiction where Xena teams up with the Tuatha de Danaan (warning- it loads very slow). While some fanfiction writers are undoubtedly excellent writers, I've never been been impressed with any fanfic I've read and I've never been crazy about Xena. However, curiosity will probably get the best of me this time and I'll end up reading it. In fact, the main reason I'm even putting the link up here is so I can remember to come back later.
As far as the pronounciation goes, I haven't found anything yet. I'm 90% certain that the C in Claimh is a hard K sound as most Gaelic words that start with C are. The H is probably almost silent like the H in Nuadha and Tuatha. (As I understand it, the H is supposed to be a very short h sound that is almost unnoticable.) As far as the Solais, if anyone has any tips on how it should be pronounced, let me know. Usually, Gaelic words put the stress on the first syllable, but that is all I have. Out of the 7 books on Celtic Myth and Religion I own and Carla's several Faerie books, only one has a pronunciation guide (where I learned how to pronounce Nuadha and several other names), but it does not include the Sword of Light.
In effort to put some content in the spanking new blog....I offer another reprint.
Rule #1: The player characters are the most important characters. Their struggles and sacrifices should never be overshadowed by the actions of NPCs. If the world needs to be saved, its the job of the PCs to do it They are the main characters and as the main characters the story should revolve around them. There are very few exceptions the rule. For example, if the character "saving the world" could not do it without the help of the main character, then they are still involved with the big plot. However, if wether they succeed or fail doesn't affect the outcome, what was the point.
Of course, everything doesn't have to be a "save the world" scenario. They could be doing "small jobs." The point is that if they are doing small jobs that is the most important thing going on that they know of. If the plot focuses too much on the bigger actions taken by NPCs then they weren't really the main characters and you have cheated your players.
Rule #2: Improvise! It sounds cliche, but too many GMs don't do this. They stick to what they have written and if the players don't cooperate, they're lost. I played in a GURPS game once where the GM started the scenario with a run-in against the game's main villian, a powerful telepath. My character whips out his gun and shoots him in the head. End of scenario. The GM throws a fit. Instead of improvising a way to keep the character alive or coming up with a new villian who happens to have similar abilities ( a brother maybe?), the new campaign ends one hour into the first game. This is why I write very little down. I try to have names for NPCs, purposes for them in the scenario and a general theme. Everything else is usually made up on the spot. Different GMs will be more comfortable with different levels of improvisation, but if you are GMing you have to always be ready to change the story or a character on a moments notice. Major villain about to get shot in the head during trhe first game? It's a good thing one of his assistants is a telekinetic and can stop bullets with his mind. What? Was that really something I planned before-hand? Of course it is. ;)
Rule #3: The GM is (almost) always right. Player catch you in a mistake? Did your NPCs do something they shouldn't be able to do? Did the NPCs know something they shouldn't know? Were they two places at the same time? You could just admit you made a mistake or you could act like that was meant to happen. Act suprised and pleased that your clever players caught on to your subtle clues and make up something later to explain it. Depending on the setting and the scenario there are many ways to explain strange things that seem like GM mistakes at the time. In Amber and other settings with a lot of intrigue there are tons of conspiracy theories that could explain things. In games with lots of weird technology and special powers you can go really crazy with your ideas. You don't have to explain things right away. Just keep the players occupied and be careful not to clear up the strangeness right away. This leaves the player with a mystery and gives you the chance to figure out what really happened. When you figure it out, let the players start uncovering the secrets behind the mystery.
Rule #4: The players should be right some of the time. They'll enjoy the game more if they aren't always wrong. If the players come up with a good idea, let it work. Even if you originally thought that there would be only one way they could solve the challenge you gave them, there's no reason you have to make that one way be the only way. Reward the players for creative thinking. After all, roleplaying is supposed to be more of a creative exercise than a problem-solving exercise, right? If the character has to keep trying idea after idea until they hit upon your solution, then the game won't be much fun and the story won't go anywhere. If the player only needs to come up with one good solution, then the story should move along at a good pace.
Along the same line of thinking- If a player decides to prepare for some threat and goes to all the trouble of explaining the preparations, then by all means have those preparations come in handy or at least have some involvement in the story. The things that the character has prepared may not come in to play the way the player thought it would, but the player will still enjoy the game more by seeing their actions have some effect on the story. Once again, this rewards creative thinking. For example, your player decides that his character's home needs a new upgraded security system in case the game's main villian decides to sneak in and attack him in his sleep. The player goes to all the trouble of describing this elaborate new system. If you have no plans on having the main villian doing something so mundane, there's no reason that another NPC couldn't decide to sneak in and steal something from the character. With his new "stealth suit" the NPC was sure that no security system in the world would have been able to stop him...
Eventually, I plan to copy over all my WISH answers and other game meme answers to this blog from my old one. These are repeats, but I figure this will make them easier for all to find and read. Plus, right now I am playing with the template and with only one post to see, it was hard to get an idea what it would look like. So, I reprint. There will be new material here shortly.
WISH: GM Role ((originally answered September 27, 2002))
This weeks WISH question comes from Meera:
What is your idea of the relationship between GM and player? Is the GM a host, an adversary, an enabler...?
There's been some excellent WISH questions the last couple of weeks and I've been meaning to go back and answer the last couple. However, this one particularly strikes a chord for me.
I've found my standard way of explaining to non-gamers what roleplaying games are and I think it helps describe my thoughts on what the relationship between the GM and the players. "Roleplaying games are a form of cooperative storytelling where people gather together to tell interesting stories. Some players take the roles of certain characters and other players, called gamemasters, take on the job of giving the story structure. The gamemaster gives the player a basic plot, a setting and other characters to interact with. Together, they tell the story."
The GM is a host, an adversary and an enabler. It is the GM's duty to complete the story. The PCs will come with a certain amount of characters, plotlines and theme. They will come to the game with all their stuff in tow, but even with all of the characters and story they bring, the world is far from complete. They may have parents and siblings, friends and enemies but they probably won't come to the game with the firendly shopkeeper who sells love potions down the street or the loyal lackey of their chief adversary who always seems to be a thorn in their side. No, they will bring only a certain amount of the world with them. The rest is up to the GM.
As a host, the GM sets the scene and introduces the players (and characters) to the world that the GM has created. The very presence of the PCs immediately begins to change the world and like a gracious host the GM should accept the fact that these PCs are going to make themselves comfortable and move things around a little. The GM and his or her world should be ready to adapt to these changes rather than fight them and force the PCs to conform to his or her vision. The story is not just about the world. It is about these characters as well and for them to fit into the world, the world must give a little. The GM may help the player design a character that fits in to the "big plot" they have in mind for the game but once the player character has that character, it's all their's. Even when playing a pregenerated character (a character the GM supplies to the player) the GM must be ready to let that player "create" their own version of the character and for that version of your character to somehow change the world.
As an adversary, the GM creates and plays the antagonists of the story. The GM must make them interesting and complete characters. Ideally, the GM gets in to their head a little and understands how they think. Then the GM can have these non-player characters act as real characters making decisions that are consistent and as intelligent as the antagonist would make. The antagonists want to win and they usually want to win as bad as the player's characters do. To that end they must work against the characters, resisting them and generally making their live's difficult.
As the enabler, the GM ensures that the players are able to be succesful. The players should be able to overcome all (or almost all) challenges and come out the victorious heroes (or anti-heroes). The GM also should enable the players and characters to have some influence on the story. Give them tools and abilities to change the face of the world or at least the oucome of the story. Give them oppurtunities to explore the depths of the character and become the fully realized person that great fictional characters are; not just two dimensional plot-devices but characters with hopes, fear, etc.
The GM is as much a player as the players who play the protaganists, the "player characters." The GM just has a much broader part and set of reponsibilities but these responsibilities are much a game as the game the others play. The GM must stretch his or her imagination and throw themselves into the imaginary world. Together with the players, it becomes a story. Together, with the players, the GM should feel free to have fun and remember that, in the end, it's a game. Everyone is playing to have fun. It just becomes a larger part of the GM's duty to make sure that fun happens. Encourage the players to throw themselves into their character's and let loose those creative energies. That, if you want my humble opinion, is the whole point of gaming. I have heard people try to make roleplaying into more than that and it can be. If we walk away knowing something more about the human condition or finding some deep insight in to our own personalities, its a nice bonus. The true magic of gaming comes in the creative flow between players and GM and the willingness to "just create."
Welcome to my new blog! I decided it was time to have a seperate blog for all my game-related blogging and thanks to MaBarry, my gaming blog has a home.
Why Claimh Solais? Claimh Solais was the sword of light that Nuadha carried in the myths. Plus, it sounds cool. Sometimes, that's reason enough.
This week's Monday Mashup asks us to mash I Am Legend. I haven't read the book, but I've read a comic adaption and watched the movie (Omega Man, although I hear there was another movie that was more loyal to the book). So, I'm working off of these sources.
I Am Legend is your classic zombie survival story with a twist. The character is besieged by Vampires (called mutants in Omega Man) instead of Zombies and in the end learns that the Vampires fear him as much as he fears them. The first and most obvious choice of games is All Flesh Must be Eaten, the zombie horror game from Eden studios. Of course, that would be more of a direct translation than a proper mash.
The scenario has many exciting possibilities for the Amber: Diceless Roleplaying Game. One that instantly comes to mind is Amber itself beseiged by monsters from off in shadow. The family has set up their defense in the castle and Kolvir. The Jewel was lost some time ago. The family finds it difficult/impossible to shift shadow so close to the Pattern and supplies are running low. They have found a few ways to sneak out of the castle but it is dangerous. They find that Rebma has aligned with the attackers....but why? There is something oddly familiar about these creatures and why do they fear the Amberites so? They almost treat the Amberites as...gods. Why are they here to destroy them?
The main scenario for a I Am Legend mashup that came to mind was for Changeling: the Dreaming or any other modern fantasy setting with Fae in a real-world city like New York or L.A.. The PCs are Fae. For years they lived amongst mankind unseen. Then the Hollow Ones appeared. Extremely banal humans that recognized the Fae for what they were: a threat. The Fae found themselves ruthlessly hunted and killed by these creatures. Now, a small group of surviving Fae have set up a magically hidden stronghold in the sewers of New York. Several fantastic creatures, seelie and unseelie, find themselves working together to survive. The Hollow Ones are less of a threat at day as they return to their grey lives and the 9-5, so the Fae venture out from their stronghold during the day....but even then they must be careful. Not all of the Hollow Ones work nine-to-fives.
The Hollow Ones were named such because that is how the Fae see their souls. Hollow. The Hollow Ones would disagree. They are warriors for a cause. The Hollow Ones have tapped into an old racial memory from the times when Fae would play cruel tricks on humanity and times were less civil between the Faerie worlds and mortals. They don't know why, but they deeply fear the Fae. At first they may fear they are going insane, as many of their friends cannot see the fantastic creatures that walk the streets. Eventually, through the internet and occult shops they find other Hollow Ones and together realize one thing. The Fae are a threat to life...as it is supposed to be. They were given powers to fight that threat. They are invulnerable to fae glamours, like the ones that hide the fae from mortal eyes. Fae also find it extremely difficult to work any form of glamour when a Hollow One is present. (In Changeling, you could increase the difficulty by one for each point of banality above 5 and if that increases the difficulty above 9 , require additional successes for each point it would have raised the target number over nine.) The Hollow Ones fight like they are possessed. So normal during the day, at night they gather in packs and hunt through the city...sure that the only thing that quiet their unquiet minds is the deaths of the Fae.
This plot could also work really well for the upcoming Angel Roleplaying Game, as the Angel series has shown us that not all demons are evil, although it would obviously take some changes. The PCs would be demons instead of Fae. The big change is the hunters. It could be a team of newly Slayers and other Demon Hunters, but they would have to be a lot less reasonable than the Buffy or Angel gangs. A group that all have their reasons for completely and utterly hating all demons and not willing to give them a chance to explain that they are "nice" demons.