Planning for the Future

[insomn14 (Mike)]

@Dave

The Status Quo

I’ve enjoyed Atomic Robo both conceptually (Action Science!) and the fun stuff you’ve run us through, Mike. I am, though, confirmed in my opinion, though, that FATE is a system that absolutely, structurally, should rock it, but always feels like weak tea to me for some reason. I am enjoying what we’re doing but in a “oh, a show I like is on tonight,” not a OMG THE GAAAAAAME IS TONIGHT WOOT WOOT WOOT! That is not a critique of the GM, but just of the system, and also progressivly where I think I’ve taken my character.

This is definitely the same boat I’m in. Everything should be awesome but for some reason things are always sort of stuck in first or second gear and I could not point at why. This might misplaced, but I think part of it is just how nebulous the outcome of a given roll is until both sides agree they’re done. A roll is more of a negotiation with the outcome of the dice just saying who is in the better stating position with that negotiation.

Every time I feel like I have a handle on Fate, it just continues to allude me.

@Dave

1. ICON

Sounds like an interesting setting, but the schizophrenic rule set sounds like an idiosyncratic design flaw that would drive me batty.

Not a unfair assessment, though I do feel as just ignoring everything involving the tactical combat of the book still makes a perfectly serviceable game.

@Dave

I am actually enjoying my foray back into D&D 5e. So, I mean, if there were an interest there, I would not run in the opposite direction.

I don’t have any issue with D&D (5e or otherwise). I think it’s a fine game. Some day I look forward to playing an Abjuration Wizard who has opinions about mathematics and the metaphysical concept of Order. I just don’t think D&D works well in a 2-hour time slot and we have many constants on expanding that time slot. I could be wrong with that though and if so, I would be pleasantly surprised.

@Dave

I would never actually push @Margie into the center of the stage with a huge spotlight on her, but she’s been doing some fun D&D DMing stuff for me and for me+James, and doing a great job at it, and she would be (IF SHE WANTED TO BE, AND I HAVE NOT CONSULTED HER ON THIS) a potential DM to do something low level in 5e (in a module we actually already have the Roll20 materials for). And if she did not want to, that is also utterly legit and understandable.

I’d totally play in a game ran by Margie (not that I am pushing for that either, it just sounds like it would be a fun time).

@Dave

For that matter, and fair is fair, I would feel kinda comfortable running a 5e thing, too. I’m also doing a game on Friday nights, but I have that pretty well plotted and reviewed and lined up for the next several monthsish, and could be convinced by wild enthusiasm over the prospect to pick up a limited-length module.

I would never push anyone to run two simultaneous games, that way leads to burn out all too often. But I do trust folks to make their own decisions, so that could be a possibility.

@Dave

Other Games

Yes! I am suggesting other alternatives! Look at my 1337 gaming cred! Or, alternately, look at things I have kickstarted.

I too have the Usagi Yojimbo and Avatar RPGs. Usagi looks a bit like if someone have heard of PbtA games but never played one and so made their own (not saying that’s a bad thing, just may base assumption). Avatar looks like Magpie really wanted to make Masks but this time with a license and it does all the fun stuff I would expect from that sentence. Never heard of Monkey the RPG, but I do like me some Monkey/Journey to the West shenanigans.

@Dave

Other Factors

May-June, with graduation and gap-year shenanigans, James may be in a different setting/availability, location and job-wise. Just to complicate things, natch.

A very good point that I had not foreseen as a possible complication. I’m sure James will have more details as those days get closer, but no rush until it happens.

[fragolakat (James)]

@Dave

May-June, with graduation and gap-year shenanigans, James may be in a different setting/availability, location and job-wise. Just to complicate things, natch

Yeah, you got there before me. I do not currently have a solid line up (I’m working on it. Oh boy am I working on it) but given what I have been looking at it’d be fair to assume I might be MIA for at least part of the summer.
Should not change all the new game plans, but just something to keep in the back of folks minds.

[Dave (***Dave Hill)]

@insomn14

I just don’t think D&D works well in a 2-hour time slot

It’s certainly a challenge. My Friday game runs 3-4 (once you strip out the weekly half hour of catch-up-chit-chat), but if we’re mid-melee, it’s okay to go somewhat longer because, well, Friday.

@insomn14

I would never push anyone to run two simultaneous games, that way leads to burn out all too often.

As someone who burned out in the past, I can completely appreciate that sentiment. I would approach it with some trepidation, but I wanted to put myself out there in into the GMing pool.

[Dave (***Dave Hill)]

@fragolakat

I’m working on it. Oh boy am I working on it

It has not gone unnoticed.

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

So here’s what I’ve got for system suggestions.

CRYSTALLINE by matara

CRYSTALLINE: This is literally “off-brand FFXIV”. It uses the LUMEN engine, which is very fast-paced and easy to work with. The game includes everything you’d need to run something A Realm Reborn style.

Rule Books : FASA Games Store

Earthdawn: this is “fantasy Shadowrun”. Back in the day it had a very unique system for stuff, including a relatively crunchy magic system (spell matrices!) and equipment system (do deeds of legend, weave threads to your gear, get bennies). I don’t know about their fourth edition but they have a quick start.

Discovery

Numenera: This is a big fat lot of RPG to digest, but it’s atmospheric as heck. The Cypher system’s characters are easy to put together and the dice system is simple to use.

---

There’s the usual generic RPG systems, aside from Fate: Genesys, Cortex Prime (now that their legal team isn’t claiming ownership to everyone’s indie hacks), Savage Worlds, even GURPS. SW and GURPS in particular have solid fantasy & post-apoc sourcebooks for inspiration.

[insomn14 (Mike)]

@Dave

Speaking of scheduling, it looks like Margie and I will not be available next week. But I do want to get the conversation on Next Game going again.

Since we’ve got a little bit of time before the next game session (June 16th at the earliest by my count), I figured it was time to come back to this thread. It’s been a little bit, so I figured I would update on what I’m feeling at the moment.

I’m currently running Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: Soulbound: The Subtitling for the guys at the house (and our friend also named Dave) on Mondays and so have a bit of an outlet for my high fantasy shenanigans. This isn’t to say I am opposed to another high fantasy game in my life, but I do like having some variety in my gaming.

@garrett

One option is to run the setting you want (whatever that may be) using Fate - either Condensed, Accelerated, or Core, depending on how crunchy you want skills/approaches to be.

I can’t put my finger on it, but I have softened on my opinion of Fate since we wrapped up the Atomic Robo game. I think part of it was that things really started coming together in those last couple sessions and I felt a little less beholden to running the game “they way the book suggests” because I knew the end was coming. While I’m not hyped to run another Fate game, I don’t think I would balk at the idea either at the point.

At the moment, I’m very open to the sort of game I would want to do next. Genre-wise, I’m sort of feeling urban fantasy but that is probably because of the books filling up my shelves at the moment. Also the Librarians Adventure Card Game showed up Friday and so I’m rewatching those movies. But as always, I am very flexible to what I want to run/play. The gaming is just an excuse to hang out with people I care about on a semi-regular basis.

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

@insomn14

I am very flexible to what I want to run/play

Then I would say, pick the world or genre you most want to vibe with, pick the first system you like and associate with it, and let us know how we can help make it happen

[insomn14 (Mike)]

Since it’s Thursday and even when we’re not playing I like to take a few moment to at least turn my attention towards the subject of our gaming group, I thought I would narrow my own options down to two and let you folks either decide between them or choose the third option of “Actually, I kind of felt like running this for our group.”

• Run something in the urban fantasy genre with Fate Condensed. I’ve ran several games of Dresden Files and Dresden Files Accelerated before and they were always a lot of fun and I’m interested to see what corners of urban fantasy this group gravities towards. The only reason I’m steering towards Fate Condensed rather than one of the Dresden Files derivatives is that I don’t want to limit folks to the implied setting of those books. Every time I’ve run them I always say “I don’t care about book canon, I want to do what you guys find interesting” but they always seem to gravitate in that direction anyway, so I figure I would try to snip that off entirely by not even using those rulesets as a basis. Instead we can just spend a session zero discussion what themes, tropes, and other stuff we want and build from there.
• Run the Root RPG. I fully admit that I’ve only skimmed this a bit, but so far it looks interesting. The player characters play as a group of Vagabonds, which are wandering mercenaries not tied to any of the settings’ several factions, constantly pulled into machinations much bigger than them. The ruleset is PbtA and looks like a much more matured Dungeon World, striping out all the D&D-centric rules and focusing more on low fantasy action and political maneuvering.

Thoughts?

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

I’d be interested to see what the group does with urban fantasy in Fate. Condensed means avoiding a lot of the questions that came with Atomic Robo’s advancement system, but may mean fewer specifics that players can use as tentpoles to build characters at start. So I’d also suggest bringing some “seed” ideas to session zero for people to evaluate & bounce around, not just say “hey guys what do you like”.

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

Write an Urban Fantasy / So You Want To - TV Tropes

[Dave (***Dave Hill)]

And here we are!

Okay, Ima talk scheduling over in that thread, and will talk settings and systems here.

1. While I am feeling more comfortable with FATE after the Atomic Robo campaign, I’m not sure it’s really my cuppa. The system seems to either demand more of me than I’m usually comfortable with when the spotlight pins me down, or else allows another person with the spotlight to do something incredibly cool that also deflates what I was thinking of doing. This is kind of a me thing, not a commentary on the system itself (which continue to admire for its flexibility). I mean, I’m not running screaming for the doors if that’s what we go with, but my preference.

2. I have been steeped in Urban Fantasy reading this year, apparently deciding to catch up with everything Seanan McGuire’s been doing, both her InCryptid tales and her October Daye fae noir. (I’ve read some other things, too, but those have held most of my word count). So I’m absolutely jiggy with that as a setting concept.

3. I will do a PbtA game at the drop of a virtual hat, and Root sounds like a (forgive me) hoot.

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

Magpie’s Urban Shadows is probably the highest profile PBTA urban-fantasy game. I think the 2nd edition is still Kickstarting. It sounds like it emphasizes the political maneuvering typical of White Wolf’s line. It’s supposed to be pretty good.

[insomn14 (Mike)]

@garrett

I think the 2nd edition is still Kickstarting. It sounds like it emphasizes the political maneuvering typical of White Wolf’s line. It’s supposed to be pretty good.

I have the playtest material for the second edition and have played in several games as part of Magpie’s playtesting of the game. It is a good game, but I don’t know that I want to run the sort of game it is geared towards. Much like Apocalypse World the intent isn’t that the PCs are a team but more allies of convenience who are only as aligned as their agenda are.

While I don’t dislike those sort of games, they definitely require a particular mindset from everyone involved and I don’t know that I want to run a game of that sort of any length of time.

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

Is there a PBTA game that captures the spirit of what you want to do, that can be reskinned for the urban fantasy genre?

[insomn14 (Mike)]

Before reskinning other games, let’s look at what we already have to work with in the urban fantasy genre for PBTA. These are just the ones I am familiar with, so if anyone knows of others feel free to share.

Urban Shadows

• Urban Shadows is a game about being an inhabitant in the City and dealing with the drama of warring factions. You are member of one of these factions, a community of similar individuals based on your history with the supernatural: Mortalis for discovered the supernatural, Power for those who wield the supernatural for their own benefit, Night for those who were pulled into the supernatural and forever changed by it, and Wild for those who were always a part of the supernatural and do not know another way to live.
• The PCs are allies of convenience, tied together by bonds of Debt and aligned goals.
• Advancement is done by interacting with the different factions within the city (Mortalis, Power, Night, and Wild). Whenever you have marked all four of these factions (by using a move that uses your status within that faction or involves a debt with a member of that faction) you erase all of your marks and check an advancement.
• There is a secondary Advancement track as you give into your darker nature, embracing Corruption. Corruption comes easily if you want it, but always ends the same way: “Retire your character; they may return as Threat.”
• Urban Shadows is inspired by crime fiction, and treats its factions (even ones with seemingly legitimate authority) as warring gangs. The game is as much based of series like the Wire and the Shield as it is stories like the Dresden Files.

City of Mist

• City of Mist is a noir-themed game about investigating the mysteries of the Mist while also looking into your own personal mystery. Your character is separated from the rest of the world by their interaction with the Mist, pulled into the secret world that the normal people of the world cannot interact with.
• The PCs are a group of investigators, flavored by their group playbook. They could be private detectives, defenders of a community, or some other group with a shared goal that leads them to dive into the mysteries around the City.
• Advancement is done by exploring your character’s personal mystery (which is determined during character creation) or by you or the MC invoking your Weaknesses during a roll. Once you’ve built up three XP (called Attention) in your XP track, you erase all of it and select an advancement.
• City of Mist is inspired by noir fiction, like the Maltese Falcon and the works of Raymond Chandler. Mysteries and the solving of them is baked into the core assumptions of the game.

Voidheart Symphony

• Voidheart Symphony is a game about rebelling against the authoritarian system put in place by the occult and oppressive Castle. The Castle rules through its henchmen, the Vassals and Enforcers. Only by combatting these forces can you every hope to free yourselves and loved ones from the oppression of the Castle.
• The PCs are rebels, secretly fighting against the Castle using whatever scraps of power they can manage while lying low so as not to draw the Castle’s attention. When you have identified a Vassal, it is time to delve into the Castle and assume your full power in order to directly combat them.
• Advancement is done by two conflicting XP tracks: World and Void. As you struggle in the City, you will mark World as you help to lift others up and mark Void as you work to improve yourself and your station. World advances grant you new options and Moves, while Void advances improve your Stats and rolls.
• Voidheart Symphony is a game of rebellion, inspired by series like Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles, the Persona games, and a tinge of the Silent Hill games, but also things like Star Wars: Rogue One.

Do any of these sound interesting to folks? Of these, I know Bill has played City of Mists when I ran it for him and Doyce, so I’ll defer to his opinion of the game.

Root

• Root is a game about being at the fringes of a war encompassing the entirety of the Woodland, working with the various factions and watching the consequences of your actions ripple out around you.
• The PCs are vagabonds, outcasts from society but very capable and useful outcasts. The vagabonds are not tied to any one faction and may often act against them, standing against oppression and keeping innocents safe from their machinations.
• Also of note, Root features the most playbooks I’ve ever seen for PbtA game with 19 playbooks ranging from the Champion and the Ronin, to the Prince and the Heretic.
• Advancement is done by perusing your Drives. Each PC has two Drives, and at the end of each session there you accomplished one of your goals, you get an Advance. If you accomplish both goals, you get two Advances.
• Root is obviously inspired by the board game Root (it’s a licensed game after all) but also has some Mouse Guard and Redwall in its DNA.

[fragolakat (James)]

Of the ones you listed Mike I think Urban Shadows is the most interesting to me, but I think all of them sound fun.
Also as Dad said in scheduling stuff, I’m moving in today and should also hopefully be getting wifi (huzzah and praise be!). Will be able to better tell how good the wifi is tomorrow but most anything would be better than what I have now.

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

I enjoyed City of Mist and would be happy to play it again. My understanding of Voidheart Symphony is that it’s one of a slew of games trailing the popular Persona franchise. I haven’t played, but I’m down. I can buy into the Urban Shadows playstyle. So I’d defer to people with stronger opinions about what they want or don’t want, but I do endorse all these options.

@insomn14

Before reskinning other games, let’s look at what we already have to work with in the urban fantasy genre for PBTA.

I do think we’re at the point where we want to collapse options rather than add new ones, sorry for a bad suggestion.

[insomn14 (Mike)]

@garrett

I do think we’re at the point where we want to collapse options rather than add new ones, sorry for a bad suggestion.

It wasn’t a bad suggestion (and if we were looking for a specific experience, it would even have been a good one) I just didn’t want to start making a painting by excavating Egypt.

@fragolakat

I’m moving in today and should also hopefully be getting wifi

Huzzah and praise be, as well!

@fragolakat

Of the ones you listed Mike I think Urban Shadows is the most interesting to me

I am surprised by this but totally down if that’s the way the group decides to go. I’ll also throw out some relevant PDFs so folks can make some more educated assumptions on how they feel about different games. Urban Shadows is the smallest as it doesn’t have a full release yet, but the core of the game is still more than enough to play it.
City of Mist
Urban Shadows
Voidheart Symphony

[Dave (***Dave Hill)]

So I’ll preface by saying These All Sound Intriguing. They all also sound sort of dark, which is not necessarily a bad thing in theory, but may not be everyone’s “Hey, it’s Thursday night!” cuppa.

I’ve not read Bill’s PDFs yet, but based on Mike’s summary …

Urban Shadows - Definite Dresden vibe. I have an initial concern over the “allies of convenience” (which implies termination of alliance / betrayal type things). That’s completely in the genre’s wheelhouse, but I know that, as a group, we’ve tended to value being a team.

(NB Okay, read the start of the PDF. Just tossing the description “mature stories of political
con%ict and personal tragedy” out there.)

City of Mist - Probably the one described I am most interested in. I’m not always at top form in solving mysteries, and noir is, by definition, dark but it sounds like there is some interesting stuff for both individual players to focus on as well as a strong group dynamic.

(NB I have read the first few pages of the PDF and I am very intrigued.)

Voidheart Symphony - I am having a great deal of difficulty divorcing what this is almost certainly like from a description that reminded me of the hilarious Mechanicsburg setting in Girl Genius, esp. when it comes to the hapless souls trapped as workers inside the mad / schizophrenic Castle Heterodyne. That said (a) I would never ask anyone to try to run something like Phil Foglio, and (b) I am honestly not thrilled about running in a Grant Morrison-inspired setting.

(NB So, yes, I went back and read the beginning of the PDF. “Play Voidheart Symphony to…
…tell stories of desperate people fighting back with occult power. …tear down tyrants and bigots, and ask what should take their place. …jump between a grounded city and a vibrant otherworld. …grow and change as you steal power and realise truths about yourself.” I a somewhat more intrigued)

… so, after reading (and PDF glancing), I’d rank my interest as highest in City of Mist, with the other two tied in different ways.

All that said, I’d still like to have Root out there for consideration – it looks less dark, maybe a bit more fun. It’s not urban fantasy (it’s more arboreal fantasy), but I don’t want to rule that out, unless @fragolakat wants to get away from tromping through the woods.

Okay, time for my own game prep.

[insomn14 (Mike)]

@Dave

All that said, I’d still like to have Root out there for consideration – it looks less dark, maybe a bit more fun.

I too did not want to leave Root out of the consideration, I just know that the conversation had turned towards “what system could we play an urban fantasy game with?” and wanted to answer that question. Too keep Root on equal footing, I’ve amended my previous post to include some details about Root as well.

I find it a very interesting take on the PbtA (wait until I have to describe Roguish Feats) and would not mind traipsing around the forest upending tyranny in the style of Disney’s Robin Hood.