September 20, 2008
Ok. So, update time.
The Times of Upset Scheduling are about to come to an end. As of next week, I shall be properly esconced in my apartment without the need to head across the state every other day for training. Although things will not be 100% peachy come that time, they will certainly become more than managable. Which means we should start rethinking schedules.
Question the First – Sam, how’s things on your end? We’ve heard no peep from your planned game. Is it still on? Have you realized it’s impossible to keep up with your first year readings yet?
Question the Second – How’s everyone else on their MC:WoD characters? When do you think we can begin to think about starting up again? (And, I suppose, related to that, are people wanting to start up again?)
August 24, 2008
As Sam works out the kinks of his moving catastrophe, I shall begin to make a call for characters for my MC’sWoD game, Apocalypse Dawn. As I stated earlier, and despite this being a World of Darkness game, you will all be playing Humans Beings in this game (although you will get the chance to play a Creature of Darkness, but more on that later.) So as we all have wide amounts of time, let’s do this whole character generation thing out here via commentary.
The Setting: The Minneapolis/St.Paul metropolitan area of Minnesotta. Convenient enough in that we’ve mostly all been there. That’s it really – there’s nothing else to add to it. The area is exactly the same as it is today: the occult is just fairy tales, there are no monsters to fight, and life generally either sucks or is not that bad depending on whether you’re a cynic or a believer. The year is 2008. While my original plan had been to set it during Jared’s wedding and have you play yourselves, I think that might be a bit too arte nouveau, so you will go back to playing pretend people (as opposed to pretend versions of yourselves). So we’ll say it is shortly after a small group of geeks had left the area.
The Characters: Average Joes. We’ll figure out numbers and stats later; since there are no classes, in the traditional sense of the word, in this system, those don’t matter all that much. You can be of any profession, any background, all I ask is that it makes sense. If you want to meta the thinking into a survival horror movie, the accepted cliches are: Teachers, Cops, Military men, Strippers, and Rebellious Teen. We’ll proceed with character creation in the following stages:
1) Personal background. This is where you give me a short rundown of who you are, what you do in your day to day, etc.
2) Friends & Acquaintances. This is where you provide at least one other character who is an NPC who is important to your character, for whatever reason. You’ll give me an even shorter description of them from your character’s point of view. (IE, if its your character’s boyfriend, for example, you wouldn’t – unless your character were incredibly unhinged – necessarily describe him as a careless bastard who’s really taking advantage of you.) The more NPCs you give me the more I have space to play around with.
3) Personal problems. This is where you give me one problem that you are currently facing, and that will be resolved hopefully by the end of the adventure.
4) Personal aspirations. Could be linked to the problem in 3, but this is something your character wants to accomplish. Will not necessarily be resolved by the end of the adventure, but it’s something that motivates your character.
5) Other motivations. Basically, think of a personality for your character, and give me three or four abstract concepts that simply motivate you. A sense of justice, a deep caring for other human beings, righteous anger, God, whatever.
Once we’ve worked all of that out, we can start talking stats.
Oh, and before I forget, like I mentioned, at one point in the campaign you’ll get the chance to play a creature of darkness. How, why, to what end is a secret of course. But I can tell you it will be after the end of the world, which will happen at some point during the game. Monte Cook’s World of Darkness offers four types of monsters that player characters can play: Vampires, Werewolves, Demons, and Mages, described shortly below. What I want you to do is think about the type of creature you’d like to play based on the tips and information I give below. Note that these will be different characters than your actual PCs, so try to depart from what you’re already playing to have a more rounded time of it.
Vampires: While there are some mythological differences between MCWoD’s vampires and other vampires of myth and folklore, these creatures still stalk the nights and drink the blood of humans. Vampires have a host of supernatural powers that make them stronger, faster, more charismatic, and just generally superior to human beings. Unlike the other creatures in the game, however, vampires are the most akin to their human counterparts – except of course for the whole blood drinking and can’t-go-in-sunlight bit. If you want to play a character who is basically a better version of a human, with a dark streak and command of a few supernatural abilities, you should play a vampire.
Werewolves: Basically the barbarians of the WoD world, werewolves can change their form into that of a bestial engine of destruction. The least “supernatural” of the other forms, werewolves basically just like to rip things to shreds, though they do have a few mystic abilities that separate them from just a really strong, badly tempered human. Also, you get to change shapes.
Mages: Mages are humans who have found within themselves a ton of supernatural power.  In fact, they are the most gifted of all of the creatures of darkness, able to emulate with their spells almost any supernatural ability they can think of. You should consider mage as your creature of darkness if you want a character who craves power, knowledge, and who likes being on top of things.
Demons: The most evil of the lot, demons are truly the strangest of the monsters to play because no part of them is or ever has been a human. They are deceivers, manipulators, murderers and generally speaking just untrustworthy, evil selfish gits. If this sounds appealing to you: have at it! It can be fun playing a demon, so consider this if you want to let loose with a little of your darker side.
Think about the kind of creature you would like to play, but only think about it for now. I want you to develop your mortal first, since we’ll be spending so much more time with them. Once you’ve finished answering questions 1 – 5, post them in the comments below. I’ll ask you for your choice of creature once we’re generating stats, later on.
August 13, 2008
Well, no.
But! We are closer. And there are news!
Good news! I have finished the bulk of the writing for Apocalypse Dawn. I just need mappage, stattage, and some character background stuff. Which, you know, can’t really happen until I have some character backgrounds. So: start thinking! You are making people. That’s all. Just people. Normal people. Try not to make a supertrained MacGuiveresque US-SOCOM trained ubermensch. Make a dude I would be likely to meet while dining at a restaurant. The restaurant at the end of the world, for example. (No – the other end.)
Bad news! I pretty much won’t be settled and available until the end of September. It’s a thing. A thing with a lot of training and some weird scheduling issues. I would originally say it’s just a Sunday issue, except I then remembered Sunday’s just the beginning of the training week, Friday nights I’ll be driving the hour and a half trek back to my new place, and Saturday nights I will be busily attempting to do elsewise.  So, for the next two months? I’m still on hiatus.
Good news! My apartment is awesome. You’re all invited.  Give me a month though, it’s unfurnished.
Bad news! Sam has a campaign he wanted to run. Oh wait, that’s not bad news, that’s good news.
Real bad news! Sam’s campaign is 4th edition. Well, maybe that’s just bad news to me.
Better news! The Russians are reinitating the Cold War. Wait, that’s bad news. Unless you’re James Bond, or in the James Bond-movie-making business. There were few Bond enemies quite like the Russians. SPECTRE? Pussies. Also for Tom Clancy. Again, same reasoning.
Good news! JP’s campaign has sparked some Planescapey ideas, so we’ll be getting back to that soon enough. (Although, again, this could be bad news for some.)
Great news! I’m out of news. Talk later.
July 26, 2008
Okay, so I’ve been looking into the systems already mentioned (BattleTech/Mechwarrior/Classic Battletech RPG, Call of C’thulhu, and Cyberpunk 2020 [I hated 3E]). And so far, it’s been good – some sparkles, some other ideas. I need some direction. So far, these are the ideas I’ve had. Take a look-see, read through, if anything sparkles within, you think “cool”, send a shout out. If you still want another game, shout it out. I just need some idea of where we want to go (some of these need more TLC from a DM’s perspective than others).
Edit: Just FYI – once we get ready to start up again (or once everyone’s had their say – so VOTE!) I’ll tally up what there’s the most enthusiasm for and whatever gets the most votes will get priority. I’ll keep my eye out and sort of direct my plans in that direction. And then once that’s over with (or we’re all tired) there’ll be another vote, so on, so forth. (I don’t keep campaign ideas around forever, you know!)
The campaign ideas… Below the Cut: Read the rest of this entry »
July 22, 2008
Is now! Or here! Or… something.
Look. The 4th edition thing? Didn’t work out so well. I’m over it. Sam has plans for a game – that’ll be good when that happens.  Me? I’m looking to… the future.
And its surprisingly bleak. I’m kind of passe on d20. Which doesn’t mean I’m done with it – just sort of tired of it in the now. Looking to expand beyond just the D&D and into other game territories. So this is where you come in.
Do have a system you wanna try? I wanna learn something new.  I’m willing to run something new, if you aren’t. Name your game people – I’ll make an effort to find it, learn it, and run it. Even if its for a game or two. Consider it the Great GM Challenge of ‘08. Or something.