Redwolf's Journal (continued)

City-state on an isolated peninsula founded on the ruins of some ancient civilization when a powerful mage brought people there from a foreign land. 200-ish years of settlement, time to get well established, but not having developed long-range sea travel and explorations tend to end up with people not returning. Possible catacomb/dungeon in the mountains on the inland end, possibly set up by the very mage that established the settlement. - The thought is the mage (possibly demon-possessed) made himself out as savior, magically transporting a population away from a supposed threat while really establishing a supply of test subjects. Over a couple hundred years, the necessities of survival have obscured some of the reality of what happened. Class and racial biases transferred over, but then the lines became somewhat blurred. Nobles could only retain status if they had enough loyal followers to help hold it, since possessions were, to an extent, reset. And anyone who really looks ...

... the feeling that I've wasted my time. And I just came off a four-day weekend (because I keep running up toward my vacation time limit) without any real feeling of accomplishment. I guess I did manage to get out and get an oil change. But I didn't even really sink time into any particular video game, read a book, or RP any real major scenes online. Basically, I feel like I had extra time and was totally unproductive with it, and that upsets me on some level. Rambling engaged... I did watch a movie over the weekend, but even that left me feeling somewhat disappointed afterward - increasingly so the more I thought about it. I spent a lot of time thinking about RPG systems and the potential campaign idea in my mind. On that front, I came to the conclusion that no system I've seen is good for what I want. Pathfinder/d20 is... eh... about as good as anything, but it's still a clunky fit and would require me to draft up a detail-laden template and to artificially l...

Send this to my offline gaming group recently. Figured there's a couple brains to pick that read here, too... Well, let me share what I've been thinking. I've let myself get way rusty as a GM and, frankly, I'm concerned that my ability to focus on a game/setting/whatever seems easily shaken by a busy day at work, so I may not be able to pursue this to a workable state. I have, however, had a campaign idea bouncing around in the back of my mind for a few years now. Setting-wise, it was envisioned as more of high fantasy with a dark/gothic touch, inspired by manga like (and I'll be mildly impressed if anyone is familiar with them) Berserk and Ubel Blatt. It wouldn't really disrupt anything to "steampunk-ize" it to some extent. I already had the losing/enemy side of a recent war as having used a particular form of technology and it fits well enough in my mind for that to be coming into some popularity among society. It was an angle I hadn't reall...

Still have a minor urging to run a fantasy game. And many problems with that, which still keep me from going anywhere with it... I recently read a blog post that's had me thinking about it. There's some truth there. Character advancement in RPGs tends to fall into one of two categories: stat gains and new abilities. The former have an appeal, but when you consider how the GM generally ramps up challenge to match PC abilities, it's often a wash. Sometimes a character with focus will come out a little ahead, but it's difficult to see and usually hard to get real excited about. New abilities, on the other hand, are usually cool. Advancement of a mage leads to new spells. Fireball. Flight. Teleportation. New things that are exciting. A warrior, on the other hand, gets better at dishing out and taking damage, sure, but not so much in the way of new capabilities. Feats, in D&D3E offer a little something, though they're often stat bonuses. 4E is built more toward...

Yikes. This haunted house experience sounds thoroughly disturbing, not that I think I would sign up for such a thing. It does, however, make me wish I were in a World of Darkness (or similar) game. It sounds like an awesome starting point for a seasonal scenario...

Just jotting down a little idea I had (actually before I started on the fantasy underworld-heavy Night Angel series) that could potentially be used in a game someday... The Glass Daggers (or Knives?), an assassin cult known for using exactly that. They adhere to a belief similar to the modern "sniper's creed" of "one hit, one kill." Initiates are trained, but sent on their missions armed solely with a glass dagger - sharp, lethal, but fragile. This forces them to catch their target vulnerable and unaware in order to score a clean kill, and keeps the chances of secondary deaths minimal. Those who prove able to work within these limitations and get away prove their worth, are trained further, and may eventually be equipped with more durable weapons of magically/alchemically-strengthened glass... I always thought glass armor in the Elder Scrolls looked neat, but sounded a bit silly. ;)

Surely inspired by reading Code Geass manga ealier, I have the passing idea of a fantasy game which centers on a group of PCs who are able to rise above humble beginnings because they have entered into a pact (or pacts) with more powerful forces. Demons come for mind, naturally, for a fantasy game, but that's not necessary. It could be celestial powers. Or it might be more interesting to go with a source of power that is of more mysterious origins altogether. Of course, the game would have to explore what it means to have such power and what was lost/gained along with it. While D&D is usually my fantasy game system of choice, this whole game concept feels like something more appropriate for a point-based advancement system rather than a level-based one - a system in which a character can excel in one area without improving across the board. Exalted already fits the overall theme pretty well, but I'd opt for something based less on specifial abilities overall (and probab...

I'm sure this comes from too much mecha anime. Often those shows are based on a reasonably normal world to a point. Then they say "oh, here's some alien technology/mystic connection/astounding revelation" that allows humanoid mecha to be practical. In Robotech (and presumably Macross), it's the technology from the SDF-1 that crashes on Earth. In Evangelion, it's the discovery of "Adam." And so I have this technological concept in my mind and a scene of reminiscence to go with it. I doubt I'll ever spin this into a full story or campaign, but someone has said I should chronicle such bits of inspiration in some fashion, and it's not a bad idea to do so. "Insertion point coming up in four minutes, Captain." "It's still beautiful from up here, isn't it?" "Sir?" Captain Nicholas Haskins turned from the window to regard the naval pilot now glancing his way. He took a moment to register the rank insignia...