We discuss the mechanics of Numenera and flesh out how we want our world to look. Character types are also picked out..
Knights of the Night
KotN Actual Play Podcast - 147 Numenera - World Creaion
(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to the Knights of the Knight actual play podcast. This new Manir adventure was written and run by a GM Scott. And now, please enjoy episode one and forty-seven. (upbeat music) titled Realm of Creation. (upbeat music) Actual play begins 26 minutes, zero seconds. All right, before we get into the first episode of our new Manir outfit, we have a little bit of feedback from Facebook on our Dungeon World wrap-up episode. Kayla McClure, throw it in and said, "So, I just listened to your wrap-up "and I have some thoughts." But before I get into them, a disclaimer, I haven't actually played Dungeon World, and the only time I look at the rules was in an early draft, and I understand they've changed a lot since then. However, I am intimately familiar with Apocalypse World, the game that Dungeon World is based on, having just wrapped up a campaign that I ran with my own group. Several of you express concerns that the move system seem to have some holes in it. Huge glaring holes. In Apocalypse World, the intent is for the move system to serve as a minimalistic framework for the GM to build upon using custom moves to patch over holes as necessary. The Apocalypse World rules devote an entire chapter to providing detailed instructions on how to do this. I don't know how much of this got carried over to Dungeon World. - It might have been somewhere in there. - Mm, neither did I. To be honest, I didn't thoroughly-- - Read the rules. - Devour the Dungeon World book. It was something that we were running as a one shot, so I kind of gave it a glance over enough that I thought I could run it. But it, as many of the new games seem to want to do, it has a component in it which is, let the GM figure it out. Let the GM make it up. Let the GM kind of wing it, which is good and bad. I mean, I don't mind doing it, but having to make up custom moves that would basically entail designing my own social combat system or social system entirely, it's just not something I want to do. - And that was like a software model. We're going to put it out with 80% and we'll patch it later. - No, I don't think so. Again, we discussed this last week that maybe Dungeon World is not meant to be played the way that we like to play games. - I think so. I read the reviews on Facebook too and it kind of felt like, and it was all good feedback and people really took time to write a lot of, there's three or four posts that were pretty hefty. And then I felt like we're being kind of taking a task for, if we encountered shallowness or lack of depth or holes, it really is somehow on us we're not filling those holes instead of expecting it to be written there for us. - Well, it wasn't to the topic of product last week. Did we give Dungeon World a fair shake? Did we play it the way that it was written and intended to be played? Or did we try to force it into a way that we like to play games that really wasn't what Dungeon World is meant to be played? You know, it's like playing 4E and trying to make it a storytelling system. It's not. It's a combat system with other stuff clued down. - Would you think 3-5 would be us can become a storyteller system? (clears throat) - It's closer. - I bet you they're actually closer than 4. - Yeah, I think there's stuff written for it too. - As an experiment, I wonder if it'd be, I've got 1.0 books at home. I wonder if one or even two would be lend itself to a storytelling environment. 'Cause I seem to remember that's what one and two were like and three were like that. You kind of set the stage and, you know, but it wasn't about squares and it wasn't about movement, it wasn't about reactions. - And tying all kinds of powers and abilities into-- - Yeah, right. - A map. - It became like a miniature game for us. - I was just about to say that. - Yeah. - 3.5 and 4 seem to be built for miniatures for them. Just something. I mean, it's a bit, you know. - Right. - It's a cell of their miniatures. But I don't think you could play either of those games and take a map out of it because it was too ingrained in all the roles in the different movement. So, my point being, you know-- - I just seem to remember, you know, the fun part of trying to find our miniature for the night and in 3.5 or 3, it didn't feel like we were on a grid or a map-- - It re-fired it to me. - It did? - Mm-hmm. - Okay. - It's been so alongside. - Yeah, and it's just, you know, a counterpoint. - For you, 'cause everyone sees it differently, right? - Yeah. - But 3.5 to me was definitely where you are in the map. 3, a little bit, 3.5, a big step in that direction. And 4, oh my God, we're playing miniature game. To me. - Okay, well, thank you, Taylor and 3rd, for the interesting feedback. I have all the ones you mentioned, like, and I think some of them are gonna spur some conversation. Richard Watts also commented, saying, "So from what I'm hearing is that you guys "took a system that gets up to speed like a Ferrari "and drove around with the parking brake on." - Mm-hmm. - And he was joking. - Right. - He was a little harsh. - Not a serious-- - Very true, but a little harsh. - Not a serious note. Did you feel that the character building of Dungeon World suffered from the similar shallowness as a game mechanic, or did they get that part right? I found that characters that everyone loves to live in for a bit are capable of keeping things going, even if the system is lacking in areas. Had that happen in a rift game, I had that happen in a rift game that I played some years ago. Also, I had the opposite experience in an earth-dawn game which included exploding dice. I built a character to be good at just one thing. I always rolled worse than people whose characters had no experience in that area, and it quickly became completely unfund to play because the mechanics just cut the core out of my character concept. So I'm curious which side did Dungeon World come out at? - Something about that comment that made me think a lot, and it was an adjustment for me that I had when you have a character-- - Like we, or at least I, didn't embrace the storytelling possibilities for your character to fail as much 'cause it felt like you were losing or it was, you know, it sucked. In one of our last adventures, I got hit by a sniper bullet and spent the entire adventure bleeding in a field. (laughing) - Did you save some children? (laughing) But that's what I mean, it was before-- - Oh, by the way, there's online betting on how quickly a new manera will come up to a child in peril, which is right. (laughing) - Damn it, I don't have to change the whole adventure. - Sorry, Mike. - You have your own trope. - Exactly, I've created my own trope. - Go ahead, Mike. - Before it would have sucked. I mean, I remember an adventure that I ran way in the distance when Scott was paralyzed for the entire game session. 'Cause he couldn't make a saving throw. - Yeah. - You know, and it sucked, and it was fun. - 50% chance to succeed, and I rolled like 17. - He was like flipping heads, you know, a hundred times in a row. - Yeah. - He just couldn't, and so, anyway, I just wonder if that was, he's had that experience of kind of embracing the failure. 'Cause in a way, Dungeon World kind of was, when you fail, you-- - You fail upward. - Yeah, you fail upward. - What you did, I don't mean to make it sound like we hated Dungeon World, 'cause I don't think we did. I think we enjoyed it for what it was. We liked the longer campaigns, and I don't think it's built specifically for that. Not to say that it couldn't be done, but I think there are better tools out there to do a long campaign. Dungeon World is good for a quick-- - Right. - The way we play this in a way-- - Is it a shot or a small campaign? - Why is that? 'Cause I don't understand. I don't have a lot of experience playing the other systems, so I legitimately don't understand why Dungeon World, other than the fact that we quit early, why couldn't we have just kept going? 'Cause I felt like, and I got into my character, and I wanted to-- - Well, I mean, one of the examples I would have is John was already-- - Maybe it would work for some people, 'cause I think it's just a matter of taste, maybe. So I think Dungeon World might have worked for a long campaign for you, or maybe some other people around the table. - Well, we asked-- - Again, we cut in short, we didn't play terribly long, John was already at level three, heading on to level 10. You can only go to level 10. Within a very short time, he was nearly halfway there. - Yeah, but look at all the failure we went through. (laughing) - I'm not saying it wasn't so wide a path. I'm not saying it wasn't done. - I think it was-- - Go ahead. - It's a decade plus that we've been playing even longer than these games. I don't think we've ever had characters that were high level. I mean, we really made an effort to try to go from level one to-- - It's not really all about levels, so that wasn't necessarily the most-- - In passing. - Example, what I'm saying is you do have a path, but each character is a package. This is a Paladin, and there's really not a lot of difference between one Paladin and the next Paladin. It's why they say don't play two Paladins in the same game. The path of advancement is kind of very linear. You get to choose different things, and you can make it go this way or that way. But the level of growth and the detail you can get into your character seems to me to be lacking compared to other systems. - And I think that that's a micro description of what was wrong for some of us with Dungeon World. In a macro sense, I think a lot of us, as we got older, we enjoy the concept of a character arc. My character's gonna start off afraid of her own shadow and not with any self-confidence. And by the time all the stories end as long as I don't die, my character's gonna end up being hardened and maybe even embittered to the world. You're like, there's gonna be a character arc, there's gonna be some development and growth and then change in the character. And the way that Dungeon World's entire system is set up, you get to level 10, pick a new class. It doesn't allow for that arc. And again, for a one-shot, you don't really need a character arc for that instance. We made interesting characters and had fun with it for what it was worth. But I think for a campaign, it would have after two or three adventures for our group. And again, not even everybody in our group, for the majority of our group, who likes that idea of a character arc and their character really changing and kind of almost discovering their character in a sense as they go through it. I don't know how much of that arc you could have really had in a meta sense of Dungeon World, which was one of its flaws for me because I enjoy that. I enjoy the character arc of my character worlds and I enjoy you guys having character arcs for characters in my campaign. It just makes it more interesting to me and that's how I like to play. But everyone's different. - Do you think we approached Dungeon World with like short-timers disease right off the bat since we knew it was a-- - Potentially. - But we absolutely-- - What are you saying this? - It seemed like that to me and I just, that was my question. You answered it great. I understand where you're coming from. - Right, okay. - But you could-- - I agree. - You could, although-- - Although you said-- - You can't have more than one Paladin and the way Sangamis was played. I think we could add two or three in that, 'cause you wouldn't even know he was a Paladin until he got to some of the specific things that he only he could do. - Right, absolutely. 'Cause you can develop a personality. I think you could, but you'd have to, I don't know if that's something I'd say. You'd have to have some, and it means it sounds like I'm saying I'm good, but we've played for 30 years. We're all right with what we do. We were all pretty decent around the table. You have to have good role players, 'cause if you had two guys just saying, "I'm a Paladin," you know, and they were like, let's say they're in their teens or in their early 20s, and they haven't had a lot of experience yet, or have-- - Like annoying twins. - Yeah, they could very much be like that, but again, when you have some 20 year old who can really role play well, I'm not trying to encapsulate everybody or stereotype everyone, but I think it helps that we're older and more experienced. - And Dungeon World doesn't have the mechanics, built into the game for you to go through that character arc with that change. Fate, for instance, does. I mean, there are aspects, and that's what that is. That's what it's about. It's a definition that describes your character, and you can change those, and there's mechanics for it, as you go along through the adventure, to change the aspects of your character and how they grow and how they end those, actually have benefits in the game. They have an effect in the game, your character's personality. That was missing in Dungeon World, and that's kind of what we enjoy playing. So again, we had a fun time. We had a great time. Is it something out of all of the systems that are out there that we can choose that fits our style of playing? That's probably not one of them. If we had to pick two or three. - But that doesn't mean it wasn't enjoyable for even those of us who enjoy the more storytelling aspects of our characters. It doesn't mean that we didn't enjoy the one child. I had a great time playing Saint Witness. It was a fun character. I just, I really enjoyed it. But we could go back and play Saint Witness a couple more times, but I just don't know if I could have had the same character artist I could in some other systems, and really gotten into him, and gotten the feeling with the mechanics behind me that I was really making an impression in Saint Witness was actually changing and evolving as a person, quote unquote. - Alpha, job. Also commented on the episode, and said Dungeon World did feel like it lacked some save mechanic, things to turn a failure around or utterly avoid it. And that, mostly because it seemed like the dice and the thresholds are such that characters are likely to fail. - Well, personally, that's what I learned from your Dungeon World play. Kind of wanted to learn a bit more about the game, although it seemed too flawed to become my choice for RPG. He's got a valid point in that you're rolling two dice and you're adding a few to it. - And the success with complications can be looked at as a failure, 'cause things just got worse. I just ran out of ammo, I just got smacked, I just, so in his belief that success with the complication is a failure, he's right. The vast majority of things you're gonna roll is gonna be a failure. - Yeah, but that stuff only drives the story, in some cases. - It definitely makes things more interesting and it does drive the story, yes. - It does, after a while, get a little monotonous and frustrating, though. - Well, I didn't have to drive the story. - It drives the story so much as outright failure or after all, like failure. - Well, you had to roll a six in the last. - It's frustrating to think for a half an hour of the perfect way to execute things and then fail three girls in a row and it's just not gonna happen. - Right. - And there is no mechanism, there's no-- - There's nothing to change that, there's no fate point, there's no willpower. - Right, you can't juice up your dice at all to any extent. - If I wanted to have fun failing, I'd play the fiasco. - The obligatory fiasco. - Reference, reference, yes. - Bara. - Well, then we just stop it, you have to be an act leader against it. Play it in every system. But this isn't every group we play it, pretty much a fiasco. - Every story we tell, that would be the best. - We all work in house purposes. We usually don't end up together or having your same common goal. - This time it's gonna be different. - It might be different. - Not enough people die for it to be a true fiasco, babe. So, you know-- - Sure, well-- - Although I'm trying. - Jim's character has to die in order to be, he has like a secret-- - For it to be. - He's okay at all. - Ari also commented and said, as I've noted here before, I like the smoothness of the move engine, but to my taste, dungeon world takes it a bit too much in that direction, but that's just me. But again, the KOTN crew made even this rock 100% for me. So, well, thank you. - Thank you. - Appreciate it. - And thank you for the comment, Alpha. That was under Alpha's comment. Ari also commented on his own and said, good discussion. Starting to write this as I'm listening to the ending minutes of the episode. On the off the seat of your pants way of coming up with things in the world, I see more and more games are lighter this way. Maybe it is we, the players that are getting older and have more and more life issues to keep us from spending time and prep for a session, reading new source books and whatnot. We might even have to change the game evening's agenda based on who manages to show up. - Just ran into this with our group. We've been playing old school games like Shadowrun and Earth Dawn since they came out. - Earth Dawn. Wow. - Is that the second reference to Earth Dawn? - Yeah. - Was it? I must miss the first one. - Yeah, yeah, the first one. I don't recall it. - We have a big thick book of it laying around in our house. - Yeah. - And that's the only reason I know of it. It's an old story. - I think we played one story. I jammed it and Doug brought to our attention. He's the first one he brought a book to back in your basement. - Huh? - I remember walking around in the lot. Yeah, I've been there. - He really thought it was cool. And we had a cool premise to it. So good for him. - All right, fun stuff. - Okay, so they were playing it since it came out and still are more or less running the same campaign. With a large group of eight of us, forgetting everyone together on a given evening is proving nine possible. Someone is sure to have an obstacle come up at the last moment or at least close to the day. So there might be a need to reorganize the evening. It might be that the intended GM can't make it or a key player for the chosen adventure or campaign. Maybe just as the issue, these quick to the draw games try to tackle. And as I said, they even succeed. But it takes adjustment on the party side as it's a different new world that they might find themselves facing. - Party. - Yeah, no, I get it, Ari. I get the point of why these games are being made the way that they are. And it's true, everything he says. - And I think it's a huge backlash too against 4-0 for D&D. I mean, that flopped, I mean, I'm sure there are passionate players out there who enjoy it to death, but it flopped such a huge way 'cause it was Dungeons and Dragons. - Right, compared to any other version, it was an epic flop. - It was an epic flop. And I think it, and everyone was so sick of the miniature aspect with all those talents tied in and having to be exacting two squares away and within three of someone else. And just that massive amount of maneuvering that you had to put onto the game, that it just absolutely, I don't think it intended to 'cause they tried to add some role-playing elements to it and some social aspects to it. But it just sucked the living story out of everything to me. And the- - I just realized the counterculture. - Yeah, to me, that's where the counterculture came up and those really, 'cause when Dungeons and Dragons first came out, there might have been a dogs in the vineyard or there might have been one or two other light, it quote unquote, rules game. - I remember Doug saying, what else is there? - Right. - And meaning it. - Yeah, I mean, but even there was-- - There was something there were other stuff out there that was World of Darkness. - But there wasn't a lot. You know, I mean, there was a handful, but now it's like there's just this inundation of systems that are rules light. And I think it's a direct response to 4.0s failures. - I just remember that now that you're mentioning it, the nightmare of having 10 different little cards of, here's the blast radius for this and here's an area effect of that and our characters had the little flags on it. - Yeah, Ryan, actually for Christmas, Ryan bought me a magnet that had, and he had little flags that was stunned, prone, I'm whatever. And you could just slap them on the top and it would attach to the bottom of your miniature. - Right. - So, I mean, because there was so many different statuses that you could do. - Sure, it could be. - Not that that was a fan of that per se, but it had to be-- - You can't be if you want, because it needs to be-- - Well, okay. - I think there was a benefit that I remember that instead of us shutting down for 30 minutes while everyone else took their turn, you had to kind of pay attention to what was happening because there was a chance, a good chance that a power or a reaction was going to trigger-- - And involve you. - And then involve you. And so, I remember that we were a lot more attentive and more engaged because I remember times where chambers would take a 30-minute nap because this character was done. - Well, chambers crashed on the sugar high. - Well, they were-- - To be fair. - Yeah. - But, you know-- - It was a viable strategy. - But-- - Now, after playing X-COM, I think that game system would be awesome in that it was like, play a computer game on a board. I'm not a fan of miniatures, I have got a-- - That was a lot of the complaints is that it was basically a computer game. - You had a buddy who loves warcraft, or not warcraft-- - War hammer. - War hammer. And he is all about building these miniatures and these enormous things. I'm like, is there a game system? Well, that's all he does. And he just makes it-- - Right. - Because all these armies-- - Yeah. - And it's like, and you reenactment, but how do you even determine what some-- - Yeah, there's definitely a game system. - Yeah. - It's like an ad simulation. - But I also remember some of those comments in 4th edition running two nights, 'cause they couldn't be completed in one. - Yeah, they did. - That's brutal. - But you're right, Mike. There was some advantage in the sense that you can keep people engaged to some extent, but probably a way to do that without the mass level of-- - Yeah, you had a lot of cars, was that it was-- We had a stack, and everybody had their stack. - You needed a table this size to play. I mean seriously, can you imagine playing like in some small little fold up card table? - There's no F and wait, you can play for a Yannick Artane now. - Dammit, I can't remember. One of the listeners suggested a game system, they said it would be right up our eye. - I've heard of it. - I heard of it. - It is, it's like built on mysteries. - Gumshoe. - It was a Gumshoe system. Yes. - Ah, good job, John. - Thank you, John. - Well, I'm so-- - Yeah, one of our listeners mentioned that Gumshoe would be a system that would just fit us to a T, our playstyle. So, perhaps it's something we should look into. - Because of the mystery and the stuff we usually have. - Yeah. - We gotta get back to the other stuff, people really have been waiting for us to play. - Yes, we'll definitely. After no one else will be returning to Dresden. - Well, we're going to see if anyone has any interest, not so much next, that we need to do Dresden next, get that story moving again, to a full extent. But after that, would it be of any interest to anyone to run dual campaigns? One Friday, Dresden, next Friday, World Darkness, one Friday, Dresden, next Friday, World of Darkness. We're running two concurrent storylines. I don't know what the hell that we do to your, trying to kill the editor, your podcasting side of things. But for everyone to not get burned out and wonder the other, I don't know, though. It just came to me one day and I'm like, "Hmm, I wonder what people would--" - It might be harder than I do it, you know? - Yeah. - Three episodes of Dresden because that's how much we got out of that session and then three episodes. - Oh, and that's true. And it just freaks out absolutely everyone listening. - Okay. - Yeah. - I do. - Because it's not hard enough yet with the editing and the-- - I remember reading this one or two in a row and it was really hard to get up steam for what we were doing. - Right. - Good point. - That pile on top of dual systems. - Switching back and forth. - I think my characters are already having these past life experiences of, that was the other system, Mike. - Damn it. - All right, last bit of feedback is from Adam and Danji. I gotta say while I'm sitting glued to my speakers, whenever you guys are up to your fantastic shenanigans, that Dungeon World was not my best cup of tea. I haven't gone through it all, which I shall do, wanna give it another go, but I felt it was a bit uneven compared to World of Darkness and Joseph House. I think it's my stickler against genetic fantasy worlds. You guys-- - Generic. - Generic, thank you. Against generic fantasy worlds. - Genetic. - Genetic. (laughs) That's what we're playing now. - You're genetic. - Fantasy worlds. Against generic fantasy worlds. You guys are entertaining. Particularly as it's hard to craft a story with as much bite as World of Darkness or Dresden Files. Though you guys needed a break for specifically the reason plot fatigue. So I guess it worked as designed. I gotta say, I didn't like the final episode, Kudos to all you. It was the one where you're trying to figure out how to deal with the burning bird. - That turned into a good episode? - Yeah. - I ain't a hard one. - I will take full credit for that, I think. Good job, everyone. - I had a hard time-- - But I needed me. - I had a hard time keeping quiet during that episode. - Oh, I don't remember using it. (laughing) Dude, I wasn't there, I don't know. - I think it was one point where you said something. - Jim, and both these guys went, "Duh." (laughing) - What about you, Jerry? (laughing) - That was such a good scene. (laughing) - What was that then? - Did I make it in? - Yes. - I think I did leave it in, yes, 'cause I thought it was too fucking hilarious. (laughing) I heard that. I gotta say, I like the final episode. Give it another go in a few days. Kinda thought I would throw my sins at you guys, so you have as much feedback as possible. - Senses in dollars, Ian. - Actually, yes. - I would say sins. - Do so. - Put the sins here. - 'Cause they're on my sins. - Sense. - Deal with that shit. - Thank you, Adam. A lot of systems out there don't know if we're ever gonna give a dudger world another shake. - I'd actually like to try the original apocalypse world just to really get into an apocalyptic world, and again, treat it the same way as a one shot in between a palette cleanser, but we'll see how it shakes. - And it's on to a new manera. - Got a little bit of apocalyptic. - Yeah, but this is not as entirely different. - With that though, we'll get on to the manera. With just a quick reminder, kotmpodcast.com is our blog site. There's an Amazon link right side, and it's actually beginning a lot of traffic and helping us pay for this month, so thank you for everyone that's using it. - Christmas season's coming up. - Yeah, Jim, I'm talking about Black Friday. You guys, way ahead of me, I guess. I'm not even ready to start shopping. - So thank you everybody that's been using it, continue to use it, and we'll get on to the episode. - This is your GM Scott, and we are gonna attempt to play new manera. Money cooks, new future fantasy, yeah. - Spectral of fiction. - There we go, all kinds of good stuff. With me tonight for the world building and the character building session, on my right is Jim, playing Rose. - Yes. - I'm like playing some kind of delay, you've... - Tom, I had to look like Jack. - Thomas, I don't know what I'm gonna play yet. - Okay. - John, you're in the dream play yet? - I think it's understood, I mean. - Yeah. - So general premise of the game? - Discovery, we're basically one billion years in the future of our Earth. Eight civilizations have come and gone, has risen and fallen before this, the ninth world. Those civilizations, to some degree, had amazing technology or earth shattering or shaping types of abilities. Some of them were born and bred of this Earth. - At least one was the center of a galactic or perhaps intergalactic space-faring empire. At least one wheeled the power of planetary, engineering, and stellar lifting. At least one had acknowledged the fundamental forces of reality and could have altered those forces as they wished, the very laws of physics were their toys. At least one filled the world with invisible, molecule-sized machines called nanites or nanomachines that could deconstruct and reconstruct manner and manipulate energy. At least one of the worlds explored the multiverse of other dimensions, parallel universes and on alternate levels of reality. And at least some of these civilizations were not human. - Well, that's much better than my script. - I was reading from the book. - Well, money did a great job. That's the general premise of the game is that, you know, it's fantasy in a sense because there's a profound lack of technology. I think he described it as being somewhere in the vicinity of analogous to 1000 AD or somewhere like time frame. But yeah, with these unbelievable artifacts or ciphers or other types of instruments that is really analogous to magic because some people can understand and manipulate them, but to the vast majority of the population, it's indistinguishable from magic itself. So you won't be casting necessarily a fireball, but you might have nanotechnology that you injected into your arm that allows you to create flame and throw it or whatever the case might be. So there's a mix of this science fiction, far future ultra tech, and it's mixed with the majority of civilization living at a low tech level. - Is this like an extreme post-apocalyptic, but not strong on the apocalypse? - It's kind of like a flavor punk or something like that. - No, no, not at all. - It is nine civilizations have risen and then disappeared. Whether they've ascended into spirit state, whether they've moved to another dimension or whatever, we are the ninth civilization to rise. We're doing it in a world that nothing, not a grain of sand on this earth has not been manipulated by the eight other races. But we aren't in 1000 AD. - We're in our own, basically caveman playing with toys of gods. - Well, caveman might be a bit of a stretch. - We're past caveman, but in comparison. - Yes, to their massive technology. - For instance, Mike, for instance, the city of Threest has a floating structure above it that's like a large barge and it just levitates there. It's tethered to the ground and they use it as a lookout for their guard, but they don't know how to move it. It just sits there. So they're sitting in the ruins of this ancient technology and they just kind of use it for what they can, what they can figure out to do with it. - Right. They tried to, and there are some known as, and the names gonna escape me 'cause I'm not the emperor. Yeah, well, certainly there's a religion that's based off of technology. 'Cause you can imagine, I mean, if in our world at 1000 AD, someone found nanotechnology and were able to manipulate to perform effects, you would think it was the most incredible thing in the world and you would think that the race that came before you, the race or the civilization, were gods. So there is a religious entity, is it the amber, what's it called? - Amber papacy 'cause it's a pope. - Right, there's a pope and basically they worship technology. They worship led by the amber pope. - Yeah, they worship technology because why wouldn't you? It's unbelievable that it's so far beyond their kin of what they can do. Again, it's like, gods. - The major language spoken between, you know, what we would say in D&D was a common language shared by all races and all countries. Here is called the truth and it's taught by the priest when it is based on rationality and intelligence. It's a language based on science. So it's the truth. - There are other languages. - There are people who can manipulate some of the nanotech, some of the, there was a name for these scientists or priests, I can't remember what they were called. The system, the book is, no, it's just a type of person in the world who, if you found some really cool technology, you could take it to them and they might be able to help you kind of figure out what that does. But I can't, the name is escaping me right now. - What I'm gonna try to do is compile a couple of pages that explain the history of the world or things that are commonly known to people that live in the world. For instance, there's something like the iron wind. - Oh yeah, the iron wind is supposed to be very nasty. - And everybody that lived in this world would know what the iron wind was. And it is basically a sandstorm, but it's not sand, it's nanotechs. And when it rolls over you, it just fucks up your day and might eat your day. It transforms you into a puddle of goo. - Sounds fun. - Yeah, it's fun stuff. But there's other things that are in the world that would be things that we should know, which are money, for instance, there's no coins. It's called, they're called shin. And it's because all of the metal on this earth that's been so processed, and if not processed out of the earth, created. So there is no precious metal. There is no, oh, this is gold, this is wonderful. They could create anything they wanted. So there would be an equal amount of any material that they wanted. So nothing would be precious anymore. So what they use is little bits of plastic, like a button that represents a dollar or a point. And it's called a shin. So different things like that, we should probably print out so that everybody has at least a fundamental understanding of what world is like. We should find different areas and highlight those so that you don't have to read through the entire book. - Okay, so given the very brief sketch of the background of what this world is like, does anyone have anything they'd like to accomplish? Anything, you know, an idea they'd like to explore, whether it be a character type theme? - I thought, well, we've never really played in a desert nation before. 35 years, and I can remember it, you're gonna be one time back in the early 80s when we might have played a desert adventure. So I thought desert would be really cool. A small city state with islands or canals or something on the water, because we don't do a lot of waterborne adventures either. - I did some perusing of the different areas of the setting. And the two areas that I found that generally fit what you're talking about, the southern area here, it's the cold desert. There's some interesting city states in that area to be dealt with. I also thought it could be interesting as the hayrest and the area of the amorphous fields. - Okay. - The amorphous fields are fucked up, what you were mentioning before. This is like, you could walk and the ground suddenly decides to change and everything is rippling and what one solid is becoming liquid and what was liquid, it's just a catech state of geology where things are constantly morphing. There's also these here that look interesting, the Seshar, which appears to be a bunch of canals and rivers and there's city states all on that area. That could be interesting as well. And it's not too far north of the-- - The cold desert? - The cold desert. So does anyone have, like, and so this is just, ideas came to me like, hey, what would be different? So we're applying a system you ever played before, we're playing in a world we obviously have never dealt with before in this far future meets medieval fantasy. Go ahead, John, do you want to say something? - I had one other place I read about it. In the city of sei, I read about the beyond, most of it, but John read most about the steadfast. So he might not suggest this as well. The city of bridges is in the sea kingdom of gone, the king of gone, I don't recall his name, but he's looking for a crew to travel west, the world ocean. He believes there's an archipelago out there and he wants to establish trade with it, but he needs somebody who's willing to go out there and possibly not come back because it's kind of the, there's just shittons of storms and a giant vast ocean. - Okay, and what I kind of had is, that's great, that's thank you for the thought. It kind of fits into a little bit of what I was going-- - Could be exploring an area-- - It was, I told your dad, Tom, earlier today, that I thought it'd be kind of different if we use the trope of you're all in jail. And the reason you're all in jail is because the ruler of the particular city that you're in, might not be the king himself, but it might be like one of his vassals is corrupt, beyond corruption. And for what, it could be for any reason. It could be, you try to create an underground newspaper because you walked out after curfew. It could be any reason at all, you ended up in some kind of prison. And he does that on purpose, so that he can then dain to release you if you're willing to do a mission for your freedom. And so he's basically someone who's just a despicable character, but also holds the keys to your fate. And all of you don't have to know each other, met the bar or anything, you all can be in prison for whatever reason you'd like. - But I didn't like the Roman gladiators. - What's that? - Roman gladiators were criminals. - Sure, sure. - Who fought for their lords, whatever, to earn their freedom. - And for him, since Mani's, the theme of this game, if you know nothing else or learn nothing else about it from this podcast or from saying at this table, is discovery. You could experience points, not for killing things. You could experience points for discovering things. That's where I'm trying to tie into the whole idea of he wants, he's mad about, he's crazy to grab and grasp new technologies. And this is his way to do it. No ordinary person's gonna go out into the sea or into any other place in the country or the world and go look, find things that could potentially kill them. I mean, it's a very rare, unique person who will do that. So throw everyone in jail and see who really wants to be free. And that kind of sets the groundwork for you guys, maybe having a couple of connections, but also you could also create some other party conflict because you're not all friends. - That seems like it would work for what John was suggesting or like I mentioned, the amorphous fields. There's nobody who wants to go out into those places. - And they're right, right. - Like changing constantly and you could kill you in an instant. - But then is there a reason to go out into them? - That would be up to the GM, wouldn't it? - It could be something-- - You know, I gotta guess-- - Just a minute, sorry. Is there a word for technology that you find out there? If no one's been to the amorphous field, what causes it to be like that? There might be a new manera in the area that's constantly causing it to go in flux. - There are actually cities and other things that exist out there. There are some areas that are-- - Some but they are here, a person is? - Yeah, stable. - So for example, if you're trying to-- - I would trailblaze a path from V-bar to hayrest so we could like re-establish trade or something, but you're trying to discover a safe passage. - Maybe try to find a safe passage to a settlement inside the whatever that stuff is called. Amorphous fields. - Amorphous fields. - And they want us to make it safe? - Or at least mark a trail for it and then-- - Maybe we have to go someplace else to find something and then bring it to the field. - Or maybe there's a room or something in the field that stabilizes it or a way to turn it off or a way to control it or there could be anything. But you were saying with some, an adventure at sea, that doesn't-- - Just be at all because I-- - Not at sea. - In this sense, I don't like, I think, you're confining us to a boat. I mean, you may have something entirely different, but this is what I don't like about that. - That's what you think of when you think about it. - You're putting in a side a little boat surrounded by this vast ocean that if we walk five feet off or dead in an environment that we can't possibly do anything in and fight, nothing about that intrigues me. - Right. - What I was thinking more of when it came to a water-type adventure was a city spread out over 20 islands with bridges and floating platforms and all kinds of things along those lines. And any travel wouldn't be out to the deep ocean necessarily. It certainly wasn't my idea. John did mention that and it's worthy of discussion at least. But it's more, there could have been a long trade lot around the coast, maybe the ship that was supposed to come to deliver some really cool things for this despot. Sank and shallow water. So you travel over land to the wreckage and you have to go into the wreckage underneath. More along those lines then, a deep water adventure where you're swash water. - I want to think I thought maybe someone noticed once a month a floating island comes just off the horizon and they want somebody to go out there and jump on that island for the 20 hours that it's there. Or, you know, I mean, there's, where I basically wanted to take and this is for everyone. I wanted to take the first adventure. I want you guys to create characters if we can that could have an arc. Because if we like it, we'll come back to it. If we don't, then it's a one shot. But we should at least create characters that have a potential for an arc. But I wanted the first story to be Firefly-esque where you're criminals. Not really, I mean they would have had individuals. No, and you're thrown into jail for whatever reason. You could have been jaywalking, you know, in this guy's city and that's-- - You could be a real criminal. - Yeah, or you could be a real criminal. Or you could be someone who preached a religion counter to the amber papacy. Or you could be someone who's part of the amber papacy and he doesn't like that. You know, he doesn't believe that religion in his city or doesn't like the influence it has over his people. Whatever the case might be, you end up together as misfits on an adventure. And the adventure is something where it's somewhat morally ambiguous 'cause most of the-- most of the "Wapping 13" episodes were morally ambiguous. They were trying to help someone and they tried to do the right thing, but sometimes they had to do the wrong thing to do the right thing. So I was going more than that thing for the square mouth reasons. - For the square mouth reasons. - Mouth reasons. I was going for that for the first story just to make it interesting. Not a dungeon delve, not a high science fiction, fancy mashup, but a simple story of six or seven people who have been forced into each other's companies. They're doing something that is probably illegal, although they're not necessarily bad people, and it makes for an interesting one-shot story. And then if we like it, the story has, I certainly have ideas that can then develop into a campaign arc if we wish to take it there. That was my idea. You guys might hate that and say, let's do something completely different, and that's cool. I just wanted to throw it out there as a possibility for the first story. Their stories were a ship broke down somewhere and we need to go check and see who's on it and if they're still alive, or we need to take the shipment of stolen, whatever, and drop it off somewhere else. And of course there's been all kinds of complications that happen along the way. Something simple, but yet quirky, with a couple of twists that I'll throw and hopefully confuse things and make it not too tropish. But I don't want you to complex here. We need to go to point A, see what's there, and come back and report. And along the way, a couple things will happen. It will change the story and then we're done. So that's where I'm going forward for this one-shot. And then if it's interesting, we like the world we created or the area of the world that we created and flushed out, and you like the characters that you've created, then we'll come back to it in between World of Darkness and Dresden as we see fit. So, we'll start talking at once. - I see us go into a place that speaks the truth because we can't go over the sea to a place no one speaks our language and have moral disagreements and stuff. It'll just be hand signs and confusion. - Right, that's just, yeah. So probably somewhere in the beyond. Not really sure where. - So you don't think the steadfast can work just like intrigued between city-states and he's trying to smuggle something from one area? - Oh, another one got along very well, that's true. It could be that too. - And I'd like the Amber Papal Sea as the... - Hi, I throw it in the line. - Well, to some extent, yeah, I think. - You mean like wandering paladins who observed their law despite being in a separate country? - I just like the idea that you could, they could influence things in a major way. - Papacy, their moral compass is more, they do want to help people with the technology they find, but I'm not sure they in intercedible and people are just fighting with bandits or something. - Well, one thing, are these nations or are these? - These are medieval nations. - In the steadfast, there are nine different nations. - Okay. - There's faint yellow outlines and larger names here, but no one is absolutely sold on an area. Make it always just do a little more reading and try to... - I don't know enough about the world to be sold on an area or-- - You can say what sounds interesting to you. - I'll get it, I'd like the idea of a desert or at least a barren where we have to, kind of make sure we have our resources and our gear, 'cause we're gonna be fighting the land and the scope you said exploring and discovering as much as we are defending ourselves from-- - Well, again, we're back to the Amorphous Fields or the Cold Desert. I would say the Cold Desert's probably the beginner, right area, because something that changes randomly and chaotically underneath your feet, you can't really plan for as much as you can for the cold. - So, okay, a cold desert. A cold desert city-state of some sort, we'll look at the various types and a despot who's ruling it. Of course, it won't just be a desert city because that's what we could have here. If we wanted to do it, we'll do something really creative with it. - Oh, yeah, right. You could pick one from the book that Monte's already done. - Right. - I got a feeling that some of them are really, really, the ones that are really fleshed out, probably were used in play-testing and they didn't want to waste the creation that they did, so you threw it in. - Okay. - Some actually have a little map of the town. Other ones are just a couple paragraphs. - Is it later on in the book, then? - Yeah, well, it's towards the end in a world. No, it's randomly sprinkled about to be honest. - It's passed steadfast, so if you're interested. - So, yes, it's in the setting part, Scott. - Oh, setting, okay. - Good to know. Just wanted to know where it was, exactly. Okay, so we have, so we're okay with the despot and being basically in some type of debtor's prison or of some sort or a prison for wayward souls who have fought the authority or crossed the authority for some reason that they don't know. - I don't know, I've got one already made up. - Okay. - For being out in the beyond, the amber papacy isn't totally absent. - Correct. - It's what it's not, it's not the authority that it is. - Right, right. And the people here-- - It's steadfast. - In the beyond who do practice the truth or whatever they call it? - Yeah, speak the truth. - Right, well, they speak the truth, but they worship the same religion. - Big knowledge. - Just kind of follow the precepts and live in kind of cloistered monkish settings. - Yes. - And they hoard their own technology and try to figure out what they can do with it. - This will help both. - And it's a potential. - They will help out the people there, but they don't have communication with the pope back home. - Right. - They're just on their own. - So they're out of the steadfast, they're actually, they're out of a loop in general of as far as amber papacy. - They just wanna let you know those guys are dead. - Yeah, I read that part, but thank you for, I'm sure our listeners might not have read that part, so that's really valuable stuff. Okay, well, we got a setting that we can start to fight. I can start to flesh out for next week as far as what the city will look like and feel like. - Ah, yes, character creation. - Yeah, does anyone have anything else they'd like to see in the city or the world we're gonna be in for their character, meaning specifically for their character or for playing? - I mean, as you make our characters, I think we might find more things that we wanna add to the world. - Although coming from the frozen waste for one of the focuses, or folk-eye, or the proper word is, I was, - It's more than one, it's folk-eye, isn't it? - I believe it is. - Yeah, it is, where is the sheen of vice? I was gonna explore that one, or... - Interesting, so that might fit. - Do you wanna do an overview? 'Cause I can sometimes be in the end, but maybe we'll do an overview. - Okay. - In general, premise of the game, you wanna start with three different pools. You have might, speed, and intellect. They represent what you think they would. - Anything that has to do with how robots and healthy art would go under the might, speed would be your dexterity, - Right, how quick you agility, any of those types of attributes. - Meanableness. - Yes, would fall under speed, and intellect would cover wisdom. - I think it's what you think would fall under that. - Yes. - So those are the three main pools. - After you, if you will. - Right, he calls them pools, I'm just for those who don't understand. - Well, they aren't attributes. - They are two new pools, they're a large pool. - They are just collection of points, and you will use them, and spend them out of there. - If you're a nano-amage, you're gonna be using your intellect pool to do your spells. It's essentially your mana counter. It's gonna drain as you do spells, but as a mage, you're gonna have an edge on that. There's edge beneath the pool on this chart here. Edge is how much you subtract. - The character cheaper from the thing you're doing. If you are constantly casting spells, you're gonna wanna have an edge on intellect so that it chops it down one point. - Right. - The basic psychic blast is your attack, and it has one cost, so. - If you have an edge of one in intellect, then your cost would be zero to do that particular. - What do they call them? - Edge. - Esoteric. - Esoteric. - Esoteric. - So, for example, the glaive has an edge of an might of one, and a bash attack is-- - Cost you one. - Cost me one. - So, conceivably, I can-- - You can bash all day, baby. - Okay. - So, your might wouldn't be reduced, because when your might gets to zero-- - So, I as a jack might have an edge on my might that is zero, and I wanna do a bash. I could still do a bash, but it's gonna cost me one might, and I'm slowly gonna tire myself by doing something that a warrior could do easily for free. - Right. So, that is, that's how edge interacts with the different pulls, the three different pulls, and in addition, when he's doing an attack, he could spend three might-- - Yes. - To add-- - On the top of your cheat, this cheat is an effort. You start with just one, and this is basically kind of like in fate, how you can throw a point to be good, extra, have extra emphasis on something, except that it draws further from your pool. So, if you're doing an attack, you're like, "I really wanna kill this guy." At the forehand, you can decide to put your one effort into it. This levels up as you get higher on levels, but it starts at one, and it costs three extra might to do that. Your edge does subtract from that, but it's just to knock the damage up another three points or something. I'm not entirely sure how much. - I think it's, I think it's to-- - You can use effort on anything. - I think it's three, I think it's three points of damage, if I'm not mistaken, but it also, you can use effort to reduce, so a larger concept at hand is how the game plays, and that is much like a fate-based system, the GM comes up with a difficulty. I'd like to climb the wall, that glass wall. Okay, well, that's gonna be a difficulty of seven, 'cause it is worn, and there's a couple of hand holds, but it's a very difficult setting. So, if the difficulty-- - So that's really fucking difficult. - I know, I mean, it was a glass wall. - I mean, the rating is one through 10. - One through 10, and the number you need to roll on die 20 is three times the difficulty. So, if a difficulty was seven, you need to roll 21, which means you can't do that. - You would be fucking impossible to climb this-- - No. - By anyone who is-- - You can spend effort to reduce the level-- - Of the difficulty. - Of difficulty, and if you have a skill, it would also remove a level of difficulty. So, you might be able to say, okay, I have plenty, this is perfect. I take it from seven, which is incredibly challenging, down to a six, which is still very, very challenging. And then, you might-- - That way-- - I'm gonna spend effort. - Two levels of skill. You could be an expert. - You could be a specialist. - Right. - That would take it down two levels. - So, let's say it's down to five, 'cause you're an expert climber. So, it takes it down two levels, from seven to six to five. And then, you say, I'm gonna expend three speed, assuming that's gonna be the skill we're gonna use. Excuse me, the pool we're gonna use for this, I spend three in effort. So, my speed's a lot, but it goes down to eight now, 'cause I spent some of my speed effort, and it goes, now we're down to a difficulty level of four, right? Seven, six, five, so climbing takes it down to six. The specialty in climbing takes it down to five, and then spending effort takes it down to four. So, now you need to roll a 12 on die 20. Still very difficult, you're gonna fail more than you're gonna succeed, 'cause this game isn't about pluses to your die 20. This game is about moving your steps up and down. There are pluses to the die rolls, but there are very few and far between. So, what you wanna do is you wanna try to reduce that difficulty down as much as you can, but in doing so, you spend effort to do so. - Okay, so then we have moved it down to a difficulty for, say. - Yes. - So then, what happens if I roll it down to 20? - But just beforehand, Tom's character says, I'm a climbing expert, I happen to have a grappling hook that works well with glass walls, because that's so evident. So, he can actually help you by spending, I can't remember to ask how it rolls. - It is an asset, 'cause you own it, it's just-- - Okay, and that knocks it down to three, Mike, because he helps you with your climbing. So now, you need to get to a nine. You take a die 20 and you roll it. You either succeed or you fail. So, the hardest thing to be is difficulty 10. You would need a 30, which is-- - I'm die 20, it's not a yeah. - So, unless you've got something really amazing going on, it's not gonna happen. But at a four, you need a 12 on die 20 to succeed or fail. - One more thing you might wanna mention is, that's how you roll and you fail. - You can do a re-roll by spending experience. Experience in this game is not like your typical experience. It's very much like faith points. You get rewarded when the GM throws a challenge at you, which in this game they call a-- - GM intrusion. - A GM intrusion, which is, yeah, sounds painful. - So, you roll a 14, you're like, yeah, they go, oh, you know what, about halfway up, a piece of the glass starts to crack off and your hand gets bloodied and here's an experience point. - You're gonna expect we'll be hearing a lot of this. - Well, it's just like offering a fake point by the story, to the point where you can actually pay him to say, no, that doesn't happen. - No, no, no, it doesn't happen. I see that it starts crumbling and I one jump and grab the next hand hold, take your experience point back and here's one, you have to give one up because you're saying no to the GM intrusion. Also, on a tats, or any more, actually, 17, 18, 19 and 20 are special, different things happen when you roll up. - I know more, it's 17, 18, 19, 15. - Right, 17, if you're in combat, does one extra damage, 18 does two, 19 does three, and 20 does four. Also, if you roll a 19 or 20, 19 is a minor event and an event might be the wrong word, but it's something that happens, and then 20, something major happens. If you roll a one, it's a GM, I think it's the GM intrusion. - That you can't pay off. - That you don't get an experience. - Oh, yeah, you don't get an experience, you can't pay it off. - You can't pay it off, but you do not get experience for it. In this game, it's very simple, too. You're facing, let's say, you're out in caravan route, you're protecting this caravan, point A to point B, and you're attacked by ab humans, which are... - Everyone human. - Yes, long story short, they're level, they're level three. That's everything. You wanna talk to 'em? Level three, it's actually difficulty level. You want to fight them, to hit them? Well, level three, unless in their creature description, they tweak against nanotechnology, they get plus two levels, and so then it's a five, you try to, it might be adjusted, but the basic level is, you're not worrying about armor class or anything else, it's just, I need this to hit him, and weapons are much the same way. Light weapons do two damage, and heavy weapons do four damage. - Light weapons do six, medium do four. - Thank you, I forgot that was a medium. Yep, no, no, thank you, I totally forgot that. So it's two, four, and six for damage, there's things that affect that, but that's the basic. Doesn't matter if you're carrying a short sword, a javelin, you know, if it's a light weapon, it does two damage, that's it. He really wants us, as players, and as a GM, to focus on the story. It's not about my sword weighs two points. - You try to strike more than that, right? - Yeah, they're trying to streamline it. - Maybe you mention this, but if the difficulty is two, and you somehow get it down to zero, there's the role you succeed. - You succeed automatically to get the difficulty down to zero. That's some basic rules as we start the care of creation process. So there's three pulls, light speed, and intellect. So, Mike, if you're a glaive, there should be a-- - Well, let's talk about that, there's three classes. It's glaive, which is a warrior type. It is nano, which is a wizard type, and there's Jack, which is Jack of all trades. Okay, nano is a wizard. - I know, you said wizard, I say come on. - Or, aren't we away from the wizard term in this game? - Can you give me that? - Well, oh, that's what they go. That's what the people think you are. - Yeah, okay. - You know, it's funny 'cause I was called Tom asking, "What the heck are Esoterius?" And if I look it up, and there's a little blurb that says, "Esoterius, for the, you know, "for someone who was in the middle, "is, they might consider a spell or a magic effect." You're like, "Oh, it's a spell, okay." - Why didn't you say that in the first place? - It's a, that's so scary. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, it did very well. - When I first started-- - I like Esoterius. - When I first started reading this system, and I still have this concern, I'd like to see the mechanic in effect, but I'm not a fan of die 20, because the range is too big and there's no, there's nothing to blunt the bigness of it. There's an equal chance of me rolling a one as a 20. There's no dice, oh, you're not, there's no bell curve, there's nothing. One to fucking 20. So no matter how good I am, or how free the chances are, unless I get them all the way to zero, my chances are still. - You do have experience to outweigh that. - Somewhat. And again, I'm saying, this is my concern. - What is? - We'll see how the game plays. But another concern I had was three fucking classes. That's it. There's Glade, Nano, and Jack, that's it. But, then I got to the part where I was reading The Folk Eye, and I was like, "Holy shit, this is a game changer." This is huge. This is... - Yeah, you have your Nano, this or Nano. - Yeah, I mean, you've got the sentence, right? There is, "I'm a clever Jack who hows at the moon." - This is the list of folk eye things. - I'm an adjective, noun, who verbs. - Right, I'm a clever Jack. Clever is a descriptor, it gives me a bonus. - Yeah, adjective, noun, verb, right. - A descriptor gives you like, a couple of skills. - No, I'm saying it's a separate mechanic in the game. - I'm a clever Glade who fights with the panache. - Right. - The most clever part is a separate mechanic in the game that gives you, it changes your stats. It gives you additional things to do. - A couple of skills. - The focus, which is, "How's at the moon?" The verb part of it. That's almost like a subclass. It is so big. It's got, in this game, there are six tiers. There are similar to levels, but that's not the focus of the game. It's a little different when you get experience, you spend four points, and you get like a one step towards getting to the next tier. You've gotta do that four times. So you're gonna need a total of 12 experience to get. But they explained in the game that they want you to spend about half the experience on changing the game, re-rolling, doing things in the game, treating them as fake points, and the other half they want you to spend in advancing. The verb part of it, the "How's at the moon?" is like a totally, it's big. In my characters, that's the one I'm thinking of taking, and they say you cannot have multiple characters with the same focus. - Oh yeah, why would you? - There's enough of them that you don't need to, and you really shouldn't. But "How's at the moon" means I can change into some other creature. I can't really pick werewolf, 'cause wolfs don't exist anymore. So, I don't think they do. - Yeah, I know. - Why do you share those, too? - They don't. - Fuck is a ravage bear. - I'm actually looking at ravage bear, as much. I shall be aware of the ravaging type. But they have six tiers that, as you advance, in my case, you'd get more control over your transformation and be able to do additional different things. So, when they have one, John, for instance, was looking at craft solutions as a possibility. - But those ending parts are set, as here's the list of things you can't change or deviate. - It's not, you make it up. It's in the book, you pick your descriptor from it. - Yes. - Yes. - And being, as our first attempt at this game, I don't see any reason to make up our own. 'Cause we don't know the game well enough to do that, in my opinion. - So, but you certainly could. It's our game. - Really? - The one I was gonna mention for you, Scott, that you said before that this would be a way that we would all be, - Yeah, come together. - Come together and force to work together is that, under each of the focus, they have a suggestion built in, kind of again, like Dresden, where they have an aspect that you're supposed to have in a relationship to another player. - I like that. There was something under the focus that says, this of your type of focus that you chose. For instance, in mine, when I holler at the moon, I have one character that can calm me down, that I would never, ever attack. And they could, if they spend three turns, they can say, "No, relax." - The one thing I read was, is I was reading the description of gravity people who can get control of gravity. And they said, "If you take the power, "you have to pick a person in your group "and you accidentally, or somehow in your past, "turn that thing on and flip him up in the air "and he fell down on the ground and almost died. "He either hates you for it, you understand, "he's forget, but that's part of the past "of one of your characters. "Pick one and then he gets to decide "how he reacted to that incident." - And I was thinking in reading, in my part where I read about the rage-bearers, they're very protective of their cubs. And I was talking to Mike about it, from building characters, we could be siblings. And if I'm the older brother and he's the younger, that's why he can calm me down. Because I consider him a relative or a cub. And he's like, I would never ever attack him, but if he wanted me to calm down and spend three turns saying, "Relax, no, no, it's okay." - Him in trouble might also trigger that. - Right. I mean, it could be an interest, already it's built in because of the focus. So my character is going to be a Jack, probably a clever Jack, and he housed at the moon. Meaning he has, he's a lycanthrope. - Okay, so a lycanthrope, but you're gonna be, you're thinking some ravage, there's a bearish bear, it's in the book. He's blind and he's blind. - A ravage bear. - It's a bear, the bear is, not my character, but as the bear, it might be really interesting. I still, maybe in the future you can do anything. Yeah, I mean, you could have optical. - Yeah, but as a ravage bear is both blind and I think deaf, and they just go by smell, which. - Must be very cute. - It's just, yeah, very cute. - And I was thinking about, if Mike's character and I were traveling along the route, like maybe we were, I don't know, if we were trying to take over dad's business and he was a merchant, he went back and forth to cities, and we got way laid, and he was threatened. I turned into this bear and just ripped the dude apart, and then we got caught. - Okay, so that certainly would work. I've got no problems today. I mean, that sounds like a very interesting bear. Mike's still okay with that. - Yeah, yeah, I'm just, I'm trying to see what focus would reasonably fit into that scheme. - A fond memory I have from my early teens is when we were playing the World Greyhawk, I believe there was the city state of, I'm just going off a memory here with it. The overlord, maybe. - Sure. - And there was some kind of a revolution type of vibe to it. And so, after this one shot, one of my thoughts would be that this man is so vile and horrible that perhaps part of the overall arc of the story is making life better for this group of citizens who are in this decent sized metropolis. You know, maybe there's like a head thousand people. - And the amorphous feels about exactly that people trying to overthrow someone's side. - Right, so that doesn't, you know. - It just, it was just an idea, I had like, well we haven't visited a revolution theme in literally decades. It might be interesting if we liked more than just a one shot for this. So that's my long-term goal was maybe a rug, that's why I tried to pick a rather unlikable does spot. Who might have a couple of redeeming qualities 'cause he's got to have something. So that's my thought for a longer-term arc. But. - What do you want to talk to you? - I'm just making a nano of some sort. - Okay, and you have a Jack and he has a glade. What are you leaning towards, boys? - Jack. - Jack? - I was thinking of a nano, but I'm not sure. - Okay, leaning towards what we have, two nano's, two Jack's and a glade so far. And then we have Mike, who's not here. - In truth, my Jack is pretty physically oriented as well. If I turn, if I go beast, I get to be a kick-ass creature. - Maybe I'll stir toward like a healing nano. - That's a possibility. - There's this one called the works miracle. - Works miracle. - Works miracle. - You don't want to look into it. - You walk around. ♪ Oh ♪ - Dude, Mike mentioned-- - No. - Anything? - Michael? - I'm sorry, Michael. - Michael hasn't said anything about it. - Okay, you don't want to keep thinking of when you were talking about your character in line. Full metal alchemist. I don't know why. - It's what you should say, 'cause that's exactly what that was thinking of. - I was like, it was like two, seven, eight a moment. - And I was thinking Fuse's flesh. - If you had any geek Craig, you would know what we're talking about. - Please. - I'm saying. - Especially his little brother. You guys know what I'm talking about? Full metal alchemist. - Yeah, I'm watching it. - There you go. - It's quite mango. - Boom. - It is. - See, I haven't got into it yet. - It's not bad. - Dude, he could be the one that Fuse's flesh and steel. - Well, that's what I was gonna go for. - I mean, except I was trying to explain, like, maybe the reason why I-- - And that should be a nano, actually. - I have Fuse's flesh and steel is that maybe you're ravaged me, and that's why-- - Well, maybe I came up with it. (laughing) - I really need a moment. (laughing) - Well, let's say my character went, my character went into wear bear form and went, oh, first time on your ass, and your defensive kicked in. - Right. - And kind of protected yourself by stealing up. - He always body kicked in and said, oh, you have a spare mutant gene here. Let's throw him into keeping you protected. - Or maybe-- - He just reminded me of that new Iron Man. - But actually, that's on the brain. It's just right in there. - But that leaves me to think that, okay, then either our father or somebody we know, a nano, did what they had to do to help me. But that also started a process of, okay, these nanites are helping you stay alive, but now the result is that as you're, I'm half human or whatever we are, half person, half organic, half metal, and sometimes more of that metal, as I advance, has to take over, I'm okay with that. - That's cool. - Yeah, so I might be good. - If you live down and beyond. - What is your tie in with other people though, with that? - Okay. - I remember it, Mike. It's that if it's hard to tell that you're augmented, there's one guy who knows your secret, and if that could work right for you. But if it is obvious, then there's one guy who knows how to deactivate your limbs. - This character knows your true nature, even if no one else does. If your components are not particularly hidden, she knows a different secret of your, such as pre-programmed word that will shut you down for 10 minutes. - I don't think anybody else would miss you know that. - So you could have, just say, Grace Park. - If we were living in the beyond, it could be an enclave of the Aeon priest who managed to cobble you together with the Newman era they had left over. - That's cool. And down with that? - Maybe our dad isn't in. - Maybe our priest. - Now that means I've got a-- - Maybe I get a rogue Aeon priest. - And he stole the tech to help you out? - Yeah. - Yeah, you can get down with that. - All right, our characters are done. What you doing? - I mean, I'll be definitely a full-blown fighter type, but the problem is that I can only partially heal from, I've got to be repaired. I wanted to go with being a very intellectual jacked, and then-- - Right, the economy. - Right. - Right. - And then when I go-- - Jekyll time. - Right. - Ish, definitely. - We want to talk more, you guys want to wrap it? What do you want to do? - I think it blows magnets, it might be cool with you. - Whoa. - It blows magnets. - Magnetism. - I was thinking about that. I was going to try to go with either a controls gravity or a swift glaive who employs magnetism. - All right, let's wrap this up really quick with you guys. Do you have any idea on what type of class you guys want to play? - Yeah, change my mind. - Okay. - I'm thinking of being a Jack who carries a quiver. - Maybe mostly I want to be a ranged type. - Okay. - Who can snipe? - I'm not sure I want it to be a bow and arrow. I might want a new manera, but I don't think I could start with one. So maybe I'll start off with a bow and arrow. - Actually, we really should get the character types to you because you have to pick new manera for each of us. - Right. - Well, I don't have to pick it. I mean, we could kind of shape it together. I would prefer, I mean, I don't mind picking it, but it seems kind of arbitrary. We work together and find new manera that really kind of fits the idea you guys have for your character. - If we're going to do that, then my guy is looking for something that doesn't run out of ammunition. Well, okay, he might be battery powered or something, but it's a lightning gun or something. You know, not. - I just imagined a kind of, like you're holding a cube and then it ejects slivers at range. And like, it just fires like slivers and then-- - Oh, they call those. - Nothing is-- - No, no, no, no, I mean, science fiction and all this stuff. Needle guns or-- - Needle guns, yeah, they use needle guns a lot. - Or gauze guns, gauze guns, yeah, there you go. Good job, Mike. Hold on. - All those in my favorite kind of trailer line up power. - That's what I was thinking, Chad. - So you're going to be a, some kind of Jack who carries a quiver, and Thomas, you're going to be a-- - It's fucking lackluster, focus name. - It's a quiver. - Oh, we've got this quiver. - I have performed miracles. What do you do? - I have worked at this quiver. - I hear you quiver. - We're going to change the name of the focus for you. - Kills from afar. - Yeah, you like that? - All right, why couldn't you-- - Why didn't you name that? - I don't know, let's talk about Monty. - Thomas, your character type of you were thinking of? - Strong wheel Jack who hums with great skills. - You're up in the city, finds people for the gangs, requires the job, got arrested because the gang-- - He's got your type of thing. - Yeah, excellent. - All right, well, we'll wrap it up with that. - Explorist art places is also a good one. - Yeah, you're trying to thief anything? - Yeah, we'll let you know. - That was the other one I was going to check out because he worked with the criminal element for-- - Right. - But I haven't decided yet. - So we have Michael and Jim who need to pick out the character types, we're ready to get them all to Scott and then hopefully we'll be ready to play next week, kind of doubted. - But maybe for part of the night, yeah, probably really nice. - I intend to have my character done that. - Good. - We have no name. We don't have a name, so hopefully he's in my life. Go. - Thanks for listening to the Knights of the Night actual play podcast. Visit kotnpodcast.com for more information on this and other adventures where you will find character stats, photos, storytelling, props and even a form for comments and suggestions where you could email us directly at feedback@kotnpodcast.com or contact us via Twitter or leave a message on Facebook. All music for this podcast was created and performed by Zen Audio Smith. If you'd like custom professional music created for your podcasts or business, please visit Zenaudiosmith.com and please join us next episode for more Vistri and Adventurer. (upbeat music) - The clever part gives you-- - You were outside, you were so tired. - Sorry. - What? - You were in the car and you were in this panache. (laughing) - Panache. - That's crazy. - I got panache. - Panache. - Panache. - Panache. - What's with this? - Panache. - I mean, I'll have to tell you about the rabbits. - You have to tell me. Tell me about the rabbits. - Okay. - Of months and months. - And months and months. - I'll pad him. - And squeeze him. - It's one of those heartbreaking moments in literature. - It was good. - Where he has to be his best friend. - Tell me about the rabbits again. - So tell him about the rabbits and then shoots him in the back of the head. So he has a happy thought before the bullet goes through. - Sounds a little-- - Well, hopefully you won't have to do that to my character. - It's depressing. - I just want to see that happen again. (laughing) - Try not to go-- - But again. (laughing) - It's a little disconcerting.