Excession

Through Darkening Skies - original weird fantasy sky pirate adventures

Still pondering Goblin logistics, running some numbers to try and keep bookeeping low.

Anyone else interested, have character ideas? The sooner I can start thinking of what plot threads to weave the better.

Through Darkening Skies - original weird fantasy sky pirate adventures

Uhh you know what let me get some sleep and go over that again; I think my original intent was to split those over physical Attributes and then Social and Mental buys work as normal but I want to consult my notes and modernize the design a bit. Almost everything else has been overhauled at least once in the last ten years except Goblins because no one was picking them and giving me test data (but I can apply the lessons learned from everything else to bring 'em in line).

I'll get back to you in like 12 hours give or take thank you for being patient.

Night Shift - a short horror RP

I could be the 19 year old woman who wants to save up and study journalism and photography.
What kind of a CS are you thinking about?

@Aisling

Mostly I just want a physical description, background, and a strong personal motivation that someone could potentially exploit to make your character do something questionable.
I also like to use these questions for guiding character creation:

1. What is the worst thing that happened to you?
2. What is the worst thing you've done to someone else?
3. What is the worst thing you can imagine happening to anyone?
4. What is the worst thing you know you could do, in the right circumstances?
5. What strange experience have you forgotten?

Here's the basic write-up for the character concept as it was executed for a convention a few years back minus some details that aren't useable in this context.

Sample

Lottie Grover

One more year, and you can pay for college, and get the fuck out of here. Hell, six months if you can keep up this nightshift thing – it pays extra for the weird hours. You were born, raised, and graduated highschool here in Midway. You're currently studying journalism and blogging through a free internet course until you can save up enough to travel to an actual city, and enroll in college.
Everyone here makes you feel sick; they're not bad people, just small and apathetic. Maybe Jerry could've made something of himself, once, but now he's on a slippery slope to turning into Pete or worse, his dad. Pete… ugh, nearly thirty and still working here, getting high.
You don't live at home right now, because your dad's the local pastor and he doesn't approve of your Liberal attitudes - you stopped going to church last year and think gay people deserve equal rights; your dad strenuously disagrees. You smoke pot with Pete sometimes just to spite dad, but never too much.
Still, it's harder to save with rent to pay, so you're gonna have to think of some way to make money short of taking out one of those bullshit student loans. At least dad taught you to shoot before kicking you out.

Virtue: Prudence
Vice: Spite

Through Darkening Skies - original weird fantasy sky pirate adventures

@Excession

I believe I shall be making a goblin character. I think that one mind in six bodies thing you've given them is a neat concept.

Are all six bodies the same gender or does the composition vary from goblin to goblin?

Also, how is magic resistance determined?

@rush99999

Daring! Shit I'll need to review their stats and do a coherence pass, no one usually picks them.
Goblins are sterile with heavily atrophied reproductive organs, unless they've decided to adopt foreign gender norms and had some or all of their bodies magically modified. If they have a gender as most other cultures would recognize it, all six Goblins would express it, but goblin is itself functionally a gender in Trollkin society. Outsiders typically default to considering goblins as men, or male, and most goblins don't care enough to correct them.

I take fantasy anthropology perhaps too seriously.

And Magic Res is just Willpower + any modifiers from items, special techniques, mutations, implants, enchantments.
Goblins actually enjoy a +2 Magic Res bonus against most Heartwrights and Necromancers because they don't know how to work their magic on the unique structure of the goblin mind and soul.

Through Darkening Skies - original weird fantasy sky pirate adventures

Yeah I got my start in WW games and L5R way back when. I've experimented with other models for other games (got a prototype running off the Apocalypse Engine and some other less typical stuff) but for this particular game I was happy with this broad design approach.

Night Shift - a short horror RP

Nice. D'you want the sample writeup or to just run with the gist?

Through Darkening Skies - original weird fantasy sky pirate adventures

A good question. I was planning to save the big details, but check out the sample character sheets to see how this shakes out.
And I should say since chargen for a new system is always a bit daunting I'll knock together sheets for people if they ask.
First, you pick a Species - human, rat, Trollkin, etc. This is of course important for character roleplaying but it also impacts your Attribute base and cap.
You'll see 9 Attributes on the sheet. Every character has at least 1 point in each and cap at 4. Humans actually start at Fitness 2 and cap at 5, as an example.
You get 60XP to spend on Attributes unless I find the distribution array I wrote, somewhere.
Costs go 3, 6, 9, 12.

You'll also see a stack of Skills - those start at 0 and go from 1-6.
At 3 a Skill branches into specialties. So you might have Melee 3, and then Melee (Swords) 4 and Melee (Axes) 5.
Costs go 2, 1, 2, 3, 6, 9 and that is intentional.

Then you can pick Advantages, one social, one physical, and one mental. These confer a +1 die bonus on relevant rolls for three specific skills. Social Advantages are the easy example; they're stuff like 'Criminal Underworld, +1 die on Persuade, Mingle, Empathy when dealing with criminals' but you can get creative.

Lastly there's a bit of math on Derived Stats for combat. You can read more here but I might need to update that. I'll have a nice neat set of tables and such if we get as far as an actual creation thread.

You can also add complicating templates on top of some Species, like Magi, Inquisitors, Monks, Vampires, mutations, cybernetics, martial arts styles...

Night Shift - a short horror RP

Nightshift.
Shouldn’t technically be legal, this almost-twelve-hour-shift. But the pay is alright. This is a busy stretch of highway, even late at night (comparatively), and people need gas. Or a sandwich, or whatever. There’s enough of a gap that if one person stays up, the other guy gets a nap. It’s kinda peaceful, really; little island of light, way out in the dark desert. Sometimes it’s almost like there isn’t another living, waking thing for miles. Like you’re all alone in the world, or between worlds. Not a line of thought you want to pursue – hopefully another customer comes by soon…

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I don't ordinarily do non-tabletop but let's give something free-ish in form a try.
I'm looking for three characters; two young staff for the gas station convenience store, and an older security guard who doesn't take the job too seriously. Story is set in Nevada, on a stretch of highway north out of Vegas, around October 2013.
Here's the deal: I set you circumstances, and when you cannot reasonably predict what will happen next if your character does something, you announce intent and I tell you what happens.
This may be more guided than you're used to, I know, but you'll have room to develop your character's interiority, make choices, live (or die) with the consequences, and interact with the rest of the cast.

I have some example characters written up; an 18 year old guy who dreams of becoming a card sharp, a 19 year old woman who wants to save up and study journalism, and a stoner security guard in his mid twenties who believes in alien abductions. That might give you an idea of where to aim with ideas.

Content notes for: violence, body horror, theological horror, general mature themes, probably some stuff to which I am personally inured and can't recall as a consequence.

If you're curious, feel free to ask questions.

Through Darkening Skies - original weird fantasy sky pirate adventures

Nice, welcome. If you have questions about anything feel free to ask.

Through Darkening Skies - original weird fantasy sky pirate adventures

You may enjoy this RP if you also like: Black Sails, Exalted, Berserk, Howl's Moving Castle, the Yakuza franchise
This RP will be for 4-6 players, a group of misfits, cutthroats, and scoundrels with hearts of gold.
The mechanics are easy enough to learn, a dice-pool system that's simple to use but has mechanical depth if you want to engage with it.
No prior experience with this game or tabletop games required. All skill levels welcome.
One post a week is ideal, once a month is acceptable.
No set post length - just post what you feel is necessary to move things along and satisfies you creatively.

===========================

The world is vast and strange, where sorcerer-kings rule from steel towers, where a secret society of mystic engineers controls an ancient city with literal iron fists, where noble houses descended from the gods themselves sweep bystanders up in their epic feuds and romances.
What's an honest criminal to do?

You five misfits, criminals, and tortured souls have been set a task - to recover a mystical artifact before the Desolator Annan can reach it and wreak her terrible revenge on Zendis City.

What destiny will you forge in these darkening skies?

=============================================

You have a slew of options for fun characters.
Here are some examples if you just want to dive in - yes, yes, it is a reference.
SAMPLE CHARACTERS

And this is the city the story will start in.

Humans
Among the most widespread peoples on the continent, humans are hardy, industrious, and diverse. Humans seem to meddle in anything new they find and have reshaped the world since the end of the last war. Many of the world's Magi are human.

Rats
Humankind's best friend, rats and humans have worked and lived together for so long now you'll rarely find a society with one and not the other.
Short, dexterous, and furry, with powerful senses, rats are sometimes joked to be the brains to humans' brawn.

Trollkin
The insular Trollkin live in the cold north; huge and wise woolly Trolls, stoic and disciplined Orcs, and cunning, inventive Goblins.
It's rare for one of their kind to be exiled, but it happens, and a Trollkin cannot live without some kind of family.

Crantiré
The mysterious rulers of The Awakened Wood, the Treefolk, rare and wise. They rarely leave their strange and hostile homeland; those that do are often powerful Magi.

Elementals
The other inhabitants of the Wood, who some call the guard dogs of the Crantiré. Roving clans who can harness elemental energies and defend the borders of the Wood with furious zeal, practicing esoteric martial arts that bend fire, earth, wind, and water to their will.

Scions
Said to be the descendants of the gods who left this world in disgust long ago. The seven Houses are powerful militarily, magically, and politically, unbound to any nation. Each Scion is a living legend, or on the way to becoming one.

I'll link more setting and mechanics stuff on request; not looking to overwhelm anyone.

CURRENT CREW:
Our glorious Goblin captain
Our noble ship's doctor
Our enlightened indentured monk