baxil, posts by tag: fireborn - LiveJournal (original) (raw)
baxil, posts by tag: fireborn - LiveJournal
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Below are the 10 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Baxil" journal:
| September 7th, 2010 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 04:14 am |
FirefoxBorn! (aka Browser: The Paginating) Proudly announcing:FIREFOXBORN: THE ROLEPLAYING GAMEFeaturing the following featureful features!FULL-COLOR INTERIOR ILLUSTRATIONS! OBSCURE TECHNICAL HUMOR! A REALLY DERANGED PARODY OF AN RPG SYSTEM THAT MAYBE 12 PEOPLE HAVE PLAYED!  accomplishedCurrent Music: Dragonforce, "Heart Of A Dragon"Current Location: ~/BrainstormTags: best of baxil, fireborn, it's a parody please don't sue, multimedia, roleplaying, struh won niarb ym, writing(18 comments | Leave a comment) |
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| September 3rd, 2010 | ||
| 05:40 pm |
Don't say "ripoff." Say "homage."Geez, I thought I'd have recovered from my hiking trip faster than this. But I've been spending my weeknights readjusting my sleep schedule and my weekend catching up with local friends. The computer looms in the background. Taunting me silently. With its eyes.*So while I'm using Hugin to assemble cool panoramic shots from the trip in preparation for a big photo post, enjoy this gaming humor I produced in the spirit of the Mr. Welch series:Things Mr. MacQuid is no longer allowed to do in Fireborn May not use the background Collector to start with an antiques shop with 50 karmic items. May not use the background Collector to start with a harem. No singing "I Believe I Can Fly" upon buying wings at Awakened Rank 1. ... Or at any other time. There is no secret fifth elemental attribute named "Heart." Even though I have the power Child of Fire, "who's your daddy?" is still a rhetorical question. No starting off flashbacks with the Wayne's World "Diddly-doo! Diddly-doo!" finger waves. No rating flashbacks on a "one-to-five 'shroom" scale. Smoking something that induced a flashback will not let me "re-enter it with better special effects". When I look at a strange woman and it induces a flashback, it is not appropriate to ask to "look at more of her in private". Staring at a cookie will not induce a flashback about elves. Eating ghost peppers will not give me the Fire Breathing legacy. The proper response to mages getting overkill successes is never to cook an egg on their head. Tall buildings plus Ephemeral Armor will not let me inflict falling damage on the Earth. Slow The Living does not change which partner finishes first. There is no variant of the spell "Flash" that involves raincoats. "Cthulhu" is not a valid Sire. "Cthulhu" is not a valid Alternate Form. "Pedobear" is not a valid Alternate Form. May not target Gaze of the Predator at children. Not allowed to create fighting style sequences with the Grope payoff. May not specify that my Venomous Attack injects LSD. May not call NPCs bought with the Ally edge "my minions". May not take Animal Affinity and Mentor in order to have been raised by wolves. No using Green Lord to make cats hold badly-spelled signs in Impact font.-- * Note: Computers do not actually have eyes. Current Music: Kingdom Hearts OST, "Traverse Town"Current Location: ~spiralTags: fireborn, quotable, roleplaying, wordplay(16 comments | Leave a comment) | |
| July 27th, 2010 | ||
| 04:13 am |
Roleplaying GM Tip: Organizing InitiativeIf you've ever played a tabletop roleplaying game, there's a phrase I guarantee you have heard, no matter what system, no matter how fresh or how experienced your fellow players are:*_"Whose turn is it again?"_Initiative is a pain. That's one of those natural laws of gaming, right up there with grappling rules being unusable. When you're bouncing the turn order arbitrarily between players and NPCs, and around the table seemingly at random, things get lost in the shuffle.Every GM has their own way(s) of mitigating this problem. Some read awesome articles like ars ludi's Initiative: The Silent Killer and break the initiative mold. (That approach has worked well in my Fireborn game - but Fireborn also connects all of the PCs with a full-time mental link, giving them a plausible excuse for the scary levels of tactical coordination that team-based initiative creates.) Others offload initiative tracking to a player to keep the workload manageable. Most write in numbers on the gaming mat, or on scratch paper, to keep a reference list handy.One of my players recently turned me on to a more elegant solution for that latter group: "character initiative cards" that fold over and hang atop the GM screen. Not only can you arrange the cards in initiative order, in a way that doesn't take up valuable table real estate - but the cards also let you keep players' crucial combat statistics (armor class, etc) available at a glance, as well as pre-combat statistics (such as perception skills, so you can quickly determine who got ambushed)."That's brilliant!" I said, quickly followed by: "But we're not playing D&D!"So I wrote the original author (Stu at Happy Jacks), got their source files, and spent my weekend tampering. When I play with neat ideas, sometimes I get a little swept away. |
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| March 25th, 2010 | ||
| 05:15 pm |
A fragment from the Eternal Library(A player handout for tonight's Fireborn campaign ...) ... But one day my prayers were answered in a way I thought not possible. I collapsed from exhaustion upon my dear Alara's grave-stone under the light of the full moon, dreaming of our time together. Something stirred within me, and I awoke back into deep despair, weeping most piteously. Only to find a cloaked figure approaching. "Tell me, Sekhlos," he said. "I am here to ease your unhappiness. Now that she has slipped forever beyond your grasp, do you desire release ... or revenge?" "I love her still," I answered, for in truth I felt as if the words were being ripped from my throat, and it was beyond my control to utter falsehood. "If release means to give up that love, I want nothing of it. Nor will revenge bring her back." "But at least it will bring justice upon those who took her away from you." "What do you mean?" I asked. "She took ill. It was no-one's fault." He smiled, and it was the empty smile of a skull. And the cloaked man spread his hands. Then, suddenly, in his face, I saw the face of the witch who I had paid to treat my beloved, and I saw a vision of how she had left Alara's medicine to boil too long while chatting with her husband. I heard their laughter as they discussed the rumors of the day, and black emotion stabbed my heart. Then in the cloaked man's face I saw Alara's father, riding with a trade caravan. He was thinking about his ill daughter, and how nobody would miss a handful of gold should he slip away and hire an alchemist to provide her care. But he chose the honor of his job over the love of his family. A second burning needle pierced my heart, and I felt as though the despair within it was bleeding through my body, boiling into hatred. Other faces flashed by, faster and faster, my friends and family and neighbors, all of whom -- had they simply cared for her more! -- could have saved her life. "Liar!" I shouted, standing up. "Demon! Torment me not or you shall regret it!" The cloaked man laughed. "Sekhlos. They call me the Death Mask, for in my eyes you see only life's end. They also call me Suicide, for that is what it is to attack me. But if you wish revenge, then by all means, strike me down." Not understanding, and thinking him still a demon sent to torment my grieving spirit, I drew my knife and stabbed him in the chest. He made no motion to defend himself. But as the blade pressed in, there was a moment of disorientation and a sharp pain. I looked down at my outspread arms, at the blood on my cloak, at the knife in my chest, and up into my own face. "As you wish," Sehklos said to me, "they will pay. They will all pay. Everyone who could have helped her, and everyone who stood by as she died. And more besides. They will all know your pain. They will all follow her into oblivion." And in that moment I understood. I was the first victim, for in my fear and pride I had failed her as well. Had I taken more care when I chose a witch ... or had I sold our house to hire an alchemist myself ... or had I reacted to her coughing earlier ... there were a hundred things I might have done differently ... had I but known! And in my last moments I understood the cloaked man, as well. He was no demon, but one of the old gods of our world, Durmirok, and his offer of revenge was sincere. And I felt a regret even greater, for I might have prevented what was to follow if only I had ==PAGE TORN OUT==A small slip of paper is inserted into the book here. It reads:_I must not bait my trap until my trap is ready. He is too clever for second chances._The handwriting is oddly familiar. Current Location: ~spiralCurrent Music: REM, "Find The River"Current Mood:  deviousTags: fireborn, microfic(3 comments | Leave a comment) |
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| February 5th, 2010 | ||
| 03:57 am |
Fireborn: State of the Campaign, Week 8My first clue should have been when I overheard my players talking in the next room.They were catching up with some friends during a LAN party in late December. Exchanging bon mots about the neat things happening in their life."-- awesome RPG. Everybody plays a reincarnated dragon," I heard as I walked within earshot. "It's got a really vivid and unique combat system. You describe everything that you're doing, string together those moves like in a fighting game, and your opponent does the same thing. Whoever rolls better gets to execute moves from their combo." He got more excited. "And you get to play both as your normal character and as your past-life dragon self ..."Well, that's pretty neat, I thought. My players are talking up the system behind my back. I made a mental note to include it in my next state-of-the-game post and chalked it up to new campaign energy.A week or two later -- seeking the weakest parts of the game for my ongoing "Fireborn GM tips" series -- I asked for their harshest criticisms of the system."Combat," it was immediately suggested. But then, almost immediately: "But I have to say, it's not as chunky as it seems. You'd think it's a hassle, but in practice it works."If the toughest criticism they can level is "it works," I thought, _maybe I really am onto something here._Then the in-character journals started up. maggiesmusing is accompanied by not-yet-scanned character art (and a sketch of Mr. Snuggles, the party mascot who is developing powers and a backstory all his own). And suti_bun is managing to keep the campaign chronicle flowing at a pace matching the campaign itself, which is the first time I have ever seen that happen. When players set out to journal the in-game happenings -- and I speak from personal experience here -- the first session or two come quickly, the next few take months, and the vast majority of it only gets written in that vast Maybe Time in the future.And this week, when we wrapped up game and sat around for 15 minutes afterward going over the high points of the session and slinging ideas back and forth, the mood was high. "It's amazing. Everyone's staying in character.""Two characters," I pointed out."Yeah! It's an experience switching back and forth between them. My characters are such polar opposites.""Yeah," {M} agreed, and hit me with the kicker: "This is my first character ever that I've been able to take to another level."Now, I modestly believe myself to be a good GM*, but this is high praise.The system is definitely a contributing factor. Combat is vivid. Everything the dragon characters do is tinged with awesome. The parallel structure of the game -- the ability to reimagine the supporting cast as their character archetypes skip between the game's two eras -- is an arresting story mechanic. The quest for self-discovery, as the characters come to grips with their past, makes for amazingly compelling roleplaying.Of course, the system's not the whole explanation; I've been putting in a lot of effort above and beyond the call of GMing duty. My "Player Handouts" folder has two different London maps, conversation flowcharts, custom dice mats, custom character backgrounds, and a "State of the Plot" summary to help everyone keep track of unresolved questions (which I've since turned into a Google Doc). This doesn't even count the answering machine messages I've recorded or the flashback soundtrack I've assembled. With that amount of work, any game can be memorable.But somewhere in there, the game crossed the line from "memorable" into "epic." I was noting tonight how the mechanics are worming their way into the narrative -- I nicknamed the main political factions of the Atlanteans the "fire," "water," and "air" groups, and it has stuck; and when {a} had a chance in a flashback to design the symbol for the Guardians Eternal, he took one of the elemental runes the game sticks onto its character sheets.But this is happening at a more meta level as well. Our four core players seem to be falling into the elemental archetypes the game itself defines; we have a cool and patient ice dragon (water), a mercurial lightning serpent (air), a primal, direct fire dragon (fire) and a subtle and diplomatic forest dragon (earth), and as we talked about this tonight we realized their players have subconsciously aligned themselves so that the interplay of the group pulls between the opposing elements. There's something deliciously mythic in it. And for a game whose narrative is about characters reconciling their modern lives with their mythic lives ... that sort of metanarrative synergy hits you like a sledgehammer.Plus, Mr. Snuggles.**So how's the Fireborn game doing? Damn well, and I'm not doing it justice here. (That's because every time I type out one of the monster RP posts I've been writing, it takes me literally a day or more.) The players say they're excited -- this is one of those rare campaigns that has the potential to go from starting characters to the epic-level climax. I'm certainly excited -- excited enough to be staying up for over an hour in the middle of the night typing this up after game.We'll see where that energy takes us. I feel good about the exploration.-- * It's not ego if you believe this because your players tell you so. And I think I've had enough players to judge this fairly.** mew Current Mood:  pleasedCurrent Location: ~/BrainstormCurrent Music: Splashdown, "Karma Slave"Tags: fireborn, roleplaying(6 comments | Leave a comment) |
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| January 31st, 2010 | ||
| 10:29 pm |
Roleplaying GM Tip: Adding minions to boss fightsAs my regular readers know, for about two months I've been running a game of Fireborn, an RPG where all the characters are reincarnated dragons living in human bodies in the modern world. Strictly speaking, this isn't a post about Fireborn, but I'm going to start it off with an illustrative anecdote from the ongoing campaign.The players' first fight in their characters' full draconic forms was against a hydra -- a fully-powered fellow dragon with a range of formidable abilities and a massive karma pool (which powers special abilities and turns the tide in opposed rolls). It was about as powerful a single creature as Fireborn characters are ever likely to fight. The characters disabled it in a single combat round, wounding it severely in a counterattack and then crippling it with a combination of skills and powers that allowed {S}' paralyzing bite to land, even before {A}'s Disintegrate spell went off and instantly killed it. The characters didn't get so much as a scratch.To this day, the same group of players still tell stories about an epic encounter from our previous AD&D campaign. The very first thing that happened in the fight was for the party's greatsword-wielding fighter to land a spectacular critical hit and nearly one-shot the Big Boss, who spent the rest of the combat desperately trying to escape and never landed a single blow. However, the Big Boss had help in the form of a mind-controlled spellcaster and a modest army of zombies, who engaged the PCs in a chaotic melee and very nearly wiped out the party. (Mostly thanks to Little Timmy the ENGINE OF KARMIC JUSTICE, but that's another story.)They were both compelling boss fights with a dangerous foe presented as a serious challenge. Both bosses quickly fell to the party's superior luck or strategy. The difference -- and the factor that made the second fight so much more epic?Minions.Most GMs have been conditioned by the age we grow up in (and the media we consume) to arrange climactic confrontations against a single overwhelming foe. We watch movies with gripping one-on-one battles and play computer games where our avatar faces down lovingly rendered huge enemies at the end of an area. This is, in itself, not a bad thing; your players have gotten that same conditioning and go into boss fights ready for a climactic solo standoff. However, not all media is created equal -- and pencil-and-paper roleplaying games have a number of factors that work together to make large-scale battles a better choice.Here, then, for gamemasters both old and new, are: ( 10 reasons to use minions in your boss fightsCollapse ) Current Mood:  goodCurrent Location: ~/bedroomCurrent Music: Darkesword, "Metroid Prime Just A Little More" OC RemixTags: fireborn, roleplaying(13 comments | Leave a comment) |
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| January 20th, 2010 | ||
| 03:38 am |
Fireborn: First Impressions - The Fire Within_Previously in "First Impressions": Character creation | Gameplay/Combat_I recently talked my roleplaying group into starting up a game of Fireborn, an RPG where all the characters are reincarnated dragons living in human bodies in the modern world. This is my continuing documentation of our gameplay experiences, in hopes of providing fellow dragons and fellow roleplayers with a detailed look inside the system. productiveCurrent Location: ~/BrainstormCurrent Music: "Secret of Mana - Dragon Song," Harmony (OCRemix)Tags: fireborn, roleplaying(4 comments |
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| December 25th, 2009 | ||
| 10:19 am |
A little gamer Christmas presentGood morning, and happy heathen-based Winter ritual! I made you a present.Those of you reading my series of Fireborn review posts may be curious to get a game going yourself. So here's something you can throw in to give your players some social intrigue in the mythic age! There are several "epochs" (mythic-age settings) during which supernatural creatures such as dragons are trying to manipulate the major human powers from behind the scenes while disguised as humans themselves. In particular, the Atlantean age has a more courtly feel to it, and this sort of labyrinthine and subtle social negotiation fits right in:[creativeCurrent Location: ~/brainstormTags: fireborn, multimedia, roleplaying(7 comments | Leave a comment) |
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| December 23rd, 2009 | ||
| 04:33 pm |
Fireborn: First Impressions - Pre-Game and CombatAs I've previously mentioned, I've talked my roleplaying group into starting up a game of Fireborn, where all the characters are reincarnated dragons living in human bodies in the modern world. A week ago Sunday, I finally got my first chance to see Fireborn in action. busyTags: draconity, fireborn, roleplaying(5 comments | Leave a comment) |
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| December 8th, 2009 | ||
| 02:19 am |
Fireborn: First Impressions - Character CreationAs I've mentioned several times in the last few weeks, I've talked my roleplaying group into starting up a campaign of Fireborn. It's a now out-of-print RPG in which the player characters are all reincarnated dragons. As you can imagine, as a dragon (and a gamer) myself, this is right up my alley; I'm sharing my experiences in an effort to help fellow gamers and/or dragons evaluate the system -- and, if they start a campaign themselves, to do so as smoothly as possible. nerdyCurrent Location: ~/brainstormCurrent Music: Great Big Sea, "Ordinary Day"Tags: draconity, fireborn, roleplaying(20 comments | Leave a comment) |
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