[OOC] Worlds of Fire

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Totem

• Worlds of Fire 2: Following on almost immediately from the end of Worlds of Fire, this is time-travel based rather than world-jumping. Same kind of character rules and stuff, but there would be more continuity as you would be dealing with different eras in a single world.
• The Slain: You take on the role of vampire police, enforcing the Treaty of Three Hills (amongst other things, limiting vampire population to manageable ratios and dictating territorial rights) in a world where Humans don't know about vampires. Or not for long anyway... An important piece of logic (which might upset modern vampire writers): You are Vampires, they are Human. You are Slain, they are cattle. If they get to be too much trouble, "slaughter them" is a perfectly viable option.
• Star Wars: Into the Cauldron: Set a couple of centuries before the films, this is based around a group of Jedi who are (initially) tasked with tracking down the source of some artefacts that have turned up. Rules for the Force and so forth have been nominally developed, so I can do that moderately well.
• Providence: You wake up on a ship. You don't know how you got there. You don't know why you are there. There are chapters and encounters to keep things moving, but ultimately it is the role of the ship's erstwhile crew (the players) to work out what is happening and what needs to happen next.
• Light of the Storm: "I walked a desert beneath the light of a hole in eternity. I stared into it and it drove me mad, before driving me sane again. I met others who stumbled and burnt beneath it, and still more who were changed by it. As I was. I took up rocks and by its light I shaped them to bread. I took up sand and it ran through my fingers as water. I entered a cave and walked out of a palace. And every time I did so the light burnt away more of me, and more of me became the light..." Pure powers game; the power in question is 30 points per level, and uses the ten Verb skills from Syntactic Magic to achieve the results that you want. Points are assigned such that developing powers is separate from character points.
• Golem Training: A two player game, this gives one player the role of trainer for the second. The second player takes on the role of a newly minted Golem, an android that needs to learn not only a profession but how to interact with Humans successfully. Heavy on role-playing, but with a lot of potential for replay.

Golem Training really doesn't sound that fun, at least without more info on the world. If the stakes can be raised higher, thats different from waltzing around a quaint space port making social blunders. Though with enough culture, that can work too... I just need that info to sell me on it.

I don't know that I'd like providence: Once again, the genre is a little concealed: it could be a zombie game (bleh), a survivalist game, or a game of investigation.

I'm not that interested in doing star wars.

WOF2 sounds good, but I'm not sure that it would be any less of a burden on you. Continuity between chapters would be different... I think it'd be nice...

Light of the Storm sounds interesting. I'd be interested

The slain sounds like a lot of fun. The moral background is something I'd like more explanation: is it completely lacking? is it based on honor?

[momothefiddler]

Originally Posted by ericthered

The slain sounds like a lot of fun. The moral background is something I'd like more explanation: is it completely lacking? is it based on honor?

I was assuming it was similar to common human moral systems; just didn't consider humans to have moral value, like chickens. Or perhaps it's more an us vs. them thing where they don't have value because they're Other/the bad guys/something.

I'd like more clarification on this too.

[Totem]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Golem Training really doesn't sound that fun, at least without more info on the world. If the stakes can be raised higher, thats different from waltzing around a quaint space port making social blunders. Though with enough culture, that can work too... I just need that info to sell me on it.

I don't know that I'd like providence: Once again, the genre is a little concealed: it could be a zombie game (bleh), a survivalist game, or a game of investigation.

Part of the selling point for both of these is that the setting can be totally open. Golem Training, there would be ongoing stuff, but it is more of less just a TL9 world. More backstory would need to be worked in. Providence, which is one of my own favourites at this point, the investigation is more or less the key... However:

Game Notes
Genre: Sci-Fi, Future, Adventure.
Activities Planned: Commando missions, diplomacy, etc.
Supplement materials: GURPS High Tech and Ultra Tech may be of some use (Ultra-Tech may be heavily vetoed by the GM). GURPS Powers will be of use for modifiers for equipment and abilities.
Plot: There will be an ongoing plot (or several lines of plot in fact). Players will not initially have access to information about the world or plot and discovering this information will be a significant part of the early game.
Power Level: Players have 150+50 points available. Additional points will be awarded at the end of missions based on degree of success and role playing.
House Rules: See Worlds of Fire, with some modifications.
Style: This game will be held to a reasonably serious level. While there will be dark and gritty moments for the most part it will be aiming for a realistic level of seriousness; there will be moments of humour as well as dark ones. While players will be endangered this is intended to be ultimately survivable.

Characters
Players take on the role of members of the crew of the Providence. For this you must go through a couple of stages:
Create a 150+50 point mundane human (TL8 is used as the campaign standard, however down to TL6 and up to TL9 are allowed). This character should be adventurous enough to have some decent skills (see Default Rolls and Player Paranoia) but should not be anything particularly special. Backstory and personal history are important considerations here. Powers are not available except in the form of TL9 cybernetics.
Add up to 30 points in ship-abilities (skills with the (Providence) option such as Mechanic (Providence), Pilot (Providence), etc).

Players may take a small quantity of personal equipment; generic clothing is provided in sufficient quantity, along with hazmat, envrionmental gear, and so forth. The ship includes an armoury and machine shop, equipped by the GM; personal weapons must be purchased separately. Personal equipment (belongings, weapons, etc) cannot exceed wealth/ 10 or two medium sized suitcases. Note that equipment is purchased as if at TL8.

Providence itself is a ship is at TL12+. Players do not suffer TL based penalties for activities related to using the ship or equipment produced aboard it. All other TL bonuses and penalties remain in place.

To say more would more or less give the game away.

Originally Posted by ericthered

I'm not that interested in doing star wars.

WOF2 sounds good, but I'm not sure that it would be any less of a burden on you. Continuity between chapters would be different... I think it'd be nice...

Light of the Storm sounds interesting. I'd be interested

Bizarely, this is basically stuck in the same place as Golem Training, because it's largely player driven, but with a really impressive power to play with. It does have a long-term story to it though, from the way that characters have to develop, so... I'll work on it.

Originally Posted by ericthered

The slain sounds like a lot of fun. The moral background is something I'd like more explanation: is it completely lacking? is it based on honor?

The moral background is based around the Treaty of Three Hills. The treaty was laid down around 1000 BC and has been revised since then, but generally only to change the numbers and ratios and the like. It recognises Humans as food, but also as a potential threat if roused. It therefore lays down the ratios for Vampire:Human in a given area (this has been revised periodically to account for economic and social shifts, but currently stands at somewhere around 1:3000 for a First World Country and 1:1000 for a Third World Country), the laws on feeding (feeding is fine, fatalities must be kept to a minimum), the restrictions on revealing the existence of Vampires, and then for fun throws in some clauses that basically say "if the situation warrants, ignore the above: they're only Human."

This is combined with the racial template including Mind Control (Independent, Suggestion, Vision Based (requires eye contact), voice based (requires spoken instructions), extended duration (x10), only affects Humans), and the feeding being a draining of life energy rather than an actual need to drink blood (though that is so far the only known means of feeding) which can only work on Humans. Fundamentally, they are easy to boss around, and feeding on them is a necessity for you. Evolve your own attitude to make it work for your character, or watch them starve.

On a similar note: Pacifism and similar disadvantages only relate to Vampires, not to Humans. Any kind of Pacifism towards Humans (for instance) would be counted as an additional -5 cost, because of the social stigma attached to the idea of someone being that squeamish about their food. Overall, Humans are not recognised to be more than cattle by Vampiric law. You need to feed on them, but you do it discreetly when possible because they'll trample you if too many of them get worked up at once. That being said, small villages have been wiped out occasionally because the people in them became more of a threat than they were worth.

[Totem]

Preview of Light of the Storm

Leo crouched in the shadow of a rock, wondering whether he dared to make a run for the next one. The sun was a lot brighter than he felt it had any right to be, and he was sure that it was doing something to his head; dehydration was the main cause, he guessed, but it felt like there was something more to this light than just... Well, light.

The shadow of what he hoped was a cloud moved across the sun for a few seconds, and he leapt up, heading for the next available piece of cover; thankfully, this one was a larger piece, sticking out of the dunes and appearing to be an ancient stone wall.

He felt the cloud cover fade away when he was only halfway there, and the light caught him again. Where it touched his skin it felt like a sunburn. Where it touched any part of him, even his clothing, he felt it burning him. Not just his skin, but... It was almost as if his mind was on fire...

He ducked into the cover of the wall and collapsed there, breathing hard. Even the twenty or so seconds that he had been in the sun then had left him feeling strange. It was a strangeness that was lingering as well; it diminished somewhat when he wasn't in sunlight, but never went away totally.

After a few minutes, during which the strange feeling slowly dimmed, he took a proper look at his cover. The wall, now he saw it up close, was a solid construction, but the blocks were a strange design. Bigger than breezeblocks, made of some kind of yellowish sandstone. The oddest part was that while they were obviously bricks or blocks of some kind, and there was mortar clearly showing between some of them, where the edges had worn away it showed the mortar to be nothing more than a thing layer; it was like someone had carved the entire wall out of a single block and then added in fake detailing to make it look like it was made of bricks of some kind.

He considered this for a moment, and then chalked it up as just one more oddity of this place. Wherever this place was. However he got here.

Trying to shelter himself for a while, and hoping that the sun would soon go down, he waited.

He had been sitting there for twenty minutes, and was already feeling somewhat restless, when he noticed the shadow. It was as if a very small cloud was casting a shadow on the desert sand, and it took him a moment to realise what was so odd about this. To begin with the shadow was too small and too well defined to be from a cloud or something else. Someone flying a kite close overhead wouldn't even have produced a shadow like that. The next thing was the way that it moved, following lines of dunes and valleys. Coupled with this was the observation that there appeared, improbably, to be a set of footprints appearing behind the shadow.

He watched it warily as it came towards the wall, and then angled off to the other end. As it vanished into the shadow of the wall, Leo realised that he should perhaps be worried; he couldn't actually see any sign of where the shadow was now, or what might be casting it. He started to back up a bit when the figure simply seemed to step out of nowhere.

He was taller than Leo, and skinnier, but he gave the impression that this wasn't anything to do with lacking strength. It was hard to tell how much actual muscle he had though; his clothing was loose and appeared to be based on the idea of desert combat gear, though possibly designed by someone who had heard it described but never actually seen it; rather than the patches of colour it had almost photorealistic dunes across it, and many more pockets festooned it than would be expected. It was... Caricature combat gear.

His face was partly hidden by a ragged scarf that he had pulled up over his nose and mouth, while a somewhat floppy hat came down to his eyes before shades took up the space between the hat and scarf. Combined with the gloves that he wore, there wasn't a lot of his skin showing.

The pair of them considered each other for a moment before the figured hunkered down further into the shade of the wall and cautiously lowered his scarf. His skin was pale, and his voice, when he spoke, was low and husky, incongruously in what sounded like the kind of accent you would expect from some kind of gunslinger.

"You're lookin' worried boy," he declared. "Maybe not worried enough though." He paused and cocked his head. "You got a name?"

"Leo," Leo asked warily. "How did you..? You just appeared out of nowhere."

"Hardly," the figure replied. "You saw me comin' plain enough."

"I saw your shadow," Leo corrected him.

"Light's dangerous for me. Moreso than for you. You it changes; I burn as well. I hide from the bits that burn me."

Leo frowned at him, and at the apparently casual way that he spoke of hiding from light. "So... Who are you?"

"Name's Kaz," the figure replied. "How long you been here?"

"A few hours," Leo admitted. "Do you have any water?"

"Water's all around you if you know where to look," Kaz informed him in the same half-whisper he had been speaking with so far. He took up a handful of sand from in front of his feet and showed it to Leo.

"So, what? That means that there's water buried here?"

Kaz shook his head and tilted his hand, letting the sand run off the side of his palm and trickle down to land back where he had picked it up from. After a second though Leo felt something... Odd. Something like what the light had been doing to him when it had touched him, but different, as if it had more purpose behind it. And suddenly it wasn't sand trickling off Kaz's palm, but clear, pure water that slopped down onto the sand and splattered.

Leo nearly jumped back in shock, staring at the damp patch on the ground. "How did you do that?" he asked in shocked wonder.

"Same way you will, if you want to survive," Kaz replied offhandedly. He wiped his damp palm on his trouser and flicked his head to indicate the sky. "You been out in the light much?"

"No... It felt..." Leo paused. "It felt like there was something weird about it."

"You feel it on your skin, but it's more than that," Kaz supplied. "It sets your soul on fire and your brain alight. That's what this is," he added, taking up another handful of sand and closing his fist around it. When his fingers uncurled a diamond lay in his palm. "This is what the light does to you. We're damned to be angels and demons in this desert."

[Totem]

Preview of The Slain

"This is it?" Sal asked, looking at the door to the apartment with distaste. The entire building was run down, the haunt of creeps and degenerates. Oscar could empathise with her dislike of this place; it brought back too many memories that he didn't want.

"This is it," he agreed, checking his phone for the details again. "He's in as well," he added, wrinkling his nose at the smell seeping through under the door.

"Good enough for me," Sal said, raising a fist and banging on the door. "Dale Corben! Open up!"

Oscar glanced up and down the corridor. The place reeked of fear and desperation. A dump, inhabited by those who didn't have the ability to get themselves out of the dump and into something better. Probably nothing more than a kind of unofficial waiting room for those due to become homeless or overdose victims. A shout like Sal's probably wasn't common, but wouldn't attract any actual activity. He hoped anyway.

There were sounds of movement on the other side of the door, and it was opened on the chain somewhat reluctantly. Oscar could see the woman standing on the far side, scantily clad, wary, and a bit bleary; he could smell the alcohol and drugs in her blood, pick out the marks where make-up had been applied badly. She was trying to look attractive, but Oscar suspected that even to most people she just came across as trying too hard.

"What do you want?" she asked, her voice slurring a bit. Her blood smelled warm to Oscar, maybe even actually hot. He bit back on that instinct before it could kick in; he couldn't afford the distraction now.

"We want Dale Corben," Sal declared.

"Don't know him," came the slightly slurred response. Sal didn't even bother looking at Oscar for confirmation; even she would be able to pick up on that deception.

"Try again," Sal sneered, taking a half step forwards and leaning on the door enough to pull the chain taut.

Oscar kept his expression serious, trying not to smile at Sal at work; she took it badly when people appeared to be laughing at her, especially when she was trying to be scary. In the midst of a serious expression though he tuned out the conversation as a faint whiff of something reached his nose. Fresh air? Well, not fresh, but not carrying the same unwashed and uncared for smell that the rest of the building did.

He tapped his earpiece. "Doyle? He might be-"

There was a crash from the apartment, as if something had been thrown back in through a window and landed badly. Sal wasted no time, getting a grip around the door frame and putting her shoulder into the door and seemingly applying minimal force to the pair. The chain held, but the mounting for it tore out of the door frame, whipping around and catching the woman on the other side across the cheek.

Oscar followed Sal into the room, meeting the woman's gaze and locking onto it. "Sit down and be quiet," he instructed, then he dismissed her from his attention as she meekly complied. Dale Corben was about what they had been expecting; a waster kid from the streets who had hit late teens and then had a run-in with a Vampire. Now he was in the middle of his body getting used to its new abilities, and was almost red-hot as a result.

He was bouncing around, refusing to settle down, apparently unaware of just who he was dealing with. Doyle had managed to get in a couple of nerve strikes which had immobilised Dale's left leg and hip, but he was now thrashing around too much to immobilise the same way properly, and Doyle and Sal were having to resort to trying to pin him until he calmed down.

Oscar considered this for a moment, relaxing properly so that once Dale calmed down he would be able to do the good cop thing. They'd tried it with Sal doing it once, and she hadn't been able to keep it up, while Doyle could probably do the good cop attitude, but couldn't act for toffee. At least Sal didn't need to act to do the bad cop part.

As he waited though, he picked up on another new smell. This one was a person; he was better kept and tidier than the rest of the people in this building. The smell was familiar... A cop.

His cool slipping somewhat, Oscar turned and headed for the door, growling as he did, then rearranging his features into an amiable smile as he stepped out into the corridor. The police officer was coming along the corridor somewhat warily, recognising that this wasn't an entirely healthy place for him to be alone. He focused on Oscar and frowned, clearly aware of the noise that Dale was making in the apartment. Oscar kept the smile in place as he walked towards the officer, meeting him partway.

"Good evening officer," he said carefully meeting the officer's eyes and locking his gaze. "Just wait here a moment," he added. The officer's expression turned a bit bemused as he stumbled to a halt, not taking his eyes off Oscar's. "Take this," Oscar said, pulling a sealed plastic bag from his jacket pocket and handing it over. "It's marijuana; you're going to head down to the street and sell it to the first group of kids that you find hanging around. No matter what it costs you, you'll make sure that they take it off you. Now go."

Oscar watched the officer turn and head back down the corridor to the stairs, allowing a scowl to settle on his face. That had been good stuff he'd handed over, but they needed something plausible so that the cop wouldn't be believed later... Dale would definitely owe him for this...

[momothefiddler]

Originally Posted by Totem

Providence itself is a ship is at TL12+.

Whoah, whoah, whoah. I was imagining a wooden seagoing vessel. This completely changes my view of it, though interestingly my response to the game remains unchanged.

The moral background[...]

This on the other hand is pretty much exactly what I expected and works for me.

[Totem]

Originally Posted by momothefiddler

Whoah, whoah, whoah. I was imagining a wooden seagoing vessel. This completely changes my view of it, though interestingly my response to the game remains unchanged.

Beauty of the concept. It could be any TL that supports the overarching story and plot. I'll add that it does have provision built in for players to be added fairly easily (something that gets worked into most of my ideas one way or another), so joining in once it started wouldn't be a problem.

[yoippari]

I'm picturing Providence to be basically Stargate Universe. And this got me writing a few paragraphs about an eclipse phase adventure.

[ericthered]

Ironically, the acting skills and the prominent doubles (so far) match to the same two people.

I suggest leading with diplomacy. yes, our fast talk skills are better, but I'd prefer not to make a slip and make a mess.

[momothefiddler]

Originally Posted by Totem

Jorin isn't able to sense anything actively hostile in the area.

Not sure what exactly you rolled, but I'm using the per-person version because 1)I have enough time to do so while other people talk, and it's free, and 2)the area version gets prohibitively expensive very quickly and doesn't give me the precise info I want.

If that's what you did, that's great. If not, now you know. Sorry for being unclear.