The Council of Altered Realities

AROC 4 Dragon Storm House Rules

Fri, 25 May 2007 03:25:00 GMT

Aroc 4

Dragon storm house rules v 1.1

Beta Cards:

Characters and Gamemasters may use Beta cards but must use the most current rules on the card. If the card is made into an actual card, then the rules on the actual card must be used. If the new card costs more card points than the Beta version, the character must pay the appropriate role-playing points to keep the card.

Bloodlines:

Since dragon’s blood is necessary to become a shifter, each player is given a free bloodline at the beginning of the game. If a character wishes to never become a shifter, it is recommended to not give a bloodline so they do not have any trace of dragon’s blood.

Boon Limitations:

Usually only one boon of a kind can be granted to a player with a few exceptions. Masokian Meditation can be received up to 5 times making each time cumulative (4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 HP received with each boon). Arion’s Course, Cat’s Eye, Kasalorn’s Gift, and Rhianon’s Training can be granted once for every 250 card points a character has; e.g. once for 1-249, twice for 250-499, thrice for 500-749 and so on.

There is No limit on how many Boons a character can have at any given time.

Player Characters with the Valarian Mentor Boon can only grant Boons to other Player Characters with the Gamemaster’s consent.

Card Recharge:

When a character rests or gains drained ACE cards back by any means, he may choose what ACE cards he restores. (This is an official DS rule change negating “shuffling of cards”).

Cohort:

A player character deemed a cohort works as follows. They get half the amount of experience points that a player character would normally get. The other half is placed back in the role-playing point pool and redistributed. The same player need not play a cohort each game.

Fatigue and Spirit Drain:

Cards such as Fatigue and Spirit Drain that remove a number of random Ace cards now work like card recharge. The Ace cards drained are up to the player being drained. If a Cast member is drained, the drained Ace cards are up to the gamemaster.

Flaws:

Flaws can be removed when a character reaches at least 50 card points. They must pay role-playing points equivalent to the card points of the Flaw to remove it as well as have Gamemaster permission. If a character has two flaws, the second may only be bought off after an additional 50 card points has been attained by that character. In extraordinary situations, the gamemaster may remove a flaw with out the character paying back the flaw points.

Item Creation:

A character spends half of the item cost in materials to create a magic item rounding up. If proper materials are found, a character would only pay the remaining in other spell components. Example: A ring of Wizard Wings has a market value of 50 gp. It costs the creator 25 gp in materials to make it. If a ring is found that is worth 20 gp, only 5 gp has to be spent to make the item. At least 5 gp must be spent in the fashion regardless of the cost of items found.

Independent Actions:

A character has a number of independent actions equal to her WIS modifier plus 2. She also gains an additional independent action for every 200 card points she has.

Lightning Bolt and Horn of Death:

Lightning bolt and Horn of Death both deal 3d6+WIS points of Magical damage.

Negative HP:

If a character drops below 0 HP, up to –8 HP, they have until their next initiative to be restored to at least 1 HP before they die. This healing may be in the form of a successful Bind Wounds or First Aid roll with the use of a Hang On card OR it may be in the form of any magical healing. Self-Healing cards, such as Dragon Self Healing, do not apply. Due to the difficulty of pouring a potion into an unconscious or dying individual, a character gains half HP back from a healing potion or other form of potion. If a character is restored to 1 HP, they may act on their next initiative. When a character falls below 0 HP, they will still roll initiative for the next round. When that number is called they are either at a positive number of HP or dead. A character who drops below

-8 HP is dead automatically and cannot be restored by conventional means. The Regeneration Warp Feature does function if a Cast member drops below 0 HP, but only for one round. If a character is restored with the use of First Aid or Bind Wounds, they are unconscious for one hour; if it is another form of healing, they function normally on their next initiative.

Old Wounds:

Old Wounds may be given to a character as a temporary card by the Gamemaster. Rest or training may remove this card at the Gamemasters discretion. Usually a time period of rest or “off time,” such as one or two sessions off, is sufficient time to remove the card unless the wounds were drastic.Other cards such as Known Shifter can be given or removed in the same way.

Regaining HP through Rest:

Hit points are gained at a rate of 1 per 4 hours of rest per 100 card points in normal or wasted terrain, 1 per 8 hours of rest per 100 card points in warp terrain, and 1 per 2 hours of rest per 100 card points in pristine terrain.

Self-Healing Cards:

A Self-Healing card may not be played while unconscious.

When a Self-Healing card is played, the character may choose to use multiple Self-Healings as one action. The number of Self-Healings played is unlimited, but they must all be played at once without any other movement, action, or independent action played in between.

Spell Points:

A character may switch out their Spell Ace cards for other Spell Ace cards of the same type every morning when they wake up. Usually, ACE cards can be replaced with any other ACE cards in between sessions as long as the same amount of card points are switched out. With this rules, a character must switch spells out for the exact same type of spells that morning and have the same amount of points in each spell type. She may still switch out spell ACE cards for other ACE cards in between sessions like usual.

Necromancy = Despair Points

Shamanism = Essence Points

Witchcraft = Force Points

Wizardry = Mana points

Stone Skin:

Stone Skin gives the character a –1 SPD while the card is in use.

Stored Ace Cards:

To use the Ace cards in a wizards spell book, witch charm, or shaman bones, the character must be able to cast a spell of that type. You need not be able to cast spells of that type if it is in another item such as a Ring of Teleport.

Weapon Mastery:

A Weapon Mastery card may be purchased more than once, but the second one still applies to the total number of Weapon Mastery cards that character can have. A character may not purchase a Weapon Mastery card until at least 100 card points have been attained.

WE SHALL NEVER DIE!!

Wed, 23 May 2007 03:27:47 GMT

Well Fellows, its been a very long time since we've used this space to discuss things. I think we should do so again.

As of now, we are doing a Gamemaster rotation for Dragon Storm. The current Rotation is:

Doug
Kyle M
Seth
Jay

Once Kyle B has played enough DS, we'll work him in as well...prolly at the end after Jay.
Since I ran the game last time, before our Convention game with Mark Rosenberger, it is now Kyle M's turn for this Wed. Seth is also running a game on Friday. We will use our B-list for Wed game and our A-list for Friday's game.

A List of our DS house rules is being revised and should be given out tomorrow at the game. I will also post them here for reference. I should also be making copies of our AROC4 DS character sheet.

See you guys later,
Firestar

THE RETURN OF AROC4!!!

Thu, 26 Jan 2006 22:58:29 GMT

Hello All!

It is I, The Warrior signing in once again to say that we should rekindle the flame that is AROC4!

Currently we have three games running (or at least in some state of running).

1. Dragon Storm
2. Dungeons and Dragons
3. Besm d20

Now not all of you are involved in each of these games but don't worry about saying stuff if you are not.

The current pressing matter is Besm d20. I am comming up with a game as we speak (or read)(or type) and I'm getting the rules better and better as we go. The current roster for Besm is Myself, Seth, Kyle M, and Jay. Kyzzog is invited of course as he is coming home more.
Any thoughts or ideas for Besm?

Well, I really have nothing to pressing, just wanted to revive the forum!

-The Warrior

You All Suck!!

Mon, 08 Aug 2005 19:26:38 GMT

Does no one read my postings on our official role-playing group page?!

...Sigh...

...grunt...

Well, fine then!! I'll post it again!

I was looking to make a card order soon from the DS site. I figured there is 5 of us and shipping is $5, so we can each order and each pay $1.
Jay told me some cards he wanted, but I'm not sure all of them or not-let me know Jay!

OH! And everyone email me thier characters backgrounds up onto the point where they entered the game so Kay until he was on Gorns back, Johan until he met Terri, and Alec until he joined the group- Amaroth was good and sent his already.

Thanks everyone!
Doug

Hello All!!

Sun, 17 Jul 2005 23:24:46 GMT

Well, There hasn't been a post on the AROC site in quite a while and I figured I would do one.
I think Dragon Strom is going well. I'm pretty excited about some things to come. I had two things to say, and then I'll leave it up to you all.

1. Let's combine a card order from both the Dragon Storm site and the DSAnnex site. Everyone respond to this and let me know what you want. Be specific so I don't have to search around.

2. We should all make a secondary character to use at some point. For example, Seth can make himself a Tigerian Werecat to use that is a part of the group, but who is not always present just as Amaroth may not always be present. It's like how not all the X-Men are in every issue. Not all the Valarians from our group will be at every adventure. Thoughts?

-The Warrior

Dragon Storm Yet to Come

Wed, 18 May 2005 21:04:41 GMT

Well friends, it looks like this weekend for DS is out. Please, everyone, place when they can play in the next week or two down here so we can coordinate. We haven't played for like a month and Terri is getting grumpy. Hopefully we can play a bunch coming up soon!
Ford, we still have to talk about the stuff that I emailed you a while back...damn phone tag.

-The Warrior

Next Dragon Storm

Wed, 11 May 2005 19:09:14 GMT

Just wanted to ask ya'll when we're going to play Dragon Strom next? When can we all play? Let me know.

-Warrior

Hear-yee hear-yee!!!

Wed, 04 May 2005 12:59:58 GMT

Due to the fact that my graduation is this saturday and that jeff is leaving on sunday I don't propose and RPG this week, but I would like to get in a game the following week, if possible. The problem is, that I'm leaving for up north on thursday, so I'd have to be mon-wed night, but not late cuz of pat and jay. Hmmmm...hope we can play. If not, the following week should be good for me.
How is everyone else's schedual?

Ford, did you get my emails?

Well, see you all soon. Terri is iching for some madspawn!!

-The Warrior

Hey!

Mon, 25 Apr 2005 04:55:19 GMT

When can everyone play on Thursday?

Success!!

Sun, 17 Apr 2005 18:24:38 GMT

I just wanted to say that I thought the DS session was a success!!
I'm looking forward to playing again soon!

-The Warrior

Well...with that all said and done!

Wed, 13 Apr 2005 12:53:44 GMT

I think we need an agenda. Like this friday we're playing DS. I think we should figure out, though:

-How long we'd like to play

-What other games we'd like to play

-What other games we'd like to come back to

That way we can figure out a sort of Agenda of sorts...

-The Warrior

Thoughts

Wed, 13 Apr 2005 01:27:19 GMT

I'm really not in the business of upsetting anyone...especially my friends. So, perhaps we should pospone the DS game until we can figure something out for sure and just play whatever we feel like.

As I see it, there are some discrepancies of things in the DS game and there were also discrepancies with star wars, and with D&D...damn...I guess our group is just too large. It seems to me that we all want different things and can't really come up with a set thing to do. Ford seems to want to run something, Seth does as well, both have differing opinios on stuff...Kyle just wants to stick to one thing...Amanda is not sure of the whole RPG thing as of late...Jay just wants to play...Pat works at 7am on sat(!!) and I really just want us all to be happy.

Perhaps we should put it to an officail...or unoffcial...counsil vote. I say we all make a list of the top three things we want to play. Not just games but who we want to run it, what we want the game to be like, what we want to play, any contingencies, ect. For example:

Dungeons and Dragons; Seth; freeknight...only if we commit to 5 more levels

I'm not saying we abandon anything or even not play DS on friday, but at least just see where everyone is officially cuz I'm not too sure what everyone wants to do anymore.

-The Warrior

Sin City

Tue, 12 Apr 2005 13:06:11 GMT

This is quite random, so bear with me.
I saw Sin City the other night, which was quite vile, but entertaining. I thought that it may be fun to run a game with the same basic concept as Sin City. The characters we play are a sort of "Anti-Hero" role. They are not quite good people, but those that they are fighting are even worse.
For example a group of player characters that consists of a necromancer, a cleric to a chaotic neutral deity, and a neutral-evil for-hire warrior find themselves against a crime syndicate that is undermining order in a city and bringing about lots of death and chaos...or they find themselves face to face with a daemon.
The charcters aren't exactly "evil" persay, but some may play evil allignments...just no good allignments...So, it's sorta a game where the bad fight the evil.

To Achieve this I was going to purchase the Fiend Folio and The Book of Vile Darkness...and perhaps even a setting book to have it all take place. I just wanted to see if anyone may be interested in the future to do this or not??

Let me know!

Oh, and I also think I'd be cool if someone did a Ravenloft game sometime!

-Doug, The Warrior

Some issues...

Tue, 12 Apr 2005 01:14:23 GMT

All right, Doug has informed me of a few things about Dragon Storm that, quite frankly, I have trouble with. And nobody tell me that I'm just making a fuss or something. I have reasonable issues.

Firstly, the 'have 1, have a few' card thing I think is a little out of hand. I know we like to have nice, neat character sheets and all, but this IS a card game first and foremost, and that means some cards are hard to get because they're just aren't many of them. For instance, I think it would be cool to play an orc character, but Sue obviously didn't make orcs and their subsequent cards very easy to collect. Thus, at least in the case of rares and uncommons, these cards should NOT be widely available to everyone. Getting boxes of cards for playing (not deluxe ones, but the regular ones) are fairly cheap, and they help keep DS afloat in this capitalistic society of ours. Hey, if we all just pretend we own a huge variety of cards, why even buy the cards in the first place? On a somewhat related note, this is why I've purchased so many DVDs...to publicly support, with my earned dollars, the films I appreciate. The same goes with DS...I don't mind buying the card if it means having an official copy and keeping DS going. It's the American way.

Secondly, I really do think everybody should start, flat-out, with the base card points. I did it, Kyle did it, and Jay did it. This isn't to be rude or mean to anyone, it's simply fair. Also, my current character started out with 17 card points (14 + a 3-point flaw). With all the adventuring he's done, he currently has...*drum roll please*...18. Since I started, I have earned a grand total of one card point. If I've earned more, that point total has been lost, and I haven't purchased any other cards. But I certainly don't have 30, let alone 40. I don't even think Kyle's got 40, and he's kicked a lot more Warped patoot than I have. And neither of us are close to Valarian Champion status (though I do admit, my character isn't exactly trying to get a V. C. card...he's not exactly Champion material...but there's more than enough boons to sort of work around that anyway).

Thirdly, though I have yet to confirm what was to occur exactly, I've heard rumors of Gorn getting killed without so much as a decent send-off. This is a character that, although an NPC who didn't gain card points and whatnot, I did get a bit attached to. He's not exactly bright, but he's not a pointless, worthless buffoon who I want see getting thrown into a garbage heap on a whim. When it comes to other people's NPCs, I respect the wishes they had with those characters by either not involving them in my stories at all or allowing to serve the purpose and general attitude they had. I don't just have them get booted into a ravine or catapulted into the stratosphere for a cheap laugh. This doesn't mean Gorn has to be given ultra-hero status and become a major, integral part of any campaign...just don't disrespect.

And that's my two cents.

Everybody do the Bard-man, if you can-can.

Jay!

Tue, 12 Apr 2005 01:01:25 GMT

Hey, Jay!
What's your cell phone #? I called it the other day and got some dude who clearly wasn't you. I know you had to switch it or something but I forgot to get the new one from you! Let me know either on here or email me and tell me at stevefirestar@hotmail.com

Oh! And give me your email so I can give it to my dad if you are interested in getting a bit of guidance from that VP at Chrysler (don't pass that one up dude!)

And to all of you out there..I know this really wasn't RPG related, but I didn't have Jay's new cell # or email- D'oh!

SO, to make it RPG related, This is to everyone!

We're playing Dragon Storm Friday the 15th and Friday the 22nd!

-Doug; The Warrior!

Because the Keeper Should Know...

Sat, 09 Apr 2005 16:31:20 GMT

Well, we had a successful night of Dragon Storm

The adventure started off with Amaroth apologizing for the Raptor attack again. Him and Alec got into an argument about it briefly when a Minitaur showed up and attacked. Terri made quick work of the beast and in the distance another Minitaur came running up with a man on his shoulders. This Minitaur was Gorn. Terri went over to greet her old buddy and detected a shape shifter on his shoulders. The young man on his shoulders introduced himself as K (played by Jay). He was a Nightfighter shifter on the run who ran into Gorn and said he'd help him find Terri. The party traveled into the town together and split up, on the way Aidas had a few words with Amoroth about something random.

The town was an agrarian villiage. There was what was a Elethay temple in the middle of the city with a scratch build necromancers tower coming out of the top and a newly build Jikadel temple next to it. The group split up. Alec and Amaroth ventured into the local pub to see a really rough looking Dwarf drinking himself into the gutter and several men arguing with a purple elf in the corner. Amaroth and Alec was trying to get information from the Bartender when Chum came in (and old Dwarf "friend" from before). K came in shortly after and sorta blew it by reveling to the room that they were shifters. The Dwarf in the room began talking about his hatred (and fear) of Necromancers. Just then Terri walked in and noticed the Dwarf...Johan and Terri exchanged greetings and the proper "where have you beens?" It turns out that when Johan fell out of the astal plane he fell not far from this town. He has spent all of his money drinking himself into depression at this pub for one year. He was a lot more gruf than he used to be and very bitter. The purple elf in the corner was one of his buddies, which was a little odd to Terri, but she wasn't going to do anything about it until the elf gave her a reason. The humans came over to the group and began talking trash so the group left.

All met up and discussed the course of events. They decided to search the tower. Amaroth was delegated and did so to find a trap door in the back. Terri and K were to search down the trap door, Alec and Amaroth were to run in the front door, Johan and Roland (his elf buddy) were going to go to the graveyard to get something that Johan wanted then he would join the group, and Aidas and Gorn were to guard the way out of the town.

That night.
K and Terri jummped down the pit and wasted not time becomeing werewolves. Alec and Amaroth made short work of the guards at the door and ran into the building. After fighting several levels of guards they were to the treasure hold of the tower, the 8th level. K and Terri were joined by Johan and Roland...and also a skeleton! The skeleton was a friend of Johans named Freddie, who he raised to help fight the Necromancer because his old dead buddy whould have wanted to do it kill the bastard. Terri begrudeingly accepted it..for now..her old friend was surely depressed...she'd have a Valarian to valarian talk with him later. The group made it down the pit through many rooms. The killed two giant rats, which Johan overcame his fear of for at least this battle. Then they faught through a room of warp vines, then a very large madspawn. They found themselves in an open room underneath the building with a hole leading up.
In the ninth and last floor of the tower Alec and Amaroth found the Necromancer Belch, who gave them quite a battle, but was over come due to a lucky bolt from Alec's crossbow. They didn't find the dragon eggs and decided to go into the hole that ran the entire length of the tower in the middle all the way down. They dropped into the hole to find the other group.
Just then a huge spider attacked and the group faught with vigor. The odd thing about the whole situation was that the Skeleton, Freddie, delivered the final blow. The group continued on into the other room to find seven Ugnauts tending to the dragon eggs keeping the incubated. The group made short work of the Ugnauts and collected the eggs. The last of the Necro's guards figureing out about the group were on their way from upstairs. It sounded like more people than any of them wanted to kill at the time so they searched and found another exit.
Making their way out, they met up with Aidas and Gorn who were fighting off soldiers at the entrance of the town. The group fled with the eggs back to the dragons lair. Just outside the group paused for a second. Terri looked over at Freddie and crumbled him to dust with a wave of her hand. Freddie was placed in a bag and given to Johan.
From the distance the sound of "the fire that burns..." could be heard, but no one was listenig to Chum as he was following the group.

It was a successful game. Everyone had fun and wants to play lots! We all can't wait until next Friday!

Just a General Update

Thu, 07 Apr 2005 23:22:47 GMT

First order of business is...SETH AND KYLE!!! POST MORE!!! I know that Seth put up a rather large post, and I'm quite proud of him for that, but please keep it up! I know both of you are online every day; post, post, post!

Well, now that that's cleared up, we can talk about other stuff.

Seth and I picked up the new WoD book today (well, actually he picked it up, but I was there) and we agree that we're going to use the new rules of play but the old style format. The thing that makes me wonder though is why do I have a sick feeling that we're going to eventually just pick up the new books? :)

Since I totally lost my notes for the DS game we were playing I re-wrote the stuff today. I think it's actually going to turn out better than before knowing now that I'm turning it over to Ford when I'm done. As for playing, we're going to start around 9:00 and Friday. Seth and I should be home before then. I'm assuming that we're going to play at Seth's cuz my archival room is sorta messy right now. I'm going to finish up my scenario with Terri, Alec, Ammoroth, and Adis (I most likely spelled the last two wrong so please correct me). My goal is to just get them through what they were doing and get them to the pre-established point that Ford told me to end at so he can do his game. I'm kinda pumped up cuz there may be a surprise re-appearance of an old friend of Terri's!!

Ford, did you make DS character sheets? I know you were thinking about it, but I was wondering if you had done it. I had an old character sheet style that I may just bust out for Terri and if I like yours better I'll switch, but I was just wondering.

As for WoD, I came up with 5 different arch-types for my character. I think I'm going to just make one to start with and if I decide to later I'll flesh out another. My question to all of you blokes is what yer all going to play so I can sorta figure out what I'm going to play. Balance and all.

I saw a couple of books today for D&D when we were at Borders picking up the WoD book that caught my eye they were the Fiend Folio and the Book of Vile Darkness. I still think it would be cool to play a game where we are either fiends/necro's/evil...or not quite evil, but not really a heroic good character. Just a thought that is still brewin in the ol' noggin.

Well, I think that's all for now, kids. I'll be looking forward to playing DS tomorrow and next Friday too. I also would like to come up with a sort of scedual of when were going to do what. I still want to play D&D as well as DS, but there are still other games that strike my fancy. We just need more RPG!

Thus says the Warrior

This week in RPG

Mon, 04 Apr 2005 18:55:36 GMT

Just wondering when we were planning on playing again?

I should be ok with this Friday after karate...so like normal friday time...Anyone else game?
And if we do play, what game? I vote either DS or make WoD characters!

All righty, current D&D and future plans.

Sun, 03 Apr 2005 22:14:12 GMT

All right, just throwing out my skull here for you guys to kick around for a bit...

I'm assuming the current order of things to come is approximately finishing up D&D, then DS, then WOD. With these acronyms thrown out into the open, I have a few plans regarding D&D and WOD and I'm running them by everyone to see how it all works out. I won't mention DS, since DS t'ain't my realm. And yes, you did just see two apostrophes. Isn't making up words and destroying the English language fun?

D&D: As it currently goes, there is a trip across the ocean to deal with, as well as some exploration of an underground thieves' compound to finish up. After that, I plan on doing the following things, subject to some review:

1. There will be shenanigans and goings-on at the Free Knight compound. Having spoken to Doug, the compound itself is where Italy would be on a map of the world. Some events will take place there and on some surrounding islands. A cyclops may be involved.

2. After that, there will be some more goings-on in the Barbarian Kingdoms, an area noted mainly for having a lot of volcanoes, very little vegetation, fighting, and dinosaurs. Cyclops will not be involved.

3. It's tentative at best right now, but I'm really getting interested in throwing some Drow stuff into the game. After playing Menzoberranzan for the PC for some time and being heavily bored with the endless rock tunnels, the actual city of the Drow itself was really cool and worth the effort, so I might do something with that.

4. Some dragons might show up one of these days. Ya know, might be a good idea to do that in a game called Dungeons & Dragons.

5. Finally, I won't say much about this, but the finale will have something to do with the city of 'Thrall once again. I realize how much you all really enjoyed the city the first time, but hopefully this will be even better.

With that said, moving on to WOD stuff. Yes, the Vatican stuff is a go, but I just wanted to put across a few things that I would hope may it more interesting.

1. Yes, the Vatican will be doing things like, "There have been some recent disturbances in a small suburb of Chicago. Check it out." However, there may also be some things that you guys may want to check out on your own without permission (perhaps something like a personal vendetta against a vampire, etc.)

2. I'm throwing in the gamut of stuff: things like vampires, werewolves, mages, ghosts, changelings (maybe), and rival hunters will all be in there. So don't be surprised if while on a mission to disrupt a big vampire meeting you run into a bunch of zombies attacking an Iteration Hit Mark or something. Not that THAT will happen...

3. I want you guys to make a varied pool of hunters to choose from. Some just basic humans, some with the wacky powers, etc. I'm even thinking of making one or two for you guys to play with, but they may have some surprises of their own.

4. Due to the missions you'll be going on, you may not have a chance to kill each and every monster (though you may want to). Some might be willing to work as informants to rat out bigger threats (or divert you from their own agendas), some might work as guides to areas in the nasty Umbra worlds you may not normally venture through, and some might just not be quite as evil as originally expected. WOD's got a lot of political machinations in it, not just running & gunning, and I think if the missions aren't always a cut and dry affair would make things a lot more interesting. Not to say this will always be the case...there are always plenty of small towns around that could use a good, thorough werewolf removal.

5. I'm sticking to the source material as best as I can, with maybe a few exceptions here and there. I'll probably make up most of the characters instead of using book ones unless they are somehow really, really historic to the material (Charon from the Wraith book comes to mind the most). Mostly, this means all the various tribes, bloodlines, and disciplines are there, with all their strengths and weaknesses. Though I think (and I'm sure Ryan will back me up on this), the Celestial Chorus from Mage might not necessarily be located UNDER the Vatican. This doesn't mean, though, that the Vatican would be unaware of their presence, just that in my game they probably aren't on friendly speaking terms.

6. This is up in the air: should this take place in the early '90s? 'Cause I think it would be cool if JP II were still around to be pope. Not that it necessarily matters much to gameplay, but dang it, he was just cool.

Thus says the Bard

Dragon Storm?

Wed, 30 Mar 2005 20:02:13 GMT

(I just felt it neccessary to make a new post to discuss this cuz it seemed like we may be doing some of that)

My Three Ideas...

Tue, 29 Mar 2005 22:48:37 GMT

Ok. First, I would like to say that I am really grumpy because I wrote this already and lost it. Like I was done with this post and it went away. Bastard internet (damn you Al Gore!). Second, I would like to say that since our recent idea of Star Wars didn't work out, I came up with Three Ideas on how to proceed...I think we should all comment on these so we can figure things out...this means you Seth, who I know is on the computer multiple times per day! Well, without further adeu...

MY THREE IDEAS

Still Do Star Wars
Ok, we can still do Star Wars and have Ford run the show if he would like, but instead of playing the "gentleman theaves" game, we can alter it a bit. In my original idea, like years ago, we would be playing a group of guys who have a crummy (or slightly less than crummy) ship who are not affiliated with the Empire or the Republic (or rebels considering time period). We can be drifters who just are out to make some cash and will do odd jobs for people, but the kick is we don't work for any organization and we tend to do jobs that are non-evil. For example, we would take a job where we were to stop the smuggleing of illegal weapons or take the bounty for a war criminal, but we wouldn't go kidnap the governors daughter or steal a huge gem. Our goal would be for cash, but we would be more-or-less good blokes. This would be more of the cowboy Bebop approach than the Lupin The Third. I think this would work out nicely.

Reclaim Dragon Storm
I could finish the small story-arc I was working on where you guys had to get the eggs back (which would only take like two hours) then I could give perm-GM status to Ford. I figure that Ford was the originator of the "Terri" campaign way back when and it may be fun to let him have at it with some new stuff and finish up the old. We could fill him in on what we've been up to and he can do the rest. Terri, Alec, that elf of seth's...who knows even Johan may show his dwarf face again!

Episodic RPG
We could choose a game (either star wars, D&D or WoD) and have us all make characters. The catch is we are also all GMs. We can make a rotaion of GM duty and follow it. Every story would be a one to two session game that uses the same characters but a more episodic style of game. The GM of the week can either use his character as an NPC or just have them not be there. We could have the rotation be Doug, Ford, Seth (or whatever) and have Kyle and Amanda join the fray when they feel up to it, or they can interject when the have an idea. I think this idea would work with my fist idea as well...or another game if we choose. I think this would be fun cuz it would get at least me back to my RPG roots. :)

Well, that's all from my end. I think that these plans are pretty good, so give me your input (and don't just say they all work I don't care). If you like them all give reasons (or if you don't like them) and rank them...or whatever..just lets get something going. I still want to play Seth's D&D campaign, but not full-time. I think that Ford and I at least require new games all the time cuz we always get excited over new stuff so going back and forth between two games would keep us happy :)

-So says The Warrior

A Realization regarding Faith and RPG

Tue, 29 Mar 2005 17:19:05 GMT

My friends, this most recent Easter Triduum has gotten me thinking, specifically, the renewal of baptismal vows that took place during the Great Vigil of Easter. One of the promises we as Catholics make to is reject the glamor of evil. What this means is that we should take no pleasure in anything that would give glory or honor to that which goes against the laws and love of God. As for where I'm headed with this: I do not feel comfortable running a game in which the players are a group of criminals. If we read about the exploits of these miscreants in the paper, we would at the very least think of them as misguided, and at the worst, surely amongst the damned. Therefore, I do not think we should garner any amount of enjoyment or satisfaction from playing such characters.

Now, mind you, I'm not saying that we always have to play goodie-twoshoes characters all the time, because that's not realistic either. What I'm saying is that we should strive to play heroic characters, much as most of us are in Seth's D&D campaign.

So, here is what I am proposing: if we still want to play Star Wars, I am very cool with that, but obviously the campaign would have to change. I was thinking perhaps a Jedi or Rebel campaign. Otherwise if anyone is interested in getting another game going, I'm open to that also, as I've got some Eberron stuff that would be cool, or there's also the uber-nifty Exalted. If the Council decided that it would rather just continue along with Seth's D&D, until we get excited about something else again, that's groovy also.

Thus says The Keeper.

So, Uh....D&D or Star Wars for our next session?

Mon, 28 Mar 2005 22:23:47 GMT

We're not to level 5 yet, which was what we gave seth...(level 5 immunity) but Brash is so very close (700 exp).
I say we vote on whether we should still play his campaign and if we should play it next time, or do a session or two of Star Wars first.

As far as still playing his campaign- I vote YES
As far as playing it next time...I really don't care. I'd be ok with making Star Wars Characters next time and then getting in some D&D.

The Warrior has spoken

Star Wars, as far as I can tell....

Mon, 28 Mar 2005 20:02:11 GMT

So, there has been lots of talk and deliberation among all parties involving the new Star Wars RPG we're going to start up both online, over phone, and in person. I would first off like to say that I am very happy with the turn out using this space as a forum for discussion. Second, I feel that, though we haven't come to an agreance from all parties, that we've made progress.

As I see it, the three male players would like to play pirates, smugglers; a sort of "wreched hide of scum and villiany" but not so wreched. We still would like to have had a pre-established group going before the game begins...like a small group that does stuff here and there together on some trash-ass-ship and made somewhat of a name for themselves doing so.
I, personally, we thinking a more episodic turn of events when I first thought the plan...[even as far back as the old days of star wars where every week or two we'd switch GM's but play the same characters. I'd be up for that if you all would.] Ford wants a less episodic game, which is fine with me cuz he's good at keeping a story going for a long time (please note Dragon Storm campaign from high school where he had a over-lying story but made stuff up to fill in gaps).
I'm not too sure what Amanda is up to other than what Ford tells me, so I wont speculate. Ford has posted lots (see privious post) about what his plans are. It sounds like a good time thus far but I have a few Q's that may need A's.

I wanted to know a bit more from Ford's end about the legit end of the business. How restricted we will be involving the Umbra and the Syndicate. Will we be strictly under them, or will we be able to do other stuff for our own and we work for them from time to time? I would also like thoughts from others involving the above.

When do you all think our character story ideas should appear? Like have them ready by the first time we play or sooner? I say sooner. I say we post our character backstories here when we each have them respectively.

Thus Says The Warrior.

Star Wars

Wed, 23 Mar 2005 22:46:35 GMT

We are currently having an issue with Star Wars. We have all agreed that we would like to get a game of Star Wars going and have pretty much said that Ford should do so, but we're having issues with the story.

The original concept, thought up by Seth and I was that we all played a group of "gentleman theaves"...sort of like in Lupin The Third...We go around doing odd jobs for money (bounty hunting, smuggling, merch work, stealing, ect) for people, but we also do things for ourselves such as try to steal a huge jem from some palace just to see if we can do it.
Ford's game was a bit different. He seemed to want us to be more structured and actually be under a group.
Now, I would prefer us to be in a more haphazard sort of group than a pure-structured one. He is having Amanda play a crime-lords daughter and she hires us to set up a branch of the sindicate in the Tapani Sector. Well, that does sound fun, that leaves off the random capers. Thoughts?

Oh, and he would like us to start off at level 6. I was ok with this at first, but I am sort of unsure about it now....I'm split between starting off more powerful and being able to start off at level one and have the fun of building a character from the ground up. Thoughts?

-Douglas, The Warrior