[Past Blast] May Wheel of Time CCG Ideas

May of … 2000?  2001?

So, the TV show has mattered for bringing it all back to me now.  Well, not all.  I remember very little as it’s been 20 years since it mattered.  But, what the TV show did is not get me excited by looking at old stuff but caused me to find someone who wants my cards, so, now that I’m losing my cards, I want to say goodbye to that chapter.

There was a pile of playtest slips that looked like it was the unpublished Aes Sedai expansion set.  But, looking at them more closely, looks like a mix of various things where some of them do seem to be from that set but not many.  In the pile of stuff was a whole bunch of Precedence Publishing related materials, including newsletters, folder with printed out rules for Tomb Raider and Wheel of Time, a lot of tournament report sheets, and miscellaneous other stuff.

One of which was a couple of pages of card ideas.  At first, I thought they were mine, then I gained doubt as they seemed very precise in a way that I’m not so much anymore, then I went back to old laptop and checked files and it does appear that these were all my ideas.

Bela
Advantage, Player
Discard this card if you do not control at least one *Ta’veren*. Rotate as an event and target a character you control to give that character reinforcement until end of turn. This card cannot be affected by any cards played by your opponent(s).

*Tuatha’an* – no *Tuatha’an* card may be controlled by a Villain player unless it has *Dark Nature* or *Dark One*.

Raen
Character, Tinker
P3
*Tuatha’an* *Mahdi* When Raen comes into play, take a The Way of the Leaf card from outside the game and play it immediately upon him. The Way of the Leaf targeting Raen cannot be discarded. Symbols generated by Raen cannot be used to recruit characters or troops with a printed combat ability nor may be used to play *weapon* advantages. Rotate Raen as a limited event to search your deck for the first *Tuatha’an* card and put it into your hand. Raen’s effect text cannot be blanked.
1P
“You are welcome to our fires. Do you know the song?”

The three politics is ridiculous in comparison to other characters, but he’s by far the main Tinker character.

Aram
Character, Tinker
I1
*Tuatha’an* When Aram comes into play, take a The Way of the Leaf card from outside the game and play it immediately upon him. Symbols generated by Aram cannot be used to recruit characters or troops with a printed combat ability nor may be used to play *weapon* advantages. Aram may be replaced by [combat Aram].
2P
“I have waited for the first rose of spring, and now I find it at my grandfather’s fire.”

[combat Aram]
Character, Tinker
C3
*Dragon* When [combat Aram] replaces Aram, remove The Way of the Leaf that was targeting Aram from the game. Choose a *Ta’veren* character you control when [combat Aram] comes into play. [combat Aram] may only participate in a challenge if the chosen character is also participating in the same challenge.
“They killed Mother! I saw them! I might have saved her if I had had a sword. I could have saved her!”

Ila
Character, Tinker
P2
*Tuatha’an* When Ila comes into play, take a The Way of the Leaf card from outside the game and play it immediately upon her. The Way of the Leaf targeting Ila cannot be discarded. Symbols generated by Ila cannot be used to recruit characters or troops with a printed combat ability nor may be used to play *weapon* advantages. Rotate as a limited event to search your deck for Raen or a copy of The Way of the Leaf and put the card into your hand. Ila’s effect text cannot be blanked.
1P
“It [The Way of the Leaf] is for everyone, … if they only knew it.”

The bracketed stuff is not in the quote. I just thought this summed up her stance very well and wanted it to be clearer to everyone who couldn’t remember the passage.

Tinkers
Troop, Tinker
P1
*Tuatha’an* If at the homefront, you may rotate as a limited event to remove one damage from every character or troop you control that healed this turn. If participating in a challenge, you may rotate as an event to remove 1 normal damage from each character you control participating in the same challenge.
2P
“World without end. World and time without end.”

I could see all of the Tinker stuff being rare.

Djevik K’shar
Advantage, Player
May only be played by the Hero player. Rotate as an event to search your deck for a The Dying Ground card and put it in your hand. Each time you play a The Dying Ground card, Aiel cards you control roll 1 additional combat die while participating in a challenge.
“A hundred miles into the Waste? Impossible! Djevik K’shar [italics], that’s what Trollocs call the Waste. The Dying Ground. They wouldn’t go a hundred miles into the Waste if all the Myrddraal in the Blight were driving them.”

Lian
Character, Aiel
P3
*Roofmistress of Cold Rocks Hold* *Taardad Aiel*
“Such modesty … is becoming in a man. Men seldom know where to find it. … The Car’a’carn has leave to enter my hold. For the chief of chiefs, there is ever water and shade at Cold Rocks.”
1P

Maybe some additional ability, though she didn’t really seem to do a whole lot on stage.

Societies

Maybe someone will have good ideas for all of these.

Avendesora
Advantage, Player
If you control Rhuidean, you may rotate this card to remove one damage from all characters you control participating in a Rhuidean challenge.

Birgitte Silverbow
Character, Dragon
I1 C4
*Hero of the Horn* You must control a non-Aiel *Dreamwalker* to play [note, not recruit] Birgitte Silverbow. If any opponent controls a *Dreamwalker* Forsaken, you may rotate a non-Aiel *Dreamwalker* to recruit Birgitte for no cost. Birgitte may only participate in challenges that are restricted to *Dreamwalkers*. Symbols generated by Birgitte may only be used for recruiting *Heros of the Horn* and for playing advantages and events.
1P 2OP 2C
“In almost every life I can remember I was born a simple girl who took up the bow. I am an archer, no more.”

Birgitte
Character, Dragon
P1 I1 C4
*Hero of the Horn* *Warder* Rotate a *Dreamwalker* Aes Sedai character you control to replace Birgitte Silverbow with Birgitte; Birgitte and this Aes Sedai character become *Bonded* to each other. When Birgitte comes into play, search your deck, hand, or discard pile for a Longbow and play it on her for no cost.
“I always say, if you must mount the gallows, give a jest to the crowd, a coin to the hangman, and make the drop with a smile on your lips.”

Isendre
Character, Mercenary
I2
*Dark Nature* Isendre cannot participate in challenges. Rotate Isendre as a limited event and roll her intrigue dice. If she rolls 2 intrigue, you may choose a target *Ta’veren* character; the target rolls one less ability of each type.
“[physical description?]”
2I

Hadnan Kadere
Character, Dark One
P1 I3
Rotate as an event to give any other non-*Monster*, Dark One character with intrigue +1 intrigue. Remove one damage from Hadnan each turn as an event.
“Kadere’s eyes. All that sweating, going white in the face. Yet his eyes never changed. You always have to watch the eyes. Not what he seems.”
1P 2I

Keille Shaogi
Advantage, Character
Target Lanfear; instead of rolling her OP, Lanfear may choose to generate 1P and 2I which may only be used to recruit *Dark One* or *Dark Nature* characters. Rotate this advantage as a limited event to search your deck for a non-*Monster*, *Dark One* character and put the card in your hand. Discard this card as an event to search your deck for a Character Advantage that can only target Lanfear and put the card into your hand.
“`You see, good sir? Scorn a woman’s offer, and perhaps she thinks nothing of it, but perhaps’ – she made a skewering motion – `the knife. A lesson any man can learn. Eh, my Lord Dragon?'”

Berelain sur Paendrag
Character, Dragon
P4 I2
Replace Berelain. While you control the *Dragon Reborn* ability symbols generated by Berelain may be used to recruit characters and troops of all allegiances.
“Blessed of the Light, Defender of the Waves, High Seat of House Paeron.”

Just an excuse to get a proper picture.

Rhuidean
Advantage, World
*Contested Advantage* Only Aiel, Dragon, and Dark One characters may participate in challenges targeting Rhuidean. If a player controls Rhuidean by 10 or more, the controller of Rhuidean may recruit Aiel characters and troops for one less symbol of his choice. The controller of Rhuidean may rotate it to search his deck for a card with *ter’angreal* and put it into his hand. All Wise Ones and Clan Chiefs gain +1 politics.

Sevanna
Character, Aiel
P2 I3
*Roofmistress of Comarda Hold* *Shaido Aiel* *Dark Nature* All *Shaido Aiel* you control gain +1 to their highest printed ability (if tied, controller chooses one). Sevanna cannot be controlled by the Hero player.
“We are no longer bound to the Three-fold Land. Any eye can see that what was, has changed. We must change, or be ended as if we never were.”

ta’maral’ailen – Web of Destiny

That idea I called Pattern Weavers could be changed to this. This is a very cool title that I don’t think is ever used except in the glossary.

Tel’aran’rhiod
Advantage, World
*Contested Advantage* Only *Dreamwalkers* may participate in challenges targeting Tel’aran’rhiod. For each non-Forsaken, non-Ta’veren character participating in a Tel’aran’rhiod challenge, the character’s controller must roll one OP die and apply any damage rolled to the character. The controller of Tel’aran’rhiod may rotate this card to add an amount of support or opposition equal to his Pattern to any one, target challenge.

Raven Spear
Advantage, Character
Target any replacement Mat; he gains +1 politics and generates an additional damage while participating in a challenge. Only symbols generated by Mat may be used to play this card.
“Thus is our treaty written; thus is agreement made. Thought is the arrow of time; memory never fades. What was asked is given. The price is paid.”
1I

A Hat
Advantage, Character
Target Mat. You may rotate this advantage as an event to reduce by one the number of intrigue dice a target character rolls.
1I
“I’ll give a gold mark for a hat like that.”

Gleeman’s Cloak
Advantage, Character
Target a *Gleeman*. The target gains +1 politics.
“His cloak seemed a mass of patches, in odd shapes and sizes, fluttering with every breath of air, patches in a hundred colors.”

Laman’s Sword
Advantage, Character
*Heron-mark Blade* Target the Dragon Reborn if he has the Aiel allegiance.
“It was the treekiller’s sword, Laman’s. It was taken from his body as proof that he was dead, because his head could not be brought back so far. Since then it has passed from hand to hand, young men or fool Maidens who wanted to own the proof of his death. Only, each began to think of what it was, and soon sold it to another fool. The price has come down very far since it first was sold. No Aiel would lay hand to it even to remove the stones.”
[No cost]

Comments

The reason I had doubt is that these are very, very detailed.  Now, I was pretty sure I did all of the flavor text as I actually like things from the books and love certain things like Birgitte (before she becomes a non-entity), where I went to my favorite quote of hers.  Raven Spear got made, though my version may have had no impact on that.

I was doing not just development but design for the game, and I did things like art requests (including one art request that led to a piece of art I don’t like).  While maybe hard to find, Dave’s name and my name show up in the game credits with the Children of the Dragon expansion.

When engaged, I am rather geniusy.  Now, Traveller CCG is different in that I’m rarely mining existing material for card ideas.  I mean, I did … for a product that isn’t close to being published.  I think I’m rather good at translating existing ideas into CCG cards.

Now, Raen should have lower Politics, not like he and Ila actually affected others that much, but character attributes were important for both challenges and for recruiting and, if you lower them too much, they don’t help recruit stuff that would make sense to recruit.  Of course, could give a special ability to generate recruiting symbols.

What hurts about watching the TV show is that it just ignores everything actually cool in the world.

Bela is awesome.  Heron-mark blades are pretty cool; Laman’s Sword should probably do more when it’s in play than just exist, like give Combat bump or generate symbols.  Thom didn’t even have a Gleeman’s Cloak, which is what identifies a Gleeman everywhere in the f’in’ world.

Tinkers may be goofy even in the books, but the encounters with them by Perrin and Egwene are highpoints for those characters.  In particular, Perrin greeting Raen when on the run from fighting Trollocs is one of the best scenes in the books.  His entire story arc (that isn’t character murdered by Faile) relates to the Tinkers.  Now, Aram is obnoxious, which is unusual in that it’s usually the female characters in the books who are insufferable.

Speaking of which, Berelain is a great character.  Sure, we just want some smokeshow art for her, but she is vastly more mature than the Aes Sedai, which is why I had to stop reading about them and their incessant pettiness and endless arrogance.  Sad that Berelain doesn’t have more time on stage.

Anyway, my plan is to post some playtest cards that never got published, try to analyze them though it’s so hard for me to know what a good deck would be these days.  I do have various decks still built, but they are also full of proxies as I didn’t necessarily own enough copies of every card, so I have to figure out what’s a proxy and what it proxies.  But, I want to do this in the next few weeks as my cards are supposed to be gone late October of … this year.

IMO, Best Post Ever

Everyone has opinions.  Well, I guess it’s possible there exists a person who when they don’t opine nobody opines, but let’s get less philosophical.

Does everyone have arguments?  Maybe … eventually, if you like ask them why they have an opinion on something.

Opinion = rolling d20s sucks.

Argument = rolling d20s sucks because there are too many meaningless values when can condense down to the far superior d10 to get 10% really sucking, 10% really awesome and a 3 versus a 6 may actually matter.  (Of course, this is why percentile is the worst.)

This difference has come up in … *gasp* … real life … recently for me when dealing with health care.  It occurred to me that doctors weren’t actually arguing for any position.

But, nobody reads this for real life crap.

So, I miss arguing about CCG stuff.  Besides that I don’t play CCGs electronically and have not yet gotten back to playing in person to where I’m not playing at all (outside of conventions), there’s not being engaged with arguers online.  I suppose I could spend more time reading VTES Discord, but I find it too busy with things I don’t care about as Discord isn’t all that good for measured conversation – it’s a chatspew product with tons of irrelevant posts that can choke off reasoned discourse.

I probably don’t present arguments for things I post cogently enough.  There are plenty of times that arguing with someone doesn’t make my arguments cogent, where have to extract what inhabits the mind in pieces.  Could argue that it should be easier to form arguments into coherent wholes when writing posts only roughly once a week.

Except, it’s obvious I don’t spend that much time forming my posts before I spew them.

Anyway, getting back on topic, I’m frustrated by how much opinion I read about a CCG without argument.

Why is this good?  Strong?  Unplayable?  Irrelevant?  Why, why, why?

Hey, I’m bored.  I can say anything, but that’s not intellectually interesting.  Why do you think some faction is better than another?  Why would you play dis instead of dat?

Of course, the frustration comes from not playing myself.  Of course, if I lost all of the time, why would anyone listen to me?  Or, let’s say your meta is different from mine, why listen to me?  This is a problem when I play VTES outside the hood – I don’t do well.  I don’t do well for reasons beyond my opinions on cards and decks, after all, it’s not like I play what I consider best, though one of my opinions has often been that deck strength didn’t matter.  Not quite the same as decks not mattering, but kind of within the same realm.  But, when you don’t win in someone else’s hood, that opinion can easily be ignored as well as opinions on how to win that has nothing to do with decks.

I love CCGs.  To the point where I helped get one published.  I love deckbuilding.  I love the idea of how deckcrafting matters.

But, I hate it when players obsess over decks as if the pilots aren’t what is driving their success or lack thereof.

Pretty much anyone can build any deck.  Electronically, at least in the games I play when I get to use my pieces of paper, anyone can build any deck.  So, if you think it’s the deck that is causing winning or losing, just go play that deck.

And, yet, plenty of people don’t.  There are reasons why, of course.  It’s not like these games are Magic.  People want to get credit for building their decks.  They want their favorite cards or strategies to win.  Also, players are just better at some strategies than others.  I am of the opinion that I’m better with hyperaggro in two-player play and, for multiplayer play, um, I’m better with, um, …

Because I’ve so embraced the “do nothing until inevitable victory” style of play, I don’t do other styles often enough.  And, that style doesn’t work so well when I play with strangers.  Then, I’ve only had notable success in one multiplayer CCG.  I may have done okay at B5, but I never did anything outside the hood.  I’ve never played Shadowfist outside the hood.  I’m not all that successful outside the hood at VTES, so one could argue that I’m not that good at playing that, either.

Results are interesting.  Because it’s actual data and not just opinion.  But, results need analysis.  Let’s say one faction is weaker than others in a CCG.  But, it has similar wins.  So, one could argue it’s not weaker.  But, let’s say it gets played by better players.  Of course, with multiplayer play, weakness can be strength and strength can be weakness.  Though, that should only be in individual games and over a large enough sample size that won’t get born out.  After all, how can you argue that something is weak if it … isn’t weak.

Magic has massive data to where I assume people can prove at least some arguments.  It’s fun when you can argue and not just opine with CCGs I actually care about.  If only that happened more often.

Powerless

Time to talk about TV!

I know how much folks have missed my reviews of Arrowverse or whatever.

I didn’t realize Legends of Tomorrow had been canceled until today.  It was in decline, but it was watchable.

Stargirl!  Is this great TV?  Entertainment?  Not so much.  But, it’s actually … good.  So much of what’s on is not.

Have a sense of humor.  Don’t belittle your product by parodying it (unless it’s a good parody), but show some wit.

What character am I most interested in with Frenemies?  I can’t think of any one character I care that much about.  And, yet, it’s … decent.

This is going to be awkwardly placed, but I figure if I leave it til the end that it will get ignored – The Voice Thailand seems pretty good right now based on highlights I’ve seen.  Speaking of power – the Unstoppable battle had plenty.

So, Rings of Power.

Yes.  A show.  That is on.  That people other than me talk about.

I know.  I’m not being weird enough.

I’ve seen first three episodes.  It’s s l o w.

I’m of two minds about the pacing.  On the one hand, it’s too slow of a burn to be that entertaining.  On the other, it does have a novel feel.  Not new, literary.

Books are routinely boring.  That’s why you skim through long descriptions or skip stuff you know is boring when you reread them.

But, even though I don’t care about Harfoots or prison scenes or that much about anyone and there’s barely a plot, it does do something important – it causes me to imagine my own stories.  Flash, Kung Fu just don’t make me want to engage with their worlds and stories.  While not much of a Tolkien fan, I can still engage with the world to do things like look up Isildur as that name was familiar to me even if I couldn’t remember what it had to do with.  I didn’t realize Numenor was an island.

It’s better than Wheel of Time.  It’s not just that I care more about Wheel of Time and there are variances from the books that give me eyerollitis.  Wheel of Time also had pacing problems, but they were both ways – too much time on not accomplishing anything, too little time on important stuff.  At least Rings of Power is just not accomplishing anything.

D&D made me hate elves and dwarves.  D&D obviously stole tons from Tolkien and made it sillier.  And, yet, Tolkien is silly enough on its own.  Certainly wouldn’t find either appealing based on watching this series.

Speaking of D&D, I realized B.R.I.M.S.T.O.N.E. lacks an athletics skill, as well as a swim skill because while climbing/jumping/balance/acrobatics are all the same thing as far as I care, swimming is not.

I guess that had nothing really to do with D&D as most D&D play doesn’t care about athletics.

Is D&D a FRPG?  *Shrug*

Was D&D a FRPG?  Probably not.  It was a wargamey boardgame of economics with a veneer of being able to tell stories like fantasy fiction.

Not to say people didn’t cover the D&D song with actual FRPGing, much like could cover a rap song with a much better ballad.

Strip out the economics.  Battle map movement.  Killing monsters to kill monsters rather than as a natural result of accomplishing some other goal.  What’s left?

What game is the default FRPG without the D&D paradigm?

I don’t know.  Sure, I view Fantasy Hero as completely different.  But, I don’t view FH as mainstream enough.  I’ve played or run Savage Worlds for various things but not what I would run B.R.I.M.S.T.O.N.E. for.

If anything, my MERP play was even crunchier than D&D 3e, with less of a world or narrative.  Much like how my Wheel of Time RPG experience was far less thematically diverse than my 3e play, maybe about as devoid of story as my 4e play, comparable to my 1e play.

You want to tell a story in a fantasy, pseudo-medieval-Europe.  What game does that most naturally?  Not 7th Sea (of course).  Not Ars Magica.  My only sense of BRP is that it’s the crunch for games where I hate the crunch.

Sure, there are thousands of other FRPG games that try to use that sort of setting – most seem D&D knockoffs with the same philosophies.

I think an important part of my becoming disenchanted about RPG systems is that there wasn’t something that just did what I wanted.  It’s like how Magic doesn’t just do what I want, so I care more about other CCGs.

Is the economy gone from D&D 5e?  Sounds like it.  Is the stress less on just killing stuff to loot the bodies?  Sounds like it.  But, whatever.  Rolling d20s sucks, anyway, so it’s not like I care.  Sure, I’d play it if other people wanted to much like I played the boardgame that 4e was because other people wanted to or played worse systems like FATE.

It’s why I’m always curious about my running D&D Basic/Expert or AD&D.  How would I run it?  Would it be anything like other people’s style?  If so, who are these amazing people who have great style such that I can play stuff with them?

I can imagine better stories than Rings of Power (in that I have yet to experience a story, just some events).  Can I have a better fantasy, pseudo-medieval-European RPG experience than what would happen just playing more D&D?

TBD.

VTD 8B

VTD 8B runs were fun.

Well, only 995 more words to go on some topic.

Friday 8PM

Epic, 100+ hit points.  I played wizard since I had a high HP build already built.  Because I was doing three players’ builds, though, I had to scrape for 100hp and switched out Ashenne’s for something not broken.

We took 24 damage in room one and ignored it.  We took 8 damage in room two and ignored it.  Eventually, started healing some folks as room three was actually dangerous.  Epic damage amounts were pretty spot on.  The dungeon certainly encouraged high AC on runs like ours where we don’t just run over all of the monsters in a couple of rounds.

I got killed in room five, not having been healed to that point.  So, Jim Druegared me to full health.  I never got healed again.

We did the easy rm7 win of not trying to take out the kraken’s body.  While we would have run out of time trying, this was the one run I did where it would have made sense to try for the greater win.

Saturday 1224PM

Epic, Can’t Touch This But You Can Totally Destroy Our Brains – AC40+, saves other than Will (meaningless in this dungeon) 25+.  Again, I did three builds though one of them did incorporate some of someone else’s collection.  Since we all were running Thor’s Hammers [sic], I could only throw one hammer shaped shuriken as monk for the kill.

High AC meant the combats were way less dangerous to us than the puzzles (well, only because we did the solution to second puzzle by memory and took more damage).  We still didn’t figure out room one puzzle, so we took 24 damage again.  Room three lasted 14 rounds of combat as we discovered that it worked differently than it did in first run and we kept full healing the monster.

Sunday 10AM

Didn’t metagame as a group at all for the Anti-Cabal run, so only I – dwarf – had monster AC for our … Epic(!) run.  Given the easy rm7 (for the lesser win), figured Epic was doable.

We doabled it.  Only loss was fighter who wasn’t running monster AC as I expected.  Did find out solution to room one.  I had some comments to various folks about it that are way too hard to explain if you don’t know the puzzle.

Overall, I don’t think 8B was all that good of a dungeon, my expectations were nice and low as 8A was my least favorite of the A’s, but I ended up having fun on all of my runs, which is good enough.

Also had two RPG events.

Saturday

I was late to the Bloodspeaker session due to TD.  Not that it mattered as I never did anything.  In four sessions of playing this character after my first died, this character has never done anything that mattered beyond the intro combat alongside another PC, and that obviously meant nothing to the other PCs or the party in general or to plot.  His only purpose is to murder maho-tsukai, and he’s never actually encountered one (to his knowledge) in four sessions of a campaign wrapping up where armies are facing off against oni and whatever stuff we aren’t fighting for some reason.

Sunday

Denver CRUSH, as usual.  We made zero progress.  Plot didn’t move at all.  No (nonmechanical) character development happened.  Preferably both but at least one is something I consider essential to every single RPG session.

This just constant problem of lack of plot movement with nothing else that matters to obfuscate that no plot development occurs is frustrating to the point of being exhausting.  If I was going to give advice to GMs, it would be to have a situation for every session that forces PC action.  Planning is not action.  Research is not action.  Rolling dice is not in and of itself action.  PCs should be doing things … that matter.

What matters?  Narratives.  Even if I’m just dungeoncrawling, there’s a narrative of how I totally backstabbed that giant as an invisible giant to get us to next room for our methodical giant genocide plan.  But, I play sessions of games where you could just remove the session and nothing would change.  Or, you could remove me from the session and nothing changes, at a minimum.

Am I part of the problem?  Sure.  It’s probably time for me to fight my own inclinations and push any sort of action to just have things happen.  But, what bewilders me is that GMs expect players to have things they want to do in the absence of having anything clear to react to.  The point of having a scenario with a plot is not to know the outcome to the story, it’s to give something for players to interact with to affect the outcome of the story.

There’s a concept that to show that a world exists beyond the PCs’ perception that when the party doesn’t do anything meaningful stuff will happen to it or to the setting.  I’m generally a believer in this as, when I GM, I want to have fun too and worldbuilding interests me more than anything else to where waiting for players to do something is exceedingly boring.  But, if the players are not doing anything, is that their fault or mine?  Most likely both.

I did a little bit more work on B.R.I.M.S.T.O.N.E. – now has a base healing system.  However, it’s seeming less and less likely that anything I do on the greatest RPG designed ever in any reality will ever matter.

I could play more L5R.  But, really, I think I’d rather play Gloomhaven these days just to guarantee doing something where I feel like what I do matters, except that doesn’t work as my friend who is into Gloomhaven is still sheltering.

Building Shadowfist decks for formats I won’t be playing doesn’t seem a good use of time, either.

I just need a different outlet.  It’s also possible that playing other things will help me appreciate the games I think I like.

B.R.I.M.S.T.O.N.E.

Best RPG I Made Solely That’s Only Now Existent

I spent a couple of hours creating a new RPG system … ladies.

Attributes, skill system, unified resolution system, physical and social combat mechanics, open-ended magic system to bring back the fantasy in fantasy [not laying on thick enough yet], unified point buy for chargen and advancement.  I statted out skeleton, wolf, and dragon and wrote up some magic items to prove the sheer geniusosity of this projecte grande.

Then, I wrote a first adventure and statted out antagonists.  Drops Mic-hel-angel-o reference.  Boom.

…

…

So, maybe it will see play someday!

Thus, I will now have this amazing new tag to shed light upon this Stygian reality.

I’ll go into core mechanics after I legalize the crap out of everything that can be legalized.  Or, when I’m desperate for content.

In the meantime, one of the mechanics is the completely original concept of armor!!  [What?]  Oh, hold on – the completely original concept of unified Armor!!!  [Explain.]

As I have physical combat, social combat, and mental combat, I went with trying to universalize [unify?] how everything worked to where the concept of Armor applies equally to all types of combat!!!!  What does armor do?  Make you harder to hit?  Hela no.  Damage reduction?  Hades no.  Armor stops attacks.  Hold on – armor STOPS attacks!!  Like after the attack hits and deals damage.  Because I’m into game systems that have dice as a core mechanic for resolution then having mechanics that defeat rolling dice.

Light Armor – could be “leather armor”, could be “superior status”, could be “psychic training”, or any other descriptor thing in existence that makes sense – stops one attack.  Entirely.

Heavy Armor stops two.

Amulet of Protection from Polearms – Light Armor (polearms).  Greater Amulet of Protection from Polearms – Heavy Armor (polearms).

Amulet of Protection from Manipulation – Light Armor (manipulation).  Greater Amulet of Protection from Manipulation – Heavy Armor (manipulation).

What do weapons do?  To be revealed at some nebulous later date.

Anyway, why have Armor work this way?  Because I, I am a genius [nobody cares].  Because I, I got to thinking about how I envision the narrative of a combat.  While there are some real mechanics in this universal-uh-multiversal system, I’m not into accounting and grinding.  What’s more dramatic?  “My AC is now -2 with my +1 plate, +1 shield” or “I reduce that by 3” or “That would have slaughtered my soul and the soul of every living thing I cared about except … it didn’t”?

Well, it’s more complicated than that.  I got inspired on this new, greatest project in the history of projects project by thinking about AD&D and how much I like the idea of a D&D style game without the mechanics or baggage.  And, how I don’t want to push Fantasy Hero on people because so many numbers and trash skill system.

Just make up the best uni-uh-multiversal mechanics that have ever been made in this timespace and in every other timespace I created them in.

So, there are trappings of D&D, L5R, Mage: The Ascension [what?], and some descriptor game, and whatever vast amount of ideas my geniusy mind has processed since its inception.  But, oh so much better.

As I’m totally sure a playtest will prove – as there’s no possible way an idea with a game will ever play out differently than the designer thought it would.

Four Seasons

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I had hamburgers for dinner.

So, why call this post Four Seasons?  I had a burger for lunch yesterday.

Now, to be fair, half of those burgers I made and I used the same seasonings on the meat – cumin, Northwoods Seasoning, salt, pepper, dried garlic, onion powder.  I also used naan for the bun both times, ate with pickles both times (once on the burger), and poured BBQ sauce over both.  Did have iceberg on second one.  If I had onion, which I would usually, I wouldn’t have bothered trying to put other crunch on them.

Friday’s burger was a black & blue, so blue cheese.  It was overwhelmingly blue cheesy.  I don’t like ketchup, but I had to have some as a counterpoint and an acid to cut through the cheese.  As usual, my fries were undercooked as “I want them very crunchy.” is interpreted by restaurants as “Cook them loss soggy than usual.” rather than actually cooking them correctly.  But, they were okay.  Ludicrous to spend $26 on burger and fries when I can just make a burger and forego fries, but it’s hard to find decent restaurants to get together with people that aren’t absurdly overpriced compared to just making things myself.

Saturday’s burger was at my favorite place to get a burger in the Bay Area, and I enjoyed it just fine.  Got the house salad rather than fries, as usual, as drowning vegetables in dressing is only screwed up when places use gross leaves rather than real lettuce.  Bacon cheeseburger, with some extra ranch dressing.

So, someone asked me not long ago what L5R character I’ve been wanting to play, and there isn’t one.  Oh, I came up with an idea for a character if it would fit a campaign.

But.  There are like an infinite number of possible characters I could play that would interest me, and it’s far more important to know what a campaign and a party is about first before deciding what I want to do, given that I’m not fixated on one idea and don’t want to have to change characters/concepts later to fit in.

But, this post isn’t about RPG play, even if it is yet another post about variety.

There’s a new Shadowfist league started up yesterday running on Lackey and Discord.  I’m chomping at the bit to … not play.  Not build decks.

I just want to give people ideas and discuss their decks because I have virtually zero interest in playing a CCG electronically.  I’d totally make some level of effort to play in person if people could be bothered.  I’d rather not drive North into freeway shootings land, though I suppose that’s not entirely fair given that we had a shooting to the South recently.  Driving South is fine, especially on a weekend.  North not as far is where I keep suggesting meeting up, but there isn’t enough interest.  Peninsula would be fine with me, but that makes less sense for person South of here (mostly East, actually) on a weekend, which is when play would make far more sense.

Anyway, nobody cares about my being deprived of simple joys in life.

Eight week league with a final set up I’d never do, but, since I’m not playing, doesn’t matter whether I’d do it that way.  Three alternative formats.  And, this is where my subconscious is more geniusy than my conscious as I didn’t know that when I started writing this post.  I thought there were four-ish.

There should be four.  Well, more than three, and I’ve heard somewhere that four is more than three.

In a previous league, there was Mystery Basket.  Organizer randomizes to get 12 different cards, have to use one of the cards for every 25 cards or more than 50% of 25 cards.  So, two at 62 card deck, three at 63 card deck.

The organizer mentioned that not rerolling White Ninja was questionable, given that can throw White Ninja into any deck and have it be a card that doesn’t really warp deck construction or suck to actually play.

The players who actually play don’t like the format.

Sure, people can just run cards they don’t want to run and just not play them or whatever.  A lot like our Bloodlines (VTES) draft where some people just ignored the cards in the boosters and used their constructed elements to do stuff.

I just can’t comprehend the lack of interest in being forced to be different.  Even I have a penchant for going to the same wells over and over even though I don’t want people to play the same things over and over.

From last Mystery Basket:

Your ingredients: Plasma Trooper; Student of the Bear; Armored In Life; The Prof’s Gambit; Dance of the Centipede; Shaolin Supplicants; Jet Pack; Safety Third!; Soul Maze; White Ninja; Jui Szu; Fire Horse.

There are way too many foundations here.  Foundations should be excluded.  Really anything with no resource requirement should be excluded.

But, there is one card in here that got me enthused … about deck ideas, anyway.

In particular, I wanted to run this with:

But, then, I got more interested in different Yakuza Enforcer possibilities.  Final Brawl is obvious.  Purists have some options.

There have been a number of times when I’ve thought about building decks around random cards.  Mystery Basket has a little bit of feel of cube, which is another way to force people to build decks differently.

It’s much easier for me to think about things I’m interested in trying just because large cardpool with my having built relatively few decks and with ‘fist having so few deck constraints.  B5 might have a had a good number of cards, but you have an ambassador, some victory condition in agenda/conflicts, other characters or fleets or combination of both, 3x Meditation, etc.

There’s a rather large difference between no minimum deck size and games with 50 or 60 card minimums.  Now, my 40 card decks don’t try to do one thing, that’s what 25 or 35 card decks are for.  So, once you get an idea, quickly run out of room.

Of course, thematic themes are a great way to build different decks.  Maybe could look to build a ‘fist deck for each of the four seasons …