ParanetOnline
The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: JessHartley on June 22, 2006, 10:37:46 AM
-
Just wanted to point out to Jim that there's currently a thread on the White Wolf Forums discussing which type of White Wolf Mage Harry would be.
http://forums.white-wolf.com/viewtopic.php?t=41487
It's nice to see two of my favorite fandoms crossing paths...
-
Wow, those forums have changed since the last time I've been there. Though back in the day, when I first started reading the DF I did start a thread of my own in the Mage forum about them. Guess times haven't changed that much.
And of course, I have no idea what they're actually talking about in the current thread because I haven't picked up the new Mage game.
I'm happy enough with my Mage: The Ascension 2nd/Revised blend rules and my already established "World" that I can't see myself tossing them for the new game any time soon. Especially since I wasn't impressed by things I picked up from a brief skimming of the new book. All mages are from Atlantis now? WTF?
-
I'm going to go out on a limb here, and peg Harry as an Obrimos.
-
what is the white wolf forum?
-
White Wolf is the gaming company that gave RPGs a shot in the arm when they released Vampire: The Masquerade, an RPG that concentrated on the characters rather than the monsters and treasure. They managed to rather brilliantly (whether you like the game or not, you gotta admit Sam Chupp had a stroke of genius) combine a ton of types of vampires by making them all clans descended from the first vampire...different bloodlines became classic vamps, everything from Nosferatu to Lost Boys types to Anne Rice Types.
They then went on to release Werewolf: The Annoying (or whatever) and Mage: The Ascension (as well as Wraith, Changeling, and 6 billion supplementals). Mage had an interesting system for magic...there were various spheres of control (like Mind, Time, Correspondance, etc.) that were combinable to create effects. There were no rote spells like Fireball...you combined sphere effects that you knew to create the fireball. There were also schools of magic (like clans, called traditions) that define what kind of mage you are in general, like a death mage, or a mad-scientist type, or a zen-warrior-monk type or whatever (those aren't the names they use).
So, the WW fans are trying to figure out what type of Mage Harry would be.
-
Mickey Finn, I hope you're on The Dresden Files RPG team... :o
...Or at least one of their play-testers!
-
I'm on the mailing list and might play test if Iago wishes...problem is, I don't live near them, so that would put a crink in things. ;)
Longwinded explanation:
MY RPG experience is weird, anyways. I was actually hired as a writer for FASA's Shadowrun division...2 weeks before the suprise announcement that they were closing their doors. I never even got my first assignment. (I did, however, get paid...every single rulebook in the library was sent to me for research purposes. They didn't ask for them back.)
I've been MUSHing for the past 16 years (with a few year gap in the middle), using Amber RPG rules and White Wolf. I was one of the people who designed and implemented the concept of staff to support the wizzes (people running MUSHes), and was the head judge for a while on the first vampire MUSH. I was in charge of the Castle Falkenstien official MUSH, which ultimately never opened because of work overload on several wizzes plus author Michael Pondsmith's apparent hectic schedule.
My roommate holds the record for putting up with Steve Jackson the longest as Head of Sales, and one of my close friends used to work for FASA and now writes freelance (Trigun and Slayers are hers, for example). Half of Living Room Games (Earthdawn post-FASA, Digital Burn) are my old friends from college.
Despite all this...I'm not really a gamer. I just started my first tabletop game in years (as a player). I can't memorize numerical rules. I'm pure story, descriptions, and characters. I'm just attracted to the type of folks who run games, because they're stories. In college, I did live action World of Darkness...but as a rotating NPC for the folks running the game, not as my own player. They'd say "We need a medical examiner," and I'd make up a personality on the spot and run with it...but I didn't worry about the stats, they did.
So, if Iago & Rob Donoghue want me as a playtester, it'd probably be a "Hey, we need a guy who knows enough about games to tell us stuff, but be more like the average joe wandering in a game store than a game lawyer."
-
So, the WW fans are trying to figure out what type of Mage Harry would be.
Lots of questions today...
So what is a Mage?
-
Mage=Wizard ;)
Not to be confused with Matt Wagner's excellent comic series ;)
-
The basic concept behind Mage: The Ascension is that reality is based on perception and belief. Mages were individuals who could change reality by basically believing enough in something happening that it happened. They used a wide variety of styles, rituals and implements to focus their beliefs (and these implements were collectively known as foci).
However, since reality was based on belief, the beliefs of normal people (called Sleepers) mattered as well. Not as strongly as Mage's, but they outnumbered the mages by about a million to one, so they kind of had the advantage. When there was a conflict between what the Mage was doing and what the Sleeper's believed, it would create a Paradox, which would then do bad things to the Mage in question. So most Mages tried to stick to non-obvious (Coincidental) magic as much as possible to avoid getting bitch-slapped by reality.
In the Mage universe, technology is also a form of magic, just one that's accepted by most of the modern world and thus doesn't suffer from Paradox. There's a group known of Mages as the Technocracy that are sort of shadow rulers of the world, and as one would expect, use "technomagic" to achieve their aims.
The game is actually a lot of fun, and is my all-time favorite RPG. However, it's really, really tough to run due to the freeform nature of the magic system, so I haven't played it nearly as often as I've played other games. The first Mage campaign I ran, however, is still the best game in any system I ever ran. My players still talk fondly about it 10 years later.
I can't speak for the new Mage: The Awakening game, though. White Wolf "destroyed" their world a year or so ago and re-created all their games from the ground up. I've yet to pick any of them up.
-
They have pretty covers, but I've yet to run into anyone who wants to run a game in them. I admit to being skeptical due to the apparent loss of Malkavians (vampires of chaos an insanity...the best malks are the subtle malks) in the game. That didn't work for the TV series, either.*
*Yes, there was a short-lived TV series called Vampire Hills 90210...er, sorry, Kindred: The Embraced. Aaron Spelling and Mark Reinhagen blended Vampire and Spelling's soap opera style in an attempt to blend audiences and failed miserably.
-
They have pretty covers, but I've yet to run into anyone who wants to run a game in them. I admit to being skeptical due to the apparent loss of Malkavians (vampires of chaos an insanity...the best malks are the subtle malks) in the game. That didn't work for the TV series, either.*
I admit I like the idea of a core game, with the other games being expansions. Crossovers were always a headache under the old system and it was silly to have half the book dedicated to the exact same rules that were in every other WoD book. However, none of the new settings and concepts have really grabbed me enough to make me want to read, much less buy, the new books. Plus, as I mentioned, I have an already-established world that I'm quite happy with. (I bought the final Mage book just to see how things ended, but I have no plans to ever run it.)
*Yes, there was a short-lived TV series called Vampire Hills 90210...er, sorry, Kindred: The Embraced. Aaron Spelling and Mark Reinhagen blended Vampire and Spelling's soap opera style in an attempt to blend audiences and failed miserably.
Well, it didn't help that they changed a whole bunch of stuff from the game, which turned all the gamers off, and then spent most of the episodes they did show having clumsy exposition about the setting to try to get the non-gamers up to speed with the setting elements they did keep.
-
I admit I like the idea of a core game, with the other games being expansions. Crossovers were always a headache under the old system and it was silly to have half the book dedicated to the exact same rules that were in every other WoD book.
Yeah, but there are lots of these types of games on the market that would be as sutible (or more) for a Harry Dresden campaign than the WoD system.
* Unisystem (Eden games) has been done for Witchcraft, Terra Primate (planet of apes), All Flesh Must Be Eaten (zombies), Buffy/Angel, Conspiracy-X (x-files), Armaggeddon (angel/demon), Army of Darkness, Spacefarers and Prairie Folk (Firefly) and probably more I have forgotten. There are settings with modern-day magic and supernatural critters, and I think it's a lot easier to run than WoD.
* GURPS (Steve Jackson) is by definition designed to allow for characters of any setting. It's a bit clunky sometimes, but the magic system is pretty logical (lots of easy-spell prerequisites in order to acquire advanced spells) and could be adapted to fit Harry's world. Lots of modern-day weapons and skills and such already generated.
* d20 Modern (WotC) has an Urban Arcana setting for modern-day magic. The spell-casting system is similar to D&D, which isn't really much like Jim's magic system, but other elements of the game are pretty close. Also, the basic d20 game system has been worked through various eras including d20 past, d20 future, d20 post-holocaust, D&D fantasy, Star Wars RPG, Adventure (pulp), d20 Cthulhu, and the list goes on and on.
* Fred & Rob's FATE system (and Fudge in general) can be used in many settings, such as Cthulhu, King Arthur, dungeon crawl, Amber, Spirit of the Century (pulp), eventually Harry Dresden, and probably many that I have't thought of.
My point is not to bash World of Darkness, but simply to point out that the idea of a core set of rules that fits multiple settings isn't that new. True, many of these will include at least a short-cut version of the core rules in each volume, but often these only fill up a couple of chapters in the front with the remainder devoted to setting content.
I've looked at the WoD game system and it's okay, but certainly isn't my first choice if I want to run a Dresden game.
Just my two cents.
-
I wasn't looking at it from the perspective of running a Dresden game. We've got the Dresden RPG coming out for that. :)
I was just commenting on my opinions of new WoD versus old WoD.
Really, you can (at least try to) run any kind of game with any system. Some systems just work a whole lot better than others. :)
-
I was just commenting on my opinions of new WoD versus old WoD.
Oh ... in that case, I agree with you. 8)
Having an extra core rulebook in one place is a lot better than having half of each new rulebook filled with the same thing.
-
My girlfriend* just sold some art to Eden games. She refers to them as "Those guys who did that gorgeous Angel RPG," since she doesn't actually play RPGs, just occasionally buys them for the art.
*Blatant promotion: http://www.knotwyrks.com/ and http://mparker.deviantart.com/gallery/
-
(I did, however, get paid...every single rulebook in the library was sent to me for research purposes. They didn't ask for them back.)
Lucky bastard! Those are probably worth some $$$ ... to the right people.
-
They have pretty covers, but I've yet to run into anyone who wants to run a game in them.
Come to DC. I've yet to meet White Wolf players who *haven't* wanted to run a game in the new stuff. The new Wraith in particular has gotten some serious props.
-
Must be a North Vrs South thing.
Or hell, I'm in Texas. Could be a stubborn Texas thing.
Wait, you're in the DC area?
Ex-Amber player....
Do you know Sheryl, moved up from Denton, was (or is, who knows?) dating Scott/Random, yadda yadda? Wound up doing encryption for the NSA, or somesuch?
It's a small world, after all....
-
Sheryl, yeah, I lived in the same house as her for a while. So did Lydia Leong.
-
Yep, small world.
She's my ex-roommate. (Sheryl, not Lydia/Amberyl.)
And to tie it into the thread topic, let's see...AmberMUSH is an old MUSH, and VampMUSH is responsible for the explosion of MUSHes....
...nah, really. I got nuthin'.
-
Sheryl, yeah, I lived in the same house as her for a while. So did Lydia Leong.
Actually, I did too, albeit a bit earlier. Scott-Random-Scott and I were Housemates when she moved up to the area.
Definately a strange little world.
-Rob D.
-
Definately a strange little world.
I hope you're not the one spellchecking the game book, rdonoghue, because there is no A in the word definitely. :P
-
Strangely, Sheryl and I met because we both MUSHed, but not on the same MUSH...I was on Amber, she was on Dune. We just both worked at the Flying Tomato Chicago Style Pizza*. But we started talking.
Later on, I needed a roommate, she needed a place to live. She started playing Amber too, met Scott, and decided to move up with you guys and become a Woman In Black.
*Chicago and Pizza, two connections to Dresden.
-
Definately a strange little world.
I hope you're not the one spellchecking the game book, rdonoghue, because there is no A in the word definitely. :P
No grammar stridency on the boards, please.
And, no, he's not. Rob types with flippers. :)
-
Is that why he curses your fast fingers?
Come on, there's a story there.
-
Curiously, it's not my flipper typing that inspired that, so much as events on the various mailing lists we frequent.
Were one to go to the Fate list archives, you would find it full of posts that Iago and I both replied to. However, you would also find that they were almost always replied to within a minute or three of each other, and his always got there first. Always. Dozens and dozens of times.
Something like that happens often enough, and cursing is the only option.
-Rob D.
-
I do think it is a stubborn texas thing. I have not met anyone here who likes the new rules. Although I must admit that when they took changeling out, or at least what I understand they took it out, they kind of lost my intrest. As for mushing I ran out of gas on them after many years of playing. I like my table top still but something about mushes just doesnt sparkle for me anymore.
-
:o
Wow. The... original... MUSHes... !
-
Sheryl, mentioned above, was on Dune, which I think predates AmberMUSH ;) And Lydia/Amberyl was all over the place, and created the MUSH manual (and I'm sure coded alot as well...I'm not a coder, I'm not sure).
Yeah. We're old young at heart.
-
Sheryl, mentioned above, was on Dune, which I think predates AmberMUSH ;) And Lydia/Amberyl was all over the place, and created the MUSH manual (and I'm sure coded alot as well...I'm not a coder, I'm not sure).
Yeah. We're old young at heart.
Dune did? Huh. I recall AmberMUSH being one of the very few games in town, beyond PernMUSH, at the time I first encountered it. Of course, the old hoary place went through a large number of cycles of new groups of people suddenly discovering it. Made apping to play one of the feature characters a real bear, if you wanted any kind of respect paid to in-game history.
-
Come to DC. I've yet to meet White Wolf players who *haven't* wanted to run a game in the new stuff. The new Wraith in particular has gotten some serious props.
Chalk one up. I still run a hybrid of second and third edition Mage (sort-of world of second, ruleset of third). The cosmology and organisations of M:tR (Mage: The Reboot) do not do much for me.
-
Sheryl, mentioned above, was on Dune, which I think predates AmberMUSH ;) And Lydia/Amberyl was all over the place, and created the MUSH manual (and I'm sure coded alot as well...I'm not a coder, I'm not sure).
Dune did? Huh. I recall AmberMUSH being one of the very few games in town, beyond PernMUSH, at the time I first encountered it. Of course, the old hoary place went through a large number of cycles of new groups of people suddenly discovering it. Made apping to play one of the feature characters a real bear, if you wanted any kind of respect paid to in-game history.
I could be completely wrong on that, but I thought it went Pern/Dune, then Amber, then a pause, then Masq and GarouMUSH, then Elysium/Amaranth/City of Darknes, then a sudden deluge of WoD MUSHes.
When I joined Amber, the RPG wasn't out yet.* The MUSH wasn't brand new, though...when my roommates and I ran a possesion plot with a character named ".", people though someone named Legion had returned, and that was before we joined. I was under the impression that Dune had been around pre-Amber...but I wasn't there to witness it.
And you should try to app a feature, now...it's even more convuluted. ;) I've looked into possibly apping Bleys, Random, Mirelle, and Fiona in the past few years, and it's convuluted as hell.
*What's freaky is that Finndo existed on the MUSH like the Finndo in the RPG, before the RPG was released. I suspect the player had inside info ;)
-
Sheryl, mentioned above, was on Dune, which I think predates AmberMUSH ;) And Lydia/Amberyl was all over the place, and created the MUSH manual (and I'm sure coded alot as well...I'm not a coder, I'm not sure).
Dune did? Huh. I recall AmberMUSH being one of the very few games in town, beyond PernMUSH, at the time I first encountered it. Of course, the old hoary place went through a large number of cycles of new groups of people suddenly discovering it. Made apping to play one of the feature characters a real bear, if you wanted any kind of respect paid to in-game history.
I could be completely wrong on that, but I thought it went Pern/Dune, then Amber, then a pause, then Masq and GarouMUSH, then Elysium/Amaranth/City of Darknes, then a sudden deluge of WoD MUSHes.
When I joined Amber, the RPG wasn't out yet.* The MUSH wasn't brand new, though...when my roommates and I ran a possesion plot with a character named ".", people though someone named Legion had returned, and that was before we joined. I was under the impression that Dune had been around pre-Amber...but I wasn't there to witness it.
And you should try to app a feature, now...it's even more convuluted. ;) I've looked into possibly apping Bleys, Random, Mirelle, and Fiona in the past few years, and it's convuluted as hell.
*What's freaky is that Finndo existed on the MUSH like the Finndo in the RPG, before the RPG was released. I suspect the player had inside info ;)
Ambermush? Fiona? Finndo? I'm going to need some kind of guidebook to decipher this thread pretty soon.
-
*tosses a copy of Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny at you*
If you like Jim, you'll probably like the Amber series.
-
Definately a strange little world.
I hope you're not the one spellchecking the game book, rdonoghue, because there is no A in the word definitely. :P
No grammar stridency on the boards, please.
And, no, he's not. Rob types with flippers. :)
I know better than to reply to this, but I am going to anyhow. :P
Firstly, I typically would not be too troubled by a spelling mistake, but misspelling definitely happens to be a pet peeve of mine. He is also authoring a book -- A book I am decidedly interested in!
And secondly, it had nothing to do with grammar. Grammar is an entirely different beast from spelling. :P
-
Worth noting that in addition to definitely, I will almost always spell criteria incorrectly.
Just one of those things.
-Rob D.
-
And if you even want to get mor convoluted there was the whole series of MUDS that were trying to become mushes. There was a cyberpunk mud we had up and there was the Dune Mud that was getting going abou the time Dune Mush was taking off. Of course that is if you avoid the whole furry muck thing that was starting, never did really understand furry.
-
Thanks to a posting last year on the WW forums, I was introduced to Dresden Files.
I'm running a Mage Campaign right now and just don't think it would translate well into a DF game. The system is too linked to White Wolf's view of universe and I just think that feeling wouldn't be the same. I mean FATE is the best system for DF. Right guys? Yeah that was an obvious kiss up attempt.
Another good generic RPG system would be the Hero system. Yeah I know it can be math intensive but it's still a good system. It's the system that I'm planning on using for the next campaign I run using the same setting I created for my Mage game.
-
Definately a strange little world.
I hope you're not the one spellchecking the game book, rdonoghue, because there is no A in the word definitely. :P
No grammar stridency on the boards, please.
And, no, he's not. Rob types with flippers. :)
I know better than to reply to this, but I am going to anyhow. :P
Firstly, I typically would not be too troubled by a spelling mistake, but misspelling definitely happens to be a pet peeve of mine. He is also authoring a book -- A book I am decidedly interested in!
And secondly, it had nothing to do with grammar. Grammar is an entirely different beast from spelling. :P
Howdy.
I'm a technical writer by profession. I've worked with both Rob and Fred in that capacity. Both of them are entirely capable of making a clear distinction between "casual post to a bulletin board" and "professional product what we are selling for actual money".
Additionally, there is no risk at all that Rob and Fred will put out a product of anything but the highest quality. Your concerns are, to put it mildly, misplaced in the extreme. I would suggest reviewing some of their other game products for a sampling of what you can expect in any product with their names on it.
And, finally, pedantry has a place, and that place is not here.
-
Come to DC. I've yet to meet White Wolf players who *haven't* wanted to run a game in the new stuff. The new Wraith in particular has gotten some serious props.
Chalk one up. I still run a hybrid of second and third edition Mage (sort-of world of second, ruleset of third). The cosmology and organisations of M:tR (Mage: The Reboot) do not do much for me.
Chalk another one up - and I used to run WoD LARPs, which is the extra-geeky subset. And, once, their Mage system was my favorite of the WoD lines.
I found the new Mage book practically painful to read through and was wholly turned off by both the setting and the fact that we're back to spell lists. I tried their chat RPG in a couple of genres to see if actually playing improved the experience for me. It didn't, so I gave my books back and moved on. I do hear, though, that part of the problem was that the writer they assigned Mage to hated the original Mage, so...
I did happily play Ars Magica (starting back with 2nd edition - because I am an old gamer), where they pulled the original sphere concept from. (Ars Magica had a slightly more complex breakdown - a sort of verb-subject combination rather than just combining elemental spheres)
-
And see.. other then an ultra-extreme hardcore sect of the Mage:the Ascencion fan base, Mage: the Awakening is seen as a tremendous step forward in the execution of that kind of magic in the White Wolf Universe.
Everyone is welcome to their opinion of course, but I frankly feel that Ascencion catered to a rather pretensious fan base, and reveled in it's complexity and eliteism. It was far to easy for Ascencion to be abused like a red headed step child. Awakening is more accessable to players without degrees in metaphysics.
While I think a White Wolf game could be used to RP the THEMES of the Dresden-verse (and I'm copy writing that if I'm the first to use it) the systems aren't compatible with the flair of the setting.
-
Very true. The magical world view in Mage doesn't mesh up with DF. It's a different kind of universe.
-
Everyone is welcome to their opinion of course, but I frankly feel that Ascencion catered to a rather pretensious fan base, and reveled in it's complexity and eliteism. It was far to easy for Ascencion to be abused like a red headed step child. Awakening is more accessable to players without degrees in metaphysics.
While I risk sounding pretensious...complexity? It's like a cooking show. You want an effect, you combine two spheres and away you go. It's as simple as the Amber diceless RPG, and just as easy to abuse. You just need a good gamemaster.
I'm really bad a rules-lawyering, having to look up things in tabletop almost constantly because I can't remember the system rules, and I found the original Mage quite easy.
YMMV.
Now, they pure amount of money-making attempts with books is quite astonishing....
-
It's as simple as the Amber diceless RPG, and just as easy to abuse. You just need a good gamemaster.
Mickey, I'd say you hit it just right, but I would add that you need good players.
Pretty much any RPG system can be bent if participants want to badly enough. What you need are players who don't want to exploit a game system and instead want to play a game.
Your example of ADRP is a great one -- a game where there is balance by giving each player an identical number of points, but a potential imbalance if players create characters that are loaded up in one area and thereby one-dimensional.
The GM certainly regulates what the players do, but it's the players who need to police themselves to keep the game interesting.
-
Good point on the players...I so rarely Table Top these days, I forgot what it's like with bad players. Ugh.
-
I should also point out, so it doesn't look like I'm calling a previous posted stoopid...I've heard that before, where people can't figure out Mage because of the system. People's heads are wired differently.
-
Someone mentioned in this thread that they were unhappy with White Wolf because Changeling went away. Well, just so you know Changeling is evidently getting the New WoD treatment and the book for it comes out next year.
Also, if you are interested in a Changeling the Dreaming chat game PM me.
Take care,
Jeremy
-
I should also point out, so it doesn't look like I'm calling a previous posted stoopid...I've heard that before, where people can't figure out Mage because of the system. People's heads are wired differently.
it's a hell of a system... people either have a knack for it, or a lot of problems. it's one of the best magick-systems for RPGs I know...
-
I could be completely wrong on that, but I thought it went Pern/Dune, then Amber, then a pause, then Masq and GarouMUSH, then Elysium/Amaranth/City of Darknes, then a sudden deluge of WoD MUSHes.
Post necromancy!
Mickey, wasn't Dark Gift open pre-GarouMUSH? Post Masq, natch, but it was a splinter offa that one. Also was my first WoD mush. Then Whispers and Tartarus (yes, really) and a bunch of others and then Avalanche and... I lose track. I think I apped on Monaco but never played there. I was wiz staff a buncha times, but I soon learned that nothing would make me hate the game faster than dealing with the playerbase. ;)
-
Dark Gift was post Elysium, because Ely was originally designed to be set in the same world as Masq, and characters could go back and forth...but then there was an argument between some staff, and that was that. I *think* Garou was around before Ely, because I remember a friend getting rejected from it on an ap because he mispelled *a* word.
But again, I could be wrong. My memory's spotty.
-
Not to take away from the Dresden Files RPG that is being done up but some good ideas for adapting Harry Dresden to magical central is this...
(note this is for old WoD)
Harry Dresden
Avatar: Primordial
Tradition: Order of Hermes
House: None
Nature: Martyr
Demeanor: Jobsworth
Harry Dresden is the son of a human stage magician and a believed Nephandus of the Order of Hermes or Verbena. This has permanently colored his relationship with the council as his first teacher was a Order of Hermes Barrabi. With no less than two direct associations with the black enemies of all magicians, Harry Dresden has the Infamous flaw. His relationship with his Tradition is conducted with a -2 penalty due to his utter isolation from the rest of the Council. Harry also suffers from "Static Burn" that causes any mechanical or electronic device in his presence to operate with a botch on a 1 and a 2 roll for its use. Harry formerly had an enemy in the Warden Morgan whom was convinced he was a threat to mankind. Like all wizards of his bloodline he ages only 1 year for every ten years since maturity and regenerates one health level a day with aggravated damage healing at a rate of one health level per five days. Harry has some help with his 4 point Mentor in Ebenezer, his familiar in Mouse, and Allies 3 his White Council (Toreador) half-brother Thomas, Karen Murphy, and the noble warrior Michael (Mortal Hunter with True Faith 6+ and Oracular abilities). Harry's avatar is powerful with 4 points bonus that manifests routinely as a embodiment of himself and his darker thoughts. Harry is implied to have a destiny and has 3 points of it reflecting his occasional ability to get out of an odd spot. The talisman Bob (or more precisely Fetish) is a bound air spirit with access to vast amounts of magical information and the ability to go spying for him.
Arete: 6
Spheres: Spirit 3, Forces 3, Prime 2, Correspondence 1, Life 2, Mind 1, Matter 2
Special Rotes: Spirit 1/Mind 1/Prime 1 "Soul Gaze"
-
I'm on the mailing list and might play test if Iago wishes...problem is, I don't live near them, so that would put a crink in things. ;)
Longwinded explanation:
MY RPG experience is weird, anyways. I was actually hired as a writer for FASA's Shadowrun division...2 weeks before the suprise announcement that they were closing their doors. I never even got my first assignment. (I did, however, get paid...every single rulebook in the library was sent to me for research purposes. They didn't ask for them back.)
Have you contacted FanPro? They have the Shadowrun and (Classic) Battletech games. They've been working hard on CBT, but they are working on SR . There's been several SR novels published recently. They are trying to get a SR site up and running, simular to BattleCorps....
Craig
-
Nope, my contact (Michelle Lyons) didn't get drafted by them (or Wizkids, sadly...she's still working alot as an independent contractor, though. Wrote a huge chunk of the the new Vampire rulebook for WW, did several anime RPGs such as Trigun & a few other popular titles I can't remember.)
As I never actually wrote anything for FASA (never had time), I can't see FanPro being that interested.
-
(note this is for old WoD)
Harry Dresden
Avatar: Primordial
Tradition: Order of Hermes
House: None
Nature: Martyr
Demeanor: Jobsworth
Arete: 6
Spheres: Spirit 3, Forces 3, Prime 2, Correspondence 1, Life 2, Mind 1, Matter 2
Special Rotes: Spirit 1/Mind 1/Prime 1 "Soul Gaze"
Nice breakdown. That was pretty much my thoughts on it as well.
I saw it mentioned earlier that GURPS wasn't the first system to come up with the multiple genre angle.. I do believe though that it was, and possibly still is(I haven't picked up a new system in years, but try to keep my eyes open) the best try at it. The point was that you could realistically play military vs magery and the systems would have a workable hit&damage system. In addition, though the other systems were set up to take you into different genre, GURPS was the only one that would let you work out your own genre if you could come up with it, without any reworking of the rules. You want to play rats fighting in Nim? GURPS could do that, you want to fight with toons in toonsville, GURPS could do that, want to play, Chtulu? Watership down? Cyber assassins? Prince's of Amber? etc etc etc.. GURPS had rules in the core book that could cover almost any angle conceived of.
-
I'd agree with that Harry writeup, except on the spheres. I'd say he needs at least Correspondence 2. He's demonstrated his ability to work magic outside his perception range on multiple occations, and he's tracked a one of Marcone's thugs across Chicago using blood as a correspondence link. Also, I think he'd need Prime 3 to create magic potions, and Spirit 4 to bring other people into the Nevernever (Umbra). Possibly needing Matter 3 also. That trick with the blood-into-fog in Fool Moon was a state change, which Matter 2 can't do, and I don't think Harry knows enough science to change it into something that would evaporate at room temperature. Just my 2 cents.
-
I could be completely wrong on that, but I thought it went Pern/Dune, then Amber, then a pause, then Masq and GarouMUSH, then Elysium/Amaranth/City of Darknes, then a sudden deluge of WoD MUSHes.
When I joined Amber, the RPG wasn't out yet.
I am reawakening a long-dead thread, but I can clear the timeline up, since I was involved in all of it. ;)
PernMUSH was founded in January of 1991. AmberMUSH was founded in November of 1991 but did not open to players until the spring of 1992. The game opened after the DRPG was published (the DRPG was published in 1991), so Finndo et.al. and your play of the game definitely post-dates it. Dune post-dates AmberMUSH by quite some span of time. (Belgariad MUSH, where Javelin/Paul got his start, dates to February 1992, and if I recall correctly, Dune was founded in early 1993, as it post-dates the closing of Belgariad in November 1992.) Masquerade and GarouMUSH developed independently of one another around the same time. Elysium came next (mid-1993), and then everything else.
Sadly, AmberMUSH is functionally dead now. But there's a new game, Chronicles of Amber (amber.genesismuds.com 8810), http://amber.genesismuds.com/ that has quite a few players.
I thought there was a Dresden Files MUSH around somewhere, too. Whatever happened with that?
-
I agree with the assigned power boost.
I also tend to think the High Council is easily substituted for either just the Order of Hermes or the Traditions as a whole. I'm inclined to just the OoH.
-
I also tend to think the High Council is easily substituted for either just the Order of Hermes or the Traditions as a whole. I'm inclined to just the OoH.
I tend to think of Harry as OoH ex Miscellanea, or an Orphan that had nontraditional Hermetic training. Some of the things he uses in his rituals would not fly at an 'orthodox' Hermetic rite, such as using Play-Doh. Also, his lack of grasp of languages would probably get him censured because he was not as dedicated to the art as the rest of the Council. An Orphan would not have had the restrictions placed upon his training like a formally trained Hermetic would.
-
Hey, I am glad that I am not the only one to hate Mage - The Players Handbook. Feh, lists of spells. I hate em.
Anyway, I kinda like the idea of creating Harry as a Mage, but you all seem to be forgetting that he creates his own Foci, so he is going to need at least Prime 3. His blasting Rod is nothing to be sneered at, nor is his Shield Bracelet. Which just goes to show that you should never try to turn a character from an unrelated book into a Mage character, or you will have a MASSIVELY overpowered Mage as you try to compensate for each time he demonstrates a power that works in the book, but not by the spheres he has shown.
As for someone else's comments about the best attempt at a truly universal game, there is nothing better than Hero system. I have yet to find any other game that I cannot run off the cuff with one single Hero rulebook, the core rules. And I have run a star trek game, a star wars game, a battletech game, a shadowrun game, a d&d style game (by which I mean classic fantasy), a spy/thriller game, and of course super hero games all with one rule book. Yeah, I have a couple of supplements that give me ideas, but I have never actually needed them to run the game. I have never found another product that can even come close to the versatility of Hero system.
Now if only it didn't take 4 hours a calculator, reams of scratch paper, and the GM sitting there to say 'yes/no' to every ability you take, to make a character. Oh well, no game is perfect.
;D
Umm, what was this thread about again?
*Wanders off back to the beginning of the tread to see what the point was for posting here in the first place.*
-
If we're talking the old school Mage the Ascension I would say that Harry is from the Order of Hermes.
-
Yep, OoH is the general consensus.