A Fierce Country
Arabiska Natt from Aladdin
Och jag har sett land, och en främmande plats, och kameler i karavan.
Och där öga för öga, och tand för en tand, var den lag som man var van.
Där kom vindar från öst, man såg solen i väst, medan timglasets sand rann bort.
Ta en matta, och sen flyger du in i den, orientaliska natten igen!
Arabiska natt!
Och Arabiska Dag!
Där hettan är het, skonar, så vitt jag vet, varken stark eller svag!
Arabiska natt!
Månen lyser som att!
Se upp med vad du gör, du bör tänka dig för, en främmande natt!
Jag skulle rekommendera alla att ladda ner låten, då den är… speciell =)
This is actually the base for some of my ideas in Taraien. Taraien is a mixture of old Arabic, Egyptian and other oriental cultures. It is a harsh country with many different aspects and this is the country in which you will adventure in it seems.
I gave some personal advice and directions yesterday to some character making to one of you and I think that it’s hardly fair not to give it to the rest of you either. Let’s just say it like this, I’m an not entirely satisfied with some aspects of your characters but I’m not entirely disappointed either (in most of them).
To begin with I think I need to explain things you SHOULD think about in the future. Which means remember what I say now to your next character whenever that might be.
Base points are something I’ve before said that you need to put out with some logic and moderation. I still stand with this but I’ve also made a better reason to why. You should see that your base points are something you have when you’re small i.e. under the age of youth. That’s more or less your base stats in how you were founded when you were born. I now have started to use just these skills to make your potent and also have it as a template for the early years (for single sessions). You always have 3, there is almost no living being on the planet that is able to have an effective value under 3, so you could say as a youngster you’ll have your base plus 3 in every PRO. So visualise yourself as a kid, youngster and then see, does this really fit my character? Am I really this good or this bad in these properties? You moderate them in that manner and then you add up to what you want to have and what you need to have with your bonus instead. That’s a good distribution.
As for your potency it’s been changed how it works and it’s not as random as some of you think it is. Your potency is no longer hard values really but more a relative value for your character to see how good you are compared to all races. Your usual value is the value of your chosen race, so any other being of the same race are “almost” the same as you if they have the same value. But if you for instance have a potency of +2 in Force you are better than the average person of your race in Force. So if you are an orc with 18 in Force and +2 in Potency in Force you will probably be as strong as an Orc with 20 in FOR in many situations even though they are many other things that might be added depending on the situation but in general it applies in most situations. But this potency is also not just within the race but also outside the race. A Dwarf cannot get as much from their FOR as an Orc but if they have a higher potency in FOR they might be just as strong as an Orc in some situations.
The reason to why you can’t have your sum plus your potency over 20 is due to the limitations of the races. You need less potency if you have more skill so to speak. If you have gained 17 in any PRO then you’re really, really skilled in this PRO and then you have relied on your skill more than your potency to excel with this property. The only properties which you cannot have any potency in are APT and MCH since these properties are special. MCH is the same to all races and specialities since it’s more of a hard value. How dense are the magic particles in your body? How close are you to the magical realm? Magicians who have Magical Influence might be able to spontaneously advance in this since he is in contact with The Multiverse quite often. Otherwise the only method for everyone is to absorb magical particles or be changed by a higher power. Well, there might be other even harder ways too and abdominal ways but in general that’s what to expect.
You did probably expect anything about the new group here, and yeah, I’ll come to that… I think, but first I need to advise you in character creation. Before I continue with skills I need to just add some things about your base options when creating your characters.
When you create your character you will most likely always be forced to make a lot of tough choices and adjustments. I never intend for you to have precisely as much as you need to without any sacrifice make a character that has everything you wanted him to have. Or most likely that will seldom happen in a group which is not a specific campaign group. So you must pick and choose what to have and what NOT to have. Note that the only thing you need to have on your character is actually Race and age. You must always have a race and age; you don’t need to have any racial ability, nationality, speciality, striker type, and the rest of your must choices are pretty costless such as right or left handed or Normal Potency. You don’t need to buy all your bonus points that are just an alternative so you can lower it with one if you need to. And when it comes to potency points those aren’t needed either. You will still be better than the average of your race only more equally divided depending on your base value.
Nationality is only a bonus, you get to speak one language for free and you get some bonus points, but you can still be from that country only that you in your creation process need to put aside some points for your language. You can sometimes gain a lot doing this and you could still consider yourself at part of this country. Well, now to skills and techniques.
Note that all skills need a reason. I think I’ve made this pretty clear so far but it’s good to mention again. Primary skills don’t need as good reason as the rest, but a reason still. Athletics is something that is pretty base yes, but then you must see your character as something that actually has done anything that is included in Athletics. Jumping, swimming, climbing, running and such during childhood is pretty normal but for some it’s not normal at all say for mages or people who spend most of their life imprisoned in their workshops. Those have an actual lack of movement and why should they have it then if they have spent most of their life not moving at all?
Favoured skills also need to be carefully thought over but if you have all the skills you have a reason for up in the four slots for Favoured and steel have one left, you could always see if your speciality have any primary skills which you’ve already took to move up. There are not many opportunities to gain a new favoured skill after you’ve grown up or learned your speciality. So therefore you can include your most talented primary up there if you don’t have anything else to put there. I hope you won’t misunderstand this and think that; Hey! If I have space left I can just move up any primary… that is not the case. Only an eventual primary in your favoured list of skills for your speciality.
Secondary is actually a tough job to choose. You have a lot of skills to choose from here and they are the slowest to advance in in-game. You might only pick six of them too, which doesn’t make it easier. But here it’s essential that you have actively both used and learned this skill with your character. You don’t just pick it because “it’s useful and I have some CP left” but because it’s something you explicitly have learned and used. Any skill there which you haven’t actually included in when or why you’ve learned it will disappear without any hesitation from my side. Also know that your level will be included in my consideration, why this high? Just because you can have this high or because your character have had a reason to train this skill so fucking hard?
Techniques are not cheap. This is actually what makes my favoured speciality Tekkan so hard to make really good on all levels. You need to really balance yourself so you have precisely the skills you need as well as precisely the techniques you need and want. Some of the most awesome Techniques cost almost as much as a racial or even more which is pretty big choices to make. So have in mind to not pick any overflow skills which you won’t use with your character. Some skills are just enhancing skills which are made to compensate or to enhance your performance; you could always just do with the properties some times. A Tekkan is his techniques in most all cases so he’ll need them. If you want an agile warrior without techniques you could always pick Warrior instead. Much easier to make and adjust than Tekkan which is really hard to make.
Mages are also really hard to create of the same purpose. A magician without spells are like nothing, maybe an initiate mage but hey, they still need their skills. If you plan to play Harry Potter in the Magical Academy of Magicka, sure that will work. But if you plan to play outside after you’ve finished well… then you should have some spells dude. Spells are in average more expensive than techniques but in general they all cost at least 80 per spell, and that’s only level 1 spells1. If you plan for higher levels you should be prepared to pay 160, 360 or even 500 per spell… Mages are powerful and really expensive to make so you will have quite a hard time to make a mage that is powerful, but then again I will always assume that you will play the youngest and most inexperienced mages possible to begin with. And as I hinted above I have some campaigns based on Mages. These campaigns are based to campaigns I often played before in Nianze #.
Lore and Language… last but the most important. You always get the Civics from the country you grew up in even if you didn’t buy it. But if you were a traveller you shouldn’t have any Civics for free this though is connected to your concept (as the rest =P). You will almost always get one Knowledge from your speciality. Then depending on your age class you will get one to the most three specialities for free. The Lore you get for free is always a lore which is the cheapest of your lore’s but the maximum cost is 15 so Common Lore will always be there if you are older than a Child. You should though now that your knowledge’s are stuff you actually know and have learned about. This is not just something you’ve heard in a tavern this is something you KNOW! I mean if you hear Ankan speak about programming or if you have programmed one course in High School you do not have Programming as either skill or lore. It’s something that’s been added to your common lore and wits as well as your experience but nothing you actually have any real experience with. So never buy more lore than your characters actually have been able to attain.
This is a fantasy world, knowing other languages through speak might be possible if you are a cunning person and the language is of people you’ve seen and been acquainted with but then know that learning a language too differently from ones own and is not that usual. Go back about one and a half generation in OUR time and see how many languages your grandmas and their kin know. In this world you don’t even need to know more than at most two languages in most cases which I would say is about the same as me, not counting my fragmented Japanese. But then read and write… do not even think about it I want about five reasons to why you should be able to write and then I need to have five more. No, languages are not that widely spread in this world and considering how isolated the countries are from each other it’s even harder and less probable to have it if you aren’t a real, real geek in this world.
So with that said I expect to see shiny good characters which are well balanced but also mainly focused around the concept, not too much focus with the values and not too many spikes. Spikes are not good at all; you should rather make a point not to have spikes on put than to have spikes. Also remember that high numbers aren’t necessary in all cases and especially not in cases in which you could enhance it with skills and empathy through gaming instead. Much which you include in your description and your base will award itself in due time.
So about AFC, how is this group made? To be honest it’s actually a complete normal group in general. They have their own flaws but that’s only characteristics in a higher scale. They have their abnormalities and epic goals but still normal. You are all in a harsh country with your different reasons and goals but still manageable and still not too far from the template of the base concept.
I will keep as much as possible from you for as long as possible and even though your character most likely already experienced this already I only need to paint it up once or twice for the same but not the same effect. I.e. cities and how stuff looks. Half of the group will be similar with one area while the other half will be astonished. Actually it will be a new experience for all players but the difference is that some of you must act as if you know it as your own back yard, maybe since it IS your own back yard. This will be a challenge for you to do but it’s also an opportunity for you. You will not only be a stranger in a familiar place but also have some power to change and place and form stuff as you want it a little and I will help to elaborate. One example which Ankan will understand is how Kjell-Runo in the first session with the Outsiders decided that there was a well not too far from there where they would meet if they got separated. Places, people, and stuff which the detail is flexible you have a lot of power with on your own. I won’t explain this too much since this is a challenge for you players and will be rewarded and cost stones as you take charge and control your environments yourself =).
Then we have the player challenges, to act out and to try to see and experience world from a different direction. This mainly pointing at the Blind and the Deaf guys in the group which will actually be quite hard but hopefully fun for them. For Foppa and PB it will be a little bit different from the disabled players. Foppa will have a lot of his own character in his own hands which we all hope (most likely) that will go well so he won’t disappear from the group which will be tiresome and disappointing, from my point of view at least. And then we have the Demonic Lady. PB is once again challenging his abilities with a woman, this time he better get it right or he will be punished (as usual then you say =D). No I expect a good performance on this woman or many things will be altered later but that goes for all of you. Play your concept or you will be altered in some way later.
The Starting Session which I’ve discussed in another post is a session where we do what I don’t want to do on the first “real” session. I want you to introduce your characters in an orderly fashion and then just play out your characters side by side while doing something so you get the picture of all the players’ concepts more in detail. My idea were to have this as a non-counting session where you just try stuff and explore your possibilities and at the same time introduce elements which you all should know about each other. This is why I proposed a session which is not an actual event or the starting point from which we will continue. If we do that we will proceed with a duo-session where eventual changes are made and you then play an actual event together to test it again. If we play an actual event I might have a duo-session which takes place before the actual event with the group and then we start, but if we play at the starting point I will continue from there without any duo-sessions then.
Between the Arcs’s of the group there will be both single and duo-sessions. The single session will mostly evaluate your character and look on your performance as well as progress in the first arc while the duo-session will be an event you play in your past together. I also might have a scenario which you are to play alone.
And the group session is actually for all the description and elaboration of how and when stuff. And create a more general timeline for the group after the pre-timeline which we’ve already made. This is also to paint up some common stuff which you both have experienced and know about which I wish to give to you so far. Most likely the first session of the starting point will take place outside in the desert and not in a city or settlement. I wait the grand explanation of the cities and settlements later.
Well, well… that’s the most you get for AFC I think. Enjoy. This became a really long post it seems… 3190 words… not bad. And one song =).
Best regards,
Herid Fel
Mages have spells ranked from 1 to most 5, usually most spells only reach as far as 3 though and some only have ONE level. Well, I leave the rest of this for a group of mages in the future ↩
I will try to keep what you’ve said about character creating in mind for next time, although that will probably (and hopefully) be a long time from now.
I have encountered this “technique” in one other roleplaying game; World of darkness. I think they called it “proposals”. It let’s the players say something that would shape the world and if the storyteller agrees to it, it is just as the player described it.
I like this, and I think that it’s almost a necessity to be able to pretend to know a place well. Either that or constant questions, and as everyone knows I do like questions.
This starting session would probably be a good thing, but I feel that the same effect could be achieved by out-of-character dialogue between the players.
Hmm, I just had an idea. I think some results would be easier to get with a discussion. But maybe we could have a “hybrid” instead?
We all probably have obvious character traits which we would like the other players to have perceived and be familiar with. For example, Hibiki having to see the mouth of whoever is talking to him in order to know what they’re saying. This kind of thing is something we could either play out, or make sure that everyone is aware of before we start.
Some things might be considered important and/or complicated and therefore be necessary to have a “scene” for. For example, my character is sensitive about his blindness. As such he will likely react with hostility if someone acts in a derogatory manner about it. This could have a lot of consequences depending on the personalities of the characters.
This particular example might be easily settled through discussion though, but I assume you know what I’m getting at. The reason I think this would be a good idea is that it would let us dodge some group conflict by settling it beforehand. A fragment of “awkward phase”, if you will.
What do you think about this?
Since we are supposed to know eachother since before, such things we would need to make during a group discussion. Not ingame at the starting point atleast. The alternative is to play the first encounter as the first session, then duo-session and after that begin.
If we should play an actual event, but not the starting point it could actually be that first phase. But I don’t know about that.
I now think the best thing would be either to play a non-occuring event or play something that is not the starting point. This followed by the dual-sessions. The non-occuring might actually be good to allow changes, but it may also be interesting to get to know eachother while playing… So, with that logic I think the best thing would be to either play our first meeting, at which point we do not know eachother, or something unrelated. This way we will get to know eachother, either as a summary of the personality, or as the first meeting.
Since we wish to skip the awkward phase I think the non-occuring event might be for the better since that will be like a summary of our relations during the time together we do now play.
And about the initial post, some good points there. Some clearification on how characters should be created, but most of it I think i knew since before. But it was good to get it summarized like that.
I will try to think about what has been said on the subject of us knowing the surroundings…
Now, off to the outsiders.
I know this, and this differs from than technique quite a lot. But in general it’s the same. But questions are something which slows the game and if you can’t act on what you think you know then you will only be considered a slowpoke and will probably destroy the speed and tempo of the gameplay i.e. the session.
No. The Group Talk is meant to solve these questions and description both visually as well as how much the other know about the others persona and traits. All those details on the surface should be brought up. The group talk is about questions and such but you will NEVER have the same picture as reality just by hearing a description therfore we’ll need to play so the other can get a better picture with what they’ve heard in mind.
So no, if we play something we play something where your characters will have time and space to act and react in places and situations. So as I said, the discussions and explanation IS the group talk session.
You won’t play your first meeting. We won’t ever play your first meeting. It wouldn’t come down right and wouldn’t get the results I wanted so that’s out of the question.
Yes, as earlier stated, that was the point of it all. Mostly to raise some expectations and get the will to play these characters going as well as to test your characters.
Good, I hope that you will remember and if not, at least remember this post to go back to it and read it again when it’s time to create characters. I hope to se some progress in the future so I can be really proud over your character creations and not just question most of it and sigh deeply and then just say; “Well… mou ikka”. Unless it’s so bad so it makes me cry…
Well, well bear this in mind.
About character creation I only have some thoughts:
Seems like an good use of base points to have them represent the character as a kid, you both get a good picture of how he was at that time and how he as evolved, anyway I really like this part.
This was clarifying for me, about how a high property is mainly a representation of skill, and that an average property with higher potency and perhaps a race that excel in that property is more how naturally good one is in that property. I hadn’t made that connection before I think.
I don’t know if I agree with a nationality being just a bonus though, it seems to me that if you want to make a character that is typical for a particular country, it would possible fit more to choose to take the nationality. Well, just a somewhat vague impression I do not think I can make explicit.
If I can get into my character then the risk of me dissapearing is minimal. Perhaps I will need to work on accomplishing this but we will see.
Just reading it made me think that a non-actual event would be very good for getting into my character, it also seems like the best way to get acquinted with eachother which is something that is nice since our characters already know eachother somewhat.
You and your vague feelings, vague feelings without a proper reason is not easy to counter and therefore could mostly be considered useless.
One thing that I think you don’t seem to understand is that if you DO NOT pay for a nation while creating your character it doesn’t say that you aren’t from that country. It only states that you don’t have gained the bonus properties of that nation. You could without a problem be just the most sterotypical person in the whole country and still have the nationality of that nation. You only DO NOT pay for this country. That’s all and that’s all with rules nothing to do with your gameplay and in some sense, nothing to do with your character only with your limitations as player.
Somehow this argument reminds me of an early morning where you refused to see Tekkans, or Hireswords as they were called back then, as Monks but you needed to read the word MONK when you bought the class to consider it a monk…
Heh, well, well…
Just as a notice; I’ve updated the Group Page.