Mass Effect to Mage Effect

by PK Posted on October 10, 2011

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To change Mass Effect into a fantasy setting, which I’ve taken to calling “Mage Effect,” I needed to take a look at the big picture first. I said in my first post that the setting holds up remarkably well. The politics and cultures are all believable – just as believable as fantasy races as space opera species. The big nuts to crack dealt with the technology of the setting, which I discuss here below. I also get into the Reapers, as they are more of a piece of the setting and a force of nature than a race or culture.

Mass Relays

The first order of business was to decide how the mass relays from the games translated into a fantasy setting. Mass relays are enormous space stations that allow point-to-point faster-than-light travel. A ship traveling through space can interface with a mass relay and, in a flash of lightning, jumps across the galaxy in a matter of minutes or hours. When the ship reaches the mass relay at the other end of the jump, the destination relay pulls the ship out of faster-than-light speeds and back into real-space/time. How can this possibly translate to a fantasy game without getting into Spelljammer? Continue reading →

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Mass Effect as a Fantasy Setting

by PK Posted on October 9, 2011

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Mass Effect is easily one of my favorite game series. The story is engaging, the dialogue is well-written and the choices you are given have the illusion of meaning. The best part about the series is the setting. It’s rich, vibrant and gives you the feeling that it could actually exist. Alien species don’t all get along, there are wars and political confrontations. Grudges are held. Yet each species has a unique history that is interesting and helps improve the setting as a whole. It would be a great setting for a role playing game.

The problem is, I’ve never had any luck getting players to invest in a science fiction or space opera game. I ran a short Star Wars campaign while I was in college that went pretty well but Star Wars is still just fantasy. It just happens to be in space. How could Mass Effect be made into something my players would be interested in?

I struck on the idea of turn the setting on its head and making it a medieval fantasy setting. There’s nothing inherently science fiction about the setting, aside from the fact it’s set in space. One of the character options is the ability to use biotics, essentially a form of magic. The title of the series, Mass Effect, refers to a supertechnology that may as well be magic for all of the things it enables – faster-than-light travel, shields, biotics, hovercraft, and more.

What if we simply turned the game into a fantasy world? The politics hold up remarkably well because they deal with ideologies. The prime conceit of the game, that humanity is a newcomer to a larger community, also transitions nicely. The next few articles will cover the various aspects of the conversion and how I went about solving the few small issues I ran into.

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I think it’s ok to cheat this time…

by PK Posted on November 16, 2010

I hate cheating. I really, really do. it says something about the lack of character and moral fortitude for someone to resort to cheating. This mostly applies within the context of academia – people who obtain degrees (and subsequently jobs) through dishonest means really upset me. That’s another post for another blog, though.
What I’m talking about today is cheating in videogames. It’s not something I normally do. Historically I have avoided it because to cheat on most PC games requires altering some state of the program’s code. That is simply not something I’m comfortable doing. If I break something, I do not know how to fix it. That would be bad.

However, I’ve been playing Mass Effect again. It’s a game I’ve beaten multiple times before. Once doing goodie-two-shoes stuff, once being a racist, jingoistic space Republican and a third time to actually make the story choices I wanted to see in the game. Here’s the problem: that was on the 360. I have Mass Effect 2 on the PC. Luckily, there’s a repository of PC save files from Mass Effect up at the appropriately named MassEffectSaves.com. I found one that was reasonably close to what I had done in my “official” third play through and imported it into the sequel. It wasn’t exact, but it was close enough.

Enter my neuroses – I want to have my Mass Effect trilogy be a reflection of my choices. I also have to replay ME2 anyway (had a huge crash of my gaming PC and lost my saves) so I figured why not burn through a run of Mass Effect beforehand?

Well, there’s a problem with that. In order to make the choices I want, I have to have ridiculously high paragon and renegade scores to unlock charm and intimidate. This would involve multiple playthroughs and that’s just not cool. I don’t want to have to play through the game three more times just to have my choices be reflected in the sequels. I’ve already seen the story three times in full and numerous partial playthroughs. In order to facilitate my playthrough I did a bit of research and found that there’s a command line interface left over in the PC version, presumably from the QA phase. I used it to unlock the achievements I had obtained in my 360 playthroughs and then maxed out charm and intimidate with a bunch of bonus skill points to max them out. Since then I’ve been running amok through the galaxy on insanity difficulty. When a fight gets frustratingly hard (as in I fail the mission five or more times), I pop open the command line and give myself the QA Super Gun to eliminate the opposition quickly. My goal is to run through the relevant missions so that decisions carry forward into ME2 and I complete all of the missions from the squad members. Before the last battle I plan on bumping my level to max, just for the extra perks in ME2.

Here’s the thing, though. Unlike nearly all of the stories I’ve heard of people cheating at videogames have been focused on breaking the game or gaining an advantage over other players. I’m cheating because I want to see a particular story and I don’t want to have to go through ninety hours of game play to get it. It is the biggest point of frustration with me about Mass Effect that I cannot play the game the way I want to when I first sit down with it. I cannot be as persuasive as I ultimately want my character to be without playing the game multiple times or by playing the extremes. “My” version of the Mass Effect stories paints Shepard as a complex person, not a complete goody goody or a heartless bastard. He’s somewhere in the middle. But as a survivor of a batarian attack, he tends to lose his temper when they are involved. He’s got a soft spot for helpless people but soldiers ought to know better and get dressed down when they aren’t living up to standards. My Shepard is somewhere in the middle between paragon and renegade but he has a force of personality that is undeniable. Mass Effect 2 let me play that character immediately, no hoops involved.

Maybe cheating isn’t always bad…

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Thoughts on Heroic Fiction

by PK Posted on November 2, 2010

Played a game tonight over at Chicagoland Games. It’s one that Ron Edwards is working on, and since I don’t know what is public knowledge, I won’t say too much other than it was a lot of fun and it was the first role playing game I’ve experienced that uses cards rather than dice.

It did also bring into focus some things I had been pondering over the last week. I enjoy heroic fiction. Stories that interest me tend to have a protagonist that is doing some sort of great deed that typically involves violence. Exceptions to both do occur but there is a definite trend within my interests.

Extending this into role playing games, I am starting to understand why I really enjoy games like D&D, Star Wars and Serenity. There is a visceral excitement to portraying a character who is action oriented and fighting for a cause. The traditional method of doing this in a game was to make a character, kill a bunch of goblins and save the townsfolk. That can be a lot of fun if played at the right time and in the right place.

Does a story need to follow a hero in order to tell heroic fiction? Rather, does a player need to get in the head of a hero to tell a heroic fiction?

I’ve often seen the Doctor Who RPG and shaken my head at it because the only character sheet I’ve ever seen for the game is for The Doctor and that seems wrong to me on two levels. First, The Doctor is obviously more intelligent, wiser, and plain better than all of his companions and this creates a power differential between players. [Caveat: I haven’t read the rules or played the game, so I don’t know how or if this is addressed in the design.] Secondly, the best Doctor Who stories are the ones that explore the effect that The Doctor has on other people. His actions are important, yes, but they are important in the way that a hurricane is important to Florida.

If I were to design a Doctor Who RPG, players would control people that The Doctor encounters – either companions or the denizens of the week. The Doctor would be a narrative device, his actions either prompting or reacting to some disaster. I think this set up could make for a really interesting game that lets people tell heroic fiction. Of course, this isn’t limited to Doctor Who. One could easily imagine a game the explores the common folk’s brush with greatness in which the hero is a wizard or some other great and powerful being. Narrative control would bounce between players such that they describe the transformative experience of encountering the hero. Anyway, seems like a neat game concept to ponder.

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Getting my (independent) groove back

by PK Posted on October 26, 2010

I just got back from playing a game of Bliss Stage with Ron Edwards at Chicagoland Games. It was amazing. D&D is great for what it is, but it doesn’t scratch every itch I have. This was the first time I’ve played something that wasn’t D&D in about five years. The game itself is bizarre on the premise but playing it really drove home some emotional content. If a role playing game is best described as an experience, Bliss Stage is undeniably a game.

The game starts off on rocky territory for your comfort level and quickly takes a dive right off a cliff. In our several hours of play tonight, I created a character who is a 17 year old veteran of this war with aliens who knows he will die soon – either by blissing out or finally killed by the horrible beings from beyond our dimension. The template sheet I grabbed at random was that of the Seasoned Veteran. Other players chose the Pleasure Seeking Hedonist, the Eager Young Pilot and the Sweetheart Pilot. Our one surviving adult was a quack of an archaeology professor who is convinced that Mayan ruins can save humanity. We established a few other characters – Christy, who is in charge of finding water for the group; Gus, three year-old boy and Amira, Gus’ mother and “anchor” for most of the players.

As a group we established some facts about the setting: it’s set at Loyola, we send people to get water from the lake, food is scarce so people are constantly scavenging and there are enormous flocks of countless feral seagulls that make the lakefront hazardous. From there we chose three hopes for our game: 1) we hope we defeat the aliens; 2) we hope to raise a new generation; 3) we hope to find out something about the sleeping sickness. Our second hope was personified by Gus, the three year-old boy. Bear in mind that the game takes place seven years after all of the adults fall into a sleep and never wake up. I was playing the seasoned veteran that was described as the oldest character so my thoughts immediately went to the idea that Gus is my son; I chose the oldest female character, Amira, as the mother even though my character did not trust her. This really set the tone for the game.

Apparently each game kicks off with an alien attack/combat mission. We took turns narrating the combats we were having, which was interesting because narrative control is handed around the table. For that reason, I think this game is best played with 2-3 players and a GM. Anyway, during my scene, Ron (the GM) described the monsters as talking about Gus, how they were coming for him, how he was next. This just pissed off my character. I succeeded in my mission and immediately fled to see if Gus was ok.

After all the combats, we had some of the interludes, which is where the real meat of the game happens. Combat really serves no purpose except to mess with relationships so that the interludes are interesting and can drive forward the story. During my interlude, Ron chose Gus as the other character and handed control of Gus over to another player. We role played out a scene where I went to the nursery area where he spends his days. I really tried to play it as a very natural, normal sort of father/son relationship which is incredibly disturbing in this game. 1) My character is 17. 2) It’s a post-apocalyptic warzone inhabited almost exclusively by children under 18. 3) We had established that I do not have a good relationship with Gus’ mother. All in all, I talked to Gus about building a castle with blocks and then walked with him over to the wall where the children have hung their drawings over the years. After helping him write his name on the drawing of me he had made, we posted it front and center and went to dinner.

It’s rare that fiction makes me emotional to the point where I have physical discomfort, but after that interlude with Gus I got a headache that only comes about because of strong emotion. Powerful stuff.

Couple of things about the game:
First, it’s not for everyone. There are teenagers, sex, and violence inherent in the game. Not everyone is mature enough to handle it and, even for those who are, it’s not the type of game that has a necessarily wide appeal. That said, the way the game deals with relationships is remarkably compelling and really drives forward the narrative. The biggest part of character creation is assigning attributes to relationships with other characters; my character was unique in that after we had done that, I immediately destroyed two relationships utterly.
Secondly, the dice mechanic is really, really great. It uses Fudge dice and you roll a handful each time in combat. You then have to apply each individual die result (-1, 0, +1) to various goals and relationships in the mission. A negative is usually bad, a blank is usually only mildly bad and a positive is usually status quo. How well you roll, what your character motivations are and what you are willing to sacrifice really shape the way the fiction plays out as you explore the characters.

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Slogging Along

by PK Posted on October 14, 2010

Even though the last post covered the possibility of switching game systems, I find myself more intrigued by the ideas I have for a 4E supers game. I’ve been putting a lot of time into one of the other defender classes, one I hadn’t really touched before last week. Part of this is certainly a result of greater familiarity – 4th Edition D&D has been my primary game for the last two years, there are several dozen books on the subject in my library and my experience with it is fairly significant as both a player and a dungeon master. FATE, on the other hand, is almost entirely new to me. I have yet to actually play a game using the system despite owning three games in the system and a printed copy of FUDGE (circa ’92).
More than that, I find that working within a more concrete system gives my creativity a greater focus. The brilliancy of FATE is also its greatest weakness. The players must be very creative and the GM very loose in order to have a good game. D&D has long been the gateway drug into role playing games and part of this is because the system gives people restrictions that act as guidance. That the structure of 4E has a similar effect upon my initial forays into game design isn’t that surprising, I suppose. My players have been working with me since shortly after our campaign began to create their own magic items and powers.
The class I’m working on is something kind of radical. It’s a defender class that doesn’t mark enemies. As a class concept, it was one of the earliest to solidify within my head two years ago but the details hadn’t really been hashed out until now.
Work on the Beast progresses, as well. I’ve fleshed out the class abilities for it a little more and I keep waffling on one major point: should the Beast have the ability to grow larger? There is certainly a precedent for it in the source material; The Incredible Hulk is the best example and one of the primary inspirations for this class. Were I to stat him out, Giant Man would likely be cast as a Beast. He simply doesn’t fight intelligently. Hank Pym may be a genius, but he’s something of a retard in combat. The only thing Giant Man had going for him was that he was bigger than everyone else. Details will follow once I’m actually happy with the writeup.
Anyway, once I have the class features set for this second defender, I’ll move on and write up the third (and final!) defender before diving into another party role. Don’t worry, this last defender is much more traditional than the Beast and the one I’m working on now. As far as next steps are concerned, there are four strikers and their source material inspirations are all pretty well defined, so that’s probably a good place to start.

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Thinking about changing scope (and systems)

by PK Posted on October 7, 2010

I love the idea of a supers game built on the 4E engine, it really lets players simulate exciting battles and gives all of the players a goodly variety of powers from which to choose. The downside, of course, is the sheer volume of the game. I’ve already posted about how large the book will be at the end. It’s a daunting prospect and one I do hope to complete at some point.

Thinking about comics, the way they are written, and the way the heroes and villains behave, I think a more descriptive, less rules-intensive system could be better. Granted, I’ve been reading a lot of FATE lately, but I’m thinking my first game design effort may be based on the FATE system rather than the 4E engine. The benefits of FATE lie in the fact that the description of a character becomes the driving force for the mechanics of the character. It’s sort of the opposite of D&D. FATE has a very generic set of rules that allow you to tag certain portions, called aspects, of a character for a generic +2 or a re-roll. Aspects are not defined by the game, they are created by the player and are meant to be descriptive of a character’s personality and intrinsic qualities. The traditional D&D system uses a lot of very firmly established, concrete modifiers that can then be used to describe your character.

The Jank Cast mentioned that high powered, cosmic superhero stories are really just morality plays. These stories are modern myths that describe a grander truth about the universe. Heroes with that much power are godlike and their battles have more to do with philosophical choices than beating some dude to a pulp. My immediate thought was, “FATE vs. D&D.” Grand, epic battles with complex maneuvers that are drawn out, tactical conflicts can be fun and there should be a game that does this well. On the other hand, getting that game to also handle the morality play aspect of cosmic heroes will require a fine touch. As a first endeavor, it may be too difficult for me to tackle. Cutting my teeth on a different game could be fun. I haven’t made a final decision yet, but I’ve started brainstorming for a FATE system of superheroes. It’s OGL, simpler and there are a number of games out there that I can draw on for mechanics help.

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Ambitions – They can get the better of you

by PK Posted on September 28, 2010

I’ve been working solidly on the super hero RPG I wrote about two weeks ago. The big breakthrough was that I hit a point in the design of the overall system where characters can be massively flexible within the framework of my chosen system of 4th Edition D&D. Flexibility is good, especially with a superheroes game. It allows characters to choose what their powers look like while giving them the freedom of fulfilling any role in the game. Additionally, classes are not bound to power sources as they are in D&D. That works with D&D, it helps define a class in a way that is meaningful. Super heroes are a little more open ended than that and it felt artificial and restrictive when power sources were linked to classes.
The downside to flexibility is the sheer amount of content that will need to be produced for my game. After crunching some numbers, I realized that this game will have roughly the same amount of content as 23.5 fully prepped classes in D&D. At present, I have 12 classes, 35 power frameworks and 4 power sources. These all fit together into a system that is actually easy to work and provides options in a very organic way. On the other hand, it means that i have to plan out nearly 200 pages worth of paragon paths on top of all the powers.
Yowza. I have my work cut out for me, don’t I?

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My new superheroes game

by PK Posted on September 14, 2010

For quite a while now I’ve been interested in writing my own games. I think anyone who is a dungeon master dreams of one day writing a complete game. Back in college, I helped play test a great game called Beyond Mere Mortals. It was a superheroes game based on the d20 rules set. It was a ton of fun to play, though the system had its flaws. Largely, I think the base d20 system is to blame for that but that’s another rant entirely.

When I first sat down to read my new 4th Edition Players Handbook two years ago, I was struck immediately by how well the system would lend itself to the creation of a superheroes game. I began writing up classes, powers and design manifestos for such a game. I pulled in some friends and we worked on it for about nine months. Then life happened, I hit a creative road block and my 4th Edition supers game fell to the wayside.

No longer, I say! I have delved back into my design manifestos after a year and a half and am revising them, changing mechanics and working on the game again. Part of this was inspired by the release of Players Handbook 3 and D&D Essentials. Seeing the different approaches to classes has helped release that creative roadblock and spurred me on to look at the way powers work in my game.

As it stands now, the game features twelve classes covering the various archetypes of superheroes games. The framework of class roles really helps clarify the various archetypes compared to previous versions of the d20 system. My current plan is to also populate the world with an implied setting that is neither DC nor Marvel but with elements of each. Various unique races will be in the book representing alien species and varieties of metahumans. The power sources are: biological, martial, mystical and technological. I chose mystical as a catch all for divine and arcane characters, since that is really more representative of the source material. It’s arguable that Thor and Doctor Strange have the same power source, if you need to frame it within a game construct.

I’d like to share the blurb for one of the classes. This one is my favorite so far. It’s a defender, which tends to be my favorite role in 4E and the flavor is really fun. The class is all about controlling the field of battle around him in the way that most inconveniences the enemy. Like the barbarian, he can be played without a lot of tactical pauses, this is the character who doesn’t want to talk to the villain but smash in his face. He’s big, he’s bad, he is…

The Beast

The Beast is an untamed force, wildly destructive and very dangerous to his foes. In battle he uses his immense strength and greater size to fling his opponents across the field or alter the terrain to hinder enemies. The Beast is not particularly concerned with defense and will require support from other team members. As the biggest and most prominent member of a super team, opponents will often mob The Beast.

Regardless of your origin something primal has been unlocked within you, the Beast lurks just beneath the surface, waiting to come out. You could be a rational scientist with a dark side, a sorcerer who is chained to a being of hate and malice, a bullied child with power waiting to be released or you may be huge and monstrous at all times but only truly terrifying when you’re angry. When this beast is released, people get out of your way. Obstacles pose no challenge as you tear through walls and destroy anything in your path. Your footsteps carry enough force to crack concrete and when you put your mind to it, you can really cause some destruction. Enemies have a difficult time keeping their feet near you and the force of your blows will send them hurling through the air or lamp posts.

Your destiny is your own, when faced with the choice, how will you direct the beast within?

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Lego D&D should happen

by PK Posted on September 9, 2010

I was checking twitter the other day and came across a series of tweets from a guy I know through Chicago Nerds about a game he was playing called Brickquest. The photos were all really interesting and I assumed it was a real Lego game like Lava Dragon or Creationary. Turns out it’s actually something someone put together on the internets. You can go download the rules.

This got me thinking, though. The Lego video games have all been great. Lego Star Wars was a lot of fun and I eventually hit 100% completion on it. This past weekend I reached 75% completion of Lego Batman, mostly because it seems to be much less of a grind than Lego Star Wars. Friends swear by Lego Indiana Jones and isn’t there a Lego Harry Potter? There should be a Lego D&D game. It has the potential to be a really great game and I think Traveller’s Tales could do a fantastic job with it.

It’s got massive potential for environments, interesting play mechanics, fun monsters, wacky puzzles and a ton of humor.

Last night I wrote up a brief outline of my initial thoughts. Races haven’t been worked out yet but it is a mechanic I’d like to be in the game. Each one would give a special ability, with the human special ability being multiclassing. The character creator would, therefore, be a bit more in-depth than the normal Lego game. I would love to be able to implement experience points and levels. Perhaps a new game mode called Quest or Campaign mode would be needed to do that where you create a party of four characters that go through a series of adventures together, growing more powerful with levels and equipment before fighting a Big Bad.

Below is my brief outline/pro postal It’s written assuming the reader is familiar with both D&D and the Lego games. Sorry about that if you aren’t.

Lego D&D: The Videogame

Each minifig would represent a class from the traditional D&D game. The classes would have unique abilities that allow them to solve a variety of puzzles and overcome the environmental challenges. The enemies of the game would also run the gamut of traditional D&D tropes from goblins, to evil humans, orcs, dragons, beholders, skeletons and perhaps even a lich. The story would follow a group of adventurers who are swept into a grand adventure filled with danger, intrigue and lots and lots of loot. While their beginnings are humble, they eventually become mighty heroes and exemplars of all that is good.

Classes:
Barbarian: Rage to ignore damage for a brief time but winded afterward. Strong. Axe.
Bard: Sing a lullaby that puts enemies to sleep. Rapier.
Cleric: Holy. Special area attack. [Heals?] Symbol
Druid: Transforms into various animals, allowing access to new areas. Scimitar.
Fighter: Picks up/ uses other weapons for greater reach or damage. Strong. Varies.
Monk: Double jumps. Very fast attack speed. Unarmed.
Necromancer: Magic. Animates skeletons. Staff.
Paladin: Holy. Has a shield that can block attacks. Sword.
Psion: [Magic?]. Strong. Can push enemies like Jedi jump attack. Orb.
Ranger: Has special bounty missions to hunt monsters. Bow.
Rogue: Unlocks doors. Hides in shadows. [Poisoned?] Dagger.
Shaman: Directs animal followers to perform group tasks. Spear.
Sorcerer: Magic. Casts a lightning spell that can power arcane devices. Wand.
Warlord: Directs followers to perform group tasks. Mace.
Warlock: Magic. Teleports. Dagger.
Wizard: Magic. Fireball spell that can break objects. Staff.

Enemies:
Below are listed types of enemies, not a complete list of all the available enemies. There should be variety for each category listed below, with cosmetic and possible mechanic differences. Possibility of an evil version of each class is noted but not listed below. Barbarians are included here less as an indication that the class has an evil version but more a descriptive term for uncivilized humans that are not merely humanoids. The game should ultimately have enough variety in enemies that the players don’t feel like the game was directed at any one particular group.

Evil Human: Tough. Knights/paladins/fighters in black armor.
Barbarians: Wild, uncivilized brutes clad in furs carrying axes and clubs
Cultists: Robe-wearing demon worshippers
Goblin: Small. Green with an evil grin. Possibly only wearing loincloth.
Orc: Tough. Strong. Should be portrayed as comically stupid.
Kobold: Small. Throw spears/shoot bows. Very quick
Tiefling: A stereotypical megalomaniac. Will be humorous for his monologue.
Elemental: Appropriate effect (fire, ice, earth, air). Possible with Legos?
Archon: Tough. Humanoid elementals. Work for giants.
Dragon(s?): Campaign 2 BOSSES. Large. Breath weapon, flies, exotic location(s).
Beholder: Campaign 1 BOSS. Engages multiple characters at once, fought with environment
Bulette: Large. Charges characters, burrows
Skeleton: Slow and easy to kill.
Zombie: Slows characters on a hit.
Wild Animals: Large variety. [Will not attack druid in animal form?]
Gelatinous Cube: Mini-boss. Envelopes characters.
Giant Spider: Jumps far distances. Has a web that entangles characters.
Giant: BOSS. Large. Hurls boulders, wields club.
Drake: Large. Knockback
Lich: Campaign 3 BOSS.
Mindflayer:
Drow:
Displacer Beast:

“Vehicles”:
Dragon(s?): Shoot breath weapons.
Griffon:
Hippogriff:
Manticore:
Pegasus:
Dire Wolf:
Drake: Land-bound giant lizard.
Whale/Dolphin:

Keywords:
Heavy: Objects not movable by most characters. Indicated by some sort of handle?
Holy: Able to interact with divine temples and altars. Indicated by shining light from the heavens.
Magic: Works like the Force in Lego Star Wars. Manipulate objects that are either far away or only magically active. Indicated by sparkling field.
Strong: Can lift/manipulate heavy objects.
Tough: Takes more hits to kill than a normal monster.
Transform: At certain locations, druids can turn into a particular animal that has some special quality (size, super jump, flight, swim, etc). This is indicated by a booth(?) with an animal symbol.

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