Simlasa

Something fun for Dragon Lines. I've only seen Master of the Flying Guillotine... didn't know there were others.

That makes me think of the end of Cemetary Man (which has a strange/silly/non sequitur ending. My past couple months have been confuzzled anyways... but all the game groups I'm in have been on hiatus or worse. So it will be good to get back to it.

Huge clockwork elephants with howdahs full of archers... maybe blowing something fun out its trunk (steam, poison gas, obscuring smoke). Colossal angel statues carrying lances that belch fire (operated by bellows in back). 4-faced heads on wheels with cannons in their mouths and archers shooting from out the eyes.

I'm wondering if a clockwork contraption could be set up to cast a spell of some sort. It's gears inscribed with symbols that pass over each other and line up in specific ways... conjugations of precious stones and other ingredients... maybe a little box to drop in a mouse to grease the wheels with blood. There was a large scale version of such a thing in the remake of 13 Ghosts (Thir13en Ghosts)... where the whole house was a mechanical marvel, glass panes inscribed with spells... and massive gearworks in the walls and under the floors. The idea of bringing mechanical precision to spellcasting, and allowing the spell to be cast at some later time by some unsuspecting interloper.

Blood Magic was originally supposed to have info on magical bloodlines... but IIRC those bits never made it into the book. Now I'm wondering what games DO have such information... about various inherited magical traits. Like something passed down in a family of necromancers... I'm sure I could cobble up something, but I'm looking for a bit of inspiration... from games or fiction. Any suggestions?

I'd either forgotten or missed that bit in 2nd. But I was agreeing with your opinion of them, and assumed they were a suggestion for OQ3. Since I wished for an option of digest sized (but largely unchanged) rules booklets, what about keeping the variant magic system(s) to separate booklets? Pick the one you like. I think I'm just really liking smaller, digest-sized, books these days. The whole OSR 'zine thing.

I'm not seeing an option that suits me... I do like smaller digest-sized books, and the idea of having a version of Openquest like that, B&W with some new art, is appealing. But I really don't see the need (or feel the desire) for an OQ3. More content for the existing game... adventures, settings with suitable rules variations... are more what I'm in the market for vs. yet another take on the core rules. Some of the suggested changes, such as reducing the magic systems or bonuses for 'good' role playing would lessen my interest.

I agree with Matt E regarding the time of year. Almost all the games I"m in have been on hiatus till January. The game club I run at school has had dwindling attendance as we hit the holidays.

No opinion about the doctor's skill advancement, but I did enjoy listening to you guys play. Sounds like a 'normal' group, fairly focused, not apeing for the camera.

I played in a game recently where our party was summoned (mid combat on the back of a dragon) by a wizard in need of aid. POOF! We were there in his citadel, fought off the monsters plaguing him, and before we could ask any questions POOF! We were back on the back of the dragon... so I suppose that means WE were the summoned monsters/demons in that scenario.

It depends on the setting. In my old homebrew game they're spirits of various sorts... as varied in temperment, intelligence and motivation as the people who summon them. Definitely not purely good or evil. In my 30's war campaign they were straight up Christian fantasy, red-skinned devils with horns, pitchforks and a complicated hierarchy. Either way, they're outsiders who don't quite belong in the world and cannot normally come across without aid of some sort. Not un-natural but other-natural... maybe?

Do other amazons show up in the Wonder Woman stories? I've never read any of the comics, or even watched the TV show.

I didn't know that Ring chose its owner. I should re-read those books someday... A similar idea that I've considered is armor/equipment that has spirits (rather than 'demons') occupying it... such as the spirit of an ancestor, who was an expert swordsman, in the hilt of a sword... guiding the hand of its user. Or something like having your sister's spirit in an amulet that can offer warning or advice. Kinda like the 40K Eldar and their spirit stones, meaning there are ghosts in all their machines.

That reminds me of Earthdawn's magic items, how you have to learn about the item, 'weave a thread' to it. I wonder if a piece of demon equipment might care who its owner is and perhaps find a way to get itself into the hands of a preferred owner.

Yeah, blood magic seems like a good fit for those sorts of evil sorcerers/necromancers... or even for 'good guys' who are really desperate. Legend has a (somewhat truncated) book on it.

I think it works for a certain flavor of magic... something magic is less casual and commonplace, probably more horrific than fanciful. I'd go with Nick's idea and make it an option, I like options.

That would negate the notion of a single necromancer raising an 'army' of the undead... well, unless they were using some sort of blood magic... or it's actually a form of summoning, housing demons in corpses.

On the subject of Druids, this blogpost has been one of my favorite bits of inspiration... though it makes them a lot less likely to work as NPCs: http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/09/7-myths-everyone-believes-about-druids.html

I guess I'm thinking 'creatures' in conjunction with specific settings and adventures. The WW games I've run have been inspired by Lamentations of the Flame Princess and its quasi-historical 1600's Europe... so there's lots of room for unique creations resulting from witchcraft and science gone wrong... with echoes of dark fairy tales at the edges. I'm also a fan of Fire on the Velvet Horizon... with its system-agnostic creatures that are adventures unto themselves. Things that are not there just to be lined up and hacked down. Maybe some specific/named Fey beings, and their schemes in the Southern Reaches? More clockwork wonders of the dwarves? Maybe fleshing out one of the suggestions in the 'Adventure Locales' section?

I bought a second copy of Magic World for similar reasons... keeping a spare copy, just in case. I don't feel any compunction to 'move on' when a game I like stops being supported by its publisher. Magic World sits in a really nice place for me, between Openquest and Mythras in complexity... and not tied to a specific setting... and I don't see anything coming along to replace it in the near future. Though if someone were to write up more creatures, spells or an adventure for it, that would be great. As it is, it's not too much trouble at all to pull in stuff from other D100 games... or even from entirely different systems.

I'm definitely buying this, and I'm cautiously hopeful that I'll like it. The posted sample characters seem reasonable. Often I'm put off by supers games that try too hard to emulate the comics medium... rather than pursuing a consistent RPG setting with super powers. I do like Superworld... and Godlike... which both did well with relatively 'street level' characters.

I like the name. Without reading more I picture something like the old Odd Rods collector cards. Monsters racing each other and getting in bar fights.

I've long favored giving XP checks for fumbled skill use as well. Like Yoda says, "The greatest teacher, failure is."

and... I only just now got the pun in the topic... doh! I'm definitely looking forward to this. Not that I can predict I'd ever play it as-is, but it's sure to be chock full of inspiration for areas where the familiar rubs elbows with the strange and 'exotic'.

Cool! I was hoping there'd be a new scenario this month and that it would be kindasorta horror-related.