Ian Absentia

Recently on another discussion forum, someone posed the question, “What games missed the mark?” Games that had such great promise, but never managed to deliver. My vote, with much regret was for one of my favorites, Chaosium’s Nephilim. For those of you not familiar with it, Nephilim was a game of modern-day occult, originally produced by a French publisher, based on the Basic Roleplaying system, and then translated into English for Chaosium. It was grand, really, but it had some problems. Like I mentioned in the other discussion, your character is a magical spirit...that is housed in an ancient artifact...that reincarnates in unsuspecting hosts through human history...and will take on the mantle of a mythological creature...and is chased by the Knights Templar...and casts magic affected by the magical astrological fields…and...frankly, it was a bit of a muddle. That discussion, and many others like it that have occurred over the years, got me to thinking about what I’d do to work my way through that muddle. There’s a good game in there somewhere, but you have to carve away some of the fat to make sense of it. The real inspiration for me came from an unexpected source. My son’s new favorite Saturday morning cartoon is something called Huntik, a show that combines card-styled gladiatorial combat with magically-adept people roving the world in search of ancient occult secrets, chased by the shadowy and malign Organisation. It’s pretty goofy at times, but it’s…it’s Nephilim pared down to its essential elements. So that got me to thinking, using Huntik as a model, how could I change Nephilim? What would I gut from it in order to make the game work. I’m not done yet, but I think I’m closing in on a workable, playable variant on the game that keeps as much of the original as possible. First up, in defiance of much popular wisdom, and probably of most interest to this forum, I’m keeping the BRP system as both the framework upon which to build, and the main body from which to pick and choose. It’s a fine, robust system with many resources available to mine. Also, the mechanics that appeared in the various supplements for the game would continue to be usable, though I’ve decided to keep the focus narrowed to the original book. With the skeleton in place, I needed to decide what parts of the corpse to cut away. Here’s where I started: First to go, the Simulacrum. I’d gone back and forth with others over this, always with the idea that the split nature of the Nephilim was essential to the game, but…no. I’ve finally come around to simplifying this bit. In it’s place, I’ve adopted the notion that a Nephilim is created under highly unusual circumstances when the birth of a child, housing a new coalescence of Solar Ka, coincides in time and place with a Grand Enthronement of one of the five Ka elements. At the moment the child is infused with Solar Ka, it is simultaneously infused with the other five Ka elements, dominated by one of them. The child matures over time, visibly a normal human, but possessing an expanded – not dual – nature. Second to go is the name. Why “Nephilim”? Maybe they’ve been called that in times past, but it’s not essential to this game now. I still haven’t thought of a new name for whatever kind of being this is, but I’m sure something will occur. For the sake clarity, though, I’ll continue to refer to it as a “Nephilim”. Next to go are Past Lives. As wonderful as they are, they complicate things immensely without necessarily providing significant benefit. Is this a game about magical beings or reincarnation? I think we need one or the other and not both – I chose the focus on the magical being. The being is born but once and makes the most of what it can within one lifetime. Last to go is the Stasis object. Without the reincarnation of the Nephilim soul, there’s no need for an object to house it. That’s not to say that the Nephilim won’t manufacture some kind of arcane device to serve a mechanical purpose similar to that as currently used in the game – storing Ka energy for use in spellcasting. So, with all that gone, what remains? First, the basic Ka elements. As stated above, the Nephilim is comprised if a union of Solar Ka with the other five Ka elements. The game is no longer about the ascendancy of the Dominant Ka, though; it has become a game about the complete union of the intellect (the Solar Ka) with the spiritual (the five Ka elements) – the Alchemical Marriage. Also still on the books is the Metamorphosis, but in a much-changed state. The Metamorphosis is no longer a representation of the perfected Dominant Ka; it is a manifestation of unbridled magical nature. Essentially, it has become equated with Khaiba – the Nephilim loses its human form as it loses control of its magical nature, taking on a magically monstrous form according to the existing Khaiba rules. I’ve decided to keep the magic from the original rules book as well. Yes, yes, it’s all a little flash-bang, but, frankly, I rather enjoy it; it makes for a viscerally exciting game. And, of course, since the fundamental mechanics of the game remain the same, other magic rules can be substituted with ease. The last basic concept I’ve decided to keep the Arcana structure. They aren’t families anymore, but rather a number of loosely affiliated (and often opposed) secret societies, ostensibly set up long ago by Akhenaton thousands of years ago. I’m also keeping the Knights Templar as the primary bad guys. In fact, there’s no reason to eliminate any of the backstory or secret societies of the original game, it simply needs to be reinterpreted in light of the new scheme for the game. So, with all this in place now, I effectively have a Huntik: the Roleplaying Game on my hands. Is this a good thing, though? Well, my 9-year-old son, a fan of bog-standard fantasy RPGs, saw what I was working on and his immediate question was, “Can I help you playtest this game? I have bunch of friends who’d want to play it.” So maybe I am onto something. Next in an up-coming post are the functional changes to the mechanics. !i!

Nah, that's okay. I should have read the thread about the Superobots myself. In any case, modeling mechas as super-sized characters isn't too difficult, and there are some great ideas in the other thread. !i!

I was working on just such a thing a while back, and what I decided on was really very simple: Stat the mecha out as a 2nd character on an enormous scale. Assuming that the mecha is generally humanoid in outward morphology, it is defined simply by a STR, CON, and SIZ stat that are unique to its particular model, and a DEX modifier that works in conjunction with the operator's DEX; INT, EDU, CHA, and whatever all remain the same as the operator. Armor could be applied to individual hit locations as specified by the particular model. I was wrestling a bit over whether or not a mecha should have a POW stat, and if CON+POW or somesuch combination should provide the energy necessary for supercool guns, heroic leaps, and flight, and such. By the way, the original concept that I was working from, à la Evangelion, was that the mecha was essentially a containment suit for a shoggoth, and that the operator was necessary to control it psychically (to the eventual detriment of the operator, of course). !i!

Aside from the brief write-up in Anaxial's Roster (for Hero Wars), no, I don't believe so. I'd be interested if they have been treated more extensively. !i!

Because if the front door's too much trouble, there's always the backdoor. !i!

The "takeout effect" is the key. Simpler mimics, like the Taskmaster or even the Super Skrull -- characters designed to fight the heroes to a standstill -- are usually more affordable. And more interesting, for that matter. !i!

I recall trying to write up Rogue using the SuperWorld rules -- using the combined powers Mimic and Reduction made her character prohibitively expensive (even moreso if you compounded this with the permanent powers of Ms. Marvel). Siphon was a bit better, but, again, it usually proved too expensive if you were trying to siphon off all of another character's powers. !i!

This is a Resistance roll of Stamina vs. Potency, yes? Rust's suggestion of treating the character as stunned is spot on. !i!

Another version of this was seen in Wyrm's Footprints #14 (and Thieves' World, if I recall correctly). In addition to the polar opposites at either end of the spectrum, there was a rating in the middle that represented mastery over the emotional conflict between the two, and the ability to consciously choose your action over your passionate instinct. !i!

In my opinion, no. The trick to fencing in En Garde is really a matter of strategy and resource allocation -- there's no room for the die-rolled resolution of BRP (or most any other RPG for that matter). I've tinkered with the idea myself before, but never came up with anything satisfactory that worked better, or even as well, as the system contained in En Garde itself. Now, what you could do, is graft BRP onto En Garde to handle skills other than fencing, but once you have a look at games like Vatican En Garde, you'll see that EG can handle social skills neatly, too. If you're really in a mood to swashbuckle with BRP, I'd strongly suggest digging up a copy of GURPS: Swashbucklers and adapting Stephen O'Sullivan's tasty fencing schools to d100. !i!

I'm a little surprised to find that no one has mentioned the psionics from Ringworld. I don't recall them particularly clearly at the moment, but they were far more subtle than the flash-bang style of psychic powers one might otherwise expect. I'll have to dig those out and have another look at them. Did any of the Ringworld material make the collected and concatenated BRP? !i!

A few years back (three, four?), Charlie Krank was apparently amenable to a monograph version of an updated edition. Times change, though, for whatever reasons. Maybe what some enterprising soul needs to do is simply buy up all the warehoused stock of Nephilim, freeing up Chaosium's need to recoup their investment. Then, as a guerilla marketing scheme, said person could stage a public book-burning to stir up interest in a renewed edition. !i!

And in that regard, it's kind of neat for a fantasy campaign, especially if you're looking for an elementally-oriented system of magic that takes astrological influences into account. It's a pretty "flash-bang" sort of magic, and will require specialist skills in order for player characters to cast the spells. I don't think it should take too much finesse to get it to work. !i!