Alex Greene

5 minutes ago, Prinz Slasar said:

Good question and off the cuff:

A little bestiary for wondrous creatures in and around Fioracitta.

More Infos (or secrets) about Lake Lascha and/or Lake Ippalia. The supplement gives some teasers.

Maybe some NPCs regarding the mentioned important organizations.

Further secrets of Fioracitta (e.g. sinister ones, about the old cults, the underground levels of the city...)

Additional magic items or wondrous things similar to the great ones we already have in the supplement.

Give us more about this awesome city.

 

Lake Ippalia does have many secrets. is it truly the birthplace of the Longane? The Otter People will aver to that with their last breath. Lake Lascha, too, has her secrets. Both those lakes are connected by the Longane, so they could go together.

The characters could be faced with an adventure which requires them to wander. Where will they go?

There is a whole underground down below the streets. Hidden temples, sewers, aqueducts, cellars full of conspirators, hidden and secret tunnels, and tombs. There are a few above-ground abandoned places, too. Delving into those means delving into the history of the city.

As for the magic items and wondrous things, that would have to tie in with the book, to show their histories, their impact on culture and economics, and so on. They'd not just be there for the sake of it - anyone can do something like put a permanent Bladesharp on a sword. But a sword owned by a historical character, which seems to have a shady curse, is another thing altogether.

I'm sure that if there is a high enough demand for expansions, I can talk to Loz about opening a line of short modules and adventures.

22 minutes ago, Prinz Slasar said:

Any plans for additional Fioracitta material besides the upcoming scenario?

That would be interesting to do. What would you like?

I'm going to be popping in and out of here all weekend.

10 minutes ago, rsanford said:

A book just isn’t complete unless it includes the description of a brothel.

You've got one. But in the adventure, you'll get the chance to visit.

Google has been a boon to me during the writing of this book.

Quite out of sheer laziness, while looking for the floor plans of a famous house of ill repute in Fioracitta, I googled "Italian mediaeval brothel floor plan" for inspiration.

Pages and pages of source material later ...

I didn't get to put it into the sourcebook. But I owe you an adventure module ...

Anyone got any more questions?

1 hour ago, Prinz Slasar said:

Reading the PDF and waiting for my hardcover, all I can say is: Another timeless classic for the Mythras family.

 

Thank you!

Will there be a dedicated new Fioracitta discussion thread here? Thread necromancy's distasteful anywhere.

1 hour ago, HierophantX said:

Was there a time limit on that 10% discount or a expiration on the links? The links in my newsletter email are dead.

Try them a second time; and if you are getting no dice, ask Loz to check at his end.

15 minutes ago, Jakob said:

I didn't have a chance yet to do more than give the pdf a scroll-through, but I am already impressed by how well-organzied the material for further elaboration of the setting by the group seems to be: There's table to generate historical events and historical people - I think it's the first time that I've seen something like that in an RPG. Given that ancestor spirits seem to be a major thing in the setting, it especially seems to make sense to have the latter.

Oh, and a table for criminal penalties; who couldn't love that one?!

Glad you are enjoying the book. And yeah, there are a few groundbreaking things in Fioracitta. You can enjoy the city as is, or purloin bits you like for your own. Me, if there's a new Bestiary from TDM, I'd like to see at least one of my non-human peoples brought into such a future book.

I'll be here from 18:00 BST tonight (UTC+1) for those of you who've secured advance copies of the PDF.

Addendum: I finally have the newsletter blurb myself, and it confirms:-

The city and its region are lovingly presented, and it can easily be used alongside Mythic Constantinople, Thennla, or even as a parallel for Luther Arkwright.

So there you go. Hopefully, the public launch date will be soon. Or you can subscribe to the newsletter, contact TDM, and get them to send you the latest one. Recommended, if you want to secure your copies ahead of the public launch date.

Hope you enjoy.

Some of you may have subscribed to the newsletter, and so you'll have had the link to order the hardcover.

Fioracitta is now in the wild.

Those of you who wanted to know about compatibility with the Mythic Earth books, this is what the book has to say.

Fioracitta would work well with any Mythic Earth setting or Thennla, as those are fairly close in technological and social development and would require the least amount of adjustments.

So it's official. Yes, you can have both Fioracitta and Mythic Constantinople together, if you like. You shall go to the ball.

Hi. What Loz said, plus ...

1.  I presume this is a sourcebook / setting-book.  Does it have included adventures, or a campaign?  Or is it strictly a "sandbox," without any "adventures" as such? There's a scenario being written. It'll come out down the line, and I'm hoping it'll be as well-received as the sourcebook itself.

2.  Does Fioracitta need Mythras (or Mythras Imperative), or is it standalone / all-in-one (and if standalone, is its basis Mythras or MI)? The magic rules are likely to require Mythras - but if you only have MI, your characters could get by with the more limited magic rules.

3.  Does it introduce substantive new subsystems (e.g. like Luther Arkwright does), or is it mostly as per the core rulebook?
3a. Would any "generic" Mythras-core character with a "renaissancey" vibe be viable (if maybe a bit bland) in the city?  Or are some such unsuitable?

As Loz said. You really just need this book plus either Mythras or MI to enjoy a complete game. Your characters can get by without magic, even if the city is magic-rich. There are plenty of opportunities for adventure, even if your character only knows one or two of the MI Folk Magic cantrips, or no magic at all.

I've had this persistent notion, since hearing of this, that placing Fioracitta and Mythic Constantinople into a "RIval Cities" campaign could be all sorts of awesome; does either one have content that would need to be nerfed or buffed to prevent one side from having a killer advantage?

Answering both the last question and the next para: Fioracitta welcomes visitors from all sorts of places ... even more, if you bring along something interesting to trade.

I've bought up DoubleZero and the three sourcebooks which derive from the corebook - retoolings of "Revelations in Cold Iron" and "Hardboiled Follies," and a new setting loosely based on Gerry Anderson's Captain Scarlet and UFO, with hints of The Invaders, among other settings.

They can all be retooled to a straightforward d100 system with a little work.

The question is whether or not there's a place for a d100 spy sourcebook using BRP or a game from the same family, such as Mythras.

Mythras, you say? Well ... whoops, looks like this message will self destruct in five se-

I'll have to start coming here regularly once it comes out, to field questions.

On 6/4/2019 at 10:12 AM, clarence said:

I wonder, could you adjust the speed of film by turning the crank faster/slower? 

That was how the first timelapse photography was invented.

Something in the walls of the cells could block any sort of powers which reach through it, or restrict the ability of magic to work at range.

One possible idea is a sorcery spell, Enchant (Prison), which enchants a room, turning it into a cell which stops all magic. One way of setting it up is runes in the walls, door, floor and ceiling which conveys the Neutralising Chaos feature (The Sacred Text, p. 275).

Of course, nothing prevents the sorcerer from using their mundane skills (Lockpicking, Mechanisms, Influence, Insight, BRAWN (with or without Enhance STR, which could still work, since it operates entirely on the caster) to break out - everyone assumes that the mage is probably going to try to think of spells to escape first, and forget that a bedspring could be turned into a lockpick, or hinges forced, or a lock prevented from closing by a tiny chip of stone picked up from the prison yard ...

Larry was also writer of the episode of The Real Ghostbusters "Collect Call of Cthulhu," and lead designer and author of Masks of Nyarlathotep.

This post is from Kenneth Hite. Yes, I have Kenneth Hite on my Facebook f'list.

Kenneth Hite on Larry DiTillio's Death

So JMS of Murder, She Wrote fame just posted this Facebook post on the death of Lawrence "Larry" DiTillio, who wrote Ringworld along with the late Lynn Willis.

JMS' Facebook post

On 11/20/2018 at 7:09 PM, clarence said:

One quote from the article stands out:

“Perhaps there has been no need for [cyberpunk] to change: it continues to resonate with us because the world it depicts is the one we live in.”

That’s a bit sad to accept. But it’s even sadder, as the article points out, that the punk attitude is not the solution - and to regain its creative power sci-fi needs to find new approaches to the brutality of neo-liberalism on steoroids.

But would it still be cyberpunk then? Can cyberpunk house well-organised protesters that actually make a change - or is that a new genre?

It might look something like The Dispossessed and similar books by Ursula K LeGuin.

And the Guardian article could well be wrong. It's people with a punk attitude disrupting the status quo who got change to happen. Only they don't always wear pink mohawks.

Sometimes they look like a little old lady riding a bus and refusing to get up to let a white privileged man sit in her chair.

The solution is not to "get privileged," as suggested (and as a hypnotist, boy am I familiar with the power of suggestion). The solution is to challenge the privileged, to disrupt, and to create the changes that the privileged cannot stop.

Cyberpunk stories only look like tragedies because they're written that way. The punk attitude does lay the groundwork for change. It is disruptive, and powerful, and it can find its way to hurting the rich and powerful in places where they cannot stop to scratch. Point being, even if the punks are obliterated, dying on their feet rather than living on their knees, the damage is done. The rich and powerful are no longer unassailable; no longer invulnerable.

And that may be the point of cyberpunk - to show the weaknesses of those impersonal sweeping powers. To show that maybe dogma is wrong, that the corporations are not gods, and that the earth does indeed move.

I just lost a member of my family on September 24th, then Carlos Ezquerra of 2000 AD on October 1st, and now Greg's passed.

I'm finding it hard to process all of this. Greg's death has left me stunned and reeling.

Rest easy, Greg. I am sorry we never got a chance to meet.

Agreed. Thanks so much for this discussion. I feel really optimistic for the future of Mythras.

1 hour ago, lawrence.whitaker said:

the system is consciously geared towards offering many alternatives to inevitable carnage, both mechanically and anecdotally. Social conflict will follow a similar ethos.

I'm sold on this. I never thought this thread would reach two pages. I honestly thought it'd die a death, zero views, zero replies, sinking to the bottom. It was indeed a weird dream that I'd had, and I'm very interested, in the fullness of time, to see what turns up.

And you do realise that if the next book offers social combat rules, I'll buy the book they appear in, sight unseen, virtually on the spot. That's brand loyalty for you.

Physical combat is presented as this entity whose goal is to kill some targets. Adventurers go in, they see the orcs or goblins, they get into slaughter. No quarter given; no quarter expected. It ends with dead and injured everywhere. That's it. The combat is its own sweet thing - kill or be killed. Slaughter, mark off hit points, narrate the cut and thrust, heal the injured afterwards.

What if the combat has a purpose beyond "Hey ho, here's the bad guys, let's line up and roll initiative"? The bad guys come up and tell you that they've got a message - don't try and interfere with the Snake Cult operating out of the warehouse district. The combat ensues when they try and emphasise their point with a beatdown. Suddenly, your guys have combat with a purpose - stay alive and respond in kind, possibly even turn the tables on the bad guys and send them scurrying home to their snake temple with a note tied to their behinds reading "You're next" in explosive runes.

The bigger picture is that combat with a purpose fits in with the narrative. Not even brute animals fight for no reason at all: they fight to defend their young and their nest, or they attack because they are hungry or pain from an infected wound has addled their brains, or because you are in their territory. Or because they are just plain stubborn and evil, like horses and camels, the evil jerks.

Combat is currently presented in many roleplaying games in the style of a video game, where the scene is only completed, and victory is only assured, by the complete extinction of every single bad guy in the scene. But if there is a goal to the combat, it is possible to turn physical combat into a small subset of social combat. Combatants in social combat want something. The other guy, not necessarily a bad guy, wants something else that stops the protagonists getting what they want. If they can get it through charm, through deceit, through magic, through Oratory, through an entertaining interpretive dance routine or simply through trade, then that can be a better approach than going in with swords drawn all the time.

And if the protagonists know what their goal is, they can achieve those goals with victory conditions other than complete annihilation of the other party; alternatives such as driving the antagonists off, buying them off, scaring them away, conning them into abandoning their posts or simply asking them nicely.

That's where Resistance would come in. Each Resistance point is like one door to open between where things stand now and a victory for your side. Each Resistance point removed represents one more obstacle in the way of what you want removed, and the antagonist brought that much closer to seeing things your way.

So it's all about stating what you want, and what you think the antagonists should do, and engaging in social or physical combat to achieve that goal, whether it's "I want to seduce the Duchess and her daughter" or "I want to stop the guard from alerting the castle to my presence, and the best way is to apply Palsy to his head."