fmitchell

Recently I've become obsessed with Cartoon Network's Adventure Time, a surprisingly complex kid's show. A wiki describes all episodes and implied back-story. Adapting the World of Ooo for any RPG poses some problems: Wide variation in power levels: Theoretically most recurring characters -- Finn the Human, Princess Bubblegum, goblins, most Candy People and princesses -- are average to heroic level. A few other characters like Marceline (a 1000-year-old half-demonic vampire) and the Lich (not so much a character as destruction personified) are unique enough to remain ultra-powerful NPCs. However, some significant characters have superpowers: Jake's extraordinary stretching/growth/shrinking/strength powers, Flame Princess's fire powers, Lumpy Space Princess's limited levitation, etc. Jake is practically unique (so far), but Flame People and Lumpy Space People are relatively common. Cartoon physics: Any series in which an 11-year-old boy is one of the world's greatest warriors isn't overly concerned with realism. Jake's stretching powers have next to no limit, Flame Princess never runs out of fuel, and Finn the Human can take ridiculous amounts of abuse and bounce back. Magic: Magic systems are always setting-sensitive, and once again AT poses a few problems. The world does have wizards, although examples of wizardry are few and far between: Wizard Eyes, powers on display in the Wizard Battle, and the various useless tricks that a Wizard Robe makes possible. There's also magical artifacts like the Ice King's crown (without which he's a crazy old man), the Enchiridion, the Gauntlet of the Hero, etc. While BRP Magic -- or Classic Fantasy spells -- might suffice for wizard characters, reproducing specific spells might entail some work. I've thought about other systems. The plethora of D&D references suggest some form of old-school D&D, probably Swords and Wizardry or Lamentations of the Flame Princess ('cuz there's a Flame Princess, get it?), but a class-based system is a little rigid for such a diverse world. Toon is a no-brainer for cartoon series, but the pace and plots of Adventure Time are less Looney Tunes and more Dying Earth, and people do occasionally die. The Prose Descriptive Qualities system includes The Zantabulous Zorcerer of Zo for adventures in Grimm's Fairy Tales/Never-never Land/Oz/etc. and Truth & Justice in which Batman (or Finn) and Plastic-Man (or Jake) are on an equal footing; it's also a little hard for beginning players to wrap their heads around because of its simplicity and flexibility. So while I have ideas for Problem #3 (Classic Fantasy magic + Super Powers), #2 might require some house rules and #1 may lead players to create entire parties of magic animals or wizards. Any ideas for less-lethal hit-point systems, alternate magic, or narrativist super-powers?

I'm not sure using the Southern reaches is better or worse than any other compatible setting. In my case I have so many setting ideas in my head I'd probably start with my own and add elements from the Southern Reaches (e.g. rival lords, eldritch fey, a port city).

My favorite term is "witch", and I don't see a problem with "sensitive", "psi", "psion", or "paranormal" (or "para" for short). If you want something sciencey how about psychoenergist or psychoactive (which also describes hallucinogenic substances, admittedly). You could also come up with an acronym or code word: EPP (epicenter of paranormal phenomena), Anomaly, Active, Red King, Ganzfelder (after the Ganzfeld experiment), etc.

I'd recommend "Sorcery". Not only does it work a lot like CoC magic (minus SAN loss), and the spells are a bit more balanced, there are spells for summoning demons. Change demons to minor Mythos entities, and make greater Mythos spells a matter for research, and I think you'll have what you want.

Let's not forget the talking carrot. Or the frog prince, who apparently walked there. If I were going to do the "settlers on an alien planet" thing, I'd come up with a consistent set of settlers (maybe not all at once) and a plausible reason for visitors.

That's how Mongoose created their versions of RuneQuest, although they did adapt portions of the d20 Modern SRD. BTW, that's another route: make a monster book using Legend or OpenQuest (or RQ6?) and put it under the OGL. That way you can avoid re-inventing the wheel.

Spaceship rules are, ironically, the least important part of a science fiction game for me. You could always transplant something you like: rules for minis, GURPS Starships, the old Star Wars D6 system, whatever. You could even skip ship rules entirely: "You dock at Omicron Persei spaceport; what now?" It's worked for Doctor Who these past 50 years. The interesting questions for me are a) whether characters are more than coat-racks for their technology, and whether technology is just the stuff we have now iiiiin spaaaaaace or whether it challenges fundamental assumptions about human existence. Heck, in my lifetime I've seen the fall of the Soviet Union, the rise of the Internet/Web, artificial hearts, face transplants, RFID, retina scanners, 3D printers, and computers more powerful than ones I owned in college that now fit in your pocket. I like space opera and planetary romances as much as the next guy, but I prefer visions of the future that actually feel like the future.

Caveat: I haven't playtested ANY of these ideas at all; I just scribbled them down one sleepless night. Nevertheless, here's more of what I was thinking. For simplicity, that's the way I was leaning. I since discovered FATE of Harn, which provides another way of handling invocations. Priests and devout believers would have ONE Allegiance to their god, in addition to their regular ones. It might be the basis for the FATE-like stunts I mention above, or the analogue of Piety for a port of HarnMaster Religion. I was thinking of keeping Light/Balance/Shadow too, but I can see arguments either for dropping them or tying each deity to Light, Shadow, or potentially Balance. (Morgath, Naveah, and Agrik would be Shadow, Larani, Peoni, Save-K'nor, and Siem Light, and Halea, Ilvir, and Sarajin Balance.) Really, though, Light and Shadow are almost orthogonal to the morality of the Harnic gods, so you could view Light and Shadow as alien powers unrelated to any god, except for Morgath if you regard Shadow = Bukrai. That I really hadn't thought through. The two options I prefer is a) the player chooses one of mundanity, Psionics, Religion, or Sorcery, or Psychic Abilities only emerge during play after a triggering event, on a POW x 1% chance (or larger depending on the event). Once active, I'd use the standard BRP rules. I'd be inclined to ignore "latent" powers; a character either has a Psychic Ability, even at 7%, or doesn't. If I wanted to introduce latent powers I'd port HarnMaster Psionics to BRP. However, I do like the idea of Psionic Episodes. Maybe if a psychic consciously tries his ability and fails, the GM secretly rolls against the ability score and causes a Psionic Episode if the secret test fails. Other events might trigger an Episode or full activation, but only if the secret test succeeds. Thus inexperienced psychics get a lot of false positives or lose control of their abilities easily, while experienced psychics are open to all sorts of influences. The life of a psychic is fraught with peril. (Then again, so is being a pawn of the gods or a student of arcane forces.)

I've always regarded the path of Law as deterministic and prescribed. The symbol of Law is a single arrow, after all. Champions of Law have few if any choices; their life and their fate is laid out for them, like the aforementioned web of obligations that permit only one course, or a Greek tragedy where the protagonist sees their doom approaching and by their very nature cannot avoid it. The pawns of Law may find themselves adored heroes who cannot rest on their laurels, or reviled villains whose high ideals led to unspeakable atrocities. Like feudal Japanese, Champions of Law would rather die than abandon their obligations. If the end-goal of Chaos is utter randomness, endless turmoil, and the triumph of passion over stability, the end-goal of Law is a clockwork universe, sterile and unchanging, whose residents plod through their lives like automatons even if a tiny spark of humanity within screams in horror. The nail that sticks up gets hammered down (to quote the Japanese again); any spanner in the works cannot stop the endless grinding gears. If Moorcock never wrote of a world being taken over by Law where Chaos has to restore the Balance -- and I vaguely remember a really preachy Eternal Champion novel about a totalitarian queen -- then he probably should.

Or autocorrect gone mad. He also wrote "Magic Aworld", which seems more like a phone typo than a keyboard typo.

Having skimmed through the HMG magic book, I don't think it will convert any more easily. Spells cost HarnMaster fatigue, not RQ6 magic points, and damage and other effects are still in the HarnMaster system. You could still define magic skills as I outlined for Sorcery, but that's a little more complicated than the "two skills per major magic" philosophy of RQ6. I haven't tried to convert Religion or Psionics; are they easier?

A thread about using RQ6 for Harn provoked my own long and tedious take on using Magic World for a non-canonical version of the island of Harn, the nearby continent of Lythia, and its planet Kethira. (Please don't ask me to do all the accent marks.) Submitted for your amusement, then: Magic: Sorcery is the only known form of magic. Most people fear it. Wise and long-lived sorcerers avoid attention, and pass their secrets on to only a few well-chosen apprentices. Shamans and hedge wizards know a few traditional sorcery spells, passed from master to apprentice. The Shek P'var (or simply Sorcerers' Guild) is a secretive organization that studies and practices sorcery more systematically. They police their own members somewhat to make sure nobody breaks security or starts messing with angels and demons (which are religion's domain, and too powerful/scary to deal with.) Highest on the power scale, sorcerers of Shadow freely summon and bind demons, and sorcerers of Light call upon and negotiate with angels. It's up to the GM whether demons are the angels of hostile gods and vice-versa (as in standard HarnWorld), or whether Light and Shadow are independent forces with their own distinct minions. Religion: Unlike HarnMaster Religion, there's no set list of prayers or miracles. Priests have a single Knowledge skill regarding the myths and rites of their god, which covers the mundane aspects of temple offerings, funeral services, etc. Priests of a religion also track an Allegiance score for their god. This score goes up when the priest spreads the god's name or ministers to lay members of the religion or sect, much like Piety. When a priest requests a miracle, the GM rolls secretly against Allegiance. The GM adjusts the effective Allegiance score upward if the miracle serves the god's interests and modified downward for selfish requests, trivial requests, repeated requests, or blatant interventions. (Gods like plausible deniability.) If the roll is successful, the GM arranges the minimum necessary circumstances to grant the request, and subtracts points from the Allegiance score based on how much heavy lifting the god had to do. Religions of Harn officially condemn all forms of sorcery, although priests (esp. of Agrik and Morgath) sometimes practice it secret. Even sorcerers of Light are considered blasphemous for commanding servants of the gods / beings from other planes. Psionics: Psychic Powers from the Big Gold Book, maybe with additions/alterations. Most folks find psychic powers as scary as sorcery, particularly telepathic and precognitive talents. Two or All Three Powers: It's theoretically possible to know sorcery, serve a god, and awaken psychic talents, but extremely unlikely. Besides the sheer improbability, the character needs time and study to maser just one supernatural field. A priest practicing sorcery would face social stigma or physical harm if discovered, and a mob of angry peasants doesn't care about the differences between Light sorcery, Shadow sorcery, minor spells, and psionics.

Replying to my own post ... oh, my. Harn/Kethira is such a low-magic world that you could swap in virtually anything if you're willing to ignore canon. The Wizard Secret Society whatever you like: Mystics, Sorcerers, Shamans, whatever. For example, I've thought of running Magic World (or straight BRP) in Harn, (EDIT) which I've posted here.(/EDIT) You could do something similar with RuneQuest. Maybe the gods aren't real, or at least don't intervene except when they feel like it. Maybe the Invisible College teaches something else besides traditional spells. Maybe all supernatural effects require supernatural entities, and wizards find spirits more tractable. Supernatural elements -- by design, I think -- are easy to throw out or rearrange to a GM's taste. Ivashu, Khuzdul/Khuzai, Sindarin/Sinai, meredragons and other magical creatures live in very specific and small areas; Shek-P'var and the gods hide their existence to the point where they have little appreciable effect on history or society. The Harn materials have great maps and lots of (mostly) historical detail, all of which you can use or ignore without affecting the rest.

I've contemplated running P-Harn (personal Harn) that ignores canon somewhat. However, I came up with essentially the same breakdown that you did: Religion: Theism, with each of the ten gods of Harn having at least one cult. Shek'Pvar: Sorcery, with one grimoire of common spells, grimoires around the six P'varist elements, and an advanced grimoire for Gray Mages. Shamans: Animism You could discard Folk Magic and Mysticism, or keep them as rare forms of magic that the Guild of Arcane Lore either studies or pretends doesn't exist. Folk Magic might work as an alternative or supplemental shamanic/druidic magic, while Mysticism could be a hidden tradition (as in my P-Harn). Harn also has Psionics, which I'm not sure how to model. Maybe some form of innate Sorcery? An extended version of Mysticism? A simplified port of the HarnMaster system? I like the idea of psionics, but it's hard to wedge into RuneQuest unless every power is a distinct skill, which would means psionicists had to split their experience between mundane skills and their psionic talents.

OK, here's the relevant section of Magic World (pp 153-4): According to the Rules As Written, Pao is right. The author(s) considered non-human creatures ... for those nine species. For anything more exotic, though, I'd be concerned that the creature might have overpowering advantages and/or disadvantages. Even for those nine, I'm a little concerned about the implied biological determinism. Would an orc raised around/among humans have the same base percentages? Are elves incompetent around water solely because they live in upland forests? What about forests around lakes or large rivers? (Centaurs I see more excuses for: they're awkward chimeras of human and horse with inadequate upper body strength, so Climb, Hide, Ride, and Sneak are nearly impossible for them. And Halflings need all the advantages they can get.) Basic characteristics worry me less than skill percentages. Basic characteristics mainly govern combat strength and resistance to various hazards. Skills really define a character's abilities.

Generally the stats for a Creature are for an "average" specimen. For a more experienced NPC, I'd probably add 10% or 20% to the skills given, more if it's the leader of a tribe/clan, master sorcerer, etc. To generate PCs, on the other hand, I'd roll the basic seven stats as given in the Bestiary entry, note any innate abilities, then proceed with the rest of character generation as written for human characters. I'd resist the urge to give skill bonuses based on species unless there's a clear physical advantage: "orcs are good at fighting" is fairly weak (nature or nurture?) but "intelligent spiders are good at climbing" (so many legs ...) would work for me. I'd also note weaknesses (skills or lack of abilities) that would balance out any advantages, including and beyond the reaction of townsfolk to an orc, intelligent spider, or 12-meter giant strolling down Main Street.

Spirit Combat could have been better labeled, but it's there under the description of various spirits. The most general description is under Disease Spirit: (Unstated in the above discussion; every time the spirit loses, it loses 1D3 MP.) Disease Spirits attack a characteristic related to the disease it inflicts. Passion Spirits attack INT. Wraiths attack STR, INT, or CON. If not specified, I'd assume a spirit attacks POW (or MP, for a quicker death spiral). The effects of possession vary from spirit to spirit, and are generally given in the description. EDIT: In case it's really not clear, matching MP against a characteristic refers to the Resistance Table.

Somewhat off topic (if there is a topic), but I don't see why companies even bother with licensing properties. The temporary boost in sales doesn't seem worth the cost of: paying licensing fees, waiting for the license-holder to approve your work (witness Cubicle 7 and the BBC), dealing with "true fans" who will tear your work apart, risking any future profits if the license-holder decides to pull the license. The only two motivations I can see are a) being REQUIRED to license someone else's work because yours is uncannily similar, and loving a work so much that you HAVE to play in their universe. A game set in the universe next door (i.e. a popular work with the serial numbers filed off) seems far safer and more secure. D&D and its imitators have elves, dwarves, and orcs but (after the hobbit and ent mistake) don't owe the Tolkien estate (or WotC) a dime.

Personally I'd stay clear of Space Opera ... I hear the rights holder is a bit cray-cray. I'd rather see an all in one game based on a successful set of SF rules (e.g. Ringworld) but with the copyrighted elements renamed or removed. Maybe we'd call it "Future World" or something. Of course, a big problem with any "science fiction" game is ... what subgenre? Modern transhumanist? Near future hard science? Cyberpunk? Military SF? 1950's space opera? 1920's pulp SF? 1890's scientific romances? A five year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations? A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away? A madman in a box? Still, as Nick demonstrated, it's not that hard to grab a setting or source-book you like -- 2300 AD, Traveller, GURPS Space, Star Hero, Prime Directive, Star Wars D6, whatever -- and convert on the fly.

Ugh. I bought the PDF as soon as it came out, but haven't gotten around to reading it yet. Now I know what to look forward to. (And I have the D&D version already; the whole point was to have someone else translate it into Legend.) From now on I only buy things after the reviews come in.

I'mma let you finish, but I wrote up system-agnostic notes on gods and immortals a few years ago: http://www.frank-mitchell.com/games/rpg-gods.html http://www.frank-mitchell.com/games/rpg-immortals.html Hardly the last word, but maybe they'll spark some ideas.

Some parts of those books are just entirely too crunchy. For example, I worked up an exotic alien using Atomic Alienz, and after the whole experience I decided I could have spent my time more profitably just listing abilities and figuring out the mechanics for each. I've perused the others, and for example the Psioniks (sigh) book started off with the assumption that telepathic strength/range depended on distance ... but what if it doesn't? Several psychic "experiments" found distance wasn't a factor (because subjects were cheating and experimenters were biased, but that's another issue). To use their book the way I wanted I'd have to define "distance" in another way and figure out how that altered their mechanics ... which, again, seemed like more work than it's worth. There's some interesting stuff in those supplements, and they're a fertile ground for ideas. For my purposes, though, I can't simply convert Atomik units to BRP units and go.

I'd prefer fewer well-developed "critters" over more, and only introduce new creatures for a particular purpose. The only purposes I can conceive of at the moment are the following: 1. Exotic wildlife, placed to emphasize the strangeness of a world or to fill a particular niche. For example, in one campaign where PCs played the "orcs" on an island continent being colonized by humans, I declared the Orc Lands had no horses but did have "destriers" (hat tip to Gene Wolfe), which were essentially big omnivorous riding lizards. Relatives filled other niches like domesticated hunting animals (dogs) and wild cousins (bears, wolves). 2. Monsters, created as "things that should not be" which the PCs must evade or vanquish. Dragons, chaos creatures, eldritch horrors, and most of the creatures in myths and legends fit here. Generally there's only one or a few extant specimens, and they may have surprising abilities. 3. Sapient races/species with cultures and languages, used as metaphorical "others" or personifications of some place or principle. Once upon a time I'd populate a world with elves, dwarfs, goblins, giants, wolf-people, and what have you, but I've gravitated toward the pre-D&D sword-and-sorcery / weird fiction / hard SF proposition that everyone's human unless there's a solid reason they can't be. Glorantha functions under this principle to an extent: elves, dwarfs, trolls, goblins, dragonewts, and the rest are really strange, and seldom venture out of their chosen environment. I'd take it further, though. Those woodland-dwelling tribes might as well be humans unless they absolutely have to be immortal, and those howling savages over the mountains might as well be ugly humans with an uglier culture unless they literally have to spawn like ants and cannot possess even a shred of sentiment. In those two cases I'll introduce elves and orcs, respectively, but stay as far away from cliches as I can. For example, maybe the elves were once human, and gained immortality through bargains with the forces of nature; as the centuries wear on they lose their empathy for limited mortals because they can neither bear/father children, nor age, nor perhaps even die without the Powers that Be returning them to life. Maybe the orcs literally have insect-like societies, like the Gargun of Harn: one female is queen and brood-mother for the whole tribe, one or a few males fertilize the queen, and the remaining males/females/neuters are expendable workers and warriors. As extreme as this might be, I'm tired of certain fantasy RPG cliches: the Planet of Hats (every member of a "race" has the same exaggerated characteristic that precludes distinct personalities), Always Good/Always Evil, Chaotic Stupid (e.g. D&D drow, which require divine intervention not to collapse into anarchy and self-destruction), and "races" as bundles of kewl powers rather than distinct cultures. Making everyone human by default lets the GM concentrate on interesting cultures, and makes the rare non-humans stand out.

Another movie that gets robotic menaces "right" is Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Despite its flaws as a movie, its a movie where giant death-ray spewing robots tear up New York, and eventually menace the world, as they follow the diabolical plan of an unseen madman. Another variation on the "robot run amok" theme is Jack Williamson's Humanoids series, where a well-intentioned inventor creates robots to save humankind from harm. The robots helpfully take over dangerous tasks like construction work, driving cars, going outside, working, thinking ... And then there are Saberhagen's Berzerkers, intelligent weapons with a built-in and immutable goal of eradicating all organic life. Not to create a robot utopia, or for the benefit of their makers which they killed aeons ago ... it's just what they were built for.

Even though I ended up voting for Daleks -- the design is classic -- I agree that at least half your suggestions are cyborgs. I also read Asimov's I, Robot and Lem's Cyberiad at an impressionable age, so I think of robots either as neutral tools or beings no more inherently evil than humans. The true menace of war robots, such as Robocop's ED-209 or Vanko's army from Iron Man 2, is that they're unreasoning, unrelenting opponents, much like zombies. In ED-209's case, the "glitch" makes it particularly horrifying (and darkly humorous) because it's lethal out of negligence, not malice. Daleks and Cybermen regularly get talked to death by a madman in a box; Cylons in the old series seemed clumsy and inept and in the new series at least had motivations. Compare them to the most notorious real-world robots: drones striking precisely at the intended target, whether it's the correct target or who else might be in the way. The real world is, once again, scarier than fiction.