[Grande Finale] Home Page
I don’t have the funds to run a real website, but I have managed to cobble together a wiki.
Please come by if you want; the rules are posted there if nothing else.
[Grande Finale] It just wasn’t in the cards.
So, I’ve ditched a card based resolution entirely. I’m kinda sad, because I was really certain that I wanted cards to be a part of it all.
So, here’s the new version. Let me know if you have any ideas/questions.
[Grande Finale] Active Battle System
So, I have two main mechanics in the game for resolution: Active Battle System and Minigame. ABS is not solely for combats, but is for any intense scene. Minigame is for light scenes. They both should really be able to resolve situations and should be used when thematically appropriate.
I’m currently working on ABS. Here is the basic concept, so you don’t have to research:
Let’s say you and I are in a classic battle scene. We get the deck of cards in front of us. I’m red and you’re black and I go first.
I describe what is going on. I have about a sentence worth of action to narrate. I then draw a card.
If it is red, I get to continue on. If it is black, you get to start describing things. Whomever has narration has the temporary advantage in the scene and describes accordingly. Hopefully this rapid back and forth will be fun, representing the swords clashing and spells flying in a crazy cool fashion.
When we’ve drawn five cards, we see who had the most cards that matched our color. The “winner” dishes out some damage to the “loser”, in the form of a reduced Aspect and a trauma Aspect added at the same value. Aspects are used differently in Minigame, where their value actually affects cards drawn. In this situation, they’re basically hit points. There are three core Characteristics, that, if depleted, will knock a character out. These core Characteristics become available to attack when they have no Aspects to defend them (Aspects are tied to the core Characteristics).
So, I want the players to be able to say, “This conflict matters to me” in a way much more powerful than fighting over it. But, at its core, the ABS mechanic doesn’t allow for it. Even if I have some rules about holding cards up your sleeve, you can win the battle but not he war. I want a player to be able to make a sacrifice that makes a major statement and could, when used properly, win the battle and the war.
I’m thinking that a player could be able to “sacrifice” an Aspect to attack with more power than normal – maybe when they’ve won a five card volley they could sacrifice their attacking Aspect to use its full power, hopefully breaking through the defending Aspect on the other character. This would deplete this arena for them for the battle, and force them to change it after the scene in some way. Kind of like buying off a Key in TSOY.
Any thoughts?
[Grande Finale] Alpha Document
Here is the alpha document for the Final Fantasy style tabletop game I’m developing.
Send me an email or hit me on one of my blogs or post something on Story Games and I’ll respond. I respond quickest in that order.
[4E D&D] Dragoons
I love Kain (Cain) from Final Fantasy IV and I’m betting I’d love Cain from FFIV: The After. His concept would make a great addition to a 4E game. I’m thinking he’d be a striker, jumping in for massive damage. I’d probably want to bring in some of the dragoon features from FFXI, which mainly revolve around the concept of a wyvern pet, but 4E is currently silent on companions in the game.
So, the essential function of the dragoon is to deliver spear attacks via leaping into the air and plunging the spear into the enemy on the way down. I think this meshes well with the desire to have lots of map movement in 4E, instead of the stay in place and fight combat that used to happen in 3E a lot.
My concept for the character is a heavy armor striker. With a spear or longspear, the dragoon would be able to teleport into the air and drop down on an enemy, using the falling distance to add to her damage. To keep it balanced, I think you’d need these caveats:
- The dragoon must move at least two squares first.
- The target must be still within the dragoon’s movement range plus the reach of the weapon (as if the dragoon had charged the target).
- There must be a valid square somewhere around the target for the dragoon to land in when the attack is over. If that square is difficult terrain, the dragoon should either have to make a check or fall prone.
- Leaping from the second square grants combat advantage to the dragoon’s enemies.
Given those caveats, the player could add the squares it would take to get to the target from the second square plus one. This is the amount of extra dice added to the attack if it is successful. The ability would require a recharge like some monster abilities.
I know it’s complicated. What do you all think?
[4E FF] Summons and Airship Battles
Summons
Here are some basic thoughts on how to integrate Final Fantasy style summons like those seen in FF4/6/7 (one attack/effect) and FF10/12 (fighting for an encounter or so).
So, the things you’re going to want are one time effects (fire attacks, status effects, and healing) and encounter length companions. The first is easy: create at-will, encounter and daily abilities that do those very same things (look to existing class abilities for attacks and healing, look to poisons for status effects as a general guideline). The problem with the latter is the overpowering affects of having a second character making actions. Here is how I’d do it.
Let’s take a summoner, a Tiefling named Kallista and an eidolon, Shiva. I’m not sure if Shiva should be an always thing, like a god, granting specific at-will, encounter, and daily abilities like Channel Divinity does for Clerics and Paladins, or if they should be summon inspecific. But, whatever the summoner has, they have some array of at-will, encounter and daily abilities. An at-will ability included with the class is Summon Eidolon. Ignoring some of the particulars, you’d arrive at an ability that summoned the eidolon within a certain range (is that a burst?) Shiva’s arrival would come with an effect, somewhat comparable to Cloud of Daggers. Then, Shiva could act on Kallista’s next turn or react as normal. Here’s the balancing thing: Summon is a Sustain Standard, meaning that Kallista can still perform move and minor actions, but not be blasting away simultaneously. Here’s the other balancing thing: Shiva’s Encounter and Daily abilities can only be activated by burning Kallista’s Encounter and Daily abilities. Now, Kallista isn’t any more powerful than someone else because she has two Daily abilities or what-have-you. She’s just got different arrays to choose from. Still too powerful? Maybe, maybe. If so, Summons could act like magic weapons – only summonable after a major rest or a milestone. How does that sound?
Airship Battles
So, the party is fighting on an airship’s deck. That doesn’t take any changes at all from 4E. But, what about flying the ship into special maneuvers, firing cannons, tilting to and fro to affect enemies?
Have the character take control of the ship, Leaders like the Warlord work best. Their actions will be tied up with the normal stuff (Sustain Standard again). They can still activate anything that works on a move, minor, or on other’s actions (like AP usage). But, they can sacrifice their Encounter or Daily abilities to activate those of the Airship (sound familiar?). So, isn’t it overpowering to not be the subject of attacks on the battlefield?
Yeah, but you’re now worrying about the airship’s HP versus the flying monsters or enemy airships. Neat, huh? This, of course, would work for any vessel, be it train, ship, moon rocket, etc.
Thoughts?
[4E D&D] Double TPK
So, our group of five players had adventured up to Irontooth’s Waterfall Retreat last time (which was also the first time!) I played 4E D&D.
This time, there were only three players and we played with only three characters of the group. The DM tried his best to scale the big fight down to our size. We hadn’t rested for the day and were severely tapped.
We died horribly, of course.
So, we made some new characters and one of the players grabbed one of the missing characters and ran back to the inn and grabbed the new characters (and a rangery elf) and we went back, the four of us returned, full strength.
Despite the fact that I misread Warlock’s Curse in my favor, we still got trounced. It was going well, but we all went down within a round of each other and nothing could be done.
So, all six of our characters (4 old, 2 new, 1 pretty much written out of the story) were taken to the Keep, where we’ve escaped captivity and may very well face the entire goblin and kobold army soon.
It’s a fantastically fun game, I can’t say that enough. It’s fun enough that a Double TPK doesn’t faze my enthusiasm to play!
In a Crystal Age
I’ve recently discovered a document I’d forgotten about wherein I laid out half an oracle for Final Fantasy done my way (since I really feel that Final Fantasy appeals to too many desires to be perfectly emulated or pigeon-holed). I still need to do more but I feel I’ve either got half an Old School one (FF4 and FF6) or all of that and waiting on New School (FF7, 9, 10). Since the settings are so vastly different, I think an inspection of FF9, along with some editing, might finish the oracle off. Here’s what I have:
1. A knight with dark arts and darker urges confronts her tyrannical king.
2. Delivered under false pretenses, an artifact dooms a heretofore hidden village.
3. A weak-willed dragoon, disgraced, acts as an honor guard and companion.
4. Pilgrims, weak from a long journey, hiding a mysterious young girl.
5. A once great subterranean web of passages, connecting the world lays abandoned except for its sleeping creators.
6. A young summoner overreaches her power out of despair.
7. A kingdom, lost in the desert for generations, reappears on the horizon.
8. A tribe of itinerant moogles return from the wilderness with stories and wares.
9. A respected sorceress, mysteriously ill, seeks desperately for a cure that her white arts are incapable of.
10. A fleet of airships, ready for war, manned by the nameless damned.
11. A martial artist, once powerful, blindly seeks vengeance.
12. A dark lord, megalomaniacal, served by fiends of elemental power.
13. A library, the largest on the continent, serving as rebel headquarters.
14. A caravan, thick with many races, famous for its myriad chocobos.
15. A lost ship of legend returns via the prayers of the downtrodden.
16. A brash prince seeks his kidnapped parents at the expense of his people.
17. A forest, dark and old, concealing a pure lake and skittish spirits.
18. A massive train, no longer bound to tracks, takes the willing and the dead.
19. A coliseum, rich with history and gambling, home to gladiators and loners.
20. Thieves, crouching on the rooftops in the eternal rain, watching for the unaware.
21. Imperial troops, girded with technological might, search the arctic north.
22. An insular city, defended by powerful samurai, falls prey to a poisoned water supply.
23. A famous gambling dilettante, private and reclusive, in love with an opera star.
24. The moon, bleak but inhabited, witness to eons of pain, cries out.
25. Crystals, elemental and twinned, scattered due to their overwhelming power.
26. A reformed general, seeking penance, shunned and outcast by a war-struck village.
[IAWA] New Character Sheets
I have made some new character sheets for In a Wicked Age because I want to be able to use them to explain the game on the fly. See attached, let me know if you use them and how they work for you.
