Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Any D&D/D20

Shadowrun

World of Darkness

Palladium

Other (feel free to post about it)

[Sirus]

The more I read of Shadow of the Demon Lord, the more I like it. You start as level-zero nobodies with all sorts of interesting backgrounds (good and bad and everything in between). You choose from four novice paths, sixteen expert paths, and a heck-load of master paths to make highly unique characters (and that's just in the core game; supplements add even more paths). There are no experience points to track - the party as a whole levels up when thematically appropriate. There is even a mechanic designed to simulate the world slowly coming apart at the seams as the titular Demon Lord draws ever closer.

In completely unrelated news, I have opened a thread in FG&RP. Check it out if you like.

[wierd]

EG-  "Fire domain knowledge", "Lightning domain knowledge", ... etc  with say each being a gradient from 0 to 10.  For each spell to be learned, give them a requisite domain requirement. (EG, "Needs 10 fire, 5 matter, and 2 lighting domain knowledge to learn.")  Maybe spice it up with a general "Applied channeling" domain as well, so you can overload spells safely.  You could tie intrinsics like INT to gaining additional domain knowledge points as you level up. (EG, "No, you can't up fire to 10, because your INT is too low to get to that tier.", etc.)

Isn't that basically how Mage: The Awakening worked?

I'd have to check, never played it.  It just seemed like it was a potentially workable solution that would allow more freeform magic, by distilling knowledge and physical requirements down into something somewhat tolerable.  (just, again, the number of categories needs to be kept to a minimum to avoid tedium and "Accounting Simulator 2000!" levels of non-fun.)

[Mephisto]

While idly perusing some Numenera supplements, I settled in to read Into the Outside. Found an artifact that I figured some of you might get a kick of.

Since there's no kill quite like overkill, I'd like to present the Existence Knife, an artifact that is level 10 (4 above max) and has a blade on it. You decide this dude needs to die. Not only do you want him to die but you want his line to end before it started. If the dude you stabbed isn't of a higher level than [max_level+4], the knife does timey wimey stuff and stabs one of his ancestors instead. You're in the year a billion. I know humans weren't around for the entirety of that, but there are still a gaggle of ancestors to choose from. Better hope it doesn't accidentally snag genetic Adam or Eve. Better also hope you're not distant relatives.

[scourge728]

you all are though, that's the thing

[Mephisto]

Awkward wording on my part. You want to use it on someone who is not closely related to yourself (go all Cain on your bro - you're basically guaranteed to create a murder/suicide situation) but there's always the chance that you accidentally shank Genetic Eve in the stomach. But on the upside, everyone involved is erased from time so it doesn't matter anyway.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

While idly perusing some Numenera supplements, I settled in to read Into the Outside. Found an artifact that I figured some of you might get a kick of.

Since there's no kill quite like overkill, I'd like to present the Existence Knife, an artifact that is level 10 (4 above max) and has a blade on it. You decide this dude needs to die. Not only do you want him to die but you want his line to end before it started. If the dude you stabbed isn't of a higher level than [max_level+4], the knife does timey wimey stuff and stabs one of his ancestors instead. You're in the year a billion. I know humans weren't around for the entirety of that, but there are still a gaggle of ancestors to choose from. Better hope it doesn't accidentally snag genetic Adam or Eve. Better also hope you're not distant relatives.

Consequences For Fucking With Time

Failure
1. Your skin and organs oscillate wildly on the edge of nonexistence before the timestream adapts, doing 4d10 cosmic damage.
2. Time travel isn't actually possible. The Existence Knife explodes in your hand, doing 4d8 force damage. You forget about the Existence Knife. Everybody forgets about the Existence Knife. Everybody remembering a scene involving the Existence Knife remembers it with a blind spot shaped like the Existence Knife. You have no idea why you got blown up and everyone is very confused. Cut the Existence Knife out of your character sheet with a real knife.
3. You stab yourself in the future. Take normal damage from the Existence Knife at a time of the GM's choosing.
4. DO NOT MESS WITH TIME. You appear and steal the Existence Knife out of your own hands before vanishing. That was a close one. You will regain the knife only when you reach this part of your repaired future.

Critical Failure
1. Eyes are too complex to have been created by evolution. You now have no eyes, including any indication that you could have had eyes. Lose all vision and darkvision, gain 10ft of blindsight.
2. The mitochondria is the powerhouse of your mom. Your mitochondrial DNA has lost several important adaptations, reducing their ability to safely create energy for your body. Gain three temporary and one permanent levels of exhaustion.
3. Curse of the Existence Knife. The Existence Knife disappears and is replaced by an entirely normal knife. You vaguely remember that this is not the true Existence Knife. What you posses now is the Nonexistence Knife, a quantum necessity created by the timestream. Attacks with the Nonexistence Knife deal 0d4 damage. When you die, the Existence Knife appears with you in your grave, sending out subtle psychic pulses to your nearest blood relative. This continues for each generation. Every generation after you takes a cumulative -1 to timestream checks caused by the Existence Knife.
4. I'm not saying it was aliens, but... Your actions have placed the Earth under the reign of an oppressive but distant alien species instead of the far preferable period of chaotic human rule you used to be in. Future uses of any artifact above level 3 will incur an orbital strike from your new masters.

Critical Success
1. Artificial selection? You feel...different. All human-descendant creatures gain two free attribute points.
2. What is this, fan-fiction? Erase a past tragedy of the player's choosing. This may be personal or collective in nature. The timestream will make minimal necessary adaptations to this change.
3. After getting stabbed, I realized how petty my life was. Instead of dying, the target of your attack becomes deeply sympathetic to your motives and feelings, and vice-versa. Though not strictly compulsive, killing each other at this point would probably be emotionally traumatizing.
4. Your preferences have been updated and saved. The Existence Knife exits the experimental mode it has been in for the past five hundred thousand years and reactivates its standard safeties. Future uses of the Existence Knife only stab back a couple of hundred years, removing all results on this table but Failures 3 and 4.

[scriver]

Is that a quote or did you just write that

Because it's good wrote

[Arcvasti]

Critical failure number 3 is too punishing. The Nonexistence knife should deal 0d8 damage instead.

[IcyTea31]

Cut the Existence Knife out of your character sheet with a real knife.

What if your character sheet is in a digital format?

[Trekkin]

Cut the Existence Knife out of your character sheet with a real knife.

What if your character sheet is in a digital format?

sed -i '/the Existence Knife/d' *

[wierd]

Cut the Existence Knife out of your character sheet with a real knife.

What if your character sheet is in a digital format?

sed -i '/the Existence Knife/d' *

But what if they use windows?  Do you expect them into install the ubuntu subsystem just to use command line driven string editing tools?

[MrRoboto75]

Cut the Existence Knife out of your character sheet with a real knife.

What if your character sheet is in a digital format?

sed -i '/the Existence Knife/d' *

But what if they use windows?  Do you expect them into install the ubuntu subsystem just to use command line driven string editing tools?

Hey, you wanted to abuse the powers of the Existence Knife like some sort of toy

[Kagus]

Heh, if only Numenera had blindness mechanics... Or exhaustion levels.

Or damage dice.

[Mephisto]

Heh, if only Numenera had blindness mechanics... Or exhaustion levels.

Or damage dice.

Know how I can tell you've never read the book?

[Kagus]

Heh, if only Numenera had blindness mechanics... Or exhaustion levels.

Or damage dice.

Know how I can tell you've never read the book?

Because you consider the wound tiers to be close enough to exhaustion levels to make the comparison?


Oh, wait, Discovery added an ability that seems to define what blindness is. So I guess it does actually have blindness mechanics.