FS Modern Character Sheet

Yes, it’s that time again.  I have compiled a new set of updated Feng Shui (FS) character sheets, now with juncture skinning and “watermarking”, shot counter, Big Bruiser/Normal dual Death Check/Impair listing (on one sheet) and streamlining a few different rough edges from the initial batch.

• 69 AD “Jade“
• 1850 “Papyrus”
  
• Modern “Chrome”
• 2052 “Processors”
  
• General Basic “Vanilla”
  
• 5 Sheet Zip
  

Hope those are of use to someone!

For the Baptism of Fire intro in the back of the Feng Shui RPG core book, I created a page of Character/NPC/Location “cards”, which could be cut up and given or referenced individually by players to help, through visual aid, to establish a mental image of some of the things and people in the scenario.

Also for BoF, a newspaper article I wrote up showcasing the Eating Counter, to help establish depth and backstory.

Lastly, a possibly useful quick reference sheet I made up with various tables and formulas used in Feng Shui.

Cards

Newspaper Article about the Eating Counter

Reference Sheet

What I did NOT expect was to find so MANY of the “make your own” style websites, and I’m not just talking about superheroes here; there are “make your own living room”, “make your own celebrity”, “make your own shirt”, “make your own normal person” (doll), pets, buildings, locations, just about anything else, some in rather unassuming places on the web. I am very impressed with the amount of free resources available to people wanting to create their own virtual scenes, people and such, but lack the artistic talent to do so.

At any rate, I’ll just give you the rundown and it should really keep you busy for… well, practically forever! Although the different sites have different methods for “saving” your finished work, I personally advise taking a screenshot of your finished creation FIRST, opening up a graphics program like MS Paint, Paint.Net, GIMP, Photofiltre or any other suitable application, paste it out of your clipboard as a new image, and save it to your hard drive.

Hero Machine
The most famous superhero maker – it has a TON of options.

Hero Factory
More stylized and “indy” with a different take on things.

Fabrica De Herois – Blogspot Version
Spanish (?) superhero maker at a Blogspot page.

Fabrica De Herois – Official Version?
Different version of the above – more hero types, fewer choices each.

Cartoon Network’s Ben 10 Hero Matrix
Sort of bordering on superhero, it is really alien, but still a nice crisp maker.

RainbowDressup.com – Male Superhero
I’m surprised – this actually is fairly good for primarily a doll dressup site.

Girls Games 24 – Female Superhero
Female version of above.

Hero Creator X
A non-realistic cartoony superhero creator – still not bad.

Super Heroes World Maker
More like Colorforms, drop pre-made characters (Green Lantern, etc) and people into a scene. Still neat!

Super Hero Doll Maker
Basically just a “drop the outfit on the female doll” site but might be useful for a quick character.

Princess Presto’s Create Your Own Superhero
This helps teach kids English, rewarding them for correct answers by outfitting a character as a superhero.

Dream Avatar
Pudgy little “Chibi” anime characters, but an ok selection of items.

South Park Character Maker
Well known.

Dressup Empire
An astounding collection of “makers” for people, scenes, pets, etc.

Dress Me Up
A very large site of dressup options and categories, easily comparable to the above.

Dollzmania
Essentially a giant clearinghouse, hub and index of Doll sites.

Superhero Doll Maker
I guess this vaguely be called a superhero section as it claims, as it has a couple of recognizable super accessories.

Dressup Spot
More of the same.

Marilee’s Paper Dolls Page
Classy paper dolls, like old style line-art realistic, fairly specific. Includes Hyacinth and Richard Bucket.

Marvel
Obviously the most comic book looking, but not a whole lot of options.

Hero Factory
Stupid randomly generated comic/hero name!

Fabric De Herois: Blogspot
Only a few types, but good selection of parts, and overall quality is spotty.

Fabric De Herois: Official (?) (I made the name in PSP)
Stylized but unmistakably high quality, more hero types but fewer parts.

Hero Machine (blurry from too many jpg/gif conversions of old image)
Closest thing to a quality “universal” character generator as one can get.

WFRP3 Character Sheet

Well, it’s February of 2010 now, and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition has been out since about November of 2009, so roughly three to four months – so how has it been received?

Rodney Thompson, an actual game designer over at WFRP’s (and everyone else’s) main competitor for dominant fantasy RPG, Wizards of the Coast (D&D), wrote up quite a comprehensive WFRP3 review and his thoughts on running the new release, and in a surprise twist, most of it was quite a glowing endorsement.

the Altdorfer Correspondent does an interesting “unboxing”, for those interested in approaching the system from a step-by-step “I am opening the box.  I am looking inside the box…” method.

Although a bit late in my posting, Fantasy Flight Games in January, announced the Game Master’s Toolkit, which cost the, I guess not outrageous sum of $30.00, and which looks pretty slick, like the rest of their line, and promises more cards and other such things, which I guess if you’re a fan of the new system, is good news.  Also check out this Amazon.Com offering for WFRP2’s super rare Career Compendium – $80 to $132? Are you joking?!

The iN8sWoRld owner, apparently Nate (n8) Berry, wrote a brief blurb on WFRP3 (and linked to ZS, thanks Nate!), similar to mine, relating disappointment and even going so far as to rate it as a “FAIL”.  I’m actually not sure I fully agree with this, as I’ve been rethinking my position and getting used to the idea of the new format for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.  If you’re talking about the total rewrite of system and play style and outrageous price, then yes I totally echo Nate’s view.

From what I can see around the net, at the various communities, big and small, and publishers and reviewers, it is still a split, but not an even one, as Third Edition WFRP seems to be gaining acceptance, albeit grudging in some cases, plus the new supporters and customers they’ve gained from their glossy new marketing and simplistic approach to play, so while we can complain about “betrayal” (as I did), I guess I can’t argue with their motives from a commercial point-of-view, as they’ve gained new fans and converted some old ones, which was exactly their intent.

Thinking back over what I’ve read about WFRP3, although I would never pay what is being charged, I have to admit that WFRP2 books sold for about $30 on average, and if they put 4 books in this boxed core set, that would be $120, and they sell it for $99, so I guess it actually even gives a slight, very slight, discount – but it’s all in one lump, rather than one supplement or resource at a time, which is just so prohibitive, I don’t know how they sold any.

That said, I understand the concept of modularizing everything into cards, easily accessible, even photocopyable for multiple games and players – keep your spells and weapons and such in your own little Player/Character notebook/pouch so you have all the pertinent rules for that particular feature (whatever it may be) right there at the table in front of you so you don’t have to flip through game tomes.  I just wish there was some other way to have done this, because no matter how convenient it is AT the time, it doesn’t change the fact you’ve taken something that takes, at the minimum, some dice, a piece of paper or two, and a pencil, and magically transformed it into the equivalent of Monopoly, or worse, Axis and Allies or Risk, component-wise.

So I applaud the risky repackaging and format for the rules and how the players access them, but just can’t behind a lot of the other aspects of WFRP3, and although they’re no longer the majority, a lot of other people can’t either.

Mazes and Monsters

Summary: Some girl in some campus somewhere killed people a long time ago, because D&D made her do it, and a guy did the same thing.   The girl, Amy, is now a research scientist, so she must have made her Fast Talk check, or at least her lawyer made his Law roll?

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1233150

Thank you, Boston Herald, once again, you shine the bright light of illumination on the dank corner that is fantasy roleplaying games.  May the gods smile upon you and let you know that the full name of the evil game is “Dungeons and Dragons”, not Dungeons, and “slay” is not a noun.

The violent nerd movement has suffered a serious setback. Yesterday, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Dungeons & Dragons ban in Wisconsin prisons. According to court records, prison officials were concerned that inmates were forming a “gang” around the fantasy role-playing game.

The suit was brought to federal court by Kevin Singer, an inmate serving a life sentence for first-degree homocide at Wisconsin’s Waupun prison. In 2004, officials confiscated Singer’s collection of game manuals and other nerd paraphernalia, as well as 96 pages of dungeonmaster’s notes.

This is one of the most subtle travesties to Mankind’s freedoms I have seen, and I can confirm its validity, as I had a cousin that just got out of prison after four years. He was able to play games the first few years, but they started cracking down on gaming later, D&D specifically but all were looked at with suspicion, and some were denied being sent to prisoners because they contained specifically violent or “informative” wording, so I ended up with a Vietnam roleplaying game, because it talked about killing other people or something totally ridiculous.

I remember they went through, at least leafing, the pages I sent him, and some just got kept with no explanation as to why, and some people’s RPG books (some of which cost over $40 USD) just disappeared into the ether after being “examined for violations” by the guards. He couldn’t have dice, they kept the DM’s guide in a homemade bound paper “book” that was actually hand-copied bible verses – ingenious. Most amusingly to me, the Call of Cthulhu game, about ancient tentacled alien gods plunging from the stars to be freed from their tombs by human sacrifice, and enslaving mankind and casting spells to wither and sicken people, never really had any trouble being in there. Go figure.

I could go into a longer observation about this kind of ignorant mindset, but the long and short of it is, these prisoners are still HUMAN, even the worst ones (well maybe not the WORST, worst ones), and our mind and imagination is one of the few things we have that is truly our own and unable to be regulated or restricted, and I agree channeling these prisoners’ anti-social habits into gaming IS therapeutic, my cousin saw and experienced this first hand, and to deny them this escapism and outlet is perhaps the worst possible decision that could be made, for society and them. All of the gamers in there were the more intelligent, philosophical and thoughtful types, mostly amiable and laid-back. So of course the system wants THAT to stop. Brilliant.

I haven’t been a “DM” in over a decade and a half, but I have been a “GM” for all kinds of games, Call of Cthulhu, Feng Shui, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, so I’ll go with my general approach to the last, since it’s a fantasy game.

To be honest, I rely heavily on the game’s setting itself, if there is one available, or pick one that suits my inclinations, if entire setting/world books can be purchased and “plugged in” to the game, as I understand some of the AD&D stuff is done.

I know some people can create their own game worlds and settings and such, and more power to them, but that can be a huge undertaking, and still other people make stuff up on the fly and have no particularly established map, religion setup, monsters, themes, eras, etc., but unless you are a really experienced or just gifted creative quick-thinker, I don’t recommend this for anyone but new players starting out in very casual small group games, to get used to the system.
First, before even bringing up running a game for others, familiarize yourself with the history, geography (maps) and cultures of the main and likely to be encountered areas, races, religions, magic (and views on such), and any peculiar aspects or surprises, like a different money system or something like that. Also I recommend getting an idea of the normal Earth era closest to your campaign, so you can have more time period-specific resources to draw from, to help keep things creative and add some authenticity and chance for the players to be able to get a concrete feel for things, in a game that is usually mostly pretty abstract because it is all existing totally in imagination – no people, animals or even worlds that have a solid base in reality as we the players know it.

Color and acting is very important to establishing immersion for the players.  If your NPCs act more or less like question points from an online game, that might as well have question or exclamation marks over their heads, the players are not going to “get into” the game very easily.  Not to say detail out everything about each NPC, but Introduce quirks to the important ones, and have some backup ideas for ones you don’t expected to be sought out, even if it’s just stereotypes or characters from movies or books.

Establish “reality” for the players, not just with well played and memorable NPCs (and monsters and animals for that matter), but locations and towns, as well as the general society and customs themselves – perhaps this port town smells of fish no matter where you are, it is overpopulated with overly friendly cats always looking for food and petting.  Having animals constantly underfoot and crawling all over you the whole time you’re in town would be a very memorable scene.

Maybe it is some sort of holy day or celebration with young men and women dancing around the maypole, to the happy and lively tunes of bards and minstrels; there could be clowns, jesters and actors, as well as local competitions, perhaps archery, wrestling, gambling, anvil throwing, etc.

Establish familiarity for locales that let the PC’s feel at home and able to understand and “master”, like their real-life hangouts, with friends (or rivals or enemies) that they regularly encounter and talk to and might have information (or always need something).  Landmarks and other historically significant objects and buildings with their own stories could help deepen the story, such as the large rock in the middle of town that has been there since a PC was young and he used to play on it, and now people are wanting it broken and moved, or seeing the PC’s initials carved into a tree or wall from oh so long ago.

Where does the PC LIVE? Do they have houses, hovels, caves, sleep out in the open, stay with someone or at an inn?  Why are they adventuring? What all is in the house, how did/do they make money when not adventuring? Are there things at home or in town the PC wants to accomplish, perhaps fix the roof or donate to help pave the roads, or buy a new horse for someone so he can get his plowing done in time? How about food, drink, hobbies, law enforcement, town council, religious and similar structure?

Maybe there are actually friends and family members in town – where do they live, what do they do? How involved are the characters in their family’s lives? Will these people ever be in danger, either just in general or specifically because of the adventuring life of the PC?

Considerations similar to those outlined above can really bring a game to life for players, and the best part is, if you’re amiable to it as a GM, they can help create this backstory and come up with ideas and color that ties them to the area or person or which they’ve heard about in stories or urban legends all their lives, if it’s a far off location or dungeon, etc.

Don’t let monsters be one dimensional. Are all orcs or goblins really pure evil? Do they have families? Are all ogres really stupid?  Are kobolds just generic monsters, or are they perhaps a band of cunning bandits, or even a tribe of nomadic foragers or even pilgrims to their own holy lands?

And don’t forget larger aspects such as royalty and nobles, maybe not local ones but those which control large portions of land, and are the authorities over a great number of people – are they fair and just or greedy and deceitful? What can be done about it? Intrigue, politics and etiquette and even romance and drama are certainly not taboo subjects for helping construct a reliable foundation for players to identify people or places as “home” or “flirting barmaid”, etc.

And of course, WAR.  Are things going on in the world at large, that threaten to or already affect the area or people – are there drafts or voluntary signups, is the war already going on, are there special missions which the PC could carry out? Does the PC agree with the war or the side their homeland is on? Is there a conflict with another party or family member or friend, or local authority, or religious leaders and sentiment?

I can’t even begin to go into the obscure possibilities for development in magic and rogues and such. Suffice it to say, there are a ton of options, infinite in fact, if the GM will but take advantage of them and present them to the players, who also need to be open minded and try to work with the GM to build an interesting world and campaign.

Steven Seagal: Lawman - Player Character Material?

According to Askville.Amazon.Com: “I make a living in the movies, but for the past 20 years, I’ve also been a cop,” begins the network promo for the show, in the hoarse whisper unmistakable to fans of ’90s action film star Steven Seagal.

Steven Seagal is apparently an actual police officer now, going on some actual patrols and teaching other officers aikido. He has in fact been a Deputy Sheriff quite a while, in Jefferson Parish in Louisiana. But WHY?

Probably because his blues and pop music attempts and his own energy drink aren’t netting him enough money. I kinda doubt he’s much of a millionaire anymore, but I think his intent in being a cop could be genuine, or at least he began to believe his own on-screen legend of bad boy law enforcement and crime fighter guy.

He has to do SOMETHING for a career, as I’ve seen his last half dozen movies and he gets worse and fatter with each one, almost now exclusively standing in the shadows, from the mid-waist up, with most shots somehow blocking any clear view of his gut or legs, and commanding a team of ACTUAL action-hero types like he used to be. I think overall he has good intent, potentially even altruistic, though I don’t think he relies heavily on that.

Seagal: Here, this is the first lesson of aikido… *eats Snickers bar*

Trainee (to another): That… that’s not aikido. Does this make any sense to you?

Other Trainee: Hey man, it’s Steven Seagal, who are we to question his methods?

But I still can’t help but like the guy, and even though it is being filmed and continuing to keep his visibility and acting visible in the public and media, his cop idea could be helpful, assuming the rotund cop can lift a leg at least up to his waist, to teach them more than the upper body part of aikido. It’s definitely an interesting concept of a celebrity being an actual police officer and training others – sort of like a real-life T.J. Hooker, with about the same level of acting ability.

Goliath: Bird-Eating Spider

“Giant spiders! Giant spiders! AAAGH! THEY’RE EATING MY FACE! I’ve only got 2 HP left! Help!”

Although they’re an important part of this nutritious dungeon crawl, this isn’t strictly an RPG-related Giant Spider article, but more inspirational for RPGs, for GMs, as a real-world example of the closest we have to the fantasy RPG/Gygaxian/D&D-esque Giant Spider. They’re not quite as large as those from David Arquette’s vehicle, Eight Legged Freaks, but for people with an aversion (or worse) to them, I think they’re plenty close – speaking from experience.  I’d like to add, however, that I find the tiny ones perhaps more unsettling, in that they are insidious and could be anywhere, LOTS of them could be anywhere – I’m likely going to be able to see something the size of a basketball coming at me and beat it with a tire iron – it doesn’t work like that when you awake to find your hair is suddenly infested with little crawly demons.  Just saying.

I freak out around spiders, but they’re fascinating. I’m not sure what I’d think about dog-sized or truly monstrous spiders, I would hope they would be like white men and unable to jump and not be significantly venomous. I would put Camel Spiders on here, but anybody familiar with them knows they aren’t actually spiders.

Pictures and Articles on Real “Giant Spiders”
http://www.squidoo.com/world-biggest-spider
http://www.giantspiders.com/
http://www.worsleyschool.net/science/files/biggest/spider.html

Videos of Giant Spiders
CAUTION: Goliath eating a white mouse, somewhat graphic.
http://www.break.com/usercontent/2008/4/World-s-Largest-Spider-eating-dinner-484491.html

Less graphic, National Geographic take on Goliath.
http://www.extremescience.com/BiggestSpider.htm

Spider “Web”
And for those that want to control a virtual spider, there is:
http://www.onemotion.com/flash/spider/

Time to Change the Spider’s Batteries
For more hands-on control, remote control Goliath! (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny-AKUIQr9c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhCIJQz0zvU

Another Creepy Thing
And just because it is awesome, a remote control snake in a pool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOSK4lVRTFw&feature=related

The Group

I’ve posted in various places on some variation of this topic. I personally feel intelligence and analytical or strategic or just knowledge and abstract skills in general, are a constant question mark in roleplaying games.

I can be a personally physically weak player but have a high strength character, but even if I try to play him as Superman, his stats and dice rolls will likely put a quick end to that. There is no real way to argue that – if your Str is 3 out of 20, there’s little room for argument, as Str and other similar and somewhat blatant and concrete aspects of a person, usually physical, are pretty obvious, to anyone. Endurance and Agility or Speed can be measured or estimated or classified, though it might take some effort and trials and stuff, to the point you could fairly accurately map what CON 14 means, in real world terms, because it’s objective and empirical. A player who is very strong himself, but has a low Str character might feel constrained when his character keeps failing his rolls, but he also can’t argue much – Str 3 is Str 3.

Intelligence, Memory, Deduction, Wisdom, Willpower and related skills such as Forensics, Invention, Science, Archaeology and similar things present a particularly sticky wicket. The typical happening is that players will bring in their real world knowledge, sometimes known as metagaming, either to intentionally sabotage or sidestep an in-game obstacle, or just because they consider their idea common sense, and usually the players’ contribution is just general or so broadly applicable that the character could believably be familiar with such things.

In this way, regardless of attribute stat or skill score, because of player knowledge of Ancient Laplander Horticulture or military experience in exactly how fast someone can break down or assemble a particular rifle, how far they go, how heavy they are, etc. then they are able to circumvent or “skate” on some problems that should be at least unlikely to be easily solved by the PCs, yet thanks to “player intervention”, the day is saved.

Players who are NOT as well versed in the things their characters are, are at a disadvantage, because though they may have Engineering 19, if the player themselves don’t know how to apply it, then it’s like they don’t have it – the player cannot necessarily be blamed or expected to be able to know anything about engineering, not enough to come up with appropriate uses or applications of the character’s skill – yet the people who DO know such things, AND have similarly skilled characters, are REALLY potent, and easily tend to outshine other players and characters, sometimes unfairly.

The funny thing, in a way, this very factor is THE Damoclesian consideration – it’s a ROLEPLAYING game, so you are very much expected to play a role of someone who is not you, usually with different skills, abilities and knowledge, as that is the very point – it is essentially being an improv actor, without a script. At the same time, it is this aspect that allows us to develop these qualities, and become encouraged and inspired and evolve some of these things in which we have deficits, and the skills and stats which are superior to our own personal ones allow us to obtain the OTHER side of roleplaying, which is ESCAPISM, being someone else, with other properties, and being able to feel a sense of accomplishment when our 19 Int Wizard casts Fireball and takes out 5 orcs, which obviously we can’t do – I don’t know what ingredients or words or hand motions would be needed for that, but it’s “coded” into the game and just “happens” because that’s the virtue of the RPG and the type of character I chose.

And I feel this applies equally for social attributes and skills, and I’ve always had problems with most games’ handling of these aspects. I may not be very good at Bartering, or Fast Talk or even Seduction, but if my character has it at high levels, it should be fairly academic as long as my make my rolls, right? Wrong, because I STILL have to come up with at least basic scenarios, quips, topics, approaches and conversation, in order to get the GM to apply my stats. Some people simply aren’t up to or even ABLE to rise to that challenge; I know, as someone who has social issues – maybe I’d like to play a Don Juan type, but I really wouldn’t know how in real life, yet I’m expected to exhibit this knowledge in game?

And alternately, if I know all kinds of things about computers, and a scene comes up where computer knowledge is required, but my character doesn’t have HAVE a related skill, what do I do? I know the group needs this, it may even be vital or required, and nobody else may be able to make their rolls, if they have any – where does my responsibility lie? Do I break the Fourth Wall and start geeking out about tracing the ground wire and setting the jumpers on the hard drive and making sure the memory is seated? That would definitely work, and might even give me a special situational roll because the GM was impressed with my attempt or solution, even though I had no appropriate skill, usually because my idea was creative, and I AM “playing a role”, even though it is technically not the one the character is considered to include.

Or do I stay clammed up and shrug apologetically and say “Sorry guys, my character’s a dog trainer, he doesn’t even have a PC”? and then the base blows up and we all die and the evil space gods take over the world? But generally, I’ll just instinctively bring to bear what I know, from whatever source, because that’s just how we think – we’re presented with a situation or problem, and we rack our brains for some way to solve it, and come up with plans – whether or not our character has any such faculty to know such things is mostly irrelevant.

LARPs are an interesting example of some of these problems, and though I hate to be stereotypical, I think the quintessential situation is the player who isn’t very good socially, or very generally physically attractive, but they have a character with a top notch score in those areas, and if they make their rolls or however that LARP resolves things, they can influence, charm or seduce an NPC or even another player/character – that player/character then has to act as though that person actually DOES possess these qualities and their actions DID succeed… I could tell even before I read the horror stories that this type of thing can easily lead to some very uncomfortable situations.

So in the case of a player’s character being dumb as a post, but being played like a PhD., the player playing his musclebound mouth-breather like Sherlock Holmes is a tight rope to walk – I’d hope the GM would rein that in and say “Come on man, you know Og the Barbarian would have no concept of advanced military tactics or ancient Sumerian” or “You talk a good game but your character’s Charisma of 6 says differently and you stumble over your words”, no matter how compelling the player’s effort, because he is supposed to be roleplaying his specific documented character, not just “A role” which can be whatever you want.

But as I said, we play games for entertainment, escapism and fun, so it is hard to harshly deny someone success or an impressive demonstration, because we are supposed to look and feel like heroes, people out of the ordinary, doing things most other people just can’t match – and yet, if there are players feeling left out that just aren’t getting to participate, either from bad rolls, lack of personal ability, or being overshadowed by more active, experienced players, it can quickly become NOT fun for them.

If I’m not having fun – why play? And I tend to look at it as the RPG truism that has developed: No gaming is better than bad gaming.