Graph Paper Games

The kid looked at me sheepishly.  "I know your gaming group is full, but I wanted to ask if, maybe, if there was a player who was kind of inconsistent if you might consider letting me sit in on the game in his place." Now, even if this kid wasn't my daughter's best friend and a pretty decent person, this is a young teenager approaching an adult to whom he is not related and for all intents and purposes is begging for gaming table scraps. And that kind of courage matters to me. I know there are GM's who like to limit the size of their gaming groups in order to maintain some consistency and stability.  I get that, and I'm playing in a campaign like that and am enjoying the dynamic of a small, constant group.  I'm not judging their decisions--it's their game and they can and should do what they want. But I don't like telling people who are interested in getting to a gaming group but lack the wherewithal to form their own that there's no pl...

When I first considered doing this blog challenge, I spent a lot of time telling myself it wasn't going to work.  It was incredibly ambitious, both in terms of even conceiving of 26 supervillains in a month, much less writing them all out using a rules system with which I wasn't intimately familiar. So here it is, past mid-April and I've just gotten to "G."  I told myself that if I got five days behind, I would consider strongly throwing in the towel, and I'm there.  That isn't to say I did have ideas for the other days.  For example: Homunculus, a gargoyle summoned to this dimension by an evil sorcerer who has been captured by DOSHI.  Now Homunculus searches for a way to free him to he can return home. Ironsides, a major player in the criminal underworld who wears an antique suit of power armor passed down from one generation to another in his family. Judge Not, an anarchist who specifically targets law enforcement entities for the way they enforc...

I mentioned in my last post that I had been contacted by the creators of The Ultimate Hero that they were changing the PC creation rules, which I've been using for the April A-to-Z Blog Challenge.  They followed up by saying the rules were not changing substantially, and that my previous (and future) entries will translate into the newer rules without difficulty.  So I continue! Getaway Charisma 3 Intelligence 5 (Primary) Will Power 3 Dexterity 5 Stamina 2 Strength 3 Race: Kasen, Gatekeeper Power Level 1 Motivation: Greed Disadvantages: Wanted (major) Advantages: Attribute Bonus 5 (Intelligence), Portal Keeper, Secret Identity, Iron Will, Skill Point Bonus Skills: Brawling, Range, Athletics, Perception, Subterfuge (Escape, Stealth) Racial Powers: Improved Movement; +1 Racial bonus to Spot, Listen, and Tracking Specializations; Low Tech; Teleportation, Mystical Presence Powers: Teleportation 2, Invisibility, Psi-Shield, Protected Senses Sav...

So for this A-to-Z Blog Challenge I thought I would do a series of villains for the science-fiction/superhero RPG The Ultimate Hero .  At the onset I mentioned this game was in development, that I had played it at a convention last year, and that at that convention I had won a hardcover of the rules.  Or more specifically, the rules at that time. I got a very encouraging email from the creators of The Ultimate Hero  saying how much he liked what I was doing, but also mentioned that they were doing a re-work of the character creation rules right now.  From what he has been saying, the rules tweaking is a very good idea, especially in the way that it streamlines Advantages and Powers.  Some Advantages basically were "low-flash" superpowers, like superhuman strength or toughness.  Others, like Ally or Resources, reflect the whole "perk" idea you see in a lot of games. Anyways, I don't have the most recent set of rules as a result, and see little benefit in ...

False Idol Charisma 5 Intelligence 4 Will Power 6 (Primary) Dexterity 2 Stamina 2 Strength 2 Race: Human, Mental Mutate Power Level 1 Motivation: Power Disadvantages: Foe from the past, Megalomaniac  Advantages: Attribute bonus (Willpower) 6, Attribute bonus (Charisma) 5, Influential Benefactor, Power Pool increase, Resources 4 Skills: Meditation (Mental Focus), Social Interaction (Deception, Leadership) Racial Powers: Powers in Manipulation or Mental categories are 1/2 cost.  Power from Body Manipulation and Reduction categories cost double.  Vulnerability to power negation. Powers: Mind Control, Image Generation, Telepathy Saves: Kinetic 0, General 0, Will 6 Defense: Passive 11, Active 13  Health: 40 Endure Pain: 3 Power Pool: 115 Power Channeling: 7 Equipment: Ceremonial robes. Background: "False Idol" isn't what Simon Corrick calls himself; it is the name that DOSHI agents have given him.  Corrick has ...

Egregious Charisma 1 Intelligence 2 Will Power 4 Dexterity 3 Stamina 4 Strength 5 (primary) Race: Human, Physical Mutate Power Level 1 Motivation: Violence Disadvantages: Unusual appearance Advantages: Tough, Very Tough, Large, Attribute Bonus (Strength) 5, Skill bonus combat, Resources 1 Skills: Combat (Brawling 2), Melee, Range, Athletics, Vehicle Operations Racial Powers: powers from the Body Manipulation and Reduction are half price, powers from the Manipulation category cost double, Vulnerable to power negation Powers: Body Armor, Unyielding, Body Weaponry, Battle Fury Saves: Kinetic 12, General 7, Will 2 Defense: Passive 10, Active 14 Health: 127 Endure Pain: 6 Power Pool: 45 Power Channeling: 6 Equipment: Combat Shotgun, 8 Dimeload rounds, 3 Shrapnel grenades, $3000 Background:  Barrett Coles grew up in a difficult, poverty-ridden neighborhood on Earth.  As a youth he became a schoolyard bully and developed a viol...

I got a good bit of constructive criticism regarding my first handful of entries into the A-to-Z Challenge, namely regarding a lack of background, especially for those unfamiliar with the game (which would be just about everybody).  Some of that is just the pressure of cranking out all these NPC's, but I thought I would at least try to give some more insight into how I see these guys working in my own TUH games. Ajax: In TUH, humanity had superheroes and supervillains for over a century, but now there has been an explosion of spontaneously mutating humans manifesting powers.  In addition, the discovery of alien life and cultures whose technologies far outpace what humanity had to offer has caused huge societal changes for the Earth.  In less than fifty years humanity has gone from traveling through the solar system to spanning the galaxy, but their advancement has been under the very controlling gaze of the other races, especially the Xeros.  Those same alien race...