Recent content by pachristian

I find that in a straight point-buy system, all characters tend to look alike. I follow these steps: 1) players roll their characters (3d6 for most stats, 2d6+6 for INT and SIZ), appropriate dice for other races. 2) Female human characters have the option to take -2 to STR and -2 to SIZ...

Some truth to this - I don't want to get into anthropological details, but among other things, in the mythologies of the three main religions you've, the "sorcerers" are not scientist-programmers, they are in fact getting their power from spirits or demons; in other words, they are not...

You got the point! There is a gaming paradigm (and I might add it has no relation to magic in the 'real' world) that divine magic and sorcery are somehow "different". Divine casters are servants of their gods. Sorcerers are scientist-programmers. This paradigm traces back to original D&D...

You are mistaken. Gravitational effects are instant. A shift in gravity 10 light-years away is felt at the same time it happens - everywhere. However, Gravity is the weakest of the four fundamental forces (the other three are electromagnitism, and strong and weak nuclear forces), and the effect...

Pre-gaming fantasy fiction, also folklore and mythology, generally do not separate the roles of cleric and wizard the way that most gaming does. Somehow, we see divine magic and sorcerous magic as being completely separate, competing systems. However; Thoth-Amon was a priest of Set. Rezo the Red...

How does one respond to this? How about: :lol: Woohoo! :lol: Woohoo! :D Happy Dance! :D Happy Dance! :D Seriously - I love my historical settings, my swords-n-sorcery, and my plot-based campaigns with detailed NPC's and motivations. But I've been gaming since '75, and an old-fashioned...

I agree with the need for Concert Casting as an ability. I've read through your write-up, but not play-tested it yet. This might be a little extreme. I think you mean that they must stay in the same general spot that they started, chanting, swaying, dancing, as required. But the way this is...

Idea: Some spells take a penalty to the chance to cast, but give a bonus to the power of the spell. Likewise, some spells have a bonus to cast, but suffer a penalty on the power and manipulation ability of the spell. This gives an expert sorcerer greater than normal power, while allowing an...

I am very much looking forward to this. I would like to see a (short) chapter on alternate elemental systems. Either the Chinese listed above - or the Japanese (which, oddly, does not follow the Chinese, but uses Earth-Air-Fire-Water-Void) - or how about an African elemental system...

Now... You remembered the full Traveller and Judge Dread conversions, right? :mrgreen:

Likewise! So many magical traditions depend on magical talismans that not having them in the game is sort of hollow spot. Certainly magic potions every kind are a gaming magic tradition; those would be a great addition to Legend.

Yeah, my proposal is a long build-up for the scenario you are talking about. You could drop some of the steps (for example; the treasure map and unleashing the curse). The whole point of my proposal is to try to have the players to have an emotional investment in the town and its people. Also...

Tias - I'd start by backing up a step. You say the players are in employ of the overlord of the realm. Give them a mission to go to Hearthtree before the lord gets possessed. Have them meet the lord of Hearthtree (perhaps they are part of a diplomatic party). Give them reasons to like them. He...

Ummm - Actually the mechanic is to set the number of required successes before three failures based on the difficulty of the task, and the number of different skills that can be applied to it. I just used a 3/3 as an example. An easy task for beginners might require only one success before...

These are some excellent examples. One idea from 4th Editions D&D was the "skill challenge". Put simply, the characters attempt to roll on a number of different skills. The goal is to get a GM-set number of successes before there is an aggregate of 3 failures. Using the "crossing the marsh"...