Tim Kirk
03-01-2005, 11:52 AM
The Fireborn game I'm running is loosely based on shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer in tone. The heroes are all boarding school students who arrive and a re introduced to the strange customs of Britain and education all at once.
We have an activist/outspoken young woman who is a scion of Chimera, a track star f Asian descent Scion of Ryu, a die hard student who wierd things happen to scion of Damballah, and a bmx biker of wealthy parents scion of Ladon. I reduced the skill levels significantly for this game as I wanted them to be students not highly skilled adults (which the default system somewhat assumes) this actually worked out well.
THe heroes arrived and were introduced to the Kingsfall Academy which had once been a monastary in the Middle Ages and had been rebuilt significantly after being in ruin for centuries to become a well known boarding school. (I went with fictional here simply because the boarding schools I researched were all rather drab and I wanted big ornate and spooky.)
Kingsfall is not in London but somewhat distant near a series of small villages and one minor city (I wanted a bit of green and so called fresh air.)
Withing the academy the boys and girls are separated and given their room assignments all of them freshmen so they ended up on the same floor at least (though the lone female heroine ended up in a different wing of the school.)
As the students settled in they discovered a hazing ritual wherein the younger newer students were preyed upon by trio of bullies--one who has a bit of a asympathetic edge, but the other two unreddemably crass. The bullies were forcing students to kiss the rather muck drenched retaining pond near an old stone monument called The Crying Stone (and inlaid with a worn latin inscription)
After pretty much driving off the bullies with little more than physical presence and haughty words they decide to take the rest of the afternoon seeing the local city and take a short bus ride to town. They are allowed to visit the library, town center, and musuem. The musuem is hosting one of the students families heirloom artifacts (which are rather valuable in general he's a rich Greek boarder) whereupon the chimeran scion sees a peice of her hoard (but doesn't know that why she is drawn to it, for none of them know they are dragons!) she has her first flashback then, but it reveals only the stone tablets origins that she's so enamored of, they also visit the Oriental exhibit where most everyone is drawn to the Yari on exhibit, but it is not a hoard item ;)
During the visit their young Greek friend is talking to some rough hood looking fellow he mentions was his fathers, former bodyguard--and all of them note is armed when he moves and reveals a shoulder holster!
Being mostly American's though this doesn't set off quiet the bells it would if they were British.
They then plan to return to school to discover another of their companions has passed out in the loo. He is rushed to the hospital. They return to school and arrive late and split up their own ways to bed.
The next morning they discover another student is ill, and the first one is listed with pnemonia! and all precautions are being taken to prevent furthur spread of illness according to the headmaster (re: Nothing really but hoping it doesn't spread and adding antibactierial soaps to all the shared facilities)
Two of the students in the boys wing hear a sound of someone in slickers (they think) heading to another room. They follow and hear squelching things and giggle to themselves thinking its a boy masterbating. They hear a feminine voice and decide to look and find instead find a frog line female dripping with water straddling the clothed and blanketed young man. "riding him" while caressing his hair and kissing his face and saying sweet nothing to the unconscious boy. They act throwing a chair at her but she simply reacts like custard and frowns before making a run for it out the window and through the fog covered green.
The boys decide to go out to the pond--feeling that is where she was from and while standing their one dares the other to stick his foot in, both end up dragged into the nasty muck by whatever is in the pond (failing their Fire checks by seveal successes each needing 4 and getting only 2 and 1) they finally do manage to escape with a nice Fire toss that was all 6 dice they had successes for the stronger of the two and he helping his friend to shore).)
They then went to their wing and met Rey, the night janitor, and well, something more. He asked simply which end he should start cleaning from and lit a fag. His scottish accent with a dim chuckle they nearly babbled too much at him about frog women. But their sense of straight jackets prevailed and they went and showered, together (aaaahhh..how sweet) in the communal showers in the boys wing. They then found their friend who'd been ridden coughing and green, quite sickly so they carried him to the medical office and waited for the doctor and nurse. The ill student was rushed off campus by an ambulance to town shortly therafter. The next day after breakfast they went about researching this thing, to no avail until they bothered to tell the female student all about it where she decided the net and porn would not avail them (frog women got a lot of porn hits it seems) they begins searching in the library and find a few books on annis, night-hags etc which come close but not quiet, so they are about to give up when Rey comes by to clean out the waste baskets before going off shift and drops a crumpled note. Taking his lead they look up faries and discover all sorts of possibly nasty water fey that mixed with a night hag cover their critter exactly.
They then go into town to chekc its library and find a quiet and someonwhat short tempered greek student (Niccoli) going with them. He goes to the musuem again, while the female student who he had been flirting with previously goes to the library, the male student-heroes decide to follow him and find him meeting his fathers ex-bodyguard along with a number of thugs in the Chinese exhibit.
Obviously "coercing" Niccoli to go along with firearms, the students do what only gamers or people in movies would do and try and fight. I expected the game to slow down to an terrible crawl but found in the player's hand the game flowed well. They discovered the joys of their fighting styles as well as stringing along their own maneuvers (Power+Power+Fist Strike was a fun one) this smoothness was unexpected. The players got the moving of dice from skills (although I really need to threaten them more with mental things because unless I do its never going to be an issue that dice are moved for them.) the favorite moment was when the chinese student pulled off a massibely powerful style manuever that Koed the opposing guy with a single strike, second favorite was when the only one without a fighting style caught the gun in an amazing feat when it fell his way (he has casting but no skill or spells) and shot the lead thugs/bodyguard (and guns are terrible terrible things in this game.)
Over all the dice mechanics were more smooth than expected which is good but I don't know that the "moving" idea works very well unless you plan to hit players from all sides because there is little penalty for moving effort around. The combat maenuevers were nice, and the fact that while you didn't get a huge payoff you could still do some interesting things with your actions made the melee combat worthwhile. Shame the ranged combat is so lame (even Gun Fu is mostly melee with a few gun shots thrown in..)
I tossed away most of the backplot elements of the game, there are faries and taint, taint is bad, but I'm using a more classic folklore stance for everything but the dragons which are kept the same, because I want classic werewolves, vampires and other enemies, especially to face dragons. ;)
Even if they are dragons with mortal forms...
We have an activist/outspoken young woman who is a scion of Chimera, a track star f Asian descent Scion of Ryu, a die hard student who wierd things happen to scion of Damballah, and a bmx biker of wealthy parents scion of Ladon. I reduced the skill levels significantly for this game as I wanted them to be students not highly skilled adults (which the default system somewhat assumes) this actually worked out well.
THe heroes arrived and were introduced to the Kingsfall Academy which had once been a monastary in the Middle Ages and had been rebuilt significantly after being in ruin for centuries to become a well known boarding school. (I went with fictional here simply because the boarding schools I researched were all rather drab and I wanted big ornate and spooky.)
Kingsfall is not in London but somewhat distant near a series of small villages and one minor city (I wanted a bit of green and so called fresh air.)
Withing the academy the boys and girls are separated and given their room assignments all of them freshmen so they ended up on the same floor at least (though the lone female heroine ended up in a different wing of the school.)
As the students settled in they discovered a hazing ritual wherein the younger newer students were preyed upon by trio of bullies--one who has a bit of a asympathetic edge, but the other two unreddemably crass. The bullies were forcing students to kiss the rather muck drenched retaining pond near an old stone monument called The Crying Stone (and inlaid with a worn latin inscription)
After pretty much driving off the bullies with little more than physical presence and haughty words they decide to take the rest of the afternoon seeing the local city and take a short bus ride to town. They are allowed to visit the library, town center, and musuem. The musuem is hosting one of the students families heirloom artifacts (which are rather valuable in general he's a rich Greek boarder) whereupon the chimeran scion sees a peice of her hoard (but doesn't know that why she is drawn to it, for none of them know they are dragons!) she has her first flashback then, but it reveals only the stone tablets origins that she's so enamored of, they also visit the Oriental exhibit where most everyone is drawn to the Yari on exhibit, but it is not a hoard item ;)
During the visit their young Greek friend is talking to some rough hood looking fellow he mentions was his fathers, former bodyguard--and all of them note is armed when he moves and reveals a shoulder holster!
Being mostly American's though this doesn't set off quiet the bells it would if they were British.
They then plan to return to school to discover another of their companions has passed out in the loo. He is rushed to the hospital. They return to school and arrive late and split up their own ways to bed.
The next morning they discover another student is ill, and the first one is listed with pnemonia! and all precautions are being taken to prevent furthur spread of illness according to the headmaster (re: Nothing really but hoping it doesn't spread and adding antibactierial soaps to all the shared facilities)
Two of the students in the boys wing hear a sound of someone in slickers (they think) heading to another room. They follow and hear squelching things and giggle to themselves thinking its a boy masterbating. They hear a feminine voice and decide to look and find instead find a frog line female dripping with water straddling the clothed and blanketed young man. "riding him" while caressing his hair and kissing his face and saying sweet nothing to the unconscious boy. They act throwing a chair at her but she simply reacts like custard and frowns before making a run for it out the window and through the fog covered green.
The boys decide to go out to the pond--feeling that is where she was from and while standing their one dares the other to stick his foot in, both end up dragged into the nasty muck by whatever is in the pond (failing their Fire checks by seveal successes each needing 4 and getting only 2 and 1) they finally do manage to escape with a nice Fire toss that was all 6 dice they had successes for the stronger of the two and he helping his friend to shore).)
They then went to their wing and met Rey, the night janitor, and well, something more. He asked simply which end he should start cleaning from and lit a fag. His scottish accent with a dim chuckle they nearly babbled too much at him about frog women. But their sense of straight jackets prevailed and they went and showered, together (aaaahhh..how sweet) in the communal showers in the boys wing. They then found their friend who'd been ridden coughing and green, quite sickly so they carried him to the medical office and waited for the doctor and nurse. The ill student was rushed off campus by an ambulance to town shortly therafter. The next day after breakfast they went about researching this thing, to no avail until they bothered to tell the female student all about it where she decided the net and porn would not avail them (frog women got a lot of porn hits it seems) they begins searching in the library and find a few books on annis, night-hags etc which come close but not quiet, so they are about to give up when Rey comes by to clean out the waste baskets before going off shift and drops a crumpled note. Taking his lead they look up faries and discover all sorts of possibly nasty water fey that mixed with a night hag cover their critter exactly.
They then go into town to chekc its library and find a quiet and someonwhat short tempered greek student (Niccoli) going with them. He goes to the musuem again, while the female student who he had been flirting with previously goes to the library, the male student-heroes decide to follow him and find him meeting his fathers ex-bodyguard along with a number of thugs in the Chinese exhibit.
Obviously "coercing" Niccoli to go along with firearms, the students do what only gamers or people in movies would do and try and fight. I expected the game to slow down to an terrible crawl but found in the player's hand the game flowed well. They discovered the joys of their fighting styles as well as stringing along their own maneuvers (Power+Power+Fist Strike was a fun one) this smoothness was unexpected. The players got the moving of dice from skills (although I really need to threaten them more with mental things because unless I do its never going to be an issue that dice are moved for them.) the favorite moment was when the chinese student pulled off a massibely powerful style manuever that Koed the opposing guy with a single strike, second favorite was when the only one without a fighting style caught the gun in an amazing feat when it fell his way (he has casting but no skill or spells) and shot the lead thugs/bodyguard (and guns are terrible terrible things in this game.)
Over all the dice mechanics were more smooth than expected which is good but I don't know that the "moving" idea works very well unless you plan to hit players from all sides because there is little penalty for moving effort around. The combat maenuevers were nice, and the fact that while you didn't get a huge payoff you could still do some interesting things with your actions made the melee combat worthwhile. Shame the ranged combat is so lame (even Gun Fu is mostly melee with a few gun shots thrown in..)
I tossed away most of the backplot elements of the game, there are faries and taint, taint is bad, but I'm using a more classic folklore stance for everything but the dragons which are kept the same, because I want classic werewolves, vampires and other enemies, especially to face dragons. ;)
Even if they are dragons with mortal forms...