[Everstone/Ptolus] Storm Wardens

[Scurvy_Platypus]

This is the AP thread for my Everstone game. Everstone uses a tweaked version of BESMd20.

The game is taking place (or at least starting out) in Ptolus.

If you're here looking for a "story" type AP, you're likely going to be disappointed. I tried doing that sort of thing with my ZoZ game, and found it to be too much work with no real payoff. I'll talk about what happened in the game, but it's going to be more in the broader "report" style than narrative. Generally, this thread is going to be about:

A) Stuff that comes up for me as a DM. I've never DMed a d20 game before, although I have run other games in the past.

B) Providing an actual AP for a great game. Everstone was a solid implementation of the BESMd20 rules, that sadly never managed to gain popularity. It seems to share a number of similarities to Eberron, but a combination of non-existant marketing, doing a setting that had a similar feel to a brand new WotC setting, and use of a ruleset that was generally dismissed or actively disliked by people online killed an otherwise promising game.

How far away from BESMd20 is Everstone? It's not terribly far from what I've seen in doing comparisons between the two. Part of the difference is the fact that BESMd20 tries to be fairly generic (so it's another d20 looking product) while still having plenty of references to fantasy. Everstone on the other hand is a specific and focused setting (magictech), using the BESMd20 rules to support it. I know the author felt pretty strongly about Everstone being its own thing.

C) Mechanical issues that come up in the course of Everstone, as well as any conversions or implementations I come up with for Everstone.

The setting has all sorts of groovy stuff going on with it in terms of magictech and magic, and is open enough that a pretty wide range of things can be introduced with relatively little trouble, at least in terms of world consistency. Mechanically, Everstone is a cousin of d20, but it's a point-based system and relies on people buying improvements to abilities instead of simply getting an increase every X levels. Which means that while you can certainly introduce things from other sources, you really do have to actually think about it more in terms of a conversion than simply scaling it from one d20 implementation to another.

D) Talking about Ptolus being used. I've wanted to use this ever since I was given it as a gift, and now I've got the opportunity to do so. I haven't seen that much talk about Ptolus being used, and virtually nothing about it being used as part of something else. Every time the question comes up about converting Ptolus to another system or using it in conjunction with another system, gamers show up to talk about how it's not really possible because it _is_ d20 D&D. If you're not using D&D, the game is going to be hard blah blah blah. I don't know if these folks have actually _tried_ running it under a different system, nor do I know if they even own the book. Frankly, I don't care. I simply aim to show they're mistaken.

The fact that it's being run using Everstone muddies the waters a bit. On the one hand, you've got people saying how BESMd20 isn't "really" point-based D&D/d20, because the author came right out and said he didn't think D&D was balanced and therefore in writing BESMd20 he was going to modify things so that they were balanced, at least in his opinion.

On the other hand, all the Ptolus "it can only be run in D&D" can point to the fact that I'm using Everstone and say "Well, it's mostly like D&D so it's not as if you were really doing anything different with it!". Which may or may not be a valid point, depending on how much you know (and like/dislike) BESMd20 to begin with. To be honest, I'm probably going to lose with either side that wants to argue it. However, the other aspect about running Ptolus and how it looks under a different system, is the next point....

E) The game is capped at level 8. There was an interesting idea and series of threads that were posted on ENWorld (and had a brief bit of interest here at rpgnet) about "E6". The idea being that the game was started and played as normal in all respects, until 6th level was reached. At that point, all leveling and advancement stops although XP is still accrued. For every 5 thousand XP, a character gets to pick a feat. That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

I really liked the idea, although I think 6th level is too low for the sort of game I like to play and run. So I'm going to do something very similar to E6, but capping it at level 8 instead of 6, and changing a few other bits to account for the game taking place within the Everstone rules instead of the D&D rules.

Hopefully the E8/Everstone/Ptolus combination of things means that there's several reasons for folks to be interested in what goes on in the game, instead of limiting it to a tiny niche.

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Now, the group has actually already met twice, with the 2nd time actually resulting in some gameplay. However, before I move onto the actual sessions, I'd like to lay out the basic premises going into the game. If you don't care about it for whatever reason, skip down three posts. Just be aware that everything that happening in the game is stemming (at least initially) from what you're skipping.

Everstone Overview:
300 years ago, the Hollow Lords showed up and started absolutely trashing the place. Nobody knows where they came from, how or why they showed up here (on Lannith), or why they don't go back to their homes. The Hollow Lords seem preoccupied with fighting each other, and really don't think (or care) about the original inhabitants of Lannith unless they somehow seem to be a threat.

To survive, the people of Everstone fled underground and took up residence in an abandoned complex that belonged to a vanished race, which are now referred to as Rune Lords.

While underground, the Magi were able to decipher the runic writings and tap into a form of magic that was previously unknown and in some ways far more powerful than what they were used to wielding. Apparently the Rune Lords were themselves weak in magic (unlike the Everstonians) and used the runes to tap into magic instead.

The Magi promptly started trying to figure out how to leverage this new knowledge into weapons to help them retake the surface. As their experiments continued and evolved, they were able to create fully sentient constructs (war golems) as well as ranged weapons powered by magic, and all sorts of other tools and weapon augmentations. All using strings of Runes and powered with Bloodstones and magic.

80 years ago, the Everstonians left their underground stronghold and retook the surface.

They've been exploring the world, and trying to make new contacts with any others that might survive. A few Hollow Lords have been slain, but the others are still very active in the world, and seem to be starting to pay attention the inhabitants of Lannith. Along with the Hollow Lords, the Magi have discovered some new foes as well, including the Roogadin, who seem to care for nobody except themselves, and the Adone who seem to have armed and equipped themselves in a somewhat similar fashion as the Magi of Everstone have, only the Adone rely on demontech.

30 years ago, the gods came back. Nobody knows why they left in the first place, and it's not exactly clear why they've come back. And they haven't said where they went either.

Despite this, the gods are growing in popularity once again, and the Temple of the Ancients (as the refounded religion is now referred to) is extremely active in providing assistance to the Magi, and exploring the old ruins to retrieve artifacts and history that's been lost.

Especially if those artifacts happen to be of the old magic sort.

12 years ago, the Fey suddenly showed up requesting sanctuary. The Fey are creatures born of humanity's (and likely others) dreams and nightmares. They'd stayed pretty much out of affairs on Lannith, mainly wandering over from their realm to peep on people and amuse themselves. Unluckily for them, a Hollow Lord managed to find a portal that one of the Fey used to come to Lannith. The Hollow Lord forced the portal to stay open and invaded the Dreaming, hoping to use it as a staging point for attacks against his rivals. The Fey managed to twist the Dreaming around on the Hollow Lord and fled, the Dreaming now dangerous and a prison for the Hollow Lord.

Now, there exists an uneasy peace with the Adone, marked by raids and attempted infiltrations of the Magi guilds. Exploration continues as rapidly as possible, as there was an unknown amount of information lost and forgotten in the intervening 300 years since the Hollow Lords arrived. The Roogadin have shown up from seemingly nowhere, and appear to be uninterested in anything except conquest. The Hollow Lords stir, and seem to be taking an interest in the Everstonians, instead of simply fighting each other.

Specific metagame notes:

Fey are elves.

Dwarves don't exist within the setting, though it's fairly clear they're the Rune Lords.

It's never said what happened to them, other than the Rune Lords being a "long dead" race.

Gnomes are called Gavown, and get a bit of a facelift. The Gavown are the techie race, and are primarily responsible for the development of the War Golems and the rest of the magictech (with the assistance of the Magi of course).

If standard D&D/d20 magic is going to be used in Everstone, no antimagic type spells, planar travel/extra dimensional travel spells, or any spells over 5th level. Use Clerics and Sorcerers for the spell lists, and if there's a discrepancy between a spell that both Clerics and Sorcerers get, use the Sorcerer version.

Halflings don't exist within the game.

3 new races are introduced: the Ka'Taan (humanoid lions, nomadic hunters), the O'Grom (ogre derived, 4 element worshiping race, possibly clan based society), and the War Golems (sentient constructs)

Magic is a _strong_ presence in the world. With the use of Rune Strings, much of it takes the form of magictech, and it applies to weapons, armor, and other gear. Traditional style magic use happens and is fairly common, although standard magic items are _not_ common.

They're prized and sought because they don't have to be activated, nor do they cost energy points, unlike the current standard Everstone equipment.

NPCs are generally built using the NPC classes from the DMG.

Everstone doesn't use combat skills like BESMd20 does. Instead, it's based on BaB (like D&D) and Defense bonus. In a departure from both systems, combat is an opposed roll between the player and the DM. The bonus (Attack or Defense) is added to the roll, and whomever is highest succeeds.

Armor doesn't add to your skills, it functions as Damage Resistance.

Hit Points are race based, not class based.

Damage is handled sort of like the Wounds/Vitality system. Hit Points represents damage that isn't too serious, and heals back at the rate of 1 HP a level per hour (level 3 gets 3 HP back per hour). After all the hit points are lost, damage is applied to Str (not Con) and Str damage is healed back at the rate of 1 Str point per 24 hours of rest. No Massive Damage threshold or crits go straight to Str rule.

Crits happen on a 20. No roll to confirm, no threat range (although one could certainly add such a thing).

Str and Dex affect combat differently. Str bonus adds to damage, not to hit. Dex adds to Defense rolls. In other words, no bonuses to hit from stats.

Items that have the Magic attribute (whether it's a spell or an item) do damage in d6s. If any damage d6 comes up "6" roll another d6 and add it to the total. I.E. you've got a blaze gun that does 2d6 damage. You roll and get a 2 and a 6 (total of 8). The 6 is rerolled and comes up 4. You inflict a total of 12 points of damage.

There aren't AoO and therefore the feats that go along with it are useless.

There's no alignment.

[Scurvy_Platypus]

The game was pitched and agreed to as "urban". There's the opportunity for doing dungeony stuff, but the game is being set and based in a city.

The characters are all members of the City Watch. This means that there has to be a consideration for collateral damage, as well as not resorting to killing everyone.

One of the players (I've got 4) was keen on the idea that the group would be something like the equivalent of SWAT. Since the other two players didn't object to that idea, I decided to start the game off with a "graduation" exercise. If they succeed (which is more a judgment call on my part as to whether I feel like the group is going to behave in a semi-responsible fashion) then they'll be joining a new unit that's been formed within the Stormguard and is focused on internal security and investigation of crimes. If they don't succeed, then they're still part of the City Watch and get to spend time busting criminals and doing some investigations.

There's really not much difference to start with for the group, if they succeed or fail. Success means they get a better status within the game, and will be doing FBI/SWAT/Special Branch type stuff with investigations and infiltrations. Maybe later (depending on the group and their mood) it might shift to a bit more of an Alias style action spy game. Failure means more restrictions on what they can get away with in game, and operating on a smaller scale. Plus, they don't get to gloat to each other about being SWAT/Special Branch badasses.

Ptolus is the city where everything is taking place. The game setting (Everstone) trumps Ptolus if there's a conflict. Meaning (for example) that while the city itself has a history that goes back quite a ways, the city was only reinhabited/resettled 80 years ago. This means that some of the history talked about took place down below or else it's simply lost due to the passage of time. Things like The Fallen could very well have moved into Ptolus while everyone else was living down below, and it doesn't skew things badly.

The game is geared towards a high-action/cinematic style.

If everyone gets their characters to 8th level, I'm going to run Expedition to Barrier Peaks for the group.

Some background stuff that is guiding the game that the players aren't aware of:

Spending CP (Character Points) on something means a level of game importance. If a player has explicitly chosen skills to be Trained and/or Focused, it means it's important to that player for their character to succeed in doing it. If they've spent CP on Attributes, Spells, Upgrades (for Wargolems) or whatever... they should get use out of it. If CP have been spent on something, I'm not taking it away.

Spoiler: Ptolus spoiler

Ptolus is basically a prison / roach motel. Once things get in, they can't get back out. The planet itself is the anchor point for the dimension/plane/whatever and holds the trapped demons.

The planet of Lannith (where Everstone is set) isn't fully fleshed out. while that's not really a problem given the intended limited scope of the game, I do think it's nice to have an idea of what's going on outside the particular setting. Especially since I've agreed to run Expedition to Barrier Peaks for example.

After some thought, I've decided on the following cosmology:

Lannith is set within a limited Plane. It's basically got a couple of systems within the Plane, but that's it. It's tied to the greater universe which is much like Stargate (how about the oh so original "Runegate" designation?), only through a magic/technomagic filter. It's got one or two other Planes tied to it. So Lannith is in a Plane with a couple of sub-planes tied to it, and is nested inside the greater Plane which houses the Runegate universe which also has a couple of sub-Planes. What nobody really realizes, is that the "greater" Plane which houses the Runegate universe is also essentially the same thing as the Ptolus spoiler. Automatic backup as it were.

The backend of Lannith (other side of the planet) has the Warcraft setting unfolding. Part of the struggle and warring that's been going on is because the Burning Legion find themselves in their particular predicament thanks to the Ptolus spoiler premise.

The planet that the Orcs fled from is the Dark Sun setting.

Since there is no real "Arcane" or "Divine" magic as it stands within Everstone, it's simply another form of magic (like Runes, or Truenames, or whatever) that stems from demon-kind and corrupts and drains the land as per Dark Sun/Warcraft.

The Fallen (from Ptolus) along with the other factions deific factions are aware of each other, but avoid each other. Nobody wants to run the risk of bringing in "outsiders" and shifting the balance of power against their own interests.

The Hollow Lords are on Lannith for the same reason as the others like the Galchutt (Ptolus).

Within Lannith there exists a gate system much like the Stargates. This ties in and relates to the Hollow Lords. The Rune Lords were the creators of the system, and have subsequently left.

The Hollow Lords essentially fill the niche in the Runegate universe as the Gua'old do within Stargate.

Any greater needs for what the Runegate universe looks/acts like will take its cue from Stargate and Dragonstar.

I'd like to note again that the cosmology above is something the players aren't aware of, and I don't expect will be of any concern to them. All that stuff I wrote above? That's pretty much it for the worldbuilding as far as I'm concerned. I don't see a need to detail out all sorts of stuff that's never going to see the light of day. The above basically lays out the framework for a bunch of the antagonists that exist within the setting, allows me wriggle room for funky stuff like the Barrier Peaks module, and gives me someplace to go if the players suddenly hare off in some bizaare and random direction.

[Scurvy_Platypus]

War golems don't exist as a class. I don't see a reason to penalize someone by forcing all of their character development to be focused on paying points for stuff that other people can buy as normal gear.

I've downsized the War Golem to an "urban" model. Given a high level of complaint from the player (my wife), the description of the War Golems basically stands as is, it's just size (and speed) that's changed. In compensation for this, if the group has to deal with an actual War Golem (the urban model in the group is the prototype), I'm going to scale UP the full version of War Golem.

Skills are handled as follows:

Skill points are eliminated.

Characters still have class skills.

At first level, a player chooses a number of skills from their Class Skills list, and marks these as being Trained. The number of skills chosen is however many skill points a character would normally get when leveling. A Trained skill gets a +5 bonus.

So for example (using the regular D&D classes), a human Rogue with an IQ of 18 would choose a total of 13 skills (8 from the class, +4 for the IQ, +1 for being human) to count as Trained. In case that sounds like a lot, bear in mind that the Rogue has a total of 29 skills in their Class Skills list.

After the inital picking of skills to be considered Trained, that's it.
No more decisions about skills. If you want to take another skill as Trained, you would buy a feat called Additional Training, and then pick another skill. Only skills that are explicitly listed as being Class Skills may be chosen to be Trained.

You can still buy Skill Focus, and apply it to your skills as normal. A Focused skill gets an additional +5

A skill check is made in the following manner:

Class skill that's untrained:
Roll a d20, add the stat modifier (if any), and add the character's level.

If the skill is one that a character has picked to be Trained, then an additional +5 is added to the total.

If the skill is both Trained and Focused, it's a +10 that's added to total.

D&D has this thing with "Trained" and "Untrained" skills. Trained meaning that you can only attempt the skill check if you've spent skill points in it, Untrained meaning anyone can try it. Since I've hijacked the "Trained" term to mean something different, I've reclassed skills as "Casual Use" and "Formal Training".

Formal Training skill can generally only be attempted if you've got it as a class skill, or you've taken it as Trained.

Casual Use skills can be attempted by anyone, but unless it's a Class skill, a person can only add half their character level (rounded down) to the attempt.

So what do the maximum skill ranks look like between both systems?
A 20th level character with a +4 mod to their skill would normally have a maximum possible skill (without feats or anything else) of +24. If they rolled a natural 20, they'd hit a DC of 44.

Under the new system, an 8th level character with a +4 mod to their skill would have a maximum possible skill of +22. On a roll of a natural 20, they'd hit a DC of 42.

Not really much of a difference in terms of what can be achieved, but it makes my book keeping as a GM a heck of a lot easier. If I weren't capping the game at 8th level, I'd switch the level bonus to being half the level (rounded down) instead of the full level.

Given that D&D/d20 seems to have this love affair with Fixed DCs for things, it means I don't have to worry about putzing around with any fixed DC conversion, and it goes along smoothly with my assigning DCs on the fly otherwise.

Under Everstone, since feats cost 2 CP and everyone gets 5 each time they level, it means the Fighter types which ordinarily only get 2 skill points a level can go ahead and spend some CP and develop several skills if they want. They're never going to be able to keep up with skill monkey Rogue types though, so the skill monkey characters will still have their place.

The game is capped at level 8. After that, for every 5k of XP earned, a character gets 2 CP to do with as they wish, with the following restrictions:
No more than 3 levels of Damn Healthy and Energy Bonus may be bought.
BaB, Defense, and Saves may not be purchased higher than the character's level (meaning a max of +8 can be bought).

Feats can be brought in from a wide variety of sources, but I have to see and approve it first.

While I'm not a fan of the whole AoO thing, there is some merit to it. For now I'm going to leave it as stands, and if it's a problem for some reason, either I'll reintroduce it (option I'm not keen on), or allow someone to take feats that normally negates an AoO and have them instead gain a bonus to performing specific actions (much more to my liking).

Energy Points may be spent in a similar fashion to Action Points. This goes along with the standard uses that EP can be used for, as follows.
5 EP =
Temporarily increase Hit Points by 2
Temporarily increase an ability score by 1
Reroll a dice check
Currently I'm thinking of an exchange rate of 5 EP = 1 Action Point.
If someone really gets into the idea of doing stuff with their Energy Points, then it shouldn't be too hard to adapt over some of the feats (and maybe even the class) from Eberron, and reframe it into an Everstone class.

I'm going to work the Book of Iron Might into the options for the game. From the player's side of things, they won't really have to worry about it. If they want to try something, then they'll just make a check and go from there. to add a bit more cinematic feel to things, I'll probably allow EP to be burned to improve the chance (or increase the DC the opponent has to make) for the character to succeed in what they're doing.

I think Action Points are a great potential that's usually wasted. Since the game already uses EP to power spells and attributes, rolling AP into the same economy makes sense to me. That way if people want to do awesome things, they spend points, and if they want to use awesome abilities they spend the same points. Different ways to be awesome, same bookkeeping and economy.

I'm open to outside stuff being incorporated into the game. Currently, the following books (and their approximate order of importance) are playing at least some role within the game:

Ptolus (Malhavok Press) [Main setting]
Arsenal (Perpetrated Press) [Weapons]
Factory (Perpetrated Press) [Additional War Golem ideas]
Chaostech (Malhavok Press) [Part of Ptolus, and to handle the demontech that the Adone use]
BESMd20 (Guardians of Order) [mainly to help in clarifying bits of Everstone]
Arcana Unearthed (Malhavok Press) [Additional Races and other bits]
The Psychic's Handbook (Green Ronin) [The Everstone book mentions the use of psionics, although there's nothing actually given rules-wise]
Grave of Heaven: Uresia [additional location within Lannith that's much easier to get to than the other side of the planet.]
Mecha Compendium Deluxe (Dream Pod 9) [to build the Battle Gyries of the Shone]
The Warcraft (not WoW) RPG
Artificer's Handbook (Mystic Eye Games) [to handle Magic Item creation]
Blight Magic (Mystic Eye Games) [to deal with Corruption magic]
Necromancer's Legacy (Mystic Eye Games) [for Necromancery stuff]
Dragonstar setting (Fantasy Flight games and Mystic Eye Games) [Additional tech and setting]
Dark Sun (1st Ed boxed set, TSR) [Additional setting]

I haven't sat down and worked up detailed notes about how this or that book specifically is going to work within the setting. That's an awful lot of work that I'm not sure really _needs_ to be done. Aresenal and Factory are the top additional books.

The players have to worry about _none_ of it. I've even got spare copies of the book (although 1 player did go out and buy his own copy) for people to use at the table.

[Scurvy_Platypus]

This almost drove me up the wall, just like the Poison Ivy bout that I'm recovering from. More than a month in advance I talked with people about the game. Several potential games actually. 3 people (the 4th player is currently unreliable and therefore wasn't included in the discussion) making the decision about what game to play, based on the options I laid out for what sounded cool to me and that I'd be willing to run.

The decision was Everstone and an Urban game. I sold Everstone for a few reasons:

d20 based. That means some differences, but a lot of what you know is going to transfer.

It's a simpler form of d20 that I'm willing to try running (Lone Wolf was the other).

One of the three said flat out that he basically only does d20 and while he plays WW games it took a while for the others to convince him to do so. He's also pretty strongly into fantasy games. Not fantasy only, but it's clearly his preference.

Everstone has some of the same feeling of Eberron, but doesn't hold back like Eberron seems to. I kinda felt like Eberron was a blend of "Magic to the max!" and "Greyhawk!" I had enough fun while playing it, but kept feeling like it could have been more. Like Everstone did.

I told the players, "You don't have to buy a single book. I've got a spare copy to share around the table during the game, but otherwise you don't have to worry about it unless you decide it's cool enough for you to get your own copy. Since this is a game I think is cool, and you guys are willing to give it a shot, I think it'd be a shitty thing for me to insist you buy the game too. If it sucks, we'll move on to something else. No harm, no foul. I fyou think it rocks, you can buy a book or not as you feel like, I don't really care. I just want the chance to try it out and think it'll be all sorts of groovy fun."

I loaned the books around for the next month to everyone (including the 4th player who entered into this whole thing late as usual), and told them "We're all going to sit down together and make the characters at the same time. Get a feel for what you'd like to play, pick 1 character in the group that you've got some sort of a connection to, and we'll be ready to go from there."

Everyone (including the 4th player) knew upfront that it was an actiony-cop thing that was going to be done, sort of like Die Hard and Bad Boys.

Creation time arrives. 2 players have a solid idea (and I knew going into the session what they were playing, especially since one of the players is my wife), 1 of the players still is undecided, and the 4th player has decided to run a Lore Hunter (think "Indiana Jones"). Additionally, the character is going to be Fey (others were human and a war golem), and the player has no idea how or why this Fey Indiana Jones is a member of the City Watch. Additionally, in the course of figuring out how everyone knew each other, the player started pushing the idea that being a member of the City Watch was just a "side" thing, almost like a cover job for their _real_ whatever. He was vague about what their "real" thing was, but I was getting a strong "dungeon delving" vibe. Which would have been fine, if A) Everyone had decided on that before, and B) He was actually reliable enough to show up at games for me to give full consideration to his desires.

I'm still kinda pissed about that. Pissed enough that in between the first and second sessions, I was on the verge of sending an email that basically said, "We have to rethink this game because when the idea was floated that City Watch was just a side deal, you all went with it. I'm not going to put effort into developing a game and setting where it's all about you guys dungeon delving. I can run modules for that, and need to know if that's what I should be planning on." However, my wife prevailed saying that I shouldn't trash the game I'd already laid out, just because one player was starting to hijack it.

After some thought, I agreed and decided that since the player went out of his way to make an outsider that didn't mesh with the game premise or other characters, I'd simply treat the character as such.

Anyways, back to the actual 1st session....

Basically, 2 of the people were mostly ready, at least in terms of character concept. It turns out that only my wife actually thought about and started preparing what her character would look like when it came time for the actual character creation.

So, the first thing I'll note:
Some sort of quick-n-dirty character creation pack sure would be nice. Not just for this game, but for any bloody game. If you can't make a character in 15-20 minutes, you need to include a bloody cheat sheet or something to help smooth the process along. I had 2 books to share among 4 people and people just couldn't seem to wrap their heads around things.

In an effort to make things "easier" I said, "Ok, we're not rolling ability scores like they suggest because it just complicates things. Start with 40 points. This is what your initial ability scores are going to be drawn from. Try and leave yourself a few extra points, since you'll have a lot of things to spend them on besides abilities."

Points are exchanged on a 2 for 1 basis. Spend 1 CP get 2 points in the ability. People struggled with this and hemmed and hawed, and finally I said, "Look. you've got 6 ability scores. Put down '10' for every single ability. Mark off 30 points. You now have 10 points left over. Feel free to spend them all on ability scores if you want, or keep a few back for later."

And it _still_ was a problem. At one point I asked how assigning the points was going and was told, "I can't! I have no idea what they're worth or what they mean. Is a 16 good or not?"

I was flabbergasted, and not pleased. I tried to be patient when I said, "Dude. It's d20. The scores mean the exact same thing. If you're playing a fighter type, then buff up your Str for additional damage, your Con for additional hit points. Just like D&D."

Character creation took 4 hours, and when it was all done, people still had to buy equipment.

I've been playing D&D 3.x for the past year and a half. I'm not a fan of character creation, and feel it takes too much time. This? This was ridiculous. All I can figure is that people borrowed the book, skimmed over it poking at what looked vaguely interesting, and then blew it off from there. It was only when they were sat down and forced to start putting stuff on paper that they realized that there was some differences (like I'd tried to make clear a number of times) between D&D and Everstone.

Looking back, here's what I'd do differently:

I'd have a copy of the "class cheat sheet" that's at the back of the Everstone book, and hand that out to each person. It covers the Attributes that a Class can get, what rank each Attribute tops out at, and how many CP it costs for each one. Having their own copies of each thing might have helped them focus in a bit in making their choices. That way they could look at the cheat sheet, and put be able to filter out what didn't sound cool/useful to them.

Create a chart that explicitly lays out what each ability costs initially. So instead of a player having to ask me, "How many CP does it cost again, for a 14?" they could simply look at the chart and know it was 7 points.

Create a mini "Character Generation" player pack, that includes the above bits as well as having things like the various racial bits (HD, EP, ability adjustments) in simple chart form.

The layout of the Everstone book is a bit quirky. On the whole it's workable, but it's not exactly intuitive for me. It's pretty much a personal sort of thing, and I suspect it's just a matter of how Jason Moon organizes things in his own mind. As a result, there's a lot more flipping back and forth and around than is really ideal. As an example, the Fey Dueler (a pistol) which gets its main entry, back at the racial description. You can find it listed in the Equipment Chart, but it doesn't have a listing with all the other guns and equipment. Little quirks like that.

For some people, I suppose that sort of thing is a deal-breaker, but I chalk it up to an organizational quirk and move on. As one of the players noted at the end of the second session, "Well, considering it was one guy that wrote the book, I'm not surprised there's some oddities and a few mistakes. Open any book from Wizards or White Wolf, and you've got this giant team of people. And they still mangage to screw things up. I'm impressed it looks the way it does with just him doing most of the work." And he's got a good point. This is pretty clearly a labor of love on the part of Jason Moon, and he really did his best to present a professional product. On the whole, I think he was successful.

I stuck to my guns about everyone having to know one other character in some fashion. A could know B, but B couldn't cheat and claim to know A as their character link. B had to choose C or D. I told them that they didn't have to be friends, but they did have to have _some_ sort of relationship. It was a bit of a struggle for the players, but I stayed out of it mostly. Just offered a bit of a nudge when people seemed to be floundering too badly. This is where that whole, "Hey, maybe we're a part of the City Watch but it's just a cover!" thing came up.

I kept my mouth shut, because the point was for the players in part to establish character links on their own, instead of relying on the DM to do the heavy lifting for them and their relationships. Part of it was also to try and encourage some player buy-in for an unknown setting. While I was pissed about that particular direction, I felt (and feel) "This is the player's game, and I run a game for people to be awesome in. If this is the direction they want their awesome, then that's what they'll get."

My being pissed was a function of A) time wasted on my part, and B) the fact that the inconsistent player that has only managed to show up for 3 games in 6 months was suddenly starting to dictate the way the game went.

I kept my mouth shut though, and looking back, I'd still do the same thing. I don't have a problem with a combat heavy, dungeon delving game, and I had originally even offered up such a game (2 parts D&D, 1 part X-Crawl) but the other 3 and turned it down pretty quick.

The characters ultimately wound up being:
Fey Lore Hunter.
Everstonian Sun Magi (Everstonians and the Adone are both Human).
Everstonian Shadow Magi.
Urban Golem Moon Magi.

The 3 Magi (Sun, Shadow, and Moon) makes for a classic "Triumverate" (the triumverate is a solid concept in the Everstone setting) and the players chose it for themselves. I was quite pleased. The "classic" setup during the Golem Wars in the setting was for a Triumverate plus War Golem.

I'd had hopes that we'd at least be able to get started on the game, but it wasn't meant to be. I collected everyone's character sheets (so I could make them readable for myself) and we headed home.

[Scurvy_Platypus]

The game opened with all four of them being at The Keep (the flying island fortress of the Sun Magi) and being summoned before Commandant Tiernan.

He informed them that the three Magi had applied to join a special unit of the Stormguard, and that based on their previous history together, as well as how they'd performed during their additional training, they were ready for their graduation exercise.

Commandant Tiernan also noted that the Fey with them was a bit of a special situation, and one that he wasn't entirely thrilled about. It had been strongly impressed upon Commander Tiernan by Magi Tullus (the guy that led everyone up from the underground and helped retake the valley as well as establish relations with different races and grant the Fey their domain) that in the interest of the still young alliance, including the Fey as part of the new unit wasn't entirely optional. The Fey King and Queen wished to have at least a few members of the court trained specifically for internal security. Since this particular Fey had a history with these members of the Stormguard, it was as close to a perfect match as could be hoped for.

In short, the three Magi were in part going to be responsible for the Fey, and the Fey was partially responsible for how the Magi did in the upcoming exercise. If they failed, nothing bad would happen. They'd simply be returned to their normal duties and nothing more would be said. If they succeeded, they'd prove their suitability for upcoming missions and be a core part of the new division within the Stormguard (members of which will be called Stormwardens).

Their mission is simple....
Watch Commander Stanis requested some special assistance in investigating a mysterious silver bubble of some sort which has just appeared at the top of a tower located in Midtown. Scrying can't penetrate it, attempts to teleport in are unsuccessful, and it's hard to think anything positive can come from a mysterious glow like that. The group is to investigate the cause of the glow, ascertain the threat (if any) that it possesses, and resolve the situation. When asked what exactly he meant be "resolve", the Commandant replied, "Whatever is appropriate. Part of the test is to see not only if you are successful, but how appropriate your response is, and how well you function without supervision. Kicking in the door, Blaze pistols firing, and wracking up a body count is probably not the best solution. diplomacy and restraint is typically the favored response, although the safety and security of the city and Everstone itself does outweigh that at times."

The group continued to question the Commandant, and he gave them further information... The tower itself had been purchased by a merchant named Elton Morrick about a year ago, although it was now held by his son Valdeez. The merchant had experienced a sudden accident and died approximately a month ago. The cause was unknown. Terribly sad, and somewhat suspicious, since it was Valdeez that found and reported the death.

The tower itself had a bit of a ... questionable ... reputation, and had been sold by Ptolus to the merchant with little worry, and a sigh of relief. It wasn't exactly clear what the reputation of the tower was, simply that it was unsavory.

Not much information was had about Valdeez, just that he had access to a fair amount of resources, and employed his own private security force. With some reluctance, the Commandant admitted that there was additional reason for some caution and diplomacy in the situation. There were rumors that one of the daughters of the Merchant House Rossnar, was involved with the son. Since House Rossnar the only merchant house the Magi allow to have Rune Weapons mounted onboard their landships (Landships being ships that can sail both the waves, and the air), it would be best all around if there wasn't a scandal.

Having acquired all the information that was to be had, the group collected their standard issue gear, and took special transport that was waiting to take them to Ptolus. Standard issue gear included a Voice Band, Blaze Pistol with the Stunning runestring at rank 2, the watch cloak, and their badges.

The Watch Cloak has earned the city watch the nickname of "bumble bees" in part because it's an obnoxiously bright yellow, with a grey trim, and a black stripe that runs the length of the cloak. It symbolizes (although nobody in the group asked) the three Magi guilds, with yellow being the predominant color since the City Watch is under the command of the Sun Magi guild. It makes for a very distinctive look, and allows any person in need of a Watch member to quickly and easily find them.

The badge is a small Bloodstone, which has the symbol of the Sun Magi guild on a shield background. To Protect and Serve is written on the Shield and is keyed to the owner's aura. Handling a badge that doesn't belong to you results in a nasty burn quite quickly. No badge swapping allowed.

The group took the opportunity to get to know each other better, as well as ask questions about what the powers of the watch were, and so forth. Essentially, the Watch is comprised of a large number of people that they think won't be too corrupt, and strengthed with a core of Stormguard. Under command by the Sun Magi, it functions more as a military force than what people think of today as traditional law enforcement. Not much investigation is done, and the main job of the Watch is to prevent a crime as it's happening, or run down the guilty party if possible. Their presence also acts as a deterrent, at least as long as the criminals aren't part of the Watch to begin with.

Part of the mandate of the new unit (Storm Warden) the group hoping to join, is to investigate crimes that have occured, and attempt to bring the guilty parties to justice. There's more to it than that, but the Commandant has refused to give any specific information about the Storm Wardens, until such time as the group is accepted.

After a 20 minute flight, the group docked at Ptolus, and hired a cab to take them to Delver's Square (Midtown), which was close to where Morrick Tower was located.

As they rode in the cab, a brief discussion took place, regarding rules about the Watch wearing their cloaks. The group was informed that it is policy for all members of the Watch to wear their cloak while on duty, and failure to do so was punished. As they debated whether it was worth the risk of not wearing their cloaks to be able to get more information, I reminded them that the Commandant had explicitly said that part of the graduation exercise was to see how well they functioned independently, as well as whether or not they could get the job done. They promptly decided to tuck their cloaks away and go in undercover. Their goal was to see if they could dig up any information on Valdeez or his security, before actually attempting to enter the tower.

Since they'd told the cabbie to "Take us to a decent tavern", he let them off outside the Ghostly Minstral, and they went inside. The Shadow Magi decided to bring his Tree Devil in with him, instead of having it lurk outside, and was politely requested by the tavern owner to ensure it didn't start chewing on anyone.

The tavern had various people in it, and the glowing silver dome was the talk of everyone. A woman with reddish hair and a rather unusual sword was slightly apart from the rest of the room (as if people were giving her table a bit of space), and chatting easily with a couple of friends.

The Fey decided to approach them and see if he could elict any information from them about Valdeez, and got off to a bit of a rocky start. The Fey and his companions were mistaken for hopeful adventurers looking to break into field, and the group decided to keep their mouths shut and see what shook out.

The Fey had bumbled a bit in the beginning, and the woman had initially thought he was clumsly trying to pick her up. Things had been smoothed over by him buying her and her two friends drinks, and a couple of additional rounds.

Not much information was gained, except that mysterious deaths had occured, and in a couple of cases, people had died from what seemed to be the Red Pox. The Red Pox was a nasty disease that had come up while everyone was living underground in Stone Hold, and tended to turn its victims into zombies. Other deaths were from things like falling beams and other accidental things that seemed to happen with disturbing frequency.

At this point, the Fey made a critical mistake. In an attempt to get more information, he hinted that there could be some money in it for the woman. She politely informed him that nobody really knew much beyond what was already said, and that she really didn't have any need for money. The Fey countered with, "No, I'm sorry but you're wrong. Everyone has a price they can be bought for."

The woman turned to her two friends incredulously and said, "I think he just called me a whore." Her two friends stood and informed them the group it was time to leave, and the party wisely decided that discretion was the better part of valor and beat a hasty retreat.

The group headed a few block over to where the tower was located, and begin checking the place out. It was at the end of the block, and had a decently sized wall all around it. One entrance was visible, a wrought iron gate set into the wall.

The Moon Magi activated her See Magic attribute and tried to figure out what was going on. She was able to determine there were strong wards blocking scrying and teleportation, as well as some sort of Binding. It almost seemed as if the dome wasn't intended to do anything itself, except keep something contained within.

The day had clouded over earlier, and now it began to rain slightly.

As the Shadow Magi and Fey tried going around the back to see if there was any entrances there, a particularly strong pulse of silvery light erupted from the dome. From the perspective of the Sun Magi and the Shadow Magi, the Fey suddenly went into slow motion. From the Fey's perspective, the world suddenly blurred and speeded up. After a couple of minutes, the Fey seemed to almost snap back into synch with the rest of the world.

The Fey flew up onto a nearby roof, and was able to see three guards on the grounds.

After a bit of consultation, the group decided to try going in on the legal basis, and marched up to the gate.

"Shove off" was the reply, and the group was a bit outraged and flummoxed at being dismissed. At this point there was questions from them about things like "warrants", and I explained that although a writ could be obtained from the City granting permission to enter and search some place, there had better usually be a good reason for it. Politics and connections counted strongly, and if you were going to roust someone you'd better be sure that you had a solid reason for it, and it wouldn't hurt to be better connected than the person you were hoping to roust.

After trying a couple of more times to get the guard to open the gate voluntarily, the guard called to his two companions, who came up to the gate and seemed completely unimpressed.

"We're the City Watch, and people know we're here. Just open the gate and get your boss, and there won't be any problems."

"That won't be a problem soon." one of the guards replied. Two of them pulled out vials filled with a silver liquid, drank them, and reached for the gate.

As they reached for the gate, the Shadow Magi quick drew his Blaze Pistol. The guards opened the gate, and engaged the party. One swung at the Sun Magi, and connected solidly. Unfortunately for him, the Sun Magi's Combat Shell armor meant the punch did nothing. The other guard tried to punch the Moon Magi (who's also a war golem)but she slipped his blow easily. The Fey drew his Dueling Pistol, the Shadow Magi tried to Stun one of the guards, and the Moon Magi smiled, and pointed her hand. As an expression of horror crossed his face, the golem's fingers retracted, her palm opened up, and she shot him at point blank range in the face. He dropped like a sack of potatoes.

Luckily for him, the Moon Magi golem was designed specifically as an urban prototype golem, designed to operate in enclosed spaces and with minimal damage to life and property. Which means that her Blaze Cannon is tuned to fire stun energy, instead of the usual Blaze energy, which surely would have cooked him.

As the first guard went down, the Fey aimed and shot the guard that was attempting to assualt the Sun Magi. There was a sharp report, and the guard spun around and dropped to one knee holding his shoulder as blood gushed out.

The Sun Magi threw a hand out, and brilliant yellow knives of energy lept from his fingers and sleeted toward the the guard that was unengaged. The guard staggered slightly as the knives sliced into him, but managed to avoid most of them as they buried themselves in the wood and blinked out, leaving small burn marks smouldering.

The Shadow Magi sicced his Tree Devil on the guard that was down on one knee as the Fey reloaded his pistol, and the Moon Magi brought her cannon to bear on the guard that had just been hit with the Sun Knives.

She opened fire, and the guard was picked up and slammed backwords into the shack. There was a distinct 'crack' as something (either wood or something in the guard) gave way, and he slid limply to the ground unconcious.

"Halt!" commanded the Moon Magi, swinging her cannon over at the last guard.

The guard ignored her as the Tree Devil swarmed him biting and clawing. Grabbing hold of it, he slammed it into the ground, still on one knee and bleeding profusely. The Tree Devil squealed like a stuck pig.

The Fey watched impassively, and before anyone else could react, the Shadow Magi ran over and viciously kicked the guard in the head. There was a sickening thud and the guard sprawled on top of the Tree Devil, which struggled beneath the weight of the guard.

Quickly looking around, the group grabbed the three bodies and hauled them into the small shack and checked them over. The guard that the Shadow Magi had kicked in the head was dead, his skull showing a distinct curve from the boot. The other two were out cold, and likely wouldn't come around for hours.

The found a silver vial on the one guard that hadn't drank one, and a set of keys. The group paused to decide on their next course of action. Lightning streaked across the sky, and the rain got heavier.

[Scurvy_Platypus]

I spent the week between the first and second session, trying to juggle my 2 classes at school, work, the wife, and still recovering from Poison Ivy (which took over my right arm). With all that going on, I still tried to get the adventure I was going to run into shape, as well as redesign the Character Sheet and make it a pdf form. Busy week, and I was only partially successful.

The sheet is mostly done, and the next game is in 2 weeks, so I should be able to finish it out. Once it's done, I'm going to upload it to the Everstone group. I'm using a few graphic elements from Everstone on the sheet, and since it's being done without permission, I figure the polite thing to do is at least house it where the creator can object if he desires.

The game got off to a rocky start. I showed up late since my wife had a friend come over to visit, and apparently said friend was actually going to the game with us. Not something that had been made clear to me. Since the game takes place at one of the other player's houses, I had to call and try and give a bit of advance warning that a stranger was going to be showing up. Plus, the friend got into town a bit later than she was supposed to, and then we had to go out to dinner.

All told, I couldn't get hold of anyone (tried 2 different people, left messages with both), and showed up about a half an hour later than we usually start.

And then it turns out that the equipment that everyone was supposed to buy (and that I'd once again loaned out my books for) wasn't actually bought. Truth to tell, I wasn't entirely surprised by this.

So the next couple of hours flitted by as people thumbed through the books, and asked various questions. Despite this, it was pretty low stress for me, since I knew we were just on the verge of starting the game. After enough time had passed, I started pushing on people to finish up.

It turns out that 2 of the 4 players had apparently been out on Thursday night (we play on Friday night) and hadn't gotten home until something like 02:00 or 03:00 in the morning. So they showed up at the game all tired and not really in the mental frame of mind to play I think. Once the game actually got rolling they seemed to settle down and start getting into it, but it took almost an hour of actual play before they got into it.

It was only went I sat down to run things, that I discovered I'd also managed to miss printing out the maps for the whole bloody thing. Embarassed, I admitted my goof and told them, "I'm just going to wing it a bit on the map side of stuff for tonight."

Everyone was cool, and we got into play.

I was quite pleased with how things turned out. The combat went nice and easy, although it did feature chumps. The descriptions I gave above for what happened in the combat? Those are the same descriptions I gave to the players as it happened. We didn't use any miniatures or a map for the combat, and that was fine with me. I'm thinking of picking up a counter set, since I'm not invested in miniatures, but I'm hoping to put that off for a bit.

My hope is that using vivid descriptions and no minis or maps for the fights, I'll be able to encourage a more free wheeling and cinematic style of fights. If the habit can be established to play that way, then I might reintroduce miniatures if it seems necessary. I suspect I might wind up resorting to minis sooner than I'd like, just to try and keep things clear for people as to what's happening.

The group was definitely rusty on simply relying on descriptions and picturing it in their heads.

Despite my complaints earlier, everything did go along relatively smoothly, and the Fey Lore Hunter wasn't as disruptive as I feared. Maybe he was just tired, I don't know. I've only ever actually seen the player play a couple of games, and the rest of my experience with him has been with him as the GM of the Eberron game I played in earlier this year. I can even actually work his character into things, so hopefully the player will be a bit patient and give me some elbow room to let his character be cool.

The adventure I'm using is the Wicked Fantasy Factory #1: Rumble in the Wizard's Tower from Goodman Games. You can find it here: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.p..._id=27660&it=1

The adventure seems pretty simple and straight forward. I'm modifying things as I go, either deliberately (the lover is a princess from another kingdom in the module, instead of the daughter of an important merchant house) or inadvertantly (the guards drinking the silver vials, instead of tossing them down). Really, it's mostly fluffy details.

I've got a second adventure already set and ready to go, and it's going to take place in the basement/down below of Morrick's tower. The second adventure is the Mini-Adventure 1: The Complex of Zombies, and can be found here: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.p..._id=28409&it=1

After that, I'll probably pull a bit from the Ptolus book, and I've got no idea where things will go from there.

The group seemed to enjoy themselves, and the player of the Shadow Magi (who's the GM of the Rome game I'm alternating with) liked the cinematic feel of the fight, so I think that's off to a good start.

There were a few skill checks made using the new skill system, and over all it seemed fine. The Moon Magi golem player made a Spellcraft check that was in the low 30s, which is why she managed to get so much information about the dome and the magic going on around. In order to get that though, she rolled an 18. I figure that's fine. The Shadow Magi and the Lore Hunter both had a chance to make a couple of skill rolls, although they didn't do nearly as well. The Lore Hunter has an Attribute called Obscure Knowledge that I imagine the player plans on trying to tap into to get random bits of information, and even if he doesn't, I plan on making checks as we go, and feeding him bits of information as appropriate. It's a handy thing to have, as it means I can pass along warnings of some sort or another, either to make sure the players are going into things prepared, or just to spook 'em a bit.

I also decided that if a person is using a weapon that has the "magic" attribute, and they get an exploding d6, they'll do knockback damage. I'm aiming for roughly 5 feet for every d6 that explodes, although even only 1 d6 that explodes but has an impressive amount of damage inflicted will result in some nice knockback.

About the only technical hiccup I hit was deciding on how long it'd take for the War Golem to activate its weapon.

I had previously told the player that if she bought the "Additional Limb" attribute, she could mount the weapon on her Golem however she chose, and it'd just have to be consistent. meaning she couldn't describe it one way one week, and then change it to a different one because the original description was suddenly inconvenient. It could be shoulder mounted, mounted onto her arm, even built into her arm, with her fingers retracting and palm opening up to fire the weapon.

Built into her arm is the way she went.

Ultimately I decided that since it was built into her arm and she'd paid the CP for it to be that way, she never really had to "draw" the weapon.

I also informed the player of the Sun Magi that he'd be able to form his Sun Blade as a free action as well.

It's a minor detail that winds up having a negligible impact on how the game plays out, and lets the players feel like their characters are the badasses they're supposed to be.

[xiawarr]

Sounds like a fun campaign. I just picked up Everstone about a week ago for source material for either SoTC or Savage Worlds or True 20. I already own both the Arsenal, Factory and Dragonstar books.

I'd love to see how you meld all this together. Good luck and good gaming!

[Ryan Stoughton]

How's this game going? What level have your guys reached?

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Well, the game is an "every two weeks" game, so the next one is supposed to be tomorrow or Saturday. Players seemed to have fun though, and are looking forward to this one.