Far Afield
Holy crap this was a close one! After a hard-fought cyber battle, a winner has emerged from the war zone of our latest Patreon poll. Meet Street Samurai, the newest resident of Handbook-World. (Better luck next time, Space Marine!)
Before we get into today’s discussion, let’s hop in the Wayback Machine. Do you guys remember that time my goblin cabin boy sapped Henry the VIII over the back of the head and then rode off on Dog Wonder while dressed like Batman? Let me tell you about the man that made it all possible.
It was a pirate game, and it was an Earth both like and unlike our own. History had run its usual course. The Tudors sat upon the English throne. Spanish galleons sailed. Gold flowed across the Atlantic, the Jolly Roger flew, and pirates prowled the waters of the Caribbean. But ya know. There was also magic and shit.
Into this world came a man out of time. A man from the strange and unknown country of “Yooessae.” A man with a chainsaw for a hand. He was also a man with a three-letter name that began with the letter ‘A.’
Abe was everything you’d want in a blatant Evil Dead rip-off. He was full of one-liners and pop culture references. He taught us about the scientific method, technological innovation, and rock and roll. One of my favorite gamer moments remains the time my goblin and several dozen of his cousins closed in on a hapless merchant ship, sails billowing in the wind, while singing Rock of Ages like some demented version of Muppet Treasure Island.
Did Abe belong in that world? Hell no. Did he make it more interesting? Hell yes. And that’s what I’m getting at with today’s wildly out-of-place transhuman cyber warrior. Adding the occasional anachronism to your game can create some wild and crazy moments. Witness my Bat-Goblin shenanigans. Witness Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. Or the multi-genre craziness of Rifts. Or even something as universally beloved as Firefly. Mixing unconventional setting elements makes for new and different experiences. And if you’re a long-time gamer, the unexpected is a rare and wonderful thing.
That leads me to my question of the day. Have you ever been in smash-up style game? What kind of noir detectives showed up in your fantasy world? How did those super heroes contend with Cthulhu? Did they add to the game or ruin its tone? Let’s hear it in the comments!
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While not an example of what you have going on here, my group does have something we call “The Freedom Experiment”. We run it in BESM tri-stat and the only rule of character generation is the point cap. Players are free to design anything they want and the GM cannot forbid anything unless it actually breaks the points rules. Thus you end up with things like one player being a descendent of the Belmonts while another is playing a Fallen Angel and a third is playing a Dexter (Dexter’s Laboratory) expy. The entire thing is treated with a heavy anime comedy paint job and the GM gets in on the fun generally by ripping various characters from different sources that conflict with the players or play off of things. It’s actually a lot of fun, but I think it requires the comedy paint job.
Nope. That sounds like exactly what I’m going for. I think it’s the extreme end of the spectrum. Dudes that debate whether or not monks should be in D&D are at the other end.
Oh I’ve seen tons of anachronistic stuff, but it’s usually among the sort that only history buffs would notice.
Since it’s so easy to get hold of non-copy-right maps of actual Earth history, I have two separate DMs who love to rename/reskin them (or not, depending on where they’re pouring their time and energy that campaign) and use them in their games.
Then you get the times when they’re tired, or using maps of areas/times they don’t know much about, and you have the travelling merchant wanting to hire escort on his trading ship between the kingdom of Phrygia and the Persian Empire.
If he’d been more awake, he’d have known himself that Phrygia was gone before Anatolia became part of the Persian Empire. So then next session when he WAS more awake, it became a progressively more ostentatiously Alt-History game.
There were at least two players who never even noticed, because neither of them are really into history. I still wonder how many things he threw in for his own amusement that I missed the reference to, since my own interest is really more of a velleity than a passion.
Anyhow.
Mostly the anachronisms I’ve seen are along those lines. Nothing terribly glaring.
(although the more I try to remember that campaign, the more sure I am it was a caravan, not a ship. Point still stands, though.)
So… You’re saying there weren’t any goblins in the Caribbean?
Those were all no-magic campaigns. They tend to not have any ‘magical races’ either…. although this winter we’re going to start one up where there are magical-race types from a given culture in a given culture’s area. They can’t travel so they aren’t valid PC choices. I’m quite excited to start playing in that one!
But the point was the time shenanigans in it…. haven’t ever seen anything like what you’re describing where it’s seriously misplaced. Just smaller stuff.
Now I kind of want to play a mad haruspex who raves about a mysterious fastening called a “zipper”.
Why doesn’t Street Samurai got robo-arms yet? Can she not afford them? Was she dumped into HoH world before she could by them?
What makes you think those aren’t robo-arms?
Because metal doesn’t come in flesh-tones, and if you get robo-arms you have to lose your flesh-hands.
Also, nobody’s pointed out that her scouter is saying something is over 9,000. I’m not sure what’s over 9k though.
In Shadowrun you can get robo-arms that look like normal arms unless inspected heavily.
They are generally not very popular with street samurai through since they don’t go well with their Pink Mohawk, no matter what color it happen to be
My willingness to indulge in cheap jokes.
Cleric clearly never played through the Iron Gods.
How does that AP rank? As a long-time fan of Thundarr the Barbarian, I’ve always wanted to give it a whirl.
I have only played through the first two parts, which were pretty good.
It contained one thing in particular that I absolutely loved through, and one kinda sad thing.
The thing I absolutely loved was right at the start and therefore not a spoiler.
The party get hired to rescue a missing council member from a dungeon, the reward is some gold and if you manage to get him out alive a scroll of resurrection. Specifically the resurrection scroll the Town have gotten for the purpose of bringing him back from the dead if you only get his corpse out.
That was so wonderful, it’s so rare that this part of the setting gets acknowledged by the books as anything other than an option for PCs.
The sad thing was that all the tech, while cool, was so expensive that it was better for us to sell it for half price and then buy normal magic items with the gold than to try to use it, and that’s just sad.
Therefore if you play the campaign be sure to make characters that are designed around using tech, take archetypes for it and feats and so on, so that it’s actually worth it to try to use the damn stuff.
Also as a subtle thing, if you are making a frontline-warrior be STR based not DEX based.
But all in all it was great fun, and it was sad that the game ended prematurely.
I’m moving across country next week. I ended two game over the weekend. I’m ending two more this week. The chance to play more APs is the silver lining on my sad gamer cloud. :’)
I can’t help you with that, unfortunately. I’ve actually got most of that AP sitting on my paizo account, but I never got around to reading it, let alone playing/running.
I played through all of it recently. There weren’t a lot of spots to get upgrades for your straight-up-magic stuff, but every character can incorporate a fair amount of tech gear without having to build for it. That said, my Bowquisitor dealt a -ton- of damage without any metal tech at all.
(light spoilers)
This changed when things started popping up with antimagic fields, which tech stuff works fine in but my Greater Magic Weapon/Bane/Judgment/Divine Powered arrows did not, not nearly as much as they generally did. Also, everything has Hardness, which Clustered Shots doesn’t help with (it wasn’t a mistake to take that feat, though)
(end spoiler)
I’d recommend planning to upgrade your favorite weapon yourself if you go sword and sorcery, and plan on finding upgrades if you decide to sling laser rifles. It was a good adventure path.
I tend to like playing “with” the adventure rather than against it. I’ll keep my eyes open for a tech-themed archetype if I ever get a chance to play this one.
This give me an idea to a crossover of many games. Last time that not ended so well, but like i say once “I can make it work!!!”, that was about a different thing but still i can try.
https://scontent-ort2-2.cdninstagram.com/vp/d04204689a4dfd087e797d6641ebf5c5/5BBAF0F1/t51.2885-15/s480x480/e35/35001831_2118542295101418_4789461470792384512_n.jpg
I want to believe… that i understand that 🙂
Has anyone have ever tried to do some kind of mega crossover between different games and iconic parties and characters, both pc and npc? Think something like Justice & avengers: The starfinder – Age of Exalted.
My brother did one once like that over a weekend when he had friends and family over from MANY games at once.
He had Gaiman’s Sand Man get pulled into a feud with that Pathfinder minor deity called the Dream-Eater; everyone had a favorite character sheet and they all fell asleep and entered a one-off crazy dream-realm mash-up.
Dream realms are great for that kind of thing.
We never did get through the planned plot, though. It derailed way too fast, and since people were having fun with the zany he just let it derail. I didn’t think of that session, since it wasn’t really time shenanigans (or at least not exclusively/primarily)
Schattensturm, I can see how you could do it pretty easily for a one-off but sustaining that would be really hard. If you figure it out and pull it off, let us know!
I’ve threatened to have a crossover between my Starfinder game and my Pathfinder game before. I might do it as a one-shot one of these days.
Twice in fact my group have made crossover games or at least we try it.. The first was a D&D 5E the first campaign we made. It war a cross over 4&5E, the bad guy was a god of shadows and darkness inheritor of the Raven Queen, a wizard and a jerkass, guess who roleplay it. In that game, that god was a survivor of the twilight war between primordials and gods. He have casted a spell that take him a some other guys to the 5E multiverse, the he tried to conquer the Forgotten Realms. The campaign don’t ended well, 5E… well we still like 4 over 5.
The other one was more successful, in the wake of Exalted third edition we make a campaign to close all the loose ends that we have left after the second edition. This time i played a pc god that i haved make on request of my friends. This other guy was a former assistant of Nox, he helped to turning him to the gods cause and fell betrayed when his master was killed. Since them he become a forgotten god and walked creation in search of revenge. This guy wanted to become an Incarna to inherit the mantel of Nox and join the five maidens, and luna, after destroying the Sol Invictus itself and all of the exalted. I just grabbed some books and created this guy for a session the my companions liked him so much that they let him have the spotlight in this game. Yoru no kurayami or Yamigami for his friends made a war in heaven, invented a new exaltation type, destroyed the primordials and ruled creation as its God-King, he earned it.
Oh bro… Have you never seen Gurren Lagaan?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurren_Lagann
I’m not much of an anime fan, but this is one of my favorites. It’s silly and over the top and beautifully animated. It also made me want to play a game in the setting, and that’s more or less my personal metric for whether or not a show is cool. 🙂
Yes i haved, the six first episodes at least, it was not bad but… you know i was thinking of see it again… and complete this time. Speaking of yamigami i need to watch Noragmai, also. Now i was thinking about what you say about “It also made me want to play a game in the setting” – Colin Stricklin, maybe it can be a good idea make a session in the world of Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash. It was not great series, only one season but with great art and a very good story about a party of adventurers. See this is why i like The Handbook of Heroes it makes me think.
Now we need Street Samurai, Thaumaturge and Superhero (Coming soon) to form the “GM is asleep at the wheel” party.
Hmmm… We probably need “awakened animal” to round out the shenanigans. Maybe a Mouseguard swashbuckler?
I was thinking a quippy cat in the style of Salem the cat.
Mouse Guard doesn’t get nearly enough love. I second this idea.
I see you have eaten the cheese: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/04/20/a-matter-of-scale
Well I’m playing in a One Piece inspired D&D 5e game right now and yeah…. that’s pretty weird. Especially since I don’t read/watch One Piece and so everything that isn’t normal D&D is very obviously not and comes across as incredibly strange. Which is an interesting experience rather than a terrible one since I’m forewarned this is going to be happening.
So what has the fruit done so far?
A good amount of weird elemental stuff. Like right now we’re facing some kind of fire monk who partially melted an Azer. Our opening move was to mock her for thinking she’s special. (Though to be fair she opened by comparing herself to the friggin sun.)
But also stuff like a PC gaining the ability to shapeshift into a few sets of people-forms they could swap out for new ones. Sadly players came and went and all the PCs that had used fruit have gone and even I was a replacement player so I don’t really know what all the other powers were. And since then we haven’t eaten any. On my part this is because I’m playing a Lizardfolk Druid so I didn’t actually want to give up the ability to function in water, especially because I came into the game in my character’s home location of a swamp.
But there’s also just generally some trepidation for using them since they’re called “devil fruit” in a setting with actual devils (and we’re pretty sure the fruit have power because they actually contain devils or something) and are being handed out by the Big Bad.
I kind of wish the GM had set it up better to make us want to use them because it’s kind of a waste of good fun for us not to.
Well that’s too bad. The weird super powers of devil fruit are such a central part of the One Piece shtick. As I think about it though, that might be a bit of a problem when you’re adding that onto the weird shtick that is a character class. “Fruit eater” almost feels like it ough to be its own Variant Multiclass or something.
I actually had the fortune to GM Iron Gods, great fun. I did eventually let the wizard start taking levels in the Campaign specific PRC, which yes does mean they eventually got down the tech crafting but that’s somewhat kept in check by power needs as well as lab requirements. Whether you’re playing with or without crafting keep in mind that timeworn quality gear has a pretty steep cut in its value. Somewhere around 10% total value if I recall correctly.
In short it’s an absolute lark and a must play if you’re a fan of Barbarians and robots type of mash-ups.
I can’t remember if I actually own Iron Gods or not. I think I got it in a Humble Bundle, but never opened it since I’d rather play than run that one. Heavy sigh, man…. One day!
I would like to sum up my opinion on this subject like this.
You will play the human only fantasy campaign and you will like it! I don’t care if you want to play a Aasimar sunsoul and be goku, play a normal human, now get ready to crusade the greenskins for the glory of Ovon!!!!!!
cue powerwolf or sabaton
I play a lot of battle brothers, black company, skirmish and read berserk.
So recently I have followed the trope and let humans be the dominant and heavy encouraged race available in addition i have excluded a few of the colorful races such as the half orcs, tieflings, Goliath and non volo races. In addition I play either a human or half elf.
As for smash up style campaign, I honestly feel uncomfortable around them, it just doesn’t feel right. Its fine if I have to fight cultists of Cthulhu as a medieval warden, I am all up for that. Darkest dungeons along with elements from berserk have done that very well.
It’s when anime and cartoon elements start being added into the mix is when I start to get weirded out.
If the topic ever came up I would rather politely say no and walk away plus I would refuse someone wanting to play a Aasimar with sun soul and simply Dragon Ball Z their way through the campaign.
I dunno, thats just the I roll badum tsss
Care to unpack that a bit? What is it that feels off in those kinds of campaigns?
shruggoth
The feel of the world, when I play DnD I have put expectations upon myself for the campaign; it will begin to feature a fantasy world in which no one ever uses guns; wizards will have colleges if it has such; and etc.
It just becomes odd when i’m playing a mercenary fighter while we have Mr. anime over here shooting fireballs and pretending he’s Goku.
I mean sure it makes for good roleplay, the conversations between Vickens the mercenary turned adventurer and (i can’t remember the name let’s go with mirage) Mirage the monk but to my mind it just didn’t fit. I have little niche’s that must be filled when it comes to fantasy, and I start to twitch if they are not fulfilled.
It just ruins the feel of fantasy for me, in my mind fantasy is people swinging swords and fighting dragons with a pole arm not running around pretending its an anime.
But that doesn’t mean I hate anime, I do love my manga’s and etc. (goblin slayer is a favorite for me) It’s just when it becomes a core principle that it starts to weird me out an example being the sun soul aasimar monk pretending he’s Goku. I don’t hate on dragonball Z it’s just it doesn’t feel right.
An example of it not being overbearing would be floors and world tree. (Two forum games run by a artist)
If you ever have time look up Floors on suptg, or perhaps World tree. Although they have anime elements it is pulled off very well in a way that it isn’t overbearing. Chars can dual wield and pull off anime move’s but its done in a way that it feels right, their is a dual wielding class that has an ability to close his eyes and deflect arrows, bullets, and etc.
It’s done in a way that its right but honestly I dunno. I’m just a Gen Z that hasn’t played a char for a while and has only been DM’ing. (really hard to get into a online game now a days)
The way I see it, D&D is best for dungeon crawling, and so it’s not about your setting and aesthetic, it’s about your campaign style. Even the most high fantasy Faerun based campaign will not work well in D&D if you’re focusing entirely on detective mysteries, and it definitely won’t work if you want anyone to die at any time and feel genuinely threatened when held at knife point. Stomping through a space station full of aliens, though, is basically equivalent to a dungeon crawl, and thus perfectly suited.
Hence why something like Cryptomancer needed its own ruleset. It’s high fantasy, sure, but it’s focused on information control and espionage, not 500 Hit Point heroics.
Interesting that WotC is bringing this as their next adventure:
http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/dragonheist
I suspect that a robust core can be modified by genre-specific techniques. Certainly there are a lot of mystery elements in published products. I’m thinking in particular of the murder mystery that starts the Glass Cannon run-through of Giantslayer:
http://paizo.com/products/btpy96ps
The fact that you named him Abe, you sure as heck better have made his last name Froman.
Not my character, man. I claim no responsibility for missing good jokes.