Hi all,

Gone real silent on the Arcanium Society front, I apologise for this. I do want to continue the Knights of Purity story arc to it's end at least though and probably some specials too (with Gary's blessing). I am, however, unsure of it's future using the BRP rules however, and don't think it works for the setting. I know this'll mean changing the rules again but I think I've found the perfect system for it - HeroQuest.

For those who are not familiar with HeroQuest, the character sheet is literally your character bio and a list of skills that you create (that's right, you make up the skills for your character). It's simple, easy to understand and allows complete freedom concerning abilities etc.

I haven't thought too much on this yet, but I am thinking that characters have a points value that relate to how long they've been around, so the oldest characters (the ones played by Gary, Paul, Dave, Wayne etc.) get a big boost to skill values, the "current gen" characters who have been active recently (the ones played by myself, Max, Troy, Sam, Chris, Alex, James etc.) get a fair boost to their skills and any new characters start off with the basic.

Comments and criticisms, as always, are welcome.

Darren

What I love about the Heroquest system is that your "skills" do not have to be skills, but purely charcter concepts - so while "Sword fighting" is a skill that you can assign points to, so is "Scared of spiders", "Honour-bound", "Desperate to impress his father" and "A bit slow"


So HMS' Mentsguard may well have varying points in "Shieldman", "Book smarts", "I can do magic, me!", "Seeing red", "Politician's tongue" and "Sneaky bastard"

Arcanium Douglas Carvine might have varying points in "Judo grab!", "Doing it with science!", "It goes 'Widdly-wee'" and "Seriously lacking in common sense", among others

sounds good, but then I'd say that the older characters should probably have accumulated more neuroses and character flaws than the newer guys.

It gives some measure of balance in play.

Heroquest is a good choice, the mix of skills and abilities in the characters is so broad that heroquest is probably the only system that can cope with it.

Count me in.

Hi guys,

I am well chuffed that Darren is giving this another go. The Arcanium Society as a campaign has been running since 1990 although some of the characters are much older well six years older.

I personally use the Advanced Fighting Fantasy System for my Campaign, although I have also used GURPs, Cthulhu (real one not D20) and Palladium Beyound the Supernatural and Heroes Unlimited.

In my experience it is not the system which makes the game but the plot and the characters. Most of the original characters where fairly unique and started with little or no special powers these where aquired through hours, weeks and years of game play.

Dr. William Kane my character began life as a medical doctor with an interest in the occult, history and anthropology. It was not until he found a copy of a copy of Dr. John Dee's spell book and diary that he started on the path of Magick and Sorcery. Even know he owns a Watch which is cursed and involunteraly causes him to travel through time, A Ju Ju stick from South Africa, A set of silver bullets and enchanted blade taken from the cult of set and a protective talismen. He still ages and is not imortal although he has a rather different idea of time.

He was born in the early part of the 19 hundreds and started of adventuring in the 1920s. He is not an uber demi god character and is still 100% human. His power comes from his knowledge of the occult, history and of human and in human behaviour. He also over time has accumilated wealth and lands in several different time zones. 1066, 1870's, 1920's, WWII, 1990's and of course the present.

I hope you guys have as much fun as I have had with it and that no matter which system or time you find yourself in you will be able to build up a store of great memories and uphold the honour of the Society!

Let the Legend continue,

Gary Bates,
Founder of the Arcanium Society Campaign

I personally agree with what Gary said, its all down to the awesomeness of the plot, the gm and the players.

I personally love hero quest rules, as its one of the original ones I started table top with, but feel it might not work with Arcanium Society, however thats just my personal opinion and I still would love to give it a try

I also think Advanced Fighting Fantasy is a very simple and effective system to use.

As to the Neurosis's and flaws, yes, I agree somewhat people do have some, as an example Vhal of Arcanium Society is appauling with Technology, and can't use a Gun for the life of him.

Essentially though, we also need to bare in mind that "powerfull characters" isn't something to be shunned or frowned upon, everyone starts at things at different levels, its just up to the GM to be good enough to be able to role with the punches and so on.

I.E Neuryu Darkspring shouldn't get loads of flaws and problems because he is rock hard, he's played this character for nearly the ammount of time I have lived on this earth, and I find it almost discriminating towards ones achievements if they have to get screwed in the ying yang for it. - I personally don't mind role playing a long side harder characters, as an example, in AFF, Tilsburg can kill things 6x quicker than me and 6x more at the same time, and The Vixen is by far more stronger than myself, and Hogan and Kai's magical spells are by far more mightier than Vhals.

However, Gary still manages to Balance things out very well, there are characters who are in a lot of respects 'better' than Vhal (as he's died twice) and some who are weaker in a lot of respects, but again this is all up to the GM.

Just my thoughts,

Max.

I think that a massive disparity of power levels is a major challenge for GMs.

It's the linear warrior-quadratic wizard problem. warriors still have to reach combat at any level, in the time it takes to close the distance a high level wizard can kill the whole army. Playing a series of red shirted ensigns in a campaign with dragon killing country conquerors would not be that fun for me.

The idea of accumulating injuries, physical or mental, or even long term enemies works as a sort of balancing mechanism for high level characters. It also brings their back story and previous adventures into active consideration during game play, rather than solely being justification for their abilities. So far the older characters have only turned up as NPCs, which is probably right.

It'll be interesting to see how the campaign goes forward from here anyway.

Troy

Hi troy, I'm just posting to say I've read your message but I'm replying from mi iPhone ATM. I'll be able to give you a more decent response eventually, I just didn't want to leave you hanging on for a reply for a week. Hopefully should be able to use the laptop in Istanbul.

Max.

There's no rush mate.

Such discussions of table top philosophy should be conducted in a leisurely fashion!

Have fun in istanbul, enjoy mr Ataturk's secular republic!

Bring back some Turkish delight please, it'd be good for mutant chronicles.
I don't know for what, but it'd involve eating.

T

thanks mate.

Yeah Istanbul is a wierd place, in some respects its very advanced in comparison to similar countries, and so on, but in other ways its like 20 years behind us, so its quite wierd when you see cars of identical nature of what we have driving around, beside cars which are as hilarious (in the state of condition) of the typical skoda style communist cars, and buses which look like they are falling apart, beside coaches which have WIFI, and mini screens on the back which have tv channels and movie channels on them etc.

Essentially, it reminds me a little like rifts world!

People are a little shocked with what we have here, as an example 50mb broad band, and fibre optics, they are just grasping the concept of fibre optic broad band.

Also, its really shocked people that we effectively have cybernetic technology being developed also in the UK and US, and its sort of thrown a lot of people i've spoken to here into a sort of "OMG" state.

A lot of people here see England as some sort of rich eutopian state, but I've obviously had to sort of blow that bubble.

As to Attaturk, yes, he is everywhere, litterally, its wierd as f***, I mean, he's quite a good looking gentleman so its not like having stalin always looking at you, but he LITTERALLY is everywhere, and Turkey banned Youtube because something on there was bad for Attaturk, so, in some respects they are quite forward thinking, and in other ways not so much.

- As to Arcanium, I see what you mean Troy, it is hard work for people to balance those games out, but I think its all down to GM's, if however we're all starting again, its good to start fairly equal I suppose.

As to the turkish delight, i'll try

I should be back around the 4th of October.

I've been told that visiting Cuba is both sad and extremely weird.

Massive department stores with about six items in the windows, cars from the 1930s still being used as taxis, getting all your food with ration cards.

People in Britain don't really seem to recognise that the level of immigration is a massive compliment to the lifestyle that the country represents. If I was living in Ethiopia I'd bloody well want to live here and fight tooth and nail to do so.

Bring us back an Attaturk poster too! It can be a Bauhaus chairman!

You haven't been blurring reality and LARP again have you? Telling people you are a cyborg elf, kicking ass for the Light? I could understand their confusion.

I'm glad I havnt been to Cuba then! It reminds me of when I went to Russia in the 90's, but your right, you've hit the nail on the head, i've been saying that about immigration for ages.

Good idea as to Attaturk

I was telling them how we have fibre optic cybernetic implants (as in replacement eye surgery) etc and so on which is going ahead.

Its suffice to say I'm missing my big f off tv screen, my car, and 24 hour shops etc in England at the moment, as well as my Xbox, you litterally have to pay for everything here, and due to the size of Istanbul, getting to one part of it (on the bus) to the next is just hilarious, to get to one area i spent 1 hour 30 minutes to get there, then spent 30 minutes there, then another hour bus journey, then another 30 minutes, then a hour and a half back, I spent most of my day on the bus - Not impressed.

Essentially, there just doesn't seem like there's much fun to do, when I said whats fun here, the general jist I get is going shopping to Taksim (which is like camden say) and going to clubs, and meeting friends.

When i told them what I do here in england (Like sword fighting, going to the gym, LARP, table top role play, going to camden, gigs, clubs, museums, walks in the forest, to reenactment shows and festivals etc) they couldn't believe it, it appears there's a serious lack of creative out put, no paint balling, no airsoft, nothing.

That said though, who needs those things when you have conscription and most men at some point in there life need to fire a real gun I suppose.

Either way, I'm really missing London - As an example, went to see Hagia Sophia - it cost me and anita £20.00 each just to go, and payment in transport (via bus etc) so that alone, cost us £40.00, then take into consideration food etc, it ends up being around £60.00. So essentially I could for about £12.00 for both myself and Anita, go see about 3 museums in London (Including all day travel card) So while I respect its another country, it really puts things into perspective as to how lucky we are, and the fortunate things we have, even Anita says you are so bloody lucky in England, seriously.

I suppose we are.

In Arcanium adventures power level should not be a problem. In the original campaign we played the characters consisted on a 1920's born human doctor and amataur anthropologist, an Immortal nobleman of dubious reputation, a female news reporter who was discovering Wicca, a gentetic super soldier, a mutant bat (Scientist), an android, a cybered computer hacker and a Psi empowered secret agent.

Physically we ranked as follows:

Genetic Super Soldier
Android
PSI Empowered Secret Agent
Mutant Bat (Scientist)
Immortal Nobleman
Human Doctor, Female News Reporter and Cybered Computer Hacker

Magically/Psi we ranked:

Immortal Nobleman
PSI Empowered Secret Agent
Human Doctor, Female News Reporter
Genetic Super Soldier, Android, Mutant Bat (Scientist)

Technologically based we ranked:

Android
Mutant Bat (Scientist)
Cybered Computer Hacker
Genetic Super-Soldier, Psi Empowered Secret Agent
Female News Reporter,
Immortal Nobleman
Human Doctor

Politically and Social Influance:

Immortal Nobleman
Human Doctor
Female News Reporter
PSI Empowered Secret Agent
Cybered Computer Hacker
Android, Genetic Super-Soldier
Mutant Bat (Scientist)

Our powers also varied depending on what time zone we where in, which dimension we visited and who we where up against. All in all we got to grips with our characters, played them to the best of our ability and dealt with the problems as they came.

Violance physical or magical was never an option in cities, towns or civilisation of any sort (except when we where in Rome!). If I had to say one of us was harder than the rest I would have said it would have come down to the Genetic Super-Soldier and the Immortal Human.

However with this group those kinds of thoughts never crossed our minds, we had a job to do and organisation which we knew would whoop our butts if we messed up or embarassed them to much.

Even now the vetran palyers play characters which a powerful not nessasarily because of their states but because of what they know and who they know.

Power is relative and a good Dungeon Master will always know how to keep a group entertained and distracted as well as occupied and interested.

So Darren the tourch is in your hands and I must say I look forward to hearing about how the adventures go!

Gary

Ok, been long enough. I shall restart Arcanium Society soon, to conclude the current Knights of Purity story arc. Please let me know when you're available for the continuation guys!

The Scholar would like to be involved if that is acceptable Darren. He is going through a hard time and needs some entertainment

Q.

(10-02-2011 03:01 PM)Blaq Sun Wrote:  The Scholar would like to be involved if that is acceptable Darren. He is going through a hard time and needs some entertainment

Q.

The Scholar is actually integral to the plot at the moment, so I couldn't say no

don't tell him that, he'll get a head as big as other peoples!

Beware Chickens and undead Voodoo Priests