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Sci-fi in Fantasy

As I alluded to in my previous article, Sci-fi can be so much more than robots and spaceships. In fact even traditionally fantasy specific games can be sci-fi. The two are not incompatible. Allow me to weave some ideas for a sci-fi fantasy setting.

 With a thought a mage focuses and is connected to a great humming web of magic. Millions of mages the world around sending spells and tidbits of arcane lore to each other using raw magic as the conduit. For the cost of a few motes of spell power the casters mind obtains the incantation they're looking for. A few words and gestures are fed directly into their mind and their hands and voice follow along automatically. Perfect casting every time. Even the humblest of spellcaster can access ancient forgotten magic as long as they can pay for it with their own arcane essence. The  Spelltender elementals, carefully trained and mindless constructs of magic, filter and sort this magic. The mage focuses on finding good offensive spells, ones with casting components that they already have. But with a frown they expand their search to include spells with material components within 100 miles, and once they choose a spell a simple unobtrusive illusion visible only to them forms a glowing line directing them to where they can get the missing ingredient. The warrior places her palm on the wooden door. The dragon leather glove she wears grows warm and the reptilian eye on the back of its palm opens. She sees with the prowess of the dragon, detecting each foe in the next room. A lightly armored goblin packing three different wands. Three orcs, one wearing an animated suit of armor, the other two brandishing finely machined falchions. She formulates her plan,  wordlessly she directs the two small, and rather expensive, homonculi to action. They each grab one of the small magical spheres from her belt. One would fill the area with a potent cloudkill, ideally it would eliminate her foes. The other would create a powerful and deafening sonic blast. Cut off sight and sound and then attack anyone that survives the initial assault, focusing on the goblin with the wands.

"Planar date, 332836.5 Our journey into the depths of quadrant E of the elemental plane of wind proceeds smoothly. Our Vessel, "The Intrepid" continues to provide all that we need without waste, without loss, and without the need for other fuels. If I live another thousand years I'll not have had every meal our ships' conjurors drives can produce. Our mission is to go forth bravely into the infinite unknown of the planes, to seek out new life and new civilisations. Though our vessel brims with powerful arcane cannons, force wall generators, and invisibility technology we hope to never need any of it. Our people have long ago passed the need for violence, and now we seek only peace, understanding, and knowledge." These are just three simple little prompts that can help you take your fantasy game and add a light, or even heavy dose of sci-fi into it. By using magic as a substitute for technology, and monsters for aliens, it's simple to take many common tactics, storylines, and plot devices and use them in your existing fantasy game. Hopefully this has helped make your game a little more exotic.

For more articles like this check out: http://www.duckandrollgames.com/

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The commoner rule

Anytime you make an encounter as a GM, storyteller ect, I highly recommend using “The commoner rule”. Where you look at the challenge you have planned and say “What could a completely normal person with no special abilities do to help?” And if the answer is either “Nothing” or “Very little” then some aspect should get changed. Add in some little side objective, a runaway horse, a setting on a console that has to be reached and changed, a door that must be held open, a turret that has a set accuracy and firepower, something that allows anyone to contribute regardless of abilities or skills.

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Halloween 1 shot, Arcana Darkness

Recently I had the opportunity to run a fun halloweeny one shot for my players and I wanted to share what I put together for them. I’m going to break this into two sections, this one talks about the idea behind the narrative, and the second will go into the rules I used.

The basic premise is simple: The players are snatched form their regular lives and dropped into a magical maze of sorts. Each room they enter has two doors, leading into new challenges and tasks. On i’s own, a simple enough idea, but it is dramatically complicated by the introduction of The Arcana cards. Each player is bestowed a single tarot card from the major Arcana. These cards each grant an incredible power, as well as a dangerous drawback and a vow that the bearer must fulfill. As if this were not enough of a restriction, if anyone is able to successfully guess the card you drew, the power, the drawback or the requirement they can immediately take that card away form you, making it their own.

This basic premise sets the stage for a game of secrecy, paranoia, deceit, and danger. Direct conflict is far too dangerous, anyone with a power that would be overtly useful in a fight would be too easy to deduce, plus killing someone doesn’t give you their card. It’s a game of chasing shadows.

The encounters are essentially just a way to try and push and coerce the players into making use of their abilities and exposing themselves to eachothers guesses. The real threat is the arcana and their abilities and curses. As the game continues the web of requirements, banes, boons, alliances and secrets becomes ever more tangled until it entirely ensnares the players.

Along with this challenge the players are also able to, hopefully, slowly unravel the reason for their abduction. This is the work of powerful fey creatures who have decided to use humans to settle a dispute between the Seelie and Unseelie court, each side believes that humans truly belong to them, and these trials are meant to be a way to determine the right answer once and for all. Their actions and re-actions will be judged and evaluated and in the end a choice must be made.

The rooms are magical constructs spun from dreams and are far beyond conventional physics. A sprawling playground in an infinite city has a junglegym with a door that leads to a babbling brook. Each room has multiple doors, always denoted in some way by a color. Green, Yellow and Red. As the players pass through, they may begin to realize that Red doors denote perils and serious threats, yellow doors mark obstacles and tests of skill, and green doors are measures of personality, and values. This serves several purposes. On a surface level, it allows players to determine the amount of risk they should take, based on their resources. A hurt player may lean towards a green door, while a hearty or capable one might take the red. However, players roughly equal in condition and ability may be forced into similar choices. This creates small conflicts that can become the seeds of betrayal, and can also provoke the use of some abilities. Lastly however, the premise is a misdirection. A green room is not always going to be safer, it merely has less of a threat. Some cards have requirements, such as other players being hurt, needing to perform significant actions, or other such things. Card with drawbacks like those might actually be in far more danger if the room has nothing to oppose them.

Once the players have passed through enough trials or unraveled the mystery they will eventually be brought before the Fey to hear their judgement. This is usually just when the playtime has about run its course, but you may pick a certain number of trials ahead of time if you wish to.

This game made for a tense, dramatic, treacherous and incredibly fun one shot adventure and I hope you get some use out of it too. Stick around and soon you’ll also get to see the mechanical side of all this through the lens of a world of darkness game.

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Court of the Crimson King moves to editing phase

So after a lot of work and writing and  evaluation the Court of the Crimson king book is now onto the editing phase! The book is a system agnostic campaign setting that is dripping with dark gothic horror and surreal challenges and characters inspired by some of the most profound rock lyrics of the 70′s and 80′s, including of course The court of the Crimson King itself. 

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Project master list

So previously I talked about having a lot of projects on the go at once and how to try and prioritize. I’ve gotten some feedback asking me just how bad the problem is that I felt I need to address this. Well, I figured why not share with you all my giant hitlist of shamefully unfinished projects.

Court of the Crimson King campaign setting book

Buster Knight Standalone 5e class

Arcane Treasurer standalone 5e class

Elemental Ace standalone Pathfinder class

Student of the Arcane standalone Pathfinder class

Battlebound Standlone Pathfinder class

Magistar (New Tabletop roleplaying game)

Arcana Nights (A new 1 shot centric tabletop roleplaying game)

Behind the vault door Pathfinder supplement book

Webweaving ( My Fantasy Novel)

Continued work on Naruto Pathfinder

Gems the Glittering Homebrew game

Die set sytem (New tabletop roleplaying game)

Skeleton quest indie game

Monster Stalker Indie game

So in total I have about 15 projects I’m working on. I have a sevre problem with finishing projects. But in theory I am planning on actually finishing all of these things eventually.

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Updated wind style

Wind style has been updated! Unleash more than 60 devestating wind style jutsu and blow away your opponents!

https://narutopathfinder.fandom.com/wiki/Wind_Style

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Sealing Style

Naruto Pathfinder has been updated with Sealing Style! 

This unique style features many powers and abilities that make the franchise what it is, from the simple power to seal objects all the way to the death reaper seal and flying raijin!

Check it out here: https://narutopathfinder.fandom.com/wiki/Sealing_Jutsu