Fantasy X-Men

In a previous post I mentioned an idea about ordinary characters having minor superpowers because they're polymorphed monsters and don't know it. Each character would have an ability stemming from their monster nature and a taboo that would undo the spell if they transgressed it.

The original idea was for each party member to be the only one who knew about another member's taboo, and have the responsibility for making sure they didn't break it. The monsters would effectively be each other's guards. However, I'm not that fond of games that give you knowledge your character doesn't have. Where's the fun for the player in uncovering the mystery?

So instead I think it should be handled by the GM. Players don't even need to know what sort of polymorphed creature they are. They can just be told that they always have advantage on certain skill tests, or that they have a supernatural power that works once per level per day. And supernaturally punished when they break their taboo, which they also don't know about.

I looked through the B/X Essentials monster manual for creatures that were A) living and B) intelligent and found a bigger list than I expected. Some are close enough to be cousin species, but that's an advantage if it gives a player the chance to form a completely wrong theory about what they are.

As of right now, I'm going simple and saying that breaking a taboo causes a psychic shock that does 1d6 HP damage, but it could easily be expanded into another subsystem. Maybe it damages the illusion and once you realise what you really are Wizard X unleashes the hounds of Tindalos to destroy you.

1)Bugbear
Bonus: Advantage on stealth rolls for character and anyone accompanying.
Taboo: Labour for wages.

2) Centaur
Bonus: Movement rate tripled.
Taboo: Carrying a person.

3) Djinn
Bonus: Breath weapon. Any creature of lower hit dice in a 5-space cone ahead of you is knocked prone. Equal hit dice are driven back 1 space.
Taboo: Go underground.

4) Doppelganger
Bonus: Imitate a person's voice and mannerisms perfectly. +2 bonus to disguising yourself as someone specific.
Taboo: Speak your own name.

5) Dragon
Bonus: +1 spell slot which can be cast hit dice x times per day.
Taboo: Give up a prized possession.

6) Dryad
Bonus: Advantage on woodcraft skill tests.
Taboo: Light a fire.

7) Efreet
Bonus: Instinctive understanding of fire - how to start it, how it spreads, how to contain it.
Taboo:Immerse yourself in water.

8) Gargoyle
Bonus: Wakefulness. You're immune to charm person and sleep spells and can stay awake for hit dice x days with no harmful effect.
Taboo: Sleep in a bed.

9) Giant
Bonus: Advantage on strength rolls.
Taboo: Act humble.

10) Gnoll
Bonus: Advantage on tracking rolls
Taboo: Eat before the party leader does.

11) Goblin
Bonus: Advantage on caving skill tests.
Taboo: Pay for something honestly.

12) Harpy
Bonus: Cast Charm Person hit dice x daily.
Taboo: Let a personal offence go unpunished.

13) Hobgoblin
Bonus: Advantage on stealth rolls for character and anyone accompanying.
Taboo: Enter combat without backup.

14) Invisible stalker
Bonus: Automatically surprise on your first attack in any combat.
Taboo: Alert someone to your presence.

15) Kobold
Bonus: +2 AC without armour, advantage on rolls to dodge.
Taboo: Attack an opponent from the front.

16) Lizardman
Bonus: You can slow your metabolism at will, entering a meditation-like state you can dismiss instantly. You need no food or water in this state.
Taboo: Kill a snake.
 
17) Lycanthrope
Bonus: Improved senses, especially smell. You can only be surprised on 1-in-6.
Taboo: Handle silver.

18) Manticore
Bonus: Poison bite. Hit dice x times per day. Victims must save or die.
Taboo: Speak words of comfort.

19) Medusa
Bonus: Cast Sleep on one target hit dice x times per day, by making eye contact.
Taboo: Look into your own reflected eyes.

20) Merman
Bonus: Advantage on swimming tests, hold breath for 2 + hit dice x minutes.
Taboo: Taste brine.

21) Minotaur
Bonus: You can handle weapons as if you were a larger creature - eg. weild a two-handed sword one-handed.
Taboo: Handle ceramics.

22) Nixie
Bonus: Cast Charm on up to hit dice x animals, once per day.
Taboo: Kill an animal.

23) Ogre
Bonus: Advantage on strength rolls.
Taboo: Share food.

24) Orc
Bonus: Advantage on caving skill tests.
Taboo: Enter combat without backup.

25) Pixie
Bonus: A successful save vs petrification nullifies all fall damage, otherwise fall damage is reduced by half.
Taboo: Harm a winged creature.

26) Salamander
Bonus: A successful save vs breath nullifies all heat or cold damage (choose which at character creation), otherwise damage is reduced by half.
Taboo: Use your opposing force as a tool or weapon.

27) Sprite
Bonus: Cast a minor curse up to hit dice x times per day. The curse target will suffer a clumsy accident, have a tool break, or some other distracting inconvenience.
Taboo: Speak a compliment.

28) Treant
Bonus: Up to hit dice x times per day a tree will find a way to help you - drop a branch in the right place, bear fruit out of season, etc.
Taboo: Cut wood.

29) Troglodyte
Bonus: Advantage on climbing tests.
Taboo: Sleep under open sky.

30) Troll
Bonus: When you roll for healing, use the rolled value or your number of hit dice, whichever is better.
Taboo: Handle open flame.

Exalted 2.5 hack

Exalted 2nd edition is a fun RPG, but crunchy. The complexity of the rules mean there's never going to be any such thing as a pickup game of Exalted unless you're willing to play one of the many adaptations out there. Here's mine.

It's based on Cthulhu Dark's roll-keep-highest system, intended only for playing Solar Exalted and makes no effort to cover sorcery. (In all the time I spent thinking about it, I never came up with a solution I liked better than the one from Daiklaive Qwixalted. That's what I've used in play.)

As a teaser, here's a set of example artefacts I wrote up to demonstrate that not every magitech item you're packing has to be another eight-foot sword:

Mountain Rises, Mountain Falls

"The Exalt and the Demon fell from Heaven, cursing and clawing at each other as they tumbled. Their impact on Creation left a crater as deep as a tall man's length. Swords broken, armour cracked, drained of essence, they glared hatred at each other as they lay exhausted. 

"Long Stride gained his feet first. Having no other weapon to hand, he raised a torso-sized rock over his head and bludgeoned the Demon with it."

Mountain Rises, Mountain Falls is a warhammer made of rough-hewn stone banded and capped with orihalcum and fixed to a five-foot haft. Too heavy for an ordinary man to lift, never mind wield in battle, a blow from this hammer could fell a mammoth.

When spending a mote and striking the ground during battle, opponents must succeed in a roll vs character's essence die/2 or be knocked prone, stepping their side's combat dice down by one step for a turn

Lamentation

"The beast called Sorrow rode down the mountainside. It was atop a pile of tumbling, rolling skulls, laughing as it came. The Excellent Harp recognised her husband's skull by the jewels set in its forehead. She was too late.

"As it raised its bow to end her life and collect her skull, she spoke to it of the affection they had shared. The slow, halting blossom of love. And the enduring oneness it had ended with a single act of savagery. Ten minutes later, with her ready assistance, it hanged itself with its own bowstring." 

Lamentation is a bow formed from the ivory of some unknown beast, decorated with rings, ribbons, and scraps of silken veils. The beast Sorrow preferred to kill married men and women, and decorated its weapon with their scavenged love tokens. It has been restrung with a single strand of orihalcum wire.

When spending a mote and shaking the bow so it jingles, all opposing combatants who have a lover on the battlefield must succeed in a roll vs character's essence die/2 or be frozen in horror for a turn, stepping their side's combat dice down by one step.

Whisper

"When Sanshu left his lover's arms he stole away every trace of his presence. Even the smell of the flowers he brought her. Still, her husband the Magistrate felt that something was wrong. Sanshu was known to take strands of women's hair as souvenirs. The Magistrate counted every hair on his wife's head. Then he was satisfied she was faithful. 

"It was years later he realised the strand of her hair he kept in a locket around his neck was gone." 

Whisper is a rope woven from orihalcum wire, silk fibres, pattern spider cobweb and women's hair. It's light, durable, and seems to know its master's desires.

This rope is very nearly unbreakable, and when spending a mote and tying a knot in it, suppresses any noise its master makes.

Hacking Feast of Legends

A few thoughts on Wendys Burgers' Feast of Legends and what it would take to hack it for long term play.

I figure by now almost everyone will be aware that Wendys has released an RPG. Reddit has been buzzing with it. Some people seem fairly gobsmacked. But restaurants have a long history of giving out toys as a marketing gimmick, maybe they're just catching onto the idea that adults like toys too.

It's strongly themed, with monster names like pangs, grumbles and freezer burns. The BBEG is a clown, which suits me because I believe clowns are powerful and worthy of respect.

The game

Mechanically, this is familiar ground. Task resolution is d20 + mods vs target number. Criticals on 20 and 1. FoL drops Con and Wis from the traditional six stats (folding them into Str and Int) and adds Arcana as a measure of magical talent to make five. Stat bonuses are generated by rolling 4d4 and consulting a chart.  There are no spells, but all characters gain access to spell-like abilities or party buffs as they level. (The game calls them skills, but half of them are always-on passive effects.) Dex appears to be entirely about agility and aim, initiative is by rolling d20 with no mods or other bonuses and all characters get the same movement.

At chargen you pick an Order (which is effectively a choice between Bard, Fighter and Magic-user/Diplomat) and a class, which is a development path within that broad category. There are a bundle of classes. That's good, because picking your class provides most of your opportunity for differentiating characters. All members of a class gain exactly the same stat bonuses and abilities when levelling. 4d4 has a steeper bell curve than 3d6, so characters are going to start out closer in stats than under D20. A Baconator warrior is a Baconator warrior is a Baconator warrior.

There's no skill system or advancement mechanic. The rules are tightly focused on skirmish combat. You gain a level when the bundled adventure says you do. Levels come with HP increases and new spell abilities/buffs, by class. This wouldn't be a bad introductory RPG, there's nothing extra to the core game here. Advancement is capped at level 5.

The hack

I think that playing it RAW would benefit someone new to the hobby, but experienced players would be frustrated by the lack of character choice. To introduce some, I'd get rid of the individual classes, but keep the class levelling packages. Let players pick an order, and then choose a level-appropriate class package out of all the available selections when they advance. I like it with a small number of core classes. This might throw class balance out the window, but I'm okay with that.

I'd introduce a skill system with maybe ten to twelve broad skills. With the kind of stat bonuses 4d4 produces, a system like Sine Nomine's Stars Without Number uses might be a good fit. 2d6 + stat bonus + skill vs target of 8, adjusted up or down to account for difficulty. I should explain this - when I heard about a fast food RPG, I thought it would be thematically perfect for playing Dunkey and Matt Halton's The Gustatory. That setting's less about fighting your problems and more about problem solving and interacting with traditional enemies in a different environment. A skill system would add another dimension to to the game. No crits for skills, just pass or fail.

I haven't run a combat yet to see how it plays out, but the characters start at 4 HD and gain 8 + 2d4 hp per level. The first monster the players encounter has 5 HD. The median weapon damage for the equipment list is d8, so if combat doesn't run long it's only because the characters' team buffing abilities make a big impact. I'd like to stretch out advancement across 5 extra levels and try adding D20 monsters with their HD stepped up to d12 to see how they fill out the in-between levels.

Drop the arbitrary levelling and bring in advancement by XP. Calculate levelling requirements and monster XP using the B/X hit dice and powers table. (Figure out a multiplier that makes numbers from one system workable in the other.) Have all the classes advance at the same rate.

And lastly, drop the buffs and debuffs based on what the players are eating. Too meta.