BJ Back From the Beyond

Fate looks like it would be slow and difficult to implement online. Still, thanks for pointing me toward it, Alorael. I've gone ahead and started working on my own rules set. I've still got a lot I need to flesh out, but I'll post what I have here before long.

I've been wanting to do another RPG campaign for a while now, but the thing that's been holding me back is the lack of a rules set that I'd be willing to use. As far as I can tell, we've all given up working on the old AIMhack rules (Lilith in particular has gone off and started using a commercial rules set. Not that I'm complaining; I've enjoyed playing with Savage Worlds immensely), so I've started looking for something else. After looking around at some of the free rules sets out there, I haven't had much luck. If anyone has any recommendations for a rules set I could use, I'd love to hear them. Here's some things I'm looking for: It must be FREE. I'm cheap. And broke. And I don't like asking my players to pay for something just to be in my game. In other words, commercial systems are right out. Some systems have free core rules and supplemental rules that you can buy. For the most part, I would be okay with this. It should be universal. I don't want a system that is tied to heavily to any particular setting or genre. I'm looking for something that will be just at home in a modern-day zombie romp as it would be in a medieval swords and sorcery campaign. It should be classless. This is more of an issue of personal taste than anything. I've never been much of a fan of class based systems, much preferring skill based ones. Besides, class based systems tend to revolve heavily around medieval fantasy settings. It shouldn't be too complex. Rules complexity slows down online play much more than it does live play, and a bogged down game is not a fun one. It shouldn't be too simple. This is my personal taste again. I don't want the game to be overly simplistic. I'm looking for something in my own little Goldilocks zone somewhere between simple and complicated. AIMhack felt about right. I could take something slightly more or less complex than that and be happy. Being built for online play would be a bonus, but isn't necessary. The only thing I've found so far that really comes close to what I'm looking for is Simplex, but I'd really need to rework a lot of that before I'd use it. If I can't find a system that suits my needs and tastes, I'll probably just try my hand at developing my own (and given how that has turned out in the past on these forums, I'm not very confident about doing that). So, recommendations, thoughts, concerns, questions. I welcome all of them.

Looks interesting. Count me in, for now.

Leila Rithorn, Master Necromancer For all your undead abomination needs Stats Powers I'll increase the Fighting skill dies for the zombie roc and the blessed zombies. As for my ghost, I'll increase its Notice die.

The 28th works for me. Hope everything goes well during your appointment.

Ding! +Power Points. Also, Nioca, you should know that Waddles got an advance as well.

Here's how I see the possibilities: Going back to Port Jynt: We already have the aid of the druids of Halitarn, and they have a plan to bury the lava titan. That's still a viable plan even without the help of Oelis, though it is likely to cause more damage to Eressos and the surrounding islands (via tidal waves). But hey, desperate times and all. Plus this would give us the possibility of asking more about Lentoir and any other places we should go that we don't know about yet. This seems like a pretty solid course of action. Go looking for Lentoir: The big problem here is that we only have a vague idea of where it is, in the south. That's a lot of ground to cover. It might take us a few days, or a few weeks, or a few months, or... you get the idea. Meanwhile things on Eressos are only going to get worse. It was mentioned that we had a 5 month period before Port Jynt's economy was unsalvageable, so it's not like we have an infinite amount of time for a search. On the upshot, between Leila's new toy and Jered's insane notice skill, we should be able to do some pretty effective aerial recon. If we can get a better idea of where the island is, we could find it pretty fast. To me, this sounds like it will be a pretty solid plan as soon as we get some better intelligence, but not before. Going back to Oelis: This could either be really bad or really good, depending on how we handle it. We haven't done their economy any favors with the scuttling of Leia's Wings (however much it might help with their marked sky, they're not going to care), and they're not going to thank us for that. However, we now know that they have a Big Bad Monster that needs dealing with, the Lamia. Helping them with that may go a long way toward getting their help with our lava titan. Their mages might be able to mitigate the damage of the druids' plan (which was the whole reason we were there in the first place. Ho boy, did we get sidetracked). Of course, this assumes we can get a word-in-edgewise before they throw us in jail for theft. Eolith: I thought that was just a joke. Eolith is pretty far out of our way right now, nearly on the other side of the world map. Going there at some point might be a good idea, but doing that before finishing the LT would probably burn too much of our time. If we're just looking for info on Lentoir, I'm more inclined to check out the towns on the southern half of Halitarn first (thank you for that updated map, Dinti), or some other place with lots of knowledge that's much closer than Eolith is. So I think my vote right now is for Port Jynt, but I’m willing to give Oelis another go if someone else is.

Sorry to hear you're not feeling well, Lilith. Next week sounds fine. Get well soon.

Economic: 1.25 Social: -2.00 I have to admit, I found a lot of the questions rather peculiar. On several of them, I wish there was a button labeled "Yes and No, for varying reasons," and on others I wish there was a button for "Huh? Please elaborate." My score should probably be taken with a small grain of salt, but it does still make sense to me. Free will is a pretty important part of Christianity, so me being on the Libertarian side of social issues isn't too surprising. As for economic issues, I've always felt capitalism made more sense than communism, so no big surprise there either.

+1 Spellcasting. The modified Shadowstep power is also new.

Hey guys, I'm back. Ten days is a long time to spend on the road, and I'm very much looking forward to spending some time at home. The 16th should be open for me, so I'll see you all there.

I'm really sorry to do this guys, but something pretty serious has come up. I'll don't think I'll be free at all next week. I'm heading out-of-town and have no idea when I'll be back.

Given that I'm not an expert in these matters, here's the best advice I can give: If you're not 100% sure that your attraction to this girl is enduring (like, the-rest-of-your-life enduring) then do not pursue it. You really don't want to invite that kind of drama into your life. You will just end up regretting it.

You know, I did consider Grave Speak for a power, and now I can't remember why I went with Speak with Dead instead. It may have been the "no lying" part, but in retrospect getting to ask multiple questions and not needing a whole corpse is likely going to be more useful. Yeah, I think I'll switch to Grave Speak.

Stats: Powers:

Here's my advance. I'm taking the New Power edge to get new trappings for two powers I already have. I've already talked to Lilith about the first, and the second is just a bolt spell with the Darkness (Shroud) trapping from SWD.

I might be interested, but I've never played D&D. How long do you expect this campaign to run?

*bump* I'll be kicking around the server tonight if anyone's interested.

More power!

Leila takes a moment to do some intensive research.

A while ago I decided to step back from this campaign for a bit to sort of refresh and let myself get excided about it again. I never officially announced this, though a couple of you were there when I made the decision. Now, it's time I made a decision as to whether to continue or not. I'm sorry. After having stepped away for a while, I find that I have nearly no interest in continuing onward. It's nothing any of the players did. You guys were great. The problems lied entirely on my end, and now I feel like they've drained away all the enthusiasm I started with. I can't imagine the game would very fun for anyone if I tried to continue it in this state. Again, I'm really sorry, and if I ever run another campaign I'll make sure to keep the leasons I learned in this one in mind.

I'll be on most of today, and I'll try to be on tomorrow if anyone wants a game.

Well, I was going to get on the server today to see if anyone was interested in a game, but it seems our server is down again. I'll hang out in the official server for now if anyone wants to join me.