Who Watches the Watchmen? Me apperently.

Over the weekend I had my first taste of the Watchmen franchise. Not knowing anything about it, I thought the director did an excellent job. From the comic pages I've seen, it appears that they were very faithful to the story (san the change to the ending of course). I also liked the obvious problems that each character had as a result of their "powers"... I relaize that only Dr. Manhatten was the only obvious superpowered being, but each had transended basic human limitations... giving each character a few levels of Mega-Attributes (as per the Aberrant game).

Dr. Manhatten is an excellent inspiration for any Terrigan character, as he moves beyond humanity, even though he cares for them in a sense, he clearly knows to be above them as a god... his aberrations are many and obvious... it's little wonder he goes off the planet to create new life... which parralels Divis Mal in Aberrant... who will later leave earth as well to go create his own universe.

Silk Spectre and Nite Owl are realitivly "normal"with a few minor mental quirks, but have weathered crime fighting really well.

Ozy has my favorite line in the whole movie, "Do you think I'm some comic book villain? That I would tell you my master stroke if there was a remote chance you could stop me? I triggered it 35 minutes ago." Defenatly a Megalomanic who's good at it. His power had a higher price.

Rorshach also a defantly potent human with several mental issues... the price for justice often can lead to madness when you see the worst in humanity all the time.

Overall, I recomend the film to comic fans... it was well put together and kept me guessing to the end... and the "villians" plan was quite brilliant. The violence and sex were done just well enough in contrast with some off color music that clashed with the scene to a point (but we're well chosen). It reminded me of the idea I heard from a friend in High School who would start a movie with the "Cola Wars" between Pepsi and Coke, with one side raiding the other and shooting gangster style with "Everything is Beautiful" as the backgroud music.

As a secondary opinion, it's nice to see the taboo of male nudity being challenged in this film... I found it far less distracting after the first time it happened then other films that use every trick in the book to cover up bits and peices... Beowulf comes to mind in that example... Fighting grendel was an awsome fight, but the convenetly placed table or arm or cup or whatever just got to be distracting. It worked for Austin Powers, because it was a comedy... but for Beowulf it just got to be too much. With any luck directors will take their R rated films or NR films and not try to work around bits and peices like they have in the past and just move on to make awsome films.

Aberrant v1.4 Rules

After another rousing adventure of Aberrant with my testing group, a number of issues and confusion came up... as well as some new content dying to come to the four front... so it's time for me to buckle down at work and go over some new issues. Here is the primary list

1. Look at all Resistance specs to powers

In the NWoD system there are three kinds of actions... Instant, Extended, and Contested.

Instant are generally an Attribute + Skill + Equipment - Modifier... A single successes is all that is needed to beat the challenge. These represent something simple like making the jump from building top to building top... or picking a simple lock.

Extended are similar, but generally require a number of successes to achieve the final goal.. such as crafting a sword could be 5 successes for a simple crude weapon up to 25-50 for masterwork... or doing research on a werewolf for weaknesses that aren't just folklore.

Contested compare successes when two people are competing in the same objective, such as a hacker and system admin fighting in cyberspace over a system... or two people running a marathon.

Combat gets sticky though... most challenges in combat have been reverted to instant actions, which tends to make things go faster without contested actions every time someone throws a punch... but some powers in combat are not well suited for simple actions... So my task is to go through and see what type of action makes the most sense. This is going to be the messiest part.

2. New Power: Body Modifications...

This power in the old aberrant system was a power bought once at a specific cost and had a permanent effect... such as gills allowing you to breath under water, wall crawling abilities, or extra arms... I have to decide if I want the "power" to simply be a merit based (by once and forget) or a level 1 power (Giving the Nova an equipment like bonus for certain situations).

3. Quantum Power Level chart

The current chart appears pretty weak with little incentive to raise it (except to shoot past 1-5 to 6 where you become able to purchase level 4 powers) I plan to raise the regeneration of temporary quantum pool for each level... I might tinker with the max temp pool... and most importantly, I'm going to take a hard look at the degeneration penalty.

Characters have a morality scale, which keeps them in line from doing horrible monstrous things... the theroy with the super heroes is the more potent they become, the more separated from humanity they are... however the degeneration penalty seems quite harsh... to get a similar effect with separation with humanity I think can fall into aberrations forced upon the nova's when they hit Level 3, 5, and 8 (out of 10).

4. Node Background Negatives... which are similar to Quantum Power Level chart... it has the same problem. To fix this, I'm tempted to add a low level derangement at level 2 or 3... and progress to the more sever derangement at 4 or 5... the thought is the Node is a lump of grey matter in the Nova's brain that allows super powers. It starts as the size of a peanut, but can grow to be the size of a softball... which puts alot of pressure on the brain in ways not necessarily healthy. So it's up for scrutiny.

5. Chrysalis... one of my players is starting to get quite tainted on purpose... the Teragen see taint and aberrations as evolution... but dangerous. Their leader has developed a process of controlled evolution called Chrysalis. Using a deep philosophy guild in their process... they acquire taint points and channel it during a hibernation/cocoon period. This can lead to new powers, changes in aberrations, and a deep set attitude change... But how will I implement it in my game... as it's got a great potential for role play... but it also serves as a potential game breaker mechanically.

So I've got my work cut out for me... There are a few more powers that are floating around in my head that a unique enough that they warrant their own page in my book... but my main focus is clearer now.

More updates to come.

The brothers are back

The picture today is of Jacob Lux and Oswald Smith...

Two characters that were created for a werewolf LARP about 6-7 years ago... but have been a constant blast to play and has inspired several written stories and several game sessions encompassing the range of emotions and situations.

Oswald (a bear changer - on the right in the picture), was my character who has had a lingering online presence in both WoW and CoX... WoW was a Bear Tank Druid of course... and in CoX he's a brute (the current make is Shields and Super Strength)

The player of Jake, has since followed me to CoX and created his time tested Get of Fenris (Battle Axe and Invincibility Brute - on the left in the picture). Which has given CoX a nice revitalising shot for me. We once again get to have more exploits and adventures as our two favorite characters. Back in the werewolf game, we were in essence saving the world... but we were hardly considered "heroes"... so the villain side is a perfect home for Jake and Oswald.

Even better is in CoX is the fact that we are forever "packed" in a Leveling Pact. After a few months of playing with another friend and leveling pacts... I gotta say that I love the feature.

To review: Leveling Pacts are a bond created between two characters under level 5. It then takes all experience and divides it equally between the two toons to make sure they are always the same level and experience level. This includes if the other character is offline.

This includes if you create a pact at different levels. A level 5 toon would simply donate all experience gained to his pact mate until they were caught up.

In experiencing this, I've run into only one minor inconvenience and several benefits.

It does take twice as long to level a character if you solo alot... however for the ability to have the same level toon to play with when your friend is around is great. I've noticed also that it's a great way to grind money and prestige for the super base... since only experience is divided... you get full money for each mission and kill. More missions and killing mean more money.

The other great benefit for altoholics... like my friend... we have two separate pacts started... Oswald and Jake are Group A and His healer/blaster and my Stalker is Group B

He will often play his healer character with Oswald tanking... and while we are earning more experience in a group (divided by half)... we are in fact leveling 4 toons at once and making some good money in the process (since you always get more xp and money in a group)

The system is pretty good, but obviously has some room for improvements...

1. I would like to be able to form a pact with toons higher then level 5... even if they make it so that I can only form the pact within 5 levels... that would be a nice touch for my old characters who were leveled partially before Issue 13 came out.

2. Leveling pacts with a group bigger then 2 - I have about 5 friends all online in CoX now... and it would be truly awesome to set up a super group that all stay the same level... divide the experience 5 ways... it shouldn't unbalance the game any... So I hope they are able to implement it after Issue 14 comes out. (which in itself will be awesome too)

The brothers live again! Now I just gotta convince my in character brother Walter to join the dark side.

Slouching in the updates... but for good reason.

Between mining mindlessly in Eve online, funding our new Super base in City of Villains, and most importantly, testing out the open Beta for issue 14 Architect in City of Villains... I've been quite busy.

Architect is quite a bit more robust then I first thought it would be... for those not in fully up to day on City of X issues... Architect allows players to go to a content studio in game, and create full fledged missions. You can then publish them and other heroes/villains can try them out and get Experience and "Tickets" (like skeet ball tickets) to turn in for digital goodies.

It uses the natural mission randomizer already in the game, which uses your character level, Difficulty level, and number of teammates you have in your party to dictate what level the mobs/bosses are and how many pop up. You can direct the difficulty somewhat, but changing the difficulty to be easy at first and ramp up as you move along, keep it even through out, or start off with the hard baddies and have them get less difficult as you progress. But all that in consideration, you have a surprising amount of freedom in creating missions...

You can set as many objectives as you like, being grabbing objects, killing everyone, killing a boss, or escorting someone around. But with a little pre-emptive thinking, you can chain a series of objectives together to make a compelling scenario. There are a number of advanced objectives like adding an ambush or a surprise ally who turns evil... even a mob who's a friend to no one (he/she will rip apart NPC mobs as much as you)

I also enjoy the freedom in creature creation. You can use any of the several NPC mobs groups as bad guys, or create your own complete group from scratch.

Personally I'm borrowing a chapter from the old Werewolf the Apocalypse LARP, and creating the Monkey King Pack and Elder Black Spiral Dancer (the latter who gave a legitimate challenge to my character). The creator allows you to create various levels of bad guy, from regular boss to epic, to arch villain... much like how they are situated now in game. You can choose how experienced they are (which dictates how many powers they know in a specific powerset). And of course a primary and secondary power set. You can mix and match to your heart's content... combine the gun totting power of assault rifle (from the blasters/corrupter)... with the invincibility of Invincibility (from the tankers/brutes). Or give a full fledged self healing power to your high DPS brute... and of course, flight is an option for everyone. Not all combinations are equal, but you have a wide variety to play with and easily edit later.

The map list is pretty extensive, and once this version is live, the next step in creation is to make fully custom maps. But the range of map size is and variety is good enough for most missions.

The last aspect I really like is the nitpicking, customizing almost every aspect of the encounter and the text revolving around the mission. Down to the text that it gives you when you are interrupted in collecting a quest item and what the NPC boss says when he/she flees at 25% health.

Hopefully any bugs found are quickly ironed out and the system is found to be stable on the servers... so we can get this gem of a feature out on live servers asap.

The boys are back in town...

So over the weekend, I reached high enough of a level to purchase my last summon power on Ursine Master... I now have all 6 minions I can directly control... (plus 10 more if I decide to start a gang war)... so eat your heart out, hunters in WoW and Warhammer.

Over the weekend I also managed to snag a Warhammer Online invite and an Eve Online trial to get my feet wet on some other games. Warhammer is ok, but alot like WoW for better or worse... the chaos metamorph class is pretty cool concept... but it's alot like playing a warrior in Warcraft. Thus far I highly doubt I'll purchase the full game.

Eve I decided to grab a free trial account to see the new changes, espcally with the patch going on right now (March 10th)... trying to get a feel for the game. If City of Villians doesn't keep my interest, Eve is the likely candiate right now...

After watching my friend play Warcraft over the weekend, I just was not excited to pick it up again... The other potential option for gaming entertainment is to use my steam account to download Saints Row 2 or Left4Dead.

Aberrant v1.3 rules complete

Well, I think I've gotten everything up to date on my v1.3 of New World of Darkness conversion of Aberrant. As soon as I am able to upload the rule set to google docs, I'll post a link to share. It's a smashing good time! (Yeah, I was trying a little too hard to make a joke about the post and the photo...)

Included in the update

New Powers:

Quantum Conversion - Make energy from your hands for everyday usage

Quantum Construct: Create creatures out of thin air to do your bidding.

ESP: Eavesdrop or spy on your friends and enemies from another room or from across town.

Chimerical Aberration: Gain mastery over your taint and change your hindrances into a different form that is less debilitating... at least for a little while.

Transfer/Absorb Aberrations: get rid of those pesky glowing eyes or chitin skin for a while...

Updated Powers:

Level Technique Enhancements - Added the ability to expand techniques to powers like temporal manipulation, elemental anima, or telepathy for a flat 5xp. It gives no bonus to the powers themselves, just unlocks more tricks they can do each level.

Clone - clarified quantum and willpower pools for the clones.

Phasing - added a brawl trick for phasing a hand inside your enemy and resolidifying it doing massive damage.

Plasticity - added a combat boost taking advantage of range and strange maneuvering.

Merged mental and social "armor" to one power, giving some ease on overspending on powers.

Added a bunch of new aberrations and enhancements from the mega-trait books (still awaiting the mega-physical attributes book... go sproket!)

Did a basic conversion of the nova specific drugs from the main core book, including Mox, Mite, and Soma.

Posting to come soon!

Any constructive comments on the conversion are welcomed.

New Computer = AWSOME!

So my tax return has come and gone... although this year I spent it on something a little more flamboyant. I found a nice quad core amd, 4gb ram, vista 64bit HP computer from the now dead Circuit city for just under 500 bucks. Added a 512mb DDR3 ATI graphics card with the dti cable... then found a smokin' acer 24" monitor on clearence at office depot...

The final result is a very inexpesive and very very nice gaming machine.

My first surprise on play City of Villians was all these orange things on the ground. I was zoomed out (since playing a mastermind is not unlike playing an RTS game)... I zoom in and I find a large pile of empty bullet casings littering the ground that roll around and out of the way as I walk over them.

See for yourself, bullets everywhere!

I also swung the camera around after fighting a gravity controller boss (who has one power that pulls a large object from the nethervoid and flings it at a target) to find a junkyard of discarded flung objects (including a fire hydrant, car, dumpster, and peices of modern art).

The other nice upgrade is to the character and world models... as you can see by the pictures. Which still runs very smoothly.

For an out dated game, it still looks pretty good.

My next task is to load up Eve (either a new trial account or reactivate my old game)... also I may have to borrow my friends account on WoW to see what settings I can push... never having a computer that could handle this kind of graphic load before, it's really a new experience! I'm almost like a kid in a candy store.