A new logo?
On my personal blog, I wrote briefly about some creative stuff from my holidays. But more importantly I started to re-design the Lost Heroes logo (and explained why).
First draft of a new logo looks something like this:
Like?
Some fresh ideas for the setting of Lost Heroes
I came back from my holidays last week with a desire to start working on my Lost Heroes RPG again. I think I worked myself into a rut last time, but learning a little about design over the holidays seemed to have opened the way again.
There was something that, I think, +Greg posted just before the holidays, asking for RPG designers to say what the characters do, not what their RPG world is about. It got stuck in my head. (I’m paraphrasing because I can no longer find the original post – four weeks of G+ stuff is just too much stuff to wade through to find it).
There are some subtle themes of conflict in the premise of Lost Heroes and I was leaving a lot of work up to the GM to use them. It occurred to me to make it more explicit. To give it a _face_. When you have someone (or a group) to fight against, it’s much more obvious.
I don’t want to spend time here regurgitating the metaphysics of Lost Heroes world, except to say there is the Veil. The Veil is home to spirits and is like a form of ether that flows in tides all around. It keeps the Gods and more powerful supernatural out. But it also oppresses the supernatural that exist in the mundane world.
The Veil in part represents the conflict between the supernatural and the mundane world. Mundane/normal weighs heavily and even burns the supernatural (via the Veil). The PCs, who are Chosen of the Gods, are especially powerful which causes waves in the Veil. This can cause the mundane world to react, unknowingly but not explicitly. But there is no explicit mundane “enemy” though. Mundane world is as it is. There are no shadowy groups of supernatural hunters employed by the church or government and if they do exist, they probably know so little about the supernatural that they are easily ignored.
But what if there was?
The PCs are powerful beings, being Chosen of the Gods and so on. What if them forming a group and simply existing in the world caused a reaction in the Veil and created spirit-like beings that watched over the PCs and kept the PCs in line (or at least keeping the mundane line). I only have scribbled notes about the idea, but potentially as you pick your supernatural gifts during character creation, you drop a few points into this “shadow”. The player or the GM could then build up this spirit being. They could merge it into one being for the entire group or one for each PC, whichever is more interesting for the players.
These beings could control mundane forces by, for example, influencing large bureaucracies, controlling people who are asleep, controlling the dead or objects. They could stop magic out right. They could even have their own mortal agents (probably the mad) to act for them. Their purpose is simply to keep the sanctity of the Veil and therefore the mundane world. The PCs could have supernatural battles in underground car parks or cast magic while buried in the mountains and they wouldn’t care, but try to convince the entire world that Zeus is real by a demonstration of your power… this would cause these spirits to react quickly and unforgivingly.
And they can have personalities. They may even approach the PCs and offer deals or ways for the PCs to atone for problems they caused. These would make excellent story hooks and force the PCs right into the mundane world. They could force the PCs to take mundane jobs, or achieve some goal not using any supernatural powers or to hunt down a serial killer (who could be supernatural or not).
Is this an interesting idea? Would it add flavour to the setting or is it just over the top?
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On golems and sources
(Originally posted over at Google+)
Came across a very good article on the origin of "golems": "Golems: A Brief History". I had known a little about it, but it’s the meaning behind them that I didn’t get (as in golems are monstrous because only "god" can create life from nothing, not man…). That’s a pretty cool theme.
Anyway, the reason I’m sharing this is more so about the discussion surrounding it. "Cultural appropriation" is mentioned in the comments by someone and I originally saw this shared in relation to DnD… as in how DnD badly represents "golems".
I think it’s weird. I don’t think that’s what the article writer is saying. It’s more like, getting a bit of nerd-rage every time she sees someone misuse the idea of the Jewish golem. Like when the movie Thor came out and I went read up on the history of Marvel’s Thor. The disconnect between the original myths and Marvel is was pretty laughable to me (though ultimately I think some of the visuals in the movie are an amazing vision of the Aesir and their world).
I just hope people don’t read my Lost Heroes RPG project now (where in I steal from Norse, Christian, Judaism, Astura and Celtic traditions…) …
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System design question on Powers: Gifts/Faults versus a Skill-like system?
Starting to get back into writing for Lost Heroes but the first thing I do isn’t writing. I end up re-evaluating everything in front of me – I’m currently working on a character creation guide and despite having actually written up the rules for creating Magic Practitioners, I’ve decided to remove all mention of magic and non-Chosen types (including Magic Practitioners) from what ever thing I make public. I’ll keep the stuff I wrote, but this creation guide will be specifically about the Chosen only.
That isn’t really a radical change. I’m just moving some of the stuff aside. And it was something I had already considered for a while. But then it lays the seed of a change much more fundamental.
I am of the opinion that in game design, mechanics should follow flavour and setting and help re-enforce it or expand it. But I’ve always felt that the current power-system of Lost Heroes does not do that. I’ve invested a lot of thought and design effort into it, built elements of the system around it, but it always felt a little disconnected from the rest of the setting and the other rules which all otherwise have their place in relation to the setting. I did have a design goal way back when I started, not to have a distinct magic system but one that shared it’s core with the basic power system. That however I think is holding back a more refined vision of the RPG.
Currently a character can have gifts and faults, some of these are mundane and some supernatural or divine. Chosen with different Patron Gods will have different gifts and faults. Then there is abilities. There are psychic abilities, which have their place within the setting (a good example would be visions), and then there is the supernatural and divine abilities. These are powered by the character’s passions. Magic then aligns with these abilities (instead calling them paths), using the basic same rules but with a few extra restrictions and some broader concepts, example; Magic always takes time but Abilities are instant, however Magic can be used to create magical items but Abilities cannot. And so on. Abilities have ratings which can be increased via experience points and I’ve built them up using the mythos and elements of the setting.
But I felt they never really reflected the source idea of Lost Heroes. While characters in mythology often gain powers, they don’t work like abilities. They don’t get supernatural skills as such but learn specific tricks and powers. It’s not really something that’s part of the theme of the setting. I think I pulled the ideas for abilities from existing RPGs and martial-art based fantasies where characters only purpose is to train and build on a supernatural martial art (including all the flashy light shows).
I’m considering ripping out abilities completely, replacing them with just a set of gifts and faults. This suits the setting much more, as in the characters are human but have some advantages. They don’t have these supernatural abilities that would make them truly distinct (i.e. alien) to human characters. They are simply different. Another angle on this is to wonder how that these sort of supernatural abilities would affect how one would sees the world. It’s not just gaining an alien sixth sense, but also a new limb to control the world within that sixth sense. It would be not possible to describe how or what that would mean to some without it.
Magic of course can still use the stuff I devised for abilities, but I shall put it aside until later.
The question then I have is, does this make sense from a player perspective?
The current gift system in Lost Heroes allows for tiered gifts and faults. Some gifts and faults can be stacked up to three times, increasing their scope or power. But there is no gift or fault tree. Players can buy new gifts, learning them from gods or other supernatural beings. But anything then with an ability is not a player character and can’t really be. Does not having powers-based skills like abilities weaken the system?
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Yggdrasil and Ragnarok Infographics
Came across these on G+ this morning. Wonderful simple infographics on the Norse mythology of Yggdrasil and Ragnarok. Both created by Tiffany Thoreson. (I wish I could make my Aesir Family Tree graphics as pretty as these).
From Tiffany vs. Art – Yggdrasil, the Norwegian Tree of the Universe:
From Tiffany vs. Art – Ragnarok Redesign, Infographic of the Norse:
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On not being human in Lost Heroes
There is an excellent post over at the Strange Magic blog that makes a point that elves in recent fantasy RPG games have lost a lot of their exotic alien-ness.
In Tolkien the Elves were not human, and you see this reflected more in the early years of RPGs with Tolkien inspired elves in them. But in the 30+ years since they’ve been increasingly humanized (much like Vampires). Now they are just people with pointy ears (and Vampires are people who sparkle) and they’re written and played more or less like any other human character.
Which strikes to core one of the major themes of Lost Heroes setting, or at least something that has been brewing in the back of my mind as I’ve been designing. The weirdness, that inhuman nature is part and parcel of mythology. The Gods may appear human but they also appear alien.
The otherworldly inhuman nature of Elves and other magical creatures is something you see throughout folklore.
I’ve tried to replicate that in the rules by saying that players can only play human and nearly-human characters. You can play a human that can turn into a dragon, but not a dragon that can turn into a human. You can play a half-Dreamling (but not a real Dreamling) or a human who has been changed to join the Elves of Asgard (but you can’t play a pure/original Elf). I create a sub system for Magic Users that is intended to make magic strange and exotic. I also wrote a long chapter called “the world of horrors and wonders”; how our human and mundane world appears to creatures and beings not from here (I hope to revise and extend this chapter in the future). Indeed the world of lost heroes is about entering the supernatural world, with it’s spontaneous festivals and fairy realms, of the supernatural community and the demands of the gods that dwell only in the land of dreams.
This hasn’t been an explicit condition of my design though. It still possible to use the character creation process to create really weird characters that do not fit any ideal of human so really it’s something that the GM will have to watch for.
Thinking on this theme for the last few days has made me evaluate how I envision the final product per say. It doesn’t change my course of action for now, but I keep thinking that the core book should be filled with the strange and weird flotsam of mythology and alien-ness, perhaps containing a cross-section of a god from each of the established pantheons and then a number of examples from the two generic ones and a number of strange realms with alien rules (mostly to highlight the strange hyper-reality of the land of the dreams).
My food for thought for the next little while.
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I know I know I’ve been quiet here…
That’s mostly because for the last month I’ve been doing NaNoWriMo, writing something completely different from Lost Heroes RPG. I’m looking forward to getting back into it though and finishing the character creation (which contains a humongous amount of stuff on the different gods and their chosen). My long term plan still remains the same. Write up/design character creation and rules. Playtest for as long as I’m enjoying it and then create something with fancy graphics and layout.
This fancy something is still up in the air. It’s so far away that it might never happen. I’m currently imagining that this will probably be a core book with full rules and basic character creation for Chosen and only the two generic pantheons, Fair Folk and Dark Gods. I’m going to strip magic, Magic Practitioners and Valiant Mortals out of it but expand and create a viable world for the generic pantheons (which a legion of strange realms and alien things). I’d also, in parallel take one pantheon of gods and create a supplement something. So you could grab the core book plus one set of gods. Hopefully after that I’d be able to create supplements for Magic/Magic Practitioners, Valiant Mortals and the other three sets of gods, each getting a much fuller treatment.
Also over the last little while I’ve discovered that there is a computer game for Nintendo’s 3DS coming out called “Lost Heroes RPG”. What a strange little coincidence. I do own a 3DS and I’m quietly a Nintendo fan boy, so what a strange little surprise to come across.
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Ulysess 31, live-action intro!
Hilarious live-action remake of one of my favourite cartoon from the 80s: Ulysess 31
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Ulysses 31, 30th Anniversary
This bank holiday morning, myself and my kids sat and watched some episodes of Ulysses 31, an 80s sci-fi series. Despite the weaker animation than modern cartoons, the kids still love it. My daughter and myself can quote the opening sequence where Zeus curses Ulysses:
“Mortals, you defy the Gods? I sentence you to travel among unknown stars. Until you find the Kingdom of Hades, your bodies will stay as lifeless as stone.”
I wasn’t a huge fan of it as a kid, though when it was on I watched it. But since becoming an adult, probably fuelled by nostalgia, I’ve become a big fan. It was originally released in 1981 so this year, 2011, makes it is 30th anniversary. A French musician, a fan of the show, is re-mastering the soundtrack and has got permission to release a special edition (his website is in French but there are demos of the track there: www.parallax.fr).
I got the box set of the entire series just a few years ago, before I started Lost Heroes RPG. And it’s only in the last year I re-watched it with the kids. I’ve done a lot of reading of mythology including Greek myths for Lost Heroes and when I watched it with the kids recently, I had a new appreciation of the series. In fact I think subconsciously the genre mashup of far future fantasy plus Greek mythology probably did heavily influence the inception of Lost Heroes RPG (which could be described as a mashup of modern day fantasy plus ancient classic mythology).
Ulysses 31 is set in the 31st Century where a modern Ulysses is travelling on a large spaceship home where they encounter a planet that kidnaps his son Telemachus. Ulysses saves his son but kills the robotic Cyclops in his efforts and so the Olympian Gods curse Ulysses and his crew. It’s originally a French cartoon but done by a Japanese studio. (If you remember the Daft Punk music videos featuring blue humanoid aliens, then you’d have a good idea of the style of animation of Ulysses). Each of the episodes are inspired by Greek myths and stories.
I like the fact that the kids, Yumi and Telemachus act like kids in the show. Modern cartoons put the kids as the superheroes now (thinking Ben 10, Witch, etc.), giving them the power while a lot of the 80s cartoons, the kids are kids. They may be brave and smart and even the main protagonists but they don’t do the fighting or the heroics, that’s up to the adults.
While the main cast only features Yumi as a female character they do encounter a lot of strong female characters along the way from the Rebellion on Lemnos where the women revolt against the dominating men to The Magic Spells of Circe where a powerful sorceress is trying to defy the gods, but still it is quite atypical of the time, where the heroes are white males.
What is cool is their treatment of the classic myths. I love their take on Chronos in Chronos, Father of Time where he is exiled from Olympus so he captures Ulysses, hoping to use him to get back into Olympus. There these cool steampunk/clockwork like robots that serve Chronos and in the end Ulysses defeats Chronos by turning the clock of the Universe back! Or when Ulysses ventures to the centre of the universe in At the Heart of the Universe and is tricked into waking Atlas which causes the entire Universe to start to collapse.
I found many of the characters they met were more rounded out than the main cast, like the story of Sisyphus in The Eternal Punishment. They also managed to maintain the tragedy of Sisyphus in the episode, not something you’d find in many kids cartoons. In fact that is one of the qualities of the series, they really managed to keep the tragedy and sadness of many of the original myths, like the story of Orpheus in the final episode or the Minotaur in Lost in the Labyrinth.
I managed to find a video of the intro on youtube, embedded for your viewing pleasure:
For pure fandom, apparently there was a pilot episode created. It followed the same plot as the original first episode but all the character designs are different and it was never translated to English. It was online at some point, but when I found out about it, all the links were dead.
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So I’m back from outer space…
Well okay, back from the French country-side. Three week holiday. No internet. Loads of sleep. And I’m feeling invigorated, though being back at work is quickly sapping that. Still, I did a ton of work on Lost Heroes. A ton, I mean. But I don’t really have anything yet to show you.
I’ve been working on the character creation and the I’ve got the nuts and bolts down and started into detailing each of the different gods, which got me excited about the project again. It’s going quite slowly however and since arriving back, work has stopped (simply because other stuff has taken priority for the moment).
But I also have plan. Yes another plan.
One of the problems I have with this character creation process is that I allow the creation of three different character distinct types; the Chosen (of the gods), Magic Practitioners and Valiant Mortals. It’s quite a convoluted/confusing mess, I’m glad that I have the three basic threads down, but I think I want to focus on the core of Lost Heroes. That’s the Chosen. The playtest character creation guide that I’ll put out will detail how to create Magic Practitioners and buy Magic Paths, but I’ll focus on just the Chosen with no Magic (they’ll still have gifts and supernatural abilities) for any games I run.
I love the types of Magic Practitioner characters you can created but it really makes everything complex and I think Valiant Mortals are ignored to an extent.
And then there is the second part of the plan, after I do this character creation guide, I want to try and run a few games with a group of players I know and have gamed with before. I haven’t played or ran a game in months sadly so some organisation will be required. Depending how that goes I hope to seek out others to play test with, but that’s off in the vagueness of the future.
So fingers crossed. To the future we go!