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Jul. 20th, 2008 12:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
electricpaladinThis character creation marks a first: the first game that can be best described as “little known.”
The Game: Blue Rose, the Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy
Publisher: Green Ronin
Familiarity: Quite high, actually. I ran Abby a solo game in Blue Rose that ran for a month or so before we reached a stopping point.
So… I know what you’re asking yourself. You’re asking yourself: “what the heck is romantic fantasy?”
Romantic fantasy is fantasy that focuses on relationships (both platonic and romantic) and on personal quests and challenges. It also has a certain romantic plot sensibility: emotions are always important, the landscape is always stunning, nobility and villainy are sharply opposed. Psychic powers, talking animals, special spiritual/magical bonds (between people and their pets, between people and each other) are all common. Gender and sexuality are often explored, and characters often deal with sexual relationships, alternative sexualities and lifestyles, and sexism.
This kind of fantasy has historically been favored by girls, but that doesn’t mean only girls read it. I’ve read quite a lot of it, for example, and only some of it at Abby’s behest, in preparation to run Blue Rose. Some famous romantic fantasy authors are Mercedes Lackey, Sharon Shinn, Diane Duane, Robin McKinley, Tamora Pierce, and Kristen Britain (and that’s just sticking to authors I have personally read).
Blue Rose is set in the world of Aldea. If you are familiar with the authors listed above (especially Mercedes Lackey), a lot of the setting will be familiar to you. There is a good kingdom called Aldis, which is open to all sexes and races, neighbored by a well-intentioned but oppressive (and sexist, and predisposed against certain non-human species who they believe are ‘tainted by the Shadow’) theocracy (Jarzon), a semi-barbarian nation of nomadic horsemen (Rezea), and an evil kingdom that one internet wit described as less a nation and more “a lich’s front yard” (Kern). There are some cool other tidbits: the monarchy of Aldis is supported by a bureaucracy of ‘nobles’ all elevated to their position after a test from a magical rod that can detect their goodness or badness… but only once, after which they are free to become corrupt to their heart’s content and the setting is full of intelligent talking animals to become psychically bonded to… or to play (possibly with a psychically bonded NPC human!).
It’s a setting where the good is good, the evil is evil, and moral gray just means that you misidentified someone’s goodness or badness (that, or it has to be either imported by the gamers). This is a feature of the source material, and not a real problem for me. I can always make things more complicated.
The real problem with the setting is that Blue Rose never really manages to shake the dust of D&D off its heels. First of all, it’s a class-and-level system – I hate those. The setting includes elves and dark elves (they have special names, but still) even though most of the source material rarely goes in for alternate races. There are “Night People” who behave and, most importantly, even look suspiciously like half-orcs. I mean, I know the system is a D&D knockoff… but does the setting have to be, too?
On to my character!
I’d like to play against type a little, point out some of the flaws, but not so much that I end up playing a different game. Also, one of the cool and genuinely unique aspects of the game are the Sea-Folk, playable aquatic people. They breathe air but can hold their breath for prodigious amounts of time (like dolphins). They have an affinity with aquatic creatures, and they’re good guys. There are also a race called Sea-Fiends, Sea-Folk who were captured by the evil magical kings in the ancient past and warped, so that they only have an affinity with sharks, and are evil.
My character is a half-breed. His father, a Sea-Folk warrior, had a brief affair with a Sea-Fiend witch. Some people tried to excuse him when the affair was revealed by saying she enchanted him, others condemned him. Either way, he fled and no one knows where he is now, or if he’s even alive. She was pregnant, of course, and dumped her child on the Sea-Folk community without saying why. The whole thing is pretty mystifying to the entire community. No one knows why she seduced their fine, upstanding young man and then dropped her bastard with his people. She somehow never got around to using him to launch an attack or get something important sabotaged. The fact that maybe they were, you know, in love doesn’t occur to anyone.
My character has grown up something of an outcast among his people. He contributes as best he can (like his mother, he has a talent for the Arcane Arts), but no one really trusts him. They all believe he’s tainted, but are too good-hearted to actually abandon him. He, on the other hand, believes that there has to be some reason his mother’s people behave the way they do (consorting with demons, raiding the Sea-Folk and humans), and he wants to find out why, so he can help them, maybe bring them back to the light. He studies magic at least in part because he suspects that they are inherently tainted and would like to find a way to fix them… though he avoids thinking about the possibility that he is tainted, himself.
A good GM would reintroduce his mother, and maybe a love interest from among the Sea-Fiends (so he could possibly follow in his father’s footsteps), and give my character lots of reasons and opportunities to switch sides, I think. I’d love for his father to show up one day, too. In either case, my character is likely to go looking for them before too long. He could work in a game that’s about the Sea-Fiends and the Shadow, or just one set near enough the water that he could continue to work on his project as a personal pursuit until it became plot.
His name: Surin.
The sea-folk are slender, slightly androgynous humans with green or blue skin. Surin’s skin is darker green than most – not so dark that he’s clearly a Sea-Fiend, but dark. His hair is paler green and his eyes are bright gold. He favors dark green clothing (which makes his skin look paler) and golden accents (which bring out his eyes). The description in the book doesn’t say so, but the illustrations all agree and I think it’s cool, so Surin also has swept-back fins on either side of his face, webbed fingers and toes, and short winglike fins on each forearm that he can fold flat against his arms.
Step one of character creation is to divide six points between my six Attributes. All Attributes start at +0, and I can reduce them to up to -5, though -2 is the lower limit for someone who isn’t seriously deficient in some way. I’ll increase my Intelligence to +3 since I want to be a magic-user. I imagine living and swimming in a three-dimensional environment would result in a good physical sense, so I’ll give him Dexterity +1. Finally, I think he’s charming and handsome, if a little exotic looking thanks to his heritage, so I’ll give him Charisma +2 (I also want him to have a chance of becoming the leader who improves the lot of the Sea-Fiends). I see no reason to reduce any of his other three attributes for more points, so I’ll leave them at +0.
Next, I pick a Background. Unfortunately, Background is the game’s codeword for ‘race.’ Humans have several options based on where they are from, but each of the nonhuman species gets only one option. Well, I’m a Sea-Folk. That covers that. I note my favored skills, my special abilities
Then I pick my role. True20 is a class-and-level system. Have I mentioned that I hate class-and-level systems? I do. Luckily, Surin is easy. He’s an Adept. I note down all the stuff I have no control over and move on to the fun parts: feats and skills.
For skills, it works like this. Background provides three favored skills, and my role provides, in this case, 6 more, two of which are decided for me. Favored skills have the potential to have a higher rating than non-favored skills, so I should pick wisely. I decide on Concentration, Diplomacy, Heal, and Sense Motive. I want Surin to be socially adept, I like the idea of him knowing how to patch people up (and he may have magic for it, too), and Concentration is just basic for spellcasters in this game.
Feats are where it’s at for Adepts. This is where I get to decide on my magic powers. I think Surin is mostly a Psychic, with a talent for manipulating minds. This is great on several levels: it puts him under the same shadow as his mother (who was rumored to have manipulated his father into the affair with psychic magic) and lets me play with the possibility of evil, since psychic magic is easily abused. Also, it seems like having him be a psychic will let me play with the idea of redeeming an entire people. So, the first of my four feats goes there, giving me a Psychic Talent. Every further feat I spend within that Talent will give me a higher rating in two more powers. Some powers can be used untrained (meaning I have access to them at a lower power level without training), but others I don’t have at all unless I spend a feat to learn them. I’ll spend two more feats on psychic powers, making Surin good at making illusions, reading minds, protecting himself from psychic influence, and protecting others.
That’s only three feats, so I get one more. I’ll take Fortune’s Favor, which lets me add my Charisma to all my saving throws. It’s common among people who have some psychic power – and since Surin is psychic, and generally not too impressive, so a bit of magic luck would come in handy – it seems like a good choice.
Now I get to pick some personality mechanic stuff. First off, Alignment: is Surin essentially good (Light), bad (Shadow), or conflicted (Twilight). I’m going to go with the latter. Surin’s future is in the balance. He tries to do what he thinks is right, but his powers provide a lot of temptations, and he could end up doing the wrong thing.
Next I pick a Calling. This is Surin’s goal or motivation, and it is symbolized by a major arcane Tarot card. Immediately, I’m torn between Death (creating change) and Judgment (atonement for one’s self or others). In the end, I’m going to go with Death, because I like it if somewhere in his heart, Surin isn’t sure where he belongs. He just wants to see his peoples united. He talks tough, but he isn’t as quick to condemn the Sea-Fiends as he pretends.
Finally, Surin gets a Light Nature and a Shadow Nature. These are the ways he gratifies his higher self and indulges in his lower self, and they are symbolized by minor arcane cards, the first upright, the second inverted. For Surin’s Light Nature, I’ll go with the Two of Swords, which the game sums up as Compromising. Surin likes to help people reach peaceful conclusions to their problems, and he has a lot of patience when pursuing this goal. His Shadow Nature, though, is the Five of Pentacles: envious. He looks at his fellows in both people and envies how easy it is for them to know their place as noble or vicious.
Finally, I work out all my derived characteristics, note my starting Wealth and Reputation, settle on Knowledge (Arcana) as my professional skill, pick and record my weapons, and I’m done!
Ultimately, I’m not too fond of this game. I mentioned some of the setting’s failings above, but mostly it’s the system. I hate d20, and True20 doesn’t manage to improve sufficiently on its base material. I don’t play class and level based systems for a reason, and that reason is that they aggravate the shit out of me. I find them incredibly, mind-bendingly counterintuitive and limiting.
Up next is the first game that will spawn more than one character: Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You see, the games share a system and can be used as sourcebooks for each other (and are both filed under “Buffy”) but have distinctly different feels and themes, so they will get one character apiece.
The Game: Blue Rose, the Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy
Publisher: Green Ronin
Familiarity: Quite high, actually. I ran Abby a solo game in Blue Rose that ran for a month or so before we reached a stopping point.
So… I know what you’re asking yourself. You’re asking yourself: “what the heck is romantic fantasy?”
Romantic fantasy is fantasy that focuses on relationships (both platonic and romantic) and on personal quests and challenges. It also has a certain romantic plot sensibility: emotions are always important, the landscape is always stunning, nobility and villainy are sharply opposed. Psychic powers, talking animals, special spiritual/magical bonds (between people and their pets, between people and each other) are all common. Gender and sexuality are often explored, and characters often deal with sexual relationships, alternative sexualities and lifestyles, and sexism.
This kind of fantasy has historically been favored by girls, but that doesn’t mean only girls read it. I’ve read quite a lot of it, for example, and only some of it at Abby’s behest, in preparation to run Blue Rose. Some famous romantic fantasy authors are Mercedes Lackey, Sharon Shinn, Diane Duane, Robin McKinley, Tamora Pierce, and Kristen Britain (and that’s just sticking to authors I have personally read).
Blue Rose is set in the world of Aldea. If you are familiar with the authors listed above (especially Mercedes Lackey), a lot of the setting will be familiar to you. There is a good kingdom called Aldis, which is open to all sexes and races, neighbored by a well-intentioned but oppressive (and sexist, and predisposed against certain non-human species who they believe are ‘tainted by the Shadow’) theocracy (Jarzon), a semi-barbarian nation of nomadic horsemen (Rezea), and an evil kingdom that one internet wit described as less a nation and more “a lich’s front yard” (Kern). There are some cool other tidbits: the monarchy of Aldis is supported by a bureaucracy of ‘nobles’ all elevated to their position after a test from a magical rod that can detect their goodness or badness… but only once, after which they are free to become corrupt to their heart’s content and the setting is full of intelligent talking animals to become psychically bonded to… or to play (possibly with a psychically bonded NPC human!).
It’s a setting where the good is good, the evil is evil, and moral gray just means that you misidentified someone’s goodness or badness (that, or it has to be either imported by the gamers). This is a feature of the source material, and not a real problem for me. I can always make things more complicated.
The real problem with the setting is that Blue Rose never really manages to shake the dust of D&D off its heels. First of all, it’s a class-and-level system – I hate those. The setting includes elves and dark elves (they have special names, but still) even though most of the source material rarely goes in for alternate races. There are “Night People” who behave and, most importantly, even look suspiciously like half-orcs. I mean, I know the system is a D&D knockoff… but does the setting have to be, too?
On to my character!
I’d like to play against type a little, point out some of the flaws, but not so much that I end up playing a different game. Also, one of the cool and genuinely unique aspects of the game are the Sea-Folk, playable aquatic people. They breathe air but can hold their breath for prodigious amounts of time (like dolphins). They have an affinity with aquatic creatures, and they’re good guys. There are also a race called Sea-Fiends, Sea-Folk who were captured by the evil magical kings in the ancient past and warped, so that they only have an affinity with sharks, and are evil.
My character is a half-breed. His father, a Sea-Folk warrior, had a brief affair with a Sea-Fiend witch. Some people tried to excuse him when the affair was revealed by saying she enchanted him, others condemned him. Either way, he fled and no one knows where he is now, or if he’s even alive. She was pregnant, of course, and dumped her child on the Sea-Folk community without saying why. The whole thing is pretty mystifying to the entire community. No one knows why she seduced their fine, upstanding young man and then dropped her bastard with his people. She somehow never got around to using him to launch an attack or get something important sabotaged. The fact that maybe they were, you know, in love doesn’t occur to anyone.
My character has grown up something of an outcast among his people. He contributes as best he can (like his mother, he has a talent for the Arcane Arts), but no one really trusts him. They all believe he’s tainted, but are too good-hearted to actually abandon him. He, on the other hand, believes that there has to be some reason his mother’s people behave the way they do (consorting with demons, raiding the Sea-Folk and humans), and he wants to find out why, so he can help them, maybe bring them back to the light. He studies magic at least in part because he suspects that they are inherently tainted and would like to find a way to fix them… though he avoids thinking about the possibility that he is tainted, himself.
A good GM would reintroduce his mother, and maybe a love interest from among the Sea-Fiends (so he could possibly follow in his father’s footsteps), and give my character lots of reasons and opportunities to switch sides, I think. I’d love for his father to show up one day, too. In either case, my character is likely to go looking for them before too long. He could work in a game that’s about the Sea-Fiends and the Shadow, or just one set near enough the water that he could continue to work on his project as a personal pursuit until it became plot.
His name: Surin.
The sea-folk are slender, slightly androgynous humans with green or blue skin. Surin’s skin is darker green than most – not so dark that he’s clearly a Sea-Fiend, but dark. His hair is paler green and his eyes are bright gold. He favors dark green clothing (which makes his skin look paler) and golden accents (which bring out his eyes). The description in the book doesn’t say so, but the illustrations all agree and I think it’s cool, so Surin also has swept-back fins on either side of his face, webbed fingers and toes, and short winglike fins on each forearm that he can fold flat against his arms.
Step one of character creation is to divide six points between my six Attributes. All Attributes start at +0, and I can reduce them to up to -5, though -2 is the lower limit for someone who isn’t seriously deficient in some way. I’ll increase my Intelligence to +3 since I want to be a magic-user. I imagine living and swimming in a three-dimensional environment would result in a good physical sense, so I’ll give him Dexterity +1. Finally, I think he’s charming and handsome, if a little exotic looking thanks to his heritage, so I’ll give him Charisma +2 (I also want him to have a chance of becoming the leader who improves the lot of the Sea-Fiends). I see no reason to reduce any of his other three attributes for more points, so I’ll leave them at +0.
Next, I pick a Background. Unfortunately, Background is the game’s codeword for ‘race.’ Humans have several options based on where they are from, but each of the nonhuman species gets only one option. Well, I’m a Sea-Folk. That covers that. I note my favored skills, my special abilities
Then I pick my role. True20 is a class-and-level system. Have I mentioned that I hate class-and-level systems? I do. Luckily, Surin is easy. He’s an Adept. I note down all the stuff I have no control over and move on to the fun parts: feats and skills.
For skills, it works like this. Background provides three favored skills, and my role provides, in this case, 6 more, two of which are decided for me. Favored skills have the potential to have a higher rating than non-favored skills, so I should pick wisely. I decide on Concentration, Diplomacy, Heal, and Sense Motive. I want Surin to be socially adept, I like the idea of him knowing how to patch people up (and he may have magic for it, too), and Concentration is just basic for spellcasters in this game.
Feats are where it’s at for Adepts. This is where I get to decide on my magic powers. I think Surin is mostly a Psychic, with a talent for manipulating minds. This is great on several levels: it puts him under the same shadow as his mother (who was rumored to have manipulated his father into the affair with psychic magic) and lets me play with the possibility of evil, since psychic magic is easily abused. Also, it seems like having him be a psychic will let me play with the idea of redeeming an entire people. So, the first of my four feats goes there, giving me a Psychic Talent. Every further feat I spend within that Talent will give me a higher rating in two more powers. Some powers can be used untrained (meaning I have access to them at a lower power level without training), but others I don’t have at all unless I spend a feat to learn them. I’ll spend two more feats on psychic powers, making Surin good at making illusions, reading minds, protecting himself from psychic influence, and protecting others.
That’s only three feats, so I get one more. I’ll take Fortune’s Favor, which lets me add my Charisma to all my saving throws. It’s common among people who have some psychic power – and since Surin is psychic, and generally not too impressive, so a bit of magic luck would come in handy – it seems like a good choice.
Now I get to pick some personality mechanic stuff. First off, Alignment: is Surin essentially good (Light), bad (Shadow), or conflicted (Twilight). I’m going to go with the latter. Surin’s future is in the balance. He tries to do what he thinks is right, but his powers provide a lot of temptations, and he could end up doing the wrong thing.
Next I pick a Calling. This is Surin’s goal or motivation, and it is symbolized by a major arcane Tarot card. Immediately, I’m torn between Death (creating change) and Judgment (atonement for one’s self or others). In the end, I’m going to go with Death, because I like it if somewhere in his heart, Surin isn’t sure where he belongs. He just wants to see his peoples united. He talks tough, but he isn’t as quick to condemn the Sea-Fiends as he pretends.
Finally, Surin gets a Light Nature and a Shadow Nature. These are the ways he gratifies his higher self and indulges in his lower self, and they are symbolized by minor arcane cards, the first upright, the second inverted. For Surin’s Light Nature, I’ll go with the Two of Swords, which the game sums up as Compromising. Surin likes to help people reach peaceful conclusions to their problems, and he has a lot of patience when pursuing this goal. His Shadow Nature, though, is the Five of Pentacles: envious. He looks at his fellows in both people and envies how easy it is for them to know their place as noble or vicious.
Finally, I work out all my derived characteristics, note my starting Wealth and Reputation, settle on Knowledge (Arcana) as my professional skill, pick and record my weapons, and I’m done!
Ultimately, I’m not too fond of this game. I mentioned some of the setting’s failings above, but mostly it’s the system. I hate d20, and True20 doesn’t manage to improve sufficiently on its base material. I don’t play class and level based systems for a reason, and that reason is that they aggravate the shit out of me. I find them incredibly, mind-bendingly counterintuitive and limiting.
Up next is the first game that will spawn more than one character: Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You see, the games share a system and can be used as sourcebooks for each other (and are both filed under “Buffy”) but have distinctly different feels and themes, so they will get one character apiece.
