Flawless victory! (new RPG: Final Stand)

[Bailywolf]

Besides, its easy enough to treat 2 NPC characters as a 2-man mob attacking one PC.

[Bailywolf]

Hey Tim, any news on FinS?

[Tim Denee]

Yes! Sorry it's been so long; I've been swamped with assignments lately. However, a website is in the works, complete with nifty martial arts flash intro w/ japanese dialogue, and all the rules in a nice html design. And a few extras.

Speaking of the rules, I did make those changes, but I didn't want to announce it until the website was ready. Since that's taking a while, the updated rules are here.. The old character sheet, combat quick sheet, and chi quick sheet are still around, if'n you need them.

And Stalkers, a Final Stand horror/monster/gore supplement, is coming some time. Right Ben?

Last time I posted Final Stand everyone was in a pre-gencon buzz. Now that you're all back to earth, any fresh comments on this thang?

[Bailywolf]

Hey Tim!  The new version looks good.  I'm going to see if I can get Sarah to play it again with me tomorow.

Stalkers has been stalled... I haven't had much time for anything but work and girl recently... I've got so many things on my plate right now... I wish my time management skills were a bit better ;)

I've also become a bit dissatisfied with the way Stalkers was shaping up... I don't know quite why... I was reading back through Final Stand and was struck by how tight it is- a marvelous example of focused game design... kung fu action is the heart of the game, so kung fu action gets the rules.  

Stalkers was just starting to look like Final Stand with the seriel numbers filled off...there wasn't enough individual identity there to make it distinct from FinS... it was just a game of supernatural creatures fighting instead of martial artists... and that's fine, but it has to capture the flair of that concept, and not just make it kung fu with monster masks.  

So I started to reevaluate the concept, and then using FinS as a model, work back to a system which better captured it.  I came up with these ideas:

* Character creation
> Pick Origin- a background... what you were
> Pick a Breed- you supernatural species- what you are
> Pick a Calling- your 'job'- what you do
> floating pools are Essence (vital mystical energy) and Gore (physical energy and vitality... loosing Gore has obvious gruesome side effects).

* Conflict Dice
> Focus- skilled physical combat
> Frenzy- crazy insano shit... flipping out monster stuff
> FX- using your powers in combat...each Breed and Calling offers different options here.

* Game Structure
> More player driven... invert the typical supernatural horror game in which player characters are poor sods manipulated and confused and dominated, and put them in the position to manipulate, dominate, and confuse others...
> As a group- the assumption is that players are members of a Cabal of allied creatures- the players define a Dominion... a territory, industry, or criminal enterprise they control.  I'm considering something of a meta-system to define these Dominions almost like characters, with pools of Influence dice, Resource dice, and Control dice... improving these pools at the expense of the competing Cabals can be a major motivation for the Players to plot and plan and conive.  




Still in the works though...


Later

-Ben