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THE STORYPATH SYSTEM IS AWESOME: BACK SCION’S KICKSTARTER!

scionorigins — Image by Onyx Path Publishing

Scion is a game that puts the players in the role of descendants of Gods. This is a game of cinematic story, fast moving and epic. From ‘lowly’ heroes, to demi-gods, and eventually reaching godhood, characters in Scion strive for apotheosis while battling the reawakened Titans. In the original game, there were 6 Pantheons, and in the 2^nd edition there will be 10. There is potential for further options as well in later books.

Aesir – The Norse Gods

Deva – The Hindu Gods, Kami – The Japanese Gods

Manitouk – The Algonquian Gods

Netjer – The Egyptian Gods

Orisha – The Yoruban Gods

Shen – The Chinese Gods

Teotl – The Aztec Gods

Theoi – The Greek and Roman Gods

Tuatha de Dannan – The Irish Gods

Each of these Pantheons is connected through the power of a shared Story, a Fate that connects them with one another. Their offspring, the Scions, are not all direct descendants in the 2^nd Edition, but they will be connected through this supernatural Fate that binds them. Some of you who are familiar with the Proto Indo-European diasporic root nature of some of these pantheons may wonder why they aren’t the same beings? (PIE or GTFO). The game defines them as Incarnations that exist separately from one another, they have a different existence, perhaps your characters might rise to become a different Incarnation of a similar god? So how does is this going to work?

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About a month ago, the Storypath System Preview was released by Onyx Path Publishing and I’ve been perusing the PDF for a few weeks. I then got a copy of the preview in beautiful printed form while I was at Grand Masquerade. This new system is going to be used for both Trinity Aeon and Scion, and though I am way more excited for the return of the Trinity Universe… Scion looks amazing as well. For anyone that was previously familiar with Scion, the Storypath system makes some adjustments that seem like they seriously enhance and evoke the style and themes of Scion. The first thing to notice in the System Preview is the Core Mechanic.

The Core Mechanic should be familiar to anyone that has played a White Wolf game, but it has changed a bit. That bit of change makes for a very cinematic dice mechanic. You roll a dice pool of d10’s, Attribute + Skill (familiar so far), 8’s and higher are successes (7’s for Novas and Demigods). Now, here is the adjustment: you have a target amount of successes for your action. The preview shows 3, if you fail, but don’t botch you receive a consolation which is an action that drives the story even if it wasn’t what you intended. If you succeed by getting the exact amount of successes, then you do what you wanted to, and if you get more you get to add Stunts to what you were trying to do. Very cinematic, very story driven, very modern game design that encourages failing forward and cinematic success.

200px-docsavage This Core Mechanic has waves throughout the rest of the basic system. If you fail, but don’t botch, you collect Momentum, which you can save up to use Skill Tricks. These are cool cinematic effects that a character can add to their action. The diving two-footed kick while shooting down a row of bad guys? That’s probably a Skill Trick that cost some Momentum to pull off. The Storypath system is designed to be flexible for scale though, if you want to play Superman 4-color style Super’s you can do that, or you can play gritty detective tales that evoke The Shadow, or Doc Savage.

Here is something about the Storypath System that actually I might be more excited about than I should be. Initiative. Initiative is something I’ve struggled with in most games. It feels clunky no matter how you do it, but I think the Storypath System has something fun that will make it stand out. First, your Initiative is based on the Attribute + Skill pool you plan to use in that first round. This stops the dumping of stats into Wits and Dexterity that we’ve seen in earlier systems based on similar rules. Then it gets fun, the player that goes first, chooses the next player in initiative order, that player chooses the next person, and so on down the line. This encourages some collaboration, and talking about what each person will be doing. The last person to go, is the first person to go in the next round, and so on until the combat is over. Pretty cool, I’d have to play this a few times to see if it is better than what I’m used to, but it sounds better on the surface.

There are a few other neat mechanics presented in the Storypath System Preview, and I recommend checking it out, it’s free. Now, what isn’t free, but you should be excited about anyway, is that Scion 2^nd Edition is having a Kickstarter that is LIVE NOW. So, you might be asking why that is exciting? You read to this point, so I’m assuming you at least have some interest in role-playing games… if you don’t… welcome to the site?

It is exciting because Scion is a great game, and the Storypath System is going to breathe new life into great games that I don’t think have got their due from the gaming community at large. Scion is well designed and interesting, and Trinity Aeon is one of the greatest worlds I’ve ever had the opportunity to tell stories within. Are you ready to begin an epic journey? Will you make your story last? Will you become a Legend, a new great Myth?

Josh runs this site and would love to talk to you about games. Email him at admin@keepontheheathlands.com

Invisible Sun, a Study in the Tension Between Accessibility in Price and Design

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Life is a pure flame, and we live by an Invisible Sun within us. – Sir Thomas Browne

The quote above is credited by Monte Cook games as an inspirational source for their new game Invisible Sun. Invisible Sun is a highly experimental RPG that includes elements of board gaming, formalized rules for downtime sessions, and rules for engaging players with different playstyles in a variety of ways. The board game elements bring a tactile experience that has been less prevalent in RPGs since the industry moved away from the miniature figure and occasional terrain inclusion of yesteryear. The board game elements also allow more complex role playing systems like multiple percentage roles for determining randomized effects to be handled though simple dynamics like drawing cards from a deck. The game includes a beautiful resin statue meant to display cards that impact game play so everyone can see them, and the first stretch goal was a spell and artifact grimoire that includes spell cards for every spell in the book.

When I first saw the kickstarter for Invisible Sun I was at first excited, then disappointed, then excited all over again. It took me a while to figure out exactly how I felt about this whole RP experiment. The problem is the lowest pledge reward is $197. Yes, you read that right. One hundred and ninety seven dollars, and that pledge level doesn’t include the majority of the stretch goal material. For the past several years I have been increasingly concerned about the trends in game development that make it difficult to bring new players into the hobby. Some of these issues are related to how difficult it can be to dive into modern role playing games with any kind of mental processing challenges. I started thinking about these issues in earnest largely because of the first post on this blog, which focuses on the challenges of role playing with memory issues. Other barriers to role playing are purely financial, which is an increasing problem in the 20teens. The books just seem to be getting larger and larger, with each edition being more expensive than the last. With a few exceptions we have not really seen any tools to break these games down into more systematically manageable, and affordable pieces.

Comparison of the most recent Vampire the Masquerade LARP and Tabletop books to the most most recent editions released from the original White Wolf era. The modern books here are the thinner basic print quality.

The one fairly high profile aid designed to streamline the process of juggling rules mid session are the spell cards Wizards of the Coast published as part of the D&D 5th Edition line. In the last year I’ve seen a few companies follow WotC’s lead on spell card inspired products, and at this year’s GenCon I saw a few companies experimenting with tools and game design that break away from the tables, charts, and expansive RP tomes that currently dominate the gaming market. Those experiments were not the norm though. The majority of what I saw at GenCon still leaned towards heavy, ornate, leatherette bound special editions with little in the way of gaming aids. Even a few small indie publishers were still defaulting to this format, despite not having an established brand to back up their price point. When gaming aids were available they were generally being produced by third party companies for extravagant prices.

So when I saw Invisible Sun announced I was phenomenally excited, and when I saw the price the day the kickstarter went live my heart fell. Several people expressed concerns about the price in the kickstarter comments. The game devs responded, saying that this was a premium product, and that part of why they are aiming for such a luxury experience is that their last few game products were specifically targeted at affordability, so they felt like this was a good time to aim for a different segment of the role playing market.

I decided to check and see what “affordable” really meant. I was incredibly surprised to find the Numenera Player’s Guide pdf was only $7.99 and a hard copy was only $19.99. This book is advertised as including all the rules necessary for a player to make a character, and generally get up to speed on the setting and core rules. I haven’t seen a price point like that on a major game line since the 90’s, and being primarily a World of Darkness player I’m used to the go whole game or go home design philosphy. It was very refreshing to see a product priced and designed for players who know they will never need GM materials. After seeing this I decided to go back to the Invisible Sun kickstarter and take a second look at what was being sold for that $197. As it turns out that price tag covers a lot of game material, and it left me wondering how that actually stacked up to what it takes to get started with a traditional role playing game.

As a baseline I decided to compare the Invisible Sun box to the price point for running a decent Dungeons and Dragons 5th Ed. campaign. I’m not counting the D&D startup boxes, because they really only give you enough to decide if you want to purchase the rest of the game. Assuming you need at least 1 Player’s Guide, 1 Dungeon Master’s Guide, and either 1 campaign book, or the Monster Manual if you’re going to create your own campaign, your initial book investment would be $150 MSRP (I know Amazon is less, but let’s assume you want to support your local game store). A basic Chessex Dice set is $4. So we’re right around $154 with no game aids. If we add in a wet erase mat, a few miniatures, the Arcane spell cards and 1 set of healer class spell cards we overshoot that $197 initial purchase cost handily. Given what is included in the Invisible Sun Black Box this seems like a reasonable comparison.

Just to make sure D&D wasn’t a one off example, I looked at some of Onyx Path/White Wolf’s products. The World of Darkness 20th Anniversary core books cost between $50 for a relatively moderate quality print on demand text to $115 for a premium print on demand copy of Mage the Ascension 20th Anniversary, and are not available with free shipping or any kind of Amazon discount. Chronicles of Darkness has a similar price point since you need the core rule book as well as one of the specific game texts such as Vampire the Requiem or Beast the Primordial to really run a full chronicle. While that may seem to provide a slightly more affordable point of entry than D&D to run a reasonable World of Darkness game, you generally need more than one copy of the book as during combat players often spend a lot of time hunting down exact rules for their actions so they are prepared on their turn. There are spell cards available for some of the games in the Chronicles of Darkness lines, but not all of them. A comment on a recent Onyx Path blog indicates they are going to begin to release similar products for the World of Darkness 20th Anniversary line, but these cards are not yet available. So at many tables multiple 500+ page tomes are a necessity, as are far more dice than are ever needed for Dungeons and Dragons. Again, we have very rapidly overshot the $197 price point of Invisible Sun, and we have far fewer game aids available to help make the play experience more accessible.

The primary problem with the Invisible Sun model is that with other properties players will likely pick up the extra dice, copies of the player’s guides, spell cards etc. for themselves. With Invisible Sun everything is wrapped up in a single product, and while Monte Cook Games has encouraged players to split the price, generally people are going to be less likely to do that if they don’t own the fruits of their expenditure, and no collector is going to be comfortable breaking up an Invisible Sun Black Box. There is now a player kit priced at $36 thanks as an Invisible Sun stretch goal, but that is an additional expense. It doesn’t help mitigate the initial $197 hit. Ultimately the game is incredibly well priced for what is included, and breaks much needed ground on accessible game design, but is less financially accessible than most games on the market because all of the expense is front loaded in a single purchase.

When all was said and done I did end up funding Invisible Sun. I am still frustrated that the 15 year old me that bought his first copy of Vampire the Dark Ages after much scrimping and saving would have a difficult time investing in my favorite properties today, and would certainly not be able to make the dive into Invisible Sun. However, I am also aware that by the time I was done with high school I had spent well over $197 on my World of Darkness collection, and it was in many ways a less comprehensive assortment of role playing resources than what is included in the Invisible Sun Black Box. I also remember far too many games with players who ended up leaving the hobby behind because navigating arcane texts, and tables filled with endless numbers kept them from truly enjoying the process of role playing.

Invisible Sun may not open role playing to a new generation of 15 year old geeks waiting in the wings of their local gaming stores, but it unquestionably breaks ground on making role playing games a more accessible experience. As long as Monte Cook is focusing on creating products at all price points, the innovations that work in Invisible Sun have a very real chance of making their way into more affordable game lines. Hopefully over time these innovations will spread well beyond the scope of Monte Cook’s games and find their way into a variety of role playing products across the industry. We can do more to make games that everyone can easily enjoy, and despite the sticker shock I honestly believe Invisible Sun is only the beginning of a trend in thinking about game design in radically new and elegantly accessible ways.

REVIEW OF HUNTER THE VIGIL

I have always loved tales of the supernatural and many a night have been spent reading horror novels or sitting wrapped in a blanket before the TV watching old black and white horror movies. One of the staples of such books and movies are the monster hunter; from professional vampire killers like Van Helsing or some poor man or woman who are thrown into the world of the dark and paranormal in search of the monster that stole their lover. If we expand beyond the black and white movies we have technological ghost hunters, like Ghostbusters, to government agents investigating strange cases, as per the X-Files. Monster hunters have always been fascinating to me as they are the David that stand against Goliath, from medieval tales to modern computer games they are the last hope for the lost and the innocent and they fight an uphill battle against the creatures of the night.

The very first book I read for classic World of Darkness was the original Hunters Hunted and I loved it, as such my joy was great when White Wolf in 1999 published Hunter the Reckoning, probably my favorite of the classic World of Darkness games outside of the big three. However while Reckoning is a good game there was always something missing from it, for me. In Reckoning you play men and women who themselves have powerful supernatural abilities and easily rival the critters they fight against, as such it lacks the feeling of frailty and danger I always got from watching my black and white heroes hunt vampires in old wind-filled castle ruins. In 2008 though came the game Hunter the Vigil for new World of Darkness, recently renamed Chronicles of Darkness and while I will not say it is better than Reckoning, I will say it is closer to the stereotypical monster hunters who have nothing but their wits and a few knacks to take on the legions of evil and protect mankind.

SETTING AND CONCEPT

Hunter the Vigil is set in a dark version of our own world where supernatural beings such as werewolves and vampires are real. The game has the players take on the role of monster hunters who risk their lives, minds and frequently souls, to hunt and kill the creatures of the night. Some take on the paranormal critters alone, while others join groups and orders, and all have their own reasons for beginning their vigil; from devil worshipers that hunt supernatural creatures to steal their power to Catholic exorcists out to save souls in the name of God. Within this game you can create all types of characters, from a X-Files type mystery game, to wacky urban fantasy like Ghostbusters, and deep personal horror stories of loss and pain. In all the stories though, one thing stands clear, there are monsters out there and they are all faster and stronger than you are, your chances for survival are small and yet you and others that take up the Vigil might be the only hope humanity have left.

HUNTER ORGANIZATIONS AS A GM (ST) TOOL

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One of the things I really appreciate in Hunter the Vigil is the plethora of organizations and groups the player character can belong to. In this game White Wolf dropped the five plus five system they had used for earlier games and instead introduced a tier system that allows ST’s to customize the level of support and equipment available to the campaign’s fearless troupe of player characters. From nothing at all with tier-one characters who have only their specific cell of monster hunters to rely on, to tier-three where the group has world-spanning organizations at their back and might be able to call in an air raid on some poor vampire’s resting place. With the support of such an order though comes responsibility and just as while the Compacts and Conspiracies, which the hunter organizations are called, might back the player characters up in their missions they will also demand loyalty and nail errant hunters to the wall for failure.

The Compacts and Conspiracies system is actually a very nice touch as not only does it allow you to customize the power level of your game but also allows you to customize the tone. There are conspiracies that really are a vast private army so you can get more or less a military campaign story and then you have the typical religious hunters that go after monsters with crosses and holy water. One downside is that these organizations do not always play well together, scientists that try to nab monsters to conduct experiments in the name of progress might not go well with the before mentioned typical Hammer horror vampire hunter so the game does require that the group sit down and decide together what sort of game they want and what organizations will be used. But, if this is done then this game offers vast possibilities for a unique monster hunting experience.

SIMPLE SYSTEM, PERHAPS TOO SIMPLE…

I do not know how much there is to say about Hunter the Vigil’s system as this game has yet to get a Chronicles of Darkness second edition. It uses the Chronicles of Darkness version of the Storytellers system. The basics are rather simple, you have nine attributes, which are the core aspects of your character, these mark out how strong he is or how smart she is, these stats go from one to five with one being as bad as it gets and five being world class. Further, you have a number of skills, which also go from one to five and you simply combine the two stats most suited for what the character is trying to do and roll that many dice, all die that land on an eight or over are a success and the number of successes determine how well you succeed. There is some more nuance and you also have various equipment and powers in this game called Endowments, as well as ways to customize your character with things called Merits and Flaws, but the above is the basic mechanism for rolls in this game.

Now the simplicity of Hunter’s system carries with it both benefits and drawbacks. On the positive side it is far easier to focus on the narrative during an intense scene when you do not have to drag out a calculator and do more math than a collage level final exam to figure out if you managed to push your bible into that damned vampire’s mouth before he made you lunch, or if you managed to dodge that pesky sorcerer’s blast of fire and now are ready to pump her full of lead, but at the same time the simplicity means there is not much in the way of nuance. The dancer with 5 in Dexterity and a first aid class giving him 1 in Medicine have just as much chance to pull off surgery as the old ace surgeon with 1 in Dexterity and 5 in Medicine, which can be annoying at times. However, with an ST that puts the logic of the game world before the numbers on the dice the Storyteller system works pretty well and it is fast, even in a scene with a lot of actions and many characters involved. The game never gets bogged down with dice rolling which allows for the story to flow smoothly and the tale being told to always be the central aspect. Which is the goal of any World of Darkness, or in this case Chronicles of Darkness, game.

ENDOWMENTS, WHAT MAKES VIGIL DIFFERENT FROM EARLIER HUNTER THE RECKONING

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Hunters are not defenseless in Hunter the Vigil however, they do have so called Endowments, little tweaks and powers that might just give them that little extra they need to survive, but this is far more like Abraham Van Helsing’s charms and prayers, than Buffy’s super strength and agility.

Endowments can be anything from minor magic powers to science fiction style weapons to strange artifacts. My first Hunter the Vigil character, Pilar, had a magic spindle with unbreakable thread which could then be used to secure a monster once caught, the drawback…for there is always a price, was that the thread was spun out of her own life force. And that was it, that was all Pilar had to defend herself against the things that go bump in the night.

I personally think that the Endowment system is the best part of Hunter the Vigil as it makes sure your character is not helpless against the creatures he or she is risking their lives to take down but at the same time they do not overpower the hunter. The game is still about regular humans vs the horrors that stalk mankind, and as such the game will include far more research, planning and trying to figure out how to take the monsters down than a heads on confrontation that is not likely to end well for the hunters, and to me that is what a game about monster hunting is supposed to be.

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO PLAY?

Here is where Hunter the Vigil has a bit of an issue. New World of Darkness was originally based around buying one core book and then the various games in the series were templates to add to this core system. This meant you needed the New World of Darkness Core book. (Not the new Chronicles of Darkness ones that is the second edition and we have no new edition of Hunter just yet though converting it to the new rules should not be that hard.) Then you will need Hunter the Vigil’s core book and preferably either the core book that deals with whatever critter your hunters will be going after or at least the supplement for Hunter concerning that type of monster. That means that if you want to start playing Hunter the Vigil and have none of the new World of Darkness books then you need to acquire three books to get what you need to get going and that can get expensive, unfortunately White Wolf continue with this method of publishing Chronicles of Darkness, which if anyone is confused by the two terms are the second edition of new World of Darkness, so the problem will not go away anytime soon. If you have some of the books in question or have been playing another game of the line though, then picking up Hunter the Vigil is well worth it if you enjoy stories of monster hunting that are like old 1950’s horror movies or shows like the X-Files.

CONCLUSION:

I could say a lot more about this game but with a limited amount of space I think I will keep it to saying that a lot of fun can be had with this game. The system is simple but fast, the setting is pretty good, though as with all the Chronicles of Darkness entries I am left with the same feeling as I read though the core books, good…awesome game, but what do I do with it. There are few plot hooks ingrained into the books themselves. I would not say this is the best of the Chronicles of Darkness games but it is a good tool to create a fun game of monster hunting.

The core book as with all the games of the same line are a beautiful, hardbound tome with beautiful art that draws you into the setting, the same with most of the supplements for this game. Hunter the Vigil is currently out of print but it can still be found fairly easily and hopefully a second edition is right around the corner, so start your Vigil, and venture into the dark, dangerous streets of Chronicles of Darkness, it is well worth it.

Anja is a woman from Norway. She has been interested in gaming most of her life. She lives with her husband and cat. She enjoys making characters and writing fan-fiction, erotic fiction, and small pieces about Neo-Paganism.