Spirit of the Century: Time Heals All Wounds, The Finished Mark Twain

I had some time over lunch to put the finishing touches on my Spirit of the Century Mark Twain for the Time Heals All Wounds adventure I want to have ready for Gen Con. It's been a blast fitting the history and legend of Mark Twain into a FATE based character.

As I've posted in this series, my overall character concept for Twain is Time Traveling Man of the World. With a generous amount of help from the Internet (and Google+), I have a fantastic list of FATE aspects to establish Twain as a Spirit of the Century character.

Spirit of the Century, and FATE, uses a rating system known as The Ladder to describe abilities and difficulties of things within the game. It looks something like this:

+8 Legendary
+7 Epic
+6 Fantastic
+5 Superb
+4 Great
+3 Good
+2 Fair
+1 Average
0   Mediocre
-1  Poor
-2  Terrible

A person with an Average (+1) score in an ability is considered to do it regularly, competently, but not exceptionally. Characters in the game have the following skill pyramid; one skill at Superb (+5), two skills at Great (+4), three skills at Good (+3), four skills at Fair (+2), and five skills at Average (+1).

With this in mind, I wanted to capitalize on the idea that Mark Twain was a man of his wits, that he could fast talk or charm his way out of any situation and into the hearts of almost anyone. It seemed like a perfect fit to make his superb skill Rapport which includes the trappings of First Impressions, Closing Down, Opening Up.

To bring in Twain's stage presence and his worldliness, I chose Art as one of his Great skills. Art includes the trappings of Art as Knowledge, Art as Craft, Art as Communication, and, most importantly for Twain, Art as Performance. To capitalize on his old river boating and fighting newspaper man days, I filled his other Great skill slot with Fists. Twain's a hard drinkin', hard fightin' kind of guy or at least he was.

For his Good skills, I went with Empathy for its trapping of Reading People. I also pulled in Might (trappings of Fighting People, Breaking Things, and Lifting Things) to further play on Twain's tough past. And then I rounded out the Good skills with Academics, with the trappings of Research, Exposition and Knowledge Dumping, and Declaring Minor Details, to showcase his intelligence, research and storytelling abilities.

For his four Fair skills, I started with Resolve, for his coolness under pressure. As he was a multi-patent holder and maintained a fascination with technology and science, I gave him Science. I figure that the trappings of Lab Work, Medical Attention, and Science! could also come in handy during the adventure. As a physically tough and verbally impressive individual, Intimidation, with the trappings of Threat of Violence and Brush Off, seemed to fit the bill. Finally as a former newspaper man and as a world traveler, Investigation isn't a stretch.
Then it's more of the same for the Average skills. I've finished everything off with Gambling, Drive, Contacting, Alertness, and Endurance.


For Twain's Stunts, I chose:

Blather [Rapport]

Razor Tongue [Art]

Poison Words [Art]

All the World's A Stage [Art]

and I made up the stunt, Temporary Time Shift [Science]

And, with that, we're finished with Twain.

Mark Twain, Time Traveling Man of the World

Aspects:

Hard drinkin', hard fightin'.

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

Man of the World.

Accidental Time Traveler.

A Particular Way With Words.

Big Spender

Fate Tied to the Comet

Impressive Mustache

The Mysterious Stranger

The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

Beat the Clock

Tesla's Friend and Benefactor

Thrilled by Man's Ingenuity, Disappointed by His Stupidity

Skills:

Superb: Rapport

Great: Art, Fists

Good: Empathy, Might, Academics

Fair: Resolve, Science, Intimidation, Investigation, 
 
Average: Gambling, Drive, Contacting, Alertness, Endurance

Stunts:

Blather [Rapport]



Razor Tongue [Art]

Poison Words [Art]


All the World's A Stage [Art]


Temporary Time Shift [Science]

Health: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]    [ ] [ ] [ ]


Composure: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]    [ ]



If you like this series or have any ideas of that you'd like to share, please post them in the comments. I've had a lot of help already and more is always appreciated.

** Storied Adventures seems to be obsessed with Spirit of the Century at the moment, but it's a bit broader than that. It is usually a board and table top gaming blog that is written by a guy who loves board games and is returning to RPGs after a 20 year absence. I am attached to my wife's Amazon affiliate account, so purchases made through any Amazon links support the ongoing blogging efforts of Storied Adventures (many thanks!)

Writing in Other Places: My Forbidden Island review and a twisted map for your RPGs

Sometimes I write reviews or little posts for my wife's blog, Baby Toolkit: parenting gone geek. I wanted to point out my full review the excellent cooperative board game, Forbidden Island, that just got posted today. If you have a moment, please check out All Together Now: Tangling with Gamewright's Forbidden Island. As I like to put a bit of a role playing twist on things on this site, I had an idea for using the basic structure of Forbidden Island to make up a devilish trap or dungeon in a fantasy or high adventure RPG game.

The basic components of Forbidden Island include twenty four double sided island tiles. A deck of Flood cards which illustrate one of the island tiles each. A deck of Treasure cards containing cards representing the four treasures on the island, a couple of useful item cards that might be useful to the adventurers, and a couple of Waters Rise! cards that make matters worse.

You see the Water's Rise! cards cause the marker on the Water Meter to go up one tick mark. The Water Meter is divided into a number of sections and each section denotes how many Flood cards are drawn after each player's turn. After a couple of ticks have been marked off due to the drawing of Water's Rise! cards, the players must draw, and flood or sink, more and more tiles at a time.

To apply this back to RPGs, a GM could design an entire dungeon, or a single room that works on a similar principle and the players would have to play against the game's mechanics in order to defeat the challenge. I like the room idea the best as it lends itself to being repeatable. Let's say the adventurers hit the room first and they start at the easiest water level. There's still some challenge in beating the room, but they are more likely than not to win. Now say that they have to hit the room again (or another random room like it), but this time the difficulty level is set much higher; the marker on the Water Meter is placed higher up. Just watch them sweat it before even starting, especially if they just barely bested the challenge on the easier setting.

And if you don't like the cross layout, you could place the tiles in any configuration that makes sense. See the link at the bottom of my review for some European edition and fan created alternate tile layouts for the Forbidden Island game. You could include any game rules in the RPG system of your choice to define moves, number of actions, special powers and so forth and how they will interact with the basic mechanics of this mini game within our RPG session. To make it more difficult, throw in monsters or other challenges that work with the mechanics and against the party.  For the most part, though, this is one of those game master puzzles that you could just surprise them with and see how they handle it.

Also, I should note that the Water hazard could be anything. It could be lava or a sucking void. It doesn't really matter as long as the game mechanics and the danger to the characters are spelled out for the players.

I think it would be fun? What do you guys think? Are you a GM or have you had a GM that has employed real puzzles as some form of simulation, challenge or distraction during your RPG sessions?

Let me know in the comments below.

** Storied Adventures likes to take inspiration from whichever sources it finds, be they board games, RPGs or books of all sorts. It is usually a board and table top gaming blog that is written by a guy who loves board games and is returning to RPGs after a 20 year absence. I am attached to my wife's Amazon affiliate account, so purchases made through any Amazon links support the ongoing blogging efforts of Storied Adventures (many thanks!)

Spirit of the Century: Time Heals All Wounds, Mark Twain, Time Traveling Man of the World

Thanks to everyone's help, I think I've got a good list of FATE aspects for my Spirit of the Century Mark Twain. As a side note, this process has been a whole lot easier thanks to comments on this blog and in the Google+. Thanks to everyone for their ideas and encouragement.

For Twain's character concept, I think I'm going to go with, Time Traveling Man of the World. For his time, Twain was almost singularly aware of the greater world due to his newspaper sponsoring trips around the world so that he could write about and comment on his experiences. He also spent his early adult years as a riverboat captain. He's seen a lot. Add being ripped through time for our SoTC adventure, and I think it's a fitting character concept.


Mark Twain, Time Traveling Man of the World

Aspects:

• Hard drinkin', hard fightin'.

• It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

• Man of the World.

• Accidental Time Traveler.

• A Particular Way With Words.

• Big Spender

• Fate Tied to the Comet

• Impressive Mustache

• The Mysterious Stranger

• The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

• Beat the Clock

• Tesla's Friend and Benefactor

• Thrilled by Man's Ingenuity, Disappointed by His Stupidity

Next up, I'll start working out the middle aged accidental time traveling Nikola Tesla.

If you have any thoughts on ways to invoke and compel Twain's aspects, please post them in the comments.

** Storied Adventures seems to be obsessed with Spirit of the Century at the moment, but it's a bit broader than that. It is usually a board and table top gaming blog that is written by a guy who loves board games and is returning to RPGs after a 20 year absence. I am attached to my wife's Amazon affiliate account, so purchases made through any Amazon links support the ongoing blogging efforts of Storied Adventures (many thanks!)

Spirit of the Century: Time Heals All Wounds - Working out Twain's Aspects

As I posted earlier, I'm working up Spirit of the Century adventure to have in my back pocket in case I get to run an after hours game at this year's Gen Con. As before, I'm working out some of my thoughts on Google Plus and then refining them a bit for a blog post. Sorry if you're following me in both places.

The first character that I'd like to flesh out is Mark Twain. In  Time Heals All Wounds, the Mark Twain character is a younger version than the white haired old man that most people hold in their minds. This  will be a younger version of Twain, who's in his early to mid thirties and has been accidentally sucked through time, over ten years after his death, into the Spirit of the Century universe of the 1920s.

I'm looking for the Twain in this picture.  It was taken a couple of years after his hard drinking and hard fighting newspaper days out West. He's a tough and has traveled the world by this point. He's been to the Mediterranean and traveled in countries like Egypt. Twain is also married giving him a reason to want to get back home.

To get some idea of Twain's toughness, check out this second photo, taken years later. You can still see the physical toughness of the rive boat captain and brawling newspaper man even later in life.

While I only need ten aspects, I hope to make a big list that I can then just cherry pick when making up his character..


Some aspects that I've thought of so far:

• Hard drinkin', hard fightin'

• It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

• Man of the world.

• Never waste an opportunity to display my wit.

• Accidental time traveler

I've had some really great suggestions from my Google Plus Gaming circle.

James Desborough, aka Grim Jim, proprietor of Postmortem Studios, suggested these fantastic ideas. These are amazing FATE aspects. I have no further words. Enjoy!

• A Particular Way With Words

• Big Spender

• Fate Tied to the Comet

• Impressive Moustache

Brent Newhall posted the following:

Hmm. I don't know Twain's stuff well enough to match these up to quotes, but the attributes I'd want to capture include:

• Resourcefulness

• Rapier Wit

• Way with Words

• Keen Eye

Another Google Plus user, Mark Delsing, added this great one from Twain's own words:

• The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

Feel free to post your own ideas in the comments.



** Storied Adventures seems to be obsessed with Spirit of the Century at the moment, but it's a bit broader than that. It is usually a board and table top gaming blog that is written by a guy who loves board games and is returning to RPGs after a 20 year absence. I am attached to my wife's Amazon affiliate account, so purchases made through any Amazon links support the ongoing blogging efforts of Storied Adventures (many thanks!)

Spirit of the Century adventure: Time Heals All Wounds concept

I originally posted this to my Google Plus account, but I thought I'd copy it over here and flesh it out a bit.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm heading to Indianapolis with the entire family (including three little kids) to attend Gen Con this year. Three little kids makes it kind of hard to set aside a four hour time block for role playing during one of the scheduled events, and that's just fine. We have a blast every year that we attend. We are also not staying in the main conference hotels because our kids really do deserve a rest after a day exploring the convention. A more remote hotel fits that bill nicely.

Still, there may be an opportunity for some after hours gaming back at our hotel and I would like to be prepared. I was originally planning on having a Call of Cthulhu or Mouse Guard adventure worked up, but decided it was too much work for the time that I have. Besides, I wanted something that would probably appeal to the widest group of potential players that I might have.

So, I've decided to prepare a Spirit of the Century game just on the off chance that we get an opportunity to play. While the book is a little dense for me to do a full pickup game, I think Spirit of the Century's FATE system could really sing with both experienced role playing game players and with players new to the idea of role playing. So another part of my prep will be the creation pre-generated characters for everyone, but I'll hold off on that until the adventure is done in order to tailor the heroes for the challenges that they may face.


I'm calling the adventure Time Heals All Wounds and it includes a bit of time travel, the rivalry between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, the friendship between Mark Twain and Tesla, and a final showdown at Machu Pichu.



For inspiration, here's the public domain photo of Mark Twain in Nikola Tesla's lab from Wikipedia that got me thinking about all this.

I had read about Tesla and Edison's rivalry a few years ago and thought it would be fun to do something with that idea in a game. While watching a documentary on Twain, I saw that he and Tesla were close friends in the late 1800s. I'd also read that Edison had had meetings with Twain in Twain's later years. It was interesting to me that these figures had all crossed paths.

For my Gen Con session, I want to do something that includes all of these historical figures, but the time lines don't work with Spirit of the Century. I also wanted to put a pulpy spin on who they were and how they'd go about solving their problems. Twain's death in 1910 added a huge stumbling block to this idea as Spirit of the Century is set in the early 1920's. Besides, Tesla and Twain spent time together mostly in the later 1800s. Then I thought of Twain's book, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court  and how it involved time travel. 

Then everything fell into place. 

Time Heals All Wounds is going to be about Tesla's growing bitterness and loneliness following Twain's death in 1910 and his ongoing quest for recognition in the shadow of Edison. After being snubbed by the Nobel Prize committee in 1915, Tesla starts a research project into time travel combining some of Einstein's theories with some of his own more radical ideas. 

As our story opens, Tesla has used his device a few days before, but something has gone horribly wrong. Instead of going back in time, he's brought Tesla and Twain to the present and the resulting paradoxes may just rip the world apart!

Can our hero's stop Present Tesla's plan before he destroys the world? Can Mark Twain keep Past Tesla in check and get them both back to their own time? Will Edison work with Marconi to do them all in? All that and an exciting conclusion on the cliff city of Machu Picchu awaits in Time Heals All Wounds!

So that's where I'm at. I'll be posting some notes here as I go along.

A couple of people gave me ideas for source material and flavor in the original Google Plus thread. Brad Murray, one of the creator's of the award winning Diaspora RPG, suggested that I pick up the Atomic Robo comics as they deal with ideas surrounding Tesla's rivalry with Edison. Dave Chalker of critical-hits.com suggested picking up the Five Fists of Science.

The first thing I need are ten punchy, pulpy FATE aspects each for mad scientist Nikola Tesla, Nikola Tesla from the past, Mark Twain from the past, Thomas Edison, and Guglielmo Marconi.

This should be fun.

** Storied Adventures is a board and table top gaming blog is written by a guy who loves board games and is returning to RPGs after a 20 year absence. I am attached to my wife's Amazon affiliate account, so purchases made through any Amazon links support the ongoing blogging efforts of Storied Adventures (many thanks!)

Parent Con: After Hours Gaming for Gen Con Attendees with Kids

So. We're going to Gen Con again this year... and we're bringing kids.

To be fair, every year that we have attended Gen Con in the last three years, we've have kids in tow. First it was with our four year old son, Ranger, walking around and baby Scout in a backpack. The next year was with a five year old Ranger dressed as Mario and Scout dressed as a little Luigi (perhaps you saw us). And this year, we've got another baby along for the long strange trip.

The first year, we stayed at a friend's house and that worked pretty well. The next, we got a hotel on the Northwest side away from the louder and more expensive conference hotels in an effort to guaranty that our little adventurers had plenty of time to rest and restore hit points at night. Our hotel had lots of nice amenities including suites, a nice pool, a provided modest breakfast and dinner and a pretty big lobby with a couple of big tables.

We had a great time and were able to regroup at night. However, we did miss out on some of the after hours gaming that would have been available if we had stayed in one of the conference locations. Still, the sleep and rested kids was worth it. They ended up enjoying the convention and so did we.

This year we're staying in the same place, but are hoping to still get in some after hours fun. First, we're going to invite some friends to visit our hotel. If they're coming to Gen Con, we're encouraging them to stay at the same place (it's just a short drive back down town after all and their kids will get a good night sleep as well). Then we're hoping to encourage other attendees with kids to possibly stay out there as well.

We've jokingly dubbed it... Parent Con! It's the informal after con gathering for gamers with kids.

I'm reading up on Call of Cthulhu and Mouse Guard RPG and I'm planning on running a couple of sessions if we get any takers after our brood is put to bed at night. We'll also bring along a couple of board games and party games.

If you're attending the convention in August and are looking for a place to stay that will offer both rest for your kids, a chance to meet other gamers brave enough to bring kids to the con as well, and the potential to game after you pack it in from the con for the night, drop me a line at morlockhq at gmail dot com.

Are you attending Gen Con with kids? Do you think that's a totally insane idea in the first place? Let me know in the comments.



** Storied Adventures is a board and table top gaming blog is written by a guy who loves board games and is returning to RPGs after a 20 year absence. I am attached to my wife's Amazon affiliate account, so purchases made through any Amazon links support the ongoing blogging efforts of Storied Adventures (many thanks!)

Make Games Better: Character Sheet Walk Through

One of the toughest parts of teaching role playing games to other people is the character creation process. It's an alien thing to present a newcomer to the RPG hobby with a sheet of paper that essentially looks like an IRS form and ask them to fill it out as part of the process of "creating their character."

So, as I was reading through the rules of the sixth edition of the Call of Cthulhu role playing game, I was happy to find the two page spread on page 36 and 37 under the Creating Your Investigator section header. All the basic steps for filling out a basic Call of Cthulhu character sheet are arranged around a scaled down graphic of an actual character sheet. These two pages clearly lay out the mechanical steps needed to create an investigator in the Call of Cthulhu game. Sure, there are no frills and some of the details aren't explained in their entirety until later sections of the book, but there is at least enough information presented to get a new player up and running quickly.

More games should do this. I could sit anyone down with these two pages and a blank character sheet and they'll have a lot easier time of it than had I started them without this handy guide. It is a shame that more games don't take this approach to character creation in their rules.

Chaosium makes an excellent quick start guide to Call of Cthulhu available through their website. With little more than this free 20 page PDF, a group of potential investigators can dip their toes in Cthulhu Mythos role playing. I think Chaosium can only help itself by incorporating page 36 and 37 from the sixth edition of the core rules into this guide. Furthermore, I would love to see other game publishers and designers take a look at these pages and add something similar to their games. As table top RPGs have to compete for attention with more and more forms of entertainment, anything that lowers the barrier of entry into playing the games is a good idea. When I read over this two page spread, it immediately struck me that they were exactly the types of design ideas that would help in that pursuit.

If you have a copy of the book, take a look and see what I mean. I've seen examples of filled in character sheets in some other games. The Mouse Guard Roleplaying Game has a character sheet that is filled in with the examples that were used as illustrations of the character creation process earlier in the text. Spirit of the Century takes a more section by section approach, but is similar, in the end, to Mouse GuardI think this approach also works pretty well, but I the Cthulhu rules feel like a more complete expression of this concept to me.

What games have the the best character creation rule/process that you've found?

** Storied Adventures is a board and table top gaming blog that's currently flirting with nameless entities and sanity sapping horrors while reaquainting itself with Call of Cthulhu. I am attached to my wife's Amazon affiliate account, so purchases made through any Amazon links support the ongoing blogging efforts of Storied Adventures (many thanks!)