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The Riddle of Steel

edited 2011-11-27 11:42:31 in Roleplaying
One foot in front of the other, every day.
I'd like to play a game where wizards are mysterious, powerful beings beyond the ken of most, where magic items are rare and powerful. A game where you don't leave the path for fear of the Fair Folk. A game where a dragon can ravage a town and leave it in fear.

And yet, a game where a knight in shining armour can vanquish the dragon. A game where a cunning rogue can slip in and steal richest beyond his wildest dreams, without the dragon ever having known he was there. A game where after a long, hard battle, the warrior can break the hydra's neck against the haft of his axe, where the mysterious temple warrior is smiled upon by God, where the charming herald can trick the Faerie Queen into a bargain she did not intend.



Enter the Riddle of Steel.

This is a game where being outnumbered may well be a death sentence, where magic is a mind-shattering rarity and where wit, strategy and planning are better than the strongest arm or darkest sorceries. Its baseline is an earth-like world based upon medieval history, with the combat system being based on the known martial arts of the period. Magic is usable by PCs at a cost, but is not a complete answer -- there are no fireballs, but one can light oil with a click of one's fingers. Perhaps most importantly, there are no classes. Each PC must choose two starting "skill packets", defining their initial skills but no more. A skill packet might be "swordsman", "academic", "craftsman" or one of many more. All but the least skilled PCs will be a combination  of two -- one could be an academic thief, a woodsman monk or a swordsman learned in ritualism. Furthermore, your character's wealth is taken into account. One from a family of landed nobility might begin the game with a base of operations, providing a safe haven for the party in times of need. Conversely, a character could be a refugee slave, hated and reviled for the magicks at their disposal.

Essentially, the game provides great character diversity while making both combat and magic risky, fast and brutal. The best way to survive is not to fight, but good luck avoiding every battle. One wants to be very careful, or to have a backup character planned out. It's that danger that lends the game (or so I hear) something approaching a survival horror tone. Any round of combat could be one's last.

So, would anyone be up for something like this? Timezones are, as always, quite the bitch, but I'd be willing to answer some questions, see if I can't run someone through character creation, ect.


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Comments

  • OOOooooOoOoOOoo, I'm a ghoOooOooOOOost!
    Sounds cool. I'd be up for it if getting a group together is possible...but that so rarely seems to happen.
  • One foot in front of the other, every day.
    I'd be willing to lay aside a bit of time each weekend for it, if we could find a mutually agreeable time slot.

    What I'd want to know in advance is what kind of characters anyone interested would want to play, though. If someone is, say landed nobility, that alters the resources the players have access to and where they'd go to regroup and plan, as well as the responsibilities beyond their control. Or if one character was a slave and one was landed nobility, I'd probably have it so that the slave character is a servant in the noble's employ and so on and so forth.
  • Hmm... I think I'd like to give it a shot. It's been a while since I played an RPG.
  • OOOooooOoOoOOoo, I'm a ghoOooOooOOOost!
    ^^I'd have to take a look at the rules system before deciding.
  • One foot in front of the other, every day.
    One doesn't have to go far to find some kind of download.
  • One foot in front of the other, every day.
    I found a free version of the rules, compressed.

    Not sure if it includes character creation.
  • No rainbow star
    I'd be interested

    Question: Can skill packets involving swords and magic be used together? And magic that is more mundane yet rare but still deadly if used right really appeals to me
  • One foot in front of the other, every day.
    Yes, you could be a magical swordsman if you liked. That said, during character creation, you have to split your Proficiency points between weapon arts and magical ones. You could still be just as good as swordsmanship as a more dedicated fighter, but that dedicated fighter will have a greater diversity of weapon skills -- they might equal you in swords, but surpass you at unarmed combat, daggers, polearms, ect.
  • No rainbow star
    Yeah, I'll pribably split the points so that magic is more a back up or work around, with swords being my main thing (I can see so many uses for lighting oil instantly that as long as I can do that and one or two other things, I'll probably be good)
  • One foot in front of the other, every day.
    I'm not completely familiar with the extent of the magic rules yet, so I can't go into further detail. As I understand it currently, though, magic works on the same basis as Full Metal Alchemist; you can alter some physical forces, but the elements required have to already be in play.

    So another example might be throwing a handful of sand, super-heating it in mid-air whereupon it becomes a glass projectile.
  • One foot in front of the other, every day.
    in b4 everyone is a mage
  • One foot in front of the other, every day.

    What.
  • MORONS! I'VE GOT MORONS ON MY PAYROLL!
    Sign me up for a tentative yes. I need to look at the system though. 

    Also, I was gonna be a bard/thief so hah!
  • One foot in front of the other, every day.
    Okay, lemme lay out some basics:

    - d10 system where you throw a pool of dice. The number required is defined by whichever attribute is relevant to the test. For instance, most swords need a 6 or more on a d10 for an attack to be considered successful.
    - Combat is done via opposed tests. The aggressor rolls their CP (combat pool) against the defender's, and then the potential damage dealt is altered by the degree of success.
    - Magic works on the same concept, but using different attributes.
    - There are special attributes called "Spiritual Attributes". You have five of these, and while they fall under different types (such as Drive or Passion, say), you get to define the focus on them yourself. For instance, you might have Drive: Avenge your father's death. Every substantial act towards this would benefit from your Spiritual Attribute in Drive (adding extra dice to rolls related to it), earn you extra points to spend on stats, skills and proficiencies, and contribute to the Spiritual Attribute itself.
    - Apparently, in practise, Spiritual Attributes help focus PC characterisation by providing a tangible, consistent reward for focusing on that PC's goals and moral compass.
  • MORONS! I'VE GOT MORONS ON MY PAYROLL!
    Of course the other idea is mage/pirate...
  • OOOooooOoOoOOoo, I'm a ghoOooOooOOOost!
    Hmmm...not sure what kind of character to make...I'll think about it.
  • Has friends besides tanks now
    Hmm.

    If we can actually maintain interest long enough to start up, I might join. The V:tR game I joined over at GitP seems to have stagnated.
  • OOOooooOoOoOOoo, I'm a ghoOooOooOOOost!
    ^Same thing happened to me with a certain V:tM game...
  • MORONS! I'VE GOT MORONS ON MY PAYROLL!
    Just need one player for that game. (looks pleadingly at Alex)
  • One foot in front of the other, every day.
    D-Don't look at me like that! It's not like I want to join your game, s-stupid!
  • OOOooooOoOoOOoo, I'm a ghoOooOooOOOost!
    Started making a character for this.

    The magic system looks really interesting, so I decided to make a wizard.

    Then I spend about an hour trying to figure out how to balance him despite having to prioritize a lot of stuff just to make the concept work.

    Then I started making a spy dude instead.
  • One foot in front of the other, every day.
    Yeup. Since you need to have A or B priority in Race for magic, it means your character is invariably going to suffer a fair bit more in character creation than a less magical character.

    As INUH would know, most people put F in race -- regular human. That leaves A-E for all the other good stuff. So any non-magical character is probably going to have better stats, skills, proficiencies and/or class than a magical one.
  • OOOooooOoOoOOoo, I'm a ghoOooOooOOOost!
    And if you ant to play a wizard who isn't a slave, that just makes things even harder :P

    Incidentally, the character creation rules in the quickstart thing are...incomplete, so I'd suggest that people find a full PDF.
  • He who laments and can't let go of the past is forever doomed to solitude.
    Still open?
  • I still want to make a magical character in spite of the difficulty.

    Actually, the difficulty makes it appealing to me.
  • OOOooooOoOoOOoo, I'm a ghoOooOooOOOost!
    ^I said that before spending two hours trying to figure out how to balance it.
  • edited 2011-11-28 12:00:06
    One foot in front of the other, every day.
    Still open?


    Yes.

    ^^ It's about compromise. As a magical girl character, you're going to suffer in some respect, be that economically, with character flaws, stats, ect. For instance, if you want to be a mage that's also got good attributes and is pretty fighty, then your A, B and C slots will be taken up by that kind of thing, leaving only D, E and F for stuff like Social Class, Skills and Flaws.
  • He who laments and can't let go of the past is forever doomed to solitude.
    Gotta find that pdf then.

    I've got a set of conflicting ideas though...
  • One foot in front of the other, every day.
    Spill 'em, then. We might be able to help.
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