A few years back, I’ve had the idea of porting D&D to a sci-fi setting with absolutely no rule modification. It did bring a breath of fresh air to good old 3.X. How did I explain magic, any kind of magic? Nanobots.

The idea recently decided to haunt me again. Just as I was thinking about starting a game of cyber-punk-inspired Anima game à la Final Fantasy 7 and a few months after a lot of Star Ocean playing, I figured I would much prefer it to be a Space Opera, which brought me to the idea of porting game system without a host of house rules.

Do you need to make an alternate system for Nanobot induced super-powers? Nah, you have magic, say that they modify reality by altering molecular structure as the character controls the tiny bastards by brain implants! Do you really need a complete starship combat system? Not if fighter ships are not the norm and ship battles are used more as a background and a skill challenge while fighting off boarding parties. You don’t need to change anything in the numbers for a sword to become a laser sword.

That being said, yes, my next game will be a Space opera with magic, martial arts, psychic powers and summoning of creatures from alternative dimensions. I might steal the world-creation from Traveller or at least be inspired by said most exquisite RPG.

I ran this tiny, half-assed Anima game expecting it would be kinda cool, but I realised that I actually learned a few things as a DM from it.

- First one is the obvious “I’m not comfortable if I’m not prepared right”. I don’t mean quantity of preparation, but quality. My prep was lackluster and I’ve clearly done better, even in one-shots. It had been a while since I’ve had to improvise around a bit and a few things I did were clearly wrong (having the bad captured mook resist torture. The right thing to do would’ve been to let the players have the location of the heretic base, but have them punished by their superiors for using cruel and dishonorable methods, or telling to both the characters with “See supernatural” that a strange psychic bug was latched on the back of his head, and so on).

- Second, there is such a thing has a system that encourages fluffy actions. 4E clearly does not. It’s a sad discovery, for I really really wanted to love 4E, but the more I reflect upon the nature of 4E, the more sadened I become. In Anima, it is done in 2 ways. First, every supernatural power source works in wildly different ways, but all remain pretty simple. It feels different. Secondly, there is the Style skill.

Style allows a character to look awesome, to have the wind blow dramatically in her hair, to, upon getting a “nearly hit” result, getting her clothes ripped in a way that makes it sexy and risqué, without revealing anything. It makes it so you can hear thunder and a horse’s whinny when someone says “Superball”. Of course, it’s still a novelty for the players so they use it as much as they can, but as everybody gets more comfortable with the game, I’m looking foward to see it used for more dramatic situations.

- People love when crits have hit locations. They thrive to see where it hits even if they completely murder the target. Hit locations are fun, period.

Hello reader.

Yes, you who’s been slowly forgetting the existence of this blog, you who’s been unconsciously devastated by my absence, but mostly, you who’s never even heard my name and maybe, just maybe, could find something of interest on this most humble website.

I’m back.

As a first post, to celebrate my return to the wonderful world of not being dead (maybe inspired by the recent revival of Roy) I present you a short post about the fine art of handling resurrection.

Admittedly, I don’t deal with death often in my gaming, I’ve been known to prefer a more heroic feel where one would not die from a stray dice roll. But a little part of me really badly wants to run an old-school megadungeon game, more on that tomorrow.

So for your reading pleasure, have a few ways to murder your players and bring them back to, possibly, murder them once more.

The Risk

One of the problems of resurrection, especially in DnD 4E (but also present in 3rd edition, not so much in the earlier ones) is that resurrection is not that big a deal anymore. Get a shiny gem, sacrifice it to whatever guy in the sky (or other elevated area) you pray to and have your buddy be back in an instant, ready to kick some ass.

Dying isn’t risky anymore. At least not passed a certain level. Me, I say bring the pain.

Resurrection should, I believe, have a hefty price on the newly alive character, whether by reincarnation in a new and alien body (or a sex-change, or something equally hillarious and filled with interesting roleplay situations) or by the classic “Something got in there with him…”

This, in my opinion, should not have repercussion on the character on paper, for that would make the player sad, perhaps make him feel useless. Always remember that happy players make happy DMs, so for your own sake, give them a good time!

The Quest

Resurection is a complicated objective to achieve, and it requires being performed at a place of power, or necessitates an item well beyond the party’s budget. The party must thus go on a quest to fetch the Revival JuJu item to help the recently deceased adventurer.

“But Kimyou, won’t my player want me dead if I ever tell him to kick back and watch the group game for a session or 2 until they get the MacGuffin?”

Yes, they will. Thus we need a solution, don’t we? I have two.

First solution, this one is quite classic, give the deceased character’s player either the monsters, or a guest star character until the old character is reborn after much questing.

The other idea I’ve been toying with is to have the player create a quest, mess with your setting and take position has a DM for a few session (taking the role of an hireling or a guest-PC yourself). In practice, have the whole thing be has hard or easy has the player desires and watch him make his own death has entertaining as possible.

Tell me what you think about character death in games, and resurection. I love you all!

This is one of two posts I’ve submitted on Musings of the Chatty DM, under the pseudonyme Kitsune. If you didn’t enjoy them back then, please feel free to do so now. Thank you, that will be all.

Please note that this essay is incredibly experimental and is to be taken as food for thoughts rather than a serious collection of amazing tips. Except for the John Woo Principle. That’s freaking genius.

“When in Doubt, Blow EVERYTHING up!”

Hello, blogosphere, how I have missed you! It’s Kitsune again, self-styled apprentice of the dark side of RPG blogging, here to steal Chatty’s thunder until I can make my own. Like Thor. Thor’s cool.

Today, we blow stuff up up.

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This is one of two posts I’ve submitted on Musings of the Chatty DM, under the pseudonyme Kitsune. If you didn’t enjoy them back then, please feel free to do so now. Thank you, that will be all.