Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[PenBoy99]

I would appreciate your suggestions regarding implementing the following for a SW Campaign. The thing that makes implementing this challenging is that I'd like to AVOID rules hacks (making up untested stuff) and instead use existing rules either in Licencee or PegInc products.

Arcane Backgrounds:
Psionics: I'd like to have a psionics AB that (1) was organized by discipline (e.g., energy control, telepathy, projection, etc.), with each tree having a set of increasing powers. Instead of backlash as the risk, I'd like failed psionics rolls yield Fatigue and, following that, wounds - since the energy is coming straight from you and you can kill yourself accidentally (or heroically). I'm sort of modeling this on the Trinity RPG, the Movie Scanners, and Stephen King's work. I'd swear there was a book that modeled this (maybe one of the old Sci-Fi things).

Blessed: I'd like to emulate the blessed of fiction (e.g., Stephen King's works), and most horror movies involving competent priests. That is, rather than having a bunch of powers, all Blessed get a fixed set of powers (maybe to choose from), whose juice is dependent upon their faith (Spirit). Failure means it doesn't simply work. The powers would be REAL but SUBTLE - you could abdjure evil creatures, concecrate holy ground against evil creatures, heal the sick, but it wouldn't seem particularly magical. I think that we could model most of these on existing powers. Maybe failure should yield a temporary reduction in Faith/Spirit - since you're now doubting your Faith or your commtiment.

Superpowers: Both versions (companion and deluxe). No changes.

Magic: Mages get access to a wide variety of powers automatically, so even in a campaign not using the super-power companion, they've got "super-sorcery" - so they can potentially produce any effect, but it takes juice to make it effective. Failure should be epic, involving either (a) reality backlashing on you (like in nWoD mage) or accidentally summoning something.

Ritual magic wouldn't be an arcane background. It would be like that presented in Solomon Kane and elsewhere.

[Zadmar]

SPC (and Super-Sorcery) are on a different power scale to the other Arcane Backgrounds. I would strongly recommend against mixing them, particularly as you don't want to hack the rules.

[ValhallaGH]

[PenBoy99]

No, the above is everything I need, and it's all pre-existing stuff. Yeah!

Hmm... I wonder if there is a way to make magic more free-form (like in the superpowers companion) without unbalancing the game. I get the issue: you'd have access to "all" of the powers at your level, with the ability to put serious trappings on them (ice, etc.), which puts you way beyond everyone else at your level. I can't think of a way to gimp it which would bring it down to the level of SP backgrounds.

[Zadmar]

[jpk]

Like the Deadlands Blessed? That's pretty darned freeform.

[ValhallaGH]

[PenBoy99]

No, you're all on target.

1. AB:Miracles - you're like the Priest from Stephen King's "Salem Lot" and later the "Gunslinger." If you have faith, you can drive away and cause harm to supernatural evil, but it doesn't really look like anything is happening. So, I think the Blessed from Deadlands fits perfectly, and it exists and is robust.

2. AB:Psionics - all of the references seem on target. Either Interface Zero's Psionics or the old Sci-Fi companion's psionics (I found it). Again, fits and is robust.

3. AB:Superpowers - Non issue. Works fine for my context as is.

4. Magic: I'm into the free form idea, so that magic is really magical. I took a the various citations you all supplied, and they were really about "you can do anything" just calculate X, Y, and Z. They're all very interesting, but don't seem official. Is there an equivalent of Super Sorcery for AB:Magic? It would be pretty straighforward - you can do anything at your level (e.g., novice, etc.), adding the appropriate traping (acid, bad luck, whatever). As I type this, I see the issue - it's still way to powerful. Hmm... I really liked the simplicity of Super Sorcery.

Hmm... I guess another alternative would be to just use the SP companion and give a discount or something for "power sets".

[kronovan]

[PenBoy99]

Perfect. I think we're done here. B&B sorcery is (a) robust/official and (c) what I was looking for.

Just curious, does everyone always just use RAR or do they tinker with a few things. SW is very resilient to tinkering and customization to a genre.

[xxlgeeklord]

Wait, if you want a freeform magic system, there is one Clint posted a while back. You can probably find it in the "Clint's collected insights and opinions" sticky. Of all systems I've seen, Clint's system is the easiest to play, the most fun, and has the most flexibility.