Tales in the Dark

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Rock of the Fraternity
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Tales in the Dark

Post by Rock of the Fraternity »

Let me invite you to a game.

You are a child, a human child between the ages of 6 and 13.
You are a normal child.
You live in a normal town, Haiblestop, deep in the woods. There used to be another town across the river, but it died when the lumber mill and the mine were closed. All perfectly normal.
Haiblestop is a town in the state of Aixen, which is one of the Independent States. All perfectly normal.
You go to a normal school, either Haiblestop Public School, or else to the Ezran school at the edge of the river. All perfectly normal.
You take normal classes, you do normal homework, you play normal games after school with your normal friends. Your parents drive normal cars. You listen to normal songs on the radio. You watch normal black and white movies down at the Cinema. You take normal safety drills before classes; just in case one of the other 'States declares war and decides to drop the Bomb on Ainex.
All perfectly normal.

Life is so safe and normal, it's boring. You are really looking forward to the upcoming All Hallow's Eve, the one night that isn't normal. On All Hallow's Eve, you get to wear your costume and walk around outside at night to collect candy and play pranks. This year, you've also been chosen to go into the woods and tell scary stories at The Place.

The Place is a kind-of sacred pagan spot in the woods; a small clearing with a tree stump that's been eroded into a natural seat and an old fire pit. By tradition, every five years, a group of children is selected by lottery to go to The Place on All Hallow's Eve, light the fire, eat their treats, and tell scary stories. Come the dawn and everyone who survives all the children return home.

This is all. Perfectly. Normal.

It sounds fun, right?

All you need to bring is your child character, ready for an evening of fun... and a scary story to tell.
It's sure to be safe. Everything's normal. There's bound to be an adult keeping watch over you in secret, because that's the way this goes, right?
Everything's... normal.

Character Creation:
VIEW CONTENT:
Character creation:
The name of the game is Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2e.
You start with the following characteristics:
SKILL 4
STAMINA 8
LUCK 8
MAGIC 0
You have 8 points that you can distribute among these qualities, but with the following limitations:
SKILL - a maximum of 3 points may be added
STAMINA - a maximum of 4 points may be added, BUT each point leads to an increase of 2 to your STAMINA score
LUCK - a maximum of 3 points may be added
MAGIC - a maximum of 7 points may be added

Please note that as the start of gameplay, your MAGIC characteristic is all about your potential. You are not yet trained in actual spellcasting and know no spells. If you happen to find a mentor or a Magic for Dummies-book, though... Who knows what you may become?

There are also Special skills, the result of training.
You're just kids, starting out on your adventures, so your selection is a bit... limited at the start of gameplay.
There are five special skill groups: Combat, Movement, Stealth, Knowledge, Magic. You may appoint 2 skill points to three special skills, and 1 point to six other special skills.
Alternatively, you may hold back 3 skill points to appoint to special skills later in the game.
Combat: Bows, Brawling, Clubs, Slings
Movement: Acrobatics, Climb, Dodge, Jump, Ride, Swim
Stealth: Awareness, Disguise, Locks, Sleight of hand, Sneaking
Knowledge: Animal lore, Bargain, City lore, Con, Etiquette, Evaluate, Fishing, Forest lore, Healing, Hunting, Religion lore, World lore
Magic: Magic lore

Finally, you may select one from the following Talents, which are fairly self-descriptive:
Ambidextrous
Animalfriend
Crack shot
Fast healer
Fleet footed
Hawkeye
Learned (+2 to all knowledge special skills)
Light sleeper
Robust (gain +3 STAMINA from food, +5 STAMINA from sleep, unlike the normal +2)
Silvertongued (+3 to Con, Bargain and Etiquette special skill rolls)
You may have noticed that Haiblestop is a town in a state, somewhere in the Demiplane of Dread. The Independent States are a new domain that's inspired by, among other things, the age of black-and-white movies and the threat of nuclear annihilation during the Cold War. Of course the twist here is that the various States are at each other's throats, rather than suffering under an external threat.
The only species available is human ... at the start of gameplay.
The threats of the supernatural are not overt, or at least have not been during your life so far. Of course, you haven't been around for a crazily long time. And who knows how much longer you'll survive?
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Re: Tales in the Dark

Post by Wolfglide of the Fraternity »

The mechanics seem straightforward.

Character Creation:
VIEW CONTENT:
Characteristics:
SKILL 7 (3 points)
STAMINA 8
LUCK 10 (2 points)
MAGIC 3 (3 points)

Special skills
Movement: Dodge 1
Stealth: Awareness 2, Locks 1, Sleight of hand 1, Sneaking 2
Knowledge: Con 1, Etiquette 1, World lore 1
Magic: Magic lore 2

Talents
Light sleeper
Who is this kid? That I will give more thought to later.
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Rock of the Fraternity
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Re: Tales in the Dark

Post by Rock of the Fraternity »

Wolfglide wrote:The mechanics seem straightforward.
I consider that to be one of the great charm points of the system. ^_^
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Re: Tales in the Dark

Post by alhoon »

I think this should be in Cafe de Nuit
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Re: Tales in the Dark

Post by Mephisto of the FoS »

Question: What happened with Dead Man's Will?
"I am not omniscient, but I know a lot."
-Mephistopheles from Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Re: Tales in the Dark

Post by Rock of the Fraternity »

alhoon wrote:I think this should be in Cafe de Nuit
Really? We always used to open up recruitment in this forum, back in the day.
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Re: Tales in the Dark

Post by Rock of the Fraternity »

Mephisto wrote:Question: What happened with Dead Man's Will?
I hit a rough patch and was too embarrassed to say so.
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Re: Tales in the Dark

Post by Mephisto of the FoS »

Rock wrote:
Mephisto wrote:Question: What happened with Dead Man's Will?
I hit a rough patch and was too embarrassed to say so.
Ah OK! No reason to be embarassed :oops:
To tell you the truth I thought that you were underwhelmed by my question of using Flaws from Unearthed Arcana in character creation. :roll:
(If I was DM and someone (like me) was asking if he could use a rule that the DM has excluded by not mentioning that book, I would be like "hey can't you read?" :mrgreen:
The other senario I thought of was that I hadn't understood exactly were exactly in Cafe' de Nuit I had to go and I missed the whiole thing... :lol:
Or the less self centered one that you didn't find all the players you needed. :3hags:
"I am not omniscient, but I know a lot."
-Mephistopheles from Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Re: Tales in the Dark

Post by Rock of the Fraternity »

None of the above.
It was just me, hitting a speedbump in life.
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Re: Tales in the Dark

Post by Joël of the FoS »

Rock wrote:
alhoon wrote:I think this should be in Cafe de Nuit
Really? We always used to open up recruitment in this forum, back in the day.
Indeed!
"A full set of (game) rules is so massively complicated that the only time they were all bound together in a single volume, they underwent gravitational collapse and became a black hole" (Adams)
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