Archive for June, 2009

Amy Garcia, co-creator of Empire of Dust, has said some kind words on her blog about Master Plan:

Ryan Macklin’s 50th episode should be airing Tuesday, June 30th.  I believe that this specific episode is about A Penny for My Thoughts with Paul Tevis.  I’m so excited. If anything can be said about Ryan, it’s his undying love and dedication to RPG’s and the roleplaying community.  I’m so grateful to him and all the work he does.  I don’t know how many times I’ve listened to Master Plan and just became completely inspired and empowered to create.

She is indeed correct — that’s the plan for MP #50, date and topic.

Daniel Solis has got something cooking up, apparently. The other morning, I was greeted with this from his blog (as well as a Story-Games thread):

Hey Everybody,

Ryan Macklin’s about to release the 50th episode of the Master Plan. Since 2007, he’s been ladeling out a thick, savory stew of game design advice into our dirty, orphan bowls.

His friends are asking you to send well-wishes, congratulations and otherwise humorous messages in an audio format. Post them online or send them straight to the man himself at:

ryan [at] masterplanpodcast [dot] net

Better hurry! The 50th episode will be released pretty soon and you don’t wanna be the chump sending belated congrats. :)

Y’all are generous with your praise. (The fact that this is text means you can’t hear how everything else is just me blundering and failing to find the words to express my gratitude to my awesome fans — especially with the audio I’ve received since Daniel posted that up.)

Thank you, both. Thank you, all.

- Ryan

I was heavily involved in Paul Tevis’ recently-published book, A Penny For My Thoughts — as the books editor and (as he puts it) developer. While I’ve been damned proud of the work he — hell, we — put in to make the book what it is, I’ve been hesitant to talk about it online. He has very much earned every bit of praise people are giving him, and I was worried about sounding like I was stealing Paul’s thunder or crap like that.

Last weekend, Paul asked me why I haven’t blogged about Penny, and called bullshit on my reason for not doing so. Thus, this belated post to correct my foolishness.

I want to tell you about this book, and the best way for me to talk about it is to tell you how I became the book’s editor & developer. If what Paul wrote in the Afterword was “designer notes,” these are my “editor notes.”

Read the rest of this entry »

So, I get to show off two kick-ass things today: one is a character sheet Fred Hicks made for Mythender, and another is one of my home group’s Mythenders — a Spanish Muslim noble who had traveled to Mythic Norden in order to convert the world.

Specifically, I’m going tell you about the two Fates the all Mythenders know await them: The Mortal Fate to die, and the Mythic Fate to become corrupted and twisted into mythic godhood.

In our last game, they fought a particularly difficult being, a dead Valkyrie who was being compelled by another to poison the spring with her eternally-flowing blood. That ended up being the hardest fight I’ve even run, where they really thought that the three of them were going to fail.

They forgot, for a moment, that they were playing Mythenders. Failure can happen, but only if they consider the price of success too dear — the price of progressing their Fate.

Mike’s character almost paid that price. He kept tapping into his mythic nature and progressing his Mythic Fate, as seen on his sheet. Along with that, he was hit hard in one round that caused him to lose all his Thunder dice, thus requiring him to choose between staying out of the rest of the fight, or coming back in by checking off one of the Mortal Fate boxes.

He did, and at the end of the labor they were victorious. But Rashid al-Jabbar was in danger both of dying and of becoming a Myth — both fates that await every Mythender loomed over him.

Here’s where we get to why Mythender’s are so powerful — when they lose all of their Thunder dice, they are merely taken out of the fight. They aren’t dead. Of course, they cannot partake in the spoils after their fellow Mythenders are victorious, or do anything to help keep their fellows from failing, but that’s the price of being out. Being safe. Being alive.

Or, you could put your own life on the line, your Mortal Fate to Die, and come back into the fight with more dice. You don’t cheat death and leave the fight; you embrace the wound that would kill lesser men and continue fighting.  The most important thing is that we do not know if you’ll die until the end of the labor. We do not know if that mortal wound will be the one that kills you, not until you have had a chance to be victorious one more time.

Similarly, each Mythender can tap into their own mythic nature and draw power to conquer their adversaries. Each time they do, they push themselves closer and closer to revealing what they’re destined to become, their Mantle of Power. And each time, they risk being pushed closer to their Mythic Fate, to become the very thing they’re ending, to be ended by their friends. But that is such a small price to pay for incredible power in the moment — and like the Mortal Fate, it is something that a Mythender only succumbs to at the end of a fight.

Mike’s character had to deal with both, and Fate is cruel. He tossed a single die, hoping it was low. When you check your fate, that’s what you do — look at the lowest number checked, and hope you roll lower than that. There is no appeal to the die with Mythic Fate, and a very costly appeal with Mortal Fate.

The die rolled 3. The only kindness a Mythender facing down both Fates has when rolling is that he needn’t declare which Fate he’s rolling for until after the die is cast — in the end, facing utter annihilation or corruption, a Mythender still has some pull over Fate. Mike chose for that to be the die for his Mythic Fate, thus avoiding that for a time.

The die was rolled again, for his Mortal Fate. It landed 6. Rashid al-Jabbar was to sentenced to die.

Mike would refuse that. He spent his last remaining Stolen Power — the very power a Mythender can use to achieve their Impossible Drive, the very power that Rashid al-Jabbar would need to create a world where all worshipped Allah — to reroll his Mortal Fate die. It landed 2. Rashid al-Jabbar cheated Fate, at a dear price.

And now Rashid, after choking the unlife from this poisonous Valkyrie, knows that his chances of creating the world he wills is that much more unlikely. And now Rashid, after spending the last of his stolen power, knows what it means to have the Fates hovering over him, ready to feast.

He will have to spend a long time being mortal, to come back from the precipice, to undo the progression of his Mythic Fate. Rashid, who no longer appears remotely mortal, having activated his Monstrous Mantle of Power, must spend time among them to calm his mythic side.

That will be a trial. But as hard as that is, he must also face one more issue: there is no power in Heaven or on Earth that can undo the progression of his Mortal Fate. He chose to come back into the fight. He chose to progress his Mortal Fate. He cannot unchoose what he has chosen.

Today was not the end of the story of Rashid al-Jabbar, but I guarantee you, he is forever changed by this day. If he is wise, he will put down the scimitar, find a woman, raise a family, and let his Mortal Fate claim him in old age.

But he is a Mythender. So few ever take up this simple wisdom.

Last weekend at Camp Nerdly, I ran a game of Mythender for four peeps, including one John Stavropoulos. John posted some badass comments about Mythender on Story Games, which I am happy to paste here.

Ryan had to stop me from giving him money. And money is tight and he hasn’t even written the game yet!!!

In Mythender you play the equivalent of a 30th level D&D character killing myths and gods before you are ended or fall to a fate worse than death… become a god yourself to be hunted by your fellow Mythenders.

Imagine stabbing Odin in his good eye and telling him how much of a little punk he his.

I played a pirate who was drowned by her own crew after she was sacrificed to the god of the ocean in hope they would reach shore.

Some games have beliefs or goals. In Mythender you have impossible drives. Yup, impossible. I swore to rid the earth of all oceans. Yup.

My weapons? I can literally take the water from you.

I’ve enslaved my former crew who now drag my ship around by land since I refuse to sail again.

And as I grow in myth I become less mortal. My tell tale was that there is an anchor embedded inside me connected to a chain dragging across the land infinitely back to the exact location where I drowned in the middle of the ocean.

My favorite part was when I wanted to become more mortal. I told a farmer who just lost his family that he was my father now and to tell me the bedtime stories he used to tell his children… the ones that just drowned due to the serpent. Wow. WTF!

When the GM says no to you… about anything… they write it down and give it a number. You can then attack it till the no becomes a yes.

Ryan… write the game. Now… do it now!

John,

I would say “Dude, I’m working as fast as I can, but I don’t have time right this moment to finish the draft.” I would say that, but that’s effectively a “no,” and then I would assign some dice to that “no.” Then you would end that. So, I’m just going to cut to the chase and accept that I’m writing this draft even though I have half a dozen other things going on. :)

It’s my hope that I’ll have an initial rough draft by GenCon.

Yeah, I just publicly cited a date. Watch me totally blow past it.

As a little treat, let me post up John’s character:

Name: The Uncreated
Heroic Concept: Drowned pirate with enslaved undead crew
Origin: Mortal Europe (unspecified beyond that)
How You Became a Mythender: I drowned after my pirate crew sacrificed me
Character Reference: The girl from The Ring
Impossible Drive: Rid the earth of all oceans

Weapons

• I can take the water from you [Intrinsic, Mythic 1]
• The scum that drowned me [Companion]
• I’ve drowned…what the hell are you going to do? [Intrinsic]
• My old cannon is my pistol [Relic]

Mantle of Power

• Atmospheric Effect: It’s hard to breath around me
• Paragon Mantle: Single chain drags behind me to infinity
• Supernatural Mantle: Chains springing from me to all the oceans
• Monstrous Mantle: Replace the oceans with my blood

Why the adventure matters to you: The Midgard Serpent has bested me in battle multiple times
(We didn’t do any of the other Relationships, since it’s a con game)

Final Mortal Fate: 6
Final Mythic Fate: n/a

Gifts Gained

• Sureness [+upgrade to reduce cost]
• Grievous Harm

Impositions Gained

• The ocean is barren [5]

I should post up the other three from this game soon, and maybe write it up. I’m too infrequent of a blogger.

- Ryan