After seeing the film The Hair, I felt like I had to do something like that.

Probably I won’t be doing any dark or hippy things as there are little or no reason for such conduct. Anyways I honour the people who can live and die for their dreams and for things that matter. Even though dying for something that really doesn’t matter is mostly a waste, I can understand it clearly – I myself have nearly perished (at least suffered a little deal) in an attempt to be something I want to be… Nowadays it doesn’t truly matter, because there are few things a person who has played a larp 351 days near-nonstop couldn’t accomplish. That is what I believe now and wish I am right. If my reasoning proves wrong – I will still keep on trying to become the creature I want to be and no-one might stop me.

An inpiring film it was and it greatly helped me in my quest for The Dreams. It helped me remember, whys of my goal and that is all there are.

Thank you.

Only a few days (25) until my one year military service (completely voluntary in Finland) is over.

Anyways: let’s talk about The Dreams. I would love to list some quotes from the characters I have generated this far, but that would be a killjoy-choice, wouldn’t it? Nope. I wouldn’t think so, but I would feel very sorry in case I wouldn’t include a character mentioned after all.

Then there would be some nice Finnish military system trivia I would like to share – just in case some fool would like to join this nice tradition most eighteen year old boys live through every year. I won’t, because I truly wish not use my spare time for the Company…

Anyways… I have just gone through my current state of mind and would like to continue with the subject of character creation techniques. I personally use a trick called ‘doubling’.

As I ‘double’, I first start with a simple concept or the main point of the character and then ‘double’ the ideas and thus redouble until I have enough material to satisfy… my intuition. I hope that condences, how I build characters up and hopefully will help someone else. Any other ideas, how one should build a character?

This is the moment of triumph, or at least of the Me returning here. Soon — as this has been my ‘working blog’ for a long time — I will make things happen as I have before: there will be some writing of the subjects of roleplaying (of the live or just of the ‘pen and paper’-version) and (yeah, there are other things in my life too) of the  other interesting phenomena (mostly things that correspond to roleplaying).

I hope we all shall enjoy our time together even though I know the English of mine is hardly of the adequate level. Shame isn’t it? We shall see soon anyways.

The Victorian Era of mine (as opposed to the official reign of Queen Victoria of England at the end of 19th century) is merely an associate version of the Era.

The Victorian Mood of my upcoming campaign should be something like… Ballroom dances and dark, foggy London Streets where there are only a few lanterns to light the way. In the smog there are always places to hide nearly everything and nearly every deed may be hidden behind style and fake smiles. Lies and beauty are the most important aspects: ugly and natural things are the only evil there is. (see Victorian Winter by Asaenath, for Victorian beauty) Ours is in fact the romantic version of “true” Victorian London.

Then there’s the other part: etiquette. It will be strict and strongly formal. Those not following the etiquette are seen as rude and that shall not be tolerated inside the fiction. Still the etiquette shall be something like that in an article in Victorian Bazaar. Nothing that the players couldn’t cope with that is. Those characters who live in social (upper class) circles shall have any problems to even insult someone right way. I hope players can come up with many interesting quirks and other “etiquettish” things that make a richer and more vivid game world, at least I shall play a little with this part of the Victorian society. Clothing (as little as possible visible beneath it) and rules of conduct shall be important, but… probably not overdone anyways.

Target mood is anyways something like Gild-a-Lily’s Gather the Rose of Love . Fine and elegant, but the only moon on the sky is the one of the closest lamps for the nature itself is an abomination of a sort. That is the background of our story. Next time I shall present you some of the story itself. I hope I made myself clear enough.

Hail the Queen of England!

Special thanks to artists Gild-a-Lily (http://gild-a-lily.deviantart.com) and Asaenath (http://asaenath.deviantart.com/) for the permissions to mention their pictures, and the inspiration I was given by their pieces of art.

And in case somebody finds more inspirational material for Victorian campaign, I am more than happy to include it in my plans.

Let us continue from what I told you before this day. Raising one’s stats in that Epic System of mine is done when it’s appropiate and everybody sees it as such. First there must be a reason for the character to achieve a new level (and achieving a new level means something like doubling one’s fitness of every kind) and then there must be a dramatic moment enough to in fact allow the change of overachievement. That is the point.

Otherwise it should be all there is about the system. Something more to ask? If none, and even if there truly were questions (which I will answer later) I will continue with the fiction.

So there I am at the moment doing some research on the Victorian Era of London. For those interested these for example are something I read and that will probably have effect on the campaign scenery (googled them): Kuningatar Viktoria (Vaasan yhteislukio: Silja Hurtig), Victorian era (Wikipedia), Britannia (Päivi Hintsanen), Kirjavinkki: The Edwardians (Tuomioja, E.)

I will later give you more something to look for, but ’till then you must wait eagerly.

There are many ways to create a fantastic roleplaying experience in near-Victorian timeline, but I am not willing to let my cards fall yet. I will have taken some of the things I shall use from Victorian Era and some from preceding and following eras. I am not really checking every single factual piece in order to enliven the history. I am a mere artist and that is some historian’s work.

I anyways beg you pardon me my broken use of phrases etc. I haven’t truly written anything in a long time and I noticed at some point that I am not really on the mood either. Sorry.

Why?

I created this space-blog-idea-thingy merely (and never would have any motives besides the obvious) to list (and try to express in understandable form) some notes on roleplaying in general. At the moment these include merely telling you about the things I am currently working with.

The Epic Game

First there is an epic campaign (a set of somehow connected invidual games), of whom The Legendary would be the English working title. Main point will be somewhere outside the mechanics (a way the World, including player characters, will be) and the rules are simply there to clarify what the character (a fictive persona mainly made and controlled by a player) may do in fiction. Simplified rules are as listed below (but may be changed during the campaign).

First there are (yes, I have a habit forthat kind of beginnings) three parts of mechanics (An allusion to the Newtonian Laws of Motion?): Archetype (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archtype), Weakness and Asset. Even though translations may during this “course” of mine the concepts are quite clear. Mechanically all of them consist of a word or phrase and of a positive integer that may only increase during the timeline. In fiction they are perhaps… a bit more complicated.

The Archetype shows how good the character is in fiction, how well he can solve any particular situation. The situation that meets the archetype perfectly (as in Swordman-archetype fighting with a sword) lets the player throw ten-sided dice (d10) and summing equal to the number in Archetype versus the number set by gamemaster (the person controlling everything besides the player characters(PC) intentions) by throwing a dice in an Archetype versus Archetype situation or generally a set number in a situation that includes no set Archetype (sorry capitalizing anyways). In a situation that would include skills not really of an Archetype but something quite close to it (like Swordman cutting carrots) gives the player six-sided dice besides d10s. Something way out of picture for a PC merely sets an difficulty equal to this number times situation-appropiate number. I have thought that arbitrary 5 means the maximum of human capacity of. Simple isn’t it?

The Archetype’s text part will be more difficult to exactly define but the common sense approach helps. A word or phrase that best defines what the character can do and how. The examples I have thought of for my upcoming campaign include “serial killer”, “private detective”, “police officer”, “gangster”, “secret agent”, “demogogue”, “mathematician”, “cat burglar”, “gentleman”, “martial artist”, “actor”, “inventor”, “mad scientist”, “little girl”, “minor god”, “summoner” etc… Then there are possibility to choose a Archetype-names like Sherlock Holmes, Philleas Fogg, Sweeney Todd… The phrase itself is anyways arbitrary. Then there’s a great deal of talking what the phrase truly means in that particular case to reach mutual understanding.

It is best to note that the phrase and number value do not after all that express the exactly same idea. The phrase means what you are and the number how well you may achieve things you want to. The character may be the worst swordman in living history but still have the Archetype “Swordman 8″ thus achieving his fighting-including goals easily. In this particular case I would maybe consider changing the Archetype into something like “The Luckiest Swordman in Human History 8″ to better express what the Archetype of his (or her) is.

There is also a special Henchman-archetype using d6s mostly. That is probably everything to know about Archetypes except the point of raising one’s stat-score (I will return to that point as I have established a more precise definition of it)?

The Weakness and The Asset are not really well defined. They are mostly mere invidual properties of the character making it interesting. They must have numeral values from one to three and merely arbitrary they must have the exactly same values.

The Asset mostly gives a number of bonus die equal to the number of the numeral value of Asset-1 (minus 1) in a given situation but the Asset may be something quite different. At the moment one of my players for example would like to have a sidekick-Asset and I am probably letting that be such that the value has something to do with the loyalty and the usefulness of the henchman. Asset means something like speciality or a point of strenght in a character. To rise or lower your asset, using it may have a price or your weakness may be strongly associated with it. This score may also be raised during the game nearly the same way as Archetype and mostly besides it. I will define “increase” later.

The weakness is something that hinders the player character somehow. One dot Weakness means something mild or strong but mostly seen in difficult situation as the Weakness of three means something frequently used during the story and at the same time extremely difficult. I am yet to see a rare three dot Weakness would work. I will talk about this during the character creation and and the players would have it better to concentrate in Weaknesses that have none mechanical value. It is better to make perfectly clear what one can do with the Weakness than to use some obscure rules. The main point using the weakness is anyways that without using it both negatively (as in hindering the character’s process) and positively (as in beating it heroically) you may never beat it completely off AND defeating it last time gives you a “situation and Weakness appropiate” permanent bonus.

That is mainly my Epic System’s rules. If you notice something amiss, you might as well tell me, might you not?

Second system I am currently working (merely collecting information at the moment) with is a World of Darkness (WOD) inhabiting larp-system that would include the essential of it. If you have any knowledge how that official one works, you might decide to let me know, but anyways… my main goal is anyways not to break the immersion too much with over-complicating everything. I will return to that one later though for this post is way too long already…

Farewell friends and foes alike.

Ok. I am now starting a new bloggy-thingy (sorry my Americanese) and thus should maybe present something for you to enjoy. To start with I shall proudly present a system of the new roleplaying (or role playing if you prefer) I will start shortly (in a dozen days or so).

But for now… for not to miss a bus, see you all.