Wednesday, March 20, 2019

World Things Holes Report

Latest Mythos Machine Update

New World Things Holes Report!

This is a new report that shows you all of the Armors, Weapons, Skill Books / Skills, Mystic Book / Mystic Powers that you have associated for Races, Classes in your World so you can review them and identify which ones are missing details you want to include.

To use the form select to look at either Races or Classes, and then either pick "Select All" from the dropdown, or select the particular one you are interested in.

The Report is accessed from the Reports Page drop down list and is named "World Things - Holes".

#Elthos #MythosMachine #GamemasterTools #RPGTools

Sunday, March 17, 2019

Latest Mythos Machine Enhancement - Race Based Skills and Powers

Character Races - Enhancement


GMs now have the ability to associate both Skills and / or Mystic Powers to Races. To do so GMs can create Skill or Mystic Power Books for specified Races, and then associate those books to the Races they wish. Once done those Books will automatically assign the Race-Skills and / or Race-Powers to the Character when the Character Class is changed by the Player or GM, as well as when the Characters are Auto-Generated in the Generate Adventure Group Form.

In the Character Race and Character Class Screens you will also see the list of Skills and / or Mystic Powers that come with any Books that are associate to the Race or Class as you've defined them. You can associate the Books to more than one Race or Class.

So, for example, let's say you want all Undead to have not only certain Weapons and Armors (such as undead flesh, or or whatever you think appropriate) but you can also add Undead Skills and Mystic Powers as well. So you would create a Skill Book named, perhaps, "Undead Skills", and add whatever Skills you've created for this purpose, such as, perhaps, "Night Stalking" or "Barrier Bashing". And let's say you want all undead to also have a specific set of Mystic Powers for your world, such as "Chilling Gaze", or whatever. So you would create a Mystic Power Book called, for example, "Undead Powers", and add "Chilling Gaze" to the Book along with whatever other Powers you want. Lastly, for both, you use the Additional Item Options to associate the Books to whatever Undead Races you want (let's say only Skeletons, Zombies and Ghouls get this set, but you have a different set in mind for Vampires, and their ilk).

All of which provides a much greater level of freedom for GMs to create the Worlds they want and configure them in any way they see fit.

- Thanks to Chris Donovan for yet another brilliant recommendation!

Friday, March 15, 2019

Elthos RPG - Mystic Powers

Today I want to talk briefly about the design of the Elthos RPG Mystic Power System because I think it may have some features that people don't know about, but might like. There's two aspects of importance here.  One is for the GM, and the other is for the Players.

I'll start with the Players.  First off there's two kinds of Mystic Powers: Spells and Invocations.  They both use Mystic Energy, measured in Points (Mystic Points) to cast or invoke.  So, the mechanical difference between the two is negligible, and the distinction is more for world organization than a distinct mechanical effect.  Spells are used by Magic Users, while Invocations are used by Clerics.  In the philosophical sense the Mystic Power is fueled and shaped in the first case by the Magician's personal Ego, where the Mystic is channeling their own Mystic Energy into the Spell and shaping it into the form they desire.  In the latter case, however, the Cleric is using their Mystic Energy to call upon their Elkron (the name by which Elthosian Deities are known), and if successful the Elkron themselves are being Invoked and it is their Power and their Will that is fueling and shaping the Mystic Energy.  So because of this, with some GM adjudication involved, and in some rare cases, the Clerical invocations can produce much greater variation in effect than what the typical Spell might produce... because the Elkron, depending on their Alignment, mood, and the circumstances, might cause the results to be larger (or smaller) and / or different than expected.  So Spells are more like scientific formulas that have a specific and known effect within a specific range of power.  Invocations, while usually conforming to expectations, don't necessarily do so.  This is especially the case when Fumbles or Critical Successes are involved.

Mechanically, Players get to flex their Mystic Powers.  They can do this by adding additional Mystic Energy than the normal cost of the Spell or Invocation.  They can then augment whatever properties of the power make sense given the power's nature, such as increasing it's Range, Duration, Damage or their Mystic Attack Level.  For example, a Fire Bolt is defined as follows:

Name Fire Bolt
Cast-Time Units Melee
Duration Units Instant
Effect Units Level 1 (1d6)
Geometry Units Line / Bolt / Person
Range Units Feet
Category Combat
Type Spell
Mystic Power Level 1
Alignment Neutral
Description Bolt of fire from hands or eyes that does 1d6 fire Damage to one opponent within Range. Bonus MP can be added to give a +1 Mystic Attack Level / MP, and/or +10' / MP Range, and/or +1 Damage / MP.

Fire Bolt costs 1 MP by default 1 MP to cast.  Like all Mystic Powers the default Range is 60'. If the Spell Chanter wants to extend its Range, an additional MP can be added to extend it to 70'.  If 2 MP are added the Range can be extended to 80'.  Or if more damage is desired additional MP can be added to increase the Damage Bonus.  Any combination of effects can be extended by adding Mystic Points, up to the limit that the Spell Chanter can cast into a single Spell (the limit is 2 x the Character Level). So a 4th Level Spell Chanter can cast a Spell with a Maximum of 8 Mystic Points.  In this case they could add 7 MP to their Fire Bolt, allowing, perhaps, +3 Damage, +20' Range, and +2 Attack Level. In other words, Characters can flex their Mystic Powers according to the properties of the Power.  Invocations, of course, work the same way... and behave like Spells, with the caveat that on Critical Hits and Fumbles they may do far greater unexpected effects than Spells are likely to do because the Elkron who is actually causing the effect has a vast amount of Mystic Energy they can potentially draw from, and possibly unanticipated motives for changing the effects accordingly.

For Gamemasters, building new Spells and Invocations is also something the system helps with by defining the the set of properties that make up all spells.  Those properties are listed above in the left hand column of the chart.  By defining these properties the Gamemaster can create any kind of Spell or Invocation with relative ease.  Doing things in this way also provides an relatively easy to way to compare Mystic Powers to assess what the relative Power Level should be.

In the case of the Fire Bolt above, its 1d6 Damage, simple Geometry, and short Range (measured in Feet, rather than Yards, Miles, or other distances), and other limited properties help to identify it as a Power Level 1 Spell.

So the nicety is that the definition of Powers helps the GM to ensure that the Powers are defined with appropriate Power Levels, which determines both how much they cost to learn in Mystic Learning Points (which are gained each Character Level) and how much they MP cost to Cast or Invoke.

Now the Big Idea here is that GMs will be creating their own Spells and Invocations for their own unique Worlds, and not using a specified Cannon of "Official" Mystic Powers delivered by Elthos RPG.  What Elthos does is provide a short list of example Powers from which the GMs are encouraged to extrapolate upon in order to fill out their own amazing Worlds.  In addition, the Mythos Machine allows GMs to Share their creations with other GMs on the system through the World Things Trading Post... a system that allows GMs to browse Powers, along with all other kinds of Things (weapons, armors, equipment, races, classes, etc) and "Import" the ones they like into their own Worlds.

And there you have it.  A brief description of how Mystic Powers work in the Elthos RPG.

https://elthos.com
#Elthos #Gamemaster #RPGTools #MagicSystem

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Tenkar's Interview with VBWyrde of Elthos RPG and the Mythos Machine

I had a nice time chatting with Tenkar about Elthos RPG and the Mythos Machine ... here's the interview ... Many thanks to Tenkar for the interview! You can find Tenkar's Tavern on the Web and on Discord.


https://anchor.fm/tavernchat/episodes/E292---Designers--Makers-Fireside-Chat-with-VBWyrde-Elthos-RPG--Mythos-Machine-e3cclj/a-ab8qkb

#Elthos #ElthosRPG #MythosMachine #Gamemaster
https://elthos.com

Monday, March 04, 2019

How I GM Dragons

In my world of Elthos dragons are large, magical, intelligent, flying fortresses with massive attacks and, typically, an army of minions ... they are also secretive, and build fortifications for themselves ... since they are so difficult to combat, none of my players have gone after one in my world so far ... except once about 20 years ago ... but they didn't get far as the dragon caught wind of their arrival and sent minions ... that was enough deterrence for them and after some substantial warfare in the marshy region that lead into the dragon's valley, the surviving stalwarts retreated back to their domain to reconsider.


The End

Sunday, March 03, 2019

Character Sketch - Robert Bjorn

Another Character for my new Proto-Fantasy World... Meet Robert Bjorn .. Fisherman, hunter and warrior of the Northland...