7:45 PM +Joe: Hi all, I’m Joe! One of three indie Devs working on a new, D20 ttRPG called Acheron ((Link: http://kck.st/3ijyXMr)http://kck.st/3ijyXMr). It’s what we call a Grimpunk RPG. Grim, because the world is dark and everyone has an agenda they’ll throw you under the bus for…More or less. Punk, because we wanted to envoke the images that go along with things like Dieselpunk and
7:45 PM +Joe: Atompunk
7:45 PM +Gary: D20 as in the 3.0/3.5 rules?
7:46 PM ~Dan: (Please hold questions until after the introduction. 🙂 )
7:46 PM +Gary: Sorry
7:46 PM ~Dan: (np 🙂 )
7:47 PM +Joe: We have a wide range of influences from the Dishonored/Bloodborne videogames to the literary works of H.G. Wells and Lovecraft. Many other ttRPGs also influenced us. Including 3.5 and Pathfinder (reason for our skills/extensive and free-form character creation), Call of Cthulhu (sanity), World of Darkness (Merits/Flaws system), Numenera and more!
7:48 PM +Joe: (Done)
7:48 PM ~Dan: Thanks, Joe! The floor is open to questions!
7:49 PM ~Dan: Want to take Gary’s question first? 🙂
7:49 PM +Joe: Sure!
7:49 PM +Gary: Thanks 🙂
7:49 PM ~Dan: (btw, I’m listening to jazz in the background. Thought that would be somewhat fitting.)
7:50 PM +Gary: 😀
7:50 PM +Methen: I have a simple test question to test your knowledge on all role playing games
7:51 PM ~Dan: Ask away, Methen!
7:51 PM +Gary: My question was, by d20 so you mean the 3.0/3.5 rules?
7:51 PM +Methen: can you Name the three basic elements that all tables top role play games are based on ?
7:52 PM +Gary: That is a vague question
7:53 PM +Joe: 3.5/Pathfinder is something all of us played back in the day so it’s had a pretty big impact on how we approached development from the start. What is very similar from 3.5/Pathfinder are the Ability Scores and way skills work. For ability scores we have the main 6: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Under each of
7:53 PM +Methen: Not really just think of what three elements that all table top games have
7:53 PM +Joe: these are a wide range of skills with your skill ranks per level determined by what ability scores you choose as primary and secondary (for instance if Int is your primary you have 4 skill points per level, and Con as your secondary would add 2 skill points per level for a total of 6)
7:54 PM +Gary: Cool beans 🙂
7:54 PM +Methen: no one can answer ?
7:54 PM ~Dan: Joe: Want to take a crack at Methen’s question? I’m stumped. 🙂
7:54 PM +Gary: Cheetos, pizza and mountain dew
7:54 PM +Methen: no
7:55 PM ~Dan: Joe: Can you give us an overview of the setting?
7:55 PM +Gary: It can be many things Methen, you need to narrow the field.
7:55 PM +Methen: I just tell you
7:55 PM +Joe: Methen I think this depends a bit on what focus the game has but I believe (if I remember correctly) it breaks down to roleplay, simulation (including combat), and something else I cant remember lol. It’s been awhile since I reviewed development philosophy
7:56 PM +Methen: The three things that all role playing games evolve around are, Dm has final decission, Killing and stealing…
7:57 PM +Gary: Nice, thanks for that insightful comment, Methen
7:57 PM +Gary: So Joe, tell us about your setting 🙂
7:57 PM +Methen: can you name a single table top role play that does not have those three elements ?
7:58 PM ~Dan: Every superhero game, pretty much…
7:58 PM +Gary: My Little Pony RPG
7:58 PM +Gary: Ponyfinder actually
7:59 PM +Joe: Acheron is a world encapsulated by an ever present wall. For all of living memory this wall kept horrors from the world…Or perhaps contained them within. 233 years ago the wall was breached and unimaginable horrors poured into the world. In the aftermath a Government rose to a sole seat of power and put history to the torch! Now this singular
7:59 PM +Joe: Government controls nearly all aspects of Acheron. But Factions have immense power and Anarchism of all types is rising to oppose the Government. Our game opens just as the Reclamation Act has been ratified, allowing for the study of history for the first time in 233 years. Our inciting incident if you will
7:59 PM +Methen: Need to go latter
7:59 PM ~Dan: Bye!
8:00 PM +Gary: Trolls…
8:00 PM ~Dan: How high is this wall, and what keeps things from going over it?
8:02 PM +Gary: Sounds like this was influenced by Attack on Titan 🙂
8:02 PM +Joe: One can see the top of the wall from a distance. However, the few groups who have tried to fly over it in hot air balloons were either never seen again or appeared far, far away from where they’d tried to pass over the wall with no memories at all. Simple husks of what they used to be but with full mental capacities.
8:02 PM +Joe: I’ve actually never seen Attack on Titan o.o
8:03 PM +Joe: (done)
8:03 PM ~Dan: Neither have I, but I know about it. A post-apocalypse setting in which giant man-eating humanoids take over the world.
8:03 PM ~Dan: The remaining humans live behind walls to keep out the giants.
8:04 PM ~Dan: Speaking of hot air balloons (in a roundabout way), what is the tech level of the setting
8:04 PM ~Dan: ?
8:04 PM +Joe: Hmmmmm well no giants here but I think it probably hits on a lot of the same themes we’re trying to with Acheron.
8:06 PM +Joe: The general tech level is ~1930s America in the Central Districts (farthest away from the wall) with a bit of leeway for the rule of cool. In the Districts closer to the wall however the tech level goes down as you go out meaning some people don’t even have electricity or plumbing.
8:06 PM ~Dan: Why is that?
8:06 PM ~Dan: (Howdy, BillR!)
8:06 PM +BillR: (hi)
8:07 PM +Gary: Incursions from the outside monsters?
8:08 PM ~Dan: Well, if I understood the Kickstarter, the Breach is only in one location.
8:09 PM +Joe: During this period in time, much like in America during the 1930s, industry was booming but not everyone was feeling the benefits yet. Some towns would only have telegraph wires for instance. This element comes from stories older folks in my life had. For instance my dad lived on a farm without plumbing until his early teens and another person
8:09 PM +Joe: remembered seeing a car for the first time and it was a huge deal because few kids in the town had seen a car before (that was during the 1940s).
8:10 PM +Joe: Yes, the Breach is only in one part of the Wall. However, after the Breach a certain type of monsters, called Outsiders, arrived in the world.
8:10 PM ~Dan: Okay, I can see that.
8:11 PM ~Dan: What are these Outsiders like?
8:11 PM +Joe: These Outsiders often seem to have no purpose and will arrive/disappear randomly throughout the world. The Keeper (pictured in our Kickstarter) will seemingly phase in and out of existence, stealing children away in broad daylight. Sometimes these children return, some do not. The reason for their behavior is completely unknown.
8:12 PM +Joe: Another example is the “Leather Man” or “Leather Men” who will walk through towns, croaking for water. Wherever they pass either intense, unexplainable storms occur or just as extreme droughts
8:12 PM +Joe: (done)
8:13 PM ~Dan: I usually ask this a bit later, but while we’re on the subject, does the book include a bestiary, and if so, how large?
8:14 PM +Gary: That situation would definitely lead to a breakdown of society
8:16 PM +Joe: Great question Dan! In the Core Rule Book we plan to have everything which would be seen in a typical Player rulebook, GM guide, and Bestiary. We’re planning to include ~60 monsters in the CRB but it may go up or down depending on funding and what we think is best for the book.
8:16 PM * ~Dan nods
8:16 PM +Joe: Thankfully Gary the Government keeps things together 😉 …Mostly
8:16 PM ~Dan: Are all of the monsters Outsiders, or are there any dangerous creatures that come from inside the wall?
8:17 PM +Joe: We have monsters split up into categories, Outsiders being only one of them.
8:18 PM ~Dan: What are some of the others?
8:18 PM +Gary: This sounds like a scary dystopian setting 🙂
8:18 PM +Joe: Currently there are: Natural Beasts, Humans, Post-Breach animals (normal animals corrupted by the wall over years), Outsiders, Arcane creatures, Fae Creatures, Spirit Creatures, Demons, Eldritch, and more!
8:19 PM ~Dan: Nice!
8:19 PM +Joe: Gary H.G. Wells is one of our main influences so it checks out
8:19 PM +Joe: 😀
8:19 PM ~Dan: What ws the reason for the Breach?
8:21 PM +Joe: That, sadly, has been lost to time. All we know now is that during the height of technology (things were more advanced, but not in the way they are in our contemporary timeline) scientists and another powerful faction now gone attempted to break through the Wall to reach what they believed to be on the other side.
8:22 PM +Joe: A lot of our lore is vague for 2 reasons. 1) vague descriptions really help the imagination get going! 2) we wanted to leave things fairly open so GMs can shape the world how they see fit
8:22 PM +Joe: (done)
8:22 PM * ~Dan nods
8:22 PM +Gary: So I gather there are character classes… what types?
8:22 PM ~Dan: Given the presence of the Breach, is there a heavy military presence around it to block the Outsiders?
8:25 PM +Joe: Sorry Gary, I should have probably covered that more in-depth. There are no classes what-so-ever. Instead characters are created by choosing Merits/Flaws (highly defining features of a character, such as transforming into a terrible beast at midnight or being able to easily remember any facts) and Abilities (your more run of the mill things your
8:25 PM +Joe: character can do, like shoot a gun better than others or talk others through bad situations).
8:26 PM ~Dan: (brb — please continue!)
8:27 PM +Joe: Dan, there is an intense military presence around the Breach itself and throughout the world in the form of masked Government Agents. The Breach itself has a massive facility for both research and containment of the things that sometimes come out of the Breach. It’s said that the mutative effects of the Wall are also studied there since the Breach
8:27 PM +Joe: amplifies these effects(the SCP foundation is also a big influence for us)
8:27 PM +Gary: that sounds cool… I like building characters like in M&M or Hero System better than choosing classes
8:28 PM +Gary: The SCP FOundation is crazy
8:28 PM +Joe: Glad to hear it Gary! We really, really don’t like how shoehorned classes often feel so we wanted a system that you could make anything in!
8:28 PM +Joe: Well, anything within reason
8:28 PM +Joe: SCP Foundation is, indeed, crazy
8:29 PM ~Dan: (back, sorry)
8:29 PM +Joe: I’m sadly not the biggest fan among the three of us and am a lowly initiate by comparison to the other Devs
8:29 PM +Gary: welcome back, Dan
8:29 PM ~Dan: What is the SCP Foundation?
8:29 PM ~Dan: (Thanks, Gary!)
8:31 PM +Joe: Oh man, that’s one heck of a can of worms I don’t think I’m qualified to explain. In short it’s similar to the X-files, but darker with more crazy monsters/objects. Diving into it is daunting but definitely worth it. And like I mentioned earlier they’ve been a huge influence for Acheron.
8:31 PM ~Dan: What is it from?
8:32 PM +Gary: It is an online thing
8:32 PM +Joe: It’s essentially a huge repository of stories written by a bunch of different authors in the same universe
8:32 PM ~Dan: Ah, gotcha. That’s related to Slender Man in some way, isn’t it?
8:33 PM +Joe: Maybe, I’m honestly not sure
8:33 PM ~Dan: Ah, well. Sorry for the digression.
8:33 PM +Joe: It’s all good 🙂
8:33 PM ~Dan: So clearly, supernatural creatures exist in this world. Does magic?
8:34 PM +Joe: Yes! I mentioned Arcane, Fae, Spirit, Demonic, and Eldritch creatures earlier. But these are also our domains of magic.
8:34 PM +Gary: I want to get in on this KS, but it ends two days too soon for me 😦
8:35 PM +Joe: So a spell caster can use spells/rituals from their domain to do fairly specific effects
8:35 PM +Joe: And each domain has it’s own theme
8:35 PM ~Dan: Can you describe magic in this setting? How prevalent is it, and what sorts of things can it accomplish on the high end of the scale?
8:35 PM ~Dan: (Sorry. Our posts crossed. 😀 )
8:37 PM +Joe: The feel we wanted for magic was what you’d see is mysticism from around the world. So generally a specific action and a specific effect. Such as sacrificing an animal and using it’s blood to heal a wound (not a real example, but that’s the gist of it)
8:37 PM +Joe: So you’ve got specific spells/rituals for specific things to occur, in most cases.
8:37 PM * ~Dan nods
8:37 PM ~Dan: So definitely not free-form type magic.
8:39 PM +Joe: Magic is not prevalent in the Central Districts or more populated cities. It’s often seen by the non-initiated as simple mysticism that could never work. However, many groups and those on the fringes of society may practice it semi-openly. The Government does not usually mention magic in its propaganda unless it is to denounce it’s existence to
8:39 PM +Joe: those in the Central Districts.
8:40 PM ~Dan: (wb, Gary)
8:40 PM +Gary: (my browser decided to not work)
8:40 PM ~Dan: I’ll PM you what you missed.)
8:41 PM +Joe: On the high end you can do some pretty cool stuff with Magic. Such as summon an Eldritch being, create a beam of light from the sky to obliterate your enemies (and their house/car/block), or connect part of the Spirit world to the real world in the form of a phantom world tree that will protect allies and hurt enemies
8:41 PM +Joe: As for the freeflow question, magic is specific. But, for those who want a freeflow type of style we have Mancies. Which are essentially swiss army knives compared to Magics specific tools.
8:42 PM +Joe: So Mancies include things like Pyromancy, Telekinesis, and Necromancy.
8:42 PM ~Dan: Interesting!
8:43 PM ~Dan: So a bit like psychic powers/psionics?
8:43 PM +Joe: Unlike magic, Mancers are known to exsist by all citizens of Acheron since they’re so individually dangerous, at least potentially. Government Agents are generally sent only to deal with powerful Magicians but will be sent after low tier Mancers since they can become dangerous quickly.
8:43 PM +Gary: Has the game been basically finished with the KS for printing costs and such?
8:43 PM +Joe: Yes, Mancers are a lot like Psychic Powers/Psionics in other settings
8:44 PM +Gary: I ask because I hope that if the KS is not a success that the game will live on in some form… I am really liking the sound of this
8:44 PM ~Dan: If magic is so potentially powerful, why isn’t it more commonly used, particularly by the Government? Or does the Government use it on the sly?
8:45 PM +Joe: We have ~400 pages completed at this point out of what we predict to be ~500. All the core stuff is there we just have to do a lot of testing and tweaking. Our Kickstarter is primarily for proofing, editing, art, and printing costs.
8:45 PM ~Dan: And I agree with Gary. 🙂
8:45 PM +Joe: If we’re not funded we’ll definitely keep working on Acheron and relaunch 🙂 (We don’t get paid for working on it so we’ll just keep plugging away until it is finally alive)
8:46 PM +Gary: I am going to miss pledging by two days… which makes me sad
8:47 PM +Joe: Magic is used by the Government, typically slyly. Government Agents will often have a special trick or two up their sleeves compared to the general populace. The reason Magic isn’t used by everyone is the Government will crack down on any major groups who use magic (the Church of the Twin Gods being the exception that proves the rule)
8:48 PM +Joe: So the transfer of magical knowledge is difficult. Also all the texts that were compiled throughout history about magic have been burned and the people with that knowledge killed in many different ways
8:48 PM ~Dan: Does the Government have Mancers on the payroll as well?
8:48 PM +Gary: (just imagined steampunk Matrix vs. government agents)
8:48 PM +Joe: Gary don’t worry! You’ll still be able to buy Acheron
8:49 PM +Joe: Sorry you’re missing out for now through. But don’t despair! (We also have a Discord for Playtesting if you’re interested).
8:49 PM +Gary: Oh yes please 🙂
8:50 PM +Joe: Yes Dan, the Government does have Mancers on their Payroll. Many times lower power Mancers will be caught by Agents and then converted
8:50 PM * ~Dan nods
8:50 PM +Joe: Gary we got you!
8:51 PM ~Dan: What is state-of-the-art in terms of weaponry, and how effective it is against supernatural beings?
8:51 PM +Gary: Aurors
8:51 PM +Gary: Steampunk Harry Potter
8:51 PM +Gary: This setting is giving me ideas
8:51 PM +Joe: I mentioned the Church of the Twin Gods. They’re the only Government sanctioned religion and also use Arcane magic in front of the masses. These magics are just considered miracles however, and not seen as the dangerous magic it can be.
8:53 PM +Joe: State of the art weaponry would be something like an Arc-cannon (made by Grey engineers for A LOT of money). But for the normal Government Agent the best thing they’ll get their hands on (without being a modded up Soulmender…Essentially constructs/robots) is a machine gun
8:53 PM ~Dan: Tommy gun?
8:54 PM +Gary: Sounds about right
8:54 PM +Joe: On the subject of Soulmenders, they’re persons who’ve had their Soul transferred to a Soulmetal phylactery, losing their memories in the process. With Soulmenders things are a bit more wacky. They can have spider legs (like in Wild Wild West) for instance.
8:54 PM +Gary: Sweet… warforged basically
8:54 PM +Joe: Yes, a tommy gun is definitely in the game. WW2 is around the weapon level with some crazier stuff on the side.
8:55 PM ~Dan: Ah, so there is “weird science”?
8:55 PM +Gary: What is steampunk without weird science?
8:55 PM +Joe: Yes, but we’ve kept that on a believable level. No death rays or anything like that…Yet
8:55 PM ~Dan: Well, this isn’t really steampunk, but yet. 🙂
8:56 PM ~Dan: but yeah, rather
8:56 PM +Joe: We’ve got a lot of ideas though. And yes, it’s not steampunk but honestly if a GM wanted to re-skin the era they totally could
8:57 PM ~Dan: What races/species are available to play other than Humans and Soulmenders?
8:57 PM +Joe: We’ve tried to make things fairly modular. For instance, if a GM wanted to use everything, except Magic, it would still be a balanced game.
8:57 PM +Gary: Ahhh ok… sounded steampunk to me… I read into it what I wanted… 😛
8:58 PM +Joe: We have three primary “Races”: Human, Darkleecher, and Soulmender. Of each of these there are what we call “Pedigrees”
9:00 PM ~Dan: What are Darkleechers?
9:01 PM +Joe: Pedigrees are groups that are distinct for one reason or another from the general populace in the case of Humans. So we have basic Humans which make up the majority of the worlds population. There are War Born, a tribal people who’ve been suppressed and re-educated by the Government. Grey Blood, those belonging to the highly eccentric and mixed
9:01 PM +Joe: Grey Family (think if Edison, Rockefeller, and Tesla all were part of the same lineage/married into the same family). Ellsons, rich bankers who’ve been around since before the Breach itself. and Exalted, a group of humans that have been so corrupted by the Wall they’re no longer recognizable as Human)
9:01 PM +Joe: Darkleechers are a race that washed up on the beaches of Acheron in four waves. They’re a people with intense connection to the Supernatural planes.
9:02 PM +Joe: There are Fae Darkleechers, Spirit Darkleechers, Demonic Darkleechers, and Eldritch Darkleechers (not Arcane)
9:02 PM +Joe: Soulmenders are the Souls of any Race/Pedigree. So they could have been anyone, they just remember none of their previous lives so identify as a Soulmender
9:03 PM +Gary: The darkleechers are the races on the KS that look like fae and tieflings, etc…
9:03 PM +Joe: Yes
9:04 PM +Gary: cool beans
9:04 PM ~Dan: Where did they come from, given the presence of the Wall?
9:04 PM ~Dan: The Darkleechers, I mean.
9:05 PM +Joe: No one knows. They simply washed up from the sea in the hundreds of thousands without memory of where/what they’d been before. However, there were both young and old among them.
9:06 PM ~Dan: Huh. Interesting.
9:06 PM ~Dan: Do you have a character sheet that we can see?
9:06 PM +Joe: Of course!
9:06 PM +Gary: hundreds of thousands… and europe was upset… lol
9:07 PM +Joe: Uploaded file: (Link: https://uploads.kiwiirc.com/files/57cee9ebe2cc015efa90db084e94a795/Acheron_Charcter_sheet_Refined_fillable_draft3_with_codes%20(1).pdf)https://uploads.kiwiirc.com/files/57cee9ebe2cc015efa90db084e94a795/Acheron_Charcter_sheet_Refined_fillable_draft3_with_codes%20(1).pdf
9:07 PM +Gary: What is the total population of that… city? Megatropolis?
9:08 PM +Joe: This sheet has some calculation issues but is our newest fillable beta sheet.
9:08 PM +Gary: that is a cool sheet
9:09 PM +Joe: So for scale, within the wall there are about 60 US states worth of land. So Darkleechers washed up essentially upon the entire Eastern coast down to the Gulf of Mexico
9:09 PM +Joe: It was spread out but still, that’s a lot of people
9:09 PM +Joe: And thanks! We always hope it looks good 🙂
9:09 PM ~Dan: So it looks like we have an attribute + skill system here?
9:09 PM +Gary: Ok, that is a LOT of land
9:10 PM +Joe: Yes and yes
9:10 PM +Joe: A lot of land and as I mentioned our attributes/skills are influenced by 3.5/Pathfinder and Call of Cthulhu
9:10 PM ~Dan: The first thing I notice is that there don’t appear to be weapon skills. How are they handled?
9:11 PM +Joe: Using weapons is under abilities. For instance you must be trained in Pistols, for instance, or suffer a penalty to use them (-4 to your attack rolls).
9:12 PM +Joe: So anyone can attempt to use a weapon, but weapon specific abilities make it so you can become a master with a singular weapon
9:12 PM ~Dan: I see… And how does armor work in this game?
9:12 PM +Joe: So at first you would remove the negative from all pistols with an ability, then gain bonuses with others
9:13 PM +Joe: Armor is slightly complicated, and where a lot of our Crunch comes in
9:14 PM +Joe: We have four levels of Damage Reduction (DR). Each DR is specific to a certain type of damage (Slashing, Piercing, and Bludgeoning being the most common)
9:14 PM ~Dan: Well, I’m glad you use DR and not AC!
9:15 PM +Gary: I agree
9:15 PM +Joe: DR 1 = 1/2 damage, DR 2 = 1/4 damage, DR 3 = die damage (as if all die rolled landed on 1. DR 1/2 can also not be reduced below die damage), and DR4 = 1 damage
9:16 PM +Gary: that is a different approach… cool
9:16 PM +Joe: So, if you have DR2 vs Piercing, and are shot for 12 damage, you’d only take 3. Much more livable
9:16 PM * ~Dan nods
9:16 PM +Joe: We hope that it’s semi-complicated on first look but simple to use. So far it has been in our playtests
9:17 PM ~Dan: Oh, I forgot to ask about basic task resolution. Attribute + Skill + 1d20 vs. Target Number?
9:17 PM +Joe: Also, instead of AC, we have Evasion. Which is much, much lower than AC generally is in games such as Pathfinder/DnD
9:17 PM +Gary: If I can manage it, I may run an online playtest
9:17 PM +Gary: but I have a surgery coming up
9:17 PM +Joe: Do it Gary! We’d love to hear how it goes. Also I hope the surgery isn’t serious and that goes well too!
9:18 PM +Gary: thank you Joe
9:19 PM +Joe: Basic task resolution is, indeed, Attribute + Skill + 1d20 vs Target Number. We do have the option, if the skill nessisary isn’t available, to roll the attribute itself. So I may ask for an Intelligence roll from my players if they don’t have the Knowledge they need. It’s a harder DC, but still allows them to potentially get info they need.
9:19 PM +Joe: Of course Gary 🙂
9:20 PM ~Dan: I see Psychic Points and Mana… for Mancies and Magic, respectively?
9:20 PM +Joe: Abilities and Merits can also modify things. Such as giving re-rolls.
9:20 PM +Joe: Psychic Points are for Mancies, Mana is for Arcane magic
9:20 PM +Joe: Fae does temporary damage to Dexterity for it’s casting cost. Spirit is Wisdom
9:21 PM ~Dan: How do you use Mancies and Magic?
9:21 PM +Joe: Demonic Magic does health damage and Eldritch does temporary Int damage.
9:21 PM ~Dan: That’s an interesting approach, re: the costs of magic.
9:22 PM +Joe: Mancies, being fairly freeform, are used by following the guidelines for what a Mancer at your Level (1-5) can generally do and spending Psychic points. So a Level 1 Pyromancer can spend a point to set brush on fire while a Level 5 Pyromancer can spend 5 points to set a building on fire
9:22 PM ~Dan: That Eldritch bit could be particularly bad… You summon an Eldritch horror and leave yourself too dumb to either contain it or run from it!
9:23 PM +Joe: Magic is used by rolling your Occult skill over a spell risk. If successful the spell is cast. If unsuccessful it fails. In either case, you pay the cost.
9:24 PM ~Dan: (Are you doing okay on time? I feel like there’s more to discuss, but we’re about at the end of “regular” time.)
9:24 PM +Joe: All the magics have the give/take for their magics theme. Fae for instance is generally summoning Fae creatures to mess with your opponents, but they still mess with you (thus the loss of Dex). Eldritch you hit on the head. I
9:24 PM +Joe: I’ve got some more time 🙂
9:24 PM ~Dan: Cool. 🙂
9:25 PM +Gary: And I need the discord contact information 😀
9:25 PM +Joe: I love talking about Acheron so I’m happy to be here 🙂 You guys also ask great questions.
9:25 PM ~Dan: That gives me time to ask danhunsaker’s Favorite Question(TM)!
9:25 PM ~Dan: You there, danhunsaker?
9:25 PM +Joe: I’m ready!
9:25 PM +Joe: Also here is the Discord link: (Link: https://discord.gg/JWub2v9)https://discord.gg/JWub2v9
9:26 PM +Joe: Gary
9:26 PM ~Dan: Okay, since he’s not here, I’ll ask!
9:26 PM ~Dan: What is your *least* favorite aspect of Acheron?
9:26 PM +Joe: D:
9:27 PM ~Dan: Yes, it’s our Eldritch Horror of questions!
9:27 PM +Gary: Ok… I joined
9:27 PM +Joe: I think right now it’s the Background system we have. It feels lackluster and I really want to bring in elements from games like Burning Wheel where you make some choices and that gives you a background to work with
9:27 PM +Joe: Woooo glad you did Gary!
9:28 PM +Gary: thanks Joe
9:28 PM ~Dan: Good answer!
9:28 PM ~Dan: Given all of the differences, do you consider this to be a d20/D&D-based game?
9:28 PM +Joe: However, doing something complex for Backgrounds is a bit much for Acheron. At least that’s our current opinion considering we haven’t figured out a nice, simple way to implement what we want
9:28 PM ~Dan: Or just a game that uses a d20?
9:30 PM +Joe: I’d definitely say it’s d20 based but not DnD based. We have a lot of stuff from other totally unrelated/non-d20 systems that I think saying it’s DnD based would take away from all of those. Then again with how well 5e Setting guides do these days I have thought of doing a setting guide lol
9:30 PM * ~Dan nods
9:31 PM +Joe: I hope that explanation is good enough 😀
9:31 PM ~Dan: Oh, I forgot to ask while we were talking combat: How is damage determined? Do you use all the different die types for damage?
9:31 PM ~Dan: It is!
9:31 PM +Gary: I love the setting but sometimes I wonder why more ideas are not made as a setting minus the mechanics to be used in other RPGs
9:32 PM +Joe: Yes, we use all sorts of damage die. For reference a 9mm pistol deals 1d10. Our strongest weapon currently does 3d8 I believe (things get tweaked a lot on the high end)
9:33 PM +Joe: For us it really felt like we needed elements from a lot of different games, and a few of our own, to make the setting “feel” how we wanted it to.
9:33 PM ~Dan: Do you cover vehicle combat?
9:33 PM +Joe: YES! Vehicle combat is one of the things we’re most proud of
9:33 PM ~Dan: Really? That’s cool!
9:34 PM +Gary: I am interested to see those rules 🙂
9:34 PM ~Dan: On a scale of 1-10, 1 being completely gritty and 10 being over-the-top cinematic, where does Acheron fall?
9:35 PM +Gary: (by the way, I was not meaning to insult the mechanics of your game… I am sure they are great, it is just a lot of players would not want to step out of their comfort zone and learn a new system, even if it is not too unfamiliar)
9:36 PM +Joe: It’s based on Drive rolls to pull off different maneuvers. Such as J-turns, etc. Vehicles take damage to Sturdiness Points (ST) which essentially has DR3 at all times. So a shotgun that does 3d4 would deal 3 ST to a vehicle. We also use our Die Hard system for vehicles. So if a car you’re driving would take so much damage it would be destroyed you
9:36 PM +Joe: can have lose the top, or have a wheel blow out, the engine stall, etc.
9:36 PM +Joe: And no worries Gary we completely understand
9:36 PM +Gary: I love new systems
9:38 PM +Joe: Hmmmm Dan I’m not sure that’s a fair scale. We think it’s somewhere on the far ends for both. Gritty to us means how the world feels. Dangerous and those dangers can actually ruin you. But cinematic also since it’s not super crunchy. If it were a cinematic vs crunch I’d say we’re closer to cinematic
9:38 PM +Joe: Then again my reference for crunch is very, very crunchy
9:38 PM ~Dan: Okay, well, here’s my benchmark…
9:39 PM +Joe: Lay it on me!
9:39 PM ~Dan: Crashing through the skylight, both guns blazing: Cool and effective, or suicide?
9:40 PM +Joe: Depends on the planning. Totally works against humans without armor. Against a monster? Bad, bad idea
9:40 PM +Joe: We’re all about people having those awesome moments. But it comes at the price of preparing essentially
9:41 PM * ~Dan nods
9:41 PM +Joe: Jumping through a window, landing in front of a guy with a tommy gun, and knocking it out of his hands? I’ve done that!
9:41 PM ~Dan: Cool!
9:41 PM +Joe: With the same character I got punched really good in the face and almost died.
9:41 PM +Joe: In one case I was prepared for a fire fight. In the other I wasn’t prepared for a fist fight.
9:42 PM +Joe: Hopefully that explains why I’m not giving you straight answers lol
9:42 PM +Gary: I got punched in the nose once… almost wish I had died… it hurt so bad
9:42 PM ~Dan: Hmm. Sounds like you’re at maybe a 6-7, then. 🙂
9:42 PM +Joe: Yeah, getting punched is really no joke. I’ve seen people get KO’ed on accident. It’s…Rough.
9:42 PM +Joe: I’ll agree with than Dan, let’s call it a 6 🙂
9:42 PM ~Dan: Fair enough!
9:43 PM ~Dan: Let’s see… Is there anything we haven’t covered that you’d like to bring up? There’s lots of things I could delve into further, but I don’t want to keep you all night! 🙂
9:44 PM +Joe: I’d like to talk about our Sanity and Die Hard systems really quick if that’s okay. I think they’re part of the reason we needed a new system rather than just having a setting guide
9:44 PM +Gary: Yeah, sanity sounds inportant
9:44 PM ~Dan: Sure!
9:45 PM +Gary: My spehling is nawt gud
9:45 PM ~Dan: Take all the time you need, really. I’m not going anywhere. 🙂
9:45 PM +Joe: Sanity is broken up into three main categories: Violence, Morality, and Supernatural. Characters will have to chose what they’re strong, medium, and weak against (13, 10, and 7
9:46 PM +Gary: I saw that full up you would be at a score of 50
9:46 PM +Joe: So a character whose been a detective in a big city for years may be Strong (7) vs Violence, Medium (10) vs. Morality, and Weak (13) vs Supernatural
9:47 PM +Joe: I messed up the order in the opener. So Strong = 7, Medium = 10, and weak = 13. Just to reiterate and avoid confusion.
9:47 PM +Gary: gotcha
9:47 PM +Joe: Also your Sanity score is 5 x your Wisdom attribute score. So average is 50 Sanity.
9:48 PM +Gary: ahhhh I see
9:48 PM +Joe: Anyway, our Detective sees a ghost. Hes weak against supernatural sanity checks and doesn’t roll ABOVE a 13. So he takes 1d4 sanity damage. He sees a person be murdered, rolls easily above a 7, and doesn’t bat an eye. (These rolls are d20 rolls without any modifiers).
9:48 PM +Gary: So Wisdom is an important stat in the setting inspired by Lovecraft
9:49 PM +Joe: We broke Sanity up into these categories because we believed it to be more realistic than how Sanity works of Call of Cthulhu.
9:49 PM +Gary: Agreed
9:49 PM ~Dan: I agree. That’s a cool system!
9:49 PM +Joe: Once you lose 10 Sanity in a row, you can suffer a mental break (like in Darkest Dungeon) and either gain a flaw, have nothing happen, or maybe gain a merit.
9:50 PM +Gary: Darkest Dungeon rocks
9:50 PM ~Dan: And the Die Hard system?
9:50 PM +Joe: However, during the course of losing sanity you can do things, such as have drinks with friends, play with your dog, and go to therapy to regain sanity that you’ve lost at the cost of time. It’s another constant push/pull we have to get players more immersed in their characters.
9:51 PM ~Dan: Nice!
9:51 PM +Joe: Die Hard is much simpler to explain. Since our Combat is generally very deadly (average health is 6 while a 9mm does 1d10 dmg) we wanted a way for characters to mitigate death while still having consequences
9:52 PM +Joe: So, if a character would take a large amount of damage, they can instead negate that damage and take a permanent Flaw. Such as losing a limb or taking -2 to a attribute cap
9:52 PM +Gary: In Crusader Kings 3 they give your ruler the option of getting addicted to hashish to reduce your stress damage to avoid insanity
9:52 PM +Joe: Gary that’s basically what we’ve got 😀
9:53 PM +Gary: 😀
9:53 PM ~Dan: So if you screw up, you make a hash of things?
9:53 PM +Gary: And if you burn yourself you get hashbrowned
9:53 PM ~Dan: 😀
9:54 PM +Joe: Essentially, if I understand you correctly. Say you go to fight a monster but don’t do your research. You don’t find out that it spits acid so you don’t go in with protective gear. Acid goes into your eyes, you take the flaw “one-eyed” and mitigate the damge you would have taken
9:54 PM +Joe: Or, become hashbrowned 😀
9:54 PM +Gary: hehe
9:54 PM ~Dan: Well, there’s no need to run off, Joe, but I should probably log the chat if you think this is a good point.
9:55 PM ~Dan: Usual reminder: If you’ve enjoyed this Q&A and would like to treat me to a coffee or two, you can do so at (Link: https://www.ko-fi.com/gmshoe)https://www.ko-fi.com/gmshoe . Anything’s appreciated! 🙂
9:55 PM ~Dan: And by the way, please know that you’re always welcome to hang out with us, both here and in our Discord room!
9:55 PM +Joe: Thanks for having me Dan! It was a great Q&A
9:55 PM ~Dan: Good! I’m glad you enjoyed it. 🙂
9:56 PM +Joe: Do you have that Discord link handy by chance?
9:56 PM +Gary: Thanks for the good information Joe
9:56 PM ~Dan: Now, if you’ll give me just a sec, I’ll get the log posted and link you!
9:56 PM ~Dan: And sure, re: Discord…
9:56 PM +Joe: Thanks for the great questions Gary!
9:56 PM ~Dan: (Link: https://discord.gg/mCntYas)https://discord.gg/mCntYas
The Hardboiled GMshoe's Office 