This is the second part of Campaign Setting - Caprica and the 12 Colonies

I am a great fan of Battlestar Galactica.

Unfortunately, the show is over.
Fortunately, the makers are actually creating a new series - and it is set in the same "setting", but before the first Cylon War.

The show is called Caprica and the pilot is out on DVD. I watched and enjoyed it, and I am looking forward to the series so far.
(In related news, I am looking forward to the soundtrack, since I love Bear McCrearys work on BSG, Terminator and now Caprica. )

I know there is a BSG RPG out there, but I always felt that Galactica was too confined to make me feel comfortable with the idea of running a game there.

But Caprica is another matter. You've got 12 worlds colonized by humans. It is not Earth, it's not a colony of Earth. The setting is science fiction, but it's not a space opera with large Empires, full of aliens and anything. In many ways, it is still Earth, except with a different history, different cultures and religions, and a little more advanced technology. Sure, they can travel space faster than light, but they don't really go far.


And so I thought - hey, Caprica might actually make a decent Campaign Setting. The humans and many details are still like on Earth, but the history is different and less well known, giving a DM and players more freedom to redefine things.
That was the first idea. The 12 Colonies have enough stuff to explore - be it the Colonial history, the relationships between the Colonies before the Cylon War, the role of large corporations and criminal organizations, the appearance of Cylons, the first Cylon War, the struggles of the 12 Colonies after the first Cylon War, the Faith of the 12 Gods and the "One True God" - There's lots of stuff to explore.

But then I thought a little further - how about adding ideas from Dark*Matter? Or how about adding my ideas for a "spacefaring" Mutants & Mastermind game?

There are a few games set on Earth or based on Earth being the origin of mankind. How about replacing Earth with Caprica (or the 12 Colonies)? Earth, its history and its customs, they are not relevant. Earth is just a myth from ancient religious strictures, at best a side-line to the 12 Colonies and definitely not the origin of mankind.

But we still have a setting full of people "like us" with a few twists. One could run a superhero game set on Caprica. Or how about Shadowrun? Dark*Matter is obviously possible, too. (One might replace the Grays with "Angels" perhaps? Or with the 12 Lords of Kobol?)

There are a lot of interesting possibilities. Even as I am writing this down, I find interesting concepts (I came up with using Shadowrun while composing this blog entry!)

I don't know yet if I will actually go this route. I might do it, I might not. My Dark*Matter/Aerth idea actually used elements of our recent history, and it wouldn't work so well on Caprica. But other stuff might work great!

I don't know if the creators of the Battlestar Galactica Game will also create a Caprica game, or if there ever will be one. I kinda hope someone will pick it up.
Generally, I'd love to see the BSG:TNS/Caprica world to become a real "franchise" (though we might have a very small timeline to work with, unlike in Star Wars or Star Trek), but at least Caprica could become a good and interesting campaign setting.

It would be cool if someone would also make it work with different genres. Just like the authors of the show of Galactica and now Caprica are using it as a vehicle to tell their stories, others could use it tell their stories. With the right mixture of fleshing out details and leaving them open, one can create a setting that can be used for everything one could use on Earth - but remove most of the stuff one doesn't like. (Of course, it might be more interesting for writers that want to explore politics and philosophical thoughts that are harder to talk about if you refer to real world nations, cultures and religions. You get freed of "political correctness", and also gain a new angle on a topic).
From the Gamer angle, one of the advantage is that many elements of the campaign setting are still understood, and even if not - the world is still very similar to ours, at least in the "every-day" situations that we'd almost feel at home - but are still prepared for surprises.

So, what do you think? Wanna create your own [Genre] Caprica game? Or rather stay on Earth? (Or on Oerth, Eberron or Dere?)

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Preparing for an adventure I might soon run in an live online game, I looked at the skill challenge rules again. I noticed something that I had missed so far:

Seems like there are a little more suggestions on how scaling challenges can be achieved, though it still focus on the perspective of party level and doesn't look at it from a game world consistency perspective.

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A friend of mine mentioned that he had recently started his own blog on role-playing.
http://blogs.cloneworks.de/herzlich/

Since he linked to me, I decided to return the favor. So. if you're a German (speaking) gamer, this might be something for you!

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There are other ways to use the basic idea of skill challenges. Here's another one...

INTRODUCTION
Several people have trouble accepting the new power system of D&D 4. They prefer a more simulationist or immersive approach where character and player perspective are not so distinct.
I like the new approach simply because it guarantees the play experience it wants to achieve, instead of trying to hide the game effects by complex rules. But it means that you directly "see" at the bare bones of the system and it's harder to pretend its not there.

INFLUENCES
My previous post on skill challenges or compensatory challenges were one influence for my ideas here. Another influence is Iron Heroes Token gaining system, and yet another the Tactical Feats of D&D 3.5.


THOUGHTS ALONG THE WAY
There were a few other ideas that I had when I created the Combat Challenges, but I think I will reserve this for another post.


IDEA
So, the idea is we want to replicate the feel of characters using special maneuvers, but we don't want them to perform them all the time, because that becomes either boring or too powerful.
So, my idea was to use a skill challenge like mechanic to "qualify" for powers. Each attack roll is essentially a check of the challenge, and if you succeed the challenge, you can use the encoutner. In game, each success represents your ability to get your enemies into positions more advantagous to you, pump up your adrenaline, learn something about your foe and similar stuff.

COMBAT CHALLENGEs
A Combat Challenge allows you to perform an Encounter or Daily power you know, and is somewhat similar to a skill challenge, but it relies on attacks instead of skills and the DCs are based on your opponents.

Each successful standard attack you make causes as a success in a combat challenge, and each failed attack as a failure. You can gain only one success or failure per round.

To use an encounter power you need two successes and no more then one failure.
To use a daily power, you need four successes and no more then two failures.
Note down each round whether you had a success or a failure. Note success and failures seperately for encounter and daily powers.
If you have accrued enough successes, you can at any point after that time use one encounter power.
If you have to much failures for the encounter or daily combat challenge, start counting again. Once you have qualified for any such power, reset all your success and failure encounters, and note down that you have qualified to use a power until you have used it.
If you use a reliable power and fail the attack, you can continue to use it.

Recharge Powers work similar to encounter powers, but each time the creature rolls a succesful recharge, it gains one extra success it can only use for that power.

Variations
You can spend an action point to negate a failure.
You can spend an action point on an attack to gain an automatic success.
You can decide for any attack not to be part of the challenge (but you can't spend an action point to gain a success then.)


The default assumption is that each standard attack counts for the challenge, and you can chose any encounter or daily power.
You could further resrict the ability to say that the player has to declare which encounter or daily he wants to perform.
You could restrict the allowable attacks to basic attacks only, or at-will powers only, or expand them to also cover immedate attacks and opportunity attacs.
You could also say that you must designate the opponent for each challenge you perform, and even track challenges seperately for each opponent.

Disadvantages
This system doesn't ensure that people won't always go for the same powers.
I don't know if it would actually be balanced, or if some things have to become harder (dailies?)
The system requires a lot more book-keeping. (I think that is one of the reasons why power point or token systems were eventually not used for 4E.)
The system does not utility powers in this form.
The system also greatly limits the control over the use of powers, hinging it all on your luck with the dice. What might be missing is the ability to make a decisive attack when needed - you have to hope it works out and you get your daily effect when you need it. This can be very important for dailies that affect the entire encounter.

The system looks fine for martial abilities, but how does it stand for magical abilites? Does the fluff still work? I suppose each succesful attack against an opponent could represent you manipulating divine or arcana mana to "weave" your magic around the targets or in the area, and if you have have affected enough mana, you can create particularly strong effects.

House Rule thread:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthr...62#post4380562

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Runechildren
Runechildren were a special kind of template in Arcana Evolved. In the world of the Diamond Throne, Runechildren were people with a strong destiny, destined to bring needed help and relief. Nobody knew where their power came from, but it was known that some exemplary people fighting against evil, oppression or injustice found themselves suddenly imbued with powerful runes, granting them unusual abilities.
In a way, Runechildren share concepts with the Eberron Dragonmark (but they predate them), but they are also very different – Dragonmarks are inherited marks you are born with – they are not “rewards” for anything. Runechildren power granted strong abilities and spell-like abilities, but Dragonmarks are usually weaker.

From all the elements of the Diamond Throne conversions, this might be the easiest to adapt to any campaign - you could change its flavor to a "Tatooed Monk", a variant implementation of Dragonmarks, or a special "Bloodline" - there are probably a lot of options.

I am usually assuming full 4E rules, therefore the prerequisite contains the limitation to good characters. Alignments are originally unused in Arcana Evolved. As always, it's trivially easy to ignore the alignment restrictions - it is a purely thematic limitations, not a game balance element.

I chose to represent the Runechildren with a Paragon Path and an Epic Destiny.

Paragon Path – Runechild
Prerequisite: Good or Lawful Good alignment

Runechild Perfection I (11th): You gain a +2 bonus to your weakest defense score and a +1 bonus on all saving throws. If there is a tie between defense scores, you may freely select one of them.

Runechild Action (11th): You can spend an action point to regain one encounter power you already expended instead of gaining an extra action.

Runechild Perfection II (16th): You gain a +2 bonus to your lowest ability score. If there is a tie, you may freely select one of them.

Special: Chose one class role (Controller, Defender, Leader or Striker) – you must have access to powers of a class with that role (either due to your class or due to multi-classing).

As 11th level, pick any 5th level or lower encounter attack power of a class with the chosen role. Add the rune keyword to the power.

As 12th level utility power, pick any 6th level or lower utility power of your chosen role. Add the rune keyword to the power.

As 20th level daily attack power, pick any 15th level or lower power of a class of your chosen role. Add the rune keyword to the power.

Notes:


Rune Messiah
Prerequisite: 21st level, Good or Lawful Good, Runechild Paragon Path (and possibly: Runelord Paragon Path, if there was such a Path already)

Rune Messiahs Focus (21th level):
You gain a +2 bonus to one ability score of your choice.

Rune Messiahs Resurrection (24th level):
Once per day, when you die your body floats explodes in a shining beacon of light. You cannot move except float up to 2 squares upwards, and cannot use any powers or attacks.
The light deals 10 points of ongoing radiant damage to all enemies in a 10 square area burst, or any enemy entering the area for the first time. The first successful save reduces the damage to 5, and the second successful save reduces it to 2, the third negates it entirely. The effect lasts until the end of the encounter, when your body reforms, healed of all hit point damage.

Rune Messiahs Action (30th):
You can spend an action point to regain any daily or encounter power with the runic keyword that you already expended.

Messianic Intervention – Rune Messiah Epic Utility 26
Daily – Rune, Healing
Action: Immediate Reaction; Area: Close Burst 10
Target: The triggering ally
Trigger: One allies hit points in area are reduced to 0 hit points or less.
Effect: Your ally can spend a healing surge, and he gains temporary hit points as if he had spend a healing surge. If your ally does not have a healing surge, you can spend your own, if you want so. The target gains the temporary hit points regardless of whether he still has a healing surge or not.

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