Dias Ex Machina
Publisher / Game Designer
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DiasExMachina 4ED Update
Dias Ex Machina
Publisher / Game Designer
Just so everyone knows
Goodman Games
Wheels are moving...
Like I said, I think it looks great. Check out the link and make sure your game store gets it.
Goodman Games
Wheels are moving...
Like I said, I think it looks great. Check out the link and make sure your game store gets it.
Dias Ex Machina
Publisher / Game Designer
June Marks two important events. One is the release of the Amethyst FreeRPGDay module, Hearts of Chaos. The second is the publication of the second issue of Goodman's Level Up magazine, which features an article on Amethyst. The article features some of my best writing. I tried to lock down in under 2500 words everything about Amethyst I love. I tried to write from what I know, as if selling it to myself rather than trying to imagine what readers would want me to say. There are no rules in the article, just pure setting and imagination. All the aspects of the setting are touched upon but even this does not fully encapsulate everything we are trying to achieve. All the work we put into the four techan classes or the new races or paragon paths was time consuming and enjoyable but it's the setting that I have the most fun writing for. It's not often a role playing game is released that tries to inject a heavy dose of philosophy in its presentation.
It is more than the simple conflict of chaos and order (order being the force of evil and chaos being the force of good) but also about freedom of choice. I am dealing with similar issues in NeuroSpasta but that game directly goes after consumerism and the definition of a democracy in a growing capitalist society (yeah, you just read that). Amethyst proposes what kind of choices people would make when faced with the possibilities of not being tied down to any ethnicity, any government, or any religion. Even your own genes can't claim control of your actions as the fae run against the normal inclinations of a biological creature. Humans wandering the world of magic are placed under that same pressure.
In bastions, people have the reliability and safety of technology so they can live longer and happier, but they are by no means free. The chaos of the world around--the very freedom of endless possibilities--actually keeps those people trapped. The freedom of anarchy keeps those in bastions from being completely un-tethered. They would claim this is the sacrifice one must make. If you want to be content and safe, certain liberties need to be lifted...not unlike certain controversies occurring around the world today. In the real world, we see government regulations lifted in exchange for a free market, which ends up creating chaos, forcing governments back in to regulate it. In Amethyst, bastions are formed from a united need to survive and maintain the traditions of technological man and with the parables to their old ways, the people may believe themselves in a democracy but they are not, as their desires and wants as well as their need for safety dictates the actions of their leaders. Politicians, meanwhile, maintain power over their population by using their fear of the outside world to limit their liberties. Those in the fantasy world, despite being under equal threats, have an expanding landscape to their own. Limshau and Abidan, for example, are ruled under positive ideologies, with an optimistic view of the future. It makes you wonder what kind of world we would have if you were to remove all borders, ethnic conflicts, and erase the rampant consumerism the free market has make us believe is necessary. In many ways the order/chaos conflict of Amethyst can also be read as a clash between freedom and suppression--where the freedom is the limitless scope of imagination and the suppression is the maturity of the individual into the role of pacified consumer.
And this is a role playing games, folks...
It is more than the simple conflict of chaos and order (order being the force of evil and chaos being the force of good) but also about freedom of choice. I am dealing with similar issues in NeuroSpasta but that game directly goes after consumerism and the definition of a democracy in a growing capitalist society (yeah, you just read that). Amethyst proposes what kind of choices people would make when faced with the possibilities of not being tied down to any ethnicity, any government, or any religion. Even your own genes can't claim control of your actions as the fae run against the normal inclinations of a biological creature. Humans wandering the world of magic are placed under that same pressure.
In bastions, people have the reliability and safety of technology so they can live longer and happier, but they are by no means free. The chaos of the world around--the very freedom of endless possibilities--actually keeps those people trapped. The freedom of anarchy keeps those in bastions from being completely un-tethered. They would claim this is the sacrifice one must make. If you want to be content and safe, certain liberties need to be lifted...not unlike certain controversies occurring around the world today. In the real world, we see government regulations lifted in exchange for a free market, which ends up creating chaos, forcing governments back in to regulate it. In Amethyst, bastions are formed from a united need to survive and maintain the traditions of technological man and with the parables to their old ways, the people may believe themselves in a democracy but they are not, as their desires and wants as well as their need for safety dictates the actions of their leaders. Politicians, meanwhile, maintain power over their population by using their fear of the outside world to limit their liberties. Those in the fantasy world, despite being under equal threats, have an expanding landscape to their own. Limshau and Abidan, for example, are ruled under positive ideologies, with an optimistic view of the future. It makes you wonder what kind of world we would have if you were to remove all borders, ethnic conflicts, and erase the rampant consumerism the free market has make us believe is necessary. In many ways the order/chaos conflict of Amethyst can also be read as a clash between freedom and suppression--where the freedom is the limitless scope of imagination and the suppression is the maturity of the individual into the role of pacified consumer.
And this is a role playing games, folks...
Having bought the 3.5 hardback while it was avaiable at Lulu, and reading these updates, I have to admit I am really looking forward to the 4E release.
I have to admit that the Tenebri and Tilen are my favorite races of the setting and I intend to convert them over to my Pathfinder homebrew, with the Tenebri replacing the elves of the setting.
I have to admit that the Tenebri and Tilen are my favorite races of the setting and I intend to convert them over to my Pathfinder homebrew, with the Tenebri replacing the elves of the setting.
Dias Ex Machina
Publisher / Game Designer
If that is true, Silver...then may I also suggest picking up the third issue of Goodman's Level Up as well. No reason. 
NeuroSpasta reached 129,000 words today. What's left? A few little things here and there...languages and currency for one. We just finished robots. Robots represent a new approach we had not thought of until we tackled it. Like we mentioned earlier, we are striving to create a money sink for every type of class. Whether it be weapons, armor, vehicles, or cybernetics, everyone has something to spend their money on. Robots are a new addition and a great way for non-combat orientated characters to spend their money. What we needed to conquer was a way for a player to either let the robot control itself or to take control of it directly. What advantages would there be to control the robot directly over letting it handle itself. We wanted the player to use actions to control their robots over letting the machines control themselves. We needed to really think about it and the answer came naturally. The system in place is easy and uses mechanics within 4th Edition which allows the robot/s to get better with level progression. We have base weapon platforms, rover robots, and android bodyguards. Of course, these can also all be used as monsters as well. Monsters, by the way, are the only real thing we have left to do.
NeuroSpasta reached 129,000 words today. What's left? A few little things here and there...languages and currency for one. We just finished robots. Robots represent a new approach we had not thought of until we tackled it. Like we mentioned earlier, we are striving to create a money sink for every type of class. Whether it be weapons, armor, vehicles, or cybernetics, everyone has something to spend their money on. Robots are a new addition and a great way for non-combat orientated characters to spend their money. What we needed to conquer was a way for a player to either let the robot control itself or to take control of it directly. What advantages would there be to control the robot directly over letting it handle itself. We wanted the player to use actions to control their robots over letting the machines control themselves. We needed to really think about it and the answer came naturally. The system in place is easy and uses mechanics within 4th Edition which allows the robot/s to get better with level progression. We have base weapon platforms, rover robots, and android bodyguards. Of course, these can also all be used as monsters as well. Monsters, by the way, are the only real thing we have left to do.
Dias Ex Machina
Publisher / Game Designer
Our friends at Gnome Stew posted a great review of our Hearts of Chaos module.
Dias Ex Machina
Publisher / Game Designer
Just FYI
A lot of people have been asking if the our well-received Free RPG Module "Hearts of Chaos" is going to be offered outside of the event. I just found out, it will be made available. The HOC module will be released in mid July in PDF. It "should" include both the print module and the download package. If not, you can still down the supplement from us.
A lot of people have been asking if the our well-received Free RPG Module "Hearts of Chaos" is going to be offered outside of the event. I just found out, it will be made available. The HOC module will be released in mid July in PDF. It "should" include both the print module and the download package. If not, you can still down the supplement from us.
Dias Ex Machina
Publisher / Game Designer
More from our friends at Gnomes Stew. On Friday, July 10th, they will be running an article on NeuroSpasta. This will include never before released information on the setting and game mechanics as well as an exclusive preview of the game's breathtaking logo.
Dias Ex Machina
Publisher / Game Designer
Eighteen groups are currently playtesting NeuroSpasta. So far, feedback has been positive and useful. There have been quite a few issues we have tried to deal with. Some of them relate to Amethyst.
The most notable of these have dealt with ammunition usage and firearm damage.
I have noticed quite a few homebrew gamers working on their own variation of modern weapons. In every situation, we here at DEM have felt the damage outputs of these weapons have been remarkably high. Simply put, there is this common belief that a 9mm round will do two or three times more damage than say, a broadsword.
When did this occur?
Comparing a pistol to a short sword and saying the pistol should do more damage makes little sense to me. Compare a Heavy machine gun to a katana? The only advantage a firearm has to a melee weapon is range. When it came to actual physical damage to an unarmed opponent, the melee weapon wins. Yet I see these damage capacities for weapons listed as 2d10 and 3d6. Yes, pistols in Amethyst and NeuroSpasta do 1d4 - 1d6. Two-handed weapons like rifles and small machine guns do 1d8. Heavy machine guns do 1d8 to 2d6. Amethyst has enhancements so that a railgun is a +4 weapon and a laser is a +5 weapon. Further, NeuroSpasta has both hardness values and armor penetration so that a pistol cannot damage a tank while a tank will utterly destroy a normal person.
The other point was ammo. Simply put, we didn't want to confuse issues so rapid fire weapons were always in increments of 5 but even adding additional rounds, the damage increase was not severe. This was because we didn't want the damage capacities of firearms to get away from us. In the end, your powers will dictate your high-damage hits, not the weapons. This was another fact people seemed to forget. In Amethyst, yes, a machine gun does 1d8...but certain powers with them are 6[W]. That's an insane amount of damage from only 10 bullets. The other point is that ammunition usage can really get away from you. If you do an area effect with a heavy weapon, targeting 6 guys and you go full out with Burst fire, you just used 90 rounds of ammunition in 6 seconds. That seems a lot, right? Check out the M-60 and see how many rounds of ammunition it can fire in 5 seconds (here's a hint, its 92). Thankfully, there is also a feat which reduces this number. Yes, this means you'll be changing clips. Yes this means you may run out of ammo. This is the problem you must contend with in a modern game with firearms.
Another issue was movement. In both Amethyst and NeuroSpasta, if you move before you fire your weapon, you incur a -1 penalty to attack rolls. This means if you don't want this penalty, you will have to shoot first and then move on your round. Heavy weapons are even worse; it's a -4 penalty if you move before shooting. Yes, its high...it's almost useless to even shoot. That's the point. Despite what you have seen in movies, it is nearly impossible to fire a heavy weapon while running at full speed. Thankfully, certain classes suppress or decrease this penalty. In Amethyst, the Grounder ignores the penalty of two handed small-arms and heavy weapons are treated as two-handed small arms. In NeuroSpasta, both the Heavy and Man-At-Arms classes feature similar rules (the Heavy gains it with heavy weapons; Man-At-Arms gains it with two-handed small arms). We were more worried about ammunition usage in Amethyst because players have to buy everything. In NeuroSpasta, bullets flow like water.
Next time, I talk philosophy again...
...I can hear you groaning...
The most notable of these have dealt with ammunition usage and firearm damage.
I have noticed quite a few homebrew gamers working on their own variation of modern weapons. In every situation, we here at DEM have felt the damage outputs of these weapons have been remarkably high. Simply put, there is this common belief that a 9mm round will do two or three times more damage than say, a broadsword.
When did this occur?
Comparing a pistol to a short sword and saying the pistol should do more damage makes little sense to me. Compare a Heavy machine gun to a katana? The only advantage a firearm has to a melee weapon is range. When it came to actual physical damage to an unarmed opponent, the melee weapon wins. Yet I see these damage capacities for weapons listed as 2d10 and 3d6. Yes, pistols in Amethyst and NeuroSpasta do 1d4 - 1d6. Two-handed weapons like rifles and small machine guns do 1d8. Heavy machine guns do 1d8 to 2d6. Amethyst has enhancements so that a railgun is a +4 weapon and a laser is a +5 weapon. Further, NeuroSpasta has both hardness values and armor penetration so that a pistol cannot damage a tank while a tank will utterly destroy a normal person.
The other point was ammo. Simply put, we didn't want to confuse issues so rapid fire weapons were always in increments of 5 but even adding additional rounds, the damage increase was not severe. This was because we didn't want the damage capacities of firearms to get away from us. In the end, your powers will dictate your high-damage hits, not the weapons. This was another fact people seemed to forget. In Amethyst, yes, a machine gun does 1d8...but certain powers with them are 6[W]. That's an insane amount of damage from only 10 bullets. The other point is that ammunition usage can really get away from you. If you do an area effect with a heavy weapon, targeting 6 guys and you go full out with Burst fire, you just used 90 rounds of ammunition in 6 seconds. That seems a lot, right? Check out the M-60 and see how many rounds of ammunition it can fire in 5 seconds (here's a hint, its 92). Thankfully, there is also a feat which reduces this number. Yes, this means you'll be changing clips. Yes this means you may run out of ammo. This is the problem you must contend with in a modern game with firearms.
Another issue was movement. In both Amethyst and NeuroSpasta, if you move before you fire your weapon, you incur a -1 penalty to attack rolls. This means if you don't want this penalty, you will have to shoot first and then move on your round. Heavy weapons are even worse; it's a -4 penalty if you move before shooting. Yes, its high...it's almost useless to even shoot. That's the point. Despite what you have seen in movies, it is nearly impossible to fire a heavy weapon while running at full speed. Thankfully, certain classes suppress or decrease this penalty. In Amethyst, the Grounder ignores the penalty of two handed small-arms and heavy weapons are treated as two-handed small arms. In NeuroSpasta, both the Heavy and Man-At-Arms classes feature similar rules (the Heavy gains it with heavy weapons; Man-At-Arms gains it with two-handed small arms). We were more worried about ammunition usage in Amethyst because players have to buy everything. In NeuroSpasta, bullets flow like water.
Next time, I talk philosophy again...
...I can hear you groaning...
Dias Ex Machina
Publisher / Game Designer
Today, I begin a series of articles on the details of the NeuroSpasta setting, specifically around many of the philosophical points being presented.
Archon is considered the prototype of not only a new government, but a new mindset. It is considered by proponents and critics alike as the catalyst for the slow elimination of ethnic groups and traditional values. This is due not only by the city's policy, but by its level of technological advancement and that advancement's effect on its population and state of mind. Archon is not alone in this trend, though it is considered the trailblazer. Other progressive municipalities, like Tokyo, Berlin, and Brasilia, although following this similar trend, and decades ahead of most of the rest of planet, still pales in the progress of Archon, the test bed of nearly every technological breakthrough not subsidized or controlled by one government. The most obvious and significant example of this development is the SEED, which is prevalent in 99% of the working population of Archon, more than any other region on Earth. Archon also has a largest ratio of prosthetics and virtuants, though Japan still prides itself the largest manufacturer and operator of robots. With no history to call its own, Archon became the refuge of millions seeking a new life or to escape their old one, thus the draw by those with questionable ethnicity. As the development of cybernetics increased and the potential of the Seed expanded into regions the designers thought possible, yet the public was not expecting the mindsets of the residents of Archon began to differ from those living in traditional nations. This included their concepts of free will, consumerism, self-identity, and the definition of what makes one human.
When the SEED prototype was revealed, it was advertised as the greatest single advancement of mankind since the internet, not in as much as the breakthroughs of cybernetics and nanotechnology, but in its potential effect on the human race. Before, internet users were limited to sharing clumsily worded blogs or ineffectual data bursts of 140 characters. More devoted supporters would upload and share video and music files across massive social networking sites. With the SEED, such archaic social circles became obsolete. Not only could every brain be a hub of social interaction, but there was no longer a limit of which human senses to convey. With the SEED's capacity to record incoming stimuli, new networking sites that popped up strained the bandwidths of current internet providers. By then, traffic had already reached a point of hundreds of petabytes of data being moved across the planet every minute. The entire planet would have to share the workload to meet the demands of the new generation. There were few networks which were rooted entirely in one location, facilitating the demand for even more powerful central computers, which led to gargantuan servers like MCP and SIM. Of them all, MCP was the largest, and designed to handle such huge amounts of information. It became the home of nearly every social interacting site in the world. With a free and virtually unlimited refuge of data, the amount of uploadable information skyrocketed, which resulted in even more consumers purchasing and installing SEEDS. The majority of this uploaded information came in the form of human memory, which users were recording and uploading at an alarming rate. Not just the venue of pornography, these memory-swaps grew in size as people began uploading their vacations, sports victories--any event that someone else could find entertaining. Eventually, even the mundane found demand. Some users got to uploading every single moment of their lives online, in some insane drive for immortality. A user wishing to access the memory need only stream it from the site and experience it as fresh as if he or she were living in the moment.
The fear emerged quickly that people would stop living their own lives and the true progress of civilization would only experienced by a handful and shared with the mindless masses below. They would unplug themselves from their more interesting surrogate to eat and sleep and resume following the loves and pains of the one that actually lived. A later modification made the addition even more alluring, when a brilliant programmer by the name of Akira Okuda developed the TCA protocol. Okuda had attention deficit disorder and had grown impatient with his streaming memoires. The Time Compression algorithm software became standard with GNOSOS 1.2. Okuda had calculated how fast a human being could receive and process a memory and developed a system which streamed the incoming memory much faster than real time. To the viewer, the memory appeared normal and the experience was "lived" in normal time, but when disengaged from the memory, less than a fifth the time had actually passed. Now the concern would be that people wouldn't make room for their own memories, only download more from others.
End part 1...
Archon is considered the prototype of not only a new government, but a new mindset. It is considered by proponents and critics alike as the catalyst for the slow elimination of ethnic groups and traditional values. This is due not only by the city's policy, but by its level of technological advancement and that advancement's effect on its population and state of mind. Archon is not alone in this trend, though it is considered the trailblazer. Other progressive municipalities, like Tokyo, Berlin, and Brasilia, although following this similar trend, and decades ahead of most of the rest of planet, still pales in the progress of Archon, the test bed of nearly every technological breakthrough not subsidized or controlled by one government. The most obvious and significant example of this development is the SEED, which is prevalent in 99% of the working population of Archon, more than any other region on Earth. Archon also has a largest ratio of prosthetics and virtuants, though Japan still prides itself the largest manufacturer and operator of robots. With no history to call its own, Archon became the refuge of millions seeking a new life or to escape their old one, thus the draw by those with questionable ethnicity. As the development of cybernetics increased and the potential of the Seed expanded into regions the designers thought possible, yet the public was not expecting the mindsets of the residents of Archon began to differ from those living in traditional nations. This included their concepts of free will, consumerism, self-identity, and the definition of what makes one human.
When the SEED prototype was revealed, it was advertised as the greatest single advancement of mankind since the internet, not in as much as the breakthroughs of cybernetics and nanotechnology, but in its potential effect on the human race. Before, internet users were limited to sharing clumsily worded blogs or ineffectual data bursts of 140 characters. More devoted supporters would upload and share video and music files across massive social networking sites. With the SEED, such archaic social circles became obsolete. Not only could every brain be a hub of social interaction, but there was no longer a limit of which human senses to convey. With the SEED's capacity to record incoming stimuli, new networking sites that popped up strained the bandwidths of current internet providers. By then, traffic had already reached a point of hundreds of petabytes of data being moved across the planet every minute. The entire planet would have to share the workload to meet the demands of the new generation. There were few networks which were rooted entirely in one location, facilitating the demand for even more powerful central computers, which led to gargantuan servers like MCP and SIM. Of them all, MCP was the largest, and designed to handle such huge amounts of information. It became the home of nearly every social interacting site in the world. With a free and virtually unlimited refuge of data, the amount of uploadable information skyrocketed, which resulted in even more consumers purchasing and installing SEEDS. The majority of this uploaded information came in the form of human memory, which users were recording and uploading at an alarming rate. Not just the venue of pornography, these memory-swaps grew in size as people began uploading their vacations, sports victories--any event that someone else could find entertaining. Eventually, even the mundane found demand. Some users got to uploading every single moment of their lives online, in some insane drive for immortality. A user wishing to access the memory need only stream it from the site and experience it as fresh as if he or she were living in the moment.
The fear emerged quickly that people would stop living their own lives and the true progress of civilization would only experienced by a handful and shared with the mindless masses below. They would unplug themselves from their more interesting surrogate to eat and sleep and resume following the loves and pains of the one that actually lived. A later modification made the addition even more alluring, when a brilliant programmer by the name of Akira Okuda developed the TCA protocol. Okuda had attention deficit disorder and had grown impatient with his streaming memoires. The Time Compression algorithm software became standard with GNOSOS 1.2. Okuda had calculated how fast a human being could receive and process a memory and developed a system which streamed the incoming memory much faster than real time. To the viewer, the memory appeared normal and the experience was "lived" in normal time, but when disengaged from the memory, less than a fifth the time had actually passed. Now the concern would be that people wouldn't make room for their own memories, only download more from others.
End part 1...
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