Episode 10 - A Night with a Twist

 Jaephing has the best night he will never remember. The next morning, elements of Jaephing's past are revealed.

• To read synopsis and rules descriptions, visit https://roll4saves.blogspot.com
• To hear Roll 4 Saves in a podcast, visit https://anchor.fm/roll4saves, search for it on the podcatcher of your choice, or follow the links in the side menu.
• To see Roll 4 Saves in videos, visit https://www.youtube.com/@roll4saves
• To support this content and gain access to the Roll 4 Saves documentation, visit https://www.patreon.com/roll4saves
• Questions and Comments are best left at roll4saves@gmail.com

Play Games and Have Fun!

Episode 9 - The Next Mission

 In this episode, Jaephing is chosen to get information from Detective Yuzu; who is tied to the syndicate.

• To read synopsis and rules descriptions, visit https://roll4saves.blogspot.com
• To hear Roll 4 Saves in a podcast, visit https://anchor.fm/roll4saves, search for it on the podcatcher of your choice, or follow the links in the side menu.
• To see Roll 4 Saves in videos, visit https://www.youtube.com/@roll4saves
• To support this content and gain access to the Roll 4 Saves documentation, visit https://www.patreon.com/roll4saves
• Questions and Comments are best left at roll4saves@gmail.com

Play Games and Have Fun!

Radio GaGA

 I was finishing up Brandon Sanderson's Rhythm of War. Then I was browsing NetFlix, and realized Oxenfree was available through the service, so I started playing it.

These two media are not related. Rhythm of War is about magical people caught in a war between fragments of a god. Oxenfree is a video game about mundane teenagers stuck on a creepy island.

But I had a moment when these two media blended together.

In Rhythm of War, one group of characters are exploring how the planet's natural tones (sounds and rhythms) affect the different forms of magical light. 

In Oxenfree, your character has a radio that picks up paranormal broadcasts and affects things on the island.

CRASH! my brain slammed these ideas together!

What if Mages in a story can tune into various magical frequencies. They can then amplify, modulate, or decompress the frequencies to cause specific magical effects.

So one frequency might cause combustion, but another might link the mage and a target so they can speak telepathically.

I started researching radios. I remembered that some radios had literal crystals for diodes. I watch videos and read about them. I refreshed my understanding of AM vs FM, and the fundamentals of electromagnetic waves, carrier waves, wavelengths, crests and troughs.

Here is what I came up with.

Coherers

A world, probably secret-magic urban fantasy, where a very tiny minority are sensitive to paranormal broadcasts. These people call themselves Coherers, while others call them devils, witches, or sorcerers. 

Broadcasts

There are about 10 known broadcasts. I haven't set them all down on paper, yet.

Each one has a unique strangeness to it.

For example, if you tune into the one for combustion, you hear chanting in what sounds like a Latin-based language, but has proven to be indecipherable. If you tune into the one that allows you to manipulate electronics, you hear a stereo-phonic screeching that seems to run from ear to ear and back again.

Coherers' Tools

There are crystals that coherers prize. Different crystals help the focus of a particular broadcast. So maybe a red one for the combustion broadcast, a cyan one for controlling electronics.

Then there are the wands, basically antennae the Coherers can use to make accessing broadcasts easy.

Coherers' Banes

There are items that negate the broadcasts. Faraday cages will prevent a Coherer from accessing any broadcast, and jammers will make tuning in difficult.

There are those that hunt the Coherer, either for study or extermination.

There are those that attempt to harness the broadcasts with mundane means, such as cobbled together magi-tech radios. Thus making it so anyone with the right device can be a mage.

The Big Problem

With the blanketing of the world in a soup of radio waves (think TV, Radio, Bluetooth, WiFi, 3g, 4g, 5g, etc); the waves are interfering with each other. This leads to anomalies. Dangerous events and entities, that only the Coherers, and their understanding of broadcasts can stop.

So, The Plot

The characters are new coherers that are brought into this small society. Hunted by the anti-coherers, and dogged by intra-coherer politics.

Their main task is to get a handle on the anomalies.

But they also need to stop the development and distribution of the magi-tech radios.

 They also try to stop the distribution of coherer technology (the magi-tech radios). They probably need to navigate intra-coherer politics.

Also, if the anomalies aren't stopped it might expose the whole premise or destroy the world.

Technology - Why do you Hate Me

7000 miles 

In a little over a month, I'm going to be taking a loong flight with my daughter. From start to finish, our travels will take about 24 hours to traverse. I thought it would be nice to record an audio book for her. Something done in my own voice so she could listen during the more than 12 hours we'll spend in a darkened tube with wings. I told her my plan, and I let her select the book. She chose, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (sorry, it's the physical book is the American version).

So I started reading it today. I was 20 minutes into the recording, when suddenly, my mic dropped out. 

I didn't realize the mic had dropped. I was reading. So I kept reading and reading. Then I realized the gain visualizer wasn't moving.

I left the recording on, figuring I could edit and splice everything together. I unplugged the mic, plugged it back in. I jiggle wires, nothing got it going again.

I paused and unpaused the recording.

I stopped the recording. And suddenly. The mic started picking up again. 

I gave up.

Technical Difficulties

Let's recap the difficulties I have had with recording audio in this office.

1. Audio recorded with my phone is crap.
2. Audacity decided it doesn't want to load.
3. Zoom drops and picks up the mic randomly, throwing error messages like LA gang signs.
4. Mic suddenly cut, with not indication, while recording with Gamecaster.

I'm beginning to think that I'm not meant to work in an audio/visual medium.

I'm going to be honest. I have the desire to do it. But I lack the time and patience to constantly hunt down and put out the little fires and maintenance required. 

I just want to sit down in an afternoon to record 3 short episodes, slap them into a couple of platforms, and be done with it. But the issues of recording are making it more difficult than it is worth. I have barely touched the rules in a month because my free time has been spent getting the podcast listed, setting up YouTube, and trying to get the technical aspects running.

To the Future

Here's the deal, going forward.

1. There are a couple of episodes still scheduled to drop in December. They will be the last. At least for the time being.
2. Each week, I will be putting 1 day's free time into this blog. I can probably throw together 2 or 3 posts in that time.
3. Each week, I will be putting in 1 day's free time into the rules, setting, or other content.
4. This Blog may be migrated to another platform - due to Blogspot's limitations.
5. I'm looking to see what it takes to work with itch.io.

I am undecided about what to do with actual plays. I may write them up as narrative stories. I may pass them to my friend, Brent, who is an amateur novelist. I may just run them for my own purposes and let them drift into the aether.

Disappointment

To be honest, I'm disappointed that the whole podcast thing isn't working out. I never expected it to gain a following, but it was fun to create and throw it out into the world. Admittedly my radio demeanor is crap, but it was still fun run the solo play, and the recording schedule kept me on track.

Who knows? Maybe I'll get a better studio set up in the future.

Episode 8 - Down Time

 In this Episode I playtest the healing and extended activity loop. 

Story wise, Jaephing heals and the Blade Archivists attempt to figure out the artifacts.

• To read synopsis and rules descriptions, visit https://roll4saves.blogspot.com
• To hear Roll 4 Saves in a podcast, visit https://anchor.fm/roll4saves, search for it on the podcatcher of your choice, or follow the links in the side menu.
• To see Roll 4 Saves in videos, visit https://www.youtube.com/@roll4saves
• To support this content and gain access to the Roll 4 Saves documentation, visit https://www.patreon.com/roll4saves
• Questions and Comments are best left at roll4saves@gmail.com

Play Games and Have Fun!

Episode 7 - Induction

 In this episode, Jaephing was taken to the Blade Archivists' lair.

There are about 15 members, and they convinced Jaephing to full commit to the group.

They then tried to figure out the artifacts they scored from the heist.

But Jaephing had his fingers crushed by the machine.

Skills

 Skills in Roll 4 saves are pretty straight forward.

Where background is triggered by the target, or location, or means of the action, skills are representative of the action itself.

There are 8 total skills.

6 of the skills are broad. For example, Move includes running, jumping, flying, as well as moving stealthily. The point is that the PC is Moving from point A to point B, and there might be a consequence for it.

2 of the skills are narrow; specifically, Skirmish and Attune. The reason is that these are the more powerful combat skills. And by giving a combat skill additional uses in a game, it begins to become overpowered.

Consider Dexterity in OGL games. It gives a boost to defense, is used in attacks with certain weapons, and it is used for fine and gross motor skills such as pick pockets and stealth respectively. For an adventure game, this gives a lot of power to Dexterity heavy PCs.

Character Creation

In character creation, the player can simply pick 2 skills they like, or roll d8 twice to generate 2 random skills.

Episode 6 - No Story 1

 This episode took a break from the story. 

Instead I talked about the design of the Roll 4 Saves.

Episode 5 - Fight at the Docks

 This episode picked up with Jaephing on duty.

To add a twist to our session, I through a new faction at the heist.

We randomly created a faction temporarily named the Low Nobles. A bunch of nobles that wish to secure artifacts to both hit the merchant class and to bolster their own position in the aristocracy.

This ended with a physical confrontation between the Blade Archivists and the Low Nobles had a brief dust up. During which, Jaephing handedly proved himself as the dove in, machete swinging.

Background Modifiers

I covered Roll 4 Saves' Backgrounds here. Looking it over will provide context for this post.

Background modifiers are setting specific addons to background. 

In a traditional fantasy game, these could be the PC race.

In an intrigue game, it might be a faction designation.

In a Pokemon, or Magic style game, it might be an elemental affinity.

In a real-world game,, it could be your nationality.

Examples can include:

• Academic - Orc
• Squalid - Brown Cloaks
• Noble - Grass Type
• Wild - Spanish

When either the base background or a modifier is triggered, the PC gains the bonus.

For example, an Orc gains bonuses when dealing with other Orcs, or taking action in an Orcish environment, or when using Orcish items.

Character Creation

Just like backgrounds, the player may pick what they like, or determine their modifier randomly.
I usually try to have about 10, but some setting may have more or less as appropriate.

Countdown Clue

I was looking for a version of clue with a player controlled killer, or some other mechanic to up the tension. I found some more complicated versions, but then I had an idea. Thus, Countdown Clue was born.

Materials

• Clue - The boardgame.
• RPG dice, specifically d4, d6, d8, d10, & d12.

Process

Play clue like the original rules prescribed. No intrigue cards, no individual abilities. Just move and guess.

But make the following changes.

• All players begin outside the house's front door.
• Players roll the normal 2d6 plus an additional RPG die, beginning with the d12.
• When the RPG die results in a 1 or 2, it drops down one size for all players.
• When a player rolls a 1 or 2 on the d4, they complete their turn as normal, after which they are eliminated.
• Eliminated players continue to observe and debunk guesses as normal.

Game End

The game ends when 1 of the players guesses correctly or when all of the players have been eliminated by the killer.

In the event all players have been eliminated by the killer, their spirits then make one final guess, based on the information the have. As they are dead, they can guess any room they wish. The players write their final guess before the hidden cards are revealed. The player(s) that guess the most hidden cards correctly, wins!

In Play

In play the game was fast. We played 3 games in about 35 minutes. With the additional die, the meeples practically soar around the house. 

The RPG die counting down has a double effect. First, players feel the visceral dread of the game coming to a close before having all of the information. Second, it slows down the meeples. 

When two or three rolls in a row resulted in 1s or 2s, everyone began to panic, but they couldn't traverse the hallways fast enough.

I also feel like other players were making better guesses, which improved the available information. Also, players were not spending as long thinking and making notes. Even though the timer was partially under our control (the dice only risk downsizing when you actually roll them), we still felt like we had to hurry.

In two games, I had the correct answer by my first turn with a d4. The other players had parts of the answer as well.

In the third game, another player and myself had two thirds of the correct guess. This game was also the quickest as we were all eliminated during the third round.

Episode 3 - Jaephing and Nala

 In this episode we chose Jaephing to be out main character.

We then went through the process of generating a plot.

We ended up with a police detective working for a cult, that wants to heist something from the Central Train Station. They tried to work Jaephing into the cause. Jaephing has their interest piqued, but so far has been reluctant.

Mistakes Were Made

One of the issues of running everything live, without editing, is fact that mistakes will be made. Here are the corrections for Jaephing so far.

1. Jaephing only had 1 Coin and 4 PD. So Jaephing should have 2 additional trappings. So I updated the character sheet to include the Rope d6, and Jack Knife Easy Nautical.

2. In episode 2 I had rolled that Jaephing was a female, but I forgot about this and later rerolled Jaephing to be a male. I am going to keep Jaephing as a male. I will explain my reasoning later.

And that is it so far.

This week, I'll try to do some setting posts.

Episode 2 - Characters

 In this episode we made 4 characters. Ugby, Thaki, Jaephing, and Laeth.

We used a weird table I made that gives you a series of vowels and consonants to throw together into random words.

We then randomly rolled the rest of the characters.

That was it really. 

Episode 1

 The ReLaunch of Roll 4 Saves is upon us. See previous post for an explanation.

This is the explainer episode.

I introduced myself, 

Hi, I'm Wayne.

I introduced the show,

This is an solo, actual-play, beta test.

I introduced the game system,

Start with a d6. Bump it up if something makes the roll easy, if you have a matching skill, and/or if you have a matching background. Bump it down if something makes the roll hard. A roll of 4 or higher avoids consequences.

I introduced the setting,

Pretty much just humans. But archipelagos separated by abyssal leviathans. Then Technology! and Airships! and the discovery of a continent. The continent is named Lurr. The greatest city on the continent is Nyrborg. Magic is a thing that exists, but it is weak.. There was once a great civilization in the world. Their towers and catacombs are testaments to their power. Electricity is generated by Furthstein, magic, glowing stones that can be threaded together to create more powerful currents.

That is pretty much it.

Show Relaunch

 A few thoughts were running through my head this past week.

1. I need to find a way to adjust the gain on my big microphone...
2. It is a bit difficult to follow the mechanics and story and all in a purely audio format.
3. I'm 5 episodes into the story of the Charbone Collectors, and bored.

So I did some experimenting.

• If I record with Zoom, I can mess with the Gain.
• If I record in Zoom, I can record a video along side the audio.
• If I'm going to use videos, I'd like to have it available for all episodes.
• If I start over, I can use my plot cards, which I had recently rewritten for a more generic setting, AND had added to the text of Roll 4 Saves.

So Friday, I took the nuclear option.

I made 3 episodes, and started a plotline I'm much more interested in.

One of the main differences is that the story will focus on a single character, instead of a full party.

Also, there is video on YouTube (see links below and in the sidebar).

As the older episodes had worse quality audio, and might dissuade new listeners that want to start at the beginning, I nuked them.

On the otherhand, I uploaded all three episodes that I recorded on Friday.

I am still planning to have Episode 5 up by Friday (November 5th, 2022), and then an episode released each week after that.

So if you read the previous posts and wonder what is happening to Melillot and the others, sorry, there story is gone.

But I'm sure Jaephing will more than make up for it.

Post Nuked Episode 4 Character Update

This Episode referenced here has been taken to a farm upstate. I learned how to record with better audio quality, and I wanted a more interesting story line. This post is left here to remind me of all the lovers I failed before. 

As mentioned in episode 4, I'm planning to post Character Updates after each even numbered episode.

The following might be spoilers. So read at your own risk.

Nuked Episode 4 - Blade Beetle

This Episode has been devoured by the flames of my passion. Or, I learned how to record with better audio quality, and I wanted a more interesting story line. This post is left here to remind me of my own  inevitable acceptance of the emptiness of the grave.

 In this episode, the group started with some last minute shopping. They mostly bought sources of light.

Then it was time to officially enter the tournament. The announcers are a pair of goatkin. They famously get drunker as the day's events go on.

So by the time the Charbone Collectors were up (they started 12th out of 12). The announcers were pretty inebriated.

I explained how combat works (I'll put up some separate posts on that when I get a chance), and randomized the first room's encounter.

The Blade Beetle

• Grit 10
• Base Damage 1
• Special 1d6 Damage to a Single Target.

This large beetle is about the size of a Great Dane. It is similarly lanky, and its legs end in sharp, semi-metallic blades. The beetles' diet gives them hardened chiton which makes the weapons formidable.

Amber was able to get a quick blowgun needle into the beetle's eye, and Mellilot was able to use her long rapier to impale it through the abdomen.

Then Onzo disabled a flame trap, but took 1 damage from one of the flame spouts.

They then found some armor and a sword, but they were obviously designed to fall apart in any real skirmish.

Next episode should be something tougher in room 2!

Changes

 Rules

I am reworking the rules for the vanilla fantasy setting. Some of the heritage abilities are a bit lack luster. My First reaction was to simply assign each of the 10 heritages one of the 10 spell types.

Then I was reading through Errant. And this is a big problem for me. I'll read a new system, and be inspired from it, and want to incorporate something from it into my current project.

So Errant breaks the heritages into 4 Ancestries. There are examples of which species fit into which groups (Dwarves and Orcs for the Tough Ancestry).

Each of the 4 Ancestries then gives a Once per Session ability. This means Dwarves and Orcs will have the same ability to avoid being reduced to 0hp once per session.

It is so elegant.

So yeah, now I am thinking of how I can rework my heritages into 3 or 4 basic categories.

Podcast

Probably some time after Episode 6, I'm going to try my hand at giving the Podcast a video component.

My current plan for the flow will be

1. Record using Zoom (Assuming I can get my USB mic to record with a high enough gain.)
2. Upload the video to Youtube.
3. Run the audio through noise reduction if needed.
4. Upload to Anchor and add Background Music.
5. Publish as a Podcast.

This means the videos will lack cleaning up on the audio and background music. But I think it will benefit from the visuals of the characters and rules; making it easier for others to follow.

I'll have to do some experimenting to see how it looks / sounds.

Nuked Episode 3 - Amber's Trial

The spiderlings of Zoth have ripped this episode into 10,000 tiny pieces, and scattered them to the far reaches of the universe. I learned how to record with better audio quality, and I wanted a more interesting story line. This post is left here to remind me of a happier time when I thought joy was real. 

In this episode, we started this episode with Amber in jail. Her trial was set for 3 days (I counted the arrest day as day 1). So the team needed to act fast.

Melillot took matters into her own hands. She knew of the judge, and that she was a sucker for fine wine.

She convinced her parents to let her have a party. Luckily, her parents were leaving for a business trip out of the city.

She invited a small number of people from town, but many of them took it upon themselves to invite others.

Soon the party grew to half-again the planned size. Thankfully the wine and other refreshments held out.

Melillot talked up the judge, convincing her that Amber is an outstanding citizen, and that she is deserving of a lesser sentencing.

We then jumped to the courtroom on day 3. Amber is a bit of a psychopath, and was staring daggers at the judge. But the judge remembered her promise to Melillot and sentenced Amber to a 100 coin fine and time served.

Finally, the group registered their team and dubbed it the Charbone Collectors. As an homage to their mostly successful caper to get Grung and his family out of the city.

Backgrounds

One of my favorite parts of the Resistance System (aka Spire the City Must Fall & Heart the City Beneath) is the concept of Domains.

Domains are basically areas of life that your character is comfortable with. They are very broad such as Criminal, Religion, or Commerce.

The rules set up that the Domains do not just suggest what your character can do, but who they know, areas they frequent, etc. In other words - devices outside of the character.

A character with Commerce will get the same bonus when performing a trade, when stabbing a merchant, and when fighting a ninja in a general store.

It reminds me a lot of the Skills in Feng Shui 2 (I never read 1st ed) and Backgrounds in 13th Age. Again, they are nebulous and reflect not just what the character can do, but what, where, and who they know.

When designing Roll 4 Saves, I have a strict maximum 3 bonuses to a roll goal, because that will be a d12.

My current goal is to have a super general bonus, a more specific bonus, and a super specific bonus.

Backgrounds fill that General Bonus. When writing the rules, I wanted backgrounds to focus on devices outside of the character (place, target, object), but during the playtest podcast, I realized that this actually really limits some backgrounds. So I am attempting to broaden them to also include specific actions as well. So Academic might have research or debate, Criminal might have Grift of Burgle.

I am still working out the details. But I am leaning to not actually specifying actions in the descriptions.