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.

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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.