May 2017 – Tentacle Greg

Developer’s Journal 5: Drejk

Long time freelance writer: Wojciech “Drejk” Gruchała.

Drejk

Today I want to do a brief introduction of my first and long time freelance writer: Wojciech “Drejk” Gruchała.
Drejk, as is his Paizo messageboard name, has a blog over on Blogspot called
Shaper of Worlds. He first started his freelance career for me at Amora Game when I stumbled upon a class he was designing in the “Homebrew” section on the boards. This turned into our third product (that still sells regularly); Commander & Centurion for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

He did the Commander class and Kevin Bond did the Centurion prestige class. Drejk has come a long way in his writing and style of how he writes. I recently gave him a challenge to write a low level adventure scenario for our long dead Prepare for War adventure path. Of all the people to breath a bit of life into it, I think he is the one to do it. I’m excited to see him grow over the years in his development abilities. I can say of all of my freelancers, he receives the least revisions.

Now as a publisher, that doesn’t always do well for freelancing. I’m biased when it comes to his design work that he has done for me. So it is hard for me to see any flaws in design and go back to him with feedback. I commonly hand it off to someone else to review. This is my failure as a publisher and I recognize this, I just really enjoy his work. I will do better to give better feedback directly on this adventure.

So check out some of his work.
Under the name Drejk.
Under his name credits here.
His Patreon is here that helps to fund his free Pathfinder Monster Design Blog here.

Tentacle out!

Monday Manga: Scum’s Wish

….I was halfway through when I decided I hated it. But I finished it and hated it more.

S Wish
Rating Summary

Art: 3 – Above Average

Story: 3 – Nothing exciting

Dialogue and Development: 3 – meh

Overall: 3.5 out of 5 – It was just okay, but I was halfway through when I decided I hated it. But I finished it and hated it more.

*Contains Minor Spoilers* Tentacle writes about events of the manga. Don’t want spoilers, stop reading.

Plot: High school student Hanabi Yasuraoka has been in love with her older childhood friend who is now her homeroom teacher Narumi Kanai. But from the look in Narumi’s eyes when he sees the new music teacher Akane Minagawa, Hanabi realizes that he is in love with Akane and not her. Hanabi meets Mugi Awaya, another student who is in love with Akane, who was his tutor when he was in middle school. Hanabi and Mugi make a pact and begin a fake relationship to satisfy each other’s loneliness from their respective unrequited loves, both sexually and emotionally. They agree to not fall in love with each other and end the relationship if their love is returned from the people they are in love with. – Wikipedia

Hate it.

A triangle of unrequited love without so much of a an inkling of caring for this series. There is growth and forgiveness and it is not for me. It’s all about bad choices and partially dealing with those consequences.

The main character Hanabi is your self-loathing kind of highschool girl that does have a rough time. She is at one point a starry-eyed girl that is in love with her older tutor, now teacher. Her best friend Sanae is in love with her, and Hanabi at some point might feel the same. . . wait a second.

Let me just stop before I go on a long rant and try to sum up weird stuff.

Hanabi + Mugi = get into a relationship for appearances and to cure their loneliness. They both “love” other characters and the story follows them in the seeking of those. At some point they both secretly admit to the audience that they do in fact in up liking each other in some form or another. I could really careless about Mugi.

Hanabi + Narumi = Narumi is Hanabi’s childhood friend and becomes her teacher. Hanabi just seems to be looking for that father figure. It was a childhood crush that I am glad didn’t transpire.

Mugi + Akane = Akane is a new music teacher at the school and has a penchant for living only to seduce. Akane likes the thrill of seduction and the audience gets of taste of how she cures her loneliness. Ah Mugi is a highschool kid that bangs that hot teacher. Meh.

Akane + Narumi = You see what they did here? I’m gonna leave it at that. You might feel sorry for Narumi when he confronts Akane and says (summary), ” I know you sleep around, but as long as you come home to me I can handle it. Don’t tell me anything, just come home to me, I love you.” Ack! Emotionally taxing.

Hanabi + Sanae = Sanae is in love with Hanabi. Hanabi kind feels the same, but is more on the friend level. They stop being friends as Sanae needs some space after being rejected. Near the end of the series they become friends again. And they should be. A+ to this plot.

Side plots involve Sanae’s cousin who has feelings for her. We learn of Mugi’s first sex partner, Mei who rushed him into doing the deed. Neither of these stories fill a void, but I guess there is some background to character development for you.

Did I mention: Hated it!

Everyone at some point gets their emo moment of “Oh look at me. I’m dead in side”. Everyone is in this manga. The over arching theme is loneliness and how these people get over it. Or how they mope about it and bring others emotionally down. There is reconciliation between many of the characters, but I just couldn’t care any more. I was done halfway through. I felt sorry for no one in this book, except for Sanae.

The story was a little longer than it should have been. Everyone seems to turn out okay in the end. Hanabi makes the realization that she should be happy with herself and improve upon that.

I guess the only way to tie up this review is to grab Hanabi by the shoulders and look her dead in the eye and say: “Love yourself girl. You don’t need no man to know you are worthy. ”

Tentacle out.

Developer’s Journal 4: World Setting Rules for SW

Setting Rules for an Asian Inspired SW

So some of my favorite rules are already implemented in the Savage Worlds explorer’s edition. Like Joker’s Wild and Blood & Guts. There is one that I like that was created by the folks over at Wine & Savages posted a fun setting rule that can be used for any martial arts / anime-manga style setting. They do a fun one called Comedy Backlash Comedy Backlash. (reprinted here for journal purpose)

New Setting Rule: Comedy Backlash

When a character utilizing Magic, Psionics, or Weird Science rolls poorly enough that backlash, brainburn, or a malfunction would normally be called for, the player (never the Game Master) can instead choose to suffer a Comedy Backlash effect. The hero is Shaken, but a second Shaken result cannot cause a Wound; instead, the player describes something embarrassing happening to the character.
Examples include:

The character accidentally destroys their own clothes, exposing themselves to onlookers.
Collateral damage from the attack causes debris to clonk the hero on the head.
The power explodes in the hero’s face, leaving cartoon scorch marks.
With the other player’s permission, the hero accidentally destroys another character’s clothes, exposing them to the original character’s bashful gaze. (The other hero does not suffer a Shaken result, but may wish to suddenly realize they’re naked after the fight is over.)
With the other player’s permission, the hero stumbles into a nearby ally, causing unintended intimate bodily contact and getting slapped for it.

With the above ^^ copy and pasted setting rule from them, I’ve developed a hindrance that could play well with the above. Rough draft for nose bleeds are below.

woooo

Nosebleed (major, minor)
Requirements: Novice
When being flirted with or having licentious thoughts most characters have blood rush to their cheeks, your character’s blood comes straight out their nose. Dirty thoughts, catching a risque glimpse of flesh or being placed in compromising situations, it’s fairly obvious when the character catches the slightest hint of the nude form.
As a minor hindrance your character’s nosebleed causes little to mild discomfort and results in a small trickle of blood running out of his nose. It’s more of an inconvenience and embarrassment in interactions.
When taken as a major hindrance the nosebleed turns lethal due to a fountain of blood loss. Your hero must make an unmodified Vigor check (beanies may be spent to reroll). On a fail, they fall unconscious after suffering 3 immediate fatigue and suffer one wound. One a success they suffer 1 wound due to intense blood loss and must take time to stop the bleeding. On a raise your hero only suffers from blood loss, 1 fatigue wound, and will need to take a minute to stop the bleeding.

With the 1st or 4th bullet point above, another player with the Nosebleed hindrance would play off each other very well.

A player who failed an activation of a Chi technique (my campaign setting powers) or who failed to activate a magic power suffer the effects of the 1st. Causing another player near by to suffer a minor Nosebleed adding to the anime comic relief of a glitch.

Another setting rule I developed with inspiration stolen from HellFrost and Rippers is the our rule Way of Chi (draft)

Derived Stat:

Chi: 2 + ½ your Spirit die, modified accordingly.

What is Chi
Chi is the character’s inner capability to push themselves beyond the normal physical and mental limitations of the body. It’s a derived from the Spirit die. All characters can spend Chi to do many things. It’s their chance to will their destiny. A character can use it to re-roll their wild die, increase their initiative, take an extra repeat action without suffering penalty. It is sometimes used to fuel extraordinary powers that are called Chi Techniques. These techniques are explained later in this book. If a character’s Chi reaches zero a character suffer a Fatigue wound. A character is unable to heal this Fatigue until they have restored at least one point of Chi. Chi is explained further under the setting rules section of this book.

Way of Chi
Besides having the ability to power Chi Techniques for those that possess the ability, Chi can be used used by any Wild Card in the game. Chi is free to spend at any point on a Wild Card’s turn to perform one of the following actions:

Re-roll a Wild Die: A Wild Card can spend a Chi to re-roll a Wild Die at any point but only their Wild Die.
Gain an Initiative Card: When initiative cards are dealt, a Chi point can be spent to gain an additional card. The hero decides which one to keep and discards the rest. Much like a Beanie is spent for re-rolling dice, a player can spend Chi to gain multiple cards. They can only keep one card as an initiative card.
Take a Repeat Action: A hero can spend a Chi point to repeat an action they just took, but suffer the multi-action penalty. They can spend 2 points to negate the penalty for multiple actions on the repeated action.

When a character’s Chi reaches zero they suffer a Fatigue wound. A character is unable to heal this Fatigue until they have restored at least one point of Chi to character’s Chi pool. The process of recovering Chi during a session is fairly simple. It requires the hero in game, to spend some time meditating. This meditation requires roughly an hour where the hero takes no other action except that of concentrating and centering themselves. If they take damage from any source or fall under an effects caused from of an outside source, they lose their focus and must start again. If distractions are avoided, a successful Meditation roll, regains 1 Chi point, and on a raise they recover 2 points.

So that wraps up our (almost) month of silence since I got back from Japan. That blog of that is coming soon, as is the 4 draft reviews of Manga series I’ve finished.

Tentacle Out! ~TG