#SundayAMSwords with Jon Cole Mark Delsing Eric Farmer E.T. Smith

#SundayAMSwords with Jon Cole Mark Delsing Eric Farmer E.T. Smith

#SundayMorningSpeedSwords #Rogue

#SundayMorningSpeedSwords #Rogue
(art by Huo Shen)

Arahan Fire-Haired
Arahan Twice-Dead

All That Deserves a Name:

Rakahar - my village. Destroyed by Zanrisar the Black.
Zanrisar the Black - A black wizard. Who destroyed my village. And razed our Temple.
Karad-Hazar, the Black Serpent who Devours the Stars - A powerful demon who Zanrisar owed his soul to, cranky about Arahan killing his minion.
Dur Nahar - The high priest of the Serpent Cult, who worship Barak-Hazar.
Roysh - the temple guardian, whose hide I wear, who whispers in my ear.
---
T'klik Ch'ik - A grasshopper man I met on a bridge made of a dead giants bones.

Feats Heroic:

Jovial: Arahan dances through his enemies grinning, sword flashing, and hair flickering in the light as Roysh roars unheard in his ear.

Jovial: Arahan, roars with fury, leaping into battle, cutting through enemies, hair flickering like actual fire, Rosh roaring unheard by others.

Jovial: Arahan moves like the wind, dashing and leaping, thews pumping.

Glum: Arahan pulls his cloak close and hugs the walls and shadows, slipping by eyes—unseen.


Tricks

Inevitable Foe: The serpent Karad. Servant of Zanrisar the Black.
Unparallelled: Write another Feat Heroic for one of your tones. is feat may be used once in addition to the usual use of one feat per game. When it is used, the Overtone immediately becomes the same tone as this feat, changing everyone’s tone to match.

Hail, rogues, and well met!

Hail, rogues, and well met!

I have wandered to these halls from distant Twitter, a land of fast and ephemeral voices. I seek adventure!

How do I get on a list for #SundayMorningSwords? I don't need to play this Sunday but I've been itching to try this game for quite a while now and I'd like to play soon.

This very Sunday and for several more Sundays, at 11 AM EDT, over on the ActualPlay Twitch channel we will be...

This very Sunday and for several more Sundays, at 11 AM EDT, over on the ActualPlay Twitch channel we will be streaming speed runs of #SwordsWithoutMaster⚔️!

Mark your calendars!

https://twitch.tv/actualplay/

Rogues, have any of you experience playing Swords on Roll20? Any thoughts or tips for someone about to dive into it?

Rogues, have any of you experience playing Swords on Roll20? Any thoughts or tips for someone about to dive into it?

I was just now thinking about #Starward.

I was just now thinking about #Starward.

That is all.

Sharing this write-up of Michael Miller 's With Great Power as an excuse to recommend this game to anyone thinking...

Sharing this write-up of Michael Miller 's With Great Power as an excuse to recommend this game to anyone thinking about hacking Swords. It has a lot of a great insights, and it's a particularly interesting read if you pay attention to how it differs from Swords. I dig what's been added to make the game better suited to the superhero genre, but I also really dig what's been left out.

Oh, and if you're interested in superhero games at all, check it out!

Originally shared by Jason D'Angelo

Michael Miller's 2016 edition of With Great Power looks like a really cool game. This version, called the "Master Edition" - and you'll see why in a moment - is a complete reimagining of the game and very different from the 2005 version.

The Master Edition is "Descended from Monkeydome" - aka, it uses the system Epidiah Ravachol designed for Monkeydome and - dare I say perfected? - for "Swords without Masters."

This is the first game that is descended from Monkeydome that I have read, and it blew open a few doors in my mind to how a game can make use of the phases and tone-shifts that are at the heart of play in "Swords without Masters."

Character creation looks like a blast, and as the hero players build their heroes, the villain player builds her villain, complete with monomaniacal master plan. There is a fantastic set of tables at the back of the book to inspire ideas for powers, origins, relationships, as well as the elements of the villain's plans. Everything about the game eases the creative pressure to give you something inspired to say that will push the story in interesting and productive directions. This is a tiny, but I think effective, example of what I'm talking about: After you use the random tables to jolt your thinking about your hero, and after you create a quick sketch of who they are, you are not allowed to give your hero a superhero name. Everyone else has to propose a name, and you can choose from that list, or reject them all an call for another round of proposals. It's a simple and effective solution to avoid creative freeze.

All the things that make "Swords" an incredible experience are here - the prompting of other players to tell how their hero performs incredible deeds, the creation of a list of awesome things players say that eventually trigger the end game, shifting tones, unexpected stymies, mysterious questions that can only be answered as the game draws to a close. And to that, it adds everything you love about superhero stories, including how the heroes' super lives collide with their normal lives, as well as the piecing together by the heroes of what the villain is up to and how to stop her.

The book is a great read, and the game looks awesome. Moreover, if you are interested in monkeying with the Monkeydome, this is a great place to start if you want to see how the game can be adapted and stretched.

Check it out.

Sunday Swords Without Master at #Fastaval18

Sunday Swords Without Master at #Fastaval18
This in-character photo is all washed out and 90s and I don't even care! Squeezing a game into the last day of a con is always a great, especially when we can do it with a person new to the game and with such wonderful skill as Muriel. Not including character creation, the session was a whirlwind 50 minutes helmed by our Overplayer Jonathan Jung Johansen. I can't wait until next year!