At least, for a one mission Special Event.

I am working on a very special espionage, infiltration, and insurrection oriented game, in which characters will NOT wander off on a million different things, but stick within the story bounds.

Consider this the Motion Picture that follows after the end of the TV series, like Serenity, or Sex And The City.  Consider what has happened recently to be strange animated series which used some of the same characters but wasn't "canon".
This message had punctuation tweaked by the GM at 16:51, Thu 19 July 2018.

Naturally, everyone who has stuck it out here has first priority.

However, because this is an espionage/covert action based adventure, there are some limitations in the type of characters allowed.

1.  No flying characters.  Too obvious.  Massilia is an Orc Occupied city. "Hey look at the flying thing, KILL IT".

2.  No characters with psychic/psionic powers, mind reading powers, mind dominating powers, etc.  Kills the fun of a game that is designed around figuring out secrets.

3.  No characters who would be grossly out of place in a city.  And this means any animal companion that is not a small pet is unworkable.  Orcs won't let you bring your brown bear into Massilia. Ferret, yes.

If you do not have a usable character, you can make a new one.

Does my wereweasel wife count?

I suppose this means I'll have to get chain mail that's not gilt? (Thank you! Try the veal! I'm hear all night!)
This message was last edited by the player at 01:51, Fri 20 July 2018.

In reply to Ben (msg # 2):
Does that mean no torturing and using Intimidation on Orcs to force the information out of them, no diplomacy to make friends and finesse the facts to light and no Clerics to ask the Gods for the same are also out?

In a world of magic it is odd to say one different approach to power is better than the others.  Mental, Magical or Miracle they all can be used to reach the same results.  Added to that! as my character has Assume likeness: I Could assume the likeness of any small, medium or Large creature. So what if the Orcs saw a flying Owl, Gyrfalcon or one of dozens of other small to medium sized Arial beings going overhead?

Well as it is your game I must bow to your decision, not that I have a choice really


Just because you can fly does not mean you have to. And whoever said you had to have domination or mind reading as a Psion?  I am a combat Psion and only had the one dominating power... could have easily changed it if I had been interested.

By the way if my character did not have the information I wanted the dominated puppet to say already, I could NOT get them to say it now could I.  Domination controls the body not the mind.  So what they say is what I make them say not what they would be inclined to say.

Lastly as I have no interest in making a totally new character for a game that is apparently closing down.  I guess I will not be involved in your farewell hurrah.  If people do not mind short games good for them but I never liked Convention games for that reason... Getting to like a character that is doomed to at best 8 hours of game time?  I dropped all Lovecraft games because I knew the end result was always the same. Death or Madness.  In this case it is Oblivion or the PC graveyard with all my other characters no longer with a GM willing to craft or having a world to house them.  Or turned them into NPCs that are part of other plots

Just one or two questions though. Is it possible for the NPC/DM Wylleerfeen TOoaakeeheeaarth to take over the game from Steve and Ben totally? Not sure if people could just pass ownership over to that person in RPol or even if you both agreed to it? Frankly and as far as I know, I never even had either of you two GM me in this game. So having you pass the reigns over to that NPC/PC could be a viable alternative to closing it down. That is if you would at least even consider it as an option.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:34, Tue 24 July 2018.

Oh, I still remember with fondness one of my favourite convention games in which I played the Horst Buchold character in a version of the Magnificent Seven set in the English Civil War.  It ended when my character threw a grenade which exploded an inch from the bad guys face... then the second in command said, "Listen! We're mercenaries, it's not worth this, we're changing sides."  That was fun.

This is what you will be getting into:  Note that even though it is a "short" it will probably not be short by RPOL standards.  This might take a loooong time!

In late 513 AD, news reached Burgundy, the Three Kingdoms of the Franks, and others of the death of Gasalog, king of the Visigoth Orcs.  Officially, the new king was Gasalog’s, son and heir Amaric the Half Orc, but Amaric, born in 502, was still a boy.  And a Half Orc, a fact which bothers many Orcs.

Some of the powerful Visigoth clan chiefs rallied around the new ruler anyway.  Some of the humans living in his domain did so as well, expecting that a half Orc would be a better, more civilized ruler than the brutal Orcs who devoted their thoughts only to war, eating, and tax collection.   Others opposed him, some even taking up arms.

In the Human and Elven kingdoms, news of this arrived.  Gundobad, the aging king of Burgundy, was the most politically astute ruler in western Europa, especially with Orcs.  The Frankish king Theoderic, full of vitality,  and a strong sense morality cultivated by his young Elvish wife Aelasuria, lacked Gundobad’s experience, and devious, strategic way of thinking.  Through correspondence and meetings, Gundobad gradually convinced the others that while the Goths were far too powerful an enemy to face in battle, the current situation opened up an opportunity that.  A crack could be made in the Goths, in this case the Visigoths, which could weaken them permanently.

That crack was the city of Massilia.  The ancient port built by the Greeks on the south coast of Gaul was a thriving, successful port even during the occupation by the Visigoths.  Massilia brought in so much money through trade that the Visigoths chose to let Human population go about their business largely unmolested, as long as they remained obedient, productive, submitted to the occasional bloodthirsty demands of the Visigoths’s demonic powers, and paid their taxes promptly.  The city was officially under the control of a powerful Orc tyrant, Harridog, who is responsible for defending the city against Ostrogoth and Vandal attacks, and any internal dissent.  Harridog uses the wealth generated by Massilia to play kingmaker in Visigoth politics- he is not the most vocal, but he is the financial master of the Orcs aligned against Amaric.  While Orcs and their minions enforce Harridog’s will, the day-to-day operation of the money-machine that is the Massilian economy is left to a Council of Select, most of them human, knowledgeable, and corrupt.

Ironically, from the point of view of Humans, the most evil inhabitant of Massilia is not even an Orc.  Years ago, the Bishop Proculus decided that if the Infernals were winning, he would be on the winning team.  He openly follows the Infernal Powers, but at the same time, he is the appointed (by Harridog) master of all the Human clerics.  The Humans are still permitted to worship their gods, and there are temples to Neptune, Mercury and others, but Proculus is in charge, and he makes sure everyone knows it.

King Gundobad believes the Visigoths controlling Massilia are at their most vulnerable point, and an insurrection is possible.  There are many dangers; not only suppression by the brutal Visigoths, but the Ostrogoths, and Vandals and other threats that might exploit a time of weakness.  It may be that an acceptable outcome falls short of liberation and merely turns the city over to more amenable Orcs backing Amaric.  On the other hand, breaking the city away from the Visigoths would strike a major blow against them.  They might end up withdrawing from the entire Rhone valley.

Your mission, if you decide to accept it:

Identify the key figures that could support a rebellion in Massilia, identify the kind of assistance they could provide and the roles they could play.  Learn their motivations, and use that to move them to support a rebellion.  Identify other key resources that would aid the rebellion, and the adversaries which would oppose it.

This game is in part inspired by a role playing “game” used by the CIA to train field agents, training them to identify who is important, why, and how the motivations of those important people can be identified and used.   I could tell you more, but, then, you know…

Using characters’ interpersonal skills will be more important than in most games.  So, there are some additional rules for doing this.  More of these will be added as time goes on, and they seem necessary.

Additional Character/NPC Interaction skills:
1)  Identify Most Important Person in Group  (Gather Information + Sense Motive)
By listening to or interacting with a group of people, identify the important one.

2)  Reveal Motivations.  (Sense Motive + Diplomacy)
By listening to or interacting with a person, find out what general things are truly important to that person.

3)  Build Friendship  (Diplomacy + Misc. Modifiers)
Bond socially with a person.  The modifiers are highly “situation dependent”.

4) Create Distrust (Diplomacy + Misc. Modifiers)
Build up a distrust in one person for another.

5)Share mutually interesting stories  (Appropriate Knowledge + Diplomacy)
Get a knowledgeable person to share some random interesting thing, out of “shop talk” or mutual interest.

Which events "count" as "what happened recently" versus the TV series? This is important because the characters need a common frame of reference and a common past. For example, if I remember correctly, Rita was on a diplomatic mission to one of Theoderic's brother kings. Did that happen? That was earlier in 513. If it's now later in the year, where has she been, and what has she been doing since then?
This message was last edited by the player at 17:31, Sun 02 Sept 2018.

Gondioque's 513 was wiped clean. Also, her character is somewhat different and more defined. Still, the 512 flavor is present.

In reply to Gondioque Bourgogne (msg # 9):

Was that your choice? I wouldn't want Rita's past year wiped away. She helped kill a lot of demons in that year.

Had to be done. Gondioque went through Massillia on  a trip. But I asked for some changes.

IMO, Ben Knows Best.

Bryon lost 4 level, changed classes from Warlock to Sorceress, and lost her Husband. THe last was my choice. I liked her hunting for a man much more than her having found one.