At The Master's Inn With Verm

Ahh! At last.....welcome my strange new friends, come be seated. Since we are here to talk buisness I will dispense with the formalities, my friends call me Verm. I hear that you are interested in learning how to add variety to your gaming experiences and my companions and I are happy to impart to you a few ideas that we have had great success with. Let us begin.

Throughout this conversation I will be making references to several existing game systems already on the market. It is not our intent to take credit for anything that these systems have created, rather to cheer their creativity and merely suggest creative ways in which to use what is already out there.

We have based our game largely on Dragonlance due to the fact that this system is based upon a medieval swords & sorcery setting which focuses more upon storyline and adventure than the same old wander around killing anything that moves gaming style. This world is also brought to life by its creators in the form of detailed map books and countless novels from which to gain ideas.

As wonderful as a game system is it will eventually become old and boring therefore, you are left with two choices. (1. quit and find a new game), or ( 2. breathe new life into your existing game). We have chosen the second option.

There are two main catagories out there, the Medieval & the Technological We have devised a way to combine the two into a vastly diverse gaming environment. The concept is rather simple if you think of magic as a highly unstable form of energy. Magical energy is vastly more powerful than anything man-made as it comes from within living beings, therefore, when magic and technology collide one of two things happens.

(1) Technology vs. Magic= if a magical creature is struck by say....a laser gun the resulting difference in energy levels could overwhelm the creature knocking them unconscious for a time determined by the DM/GM. Some damage may also be incurred depending upon the power of the energy attack. Gun's are handled in the same way as hurled weapons/bows and arrows with additional damage. DM/GM's should adjust the damage so that it is slightly more than an arrows damage without becoming obscene. Remember, guns usually hit multiple times in one round and you dont want to inflict a ton of damage just for fun, after all a bullet is just a very small arrow moving very fast. {NOTE: Systems using the Mega Damage scale should be converted, we suggest a simple scale of 1 mega-damage would be equal to 100 points of damage to things not in that scale. Mega-Damage weapons have the same vulnerabilities to magic as every other kind of technology but can do greater damage to magical creatures based upon the massive damage they are capable of.}

(2) Magic vs. Technology= Magic has the unfortunate effect of overpowering/overloading anything it comes in contact with. Technological systems either short-out, or explode from exposure to wavelengths of unstable energy. {NOTE: it is possable for a mage to alter technology into phase with a magical creature however the chance of success is around 5%, and failure results in both an explosion of the item and massive damage to the magical creature trying to "Enchant" it. If successful the item would then be considered "Magical" and be treated as such.}

Gods: We have come to think of God-Like characters as being on a completely different level from the one all other beings play on. For example, once a character becomes so powerful that there is little that can harm them they can try to petition the existing God's to "Empower" them. This in effect is like becoming a level one character again with one big exception. You'd be the weakest of the God's/Demi-God's, but immortal and virtually untouchable to everyone else. The D&D Gods and Demi-Gods book is an excellent source on this concept.

We discovered that Star Trek & Star Wars game systems are perfect for tying everything together. Once we established how magic would react to technology it was a small step to realize that a D&D based game could be thought of as a planet containing magical beings at a medieval stage of development. At the same time other worlds could exist containing whatever kind of beings you could imagine at any level of development from cave-men to sentient robots. The only thing missing was a way to get the beings of one world onto another, and Starships were the missing piece. Note: Magic can also be used to move from one world to another however the magical power involved is enormous. DM/GM should restrict this to only the most powerful of beings, or artifacts. {MAGICAL NOTE: To keep magic from becoming "all powerful" we suggest making magic lose it's strength the farther it gets from the planet it was created on. Otherwise, a +3 sword to you might be equal to a +6 or +1 sword on someone else's planet.}

Now that we have unleashed an almost endless possibility of options, we have really only discovered two other types of cretures that pose any difficulty in combining with other systems. These are Mutants, and Undead from the Ravenloft game system:

Mutants: With a few minor adjustments mutants become great companions. First, we changed their stat system to mimick the one used by D&D with only one addition. (SPEED). Their great strength can be thought of as kind of "Magical" and can be thought of using the D&D system of 1-25 max. (25 being equal to say a giant or titan) (Speed) is used to reflect the differences in reaction times of mutant vs. mutant encounters only, since overall mutants will be faster than any other race encountered. (Magic): in order to bring balance to a fast, powerful being we suggest making mutants unable to use magic in any way. Since mutants are the result of combining a creature with radiation (or unstable energy waves) it's not hard to see that trying to get unstable magical energy and unstable radiation energy would be impossible.

Undead in Ravenloft: We discovered that the Ravenloft game system is perfect for challenging even the most seasoned traveler. The characters are brought into a place where pure evil exists, and the very ground the walk on has a mind of its own. Once inside Ravenloft characters find that their abilities and even magic react unexpectedly, and escape is almost impossible. The undead there are doubly powerful from anything else you've faced before and now your Hero's will find themselves lost,confused, and in for a real fight for survival. It's the "True" proving grounds for any hero, and since the game system can bring anything/anyone into it the same possibilities exist for any kind of creature/any time line.