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I've known about Unknown Armies for awhile, mostly due to the efforts of Amaranth M on Bluesky and formerly, Cohost.  From the bits I've heard it sounded intriguing, but I finally took a look at the first book of the edition, Play.  The other two core books are Run and Reveal, with Expose and Mine looking more like supplements?  Maybe they're all supplements.  This is the type of game that makes me hate how I look at games though.  I can write about rules and try to break them down but the vibes of this game are really great and I'm not going to do it justice, which sucks.  

UA is a game made by Atlas Games, who also made Ars Magica.  The game is billed as an urban horror game, taking place in our world, right now, but with some key differences.  Magick is real, and is the best/worst kept secret of the world.  People ascend to a sort of godhood by being the Most of an aspect of life.  The Avatar of like... fuckin' Rock and Roll would be THE image people imagine when told to imagine a Rock and Roll star.  There are only, at maximum, 333 Avatars, and once that number is hit, they end up being the building blocks of the new world that gets reborn out of calamity.  

Neat stuff at the high end of the power scale.

I wanted to sort of set up the big end of the cosmology here to give a taste of the flavor I've read so far.  Sure we could talk about Adepts, but I don't think it's as evocative as the Avatars, you know?  It's time to talk about you, the characters.  Looking at some of the other reviews I've written, this one feels like it really needs your players to be bought and locked in.  Given some of the text I've read, that tracks.  This game outright states that if you don't pick good objectives or interesting characters who want to get into or deal with messes that you won't have fun and it won't be the game's fault.  Truthfully, yeah, no game can really survive players who don't want to Play The Game.  

You, the player, should want to engage with the weirdness of the world.  You are the person in a horror movie who sees a light in the forest and goes to investigate.  They don't make movies about someone who just drives past it, clocking it as just some reflection of the moon.  I also love this line from the introductory paragraph of the Character's Chapter

If you’re completely selfish, consider that GMs hesitate to cavalierly slaughter characters who make their job easy and are fun to watch. The boring, safe, too-cool-to-care-about-anything character? A good GM has no compunction about letting that guy perish to show how this week’s monster works.

Asidebar: The book's formatting is a little irksome at times.  Imagine the page broken up into 4 quadrants, ABC and D.  Normally, with two columns, you'd read in ACBD order, but sometimes the page gets split and you read AB/CD as separate sections.  I've read a section at the bottom of the page then scrolled to the top to continue, only to find that the sentence no longer makes sense.  Something to keep in mind.

What makes a character though, mechanically speaking?  In Unknown Armies, your character is built out of what you want (objectives), what you are (Identity) and what you've seen.  The what you've seen exists on a sliding scale.  Well, 5 sliding scales.  Your Shock Gauges correspond to 5 different types of stress: Violence, the Unnatural, Helplessness, Isolation, and Self.  Each gauge has 9 pips, with 20-60 on them, increasing in increments of 5.  These are the numbers you need to roll under when making a check with that stat.

Though that tells only half the story, because simultaneously while it goes from 20-60, it's also going from 60-20 on the underside.  The notches in the gauge indicate how Hardened you are to that particular stress.  The more it's filled, the more checks you can straight up ignore.  If you are faced with a Violence (3) check as the initiator, you would need to roll under your rating, based on how many pips you have.  If you only had 2, you would need to roll under a 25 to succeed, but if you had 4, well, no need to roll, you're already prepared for that level of stress that enacting that violence would require.  As you succeed checks, your gauge fills, making you more Hardened, which makes checks easier.  Some of them, anyways.

Remember how I listed the numbers in reverse order?  Well, some checks require you to lean on the un-hardened skills, your Upbeat skills.  These are based on how many open pips you have.  So if we look at Violence again, the Hardened notches help with Struggle, while the open notches help with Connect, you're ability to understand and reach out to people.  As you become more callous and willing to do harm to others, your ability to extend them sympathy and understanding decreases.  

Success is measured in tiers. 00/100 (depends on how you like to read your d100), is a Fumble, a plausible disaster.  01?  The ultimate success, a Critical.  If you're under or equal to the target number, regular old Success, but if you're under it with doubles, that's a Matched Success.  Above the number?  Failure or Matched Failure.  

You can also manipulate the dice via a Flip Flop.  Once per session, you can reverse the numbers.  So if you rolled a 53, and failed your 40% threshold, you could flip it to a 35.  There's an exception to the above rule though.  If you're rolling your Identity instead of one of the skills, and the check is related to your Obsession, you can Flip Flop the roll, even if you've done it before.  This is basically a free swap if it's like... critically important to your character.  If you're obsessed with finding some secret organization, and you're a librarian, you could Flip Flop the dice if your check relies on your Librarian Abilities and it's about looking for the specific organization you're obsessed with.

This is pretty interesting.  I love the dual track nature of the Shock Gauges.  And them being capped means you always have a shot at a check, even if it's only 20%.  You're going outside your comfort zone and expertise to take a chance.  It's cool.  Flip Flops are a neat way to manipulate the dice, and I didn't even mention Hunches, which are given by the GM to let you pre-roll a check, and then knowing the result you can choose how to approach your next check to guarantee a success, since it's used on the next check.  That's also Really Cool!  Sometimes your hunches are off base and get you into trouble because you're making assumptions that are just wrong.  

Asidebar: The book has a page of tables showing what a check at each level could look like, and the result of a failure of that level check, for each of the Shock Gauges.  It also has an example of what a character with that many Hardened marks would behave like.  Very cool.

When you fail a check, you end up in one of the normal fear responses, well a variant of them: Panic, Paralysis, and Frenzy.  Again, this game REQUIRES player buy in and honesty and good faith play.  The example they give of a Frenzied player picks a fight with someone who could kick their ass.  You MUST follow through with it.  It undercuts so much tension and consequence if you go "Well fuck I'm getting out of here, I could get hurt!" when you're supposed to be out of control.  And yes, games always require good faith from the players, yes, that comes with the territory.  Hopefully though, this book repeatedly hammering that point helps reinforce that you need to be in on the fiction.  

The next major point that makes you Who You Are is your Identity, well, Identities.  Like all of the other stats, these are represented by a %, and can be used to make checks in place of other things.  You have 120% to distribute between 2+ Identities, so you could have "Hot Shot Driver 60%" and "Concert Pianist 60%", and that shows that you're a pretty competent driver and can work as part of a symphony fairly effectively.  While that paints an interesting dual life, you could do something like "Virtuoso 15%" and it can be a sign of a delusion or a goal you want to work towards.  As you fail at those checks, you can gain experience to improve it.  Then you could end up with say, 5 checks ranging from OK to Good instead of 2 that just start at fairly good and are hard to improve.  

Asidebar: Reminder, this is a Roll Under system so a higher number gives you more room to hit.

Really like this as a Identity system.  I like the flexibility it gives to choose how you decide to define yourself, and your skills and self-perceptions.  Also, a sneaky interesting part about this is that it's actually not that straightforward to add new Identities once the game starts proper.  You have to treat it like it's own quest, with it's own meter to fill to 100%, and once it's filled, you get the new Identity at 15%.  This gives you an interesting character creation choice, start off competent and spend table time just to improve *your* ability.  The party has to agree to take this little side trip to help your self-improvement.  I'm guessing you can have it apply to more people but it should make the task more difficult or longer to fill.  Incredible.  Love it.  It's so good.  

The book lays out a good example of how/when you can use your Identity, and it's pretty similar to how you would describe a character in Numenera: Of course I can ______, I'm ________.  You'll also pick, for each Identity, which of your Shock Gauge it can be substituting and then two Features, which are like... little add ons that enhance the Identity.  If your Identity is like... Perfume Sommolier 50%, Substitutes for Self, and then the Features "Therapeutic" and ""Evaluate a Meter (Self)", means that I can use my character's knowledge of scents and perfumes to help people relax, helping repair damage (Therapeutic) or learn more about a person's sense of Self, through some like... scent based personality test.  I know that you would smell good with citrus scents, it tells me that you're a bit of a weary soul.  There are several more Features you can select, each with their own quirks.  Some will have specific things happen on success or failure, while others are just enablers for certain types of action.  

Shifting a bit to combat, one major change is that the GM tracks player damage.  This is a great way to keep the horror tone, because a player should never know how much damage they've taken, and should only really know if they've hit the halfway threshold to their damage threshold.  This is when they start to get visibly worn down even in a fight, with the adrenaline still pumping.  If they hit 90% of their damage threshold, they are knocked unconscious.  Very, very cool.  I love this, though I can see how it would rub people the wrong way.  Given how I like to do descriptive combats though, I could have a lot of fun with this toying with information and verbiage to the players to show how hurt they are.  

There are a surprising amount of rules for damage and conflicts and such, and it kind of makes sense.  There's a lot of situations where you want to avoid a conflict by disarming someone or winging them or so on, so it covers different possibilities for fumbles, matched failures/successes, and regular failure/success.  Neat, but there's A Lot of These, so be prepared for that.  I can see some groups not needing many of these if their urban fantasy horror doesn't touch on firearms.  

Charts in this section for various forms of conflict (even a trial!) have some fun headings and table titles.  Car crash?  Table titled "Hot Car on Car Action".  Good shit.  

Various rules for healing, but the one I like is the Golden Hour rule, where if you can apply some first aid or treatment within the first hour of some injury occurring, you can fix up some of the problem.  After that hour, the blood starts to dry, the adrenaline is off, and they need either serious rest or medical attention.  

I lied, Adepts are funny as hell.  Gonna just quote a section from page 124 "Adepts care about the same things as everyone else, often much more so, but wrongly."  Adepts can do magick, but they do it by generating charges and invoking weird paradoxes in the world.    An example from the book uses "food" as a potential school of magic as the like, core obsession that the Adept is focused on.  Food is a vital part of life, and an Adept may view it as a prison, something they have to do (the book explicitly calls this out as anorexia, and draw power for their magick by denying themselves food, and losing their charged up magick when they finally succumb to eating.  Another Food mage might instead focus strictly on the flavor instead of the nourishing value of the food, and would lose their charges after having a strictly utilitarian meal.  

By leaning into the various parodoxes of the world, they can create charges of energy that can be used to cast spells.  They come in three varieties: Minor, Significant, and Major.  Minor charges can be generated by doing smaller things, such as picking the more expensive, full flavor version of a candy bar over the standard one, while a significant charge might require you to blow through a large portion of your monthly income on a single bottle of wine.  Major charges though, those are heavy risky investments.  These are like... Sidequest type prep things.  This is a "I hired 7 world class chefs to prepare a meal just for me, spending enough money to fund a food kitchen for a year" type shit.  

The universe is transactional.  You gain, but someone pays.  That's one of the three rules of magick.  The others are All Magick is based on some Paradox, and To Be an Adept is to put magick front and center.  Some real "You may have no other gods before me" type shit.  You're gonna be WEIRD if you're an adept.  

Fuck man, you can be a Vestimancer, and get your power through the process of making clothes or being naked.  Sensational.  Great example of the type of shit you could make up in this game.

There's a whole list of general effects magick can do and there's a feature GMs can use to sort of balance how many charges a spell can require, denoted by Ω. This can nudge the cost up or down by up to 2 points, to a minimum of 1.  Weaker effects or stricter requirements to either generate or lose charges can drop the cost of things, while stronger effects and easier to abide rules or easier means of gaining charges increases the cost.  

So much of this game is really interesting and fun to play in.  I wish I could talk more about the various Phenomena you can put in to keep players on edge or signal something is weird, and can range from stuff like a cell phone ringing with a no number caller, or someone slipping out of time for an hour, or fuck man, wanna play some Jumanji?.  If they're more permanent oddities, like an owl that flies by at exactly 1:22 AM every night, or a part of a rickety house you found that has a built in feature for a haunted house that you don't have to prep, you may be able to work those to your advantage, or at least set your watch by them.  

I am so mad at myself because there's so much cool and weird shit (and this is just the first book on how to play the game!), and I am so bad at relaying that information.  The tone and details they give you are really cool and evocative.  I cannot do this justice, but I feel like I want to run this more than World of Darkness again.  Horror isn't a space I normally play in, but this gives my brain enough to latch on to do something weird in.  Fuck man, I want to make a world that one of the Avatars making up this world was like, a fuckin' jazz musician so Ska is weirdly overrepresented on all top 50 pop charts, just because!

Despite my earlier layout complaint, everything flows nicely.  If this is the advice and information they're giving the player facing book, I'm incredibly curious what Book 2: Run is going to contain because goddamn, that's gotta have some choice advice for setting up mysteries, the collaborative world building, and, well, I think it does contain the character creation rules, so that too.  Strongly considering picking up more books just to find out more.

 

I still have some Fabula Ultima on the brain, so I’m going to design a plains area Transmission and plotmap starter, and if I get the ambition, I’ll do a couple additional rolls to fill it out. I’m going to lay out my thought process for each area below, and then the details will appear after the chart.

Connections means I need to come up with some neutral-to-friendly NPCs, easy enough. A village might work here if I want the community to be considered over the like… physical place of the Village, that would be a Location instead. The Connection is someone who will probably talk to the party before swinging at them, at least.

For a plains area, we have a lot of possibility space, so we can cast a really wide net for Events and Locations, which is nice. Events in Technoir are sort of charged situations that the party finds themselves stumbling into or getting wrapped up into, such as a high speed chase, or a high budget movie shoot where they have to try to find someone through the set, etc.

With Factions, I need to cover the spectrum of helpful to harmful, but I think I should lean Harmful and neutral. Connections are for allies, factions and threats are here to muddy things up.

Objects! The Weird Shit! Well, normally it’s for potent stuff, but I think here I can use it to give some gear, meterials, or artifacts.

Threats I want to make a mixture of Villains and maybe groups, and maaaaybe some environemntal, magical or natural issues. I think, though, putting the same person in the Threats and Connections area might be fun, as it could paint the circumstances of their introduction to the area. Then if I rolled them on the opposite, there could be either something souring, or a begrudging alliance.

Category 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. Connections Riva Well Ven Tonba Pun Ever Tripen Onnida Pine Scrabbles Scraw 2. Events Heavy Rain Festival of the Forked Bolt Pirate Raid A crime scene Royal Decree Cave in 3. Factions The Pestrada Family Fontaine’s Pirates The Townsfolk of Ard The Arcane Institute Bray’s Band Royal Guard 4. Locations Ard Manabloom River Eyorn Mines Rasp Flats Secluded Thicket Encampment 5. Objects Glove of Air Terra Force Aether-fused Iron Pearlite Pixieweave Robe Starblood Crocus 6. Threats Lennox Fontaine Flood Razor wolves Winry & Fenx Bray Carlisle Es Fire sprites

I love doing thse because I make them row by row, and then when it’s done I start looking at everything and laugh at how I can connect different things. I’m keeping these pretty generic so I don’t get to link to my own towns or backgrounds, but that could easily be changed. For example, Ven could be someone who moved away from Waystone, forgoing his assigned name for the element he attuned to. Or he could be an extension of Waystone interests, who knows!

Some of the items are obviously synergetic, such as Cave In and the Eyorn Mines, but the Cave In could be a building collapsing, or an unrelated cave that the party is camping in, and the mine could hold something besides the Aether-fused Iron, but could be a hideout for the pirates.

Below I’ll have the basic information for all the cells and stat blocks for the Threats and people that need them. Feel free to disregard whatever, or to change any if you want to use this yourself.

Connections

• Riva Well - Human Female travelling merchant.
• Ven - Mayor of Ard, an older tanned man with silvery blond hair.
• Tonba Pun - Retired mercenary on a food journey around the world.
• Ever Tripen - Scholar and Mage, Surveyer for the Institute.
• Onnida Pine - Otterfolk Explorer, she has a daring personality that can get her into trouble.
• Scrabbes Scraw - Ratfolk scoundrel.

Events

• Heavy Rain - Simple environmental issue that can complicate an adventure and requires a check to avoid taking the status condition Slow and Vulnerable to Bolt damage. Difficulty 10 to avoid Slow, 13 to avoid both.
• Festival of the Forked Bolt - A festival held in the plains celebrating the power of nature and a contest of constructing lightningrods. Storm is summoned by local mages so the event can be sure to happen.
• Pirate Raid - Fontaine’s Pirates/a rival group attacks someone or something nearby, maybe the party.
• A Crime Scene - The site of some crime
• Royal Decree - Someone from a place of authority is issuing some sort of new law, regulation, or restriction, either temporary or permanent.
• Cave in - Something has collapsed. Cave, optional.

Factions

• The Pestrada Family - A travelling circus troupe, founded by the Pestrada family, with the patriarch still ringleading after 30 years of new additions.
• Fontaine’s Pirates - Pirate crew who follows Lennox Fontaine
• Townsfolk of Ard - The people who live in the small town of Ard, a tight knit community.
• The Arcane Institute - The leading magical institution has surveyors all over the place.
• Bray’s Band - A grizzled bunch of mercenaries, led by married couple Winry and Fenx.
• Royal Guard - A procession of gleaning knights protecting someone important.

Locations

• Ard - A small village in the countryside
• Manabloom River - A river where some bends have an unusually high level of water/ice elemtnal magic.
• Eyorn Mines - A well-worn mine where practical and precious metals are mined.
• Rasp Flats - An elevated plateau, home to sharp grasses and thistles.
• Secluded Thicket - A dense group of trees and bushes that hides something within.
• Encampment - A place where many people have gathered.

Objects

• Glove of Air - This was supposed to be globe of air, but I liked the typo I made more. - Artifact - A quasi-transparant silken glove that allows the wearer to feel the air currents around them, no matter how subtle.
• Terra Force - 2-Handed Martial Weapon - Axe - Martial - MIG + WLP - HR+15 Earth Damage, Ignores Resistances, Targets M.Def. - 1250z
• Aether-Fused Iron - A charged chunk of Iron that can be used as either a material for a Project or a reagent for rituals of the Ritualism, Entropism, or Spiritism domains. Value 750z
• Pearlite - A collection of small pearls fused together. Artifact - When placed in a container with another palm sized object, the other object becomes dry within 5 minutes.
• Pixieweave Robe - A robe imbued with natural healing magics. - Sage Robe - Dex + 1, Ins + 1, -2 Initiative - Spells you cast that recover HP recover 5 additional HP, 10 at level 40+. 1700z.
• Starblood Crocus - A plant that blooms during the new moon. Reagent for rituals of the Chimerism, Arcanism, Elementalism, and Ritualism domains of Rituals. Value: 800z if used in a project.

Threats

• Lennox Fontaine - Ratfolk Pirate Captain - Daring, Protective of his men, greedy
• Flood - A huge amount of water rushes in and threatens someone, somewhere, or something.
• Razor Wolves - Huge, predatory wolves that hunt in groups of 3-5 that are covered in sharp quills
• Winry & Fenx Bray - Leaders of the Bray’s Band - Winry - Fierce, Ratty, Defiant. Fenx - Tall, Earthy, Rude.
• Carlisle Es - An experienced bounty hunter, burly cat man with green fur. Professional, Paid, Amiable.
• Fire Sprites - Precocious fire spirits that have wandered over to cause some “trickery”.

Let’s Roll up a Plot Map.

First roll is a 1 and a 6. Looking at the plotmap, I think I want to start with a threat, so we’re taking Lennox Fontaine, the ratfolk pirate captain my party had faced when on an airship. Next, I rolled a 2 and 3, which is actually hilarious, because it’s either the event Pirate Raid or the faction Fontaine’s Pirates. Fontaine is the threat, so I think I’ll pick Pirate Raid for this. Finally, a 3 and 4, a Faction, The Arcane Institute or a Location, the Eyorn Mines. I think the most interesting one here is The Arcane Institute. We now have 3 points on the map, and we can start to connect them, pretty straightforewardly I would think. The Pirates are Loyal to Fontaine, and Fontaine is robbing or planning to rob a survey team from the Arcane Institute.

Good setup, but if I want this as a drop-in adventure, I think I need one more piece, so another roll we go. Normally you start with 3, but more rolls can help you make the situation more developed at the start. A 5 and a 6. Don’t think a threat works, but now there’s the Starblood Crocus, a rare flower that can be used for Rituals or maybe something else. So now I have a good idea of what’s going on here.

So we know the pirates are Loyal to Fontaine, the pirates and Fontaine are going to steal from the Arcane Institute survey team, who are harvesting Starblood Crocus for something, either a big ritual, some potion, or whatever other magic stuff they’re up to. From here, I can spin out a quick adventure to fill in a bad Travel Roll that could set the party back. If they choose to ignore the raid, I could make the pirates have new stuff later, either better gear from selling the flowers off, or from some magic items they nick off the Institute. Or they could just get caught up.

If I wanted this to be more complex, I could try to turn it into a mystery of some sort, and shuffle the chart around. WIth the same 4 entries, it could be more of a race between Fontaine and his Pirates to find the Crocus for a big payout, while the Institute could want it for a rare research specimen that nobody can find. The party can engage in the race, which will add extra nodes to the map, and entangling everything.

If using the latter example, I would add an extra node once the party found out about the Crocus. That would be the first big flag to add another complication, item or location. If a Contact came up, it could be someone else who might know whereabouts. If a location came up, it could be found there, OR it could be a place where a clue is. If another item came up, someone could be willing to trade it for the flower, might be necessary to find the flower, or it could be added to one of the inventories of any other groups. Or hell, it could be a side treasure they find.

The thing to note is that with a Plot Map is that you can either roll randomly or you can pick. If you for sure want the flower to be in the mines, you can just stick the mine on the map and connect the flower to it. Think in terms how different items can be connected. A node should not be isolated from the other nodes. Someone can want it, work with, hate, oppose, require… any sort of adjective or adverb or verb or whatever, but everything should have a relation to something on the map, connecting things closer. The more an item gets connected to multiple things, the more entangled it is.

I wish my game was still going so I could roll on this during random travel rolls in plains, but hopefully this was at least a little interesting to think about.

Alright, need to post an update, so here we go. Got a few irons on the fire, and most of them relate to Fabula Ultima.

What I’m Working On FU Transmission Post

Been working on a generic Transmission for Fabula Ultima to share as a way to generate up a quest or area in short amount of time, giving a sample starting point too. Just need to finish describing things and making the sample plot map.

Sports Themed RPG

Started planning a basketball tactics RPG, don’t have a ton written for it though. Been a fun thing to think about and try to balance how many attributes and archetypes I should have.

FU Almanac

Look, if the big books are called “__ Atlas” then I’m naming my thing an Almanac. It’ll have some creature stuff in it, some GM tables, and I’d like to make a dungeon creating system in it, maybe adapting Numenera’s Jade Colossus system. I want to find a good way to format this so I don’t need to fix everything at the end, but it’s been fun so far. The goal is to have multiple types of the same creature to use at different levels, including one Villain of the type.

What I’m Playing Tekken 8

Tekken 8 has been THE fighting game to grip me. Street Fighter 6 is cool and I really like World Tour mode, but Tekken actually makes me want to fight other people. Been maining Reina, finished the single player campaign mode and some of the character Chapter things, and slowly trying to make my way out of the lowest ranks in Ranked with her.

Cassette Beasts

Finsihed this recently, really good monster collector game with a killer soundtrack. Highly recommend.

Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth

Started on this recently and it’s been really fun. Wish it was dubbed, but that’s a somewhat minor complaint. This game encourages you to evolve and devolve your digimon to get the needed stats to hit the different monsters you want to evolve into.

What I’m Watching NBA Season

Basketball is back baby! Timberwolves look bad so far! Anthony Edwards is hurt! The NBA Cup with it’s bad sponsor is here.

Ping Pong The Animation

Just finisshed a rewatch of this and it’s still incredible. A really tight 11 episodes with a top 5 anime fight of all time in the penultimate episode. And then the finale is just really like… fulfilling. Incredible anime about Table Tennis.

Overall not a ton going on but I try to keep busy.

Two months late to recapping the final session, baby!  Let's do it.  

The party arrived at the docks of Yuventus after working their way here as members of a shipping crew.  A pirate attack put them on hold for a bit, but otherwise the trip went well.  From Yuventus, they had to make their way through the city to get to a different dock that flew west, towards Thorton, and Rei's adoptive home.  

Upon disembarking from the freighter, they heard a crier, calling for people marked with strange symbols to take part in a study at the magic Institution, and be handsomely compensated for it.  They were offering north of 1,000 zenit per participant.  The party, skeptical of this, and feeling like they were on a time crunch, slipped out without engaging.  

Using his knowledge of the city, Max found a roundabout way for them to avoid the most populated streets, but more importantly, he wanted to check in on the other abandoned children here.  Ostracized himself for not knowing magic, he found family among the other children the city had left to die.  He arrived at one of their normal meeting places, only to find a couple missing, but the excited voices of the remaining children greeted him.  He was told that Silas and Penny got some funny zappy marks and were going to make some money for them all at the Institute.  Max, immediately on alert, shifted his priority to making sure those kids were safe.

They made their way directly towards the Institute, walking through the brightly lit streets, magical signs advertising various stores, as the streets glittered with each footfall.  They arrived at the front of a sprawling campus, high gleaming walls made of magical resistant alloys and fairly mundane looking doors greeted them.  They were accosted upon arrival at the campus until they indicated that they were here for the study, which then the researcher that greeted them helped guide them where they needed to go.

A brief interview process, and the party was assigned to a classroom, along with other Bollared, the term used to denote those marked by the magical Nexus in the world.  In their room, they were met by a few people.  First, was Penny, who greeted Max in a panic, saying that she got separated from Silas.  As Quentus took he seat, he took notice of another man, fairly well dressed with a peculiur belt that he immediately clocked as a mimic... Well, his ring clocked it as it made little movements of recognition. This was Erasmus Sixwillow, a self-important man from Metizzare.  Both he and Penny seemed to bear the mark of the bolt, while the final person in the room was familiar to Rei, if not in name, but in garb.  This was someone from Waystone, particularly the Brightstrider clan, of those who are attuned to the Light element, a step above the Levinstrike in terms of hierarchy but actually has representatives in the government.  She didn't know exactly who Rei was, but identified herself as Frei Brightstrider, who bore a mark of Darkness.  

After the initial discussions, a member of the Institute entered and started calling individuals out for specific testing.  Erasmus was the first called, and he went out to another room across the hall, but never came out.  Next was Frei, and after she didn't return, the party made decision to check that room out.  Rei and Quentus snuck out and peered into the mysterious room.  It had a slightly raised platform of white stone, but not much else was in here.  A quick Ritual led by Quentus to enhance his senses helped him hear voice below this room, giving the party further sense of dread once they relayed this.  
With their goal of getting to the basement set, the party caused a bit of a ruckus to try to draw some staff, so they could try to grab a key to the basement.  What they got was a little more than they bargained for, as two Security mages, as well as two Magic Containment Bots were deployed.  These hovering thick disk-shaped robots had two small arms protruding, and were designed to be resistant to Bolt, as they were designed to deal with the high volume of Bolt Bollared in the area, due to the proximity to the Bolt nexus.  

This fight lasted awhile (Six rounds to be precise), but one major thing that happened was that one of the Battlemages goofed, and got his security key for the building knocked off, which the party was able to recover.  The fight took awhile because of some bad dice luck, only 3 of the 4 party members dealing damage, and Rei shooting Bolt into Bolt resistant enemies, and not even using the spell that bypasses Resistances.  

Upon arrival to the basement, they found several people trapped in holding cells, including Erasmus, Frei, and but no Silas.  The party broke them out of their cells, but in doing so, their eyes were drawn to something very wrong.  On the far end of the room, a holding cell had been blown outwards, sending debris onto the hard stone floor.  Their eyes followed the path of the shrapnel and soon were met with a smear of blood, the lifeless body of a researcher, and a giant hole blasted into a reinforced door that led deeper below ground.  

We cut to a scene where we see what caused this scene... A mess of 3 Bollared had fused together after having adverse reactions to their marks.  This amalgamate was seen lumbering down a dimly lit hallway with sporadic cells filled with people who seemed to be having stronger reactions to their marks.  One of the cells held a small, very scared boy named Silas in it.  

And that's where we left off.

Not great!

So also in the classroom I failed to mention that the different marked people shared a bit about a hazy vision they saw shortly after receiving their marks.  I had written one up for every different mark because I rolled from a list to determine who was in the class with them.  The child and Erasmus with the Bolt mark had a vision of the large central island breaking up, and then the other islands fragmenting more.  Frei saw a vision of magical energy being siphoned out of Yuventus and feeding into something well below the clouds.  The party's vision was about each of the nexus flashing before their eyes, before showing them something being pulled up into the bottom of the islands.

I wish my party used Study more, or thought about other options than their very basic ones.  I try to use the Objective action and Hinder action myself to show how annoying and useful they can be, but the party never took.  I thought bolt resistance bots in an area this close to a nexus of Bolt energy was a smart call, but it ended up shutting Rei down hard, but it didn't have to.  They had the spell that ignores resistances, they have Elemental Weapon, they had a different gun that did Physical damage.  But they shot into resistances with their bolt gun, and their bolt spell, even after the first time. 

I'm bummed that the game is over.  Real life just Real Life'd all over the game.  I was enjoying it a lot, and it's a blast to run.  I want to play Fabula Ultima as well, don't get me wrong.  I have loads of characters I'd be excited to play.  

Part 1 - Overview and First Bands
Part 2 - The Pixies and Chvrches
Part 3 - Parliament and Metallica
Part 4 - The Shins and Muse
Part 5 - Mustache! and 3 Minute Hero
Part 6 - The Capes and The Dead 60s

 

Continuing the trend of "music I played while doing college radio", we're reaching into a sort of pop rock band that could have their sound compared to The Pillows and an alt rock band some of you may have heard, if you've ever played Burnout Revenge.

The Capes - Hello

The first of our albums released in 2005, Hello kicks off with Mexican Broads, and the Brit Pop Rock comes through pretty quick.  Veering between exceedingly clean guitar tones to distorted chords with some... I want to describe them as "airy" vocals but they're just upper register tenor style that still has some "weight"? that keeps it from being airy.  Lots of vocal harmonizing during choruses.  Super Girls though is a banger of a track.  Starts off with this descending riff that's then counterpointed by a higher pitched oscillating tone.  I like the simple bass in this, but it just sort of fills the empty space between the vocal bars well.  The chorus goes to an almost flat, sung delivery.  Like each line is the same note tone wise, but it's accompanied by other members signing and harmonizing with it, either in the similar tone or on the octave.  This might be my favorite track from the album.  Jumping ahead two tracks, Carly is another fun romp that just sounds really nice to me.  The vocals pack enough punch that makes them fun to sing, and the light and slightly distorted guitar and the keyboard sound good and make a really interesting sound behind the singing.  I think that last sentence sums up my feelings on a lot of the album, I suppose.  Specific shout outs to First Base and Tightly Wound for being prior favorites among the album that fit that description.

Francophile has a sci-fi bend to the tone which an interesting change of pace from the prior five tracks.  Shinjuku Hi 5 starts off iffy, but it then settles back into the light pop rock style we've heard for a bunch of the album so far, and the chorus has a bunch of held notes that travel up and down the scale which is fun.  Comet Tails is notable for me because the opening, once the music hits, was a backing track for some of our pre-recorded ads or bumpers.  Stately Homes is a weaker track but I don't know why I feel that way.  It just doesn't have It.  Gimmie was another track used for bumpers/ad backing music.  Someone was on something when they were recording those huh.  It's Fine.  Sun Roof as a wrap to the album is almost a come-down sort of song.  Very mellow by comparison, with some simple vocalizing and harmonizing instead of regular lyrics and singing.  

The Dead 60s - The Dead 60s

The albums starts off strong with their most well known track Riot Radio, the track from Burnout Revenge.  It was fun to see that the song show up in that game since I picked up Burnout Revenge later in the school year, after I had already heard of them via the station's library.  A good bouncy track.  Also fun fact, Riot Radio is a track I tried to chart for the knockoff of Guitar Hero "Frets on Fire" back in like, 2008.  This band is really in that sing-talking style for some of the tracks, I suppose.  That can be a putoff at times, but sometimes it works well.  A Different Age, the second track has a bit of a surfy beat to the guitar, as the bassline runs the same riff throughout most of the song.  I guess I can describe them a little as surf rock-y, but if you ran like... The Arctic Monkeys through a Surf Rock filter?  Maybe this analogy sucks.  They like their guitar effects that can sound almost comical.  Putting a heavy warble effect on a single note on the lead guitar as the rhythm plays a very simple chord on the beat.  That's basically the verse format for Train to Nowhere.  

Red Light has a bit of a seediness to it.  Which is then followed up by 70s-ass keyboard in We Get Low, where the guitar reminds me of brass-less... evil ska.  Look I'm just saying words I don't know how to describe shit for shit, ok.  OK, GOOD.  GREAT.  The next track Ghostface Killer is ALSO Evil Ska.  Sure fuck it!  We get back to more regular sound with Loaded Gun, which sounds more like the first tracks of the album, with the sparse lead guitar, but often pairing it with some heavy sort of effect, as the bass and rhythm carry the track until the chorus and solo.  Soul Survivor is an instrumental track that is actually pretty groovy.  If you don't care for their musical stylings to this point though, it's an easy skip.  Nationwide has more of the seediness that you hear throughout the album.  I think it's the how muted everything is just makes it feel like the music is this slate gray color with splashes of color to highlight and break it up.  Like a harmonica in this track.  Then we contrast this with a comparatively frenetic Horizontal that's next that feels like it's more on the surf-y side of things.  But it still feels aligned with the other tracks?  It's like they developed a sound that is a sliding scale of "surf" to "smokey dive bar" that they just go "ok where does this track fall on the spectrum".  I will say, the final track on the album, You're not the Law is one of my, probably top 3 tracks on the album?  It has a really good sound to it, and the distortion they put on the keyboard during certain parts gives it a weird texture that's really interesting.  

... they described themselves as Ska Punk so I guess I'm not saying anything outside the range of expectations.  Band disbanded in 2008. ONE OF THE MEMBERS WORKS AT SPOTIFY AS A MUSIC INDUSTRY EXECUTIVE????

 

Alright, ranking time.  I still like parts of these albums.  The highs on Hello are as-high or maybe higher than The Dead 60s but I think the lowers are way lower too.  I felt more compelled to skip one of the Capes' tracks than The Dead 60s'.

 

1. Cassette Beasts OST - Joel Baylis (0)
2. Bleed Out - The Mountain Goats (0)
3. ELO Greatest Hits - ELO (0)
4. Every Open Eye - Chvrches (0)
5. Blood Sugar Sex Magik - Red Hot Chili Peppers (0)
6. Signals - Rush (0)
7. Will of the People - Muse (0)
8. Chocolate City - Parliament (0)
9. The Dead 60s - The Dead 60s
10. Superunknown - Soundgarden (0)
11. Master of Puppets - Metallica (+1)
12. Fragile - Yes (-3)
13. Operation Brown Star - 3 Minute Hero (-2)
14. Hello - The Capes
15. Best of Big Bands - Various Artists (-2)
16. Babes Say the Hottest Things - Mustache! (-2)
17. Combat Rock - The Clash (-1)
18. Bossanova - The Pixies (-3)
19. Aurora Borealis - Cloud Cult (-2)
20. Chutes Too Narrow - The Shins (-2)

A second dip into Beacon, after the comparison between it and the FFXIV RPG and came out pretty in favor of Beacon.  Beacon is made by Pirate Gonzalez Games, and you can find the game on their website or Itch.  Beacon is similar to LANCER in terms of mechanics, but so if you know how LANCER works, you can skip the next section as I give a rundown of the primary mechanics.

Quick Mechanics

General gameplay loop is that you go between Combat and Narrative play, each with it's own set of rules.  You, often, won't be using Narrative actions in Combat, for example.  Combat is more structured, tactical, grid based combat where precision, range, and area of affect are important.  Narrative play, on the other hand, is looser and more free form.    

Beacon uses 1d20s and 1d6s for basically everything.  All accuracy checks are handled by a d20, and you can gain Accuracy and Difficulty on checks, which is where you roll additional d6s equal to the amount, and take the highest result of those.  If you have Accuracy, you add it to the d20 roll, and Difficulty subtracts.  Accuracy and Difficulty cancel each other at a 1-to-1 rate, so if you somehow have 3 Accuracy on a roll and 2 Difficulty, you roll 1 d6 and add it to the result.  

For most checks, ones that aren't against like an opponent in combat, is compared to difficulty 10, so the game gives players a slight edge at success, with a 55% chance at success on an unmodified d20 roll.  If you ever roll 20+, after adding modifiers and Accuracy to a check, you score a critical hit, and get a bonus effect.  

You have two HP-alike tracks, HP and Stress, and associated limiters called Wounds and Overstress.  When your HP hits 0, you mark a Wound, refill your HP, subtract the remaining damage, and then roll on the Wound table, which could result in a piece of gear being broken (until repaired during a rest, spending resources), status effects, or even being Dazed.  When Stress fills, you mark an Overstress, empty the meter, and put any excess stress there. It also has a table, but the things that can "break" there are like, consumables, or techniques, as the exhaustion makes it hard to do them, or you can lose MP.

To offset some of these, you have something called Recoveries, that you can spend during rest periods, or by taking the Refresh action in combat.  They can be used to recover HP, Stress and MP, as well as clearing Wounds, Overstress, or repairing broken things.  Very helpful.  

Now that that's out of the way...

OK, Let's Get Into It Further

So besides being Crystal Fantasy instead of Mech Sci-Fi, Beacon builds on LANCER by fleshing out Narrative Play some more.  The biggest addition is Narrative Actions, which turns the game into a PBTA style game, with moves and triggers, such as "Gain Insight" triggering "When you quickly read a person place or situation, roll:" and then has results for 9-, 10-19, and 20+, with a list of questions.  One move I like from this list is "Make Conflict", which is about handling minor combat type encounters without resorting to full combat rules.  This action also applies to social and mental conflicts too, with you choosing Costs and Benefits based on how you roll.  It's a neat and quick way to handle less important encounters, or arguments with people.  

Looking at one more, it has something similar to Fabula Ultima's "Ritual" spellcasting, or "cutscene magic".  You describe what you want the spell to do, pick a Boon and a Bane for it.  On a failure, you get the spell effect + the bane effect.  So, as an example, let's say I'm chasing someone and they run across a river and break the rope bridge.  I want to cast magic to make an ice bridge.  For Boon, let's say Fast, it casts faster than you'd expect, and the boon is Weak, it isn't as sturdy as I'd like.  On a failure, the spell goes off, but now I have a weak bridge that might be it's own challenge on top of the chase.  If I get a Hit, I can either gain BOTH the Boon and Bane, or just negate the Boon, with no bonus effect.  On a Crit, you get just the Boon.  So if I crit, the bridge forms fast and helps us catch up to the person quicker, for example.

For that one I'm not sure if I'm totally happy with?  With how cleanly the Success and Failure options are for Make Conflict, this one seems really broad.  Being able to pick flaws and bonuses for the spell is cool in theory but it feels weird to have the GM have to adjudicate that for some reason.  The Banes and Boons aren't supposed to be opposite either, so you can go "Fast/Slow" or whatever.  Something about it feels off and I can't put my finger on it.  

One minor thing I want to touch on is that one of the Downtime action is essentially a Full Respec option.  Normally, in both Lancer and Beacon, when you level up you can move all your ranks from one License/class to another, but this allows you to change everything, from your appearance, to your name, gender, ancestry, classes and talents.  You're trying to attune to another Echo of yourself across the planes.  You keep your memories, and it cannot be used to like... go Undercover (no suitable Echo will be available), but it's still possible to make drastic changes to your character as you go.

This game cares about Loot in a way that Lancer doesn't and it definitely adds another layer.  It handles this through Loot Crates that GM gens up.  Normally it has 3 slots and you pick which option you want.  Loot is assigned Per Player too, so everyone gets a choicebox, and this unlocks spells and equipment that can be used by any class that character has.  Each slot has it's own rarity assigned to it, so you can't get 3 Legendary items (10% in slot 2, 25 in slot 3, 0 in slot 1).  This matters because there is a Dungeon Delving downtime action that lets you gain a Loot Crate.  If you Miss, you only get a Loot Crate with slot 1 available.  Hit is 1 and 2, and a Crit gives you the choice from all 3 slots.  Loot you don't want can also be broken down into Residuum.  This is used to Reroll the crate.  1 Residuum lets you reroll a single slot, 2 lets you reroll a slot and choose a specific Type of loot (Skill/Spell/Weapon/Support Item), and 2 can also let you reroll a slot with the slot being 1 level higher than the original result.  

Gear isn't supposed to be swapped between players, for various reasons.  It's designed to intentionally go "Hey this is this person's gear, don't badger them for it because it might fit your build better" or to keep everyone from stacking all the armor boosting stuff on one player to skew the game.  The book does mention that you can houserule this way easily though if you don't care.  I know I like the idea of each person getting gear separate from each other, but I probably would have the Jealousy if someone got a piece that fit a build I wanted to do in the future.

Now's where we get a little weird.

Combat Phases

Combat is similar to other games, giving you a Standard, Minor, and Move Actions per turn, but you don't necessarily use them all at once.  Each round is broken down into 8 Phases.  

1. Bolster
2. Channel
3. Skirmish
4. Reposition
5. Brawl
6. Release
7. Full Attack
8. Delay

They're labelled 1-8, and when you start the round, you pick which phase you're acting in.  There are generic actions for each phase, and some of your abilities can key off those generic actions, but more likely, they'll add a new option to that list.  At the start of a round you decide your actions, and each phase passes one by one, alternating who takes the turn between the party and enemies.  Enemies have Initiatives that indicate when they act, but players are beholden to the phase actions and order.  For example, if a party member wants to Volley (A Skirmish action), another PC wants to Rush (A Reposition action), an NPC acts on Brawl, and another party member wants to Brawl, the turn order goes like this: Player 1 goes first because Skirmish processes first, now the NPCs gets the initiative if you want to act at the same time as them, but Reposition pops first, since it's right after Skirmish.  NOW when Brawl comes about, the NPC gets to go first, then the last PC.  

This is an interesting take on JRPG active time battle type things, giving each action a delay.  If you want to use your big guns, you might need to wait until Full Attack to fire it off.  Who you're targeting and whatnot is not set until you take the action.  I can see this leading to moments where an NPC ends up moving out of range, leaving someone with no legal target for the phase you wanted to activate in.  I think I like it?  It encourages planning in a neat way, and if the party staggers their build interestingly, there's a way they could go like, 4 times in a row.

Like in Lancer, I like Surging as a mechanic, which is "Take stress to take extra turns, the more you do it between rests the more taxing it is".  So if you Surge once this fight, you take 2 Stress, but the next time you Surge before they take a Long Rest, they'll take 1d3+1 Stress.

Focus is a temporary resource, gained primarily through the Defend action, where you gain Armor+1d3 Focus.  It is used to use any of the 4 default Reactions, you can take a reaction 1/Turn, as long as you have Focus), or to use some of your class abilities.  There are other ways to gain Focus, typically through some Talents, like the Enchanter's "Adamant" enchantment, or a Class like Gravewalker, which gains Focus when nearby enemies are defeated.  

Limit Breaks are your Core Powers from Lancer, and can only be used once per Quest, even if you have time to use the action to change jobs/classes between fights.  These are your big fight swinging abilities.  

In addition to the ability to equip various weapons and skills, akin to equipping weapons and systems.  Each class has a number of Weapons (listed by size, such as light and main), and then a number of Support items they can equip based on the class.  So you can really mix and match weapons, support items, and skills from all these different classes.  Spells and some abilities cost MP to trigger, and MP numbers are pretty low, so if you spam your best ability you could be out of resources after one fight.  

Another neat thing are Ancestries, which gives you 4 additional abilities.  Like the Goblin ancestry gives you: The ability to use the Rush action as a free actions 1/scene, the ability to Shift 1 space when an attack misses you, you play as a swarm and increase to size 2, and you can do 1 piercing (bypassing armor) damage for free at the start of the turn when you have someone grabbed.  These can be tweaked and you can do half-and-half to take 2 from each Ancestry, but it provides another interesting vector for custimization.  

I will say, numbers in this game are loooooow.  The Aegis, a class that's a tank, has base 6 HP.  You gain 2 HP for every point in Bulk (you get 2 stat points at level 1 to put in your choice of Bulk, Agility, Mind, and Magic).  If I drop both points into an Aegis, I have 10 HP to start, which on two bad rolls for me would be enough damage to kill me.  This is offset by your support items, like Armor, which is just flat damage reduction.  

I need to see this in action to see if characters feel too fragile or if the damage being tuned down and Armor and everything else makes it feel like your bulky characters are good at surviving.  What helps the example Aegis is that they have a lot of Armor granting abilities for both themselves and their allies, which is really cool.  Makes them a ranged supporter in that way.  

Taking a peek at the generic Support items, I like how everyone can carry healing potions so you don't need dedicated healing, or just as a "I don't know what to put in this last Light Support Item slot".  Even funnier, you can add a Companion as a Support Item which is hiiiilarious to me.  Anyone can have a little guy!

Between the Classes, Ancestries, and the Talents, which I didn't even touch on as 3 tier Feats you can take, you have a LOT of options to customize your character and make some bonkers builds.  And that's before we even get to the Gear you get from your class, the generic gear, and your Loot Crates!  There's SO MUCH.  

One thing I don't like as much is that the character creation rules are split up weirdly.  The basics of creating a character is in the beginning (good), but when you get to the chapter "Building a Beacon", there's nothing about the basic stuff you need, such as how many stat points you get to distribute, information about your Title, skills, and so on.  Grit isn't mentioned in that section either.  I kind of wish the details from page 11-14 were reprinted or reiterated in the Building a Beacon section, but it's a minor-ish complaint.  

Game Master Stuff

What I love about Lancer and Beacon is how they handle enemies.  Yeah, you don't have a huge bestiary like some games, but you have 28 base enemies, and you can modify them with universal NPC features that can change any of them plus you have 19 Templates which are bigger modifications to the base creature.  It's really cool.  NPCs don't get ALL the abilities listed on their page, instead you pick 0-2 of the Extra Features, either from their class or the Universal ones, and you could run several encounters with the same Expendable enemies, and have them all feel different.  Expendable encounter 1 could be Goblins, 2 Goblin Expendables would be 4 characters (each 1 counts as 2 half-characters, essentially), as backup archers for a bigger goblin.  Your next one could have your own version of Infested Terrans from Starcraft, which just rush an enemy and try to detonate in their face when their HP is depleted.  You could then be some Shield Drones with the Shielded trait, that lets them act like Hard Cover for their allies, making them harder to hit.

It looks limited when you just see "Oh there's 28 monsters?  That's lame" but they're so flexible you can do so much with them.  

Another thing I like: there's a half page about homebrewing stuff.  It's not a ton but it's something.  I also like the preexisting Reflections, which in the cosmology of Beacon, are a facet of a Crystal that represents a world.  I also recommend the Reflection Generator on the Pirate Gonzalez Games resource page if you need some help making up a world.  You need to settle on the Theme of the world, the role Beacons play in the setting, the recurring threat labelled The Scourge, the importance and function of Crystals in the setting, the role of Aether and Magic serve and how they function, and the nature of Ruins and Dungeons.  

Pulled up the generator and got the following.

• Theme 1 - Advanced fallen civilizations
• Theme 2 - Journey
• Theme 3 - The number 7
• Beacons - Vessels
• The Scourge - The Living Spell
• Role of Crystals - Soul Entrapment
• Magic and Aether - Emotions
• Ruins - Our civilization

Looking over that, I could see a big sweeping journey taking place to visit the site of 7 former civilizations, as we look for answers to why our cities don't last as long.  The living spell as an entity is really cool, just a spell with a will of it's own doing whatever the fuck it wants, or causing chaos all over.  That would be fun to put on a gridded world map and roll a random hex/square for it's current nexus and have it spread out in the surrounding 2 spaces in each direction, just to add some unpredictability.

Keeping with the bullet list of "Beats to know for making X", is a quest building template.

• Inciting Incident
• Rising Action
• Climax
• Conclusion

Yes, these are common terms and common advise, but something about laying out and going "Hey make sure you fill these out, and here are some example Quests" is always appreciated.  Now, some people will balk at this because it feels like pre-planning and railroading a thing, but I think having it as a "this is where it starts and ends" is a good place to start so if things DO go off the rails, you have at least some sort of framework established that you can pivot from.  Yeah the mine is haunted, and there are malevolent ghosts haunting the place, but maybe you did such a good job clearing it that you go "well fuck, I guess the mine stays open instead of people abandoning it in fear/superstition"  And then you give them a bonus Loot Crate or something.  Jumping off points are always appreciated with me.  

Also carried over from Lancer is, essentially, Sitreps, or situational combats (or Battle Plans if you want to use the book's term).  These are encounters where the goal is something other than "Defeat all enemies".  These can be things like escorting a target, reaching an escape zone to get out of a chaotic or dangerous situation, holding control points, or guarding a high value target.  Most of these have round limit, such as Destruction giving you 8 rounds to destroy as many objectives as you can.  

Again, I love these because it encourages encounters beyond "I'm going to knock you down!".   

I like the Hub city idea, as an upgradable "home" for the PCs.  It gives them a gold sink in exchange for new shops, passive benefits, and narrative opportunities.  The Junkyard for example lets the party acquire some supplies for free between Quests, while the Cafe brings new types of people to town.  

Conclusion

To wrap up this, I want to look at some of the Loot the book provides as things to populate the Loot Crates with.  For example, the Armor of Growing Endurance is a Support Item (rare) that's an Enchantment.  You modify an existing piece of armor and choose to either: gain temp HP whenever you take a Wound, or when you Overstress, gain charges that can be used to reduce future stress.  We also have Cartwheel, which is a Reaction that doesn't cost Focus, but can only be used 1/Round.  When hit by an attack, you can shift 2 spaces, avoiding triggering reactions.  

I think I like Beacon as a text.  I want to get it to a table to see how the Phase part of combat works.  I know the Loot system will annoy some people but it actually excites me (I made a treasure pool generator from items I create for Fabula Ultima for this purpose).  I was a big fan of running Lancer too, so making Lancer but Final Fantasy is really really cool to me.  Can't wait to play it one day.

This post, along with my other current Questnoir posts are combinations of two separate posts, so if there are some awkward shifting between topics in the post, that's why.

Verbs are your stats in Technoir.  Pretty straightforward.  When you try to do something, you roll the appropriate Verb's total in d6s, and then look for the highest result, and compare it to the corresponding Verb on the opponent.  In this, the Verbs represent both your offensive capability and defensive capability.  For example, trying to punch someone could be Fight vs Fight, so you roll your say, 2d6 and try to beat the opponent's 4.  A tie goes to the defender, so you can beat it by going above the number (a 5 or 6 in this instance) or by tying the defender, but having doubles in that number.  So if my 2d6 comes up 2 and 4, the defender wins.  But if they come up 4 and 4, I win, because the second 4 gives you, essentially, a .1 addition, or a tiebreaker.

Starting with the Verbs.

Technoir has 9 Verbs that serve as your attributes for the game.

Coax - Used to influence people through words and body language.  
Intimidate foes, seduce victims, and deceive marks

I like this as the catch-all Verb.  It's very good and covers the entire spectrum of "This person uses words and body language to get what they want from a person

Detect - Used to notice details and track people. Reveal culprits, stake-out
conspirators, and trace fugitives

Spot, Search, Perception.  Easy.  It can stay, maybe renamed, maybe not?  Maybe something like "Perceive"?  I'll have to check other books I have for better adjectives/potential names.

Fight - Used to attack barehanded and with melee weapons. Punch opponents, wrestle challengers, and cut rivals

Melee combat skill.  I don't know if I want to roll Shoot into this, but because Technoir keeps melee and Ranged combat as separate skills so maybe I will here?  

Hack - Used to access and manipulate other’s objects electronically. Infiltrate vehicles, reprogram guns, and exploit computers

You're getting cut so it doesn't matter.

Move - Used to get around under your own power. Run down prey, outswim pursuers, and leap from assailants.

This could function like general defense too, but not sure what else I could rename it?  Maybe reflex?  No...  Move works OK I suppose for this.

Operate - Used to control mobile machinery (and to repair it). Drive cars, pilot aircraft, and control drones.

Probably not doing anything with this one either.

Prowl - Used to sneak around and get into places you are not wanted. Slip  
past guards, hide from patrols, and misdirect stalkers.

I like Prowl.  I don't mind the slight overlap with Move, because Move feels like fast movement, while Prowl is precise, measured movements.  

Shoot - Used to attack with ranged weapons, personal or vehicle mounted.  
Fire at enemies, aim at targets, and throw at adversaries.

This is probably fine?  This lets you still keep up the agile ranged attackers.

Treat - Used to mend physical and psychological wounds. Patch up the  
wounded, comfort the distressed, and heal the sick.

I like this one. This one works well for first aid and such, especially if I add something that's for magical healing and so on, keeping this in the realm of the mundane.

• Some of these are workable, some, obviously not. What I want to do is capture the main Verbs of a fantasy adventure. The ones I want to keep are...
  
  Coax - This should cover Bluff, Intimidate, and Persuasion.
• Detect
• Fight
• Move - I like Move as your generic evasion, reflex, and harried movement type things
• Prowl - I could see this being merged into Move, but eeeeh. That might make it too good of a skill.
• Shoot - I can't decide if I want to consolidate the fighting skills into a single one, or if having two makes for decent enough differentiation.
• Treat - Renamed Mend - To serve as both first aid and repairs.

Now, here's where I think i want to get capital S Stupid with it: "Class Verbs"

These would be Verbs that are exclusive to your Training Programs at creation. In Technoir, you get 3 Training Programs, packages of Verbs that contribute to your stats, as well as give you some sample Adjectives that fit that type of person that does that job (You pick an Adjective to describe your character per-Training Program, either from the examples or another one, you'll have 3 Adjectives at the end for your Character.), and you can take each Training Program up to 2 times.

For example, the Courier gives you a +1 to Fight, Move and Prowl, and has sample adjectives of Agile, Fast, and Healthy.

I want to make the Fantasy Archetypes into Training Programs, giving you two general Adjectives, and 1 Class Adjective. Like,

- Sorcerer: Coax, Fight, and Cast
- Cleric: Treat, Detect, and Invoke.

I want to double up on "Class Verbs" so something like the Fighter and the Bard would both have Lead, for example. Invoke is my idea for a "See assistance from beyond the veil", and might also give it to Druid, if I include a Druid.

The plan is to limit a player to, at most, 2 Class Verbs, but if I reduce the General Verbs down to 6, I could go 3, but we'll see.

The biggest issue though is that I need to make sure I have a Tight amount of General Verbs, and I have enough Class Verbs to make it seem interesting, give the specific Fantasies in the Fantasy genre, and avoid overlap. Giving a Bard something like "Perform" might be fitting, for example, but how useful is it going to be if it's something you burned limited resources on, since progression is not as quick or easy.

Anyways, this is just a rough like, super early version of what I'm planning, and I wanted to put this out in case I do end up abandoning it lmao.

OK, Class Verbs.

Following this up, I have landed on 5 Class Verbs

• Cast - Conjure the magic from an esoteric source to create change in the world around you
• Delve - Navigate the dangers of the wilds and ruins, disarming traps and avoiding trouble. 
• Invoke - Channel the will of a being of great power for guidance
• Lead - Take charge of situations through direct action and focus
• Protect - Keep others safe, taking the burden upon yourself

What I think I want to do with this though is take a page out of Treat's book from Technoir: Every roll of your Class Verb is against Difficulty 4.  In Technoir, ties go to the Defender, so in this case, the Difficulty, unless you roll 2 or more 4s, which breaks the tie.  They will also have different effects when used.  

Cast - This one was interesting because I want the feeling of casting a spell to be useful, right?  I want it to feel meaningful.  Cast is mainly about channeling the energy to manipulate the world.  Sure, using it offensively is straightforward, but I wanted to make it more useful on your allies.  This is why, for now, Positive Adjectives awarded to yourself or allies are Sticky by default.  They last until the end of the Scene or until something breaks it, such as concentration, a failed roll, a mage entering the scene with vision spells, etc.  This makes them straightforward as offensive magic (inflict Adjectives on enemies), but also serves as a buff to allies in the form of things they can invoke in the scene to use a Push Die on the roll.  

Delve - This has an overlap with Move, but being a sort of unopposed type thing feels interesting.  The use case for Delve is to spot and navigate around traps, pitfalls, and find paths through difficult terrain.  This also overlaps with Detect, which I need to consider.  Delve may be useful for more of a "environmental detect" rather than "look for hidden people", but not sure yet.  I think for this, I should ask what a failure looks like.  Normally, a failure is just a Whoops you Take Consequences, but I always find consequences for Looking to be weird sometimes.  So I need to frame this as either getting lost in the weeds of your search, focusing too much on the wrong thing, or missing a trap, and expressing that mechanically.  Maybe just some GM guidance on how to describe failure works best here.

Invoke - OK, so how do I make "Invoke" different than Cast?  That is a very good question.  I think we make it take time.  Not a Long time, but something that can't be used in a fight or when time is of the essence.  You Invoke the source of your power (Primal, Celestial, Religious, Nefarious, etc), asking for guidance current course of action and instead of giving an Adjective, it gives you +1 Die on the next roll you make that's related to the course of action.  I don't want it to Advise you, I want it to be a thing where you confer with your powersource, and tell it what you want, like spell it out, and it grants the boon, on a success.  +1d without spending a Push Die is incredibly strong, so GMs should be willing to say "Hey, you don't have time to do this here, nor could you do this without something going wrong against you/the group", such as making noise and so on.  This is the one that I'm most worried about.

Lead - This is the ability to do Group Actions.  Rolling Lead against Difficulty 4 means that you are trying to take control of the situation and find the best way in, way out, or way forward.  If you succeed, you can then roll for the entire group using your skills.  You can also use Lead like an alternate Coax, instead of trying to convince people, you try to impress upon them with your force of personality.  Useful for rallying people to a cause, or rabblerousing.  This whole Verb might need to get replaced, I dunno.

Protect - OK, so this fucker made me think about how Harm is done in this game (taking Negative Adjectives) and interacting with that system.  Protect allows you to take the brunt of a negative consequence for another character.  It doesn't block it, but instead gives you the associated Negative Adjective.  Because I want players with Protect to actually use Protect, I have a couple choices.  First, I could change the Harm system to incorporate something closer to Blades in the Dark's of Harm, specifically how Harm can roll over to higher levels.  Since Technoir already has "Fleeting", "Sticky", and "Locked" Adjectives, I could use the  "Harm Slots" to say you can take 4 Fleeting, 3 Sticky, and 2 Locked negative Adjectives at a time, then give people with Protect more slots per rank in it.  Or.  Or.  I could keep the current damage system, and say "You can ignore X-1 Hurt Dice when rolling" where X is your ranks of Protect.  So if you have 2 negative Hurt dice, and 1 level in Protect, you would only roll 1 Hurt Die, which means there is 1 less die that could wipe out a high roll.

I actually REALLY like Protect as a concept.  Having that buffer incentivizes you to protect others or take riskier changes and put yourself out there.  Cast having Positive Adjectives be Sticky is giving Buffs, well, a buff, while not affecting Negative Adjectives.  

If these feel too strong, I could work in lighter effects that happen for free, and the major effects require you to discharge or give the GM one of your Push Dice, but then I might have to make them Stronger than they already are.

Anyways, for now, I'm tentatively happy with how these are turning out.  

 

Transmissions in Technoir are the game's version of an Adventure module. Instead of it being fully written out though, it's a table of 36 entries, 6 categories of 6 items each. I want to talk about this system a bit and what I might need to change.

The 6 categories in Technoir are Connections, Events, Factions, Locations, Objects, and Threats. You use these to seed your mission and add nodes to the map as the players find clues and talk to their Connections. These represent the part of the city or region that you'll be exploring in, the major players, and major features of the area. You will not use everything on a given Transmission for a single mission. You roll for these nodes when applicable and add them to the plot map, creating the connection to an existing node, and invent the relationship. The strength of of this system is that you don't have to prep your adventure and it's constantly evolving. The downside is that you don't know where it's going to end up when using it, and you have to think on your feet to piece everything together yourself. I gave an example in [xx]

Another feature of Transmissions is how they cover a few important details for the city you're in: The Technology, The Environment, and Society. These are used as the backdrop for every item on your Transmission chart. I like this as well, because if I make a Transmission called "The Frozen Peaks", that you can drop anywhere on the map, you can have a description for what it's like here, what level of magic or tech or whatever it has, and what sorts of societies live here. I like that as a general stage setter.

I don't know if I need to say this here, but I will: The Transmissions are just a tool. The book even states to use it as such, it works for you, not the other way around. If something on the table fits better than a random result, just choose that one. Similarly, if you don't need the transmission, don't use it. Make up your own stuff.

Now that I've handled the preamble, I need to convert this to a fantasy setting. I could see these working fine for a single city or region though. In fact, making several Regional Transmissions might be the way to go. This way you can seed specific regions with specific adventures.

I had talked in a Discord about potentially tweaking connections, and replacing them with something like Rivals for the plot maps, but then I realized that's just the "Factions" and "Threats" options on the Transmissions hey. I like the idea of other forces taking a proactive role in the story though, so I may still keep them as a separate mechanic though. Gonna put a pin in that one.

What would a Transmission look like in a fantasy region? Would Connections even be a part of it? Well, yes. Since you start the game with Classes (nee Training Programs) selected, you're not coming into the game world with no prior experience. It would make sense that you had contacts and connections from around the continent or whatever. As you roll a new Transmission up and add it to the world, you can just as easily redo the Connections network for that region.

An issue I'm bumping up against is communication and splitting the party. In a sci-fi environment, communication is easy. It's easy to coordinate, and to meet back up. I could fix that via a Transmission Stone or whatever item, but that feels... eeeeehhhh... Part of what I like in Fantasy is that difference in knowledge sometimes, the inability to straight up converse with each other through distance. I get that you can just catch everyone up when you reunite, but... I dunno. I like messenger birds that take time, I like the bit of not knowing between groups. It feels interesting and ripe for a sort of dramatic irony. But also, it's annoying and a lot of players don't want to talk out filling each other in. So it just ends up being a waste of time to split up everyone.

While I'm combining previous posts, below will be a sample Transmission I've made for QuestNoir.

  1 2 3 4 5 6 1. Connections Fang Biskit Franklin Bedivere Iris Wellspring Wyzlan Valfox 2. Events Spellstorm Murder scene Invasion Caravan Terrible Weather Kidnapping 3. Factions Church of Mycgrin Balroth Band Noble Order of Swans Rosemary Quartet Cryptic Cadence Layaway Warriors 4. Locations Philage Spring Moon-over-Frostway Craven Drunk Wizard's Tower Fort Vanguard Hermit's Forest 5. Objects Teleportation Circle Bow of WIsdom Kursed Kris Flamedrinker Power Totem Weird Rock 6. Threats Feral Hogs Unruly Guards Balroth Scouts Ghouls Werebear Sprites Defining the Spaces Connections

1. Fang

• Elf Ranger
• Coax: 2 Detect: 4 Fight: 2 Mend: 1 Move: 2 Prowl: 3 Shoot: 3
  Delve: 3
• Adjectives: Literal, Dry, Nimble

2. Biskit

• Queen of the backroom deal
• Coax: 4 Detect: 4 Fight: 2 Mend: 1 Move: 2 Prowl: 1 Shoot: 1
  Lead: 3
• Adjectives: Charming, Ruthless, Protective

3. Franklin

• Rugged Sellsword
• Coax: 2 Detect: 3 Fight: 5 Mend: 2 Move: 3 Prowl: 2 Shoot: 2
  Protect: 2
• Adjectives: Robust, Self-Serving, Patient

4. Bedivere

• Noble
• Coax: 4 Detect: 4 Fight: 2 Mend: 1 Move: 2 Prowl: 2 Shoot: 2
  Lead: 4
• Adjectives: Haughty, Self-Important, Talkative

5. Iris Wellspring

• Healer
• Coax: 2 Detect: 4 Fight: 1 Mend: 4 Move: 2 Prowl: 2 Shoot: 2
  Invoke: 3
• Adjectives: Competent, Gruff, Knowledgeable

6. Wyzlan Valfox

• Hedge mage
• Coax: 3 Detect: 3 Fight: 2 Mend: 3 Move: 2 Prowl: 1 Shoot: 2
  Cast: 3
• Adjectives: Eccentric, Friendly, Reclusive

Events

1. Spellstorm - A wild storm of magic and mana running wild

2. Murder Scene - Someone was discovered murdered with the culprit unknown.

3. Invasion -  A wandering force makes itself known

4. Caravan - Travellers from abroad

5. Terrible Weather - A storm brews

6. Kidnapping - Someone is missing

Factions

1. Church of Mycgrin - A church worshipping a drowned god

2. Balroth Band - A nomadic tribe of orcs

3. Nobel Order of Swans - A legion of knights

4. Rosemary Quartet - A group of songstresses

5. Cryptic Cadence - A coterie of undead

6. Layaway Warriors - Mercenary group

Locations

1. Philage Spring - A crystal clear spring of cold water

2. Moon-over-Frostway - A small village touched by magic frost

3. Craven Drunk - A popular watering hole

4. Wizard's Tower - A tall, misshapen tower

5. Fort Vanguard - An urban center that has popped up around a fortress

6. Hermit's Forest - A forest with twisting paths and open glades

Objects

1. Teleportation Circle - A circle connected to an undisclosed location

2. Bow of Wisdom - A relic of a forgotten god

3. Kursed Kris - A wicked wavy blade

4. Flamedrinker - A shield immune to heat

5. Power Totem - A symbol of nature's might

6. Weird Rock - A stone of interesting shape and texture

Threats

1. Feral Hogs - A swarm of angry boars

2. Unruly Guards - A handful of soldiers who think they're above repercussions

3. Balroth Scouts - A pair of swift trackers for the Balroth Band

4. Ghouls - Hungry undead from the Cryptic Cadence

5. Werebear - A hulking beast of fur and fang

6. Sprites - The feyfolk send their regards

From this list, hopefully your mind is spinning with possibilities.  The Balroth Band is just living their life, do they see you as a threat?  Were the Order of Swans deployed to solve a murder?  Will you help Fang locate the Bow of wisdom?

Or was the Bow used in the murder?  Is Bedivere a member of the Nobel order of Swans?  Did the kidnapping happen under the cover of the Spellstorm?

There's a lot you can do, even pulling the same 3 items as someone else.  Hopefully by reposting these I can help motivate myself to pick this project back up.  

I've had a fascination with Technoir for some time.  You can find out more about the game itself by checking out my review of it.  It is also the first game that compelled me to start working on a full-on hack of a game.  Sure I've made some small custom stuff for D&D, but I've never wanted to Make something at this scale.

Technoir is presumably a bad fit. You don't roll against the Environment in Technoir. If you're doing something like hacking, you're rolling against whoever is monitoring the system, since it's a cyberpunk setting: everything is always connected. Otherwise, you just fuckin' do it. You don't need to roll to break down a door if it's not on a network, watched, or in a place someone can hear it. Hell, even picking a lock can just Happen if there's nobody to catch you.

And a big part of a fantasy setting is facing the Environment! Travel, weather, traps, "solving" the dungeon room, so on and so forth.

So fuck it, we can still do that.

For a Dungeon, this is easy. The traps had to be set by someone: use their stats. Make it one of the named characters who serves the Big Bad of the place. Instead of challenging the Trap's stats, you challenge the person who made or set it. Hell, you could even give Regional stats for the Environment if you needed to say "This Desert has a Fight of 4, making it difficult to Endure".

Part of the reason why I want to try this system is because I feel like the Transmission and Plot Map system lends itself well to Adventures, Quests, or Intrigues. Giving the GM a puzzle to put together of seemingly disconnected pieces, only for them to go "no, no, I got this". Like, if your starting 3 plot points are Verrick the Blackguard, A Goblin cave, and a Mana Storm. You could connect them in a bunch of ways.

• Did Verrick recruit the Goblins to initiate the Mana Storm?
• Is Verrick taking shelter in the Goblin Cave from the Mana Storm?
• Are the Goblins responsible for the Mana Storm, and Verrick wants to use it?
• Does he want to stop it?

Player leans on their Connection to get some gear or something at the start, and roll on their table, and now they're on the board. Talk again, and we can add the Mythic Elvish Bow to the grid and connect it to one of the previous 3 nodes.

• Was it stolen by the Goblins and Verrick is trying to recover it?
• Is Verrick using the bow as their primary weapon?
• Is the Mana Storm vulnerable to the power of the Bow, or does the Bow get amplified by it?
• You can see more about Transmissions here.

Another big reason is one of Technoir's core features: Push Dice.

Push Dice is the bargaining mechanic of the game.  At the beginning of the game, everyone starts with 3 Push Dice, sans the GM.  You use Push Dice to invoke your Adjectives and Tags on your gear to gain an extra die on a roll, or to boost your Verb when defending.  Your Push Dice "Recharge" when you're about to roll, refreshing for use.  A Charming character can invoke that adjective when Coaxing someone to get an additional die on the roll.  

The big thing though, is that if you want an effect to stick, or last longer than a few moments (up to the end of the scene, but not usually), is you have to Spend your Push Dice.  You can only Spend a die that you've invoked, so you can't try to make something stick if you're just rolling with your base Verb stat.  The players having all the Push Dice means that they're in charge of escalation.  It also means that you can't use magic as a 1 stop shop for solutions, as you have to spend a significant resource for it to actually matter.  

Sure, you can cast some spells for minor, Fleeting effects, but if you want your thing to Stick, is that you have to give the GM a die.  If you want it to be Locked, you have to give 2.  If you want to affect multiple targets with your effect, you have to use at least 1 Push die, instead of gaining the extra die.  

This is nonstarter for some.  How can a mage feel magical if they're not doing Magic all the time?  Cantrips don't count!  I can understand that feeling, but it's not the type of story I find super interesting.  Magic should be a tool in your tools chest, but it should not be the Only tool you possess.  This is a mental note for me that I need to establish the limits of magic and the Cast verb.  I don't want Cast to become something that replaces every other Verb in your repertoire.  And hell, not being able to do that might torpedo this whole project, but this is something I want to tackle.  

But maybe I don't.  The limit of the Push Dice means that if you want to cast an Invisibility on yourself, you have to make it Sticky, so you need to give me a die.  If you want to cast it on the whole party, you need to spend 2 dice, and then give me one to make it last.  And then you have the narrative control of being invisible sure, but when it comes time to roll, Invisible only gives you another Tag to invoke, not an automatic bonus.  This would be useful if your group has nobody who's sneaky, or if nobody has an adjective related to hiding, but it won't fully break the game.  

The core system is so good for this in my opinion, because it lets you tell stories that escalate and ebb and flow based on player actions.  You try to make something Sticky on the Vampire fledgling, and then I can now return the favor to the party when I introduce a Golem or something that hinders you.  The goal of a Fantasy story isn't to just waltz through the ruins and get what you want with no problem.  You should want to struggle and have setbacks, but persevere and get what you came for.  

These stories are at their best when something breaks wrong.  When a tension is introduced.  When something is underestimated and comes back to bite you.  When you stumble into a chamber that's way more dangerous than you expected.  THAT'S fantasy storytelling to me.

It seems like such a fascinating system to weave into a mystery on the fly, and building it out seems cool. I think this is the primary answer to "Why Technoir".

Part 1 - Overview and First Bands
Part 2 - The Pixies and Chvrches
Part 3 - Parliament and Metallica
Part 4 - The Shins and Muse
Part 5 - Mustache! and 3 Minute Hero
Part 6 - The Capes and The Dead 60s

Alright, i'm cheating with this one.  I haven't gone to the library in awhile, so instead I'm dipping into my library to do a full listen to some music from my college radio days.  At the station, we had a rack of CDs labelled "local music" for Minnesota based bands.  There was stuff like Bob Dylan and Cloud Cult in there, but I ended up being drawn to these two bands.

Mustache!, the exclamation point is very important, is a sort of like... what if a Minnesota band made two person southern rock.  We're going to see if the album Babes Say the Hottest Things holds up.  

Mustache! - Babes Say the Hottest Things

We open up with something pretty right in your face with I Got A (Mustache) which sets a decent tone.  A breezy 90 seconds.  There is something charming about this album a few tracks in.  It has a very Tenacious D vibe at times, so if you don't like that musical styling, this might not hit, but there's something about a very simple electric guitar and drum setup with two varying vocal styles that just is Working right now.  Tracks 2 and 3 (You Gotta Take It To (The Limit) and If You Don't Start A Drinkin' (I'm A Gonna Leave)) do feature some of those like... Hair Metal crossed with AC/DC-like Falsettos.  After a fairly forgettable track 4 we end up with a song I remember playing a bunch over the air, Snakes!!! which tells the story of the subject's one fear in the world, snakes.  It has this really like moody reverb during the verses on the guitar with a very subdued drum, while the chorus riff and sound reminds me of something like Black Sabbath.  

Look, comparisons are all I got here.

I'm Drivin' (This Train) is one of those tracks that as soon as it started playing, I started bouncing in my chair.  This hits me right in my classic-rock-upbringing heart and the chorus fuckin' rules as a thing to sing.  Everything comes together in just a simple line that I want to just belt out.  The next notable track is a cover of Pat Benatar's Heartbreaker, which, while not as good as the original, is still serviceable.  Their next track is a ballad style that kind of sucks.  Very Springsteen.  They really are hitting all the classic rock sounds here.  

The penultimate track, (The Message) is to Rock starts slow as it builds from a ballad into a more driving song.  Given the lyrics and the form it takes, it reminds me of a like... So you know how LeCroix are like the most phantom versions of a fruit in the sparkling water?  This is that same phenomenon but with Rush, such as a track like Red Barchetta.  We wrap the album with Won't Stop Rockin'! (No Way) which is a song about how cool rock music is. 

All in all, the album was fun, but had fewer tracks that I really enjoyed than I thought.  

3 Minute Hero - Operation Brown Star

Minnesota Ska Band with bad album names (It was either this or Everyday Ninjas and I wanted to listen to some of the tracks on here more).  Several of the tracks on here are live performances of previous songs, but are still pretty fun.  Surprisingly, they released a new album in the 2010s, after not releasing one since like, 2000, and their music is on Bandcamp now.  

We kick off the album with Robot Factory which starts with this deep, muffled sax as the lead instrument mirrored by a kinda funky muted guitar.  A song that is very vocally interesting to me, especially the chorus, which bounces up and down the scale over a single held word.  A song being fun to sing is a good way to earn marks for me, its why some Red Hot Chilli Pepper stuff ranks so high in my library.  Post second chorus leads into a tapping solo that has this really cool effect that makes it sound really sci-fi/Atari-y.  Sure, it's the first type of tapping solo you'd see posted to every beginner's guitar player's Youtube, but hey, it works.  Spies follows and continues in this same lower register, keeping a kind of undercover agent vibe with it, and the keyboard in the chorus almost sounds like it's tapping out a code, with how it's just so lightly and quickly played.  

One thing these first two tracks do that I really like is how they layer the bass vocals on top of the baritone/tenor vocal.  You get this really deep and bendy "Spies" in the chorus when the line is sang, and it just adds this really nice texture to the track.  

The bridge sounds like it belongs in a B-tier Bond knock off (complimentary).  

The next two tracks, Too Much Wine and Rubber Room bounce us up tonally into more happy sounding songs.  Not that the others weren't that, it's just the beat and tones in this sound a bit brighter, even if the lyrical content is still not all happy fun times.  The chorus of Rubber Room has vibes of a classic love song in terms of the vocal harmonies, before going into an even classicer spoken verse for the bridge with a very steady and simple guitar plays.  It's like if you were at a school dance in the 1960s.

Spider Monkey Part 2 (part 1 is like a sound check type thing so it's not important) is the start of the Live portion of the album, so counting this, the next 7 tracks are live ones.  

Trombone in this one starts out a little strong, drowning everything out.    Not much to say about this one, mainly a kind of Vibes song.  Valentine's Day (the studio version is on Everyday Ninjas, along with Julie Loves a Blender, Jelly Donut, and Wish I Was Single) is next, an energetic track about how much Valentine's Day.  Julie Loves a Blender is a really bouncy track about a woman who loved mixed drinks, so they need to buy a blender to whip up some cocktails to impress her.  Really like the trombone, I think? in this one.  Girls continues to talk about the bad luck with women, with women all around them but none of them want to talk to them, blaming their busted up car, their trombone, and their lame ska suit.  

I have a hard time talking about this because I want to use the word "bouncy" a lot, but that's just Ska, isn't it.  Girls has this fun call and response with both the instrumentation and the lyrics, I'm So Happy just has this fullness of the brass early that's really cool.  I think I know a comparison I want to make for the vocalist that helps explain why it's really fun for me.  It feels like if Merry Melodies/Looney Tunes had a recurring used car salesman type character.  They channel this slick affect for some lines, and especially when delivering rapid staccato lines just has a fun ring to it.  

Now... the chorus of I'm So Happy goes "We're so happy we're gonna pee your pants".  So.  Take that for what it is.  Blame 1998 or just guys being dumb and stupid, but that's what it is.

The live version here of Wish I Was Single opens up with the band kind of showing off, especially the keyboardist, bassist, and drummer, before the horns come in and the song lines back up with the studio version.  It's a fun change of pace.  I like how it has this big build up before most instruments dropping out to this crooner-ass verse.  The second verse sort of evolves that into later stage sort of serenade, with more instrumentation but still way less punchy than the chorus.

Wrapping up we have Jelly Donut, where the live version and the studio version have slightly different lyrics (Girls did this too, replacing generic stores and different car types from the studio version in verse 2 with different bars/venues in the Twin Cities).  This version has a very cool vibe to it.  A very Spanish dance style tune.  I think I like the intensity of the live version better than the more restrained studio version.  It feels really big and full which fits the vibe really well.  Special mention to the bridge of this one, where after a big horn part, it drops down to the guitar, drums, and piano with a very speak-songy couple lines that ends with a rising tone.  The cadence and pitch of that part is right in a good vocal range for me, so the way the words march on, almosst swaying back and forth, until til the end is really fun to sing.  

 

1. Cassette Beasts OST - Joel Baylis (0)
2. Bleed Out - The Mountain Goats (+1)
3. ELO Greatest Hits - ELO (-1)
4. Every Open Eye - Chvrches (0)
5. Blood Sugar Sex Magik - Red Hot Chili Peppers (0)
6. Signals - Rush (0)
7. Will of the People - Muse (+1)
8. Chocolate City - Parliament (-1)
9. Fragile - Yes (+1)
10. Superunknown - Soundgarden (-1)
11. Operation Brown Star - 3 Minute Hero
12. Master of Puppets - Metallica (-1)
13. Best of Big Bands - Various Artists (-1)
14. Babes Say the Hottest Things - Mustache!
15. Bossanova - The Pixies (-2)
16. Combat Rock - The Clash (-2)
17. Aurora Borealis - Cloud Cult (-1)
18. Chutes Too Narrow - The Shins (-3)