31daysof – The Adventures of Keith Garrett

If You See Something…

September 1, 2016 by Keith

I have a Ghostbusters board on Pinterest I created when preparing for 31 Days of Ghostbusters. I find it fascinating that one of the images (and only one) attracted a lot of followers and re-pinners. It’s this one!

31 Days of Ghostbusters is Done!

August 1, 2016 by Keith

31 Days of Ghostbusters is now complete! Thank you all for reading, and thanks especially to those of you who commented and shared and “liked.” In addition to writing 31 posts this month, I read 3 Ghostbusters books, bought 5 ghost dice, and saw the new movie 3 times—the final one yesterday, to celebrate being done with this thing! (I loved it, but it was a lot of work and plenty of late nights!)

Thanks also to John at Gnome Stew for running two of my posts there as well.

For the sake of completeness and easy navigation, here’s a list of all 31 posts.

Thanks again, and I hope you keep reading next week when I return to a more-or-less weekly schedule.

31 Days of Ghostbusters:

Ghosts in Other Games

July 31, 2016 by Keith

This is post number 31 (!!!) in the series “31 Days of Ghostbusters,” a celebration of the franchise’s return to the big screen.

I was curious to see the similarities and differences in the ways that other (non-Ghostbusters) RPGs present ghosts. Since game stats boil down the essence of a person or creature or idea into a finite number of descriptors, I wanted to see what the writers of different games considered the essence of a ghost to be. So I hit my gaming bookshelves in search of ghosts.

I quickly learned that I needed to come up with some kind of limiting criteria, to keep this one post from lasting forever. (Ghosts have that kind of time; I don’t!) So I focused on ghosts that are the incorporeal spirits of people (i.e. no skeletons, severed hands, or animated furniture, even though these would be at home in a Ghostbusters game). I also avoided games that I’ve talked about earlier this month, including the Cypher System and the games related to Ghostbusters.

Whenever possible (limited by my bookshelf) I’ve used the latest edition of the games mentioned. And speaking of “limited by my bookshelf,” I also didn’t cover games I don’t own. So please forgive me if I left out your favorite.

All the games discussed below cover the basics: ghosts don’t need to breathe, eat, or sleep and they can pass through material objects. Most can fly, and are only vulnerable to energy and/or magic attacks.

Commonalities

I’ll go ahead and list the similarities I noticed now, so if that’s all you care about you don’t have to read each entry or scroll all the way to the bottom.

These are the themes related to ghosts that appeared in multiple games:

A ghost looks like it did when it died. 7th Sea, Deadlands, Dungeon Crawl Classics
Resolving a ghost’s unfinished business can help. Dungeon Crawl Classics, D&D, Dungeon World, Feng Shui 2
Ghosts are tied to a location. Call of Cthulhu, Deadlands, D&D banshee, GURPS Horror poltergeist, Shadow of the Demon Lord poltergeist
Ghosts are terrifying. Dungeon Crawl Classics, Deadlands, D&D, Dungeon World, Fantasy Age, Shadow of the Demon Lord
Ghosts personify emotions. Deadlands, D&D, Dungeon Crawl Classics

Those are the similarities in ghostly presentation across games. To see the differences, read on!

7th Sea (2nd Edition)

Ghosts in 7th Sea are described as “lingering spirits of the departed” who look just like they did when they died. They have the interesting ability to interfere with the use of magic nearby. Another interesting note is that some people have managed to catch ghosts in mirrors. Bravo, swashbuckling Ghostbusters!

13th Age

The wraith in 13th Age is a basic ghost. Some recall a bit of their former lives, but they don’t care enough about that to alter their goal of draining life from the living. Abilities: an ice-cold ghost blade that deals negative energy damage and a life-drain ability that lets the wraith heal some damage when it scores a precision hit on a foe.

Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition)

A Call of Cthulhu Keeper is urged to tailor each ghost to the current scenario. The game provides some basic ghostly abilities (including a POW attack against an Investigator’s own POW, and a telekinesis attack), but leaves most of the ghostly trappings up to the Keeper depending on the needs of the specific ghost story. Other general ghostly features in Call of Cthulhu: ghosts only have mental stats; they’re tied to either a location or an object; and they can be laid to rest by various methods, including destroying the item to which it’s fettered, destroying the ghost’s physical remains, excorcising the spirit, or fulfilling its mission.

Deadlands (Reloaded)

This game has plenty of critters that Weird West Ghostbusters would be hired to bust, but as I said in the introduction, we’re focusing on incorporeal spirits of the dead here. Still, that gives us several varmints to consider.

Ghost: The Deadlands ghost is a template the GM is encouraged to customize, and the game mentions that you could use it to represent numerous types of ghosts. The ghost variant list includes poltergeists (they throw things), shades (tied to a people or places), and phantoms (who are frenzied killers). Abilities: chill attack, terrify attack, invisibility, create nightmares, and create a storm of small objects.

Weeping Widows: This is the spirit of a woman who died soon after witnessing a family member’s violent death. The spirit is tied to the physical world by both sorrow and anger. A weeping widow operates by possessing a woman near the area of her death. You’ll know a weeping widow when you see one because of her funereal clothing, veil over the face, handkerchief in hand, and, of course, the weeping. Abilities: acid tears, possession, and invulnerable to the type of weapon used to kill the widow’s loved one.

Will o’ the Wisp: Deadlands says these MAY be the spirits of people killed by quicksand, mining accidents, or other such mishaps. They like to lure people into danger and then “feast on the pain and suffering” that results. Abilities: mentally control a mortal into wandering toward danger.

Dungeon Crawl Classics

Ghosts in DCC retain their final emotional state in addition to their final appearance, and this is why they often attack—they are still angry or terrified or whatever they were feeling at the awful moment of death. Resolving a ghost’s unfinished business can banish it, earning the characters +1 Luck in addition to the experience point award for defeating the ghost. The DCC ghost features two tables to roll on (gotta love DCC’s tables!), including the spook’s “rest condition” and special abilities. The rest condition is what it will take to appease the ghost, such as killing its murderer or completing a mission it was undertaking when it died. The special ability table includes the following possibilities (and the ghost gets 1d4 of them): horrifying appearance, chains, banshee scream, paralyzing touch, imparting a vision of death, bestowing a boon, turning invisible, draining attributes, possession, and telekinesis.

Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition)

In addition to the basic ghost, the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual (5th Edition) includes a few other standard types of nonphysical apparitions.

Banshee: In D&D, banshees are the spirits of female elves who used their beauty to control others rather than for more positive purposes. A banshee is bound to the place of its death. It covets items of beauty such as artwork and jewelry, though it hates mirrored surfaces because they serve as reminders of the banshee’s own wasted beauty. Abilities include detecting life, causing terror, dealing necrotic damage, and wailing (for psychic damage and a possibility of instant knockout).

Ghost: The ghost is differentiated from the other apparition types by the fact that it has unfinished business in the mortal realm. Players who learn about a ghost’s business (get your mind out of the gutter) can use it to get rid of the ghost, or use its weakness against it. I like the description of “ghostly manifestations,” or ways that the Dungeon Master can evoke a mood by describing unnatural silences, cold spots, or a strange stench. Abilities: causing terror, dealing necrotic damage, possession.

Specter: This is presented as an angry spirit that’s no longer connected to who it was in life. Specters are jealous and hateful of the living. They have a weakness to sunlight, and the ability to drain life. A variant of the specter, the poltergeist, is characterized by confusion, having no memory of how it died. The poltergeist can turn invisible, strike with ghostly force, and hurl targets with telekinesis.

Will-o’-Wisp: These are the evil souls of those who died an anguished death in a place filled with magic, especially battlefields. They operate by luring individuals to their deaths. Abilities: invisibility, illumination, lightning damage, and the nasty ability to heal itself by killing a nearby downed character.

Wraith: Described as “malice incarnate,” a wraith is the soul of a humanoid who was either corrupt or made a pact with an evil entity. It might still have a few memories of its former life. Abilities: drain life (like the specter), create specters. Weakness: sensitive to sunlight.

Dungeon World

Dungeon World’s brief ghost entry emphasizes the “disappointment” that ghosts are left with. It also mentions the possibility of people helping ghosts achieve their final rest. Abilities: phantom touch (deals damage), terrify, and “offer information from the other side, at a price.”

Fantasy Age

Spectres (also my preferred spelling—thanks Fantasy Age!) represent any kind of ghostly entity in Fantasy Age. They are evil and like attacking the living. The entry notes that spectres of powerful individuals can have additional powers. Abilities: chilling touch (deals damage), terrify.

Feng Shui 2

One of the archetypes a player can choose from in Feng Shui 2 is the ghost, which is described as a strong-willed spirit that is unwilling to pass on from the mortal world due to some unfinished business. Abilities: chi blast and love potion attack, in addition to having traditional ghost abilities (intangibility, flight, and ignoring damage from guns). And since they are player characters, ghosts can add new abilities as they level up, including sorcery powers, regeneration, and mimicry.

GURPS Horror (1st Edition)

Ghosts can take a variety of forms, including human, nonhuman, and even objects. Their goal is to scare or annoy humans, not usually intending to harm or kill them. Magical characters can sometimes detect ghosts. As a subtype of ghosts, poltergeists exist in a particular place, use telekinesis to move and throw objects, and enjoy bugging humans.

Shadow of the Demon Lord

This bad boy packs several ghosts—and none of them are called “ghost.” They are:

Phantom: This is the soul of someone who had a strong personality, died suddenly, and had unfinished business. Abilities: terrify attack, invisibility, phantom weapon.

Poltergeist: These spirits resent the living and fear losing their mortal identities. They haunt a specific location and try to drive people away. Abilities: terrify attack, invisibility, telekinetic strike, and throwing objects telekinetically.

Shadow: Souls of individuals corrupted by the game’s titular Demon Lord become shadows. They hate life and enjoy feeding on the living. Some shadows take human shapes, but others prefer simple or even monstrous forms. Abilities: terrify attack, invisibility, draining touch (deals damage, plus a chance of corruption or turning the target into a shadow).

Wraith: These are souls from Hell that made their way through to the material world to share some evil with the mortals. Wraiths are burned by sunlight. Abilities: terrify attack, shadow blade weapon (which also has a chance to turn the target into a wraith).

Did I miss a cool ghost in another RPG? If so, please educate me!

Crossing the Streams

July 30, 2016 by Keith

…and How to Make Your Players Not Want to Do That

Image: T-Shirt Bordello. Buy the shirt!

This is post number 30 in the series “31 Days of Ghostbusters,” a celebration of the franchise’s return to the big screen.

The situation: You’ve created a puzzle for your Ghostbusters to solve, or presented them with a ghost that’s immune to proton blasts and can only be defeated by reading a passage from an occult tome. But instead of using their brains, the players decide that the best way to victory is to cross the streams! After all, it worked in the first film!

If you ever need to prevent your players from killing themselves and possibly ending all life in the universe by crossing the streams one time too many, try one of these suggestions.

Tap Into the Ghostbusters’ Own Knowledge

The reason the characters in Ghostbusters resorted to crossing the streams in the movie is twofold:

They didn’t have any better ideas.
Their paranormal knowledge told them that crossing the streams might solve the problem.

Roleplayers sometimes have a tendency to whip out the nuclear option (in our case literally) when they encounter item 1. If this happens in a Ghostbusters game, the Ghostmaster can subtly (or otherwise) inform the players that their characters—being experts in paraphysics—would know that crossing the streams would not achieve their stated objective in the current situation. (Who knew that total protonic reversal wouldn’t help open this mysterious puzzle box?)

Create a Cautionary Negative Consequence

If the previous technique doesn’t work, it’s time for more direct discouragement. The Ghostbusters discover that, in addition to not solving the problem at hand, crossing the streams has some negative (though non-fatal) consequence. Maybe it burns out their proton packs, leaving the team defenseless until they can get replacements. Or the crossed streams invert reality, trapping the Ghostbusters on an alternate Earth that operates under different physical laws (or where they all simply have goatees). Or their clothes vanish, or their hair falls out, or they each forget a skill–whatever. Get creative. Enjoy yourself.

Kill Them All

Some players remain tenacious even in the face of overwhelming logic and strong pushback from the universe. If this describes your group, and the above two techniques still don’t discourage your Ghostbusters from crossing the streams to solve problems, fall back to the film’s thesis on why it’s a Bad Idea. Blow up the Ghostbusters involved. If anything will teach them to stop crossing the streams, this will. As an added bonus, the players’ next group of characters might get to meet the ghosts of the first team of Ghostbusters!

Have you had a problem with players wanting to abuse a game (or universe) mechanic such as crossing the streams? Or do you have an alternate solution to this problem? Let me hear about all that in the comments!

Rolling a Ghost: Equipment Mishap Tables

July 29, 2016 by Keith

This is post number 29 in the series “31 Days of Ghostbusters,” a celebration of the franchise’s return to the big screen.

One of the fun things about a Ghostbusters game is seeing the result when someone rolls a Ghost. This always means something bad for the Ghostbuster(s), which is always good for the Ghostmaster. I was feeling inspired by this warm, evil sentiment, plus the new toys in Ghostbusters 2016, so I whipped up some tables for what might go wrong when a player rolls a Ghost while using these gadgets.

Just pick the table appropriate for whatever item the Ghostbuster was using when the big Ghost came up and roll a d6. If the result you roll doesn’t make sense, move up to a higher-numbered result.

Note that these mishaps will also work as GM Intrusions in Cypher System Ghostbusters. Where appropriate, use “ectopresence” results for Ghostbusters and “health” results for the Cypher System.

Proton Pack Mishap Table (also useful for proton sidearm variants)

Nagging Alarm. You’ve triggered an overeager alarm in your weapon. The device keeps working as normal, but for 1d6 turns an alarm loud enough to wake the dead will tell everyone in the area where you are.
Collateral Damage. You blow up something nearby. Something you’ll probably have to pay for.
Reverse Mode. You fumbled a setting on your pack and got the opposite result from what you were intending. If you were trying to weaken a ghost, you made it stronger (+1 ectopresence or +1d6 health). If you were trying to contain it, you pushed it far away.
Feedback! You hit a power source, resulting in your weapon being temporarily supercharged. On your next turn your proton pack deals extra damage, but the difficulty to hit anything (intentionally) is increased.
Shutdown. You overtaxed your power output, Tex, and your weapon needs to take a breather for a turn.
Meltdown. You REALLY overtaxed your power output. Your weapon suffers a critical meltdown, disabling it for the rest of the scene or until repaired. (A cruel Ghostmaster might declare that the weapon will explode in 1d6 turns. Surely not your Ghostmaster, though. I don’t know why I’m even putting this here. I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.)

Ghost Chipper Mishap Table

Overflow. The ectoplasm ejected from the last ghost you sucked up spews all over your nearest ally, Sliming him or her.
Clogged. When you grind up a ghost the ecto-residue splatters all over YOU instead of being safely ejected behind you. This happens for the rest of the scene or until someone repairs the chipper.
Get Over Here! Instead of sucking your target into the chipper, you only manage to pull it closer, where it gets a free attack on you instead of being pulled inside.
Too Much Juice. Your target is pulled into the chipper and propelled safely out the other side without taking damage.
Hungry Hungry Chipper. Your weapon seems to have a temporary appetite for something non-ghostly; it sucks up a nearby item of equipment or clothing and destroys it.
Poorly Shielded. Ectoplasm has leaked into the chipper’s innards, disabling the device for the rest of the scene or until someone repairs it.

Proton Glove Mishap Table

Stuck! You over-extend and end up with your hand stuck in your target.
Ricochet. Your proton burst launches from your glove and bounces all around the area like a bouncy ball. Make an attack roll against each character and entity in the area (chosen in random order) until the burst strikes one of them or misses everyone.
Hook Hand. Your glove has fused to your hand and won’t let go until someone makes a repair roll. Maybe a really tough repair roll, if your Ghostmaster thinks this is funny.
Hand-Off. The glove slips off your hand during your attack. It drops to the ground and you can recover it next turn–assuming there’s not a chance the glove could go bouncing off the edge of a building. (This mishap is also called the “Skywalker.”)
Paddle-Ball. Due to ambient ectoplasmic buildup, your shot stretches away from you, hangs in midair, then rebounds back. If you don’t dodge it, you take full damage.
Hot Potato. Heat starts building up inside the glove. Starting next turn, each round you keep the glove on costs you one point of damage. A successful repair check puts things back to normal.

Proton Grenade Mishap Table

Dud. These are still experimental, so whaddaya expect? No effect.
Collateral Slimeage. The target (or part of it) is blown into ectoplasmic goo–which rains down on the entire area. Anyone failing to dodge is Slimed.
Mirror Mode. This grenade doesn’t destabilize ectoplasmic molecules, it restabilizes them! Restore some of the target’s ghostly substance (1 point of ectopresence or 1d6 points of health).
Zuul, I Choose You! Instead of exploding, the grenade opens and disgorges a new ghost.
Out of Phase. The grenade passes right through the target…and a nearby wall, floor, or ceiling. It’s gone, man.
Miscalibration. Instead of dealing damage, the grenade causes some extra-bizarre effect on its target(s). Maybe it fuses two ghosts together, or gives one new powers, or turns it into several smaller ghosts.