Mythic RPG: Ideas and Addendums 5: Simplified Villain and Factional growth

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I have read a lot of factional systems, but they have been, on the whole, for GMs running games for player groups. Soloist need something that is quick, easy, and immediate.

I spent two hours this morning writing and rewriting a procedure to determine a way to track the growth of a villain or faction. Then it hit me that I had missed the very spirit of Mythic in my attempts to be overly thorough. So, here is the simplest villain and factional growth system I could devise and find satisfying.

First, how much do you really care? Is this villain important enough that you seek out rumors about them, or is it just a character in your list that is a thorn in your side when you happen to encounter them.

Lets assume the first situation: Rumors. 

You, and any underlings you drag around with you, have been in deep wilderness for a month. You make it back to town bruised, bloodied and with busticated equipment. You also come back either a little richer, a little wiser, or both. You hit the healers hut, rent a nice room, and go out for a beer. While you are there you seek out rumors about Boss Noggin, a particularly violent and successful bandit you have been hearing about. 

I would suggest asking the Oracle they simple binary question "Are there rumors about Boss Noggin?", and based the chances on his level of notoriety. If he is a big deal then it is almost certain there are. If he is small fry to everyone but you, the chances will be rather poor. In the case of a Yes, generate an inspirational word pair from the list of your choice and spin a rumor out from it. If the answer is No, then there is nothing to hear. If the you get a Exceptional Yes roll several times and create an outrageous rumor about him (don't worry about whether it is true or not). If the answer is an Extreme No then he seems to have fallen out of public attention for some reason, demands, perhaps, an investigation of its own (that is your call).

Now we move on to the more important part: Encounters.

Having heard Boss Noggin has been recruiting bandits, monsters, and nar'dowells to his camp you gather your forces to shut down this problem before it gets worse. You travel some days to his not so secret hide-away, and you are ready to cross words and swords with your nemesis. 

It is unlikely he has been doing nothing all the time you have been leveling up, gaining wealth, and acquiring magical do-dads.  There is no reason in the world he wouldn't be doing the same thing. 

So, as you square off with this would be bandit king ask your oracle "Has the villain gained any advantages?". Should he be known to be a successful bandit lord the probability is high. Should he just have gotten broken free from the gaol the chances are very low. 

In the case of a Yes, roll an inspirational word pair to account for his new advantage. Should it be Exceptionally Yes, give him several advantages. Should the answer be No, there is no change. Should the answer be and Exceptional No assume he has had a set back and let an inspirational word pair breath life into his loss. 

While, I had fun devising a complicated point based sliding scale of success and loss, it always depended too much on interpreting on the spot of the encounter specifics from vagaries that have been building up over time. This simpler system saves time and effort and asks much less complex improve mid scene. 

I believe I will keep working on a more evolving system, but this one keeps the ball rolling.

Mythic RPG: Ideas and Addendums 4: Mythic RPG and Archetypical Characters

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Mythic is a wonderful classless generic game. It has solid rules that are simple to use, and nearly any setting and character can be modeled from it. With that said though there are games in which certain character abilities really highlight a specific skill and talent set, and it maybe hard, even in a freeform (as opposed to point buy) game to cover them all with a few Abilities. It would be much easier to just keep up with one.

With a freeform character you can always have a look at the character summary and extrapolate out skills at a certain level, justified by the description, and as well you should. Now, I am going to offer below another system for developing a set of  Root Archetype Abilities that will suit a wide range of characters from the fantasy and cyberpunk genres. Use these as inspiration for developing your own Archetype Abilities.

The inspiration for this work came from Mythic RPG itself. The Toughness Attribute is an average of your Strength and Willpower. That got me thinking of what other Attribute combinations would lead to, but instead of more core Attributes it lead to the idea of Root Archetype Abilities. 

A quick refresher on the Attributes native to Mythic RPG: Strength, Agility, Reaction, IQ, Intuition, and Willpower. 

Fantasy
It has never been my attitude to save the best for last. Whether fantasy is the best or not is a matter of opinion, but it is certainly the most popular.  So, here are some Root Archetype Abilities for fantasy characters.

Classic Warrior. A Classic Warrior is a frontline fighter. There strengths lie in knowing a wide variety of weapons, armor, shields, and tactics (the last frequently neglected). Here I suggest combining Strength and Intuition into a Ability Prowess. This would be used for any melee or thrown weapon, all kinds of armors and shields, and any close quarters battlefield feats, as well as impressive acts of athletics. The use of equipment should be self explanatory, but if they wish to add a rider to the attack, such as a disarm, attacking a shield to damage it or pull wrench it out of a useful position, or sneak a trip attack into there flurry of quarterstaff blows, they should be able to attempt to do so, with a 0-3RS penalty. When setting the difficulty, think about the type of weapon and how they are suggesting employing it. The first time any feat is attempted, you will be playing it by ear, but as you get a list of them you could build a Scaling Box (Mythic RPG pg. 85) to better judge the difficulty of the task. 

Classic Thief. The roll of thief in fantasy precedes any RPG by years (thank you Fritz Lieber), but over time in RPGs they have come to represent a type of infiltration and exploration specialist. Here a combination of Agility and IQ will give you Larceny, which could have myriad uses. Stealth, acrobatics, picking pockets, a near sixth sense towards oncoming trouble, and a gift for opening locks and traps. Other key skills of the Thief may not fit exactly into the Larcenous Ability, but should still be available with a standard -2RS. Examples could be trying a little magic from a device (such as a scroll) deciphering a coded message from a familiarity with such codes, and speaking that unique patois of common and exotic phrases that allow the Larcenous to talk in the plain view of others in there own private Thieve's Cant. Putting all of that down on an Ability chart would take up so much space and there are so many skills they would never be able to improve them, under the umbrella term of Larceny, we know that the gestalt is greater than the individual skill. Let them shine.

Classic Wizard. the Classic Wizard goes back further than Gandalf or Ged. These are folk who understand the deeper, and some would say sinister, secrets of the world. Mythology and Folklore agree that these are persons of knowledge and power, so a combination of IQ and Willpower would serve well to grant Wizardry. Probably of all the Root Abilities this will require the most adjudication when it comes to the casting of magics, but it can also be a stand in for all kinds of esoteric knowledge, such as identifying monsters and there abilities, deciphering an ancient script, and knowledge of the belief systems of people all over the world. Let your wizards shine, don't leave them shackled to raising this skill or that at the expense of there role in the world. Maybe their magic is a subtle thing but there knowledge should be broad and expansive.

Cyberpunk
Lets flip over now to one of my other favorite genre: Cyberpunk. Through the decades, since games were designed for this genre a number of fan favorites have solidified into discernible archetypes through games such as Cyberpunk 2020, Cyberpunk Red, and Shadowrun (of the million incarnations). Some of the most popular of these archetypes have to do with combat, cyber space, and (my own favorite) drone control. 

Though there are infinite varieties of combatant available in a Cyberpunk game the quintessential Street Samurai  out shines them all. Whether she is a razor girl, a Ronin melee expert, or a master of gun-fu, the thing they all seem to have in common is lightening fast reflexes, that put them first into the fray and may well end it before it has truly begun. This Edge could well be quantified as an average of Reflex and Intuition. Though Edge would certainly put the Street Sammy first in combat the Intuition portion could give them a leg up in taking in the battlefield before the combat begins (allowing them to maximize the usefulness of cover, terrain, and hazardous obstacles), but also get a gut feeling about the capabilities of those they face. Edge should also default as a fighting score for nearly any source of damage, but as its true focus in speed and instinct it would suffer the typical -2RS penalty if used in place of a combat Ability.

From frontlines lets talk backup, and there is no better back up than a flying drone with a camera and a chain gun. This brings use to Drone Jockeys. While your cyber enhanced Street Samurai may be the first combatant you think of when you think cyberpunk, no one has more battlefield versatility, than a Drone Jockey with a high expense account. They also excel at recon, and if your team of infiltrators is very unlucky manually controlling a buildings automated defenses. This is also the team mate most likely able to fix a cyber arm or repair your armored troop transport, but those are secondary to the task of actually jumping into a the drone and using it as a second body. Reflex and Willpower are the necessary ingredients  for the Pilot ability. For all other listed purposes repair and design would be more useful but Pilot would work in a pinch at a -2RS.

Lastly, for navigating the world of data you can't beat the Console Cowboy(girl). With there trusted cyber deck, modified with brilliantly complex IC breakers, and data probes the C.C. can ferret out the deepest secrets of the best buried data-base, if the rest of the party can just get them close enough to interface. IQ is the Attribute that lets them customize their programs and hardware to the specifications of a particular run, and Reaction (along with some very advanced DNI (Direct Neuro Interface) technology) can make them masters of cyberspace, if they can fight, side step, or dupe the Black IC between them and the data they need. The average of those Attributes gives you Cyber Infiltration. This skill will also, with the standard -2RL shift allow them to code from scratch, modify electronics, and fix a busticated cyberdeck (at least long enough to hack an Amazon delivery for the newest Sony model). Good Luck Cowgirl, you are going to need it.

There are infinitely more popular archetypes for various high adventure games, but with the examples above you should be able to come up with the right parring to emulate the core talent of any Archetype adventurer.

Mythic RPG: Ideas and Addendums 3: Setting Designers and Tools that Love them

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Mythic RPG provides an emergent world building experience, that is fun and simple, but for long time GMs like myself, or anyone who is very much into setting design, putting a few set pieces in place can be of great value. 

Of course, if you are between scenes and decide to head to a pub, that can be generated on the spot, and all the details can flow from the moment you walk in the door. That is emergent game play at its best, but there are Soloist who enjoy the GM hat as much as the do the Player hat, and for such Soloist, this article may be of some help.

I still strongly suggest you start by making a character you want to play. In doing so you will have to make a number of decisions. You will pick a genre, for instance, decide the scope of the game (neighborhood to intergalactic), get a list of things you are good and bad at, and maybe as part of your Strengths and Weaknesses section generate a few NPCs that are needful for your character roll. 

(Actually, if you are so inclined you can make several characters, and let each additional one give you a few more setting chunks as long as they don't clash with the character that came before it. For me, exploring a few characters makes for a more well grounded game setting).

Now that you have your character(s), extrapolate them out. If they have special contacts (Strengths) or enemies (Weakness) you have a head start, but there is so much more on your character sheet you can pull off to make setting and character seeds.  Start with the character summary. It should explain who your character is and to some degree how they got to the point they are at as game begins.  For Spider Bella the genre is clearly cyberpunk, she has a grudge against the corporation she was born into (an entity and hook),  she has a fixer of some excellent connections (character and perhaps an organization(?)), she is fostered with a family (yet more characters all with potential connections of there own). Those are all good hooks, fleshing them out a little will get you well on your way to a setting, but hold off on finalizing their details while we explore a couple more tools, but there is yet more. If you have an exceptional ability how did you get it. If you re really awful at some sort of task what consequences has that had. I don't suggest cluttering our character sheet with a full character history, but in answering these questions (maybe on an attachment), you get to see the people, places and things that made your character who it is. Now, that we have mined the character for what it is worth, lets use some other tools.

I suggest starting with issue 49's article "The Society Crafter". Now this has a strong leaning towards creating societies randomly, but each section of it gives a categorization of a piece of information that can help ground the character's home district into a real place. Its broad topics are "Beginning, Productivity, Flourishing, Covenants (think of them as formal or informal treaties), Defenses, Culture, and Society Events. Every one of these things, besides making a very real feeling location, also are rich in game hooks. What is more, should you draw a blank on any of these, the random tables could well be useful.

The set of useful categories, combined with what I know about the character, gave me a nice little neighborhood with some light background and a lot of flavor. I started to get a feel where the known NPC come in, and I could see some necessary NPCs that would be needed to make the crafted society work. 

Now,  that I have a feel for the neighbor hood I want places in it. Using the context from the character and the society, I turn to MM16 "Location Crafting Random Cities".  My technique for using tools like this can be found in earlier blog articles, but in short I generate all the randomized categories, then do a character walk through to experience them. As I do, the world becomes populated with food vendors, little shops, gangs, policing agencies, other adventures, market places, and probably most importantly the characters home. 

This is enough details for a dozen games, but I suggest one more tool: MM38, "Solo Setting and World Creation System". This article gives you an opportunity to generate both micro and macro histories that build on one another. Before rolling for the history fill out the genre, tone, and context sections, to set in wet concrete (if not stone) the details you have already established, and the limits you wish to put on the setting.  Then jump in there and follow is history crafting procedures (you can find blank fillable PDFs of the World Building sheet here), it it will give you cornucopia of ideas for organizations, problems to solve, plot hooks of many kinds, and a feeling of history about your setting. 

That should be enough for you to launch a campaign.

Now, prepopulate your lists a bit and get to playing!

Mythic RPG: Ideas and Addendums 2: The Unexpected NPC, Using the One Page Character Crafter With Mythic RPG Ranks

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So, you have made a character (last blog post) and you have picked a setting (first blog post for this project). Now, you are ready to launch into play. Or maybe you want a little more of the world around you before you do your Adventure Setup (MRPG Chapter 8)  and First Scene (MRPG Chapter 7). Either way you are going to need NPCs.  If you are like me and want a little setting detail, maybe a few things on your list before you begin, your character summary probably mentions some individual or organizations that the character is familiar with. 

Fortunately you don't have to fly blind, there is a good resource for generating NPC's to be found  in Mythic Magazine (MM) Vol. 45 on pages 3-7, "The One-Page Character Crafter". 

For most NPCs, you probably won't need stats at all. The shop keeper or corner side rent-a-cop may have a couple of personality traits to improve the RP experience (which the 1-PCC provides), but unless that rent-a-cop or some entry level ganger, goes for a weapon, it is all just talk. 

For named NPCs that will be around longer, you will probably want and need more detail. 

The 1-PCC gives you an excellent idea who a person is. That is pretty much its job, but if you peek up into the right hand corner you will see there is a box for adjusting the power level of the NPC.

Here is a list of ranks for Mythic RPG Characters: Minuscule, Weak, Low, Below Average, Average, Above Average, High, Exceptional, Incredible, Awesome, and Superhuman. As one would expect most people will be Average, with a very large minority being Blow and Above Average. 

As you encounter an important NPC (or develop one that is needful for the setting), think of the NPCs primary life function. Not necessarily as it relates to your character, but as it relates to their life. Assign this Attribute or Ability a score of Above Average. Next roll on the NPC Statistics Chart in the top right corner. 

Next, pick something that someone maybe bad at. Set it to Below Average and again roll on the NPC Statistics Chart. 

Should the result be 4-7, "Use the value you Expect" well you already nailed it. Good job. Should it come up 2-3, "Weaken the value a little" lower the rating by -1RS. Should it come up 1, "Weaken the Value a lot", drop the value by -2RS. 

In the same vein should it come up 8-9 increase the value +1RS, and should it come up 10 increase the Value 2RS. 

Now you have two mechanical facts about the character. From there follow the procedures given in 1-PCC but keep in mind there strengths and weaknesses as you do. 

This will give you two facts about the NPCs Attributes or Abilities. Knowing just two things that are interesting or outstanding about the character you have a core to build around. 

So lets do a very quick example. Spider Bella, just Bell to her adopted family and few friends lives in a foster home, as she is very new to the sprawl. Her Fixer (to be established later), has arranged a kind and soothing environment (or as close as you can get in the Fringe) for his neurotic new talent. Most household around here have a matriarch, as violence amid men on the fringe can be appalling. 

Enter Jubilee Swanson, a kind woman who doesn't mind keeping an eye on a girl new to the neighborhood especially as it comes with a couple hundred cred a week. She is a known factor to the Fixer, but she isn't to us, so let pick up a couple characteristics. I would say we should start with Willpower, as she is keeping a family more or less (for the Fringe) on the straight and narrow. Our initial Assumption is that she will be Above Average.... roiling the die we get a 4 "As expected". She is a little more stick to her guns than most. But maybe old age and infirmity are catching up with her (MRPG Chapter 10) so we can assume Her toughness may have taken a blow... rolling the die we get an 8 "Slightly Higher than Expected", bring her up to Average. Not bad for an old woman.

From here we just fill in details from the article. Identity Descriptor: Science, so maybe she is a off researcher in one of the Black lab found in the fringe: Mind Descriptor: Professional, this will certainly help describe her attitude towards Bell; Body Descriptor: Endurance, so she take her fitness seriously; Talent Descriptor: Elite, this says to me she doesn't work for a black lab, but perhaps runs one. I would add some Ability set at High to reflect this, maybe cyberware? Or perhaps a High for IQ. 

And just like that we have a valuable and interesting NPC ready to interact with our nervous Ms. Bell.

Should anyone else want to contribute suggestions for NPC generation hit me up below, in the Mythic Patreon, or  the Mythic Discord, under Mythic RPG. 

Happy Gaming
Wizard Dad 


P.S.
There will of course be some NPCs whose power level you will not necessarily want to randomize, especially if it will wreck there point in the campaign. Spider Bella's adopting family can all be wild cards, but her fixer should at least be above average at Fixer related skill. Even then though I strongly suggest, though you affix some few abilities in stone, randomly roll for some of there Attributes or Abilities (maybe using the the technique in the last blog article) so you get a feeling of a person shaped by the bumps and scrapes of the world, rather than just a puppet that you have crafted. 

W.D.

Mythic RPG: Ideas and Addendums 1, an Alternative Character Creation

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When it comes to character creation, I am forced to admit, that I stink at coming up with a character Summary (the first step in the Mythic RPG character creation process) off the cuff. Oh I have a million ideas for characters, but when it comes down to the moment I draw a blank. This can be blamed directly on the fact that I played and ran various D&D style games for more than 30 years, and though there were other games scattered into that time frame, the habit of 3 decades is hard to buck, fortunately Ms. Pigeon, the author,  hasn't made that necessary. 

If you check out Chapter 11 in Mythic RPG there is a brief but wonderful set of rules for converting characters to Mythic. And one of the options there is a 3d6 to Mythic Ranks conversion. 

Putting the Cart before the Horse
I am sure you can see where this is going, but lets go through the steps and make a character. For years now I have started by rolling Abilities, taking a good hard look at them, and let the numbers inspire the kind of character that would have what trait, talents, and personality. The randomization process can make some scores very high and some very low, but low scores and high scores each suggest some kind of background that made them what they are. 

For example, I rolled up a perfectly enjoyable character that had a Below Average Willpower but an Incredible Intuition. Those two traits spoke to me, and I was inspired to make a Medium whom was constantly plagued by Ghosts to the point he was  nervous wreck. From there, I had further inspiration to make a specific plaguing spirit that would some times possess the Medium and his mental skills, and very difficult personality would be dominant for the rest of the scene. It was the combination of the flaw and the outstanding high score that suggested the character. 

Lets go through the process fresh and see what we come up with. 

This is not going to be a point buy character, though  the number of points that would have been used is useful scaling the type of game the character would be suited for.

Starting with the six basic Attributes we get the following set of starting stats.
Strength 12; Agility 17; Reaction 10; IQ 9; Intuition 11, Willpower 11. Checking against the Scaling Chart on page  99 of Chapter 11, it comes out like this

Strength Average
Agility Incredible
Reaction Average
IQ Below Average
Intuition Average
Willpower Average  
Toughness Average

Toughness is a derived stat falling between Strength and Willpower, but as they are both Average there wasn't much calculation to go on.

If we jump back to Chapter 2 Character creation on pg. 21 we see a Cost Per Word chart. Tallying everything up this would be a 54 point character, putting it in range between "gritty real world" and "action adventure" genre expectations. It also suggest around 35 points of Abilities would be reasonable for the character. As this is not a point buy character, we don't have to strictly stick to that number, but it does suggest a couple of strong skills or one skill that is truly over the top. 

Looking at the two outlier Attributes makes me thinking of a sports that require high degrees of agility, but at the expense of developing there mind. Perhaps someone who was in at special training program, perhaps even something like the Olympics (adjusted to the setting of course). With those bits of information I can write a Summary.

Summary
Spider Bella is an up and coming infiltration talent. She got her start as an athlete for a mega-corp propaganda division, but due to sabotage during her training she was left "unsuitable" for propaganda tridios. She was moved to train for more clandestine work. 

After an infiltration snafu for the parent (corp), in which she was left for dead, circumstances moved her into the Shadows. She is a bit insecure in her new social status as a non-entity Fringer, but her Fixer makes sure her talents go to profitable use, and the family that houses her is well paid to see to her well being. She is a gifted spider (physical infiltrator) with the skills for getting in and getting out of physical securities. Her Fixer makes sure she has the equipment needed of more technological obstacles. 

Putting the Horse back in Front.
Now that the summary is in place, lets have a look back at the character Attributes and see if anything needs changing, because the initial rolls were specifically for inspiration.

I want to leave the high Agility and low IQ alone. Those are basic building blocks for the character. I think an average Willpower is right for a former corporate operative. But her Intuition and Reactions are weak for her role. So, I will raise those to Above Average.

Attributes
Strength Average
Agility Incredible
Reaction Above Average
IQ Below Average
Intuition Above Average
Willpower Average
Toughness Average

Abilities (for this portion we just mine the summary for details, and keep a loose eye on the 35 point cap for an Action Adventure type game)

Acrobatics High (this is the same as her Agility -2RS, but it makes a good base to raise it higher)
Athletics Average (Some Athletic that are nearly pure agility, like pole-vaulting would default to her Agility -2RS making them High)  
Dance Average (This also could default to her Agility -2RS giving her a roll of High. It is here mainly as flavor)
Infiltration  Incredible (This is her primary skill and includes stealth, B&E, and other specialized mechanical infiltration skills)
Martial Arts Average (This could default to Agility and be High, but that wouldn't work for locks and holds, just for strikes and kicks)


(while this is more points than the suggestion allotted for they do make since for the character, and a number of them will be paid off in Weaknesses below)

Strengths and Weaknesses

• Secret Identity +1RS on remaining concealed when off the job, on the job she wears a mask that conceals her features from physical observation. She has no visible tattoos or scars. The bonus is for a changed affectation of cold professionalism when she is "working". This is a remnant from her corporate training.
• Foster family at a cost -1RS. On the Fringe nothing is free, but then again in the Corps nothing was either, so Bell feels both an emotional and financial debt to her foster family.
• Fear of Abandonment -1RS to mental actions when suddenly left alone.
• Gullible -1RS to resist subtle trickery or flattery
• Holds a Grudge -1RS when socially dealing directly with corporate representatives
• Enhanced visual memory and vision +2RS when recalling visual details (such as blueprints and floor plans). This is also a remnant of her corporate training and visual implants. One hour of recording and multi spectrum vision that allows for both night vision and seeing invisible laser and radio frequencies.
• Outside Life -1RS for dealing with pressures brought on by non work conflicts (typical teen superhero drama)
  
• Fixer- Bob the Guy +1RS - Bob can find work for Spider Bela when she requests it, but it tends to be easy low pay work that both he and his foster family get a cut of. 
• Debt to Bob the Guy -3RS Bell is a very moral young woman (burglary and corporate espionage is just a job). She feels an amazing debt to the Fixer that dragged her back from the brink. That impacts every interaction she has with him, and the Fixer is very good at reading character and knows it. 
• Facial scarring from a bent doctor taking a bribe to give her a faulty vaccine -1RS when beauty is a factor.

In the end we have a young adult woman, slightly stunted by the conflicts in her life. She can be a cold calculating infiltration specialist, but that is a mask over a vulnerable and sensitive fish out of water who feels a great debt of gratitude, and a large amount caring for her foster "family".  How long can she manage both "lives" before they lead to a breakdown. That is up to Mythic to decide. 

Mythic Musings 5: Mythic RPG Project 2; Ideas and Addendums

While I absolutely loved doing a deep dive into the Mythic RPG, and I very much appreciate the readers who checked in on it, the point of doing it was two fold. The first was to make sure I really knew what I was playing, and when I pontificated on it I wasn't giving people inaccurate information. The other reason though was to break it up into its constituent pieces to then start applying Mythic Variations, Magazine articles, and genre specific house rules to the corpus of the work. 

Ideas and Addendums will be just that. I am starting a Magic meets Machine dystopian game that is inspired by a very popular IP. I don't actually plan to convert that game into Mythic. In fact its dice system (a d6 dice pool) doesn't line up at all with the conversions given in Chapter 11 of Mythic RPG. The point on picking that game for inspiration is variety. It has room for fantasy stories, sci-fi stories, survival stories, different types dungeon crawl scenarios, horror story, and of course heists, which it is best known for. With that much variety, it can be a setting for all seasons. 

For this series of test scenarios, I am going to use one tiny bit of setting as a base point, but probably a wide variety of characters to highlight different aspects of the game. If the primary character of the day is a drone pilot, it will be very hard to test magic systems with them. 

As has become my normal procedure, I will link all articles to a table of contents below, and put return links on all the articles. I think this will be fun on a couple of levels. One we (I would love some input from you folks) we will be getting to do deep dives into various Mythic Magazine articles. Secondly we will get a chance flex our own brains with unique ideas. 

I hope you all will join me for this second ambitious project. 

W.D. 

Alternative Character Creation
Building Mythic RPG NPC with the One Page Character Crafter
Setting Designers and Tools that Love Them
Mythic RPG and Archetypical Characters
Simplified Villain and Factional Growth

(If you enjoyed this article, check out the Blog Index for more content that may entertain or inspire)

Mythic RPG Project: Chapter 11 through 13 and Backmatter

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Though the last chapter wraps up the mechanics of the Mythic RPG, there are three chapters and some backmatter that are worth mentioning.

Chapter 11: Converting to Mythic
This chapter was of great use to me when I started playing Mythic RPG. It has some very interesting Scaling Boxes that convert common Attribute scores from other mechanical system into Mythic Ranks. 

Amid them are the ubiquitous 3d6 used in D&D, GURPS, HERO, and the last two decades outpouring of OSR material. The "5 dot" attribute system used in White Wolf, and later Onyx Path game systems, and also % scales used in Chaosium game systems. From these examples, you could build a 2d6 system, transfer the Fate Core scale, or even take a crack at the various dice pool games that have popped up over the last 30 years of the hobby. There are further scaling boxes for transferring dice based damage (more or less that found in D&D and various OSR games), into resistance difficulties for  Toughness rolls. There isn't quite enough material here to justify an entire essay, but if you want to bring a character from one of those systems into your Mythic table play, it is very good to have guidelines to do it.

Chapter 12: Notes and Suggestions
In the first part of the chapter we find some common questions about Solo Roleplaying and some specific questions about the book and choices made in design and presentation. It is an interesting read, and a sort of snap shot of gaming history, considering the important roll this game and the Mythic GM Emulator to follow had on solo gaming.

Tips for better play, the second half of the chapter, is still chocked full of useful information. I particularly like the "Frankenstein's Game section" suggestions, as it is pretty much my play style to a "T".

Chapter 13: Extended Example
This is a must read, because it shows the entire system in action. As it plays out you see every sheet used and every rule employed (excepting full Character creation). It also plays out as an interesting story, as we all hope our games will. See if you can spot the classic fantasy hero that is getting a glow up in the example.

Backmatter
Past the last chapter, and before the index is an area you will want to toss some bookmarks in. Every useful chart from character creation through combat is here (though the page numbers run out it starts on pg. 121). There are also useful filled in useful Resolution Tables for Character advancement and combat, combat modifier charts, Random event charts, and finally blank printable Resolution Charts, Scaling Boxes, Adventure Worksheets, Character and NPC Sheets, and other goodies. As the author is crazy about examples you find a few more of them tucked in as we slide towards the index, which is useful and detailed, but I find rarely necessary as the book is very well laid out.

Final thoughts
Well, it seems I have run out of book. I did this deep dive, because I love this game and because I wanted to grind all the details home. Do I play it exactly as it is written. No. I am a game tinkerer, and this one is no exception, but I will say I have changed very little for my home games. A little customization here and there to match the mood of the settings. I think Ms Pigeon would approve. 

If this product interests you consider picking up a copy at DriveThruRPG, the link is on the project first page, just and the link at the top of this page will take you to it. Mythic was well supported with two books of optional rules (Variations 1 and Variations 2) in its first edition, and a second is on the way, but I say why wait. For less than 10 dollars and one or two days of reading (if you don't just use these articles as a jump start) you could be wandering any world you can conceive of, whether it is well know to you or a fabulous world that you and Mythic make together, and when the 2nd edition does hit the press, you will be ahead of the curve. 

If you got this far thanks for reading,
Wizard Dad.