Bay 12 Games Forum

Monsters exist. Aliens exist. They are one and the same.

And the are much more frightening then you could imagine.

Shogoth, fishmen, mi-go, and far, far worse roam the earth.

We know this-it is impossible to keep hidden in modern times. Pictures, satellite images, and other forms of communication technology make secrets hard to keep.

But the public must not know. It isn't what some TV shows will show you, there won't be "mass panic" or anything like that. There will simply be mass loss of sanity. In this case, blissful ignorance will have to be kept, no matter how much we want to tell everyone. No matter how much we want to shout out. No matter what it costs to keep it that way.

Thus our job is two fold. One, to protect the people from the reality deviants, the cultists, the mind shattering horrors, and other terrestrial and extraterrestrial threats to humanity. Two, to make sure nobody finds out we are doing this.

Project ORION is our designation. The hunter who watches from far away. We are part of group Alpha, the first response to humanities threats. The Men In Black who show up out of nowhere and gun down whatever the problem is. They don't tell you a lot, just what you need to know. And it really is for your own good, for whatever little you know about the organization, you know that everything they do is in humanities best interest...

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Orion Alpha, the game of hunting horrors! Here, you will be part of the shadowy government organization Orion, part of the first response team Alpha. That is what the name comes from, see? While this may or may not be inspired by Delta Green, we are definitely not affiliated with them or stealing their name in any way. You will be sent on missions, mostly "Raids" where you attack a known villain with a clear target, like busting a cult group. Sometimes you are sent on "Investigations", where you are asked to discover who the threat is and tasked with vaporizing it. You are well funded and thus well armed, but have to take care not to be found out. No blowing up entire buildings because you think you saw a cultist.

Generally this organization is mysterious and at times morally ambiguous, but you know it is humanity's best hope. They might ask you to do things like kidnapping uninvolved people, "neutralizing" witnesses, or even off political opponents, but what other choice do they have? The enemies of man are powerful and outright sadistic by our view. We can hope to defeat them without falling fully, but even the most idealistic in the group knows that you must become a little monstrous to fight monsters.

As for your equipment, you get a few useful gadgets and doodads, but nothing science fiction. Mostly things that can keep you fighting without going insane, such as special glasses that numb the effects of looking directly at the monsters. Project Orion is well funded, probably at least, and you have access to near unlimited resources. The higher ups generally decide what kind of weaponry is appropriate for a given mission and let you choose from the allowed weaponry. As the first response, you generally don't get anything heavier then a particularly large rifle, though circumstances can change quickly.

In the end, this is a game about men fighting the universe. Can we win? Maybe. Maybe you have to tell yourself full of hope. At the very least, you know that you can fix what is wrong. Buy a little time. Maybe just a second. Maybe an hour. A day. A year. Maybe even a lifetime, for all of humanity. All you know is that, for all you sacrifice, you must be getting something done.

Character Sheet:

Name:Your real name first, and in brackets any nickname or call sign: Example
John Smith [Joker]

History: What you did before joining Orion, and what got you involved. Orion typically recruits members of law enforcement, military, and other trained professionals who have so much as seen a Lovecraftian threat without going insane. Civilians are often recruited if they "prove themselves" against them, by surviving an attack or actively hunting out threats themselves.

Items: The weapons and equipment you have, to be filled out later.

Armor: 0 Irrelevant for now. How hard you are currently to hit effectively. Zero at the start.

For the following stats, you can distribute the following in order of skill: 1 Horrible, 1 Poor, 2 Average, 1 Excellent, 1 Superb, in order of magnitude.
Guns: How good you are with fire arms, including small arms, rifles, artillery, and anything else that works on the same general principle.
Melee: How good you are at hitting things. With other things, like your fists or swords. Might need some "assistance" to make it more powerful, but it is a little easier to take down humans non-fatally with this.
Doge:Your ability to not die. That means getting to cover, jumping out of the way of an incoming tentacle, or just having excellent reflexes.
Strength: How strong you are. Gives bonuses to melee attack and allows you to do more with your muscles, like running longer, picking up heavier things and weaponry. Also effects how much damage you can take.
Agility: How you can do things quickly. Gives bonuses to Guns, and lets you run faster, do acrobatics, and fine motor skills like picking locks. Also effects your speed.
Charisma: Your ability to work with people and animals. Gives bonuses to leadership, and lets you do things like convince the farmer the monster he saw was just his imagination or a demon, command dogs, and generally helps you avoid having to kill things.
Abilities: Magical or technological abilities that you currently don't have. Also skills that you learn to do especially well.

Unnecessarily long back story go!

In this game, you play the member of a local Allen Detective Agency, focusing in the supernatural, or as it says on your business cards, "Strange and Occult". Normal people will probably look at you funny, as will most law enforcement, but there is an air about you that makes everyone treat you with respect.

Some people come in the front desk with private jobs, most of which are false leads or jokes. The real jobs of the Agency come from the US government. Not openly, of course, the ADE is an open Occult Detective Agency now. No, they leave a box outside the door, filled with grenades of holy water with a note  saying "Two Vampires Nearby. Smoke them. $20,000", or a text with "Werewolf, Blond. Take alive. 30k. Silver cuffs in your trunk"

You will have to act as a detective, finding leads and information. Track down the criminals. You will also have to act as a powerful weapon, defeating these super powered badguys with nothing more than a your gun and your wits. The true detective can do both, even if not actively on a job...

Character Sheet:

Name:What your name is

History: Who you are, and what lead you to the Agency

Items:You start off with one weapon that an American civilian could reasonably have, such as a Beretta handgun or a longsword, of your choice. Other items may be added, but aren't necessary.

Armor: 0 Irrelevant for now.

For the following stats, you can distribute the following in order of skill: 1 Horrible, 1 Poor, 2 Average, 1 Excellent, 1 Superb
Guns:
Melee:
Doge:
Strength:
Agility:
Charisma:
Abilities:

I hope everything is clear, I got a little lazy near the end with the Character sheet. Oh well, if it gets enough interest and is confusing enough, Ill rewrite it later.

Some people say that the Dreamlands reflect Jung's "Collective Unconsciousness". If that is true then it is no surprise how much it changed in the last century. Just the two world wars changed how we think about combat, fighting, and evil itself. Perhaps an even greater change in the dreamlands was brought about by the new forms of media, like television and video games. It is said that after black and white television was commonplace, people started dreaming in black and white. It is logical, then, that now that people control the character they are watching, they can control their dreams more often as well. Maybe that is the reason for all the new dreamers. But some feel that this isn't right. They feel something big is coming....

You are a Dreamer yourself. One day, through practice or accident, you found out you could control your dreams. You played in this world whenever you got the chance, bending the reality to your will. And one day, you found something that wouldn't bend, a door, a gate, a manhole cover. Something in your own mind that you couldn't control. You felt drawn into it.

So you opened it. You found a downward facing stairway, an elevator, a ladder, with only darkness below. And you walked/rode/stepped a dozen floors down, deep into the darkness. You found yourself greeted by a medieval drawbridge, an airport checkpoint, a club gate, each with two guards who fit the scene perfectly. The one on the right looked at you, shook his head, and stated "You are not yet ready."

You woke up with no memory of the dream you just had.

But you kept dreaming. More frequently, more vividly, with the playground in your head getting more impressive as you learn how to dream. You would find the door again, and once again brave its steps, with still no memory of last time. The guards would pause for moments, before the one on the left began shaking his head. "You are not yet worthy."

You kept dreaming. Every night now, just as vivid as real life, if not more so. One night, you felt the call once again. You now knew its exact location. As soon as you touched the doorknob, lifted the manhole, pushed the down button, you remembered your last two attempts and felt emboldened by them. You entered the darkness with confidence, stepping out in front of the gate proudly. The guards both looked at you. "You are ready."  Their eyes began to glow a bright light, as if they had been replaced with headlights. The gate opened, and you where allowed through...

You had become a Dreamer.

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Dreamlands is a roleplaying game where you play a Dreamer, someone who has limited control over the dreamlands. This game is very, very, loosely based on "The Dreamquest of an Unknown Kadith" combined with the idea of "Lucid Dreaming". It is part fantasy, part modern, part horror....really, whatever, you're the Dreamer remember?

In this game, you will explore this land to unlock secrets, aid the troubled inhabitants, carve out a paradise for yourself, or just take down evil Dreamers, at first at least. I plan to have an overarching plot that will start when I start College in a few weeks. That is why this is "The Calm Before the Storm", Part I. If I find some people who want to stick with it within that time, and I don't get bored/overworked (My new phone helps me at least check up on this while working), we will start Part II "Dreamquest". Having multiple parts like this allows me to find the right feel for the game before starting, as well as working out the right mechanics. I pretty much just made the rules up arbitrarily while working, with no testing, so giving me a period to work things out better should help.

Without explaining too much of what the Dreamlands is or how it works (because it is more fun if you figure those out in character!) here are the rules you need to play.

This game has three character stats: Imagination, Focus, and Willpower.

Imagination is perhaps the most important stat here, as it allows you to manifest things. Think of it kind of like Magic Points in other games. Imagination is written X/Y, with X being how many you have left out of the total Y. You take points out of the total X to manifest things. The more points you take out, the more powerful, plentiful, or higher quality the final product is. One point of imagination is enough to manifest a weapon with a Damage of 1. Two points manifests a weapon with Damage of 2. Three is three and so on. Remember, however, that items made this way are temporary!

Example: Bob the Dreamer has an imagination of 7. He hasn't used any since he went to bed, so he has an imagination written down as 7/7. Bob is then attacked by a random zombie, and chooses to defend himself. He chooses to spend three imagination to manifest a rifle with Damage 3. His imagination is now 4/7 and he is using a rifle with Damage of 3. (This will look much more impressive when you do it, don't worry too much.)

Remember when I said this is temporary? Well, the idea manifested, but it is part of your Dream, not the Dreamland. If you ever lose Focus of it, or one of the many other rules I haven't covered yet, the weapon vanishes. It is important to note here that to manifest weapons with a Damage higher than 3, it takes Focus to keep for even one turn. More will be covered under the Focus section.

You can also build armor, which can take effect either of some kind of actual armor, you blocking anything coming to you, or anything else you can think of (Dreams are unlimited, after all.) This also takes one Imagination per point of damage, but can only stick around multiple turns if you burn an equal amount of Focus.

Example: Bob is in big trouble. The zombie was a lot stronger then it looked, and nearly has him dead. He thinks the next turn it will kill him, so he decides to hit his rifle butt to the ground and create a wall of dirt as armor using the last 4 of his 4/7 imagination. If the zombie's next attack does 4 or less, then Bob is unharmed. If it does 5 or more, then the difference hits Bob. If it does 3 or less, then he wasted at least one point of imagination, so be careful!

Of course, weapons and stuff aren't the only thing that you can manifest. Perhaps you want to try to manifest another person? This can go down in three ways. You can create a group of mindless grunts just as easily as you could make a weapon, who can attack your opponents while you do other, non attack action. They have a Damage Rating the same way a weapon does (1 damage=1 imagination), which is equal to their Willpower as well (Which will be covered later). They have some advantages over a normal weapon, such as the Dreamer being able to do other actions as his me are attacking as long as he can keep his focus, and they can soak up Damage for him, but can be killed and only have half the accuracy of a Dreamer. The second kind is essentially decoration, like a random butler or maid for your mansion. They basically follow the rules for normal item creation (detailed below) and can't fight, mostly just doing their job. You should probably make them permanent if you want to get its full effects.

The third, possibly most useful, is the Companion. Companions are part of the Dreamer's dream, but are able to act independently even when he isn't there. Companions always do what the Dreamer has asked, and have actual intelligence and emotions, acting like an actual human in every way. Companions can attack separately from the Dreamer in a single turn, and can be empowered temporarily like a weapon, with one Imagination adding one point to their Damage (But not Willpower). You need to burn focus if you empower it by more than 3, much like a weapon. You can use armor to protect your companion much like yourself. If a companion is injured, they can be healed by the Dreamer who manifested them, using one point of imagination to heal one point of damage. If they are killed, they teleport back to the Dreamer's home until he can heal them. If the dreamer's home is cut off (By the Dreamer being woken up), then they will start to vanish, slowly becoming translucent, and get desperate to reach the Dreamer. If the Dreamer returns within 24 Dreamland hours, it may be saved and will teleport to his home as soon as possible. If the Dreamer is ever killed or loses his ability to dream, it collapses to the ground in a fit of powerful emotion (Which depends on the personality of the Companion.) and starts to disappear slowly. Other Dreamers may funnel Imagination to it, in which case it will use its energy to act on its emotions, trying to find the Dreamer or avenge his death. To manifest a companion, you must invest twice as much Damage/Willpower you want it to have in your own Imagination/Focus/ AND Willpower. That is, if you want it to have 1 Damage/ 1 Willpower, you must invest 2 imagination/2 Focus/ 2 Willpower to have it permanently manifest. They can later be upgraded, for what it would cost to manifest it at its new stats. You currently can't go over 3 Damage/ 3 Willpower for balance reasons, but this rule may change.

Manifesting buildings is probably the only other odd thing to make. If you want to make something large like a castle, it is probably going to take a few nights worth of Imagination. An arbitrary number I just made up is that 1 Imagination= about square feet of construction material. You can invest more points to make the object more detailed, stronger, etc. You can stretch it to be more, but it will generally be weaker, and if you actually focus on any part of it it will look "Pixalated". You can move your "Home" to connect to any place where you have control, control being anywhere you have done permanent construction. With this you can make anything from a mansion to a fort to a cave to whatever. Remember, it is your dream!

For everything else: As I said before, it is generally based on quality and quantity of what you want. One Imagination point is enough to get either a whole cart of decent-quality bread, one loaf of incredibly high quality bread, or a whole room full of wormbait bread. You can create any item you want, even if you don't know how the object is made. Any object you make works like you expect it to, not necessarily like it does, if it even works at all. For the bread example, the bread tastes different for whoever eats it, with each person tasting what they think "Bread" tastes like. If someone never tasted high quality bread before, then they just imagine what they think it would taste like. For another example, a Dreamer decided to make a radio. The radio plays songs just as he remembers them, even if he remembers them wrong. If someone opens it up, they would find dozens of wires and other random parts that don't connect anywhere.

The final note on manifesting is that it doesn't seem to work as well near civilians of the Dreamlands. While you may be able to move mountains and level forests alone or when fighting monsters, when near civilians the best you can hope for is a weapon they would use there. There are many theories to this, but I already have written too much.

Focus: Your characters ability to keep his mind pointed at all the right things. While Imagination lets you manifest things, Focus keeps them manifested. As stated before, Focus can be used to keep shields up in combat, as well as to keep powerful weapons manifested. I think this would be best shown in an example:

Bob survived the zombie attack a long time ago, and is now much more powerful. Now he is facing a monster of all the zombies he has ever killed sewn together. His Imagination is 15/15 and his focus is 10/10. He decides he wants to manifest a Damage 5 Anti-materiel rifle, and promptly does so. This takes 5 Imagination, of course, making it 10/15. But he has to focus to make something so powerful stay in this world. The rifle does 5 damage, which is 2 more than 3. This means he must use 2 focus for each turn he wants to keep the rifle manifested, including the turn he manifested it. So he now has 8/10 Focus. Next turn, he keeps it manifested. He now has 10/15 Imagination, because he didn't need to manifest a new sword, but has 6/10 Focus, because he still needs to keep focused.

Focus is also needed to keep items manifested under difficult situations, but isn't used up. Your current focus is calculated every time your character is hit, and if the Damage you are hit with is greater than your current Focus, than you lose every temporary manifested item that you have, including weapons and armor.

Example:

Bob is still fighting the Zombie Frankenstien, and is now hit! His focus is 6/10. If he is hit for 7 or more damage, the rifle he is holding will vanish spectacularly.

Finally, Focus can be used to make things part of Dreamland. Most things you manifest are part of the Dreamer's Dream, vanishing if he loses focus or wakes up. If you use Focus, they will stay forever. Focus can be used to keep normal items, house parts, and weapons permanently. A general rule is that for every 1 Imagination you spent to manifest it, it takes 1 Focus to keep it permanently manifested. Weapons can only become permanent if they are 3 Damage or less, higher than that is simply to powerful for you to bring into the world. For now, at least.

Willpower: The strength of your character's will. If Imagination is your characters MP, than this is your characters HP. As everything, it is shown with X/Y, going down as you spend it.

Its main focus is of course, keeping you from dieing. When you hit 0/Y willpower, you wake up, simply unable to keep yourself dreaming under all the damage. As a Dreamer, this is basically your character "dieing", except he can come back the in-game next day when you return to sleep. This does, however, kick you out of the Dreamland long enough for your enemies or opponents to accomplish their goals, and should be avoided at all costs.

Your character can permanently die, however, if they reach 0 willpower in a "Nightmare" situation. "Nightmare" situations are created at dramatically appropriate moments, either by the sheer will of hatred between two Dreamers or a naturally occurring phenomena in the Dreamlands or from a Monster's ability. Everything looks monstrous, fluffy trees becoming thorny bushes, the sky goes dark, attacks have a viscose tint to them that wasn't there before. When you reach 0 willpower here, you lose your ability to dream. You wake up, sitting up with a start, while breathing deeply as your heart tries to retreat from your chest. You don't remember what happened in the Dreamlands, losing all the memories you had gained there, and sleep uneasily from that day out.

That is about all it for the three stats. I might need to add more, and I will need to balance these three. But how better to do that then trying them out?

Finally, about your "Home". This is basically your "Spawn Point" to the dreamlands. It is a place, connected too but separate from the dreamlands, where you do your normal dreaming. While you are here you functionally have unlimited stats, but are unable to use it to effect the dreamworld. Nothing permanent can be made here. You can't use these stats to heal your Companion or anything else you brought in from the dreamlands.

Every time you enter the dreamlands, you come in through your "home" through some kind of door or gate, which is the same every time. This always leads to something that goes downwards, and ends in a gate with two guards. These guards will wordlessly give you any permanent weapon you have made here and allow you to enter. You will end up at a random place in the non-hostile part of the dreamlands if you haven't linked your home to a place in the dreamlands. To move your home to a fixed place, you simply have to claim it by building some form of base, then desire to link it. Generally you put it to some kind of door you can walk through, or a gate, or a garage door. Nobody else can enter your Home under any circumstances, they would simply find a random door with a wall on the other side if they tried following you.

Every time you wake up, you go about your business in the Waking World. If you where forced awake, then life goes on without you. If you woke up naturally, then the world "Pauses", as it does for everyone. Not a lot goes on while you go about your business. Then, when you return to sleep, you will be fully healed and returned to the general area you left, if you desire. Nobody remembers waking up in the Dreamlands, but you do remember what happened there. You only seem to naturally awaken during relaxing times, like after a big fight, rather than at random.

The rest, you might have to find out yourself, or I will have to right more. I am sorry for any poor quality writing, and for my many spelling/grammar issues. I am getting rather tired near the end of this, and will probably have to rewrite/update pieces later. Stick with me people! I only reread it once or twice.

And with that, here is the character sheet. Remember, Dreams are unlimited! You can manifest anything you want, as long as you can imagine it. You get twenty points (For now) to distribute through the three stats.

Character Sheet:
Name:
Imagination:
Focus:
Willpower:

Any information about this character: Mainly so you can tell the back story of your character, his personalty, and anything else that makes him interesting. This isn't really part of the character sheet, but is an important part of the character. So who wants to try it? Feel free to ask any questions, I am sure I was unclear with many things, and left out things I shouldn't have.

They say the land you live on was once a lush “Eden”. The natural plant and animal life was peaceful and plentiful, nobody ever starved. The water was so clean you could drink out of a river. The technology was incredibly advanced. The medical science allowed everyone to live for centuries, with only violent death ever ending lives, and violent death was rare.

No one seems to know how much of that is true and how much is myth, but one thing is for sure. Compared to the current world, it certainly was Eden.

There was a massive war. Nuclear, chemical, biological, and unknown weapons of mass destruction ravished the landscape. The natural wildlife was perverted, some say accidentally some say purposefully, to angry killing machines. The rivers are polluted with radiation and deadly chemicals. People struggle to hold on to any technology they can find. And people die. It is rare to live to middle age in most cities.
The nations, if they had existed after all, had broken up into small city-states. These checker the landscape. Each is unique, in law, technology, and even terrain. Some are bustling cities with skyscrapers, running water, and even robotic servants. Some are little more than a hole in the ground, with tents made out of putrid leather, tasteless alcohol in place of water, and lice ridden slaves. But each are small, the area of influence is typically less than twenty miles. Each is far apart.

The only job that can get work anywhere seems to be a mercenary. Fortunately, you are a mercenary. A hired gun that wanders the land.
Your personality and circumstance could be anything. You could be a man of justice, who left his home state to make the world a better place, or a sadist who was kicked out. You could be a rich man who got bored one day, or someone who has to take any job just to survive. The only thing that all mercenaries have in common is the job.

Will you be clever enough to survive and flourish as an Apocalypse Mercenary?
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Character Creation
Name:
Items:
Int:
End:
Str:
Gun:
Mle:
Agi:
Bio:
Mode:
Status:
Additional:

Breakdown-
Name. This is what your character is called. It can be a name we have on Earth, or one native to the city you came from. Not much gameplay effect, but more exotic names are easier to remember. After all, who are you going to remember more, the man who’s named John Smith or the guy going around yelling “I AM DON DALA AFT VON FLUFFY!”? Of course, being well known can be either good or bad, so be careful.

Items. The equipment you have. Most items are self-explanatory. Weapons are similar to what we find on Earth, strikingly so. While in this story Japan and Russia may not have existed, you will still find Katana and Ak-47s.

An important thing to remember as a mercenary is that you have a limited amount you can carry, and on harder “modes” have to take care of your equipment. You might think walking around with a .50 BMG ant material rifle sound cool, but the gun and ammunition are incredibly heavy and require a lot of service to work properly.

Weapon damage is based off of caliber, and aim is based on your Gun skill and particular weapon/situation. Your starting items will be assigned to you based off of the other factors, but you can request something if you have a preference.
Stats (Int,End,Str, Gun,Mle, Agi)

Stats are what define your character. Is he smart and weak? Is he good with guns but as delicate as a flower? Strong and fast, but his motorcycle is smarter than him?

To keep things simple, there are several “categories” that each stat has
Horrible
Poor
Average
Above Average
Great

There are more, but that is all you need at creation. Each stat starts out at “Average”, and you can lower it or raise it by lowering another stat the same amount. For example, to raise the Gun stat to “Great”, I could lower my Melee stat to “Horrible”. You can also split the penalty to two stats, so if I wanted a weak gunner I could raise Gun to “Great”, lowering Strength and Melee to “Poor”.
Bio: The story of your character so far. It should include a brief description of his home state and the reason you left, as well as any flavor you want to add. It should also include current location and what they are doing there, this could be their home civilization if they haven’t left yet.

Mode: There are three game “modes” detailing how the game will be played. The modes are “Realistic”, “Medium”, and “Cinematic”. Generally, these mods detail how difficult and realistic the game is.

Realistic mode-The most difficult mode. You have to eat, drink, and sleep regularly. Ammunition may be difficult to come by, depending on your weapon choice. Weapons jam easier and are more difficult to repair. Wounds are slow and difficult to heal, and bleeding can be a real problem. Almost all rolls are more difficult as well. If you want to play a somewhat-realistic survival game, this is the mode you want.
Cinematic mode- The least difficult. Eating or drinking heals you a little but isn’t necessary, you almost never run out of ammunition and your weapons never jam. Your carrying capacity is increased. You can shrug off enemy attacks and heal rapidly. All rolls are easier. If you want to play a mercenary with a desert eagle in each hand, this is the mode you are looking for.
Medium mode- take a guess. You still have to eat, drink, and sleep, but not nearly as often as in Realistic mode. Ammunition has to be found, but is abundant. Guns may jam if you treat them really bad. You don’t bleed, but need medical treatment or a healing item to heal quickly. Generally, this is like the average character in a video game.

Be aware that what mode you choose also applies to the enemies. If you’re an action hero in Cinematic mode shrugging off enemy fire, then the bandit leader you’re fighting is also an action star who can shrug off small arms fire.

Status- Wounded, bleeding, poisoned, tired, hungry, thirst….those kinds of things, and whatever else I have to note here.

Additional- Anything I forgot. More of a place holder, really.

With that, let’s start!

Intro: Don't worry, won't be getting into back story yet. The general idea of this game, Through The Portal, is to mix quasi-realistic sci-fi games with, well, fantastic fantasy games. And to waste my extra free time. And to try to polish-up my combat system a little. But mostly to mend two genres together and see what happens.

I may end up writing to much, but please to not be intimidated. If you want me to do the bare-bones for your character, I will comply. Don't worry, even if I write an essay for every turn, you can write a sentence response if you really want to.

-----Combat----

Like the general idea of the game, combat is supposed to mix the general idea of "pseudo realism" with high fantasy, mixing elements from GURPS, Dungeons and Dragons, and my own deranged mind. Here goes nothing!

When you get into combat, you will see a sheet that looks something like this:

[Enemy Name]
Health: [Approximate health. This will be what you can sense, not an exact number. For example, Good, Wounded, Almost Dead, Ect.]
Size: [Both approximate strength and how hard it is to hit. A dragon may be strong, but it is an easy target.]
Distance: [Distance, in a fictional distance which I make up on the spot]
Action: [The action the enemy is preforming, like aiming or picking his nose]
Additional Status: [Anything else, like if the character is bleeding.]

That means you have found an enemy! It is possible he hasn't seen you yet. For an example, we will use "Random Goblin #1" for the rest of this combat situation.

Random Goblin #1
Health: Perfect
Size: Small Human
Distance: 100
Action: Sleeping
Additional Status: None

As you can see, the RG hasn't seen you coming, due to him being asleep. This gives you a chance to make a sneak attack, which allows you to make a turn of movement yourself, without him being able to react. A "turn" is about two seconds, or the amount of time it takes to make an action in combat. Each post will be a turn, giving you time to react to your enemy if you want. During this time, you could preform a standard "combat action", which are:

Aim: Take a moment to line up that shot. This gives a bonus to being able to hit, as well as allowing you to aim for a specific object/body part.
Rush: Get closer to your enemy, so you can hit em with your close ranged weapon. You can also rush in the opposite direction.
Attack: The bread and butter of combat. Put two seconds worth of bullets in your opponent, swing your sword as fast as you can, or whatever your attack is.
Reload: Put some bullets back in your gun or some magic back in your sword.

which all take a turn to use. You can be as poetic or blunt as you want for each one. For example, you could say "I look down my X4 holographic scope, a nervous feeling filling my body as I move the cross hairs toward the goblin's head." to aim at the goblins head, or the much simpler "Aim: Head".

If you are not feeling the "combat actions" at the moment, there are also "Special actions", which are created by the player. These can be anything, but may take several turns to be able to do. These can really be anything your character should be able to do, allowing you for random bonuses or damage depending on what you are doing. For an example of this, you could crouch on the ground, to lower your size and improving your aim, but slowing you down. Or you could pull out your giant sword and threaten your enemy with it. Or you could start dancing the macarana.

For now, lets just start with the RG. Just aim at him, he wont wake up, and pull the trigger. What is that you say? You don't have a weapon? Well that won't do. Here take this!

Ranger Sniper Rifle [2d6][5/6]

This is a small gun to demonstrate weapon stats. The first brackets are the damage, based on an amount of dice. For this example, the sniper rifle would do 2d6 damage. That is 2 dice of 6 damage each, meaning it will do between 2-12 damage, depending on how I roll your dice. The second bracket is your chances of hitting. This is a percentage, based on the dice. For this example, you have a chance of 5 to hit on a six sided die. So if you rolled a one, two, three, four, or five, you would hit and do the damage. However if you rolled a six, you would miss. Aiming improves this score, aiming for a specific part is effected by the score, rather then a pure hit/miss. For this example, if you were aiming for RG's head, a one would hit his forehead, a two would be a little to the right, and so on and so forth.

So now take your new gun and shoot that random goblin!

Random Goblin #1
Health: Almost dead
Size: Small Human
Distance: 100
Action: Bleeding (Bad)
Additional Status: None

You aim your Ranger carefully at the center of the goblin, carefully pulling its trigger for the first time. A bullet travels above the speed of sound toward the unfortunate creature, hitting him right next to his heart. Blood begins to soak through his wool tunic, creating a red blot, as he falls over.

Good job! You almost killed him in one shot! As you can see, he is now bleeding. "Bleeding" is a mechanism added to this game in an attempt at some form of realism. As you can imagine, bleeding is a major problem. Exsanguination (blood loss) is the biggest cause of death in real battle fields, and this is no less true in this world. Bleeding can have several stages, any attack that does 2 or over adds to your bleeding. However, people in both worlds are rather sturdy, an average strength character would have to be at "Bleeding (Danger)" to start feeling the effects in a noticeable way. Random weaklings, like our goblin friend, are not usually so lucky, and the little blood he has lost is enough to knock him out and eventually kill him. Bleeding (Along with the rest of your damage) can be cured by healing, which will be covered later.

Look out! From behind you, a random goblin appears! He must have been the others friend, and had heard the gunshot!

Random Goblin #2
Health: Perfect
Size: Small Human
Distance: 5
Action: Attacking
Additional Status: None

As you can see, he is within a distance of 10, or melee range. You can now hit each other with swords, knives, and other assorted weaponry. And he has an ambush on you, giving him a free attack.

The goblin quickly brings down his small dagger, cutting deep into your leg!

Don't panic. If you had a character sheet right now, you would have a small amount of health removed and would be losing a bit of blood. But to better teach your melee combat, here, take these.

Enchanted Long Sword (3d6)

As you can see, this is another weapon. A sword this time. As you can see, it has the same damage, in the same design of the gun. Why does it have more damage, you ask? Well, the wound produced by a long weapon like a knife or sword causes a large wound, more bleeding, usually magical, and can be used more times in a close combat situation. Alright, it is mostly for balance. But why doesn't it have an accuracy, you may ask? Its simple. While stats in gun combat give you bonuses, stats in sword fight give you a chance to dodge. Your standard chance to doge is your dexterity/2/6, that is half your dexterity over a six sided die. This can change if you are fighting a skilled opponent, or a blindingly fast one. You can increase your chances to hit your opponent, who doges the same way, by leveling up your weapon skill. Someone with a longsword 6 (Incredibly skilled) will be able to hit someone even with dexterity 12, someone with longsword 0 will have difficulty hitting someone with dexterity 3. If dodging is not your thing, you can also Block. Blocking isn't a very realistic form of combat, but you are using a magical sword, so realism is kind of out the door. Blocking is instead focused on your strength and skill with the weapon, but has much less a chance of succeeding, being your strength/4+your weapon skill /12.

What is that? You think this means ranged characters have a lot more advantages then close ranged characters? Of course they do, they have guns. Close ranged characters at HIGH levels and magical benefits may be able to doge a subsonic bullet, or even block them if you are using some crazy magic. But armor can help out a lot, giving close characters a chance to survive. And here is your armor!

Enchanted Mail (1d6) (-1)

As you can see, the armor has a damage rating like the weapons do. If you are wearing armor, you roll a dice then subtract it from the damage the enemy would do to you. For example, if your enemy would have done 6 damage, and you rolled to block 7 damages, you would not receive any damage. The second number is the penalty to doge and speed. A lower number lowers your ability to doge, for example if you rolled a 4 doge it would turn into a 3 doge with this armor. Most armors are magical, or really heavy high tech, making it the choice for close ranged characters. Armors are not perfect, however. Each has a weak spot that can be aimed for if you find it, negating damage. This is so someone in good armor isn't completely invincible.  Now lets try it out!

Random Goblin #2
Health: Dead
Size: Small Human
Distance: 5
Action: Attacking
Additional Status: None

The goblin slashes his small dagger, but the attack clanks harmlessly off your chain armor!

Next turn:

You counter attack, your sword cutting through the Goblin's neck like butter!

Wow! You just killed the goblin in one hit! While it is certainly possible with normal attacks, what you just scored was a "critical attack". A critical attack happens when you score a perfect dice, for example a 6/6. This means you hit a vital. Or probably hit a vital. On weak enemies like the goblin, it will be 100% kill. On stronger/larger enemies, a separate dice may be added to see how much extra damage and bleeding is done. These can also happen to you, if you are unlucky.

Now that you have defeated your enemies, lets get you healed. Here, take this.

Healing Gel (2d6)

As you can see, this is a rather potent healing gel. Healing gel is an advanced medicine from our reality, it utilizes stem cells and pseudo stem sells to immediately heal minor damage. While it won't bring back your hand, it will patch up 2 dice of 6 damage and stop half of the healing in bleeding.

Now that you are completely healed and done fighting the enemy, go out and explore the world! It is pretty much a wide open sandbox, you can explore the ever expanding world. You can loot the villages, help and befriend them, whatever you want. Dice are thrown about whenever I feel like it, and it makes since. Now go forth, explore! I just wanted to get my new prototype combat system into the tutorial, the rest will just show up naturally.

Besides, I probably scared mostly everyone away with a ridiculously long tutorial. And everyone will probably have questions anyway, in which I will revise the tutorial.

-----Character Sheet-----

The most important part of the story, the main character. That is, you. The first choice you have to make is between "Our Reality", and "Fantasy". Each will get a small blurb explaining their overarching themes with a list of races you can choose from. To see what is going on with both of them, you can read the Fluff

---Our Reality---

The land of science fiction, in the near far future. The main focus of these creatures is guns and ranged weapons, with hundreds of models based of modern guns that I make up as we go along. The technology, everything from mechanical engineering to bio mechanics. As they have entered the portal on their own free will, for the most part, this can mean they are more aggressive, though that is not necessarily true. Raiders, looking for a quick dollar, are unfortunately common. However, many are there for peaceful purposes. Some are looking to explore, pushed forward by their sense of adventure or in a quest for knowlage, bettering the places they meet. Some are there in a quest for money or power, catching the untapped markets with their corporations. Some are just hired guns, getting pay checks for their family back home. Some are sociopaths, coming to this world to destroy and kill whatever they can get their hands on. But what you are, is up to you.

Human: Even in the near far future, humanity has changed little. I assume you know the relative strengths and weaknesses of a human. They mostly focus on guns, where their skills are most suited for. The only other notable thing is that both worlds have humans. This makes it easier to disguise yourself, and also gives you a bonus to charismatic rolls.

Lupine: Man's best friend, joining them in the stars. Essentially, Lupine are a race of human/dog hybrids. The reality is a little more complicated, with extensive gene engineering and breeding, the end result is the only thing people can agree on. Lupine are larger then normal humans, as well as being stronger. They have hair all over their body, a dog like snout, and generally stand on four legs with the ability to stand on two if necessary. They can be any species of dog, though their general characteristics change are mostly only in looks to avoid the health danger. They don't, however, have quite the mental capacity humans have, being slightly dim witted. They also have trouble going against a human they are on the same side with, keeping the strong loyalty their ancestors are famous for. Thus they rarely enter the portal alone, typically either serving as a grunt for a group or as a faithful friend to an adventurer.

Augmented: Augmented are, at the base, human. But they have both gained and lost something. Something mechanical or biological has been done to their body. This makes them one of the most varied classes of all. Augmentation always comes at a price, however. This can be anything from a man who replaced his legs with tank tracks, allowing him to be faster but slows his reaction time, to making yourself a cyborg with a machine gun in your chest, giving you a greater amount of fire power in exchange for speed. Biological augmentation has similar effects, the change is mostly cosmetic. One thing all Augmented have in common is that they are looked down upon. Our reality doesn't hate them completely, with only a little casual racism left, but the fantasy reality sees them as a symbol of our reality, making them almost universally despised. If your choosing your character, please state the augmentation you have chosen and its desired effect in the bio.

----Fantasy----
The land of Magic, most of which is stuck in what you think of when the words "High Fantasy" are spoken. The lands vary greatly, with every town having its own culture and government, essentially making them their own country. Magic is present in most societies, often used in many of the same applications we apply technology, though this varies from country to country. Every country uses magic in the military out of pure necessity. The game mostly takes place at their home, meaning they have an even more varied amount of jobs, ranging from farmer to paladin. Some are defenders of justice, protecting the people from the more dangerous "invaders". Others have attempted to become heroes, but instead have become despicable terrorists. Some are just looking to live their lives and found themselves in dangerous situations.

Standard Fantasy Races: The lands are incredibly diverse, allowing for any fantasy race to be chosen, with the relative strengths and weaknesses. This include, but are not limited to, Human, Elves, Orcs, Goblins, Dwarves.... All of witch have their own advantages and disadvantages. I would list them all, but haven't I already written too much?

Wizards: Wizards, mages, spell slingers, whatever your location likes to call them. While not technically a race, there are enough differences to make this a separate race. Wizards wield spells instead of weapons, with the spells acting as a ranged weapon, with a turn limit instead of ammo. Wizards take many jobs depending on the country they are from. This can be anything from a respected head-of the guard to a hated outcast to a blue-caller repairman.


----Character Sheet----

Now finally, the thing you need to play. Just copy this and fill out the necessary information, and we can get started!


Name: [Your name, purely cosmetic]
Items: [Ill put them, but if it isn't clear from your job/bio just put a general weapon class.]
Profession: [Your job. This can depend on what reality you are from.]
Race: [Your race, chosen from the above]
Health: [Your hitpoints. Strength*2]
Additional Status: [Made for combat, much like on the enemy sheet earlier.]
Skills: [Based off of race/profession/bio. Leave this blank, to be filled in by me.]
Bio: [Your life before you started. For our reality, this includes reasons that you came, for fantasy this would be a short description of your job and the land you came from. I would also need to know your current location, if you choose fantasy.]
Stats: [Also based on your race/profession/bio. Please leave these blank, to be filled in later by me.]
Strength: [ Does what is described in combat, as well as being used to roll things involving your Strength. Also gives bonus damage to melee attacks]
Dexterity:[ See combat, has effect on speed]
Reflexes: [ An important stat in combat, giving bonuses to ranged combat and reflex roles]
Intelligence:[ A stat that allows you to manipulate magic and technology]
Charisma: [Gives bonuses to allies in combat, used for charisma rolls. Also helps in getting the locals friendly to you.]
Anything I forgot: [ A catchall term to get anything I forgot, because writing this took a long time and I got tired and forgetful.]


With that, you can now play!



----Back story----

To be honest, I didn't think I would start writing this much, so there is not much time for a back story. Ill write the full version tomorrow, and just get the bare bones up today. Sorry about this.

Generally, both sides were working on separate portal projects at the same time that had connected to each other, allowing a permanent hole to be formed. Our realty saw this as an opportunity, and thousands flocked to the new world, where untold bounty lay. The Fantasy world is almost unlimited, it seems that no matter were you go, there are only more and more nations, all with different people. And an untold amount of money. So yeah. I said it was bear bones, don't look at me like that.


I am sorry if I wrote to much and scared everyone away. I will finish the back story tomorrow, I want to at least gauge the reaction to this to see if anyone wants to play before I spend even more time writing this. Ill respond tomorrow as well, this took a LOT more time then I thought it would to write.

Dwarf fortress modern is an attempt to keep the style and feel of dwarf fortress and bring it to a modern setting, while adding to the fun! New weapons and vehicles for your military, as well as things like factories for your civilians, this mod attempts to keep some fantasy aspects while making the game much more similar to the modern day. Many more things have  been added, just read this forum a little bit to find out what! And of course, I am looking for a lot of suggestions to see what you guys want, don't hesitate to suggest something!

http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=7049 Download the current version!

--------------Change log---------------

--------------Civilian--------------
Added oil
Added petroleum
Added energy, from burning petroleum
Added cars, which speed up your dwarves and act as pets.
Added factory, produces furniture and goods
Added arc furnace, makes steel and lead better
Added computer, that trains your dwarves
Added chemistry workshop. Makes soap, as well as preforming other functions involving chemistry, like making Kevlar.
Added trucks, that transport goods better
Added clothing for flavor
Added chainsaws and drills
Added corn
Added soda
----------------Military----------
Added weapons. To many to list.
   Assault rifles. Ak74, M16
   Sniper rifles- Dragnovs and SG 550s
   Heavy weapons- Armbrusts and anti-personel mines
   Cinematic weapons- Large revolvers and miniguns. Only available from rare special moods.
   Shotguns- Benelli, Saiga, and Striker
   Thief weapons- Combat knife and Makarovs
   Pistols- Beretta
   Sub machine guns- Uzi
   And more!
Added tank depot
   Can use tank
   Can use jeep
   Can use CIWS
   Can use machinegun
   Can use helicopter
   Can use F-16
Added prisoner workshop. See misc for more.
Added explosive weapons and traps
Added new enemies.
   Helicopters
   Missiles
   Bombers
   The vehicles you can use
Weapons will now all be made of steel (or wood, or candy.)
Armor will be made of Kevlar (Or candy)
New armor
   Dragon skin

--------------------MISC----------------
Two new civs
   Tyrannians. The holy democratic people's republic of Tyrannia, which is a communistic state not located in Tyrannia. They are powerful, with tanks and other vehicles in casts, but are not always hostile.
   Blacklisted. They are always hostile and come in great numbers with some powerful castes who have some interesting moves, who are made to fight with.
Alley races. Basically they are animals you can turn into dwarves. Can be made in the prisoner workshop for now
  Nekomata, which can be made from cats, if you kill an enemy that drops an item for it
  PMC, which are private military contractors, who can be bought from the humans
  Hyper-intellegent dogs who are a cast of normal dogs. Can be trained to act like a dwarf.
  Converts, who are captured goblins. A lot more dangerous to make.
Two new secrets
   Cultists, who can turn into Avatars of Cathlulu. Careful, since they can get lucky and turn into a powerful monster that needs an army to take down
   Alchemists, who can shoot fire and do other moves. Not fully implemented.
Two new megabeasts
   Angel. A powerful humanoid with regenerative abilities, she will take a lot of bullets to get down, and more to stay down. You can keep one as a pet if you manage to cage one somehow.
   Juggernaut- A giant tank. Not much more to say about it.
   Metals moved. You should now be able to find lead, steel, and petroleum in any location.
And more!