Crusaders

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olivier legrand said:
Well, as you know from the now-cancelled Superfrance, I'm a long-term GH fan. I've always admired the way this game presented its subject as well as some of its key, signature features (like the visionary "campaign ratings").

In CRUSADERS, I try to revive the same spirit and tone (which is one of the reasons the game has the "Super 80s" setting) but with a (completely) different system - d100 based, with fewer dice rolls required and an absence of substats, movement rates, precise ranges and other (IMHO) superfluous complications. I also tried to mix the fun factor of random power rolls with a greater degree of players' control / influence over the results, with a triple design goal: maximum simplicity, flexibility and robustness.

Designing the game actually took years of on-and-off work; I think I started on it some 15 years ago, on the wake of Mazes & Minotaurs but after a couple of years I abandoned the project for lack of time (+ all sorts of other creative commitments); I sporadically came back to it but the amount of work needed soon forced me to move my files into the "abandoned projects" folder.

Then, in last December, I suffered a stroke - no damage on the cognitive, memory or language side of things (I was extremely lucky) but paresis (that's the medical term - a sort of half-baked paralysis) of the leg and arm on the right side. I'll spare you the details: six weeks of hospital and, since, then, a reeducation program, allowing me to walk again, write again and recover most of my old manual skills (although I've yet to recover my ability to play the piano satisfyingly - at least for now) etc. I've been on extended sick leave since I came back home and will resume my job as a high school teacher next September. But in the meantime, since typing was one of the earliest skills I'd managed to recover almost entirely, I needed some Big Writing Project to keep me occupied. So I dived into various "on hold" RPG-related projects... and then I remembered my old CRUSADERS files. I found that all the years of hiatus had actually made my mind clearer on the design directions etc. and so I decided to rise to the challenge. Being (at last!) able to write this game and launch it were very rewarding experiences for me - and helped me pass some very difficult RL moments. I was also delighted by the amount of interest and enthusiasm it gathered right from the start (until yesterday's senseless attacks on RPGnet but let's not dwell on the past) and I hope more and more people will get interested in the game and its forthcoming mini-supplements.

Ah, sorry for the personal digression - don't hesitate to ask me more specific rules-related questions! :smile:
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Most of us here are getting older so stories of wer're not alone in our issues and recovery is an option are kind of nice to here
 
Gringnr said:
Superfrance was a very cool sourcebook. Will you be converting any of those characters over to your new system?
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For this I'd need to get in touch with Simon Burley - and frankly, while I still love some of the villains from the sourcebook (Absinthe!), I've had other ideas for French heroes since then... We'll see :smile:
 
Hi O olivier legrand and welcome to the board. Being a sucker for anything fantasy Hellenic I enjoyed your work in Mazes & Minotaurs. You leaned hard into the Hellenic influences without trying to make it a recreation of Ancient Greece with fantasy shoehorned into it. This is exactly the way to do it IMHO and I wish more creators followed your example. I'm sorry to hear about your unfair treatment on the other site and look forward to enjoying my copy of Crusaders.
 
Mazes and Minotaurs is a fantastic work of love and lore, so it seems only fair to pay the price of the pdf for M. Legrand's take on superheroes. I have Crusaders downloaded and will begin reading this evening.
 
olivier legrand said:
And in this particular aspect, the game is probably closer to the old Marvel FASERIP (while still being "its own beast").
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olivier legrand said:
Probably too numerous to mention but the ones most present in my mind while working on the game were:
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Well, those posts convinced me to buy it. From a very quick skim of the the character creation info, I like what I see. Will skim the rest of the book during my down time this afternoon.
 
Okay! Been meaning to start coming over here more often, and the relocation of the Crusaders discussion makes it easy!
Very fun character creation, and the energy in the already-published supplements is infectious!
 
Well, O olivier legrand I'm glad you are still here, and still making things. I appreciated your Mazes & Minotaurs work which is absolutely brilliant. I'm very glad to see this game.

Now to everyone else help, I've rolled up a character and this is what I have:


Origin: Mythic Being

Acrobat-Acrobatic Jump
Martial Arts-Whirlwind strike
Vigor
Super senses-Radar Sense/Hearing
Teleportation-Blinking

Physique 13
Prowess 15 20 Martial Arts/Damage
Alertness 12 17 vs Melee/Ranged (22/22 with blinking)
Psyche 12

Vitality: 65


Now, I had other options but these sort of fit together the best (I tried to avoid making something I've made before.) The main issues is it being a mythic being thing: what can teleport and seems to be capable of skilled fighting and agile?
 
I haven't read much yet, but I am liking the core mechanic, the pared-down number of stats, and the way Hero Points work.
 
Silverlion said:
Well, O olivier legrand I'm glad you are still here, and still making things. I appreciated your Mazes & Minotaurs work which is absolutely brilliant. I'm very glad to see this game.

Now to everyone else help, I've rolled up a character and this is what I have:


Origin: Mythic Being

Acrobat-Acrobatic Jump
Martial Arts-Whirlwind strike
Vigor
Super senses-Radar Sense/Hearing
Teleportation-Blinking

Physique 13
Prowess 15 20 Martial Arts/Damage
Alertness 12 17 vs Melee/Ranged (22/22 with blinking)
Psyche 12

Vitality: 65


Now, I had other options but these sort of fit together the best (I tried to avoid making something I've made before.) The main issues is it being a mythic being thing: what can teleport and seems to be capable of skilled fighting and agile?
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A very interesting character - a bit Nightcrawler-esque ;)

Just one thing: your character seems to have one power improvement for each of his powers but at rank 1 it's one power improvement only (and only one improvement option per rank after that). The advancement rules on p 17 are pretty clear about this. So you should choose between Whirlwind Strike, Acrobatic Jump and Blinking, saving the two discarded choices for later (sorry if this is frustrating but it would make starting characters too powerful otherwise). On the other hand, starting with only one of those options could help you rationalize this power set & origin into a self-consistent concept...

From the top of my head, I'd say that the character's Origin (Fantastic/Mythic Being) and his most spectacular power (Teleport) would suggest some kind of faerie or goblin type (reinterpreted, of course, in the superheroic style). How about:

...the Sprite?

...the Farfadet (for a little French touch)?

...the Jack-in-the-Box?

...Jack-be-Nimble?

(Incidentally, the British Heroes mini-supplement due to be released tomorrow or friday has a feyborn heroine from the Otherworld and one of the forthcoming Showcases will feature a faerie brute called the Spriggan, so yes, such things are definiely part of the Crusaders multiverse ;). How about...
 
Hey, Olivier, looks like another thread has sprung up over on the big purple. If you are able, and want to, you can discuss your game over there as well. Not that I want you to leave (I don't), but I DO want you to promote (and hopefully sell) your game to as many people as possible.

[take two ... ] Crusaders (supers RPG) | Tabletop Roleplaying Open

Here's the game. Here's the first thread. Here's the mod guidance. With that in mind, I was hoping we could have another go at discussing the game and play nice this time. :) Any aspect of the game is open for discussion, including its title, but I'm mostly interested in hearing about the...
forum.rpg.net forum.rpg.net
 
Gringnr said:
Hey, Olivier, looks like another thread has sprung up over on the big purple. If you are able, and want to, you can discuss your game over there as well. Not that I want you to leave (I don't), but I DO want you to promote (and hopefully sell) your game to as many people as possible.

[take two ... ] Crusaders (supers RPG) | Tabletop Roleplaying Open

Here's the game. Here's the first thread. Here's the mod guidance. With that in mind, I was hoping we could have another go at discussing the game and play nice this time. :) Any aspect of the game is open for discussion, including its title, but I'm mostly interested in hearing about the...
forum.rpg.net forum.rpg.net
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He is under a 3 day ban there.
 
Silverlion said:
Now, I had other options but these sort of fit together the best (I tried to avoid making something I've made before.) The main issues is it being a mythic being thing: what can teleport and seems to be capable of skilled fighting and agile?
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Avatar of Hermes. He's a god of Gymnastics among other things and I think his messenger role would fit with Teleport.
 
And I don't intend to go back, thank you very much, except to announce new releases in the most impersonal way possible :closed:
Furthermore, I've read the posts on the new thread and they're pretty negative, coming from people who apparently didn't really read the game or were determined to dislike its design choices right from the start (and even the one positive comment notes that "the title is unfortunate"... for XXX's sake...) - and even if I could reply (which I can't), I probably wouldn't. While I'm as open as anyone to constructive criticism, I feel I've had more than my dose of negativity for the week. Last but not least, RPGPub is so welcoming I feel like I'm gonna hang here quite a bit from now on - and thanks again to all of you for your support and welcome.
 
Black Leaf said:
Avatar of Hermes. He's a god of Gymnastics among other things and I think his messenger role would fit with Teleport.
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Dang you beat me to it but I was gonna say son or descendant of Hermes. I have Hellenic stuff on the brain since I am re-reading Mazes and Minotaurs today
 
I was wondering if it was one per power or one per reputation/level. That answers that.
 
Just as a friendly reminder, for anyone who missed Black Leaf's post earlier, let's not dwell on RPGnet's....uh, "approach to socializing" here, and just take the great opportunity to interact with the author.

I'm probably going to move a few posts to the "Welcome to the Pub" thread in the Site and Community forum, where we are a bit more relaxed about folks venting about other forums as they adjust to the Pub's friendlier atmosphere.
 
carpocratian said:
Is there any chance of you doing a POD version at any point?
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Not in the immediate future. I've been looking over this and Drivethru POD actually involves an extremely complicated reformatting process, using software and procedures I'm completely unfamiliar with - and since I'm not a graphic designer (I only work on MS Word...) I couldn't make heads or tails of even the basic explanations. That being said, if there is someone here who is familiar with Affinity Publisher AND who feels like giving me some very heavy (and pro bono) help on the matter...
 
olivier legrand said:
if there is someone here who is familiar with Affinity Publisher AND who feels like giving me some very heavy (and pro bono) help on the matter...
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I know the people behind Cubicle 7, Handiwork Games, Corone Design and Mindjammer Press - I've put a shout out on my Facebook and sent some PMs. I should get a reply relatively soon.
 
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Legrand Games Studio proudly presents the first issue of CRUSADERS INTERNATIONAL, an irregular series of mini-supplements for CRUSADERS, the roleplaying game of superheroic action!

Each issue of CRUSADERS INTERNATIONAL will detail a handful of heroes (with, sometimes, the odd villain) from a single country, with glorious full-color artwork - we start with BRITISH HEROES, in the grand tradition of 1980s UK superheroes!

In these pages you'll discover BRITANNIA, heroic protector of Albion, and the loose super-team known as the LONDON IRREGULARS: DRAKE (sleuth & martial artist), RUDEBOY (streetwise powerhouse), NIGHTBIRD (feyborn heroine) and TOM O'BEDLAM (chaos magick virtuoso).

CHECK IT OUT!

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com www.drivethrurpg.com

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com www.drivethrurpg.com

(I hope it's OK to post commercial announcements here - or is there a dedicated sub-board for these?)
 
Just a recap for Character Generation:


Roll Origin (Page 5) and flip-flop to give you two results (e.g. roll of 24 can be 42)

Origin determines which power tables you can roll on (see page 8)

Attributes: you get a basic score of 9 each in Physique, Prowess, Alertness and Psyche, then distribute 18 points amongst them and no score can be higher than 18. Also, if you burn one of your 5 power rolls, you can instead take the Intensive Training Option (see below) to add 4 extra Attribute points and in this way, you can raise a starting score to 24.


Vitality = Physique x 3


You get 5 rolls for Powers (page 7).

Roll on the appropriate table (pages 9 to 10) and again flip-flop to give you two results.

You may also choose the table after rolling.

Once you have determined all your hero’s powers, you may select one free improvement option for one of them OR alternatively you may prefer to go for extra training and add 1 to two attributes of your choice.

You also have access to special power options (page 7) where you spend or burn one of your power rolls for other benefits, improvements or abilities – see below:

(Quoted)

Each option can only be taken once.

Power of Choice: Spend one of your power rolls (or discard one of your rolled powers) to select a power of your choice.

Supreme Power: Spend one of your power rolls to upgrade one of your hero’s powers to its supreme version.

Intensive Training: Trade one of your power rolls for 4 extra attribute points. No score may exceed the maximum of 24.

Privileged Background: Burn one power roll to make your character independently wealthy (an heir to a fortune, a millionaire tycoon, a celebrity, the ruler of a small country, a high-ranking diplomat etc.).

Connections: Spend one power roll to give your hero either friends in high places (government officials and other influential or people) or shady contacts (streetwise informants, individuals involved in illegal activities, etc.), taking into account the hero’s profile and background.

NOTE: A hero gains another new improvement option at each new rank (see p 17)

Optional Weaknesses (page 100) select a weakness to gain one extra power you can choose

Optional - Mono Powers (see page 99)

Hero Points: 1 per Rank.

Characterization – see page 14

Motivations – see page 15
 
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Gringnr said:
Ahem.
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There were also these guys.

1812525-southernknights01_.jpg01.jpg

(who had to change their name by the 2nd issue because of copyright violation)

Then there was this group, which was a parody of the Invaders, who faced the Freedom Fighters.

1256762-crusadersdcu.png

And also this group, who were a parody of the Freedom Fighters, who faced the Invaders.

732045-crusaders__28earth_616_29_001.png
 
olivier legrand said:
Not in the immediate future. I've been looking over this and Drivethru POD actually involves an extremely complicated reformatting process, using software and procedures I'm completely unfamiliar with - and since I'm not a graphic designer (I only work on MS Word...) I couldn't make heads or tails of even the basic explanations. That being said, if there is someone here who is familiar with Affinity Publisher AND who feels like giving me some very heavy (and pro bono) help on the matter...
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While I use Affinity Publisher, I am definitely a novice on it. Having said that, I found a print on demand site called The Book Patch that looks interesting. I'm probably going to do a test print of my Western RPG once I finish it.
 
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