"I wanna play a werewolf!"
A thin, pale young man -- the speaker -- sits at a table, across from a dusky-skinned, muscular woman; to her right and his left is a thin black man in shades; and across from him sits a thick, somewhat older guy wearing classes, partly hidden behind a Dungeon Master's screen. The brunette smiled wryly, brushing her short, chopped-off hair out of her face casually with her hand. "That so?" She tore a white Corona t-shirt, jeans and work boots. "We really gonna do this, guys?"
In a deep voice with the hint of an accent, perhaps African, the thin black man said, "Sure, why not? Ed's last campaign just tanked. And we're about burnt out on friggin' Halo. Let's just do this, it'll be fun."
The man wearing glasses said. "Sure. Fine with me. Better you guys mess up a one-shot than a campaign we spent months on. Right, Jeremy?" He grinned at the pale man.
"Look, it's what my character would have done, man. He's chaotic good. No way I'm gonna back down in front of some lawful evil asshole telling me to kill people."
"First, you don't know Alverius' alignment. I'm the only one that has his stats. Second, he was telling you to find the assassins that infiltrated the thieves' guild. Third, he's the frigging duke, surrounded by his guards. You don't just charge someone like that and try to run him through." He looked at the woman and black guy. "And you two didn't have to follow his lead."
After a few moments of silence, the black man spoke up. "So, what system we gonna use for this?" Everyone looks at Ed, expectantly.
He sighs. "Looks like I'm doing conversion duty. Fine. I say we use Shadowrun as our base. It has good magic rules, and is pretty realistic."
Jeremy's eyes roll in exasperation. "You know I don't like that system. It's too lethal, and too hard to resolve fights. And I don't like systems that use so many damned dice. Not rollin' 'em all at once, anyway. I like one roll to hit, one roll for damage. Let's do d20."
Butch-girl and black guy nod in agreement. The latter says, "I'd rather do AD&D, 'cause it's what I'm used to. But I can do Pokemon D&D, if you guys want." Ignoring Jeremy's annoyed look, he continues, "If I wanted gritty, I'd go pick a fight on the street, and not be playing roleplaying games."
The girl says, "Yeah, this is supposed to be fun, not real. And we're all familiar enough with d20. I'll help ya do the conversions."
Jeremy immediately picks up some dice and a pencil. "Great. It's settled. Like I said, I call dibs on a werewolf. A fuckin' d20 werewolf'll kick so much ass! Body count by the dozen!" He grins widely at Stacy, bearing sharp, extended fangs. The woman rolls her eyes and responds with an extended middle finger.
The black guy says, "I'll be a vampire, I guess. Hey Ed, do I have to be chaotic evil and stupid, like Jeremy here?" Jeremy laughs a little too sarcastically, ruining the effect.
Ed shakes his head. "Forget the books, and the Monster Manual. No alignments. I'll build the races and classes from scratch, based on what the characters really can do. So you guys are gonna have to be honest with me, if we want this to be authentic. We may as well start with you, Stacy." He looks over at the woman. "Tell me, what can your 'race' do?"
She shifts in her chair. "Well, let's see. We can change. Obviously. There are five forms, including this one -- the human shape, I mean. Each form has different strengths, I guess. I'll plot out some ability bonuses. They'll probably be pretty unbalanced, so I recommend some sort of ECL adjustment. Because we also have Gifts... spells we learn from spirits, for lack of a better analogy."
Ed: "So, you're all like clerics? Or druids?"
Stacy shrugs. "Yeah, sure. Druid. That fits well enough."
Ed: "So are they spell-like abilities, or would the druid spells be a class function?"
Stacy thinks silently, for a minute. "Well... we'd all be multiclass druids, I guess. Sort of. Like me, I'd be a rogue-druid. There are other Gar-- er, werewolves that are more like fighters, or bards, or clerics.... maybe mages. Our 'classes' are based on the moon we're born under."
Jeremy: "Not interested in the hippy druid moon-worship stuff. I'm going barbarian, or fighter. Bump up my Strength and rip into folks with d12 claws that triple-crit on 18 or above. In werewolf form, I should get Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat, right?"
Stacy: "Well, being a druid is part of being a werewolf, Jer. You can't be one without the Gifts... druid spells, in d20. We don't just run around and kill stuff."
Jeremy: "Um, wait. First, I'm not gonna call 'bullshit' on the not-killing-stuff thing, though I should. But you mean to tell me those homeless guys we saw the other night, the ones you said were werewolves and you told us to stay away from 'em... they're druids? Of what, rats and trash?" Stacy glowers as Jeremy continues talking, but says nothing. "I'm just gonna go fighter. Simple and basic."
Stacy: "You could show some respect for us if you're gonna play one of us."
Jeremy grins in that smartassed way of his. "Like the 'respect' you showed 'em when you renounced your membership in your 'Werewolf Nation', or whatever? And left that feminist commune you said you lived at?"
Immediately, the black guy's hand reaches out and rests on Stacy's arm. She sits, looking pointedly at the table, not saying anything but obviously pissed. Jeremy clears his throat and sits back, not smiling anymore.
Ed writes some stuff in a wire-bound pad. "We'll get back to the werewolf conversion later. Let's not step on each others' toes, here. Don't be a dick, Jeremy; if I remember, you're doing the lone rebel thing too, without a clan and spurning the vamps in charge around here. I'm tired of the fucking hunt, and I'm sure Christian has his reasons for being here with us instead of out there, with the other magic-types. We're all fed up with bullshit; that's why we're here. And don't take stuff so personal, Stacy, or any of you. This is 'our thing,' and we manage to get along okay. If all that awful shit out in the real world didn't kill us, then there's no need to get bent out of shape over a game. I'm willing to give final say over what goes and what doesn't go to the folks that know what they're talking about. If Stacy says being a druid is part of being a werewolf, then by God being a druid is part of a being a werewolf. Simple. And she should know, right?" Jeremy grumbles something, but is ignored. "So, what real-world freak do you want to play, Stacy? Be thinking about that. I'll need those ability bonuses and whatever else sort of powers your kind have. I can make the mechanics fit, don't worry about that. But right now, what kinda character interests you?"
She looks at Christian and smiles coyly. "I wanna be a sorcerer." Christian grins, looking down.
Ed nods. "Okay, sure. That should be simple enough, right, Chris? Just use the sorcerer class out of the books?"
Christian's forehead crinkles and he thinks. "Well... not really. My 'spell list' is a lot bigger. And I don't have 'cast per day' slots. I'd say any decent mage, if he's going to approach what I and some others can do, would be a human cleric/wizard/sorcerer multiclass. Or just use sorcerer as the base, and open the available spell list up and give the character more known spells. Since Jer's character's ECL would be high, Stacy's mage would start out high level."
Jeremy, "Dude, that's so imbalanced."
Christian says, "And your death machine isn't? Anyway, I was going to say, some spells would fail or backfire when a mage casts them, especially in front of 'normal people' witnesses."
Ed: "Fine. A buffed spell platform class. I'll come up with some sort of backfire rules, maybe use a variation of the old wild magic rules. I'll need your help with that later, Chris. Have you figured out what you wanna play?"
Christian thinks. "Vampire. But the intelligent and suave kind -- not the kind that energy drains, like Jeremy. He drains the energy out of the room just by being in it."
To the accompaniment of oohs and cheers, Jeremy stands up and presents both middle fingers to Christian, then to everyone else. "Fuck all ya'll guys. My werewolf will waste you."
Stacy slaps mock-angrily him on the small of his back. "Sit your ass down."
Jeremy sits and scoots his chair forward a bit. "Seriously, don't go with what's in the MonMan. We don't energy drain. We don't all turn into bats and shit. Go with a human base... maybe add damage reduction. Do a round-based sun damage thing, we don't all poof in the sunlight. We have spell-like abilities, sorta. Especially enchantment and magic that grants higher ability scores. And haste; I have that. We have to drink blood, which can help us regen damage and restore spell slots." Ed nods, and scribbles some stuff on a new piece of paper. "I dunno... we can do all sorts o'stuff. Like the werewolves and their moon-classes. Except clan and class can maybe be the same thing. Ya think?" Everyone looks at Jeremy, confused.
Ed says, "Well, you should know, right?"
Jeremy shifts down in his chair. "I dunno. Whatever. This maybe is a bad idea."
Jeremy smiles. "It was your idea, originally. So we're gonna do this, even if it crash and burns. Especially if crashes and burns." Jeremy writes in his pad for several minutes, checking his Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide, periodically swigging from the Mountain Dew bottle next to his chair. Snacks are passed around, and the players talk about anime, games and the like.
"Okay, lets get this out of the way. Go head and roll ability scores, Jeremy first. Roll four, drop lowest, reroll ones, as usual. We'll add race bonuses and things later."
Jeremy picks up a single handful of six-siders. He rolls, and comes up 1, 1, 2, 3. "Aw, shit!" He looks up at Ed. "Can I reroll that?" The game master gives a cursory nod, and he rolls a second time. 1, 1, 1, 2. And again: 1, 1, 2, 2. He looks around at other members of the group, perplexed. He notices Christian fiddling chanting under his breath and manipulating a die in his hand,while concentrating on the dice Jeremy just rolled. Stacy grins conspiratorially.
Christian covers and laughs as Jeremy throws a handful of dice at him.