Risus Thought of the Moment (Risus TOTM) is a group blog devoted to Risus: The Anything RPG.
If you really don't know about this great FREE RPG, you can always check out this Risus Squidoo page.
Submissions are moderated for appropriateness.
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Risusiverse is a nifty wiki for Risus stuff. Well worth checking out.
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A nifty Risus-based blog has returned! Well worth checking out.
Good notes for designing settings.
If anyone knows someone in charge at WetPaint, please tell them to get their site working with Safari (I kind of miss making updates to Risusiverse - just not enough to use a different browser).
by David Waldron, Lecturer in Social Science and the Humanities
University of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
AbstractDuring the 1980s, the newly established industry and youth subculture associated with role-playing games came under sustained attack from schools, churches, parents and governments, instigated by the Christian Right via organizations such as B.A.D.D. (Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons). While both the organization B.A.D.D and its claims linking Role-playing games to youth suicide, drug use and Satanism eventually were discredited, the impact of these accusations lingers on to the present. This article examines the impact of the role-playing game “moral panic” on the role-playing game community and investigates the responses and coping mechanisms utilised by those directly targeted and harassed by churches, the police, schools and governments during the height of the “moral panic” in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The article also investigates the effect that the shared experience of being targeted by a “moral panic” had on the formation of a role-playing counter culture and community.
I never got all of the brouhaha over roleplaying games myself (and thankfully neither did my parents). When you think about it, a RPG is a game of pretend, not that much different from what people have played for generations (cowboys vs. indians; spies; cops and robbers). RPGs simply added rules to avoid the “I got you!”, “No You didn’t!” fights that inevitably came about.
![Electric Knight
Clichés: Master of Electricity [4d20], Expert in Stick-Fu (3d8), Helpful and Knowledgeable Wandering Priest (4d6), Lucky Shots: [][][][][][]
Hooks: Always tries to ensure the safety of innocent lives. Walks with a limp and uses a stick for extra support.
Tales: Richard Daniels always knew that he was chosen, he just isn’t sure who has been chosen by. He is an initiate in the Followers of the Way, a wandering order that attempts to help those in need. In some sort of strange vision, he was given control of electricity and even to generate it, but it cost him good use of his left leg. When we awoke, he also had his staff, which he uses for support and as a weapon if necessary.
(Electric Knight is a 200 point character (with 12 extra points for the hooks and tales).
(yes, it’s fun to play with HeroMachine)](http://23.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ktf4dlPA8C1qzqvqvo1_400.png)
Electric Knight
Clichés: Master of Electricity [4d20], Expert in Stick-Fu (3d8), Helpful and Knowledgeable Wandering Priest (4d6), Lucky Shots: [][][][][][]
Hooks: Always tries to ensure the safety of innocent lives. Walks with a limp and uses a stick for extra support.
Tales: Richard Daniels always knew that he was chosen, he just isn’t sure who has been chosen by. He is an initiate in the Followers of the Way, a wandering order that attempts to help those in need. In some sort of strange vision, he was given control of electricity and even to generate it, but it cost him good use of his left leg. When we awoke, he also had his staff, which he uses for support and as a weapon if necessary.
(Electric Knight is a 200 point character (with 12 extra points for the hooks and tales).
(yes, it’s fun to play with HeroMachine)
More than traits this time. You get occupations, feelings, etc.
A random way to build up traits to make your NPCs seem more lifelike.
Things seem to be very slow right now. There are few posts to either of the Risus Yahoo! Groups. About the only thing going on at Risusiverse is Arcane Arclight (no new pages or anything, just a play group). I’m used to slow downs in the summer, but I’m not sure why things have been so slow lately.
Check out a nifty piece of online software.
This post gleaned from the Free RPG Blog.
I’ve added Google Friend connect to Risus: TOTM. It might work out a bit better than Disqus comments did (since so many people have Google IDs now).
Now, does anyone know if it is possible to change the colors so it blends better with the site?
If you were thinking of playing Kringle in Time with your players for the holiday season, you might want to get a move on (it takes quite a while to really play the whole thing).
A pretty nifty setting (draft), sans rules that would be interesting to use for Risus.
Pinky
Idiotic white lab mouse who is best friends with Brain (4); inept lab assistant (4); TV trivia buff (3)
Hooks: never ponders what Brain is pondering
Brain
Genius white lab mouse bent on world domination (4); ad hoc inventor [3]; arch nemesis of Snowball (Questing Dice) [][][][][]
Hooks: deep down has a heart of gold (especially in regards to Pinky)
I’ve been re-reading A Series of Unfortunate Events (sure, on the cover, it’s a kids series, but deep down it’s for everyone). However, these books can be mined for an interesting roleplaying setting.
You have a secret organization that went through an internal schism. Part of the group maintains tradition and is out to help the world; the other part wants to use their knowledge and skills to have their way with the world. The difficulty is knowing for sure who is on what side of the schism, and each side knows the secrets of the other (since they came from the same root).
Players could be like the kids in the books and be outside of the organization and trying to figure out what is going on and who to trust, or players could be members of the organization. Which side? Only they know for sure.
While I’ve grown to not want to tweak Risus at all, a possible idea for you would be to give each cliché a number of stunts equal to the cliché’s rank. So, if you’ve got Star Spangled Avenger with a Shield [5], you would have up to 5 stunt points (verb form) for use with that cliché. Each stunt point lowers the target number for a related task (for single action conflicts, etc.), or acts as team die for combat situations.
So, for your Star Spangled Avenger, let’s say you have a stunt of “throwing shield like a boomerang (3)”, you could roll 3 more dice and add any sixes on to your roll (just like you were teamed up with your shield). If this wasn’t a combat, and you were just showing off, lower the target number by an amount that seems fair (based on the rank of the stunt).
Just a thought anyway.
