Tripher RPG System

Tripher is a stripped down fusion of the Tri-Stat and Cypher systems, with an emphasis on quick character creation, simple roll resolution, and leeway in player actions and the description of resolutions.

INSPIRATIONS

From both Tri-Stat and Cypher, there is the use of a limited Stat pool upon which to base player actions. This keeps the mechanics focused and hopefully helps keep things from being too bogged down in tedious math, lessening the need to look things up mid-session. This also allows for a lot of leeway in how something is described as happening, while still giving a definitive win-lose result. This does also mean more work for the GM in the sense that they are going to have to make judgment calls where rule might be ambiguous and adapt to players doing things that aren’t spelled out in the book.

From Tri-Stat, I take the idea of rolling against your own stats, which represent the Target Number, as well as the mechanic of hitting the target number or lower. The higher your stats become, the higher the chance of succeeding in your tasks.

In my interpretation, raising your stats in this game is not necessarily a literal raising of your character’s “power level” in that area, but a way of raising the character’s chance to succeed due to practice increasing their skills. Characters in this system tend to be mostly formed at the time of creation, becoming more skillful in their current set-up, instead of steadily power leveling into godhood. Characters can still gain new skills and powers, of course, but these are ideally given to the players in a story-relevant context.

From Cypher, I crib the idea of building characters based on a descriptive system. Cypher uses the phrase, “I am an adjective noun who verbs.” The Adjective, Noun, and Verb each lend not only flavor to the character, but also determines which skills they possess. Likewise, leveling up in these skills grants characters access to all abilities within that level, though this is also usually just a handful per aspect.

I like this concept as it is a more flavorful way of doing a Class/Race system and helping keep some level of focus on the character type. You can allow for a wide variety of mix-and-match concepts that don’t have to be restricted to a certain alignment, and at the same time, better customize the archetypes you are using to a given world.

CHARACTER SHEET

BASIC STATS

Might: 0

Athletics: 0

Wits: 0

Spirit: 0

-

Health Points: 0

Magic Points: 0

Movement: 1

Combat Rank: 12

ATTRIBUTES

Type ___ / Level ___

Skill ___ / Level ___

Power ___ / Level ___

Graven: Ebook Edition!

My web novel Graven is now in ebook format!

Graven is a dark superhero adventure. The world has undergone catastrophic changes as the result of superhuman conflict. Entire continents have been lost, a supervillain epidemic threatens America, and the country's greatest superhero team has been killed. To track down the source of these disasters, a band of superhuman bounty hunters must come together and save what remains of the falling world.

You can still read the entire story for free on this blog: http://gravenserial.blogspot.com/

But if you have enjoyed this story and wish to support my work in general, please consider supporting my work by purchasing a copy at Amazon.

Graven: A Web Serial

I'm pleased to announce my first web serial project: GRAVEN! Despite my many ideas, I have struggled for many years with writing long form heroic fiction stories, be they continuous sagas or episodic adventures. This project is largely an experiment for me to learn how to write a longer story, as well as an exercise in self-discipline. It may be a bit of a rough ride, but I intend to stick it through to the end. If you decide to give it a read, let me know your thoughts, and I hope you'll find something to enjoy along the way.

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In 2029, mysterious structures called Doorways appeared across the world. Any human that entered immediately disappeared. Thousands were never seen again, but every once in a while, someone would come back out after a few days, garbed in strange clothing and possessing superhuman powers. Despite the odds, many of the desperate, ambitious, and hopeful surged through the Doorways in search of personal power.

Eleven years have passed, and the world has undergone catastrophic changes as the result of superhuman conflict. Entire continents and civilizations have been lost, a supervillain epidimic threatens those societies that remain, and the world's greatest superhero team has just been destroyed. In the wake of this latest tragedy, the world's first superhuman returns to America, seeking to gather a band of powerful bounty hunters. Together they hope to track down the source of these disasters, and perhaps save what remains of the falling world.

Click here to begin the story!

The Wyld Hunt

The Wyld Hunt was one of many post-Old Multiverse series concepts that sort of uniquely evolved through the background of several other setting and series concepts. Many of these characters were either background characters in the supernatural side of various hero settings, or were intended to be the "magic-themed" members of various teams. At some point, they just sort of developed their own continuity independent of whatever other hero stuff was going on, and I realized that didn't really fit in a standard superhero universe.

Ergo, this sort of became my first dedicated urban fantasy/modern fantasy type world, with no connection to a superhero universe proper. Although, rechecking these notes, I see that I still had them be tangentially related to an version of Tabitha Cain universe, which sort of still fits, given that at the time , given there were a couple figures in the Wyld Hunt lore that were part of the Tabitha Cain stories at the time. Eventually, however, I realized I didn't actually want to write a bunch of tedious "monster of the week" short stories, so, like most of my series concepts, this never really got off the ground.

I did, however, use several of these characters in co-writes and forum RPGs, so I can at least say some of these guys got some actual mileage in the written word, unlike a lot of characters I made concepts for, but ended up never using.


BACKSTORY

In the two thousand years since Tabitha Cain forced the Elder Gods to remove much of their influence, as well as most of their creations, from Earth, humanity has moved on. Technology brought power to the masses and the horrible creatures of the night were driven back by increasingly deadlier weapons.  Magic was left behind due its difficult and often impractical learning curve. By the time the later 1800s rolled around, the only authentic practitioners of magic were those who were innately born with magical talent or empowered by accident, and monsters had become virtually extinct. Humanity was on the fast track to a bright future ahead of them, with science as their new beacon. Soon enough, by the mid 1900s, people practically dismissed the supernatural as little more than an archaic notion.

This, however, suited the monsters and mages of the world just fine. Humanity was letting its guard down. Their technology was making them soft and lazy, easy pickings. And though they spread like wildfire across the world, there were always nooks and crannies in which the predatory forces of the supernatural could hide. Some simply tucked themselves away in dark allies and sewers or in the increasingly shrinking wilds. Others insinuated themselves into human society, hiding in plain site.

Thankfully, those with ill intent were not the only ones who retained their supernatural power. Over the decades, empowered champions and defenders rise to protect humanity from the shadows they have forgotten to fear.

Apocryphal Earths

The concept of this setting was to consider that most science fiction stories dealing with multiverses almost always show off realities where the changes to history are extremely recent (within a couple centuries at most), and are almost always in regards to differences in human civilization as a result of human actions. That’s interesting and all, but I wondered about a story where, instead of finding other human-inhabited Earths, it turns out the changes across the multiverse were a lot more drastic.
 
 
OUR EARTH, circa 2145 A.D.
Dimensional-crossing experimentation is discovered, and believed to be a much more “practical” means of expanding humanity off-planet, since Faster Than Light technology never developed. Tenuous explorations using probes sent to several alternate universes confirm that habitable versions of Earth do exist, but the typical view of Multiverse Theory involving Infinite Timelines doesn’t seem to hold up. In no other version of Earth thus far found is there any form of humanity, save a couple of worlds where they no longer exist. In fact, most versions of Earth are not even hospitable to Earthly life.
 
If the more traditional idea of alternate timelines are at play, where all known worlds branched off from a prime world at some point in an otherwise similar history, then the divergences across the multiverse seem to have occurred in wildly different eras, which change Earth into what may as well be entirely different planets in these alternate worlds.
 
The Earths found initially are colloquially called:

Blue Thoughts

The whole bird theme had been a joke, really. Cardinal’s joke, specifically. None of us found it funny, but it’s not like the rest of us had any better ideas. He’d said if we were going to be superheroes, we should stick to a theme, some sort of iconography people could instantly recognize. He settled on the bird idea when he was trying to think of how to fit us into primary colors.

I thought that was really weird, honestly. I vaguely remember from my old comics that hero teams tended to consist of more specialized characters; you’d have your strong guy, your energy guy, your space alien tech guy, your one animal themed character, a wizard, and a mad scientist. Or something like that. And their colors were usually not coordinated, since most teams consisted of people who already had their own solo comics, and thus had their own style independent of the others.

I later found out Cardinal was a huge fan of those goofy Japanese hero-team shows. Still was, even though he was in his mid-thirties. The kind of show where a handful of teenagers all got their powers from sci-fi wristwatches or magic amulets or something. Say a phrase, hit a button, and poof, they’re covered in fabulous spandex and bike helmets, each one a specific color. They’d all have the identical powers of knowing martial artists and shooting laser guns. Also, they had giant robots.

Mystic Missouri

Note: A work in progress, this may be subject to change.

A near-copy of the state of Missouri, which for unknown reasons, got bounced off into its own pocket dimension. In actuality, the state was copied over on a conceptual level, but the original is still back on Earth. Everyone inside the state was likewise copied, as was all flora and fauna. No one on Earth is aware that anything happened at all, while those within the pocket dimension know only that three years ago, the state of Missouri was suddenly sealed off by a mysterious and deadly mist.

The land is accosted by mutants and monsters created by the Mist Wall. However, the rise of superhumans has been a boon to keeping civilization going, both to defend against supernatural threats, as well as provide ways to compensate for the lack of resources and failing technologies.

After the first chaotic year of this event, civilization has stabilized for the most part. The country holds a total population of about 4 million. Unfortunately, the only resources available to the survivors are those that were within the state when the Mist Wall appeared, meaning that resources are now incredibly scarce.