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16
Kajar Laboratories / Re: Chrono series and Tabletop RPGing!
« on: February 22, 2017, 11:23:00 pm »
The game only showed us the final days of Zeal. We're told that it had previously focused on elemental magic, but the discovery of Lavos caused the entire culture to shift gears. By setting the campaign prior to that, you'd presumably have a society more akin to that of the Dragonians, who revered the elements and seemed to worship the planet itself as a divinity. That could be the basis for the divine caster classes.
Yet ironically if it weren't for Lavos there would not have been even elemental magic the way it exists in CT. I would have it that maybe during the game there is still a developing schism between older elemental nature-revering magic and the newer magic based on Lavos if you want it to take place after Lavos's discovery. That would be more ideal for a game that involves social tensions and outside forces effecting the characters than a typical "lets loot and kill monsters" game.
Quote
In any event, adventurers in most campaign settings are seen as distasteful by the upper class; a necessary evil (regardless of the adventurers' actual alignment) to accomplish unsavory tasks. For that reason, an Enlightened adventurer might be viewed as barely above an Earthbound One by those who would otherwise be his social equals.
That depends. In the games I have been, there is almost always at least one noble in the party.
However I can see that for Enlightened Ones who'd rather not get their hands dirty and leave the "dirty work" to Earthbound and creatures like golems. An adventurer who is an Enlightened would be a social outcast in most places. Worse if they mingle Earthbound.
Quote
These two pretty much describe Zeal's final days as portrayed in the game.The PCs could be followers of the Gurus, and are banished along with them.
Lavos could be seen as a god of magic, since the Frozen Flame was responsible for humans' magical aptitude. Except instead of being killed, Lavos destroys the ones attempting to steal its power. Magic doesn't die, but most of its practitioners do, which has much the same effect.
Well it would be like in the game, except it's an AU where no time meddling has occurred involving Crono, another interpretation of an original timeline. I like the possibilities that could bring up.
Reminds me of a fanfic where Magus finds an alternate timeline where he died before birth, Queen Zeal died, but King Zeal is alive, and it's at the point before the fall. They still have the sunstone but it's dying, and Lavos has been recently discovered by Belthasar. It was interesting how the author went into a huge amount of detail of Zeal customs and culture, and how Magus this time tries not to screw it up and ends up convincing the king to lower the islands down before the sunstone runs out of energy.
But I was thinking along those lines of not complying to original canon, but going about it AU style.
Speaking of that, how about having dragonians as a playable race? XD
Anyway, I like those ways you classed the characters. I am more familiar with 5e, so this is how I'd do it for 5e:
Crono- Fighter, eldritch knight archetype with outlander background-though he's not from the countryside living in harsh conditions is suits him being outside a lot practicing with a sword and getting into mischief. It also comes with proficiency bonus to athletics and survival.
Lucca- Artificer, gunsmith archetype with guild artisan background. Artificers are intelligence-based casters who can cast spells like a wizard and create items. At later levels she can get wizard levels to expand her spell list.
Marle- Refluffed cleric, life domain archetype with noble background multi-classed with ranger.
Frog- Paladin, oath of devotion archetype with soldier background. Special feat that would give access to water spells. He might also count as a small creature.
Robo- Warforged monk, way of tranquility archetype-it has healing class feats. Maybe mix in a homebrew sorcerer that does radiant or necrotic damage spells.
Ayla-Barbarian berserker archetype multiclassed with a bit of ranger hunter archetype? Or maybe. Special feat for unarmed strike proficiency.
Magus-Bladesinger wizard or evoker wizard with martial weapons proficiency taken from a minor multiclassing with fighter. Another idea is to refluff the class feats from blade-pact warlock; great old one otherworldly patron.
He'd have to have this spell, when I first read the description dark matter immediately came to mind, it doesn't do the same thing but the description sounds similar:
Hunger of Hadar
You open a gateway to the dark between the stars, a region infested with unknown horrors. A 20-foot-radius sphere of blackness and bitter cold appears, centered on a point with range and lasting for the duration. This void is filled with a cacophony of soft whispers and slurping noises that can be heard up to 30 feet away. No light, magical or otherwise, can illuminate the area, and creatures fully within the area are blinded.
The void creates a warp in the fabric of space, and the area is difficult terrain. Any creature that starts its turn in the area takes 2d6 cold damage. Any creature that ends its turn in the area must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 acid damage as milky, otherwordly tentacles rub against it.
Just change the damage type to necrotic.
Though I personally don't like the idea of importing a character from something else into a game unless that character is heavily modified to fit that setting (which I have done before). Yet if you coordinated with other players and did something like this, it would be neat.
17
General Discussion / Re: I Am Setsuna - 40% Off This Weekend!
« on: February 22, 2017, 05:10:27 pm »
I am Sestuna is now on sale for $24 USD on the PS4 store!
https://store.playstation.com/#!/en-us/games/i-am-setsuna/cid=UP0082-CUSA04770_00-IAMSETSUNAGAME00
https://store.playstation.com/#!/en-us/games/i-am-setsuna/cid=UP0082-CUSA04770_00-IAMSETSUNAGAME00
18
Kajar Laboratories / Re: Chrono series and Tabletop RPGing!
« on: February 22, 2017, 06:25:31 am »
I think the kingdom of Zeal would make a cool campaign setting. Compared to other eras where magic is nonexistent or forgotten, you wouldn't have to jump through any hoops to explain why there are so many spellcasters. The time frame (malleable as it is) could be set prior to the discovery of Lavos, when the kingdom was more concerned with general magical research and thus sending adventurers to collect MacGuffins from ancient ruins would be all the rage.
The flavor and lore would mainly come from the Chrono series, but you could fill in some of the gaps by robbing ideas from the various Forgotten Realms supplements which describe the ancient empire of Netheril (a highly magically advanced society whose decadent elite lived on floating sky-islands until a great disaster crashed them... sound familiar?
Yeah that would be interesting. Also events would focus on Zeal, I would allow characters that come outside of it because that would be one tiny planet if that was the only continent XD.
The different casting classes could represent different styles of magic. For example, you may be a bookish wizard who practices through having a wide variety and a better understanding of magic, or you could be a sorcerer who specializes more in magic, has less of an idea what they are doing and uses force of will for casting; or a bard who uses magic more as an art form and draws magic from the arts. You could also have artificers who represent more hard-nosed scientist/researcher types like Belthasar and the people of Kajar.
It would be harder to fit in druids, clerics, and paladins. Not sure how they would fit in, but I could see some among the Earthbound, perhaps some have discovered a type of magic that only comes from attunment to the natural world or some other force.
I like the idea of seeing Zeal through the eyes of more "common people" rather than royalty. There are a number of interesting scenarios I can think of:
-Some of your party members are Enlightened Ones stranded somehow on the surface. The weather and cold make it difficult to even cast spells, and your only hope back home is to band with some Earthbound Ones. However casting aside such prejudices are not going to happen overnight. Furthermore one or more of your Enlightened One party members has the ability to sense if someone has magic-and you find that even among the Earthbound Ones there is evidence of perhaps some...activity between the two groups-or it could be that just as some people can be born without magic on the floating islands, so too can some Earthbound Ones just have the potential for magic.
-Researchers begin to be concerned about how all the spells that make the floating islands rise and be habitable are taking a huge drain from the sunstone. Your party members are on an expedition to search for other sources of energy-hopefully another sunstone. Bonus if your party finds out there is no other sunstone and everyone has to come up with a solution.
-Extending the one above, Lavos is discovered, now your party members have to deal with the issue, support or think the nation is heading the wrong direction? Your party members may be dissenters, and each goes missing one by one, and you have to rescue one another and help stop the madness that is encroaching on Zeal.
-Mirroring Netheril, instead of the whole Lavos thing, Zeal is threatened to fall due to some jerk ass mages trying to attain godhood and take power from a god of magic-and succeed which actually ends up killing the deity and depriving the world of magic.
As you mention, point-based systems would probably be a better fit than class-and-level systems for recreating the hybrid characters seen in the Chrono games. However, I think 3.5e (and maybe 5e, but I'm not sure) could work just fine with a few house rules
Just curious, how would you class the cast of CT?
19
General Discussion / Re: I Am Setsuna - 40% Off This Weekend!
« on: February 21, 2017, 01:12:28 am »Quoting a spoiler is a pretty good way of getting everyone to see it. Thanks.
Ok removed it.
20
General Discussion / Re: I Am Setsuna - 40% Off This Weekend!
« on: February 20, 2017, 06:42:58 am »
Oh god it's only available for Windows I use Mac...fffffff
21
Kajar Laboratories / Chrono series and Tabletop RPGing!
« on: February 19, 2017, 07:50:17 pm »
Ever since my recent obsession with CT I have been thinking about say, ways to bring Chrono stuff into the world of Tabletop RPGing. I've seen people made 5e D&D homebrew stuff derived from various games like Bloodborne, Dark Souls, World of Warcraft, The Witcher, and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles.
Something I think would be fun would be to homebrew an adventure based on Radical Dreamers. It's pretty much a dungeon crawl with a lot of descriptions, exploration, monsters, and stuff already. All one has to do is make a detailed map and layout of Viper Manor and establish all the magic artifacts, traps, items, NPCs, enemies etc.
For D&D 5th edition-which is my current favorite so far and one of the newer and faster developing ones, I would probably set it a lower level (I am assuming you'd bring your own characters instead), and have all magic artifacts be known via an Arcana check. Goblins would be statted more like orcs, and Lynx would be a killable last boss. Before the game starts each player must think of a "secret" about their character, this will be hinted at by the Mirror of Whispers spirit. At least one character has to have a motive for breaking into Viper Manor other than "loot".
Another interesting idea is one I derived from a D&D 3rd edition book titled "Elder Evils" which is about apocalyptic enemies whose presence disturbs the natural order of the world. What if Lavos could be statted so that you could throw Lavos into another world, like say Toril or Eberron? What would it be like to have your lv. 20 druid come face to face against CR 40 Lavos core?
Of course it would not be limited to D&D. There might be other systems more suitable. For example if you wanted to sneak in a CT/CC character into a game, it would be much harder with the class system in D&D-for CT almost every character would have to be some type of battle mage(but Frog is def a paladin-he has the healing spells to come with it!) and in D&D its difficult to properly stat a character who is equally good at non-magic combat and magic even though there are many classes that do offer some combination of the two like blade-pact warlocks, eldritch knights, and bladesinger wizards. You'd have to think about if you want say, Crono to be more a caster or more of a fighter and pick the stats accordingly.
The magic system is not element based in D&D/Pathfinder. If you'd want something closer to a specific character you'd have to find a point-based system instead like GURPS, Hero, or BASH! systems. With those systems you could create almost any character as long as you can hash out what they can do in the system's mechanics.
Something I think would be fun would be to homebrew an adventure based on Radical Dreamers. It's pretty much a dungeon crawl with a lot of descriptions, exploration, monsters, and stuff already. All one has to do is make a detailed map and layout of Viper Manor and establish all the magic artifacts, traps, items, NPCs, enemies etc.
For D&D 5th edition-which is my current favorite so far and one of the newer and faster developing ones, I would probably set it a lower level (I am assuming you'd bring your own characters instead), and have all magic artifacts be known via an Arcana check. Goblins would be statted more like orcs, and Lynx would be a killable last boss. Before the game starts each player must think of a "secret" about their character, this will be hinted at by the Mirror of Whispers spirit. At least one character has to have a motive for breaking into Viper Manor other than "loot".
Another interesting idea is one I derived from a D&D 3rd edition book titled "Elder Evils" which is about apocalyptic enemies whose presence disturbs the natural order of the world. What if Lavos could be statted so that you could throw Lavos into another world, like say Toril or Eberron? What would it be like to have your lv. 20 druid come face to face against CR 40 Lavos core?
Of course it would not be limited to D&D. There might be other systems more suitable. For example if you wanted to sneak in a CT/CC character into a game, it would be much harder with the class system in D&D-for CT almost every character would have to be some type of battle mage(but Frog is def a paladin-he has the healing spells to come with it!) and in D&D its difficult to properly stat a character who is equally good at non-magic combat and magic even though there are many classes that do offer some combination of the two like blade-pact warlocks, eldritch knights, and bladesinger wizards. You'd have to think about if you want say, Crono to be more a caster or more of a fighter and pick the stats accordingly.
The magic system is not element based in D&D/Pathfinder. If you'd want something closer to a specific character you'd have to find a point-based system instead like GURPS, Hero, or BASH! systems. With those systems you could create almost any character as long as you can hash out what they can do in the system's mechanics.
22
Lavos, the Planet, and other Entities / Re: So, what IS the Black Wind?
« on: February 19, 2017, 07:08:42 pm »
What theories have you run into in fanfics?
Personally I'd have it as a form of wild shadow energy felt mostly by those psychologically attuned to doom and despair-hence why Schala could also feel it a bit but Magus is deep in it. Maybe it targets those that will be involved in some kind of temporal shenanigans involving grief. Maybe they were touched by the essence of the void or some shit like that.
Personally I'd have it as a form of wild shadow energy felt mostly by those psychologically attuned to doom and despair-hence why Schala could also feel it a bit but Magus is deep in it. Maybe it targets those that will be involved in some kind of temporal shenanigans involving grief. Maybe they were touched by the essence of the void or some shit like that.
23
Other Topics and the Prerelease / Re: Leveraging Nostalgia
« on: February 19, 2017, 07:02:15 pm »I read that Square Enix were disappointed with the sales numbers for I Am Setsuna.
Really? It seemed to get a lot of good reviews.
Maybe it's one of those niche things that appeals to an ever-growing smaller audience.
24
General Discussion / Re: I Am Setsuna - 40% Off This Weekend!
« on: February 19, 2017, 02:03:11 am »You just convinced me. Congrats.
To be fair, that's something a CT fan might pick up early.
25
General Discussion / Re: I Am Setsuna - 40% Off This Weekend!
« on: February 18, 2017, 12:05:46 am »
How much is it for PS4 download?
26
Reality, Real-World Connections, and the Supernatural / Chrono series, Homestuck, and time travel story-telling
« on: February 17, 2017, 07:42:17 pm »
If any of you are familiar with Homestuck, you'd know that Homestuck obviously has taken inspiration from the Chrono series, along with many other retro games such as Earthbound.
I see a lot of people here confused about the many plot holes regarding the logic of time travel in the Chrono series. Then I remember Homestuck, and then I think that we should actually be thankful of these plot inconsistencies!
Homestuck is a webcomic/web media series that takes almost every concept of time travel and just turns it up to 11. Yet the time travel in it follows a consistent logical pattern, and one that is also fatalistic until the end. It takes time to realize the consistent logic in it and while one is watching it unfold it is confusing as hell. It takes a lot of deep plot analysis and thinking, and the characters explaining things to figure it out, but in the end it does make a twisted sort of sense and yet baffling at the same time.
If Chrono Trigger/Cross tried to iron out things regarding time travel it might have interfered with the story.
For those of you unfamiliar with Homestuck (spoilers abound if you are reading it-good luck to you!) or need a refresher, here is how time travel is there:
Time loops are a natural part of time. When a time loop is diverted, it branches out into a "beta timeline" that will then eventually decay and everyone in that timeline dies. There is one "alpha timeline" in which all time loops are stabilized or closed-and yet interference from beta timelines is also important! Because of this there is a fatalistic, blind determinism that is a series of casualities-and one that can be tampered with if an omniscient being is involved.
The remains of those "broken" timelines and the ghosts of those in them are found in the area "Beyond the Furthest Ring"-a similar concept to the Darkness Beyond Time(I think that's where the author took it from maybe) but is inhabited by "The Dark Gods" who are unfathomable Cthulhu-esque beings that rule the place.
The rules of time can, and are used in interesting ways. There are devices that take advantage of paradoxes to create life-some characters are even born this way when a device tries to teleport their future self into the present, only to create a paradox clone, which then grows up to becomes their future self.
Two of the characters begin a "side-quest" in which they have to clone-breed frogs using such a device. They have to teleport frogs but have to plan in advance to get the frogs so that it would create a paradox clone instead of teleporting the frog.
There are also characters who use time loops in combat by creating multiple time clones to assist in battle, but often creates piles of time clone corpses. Such characters are already protected by consistent time loops, so if they die in battle the timeline where they died in battle becomes a beta timeline-or the time traveler fast-fowards past their other self's death in which both the clone and alpha exist side-by side but one is dead. The "Big Bad" became vastly powerful by becoming one who has dominion over time, and even uses time to blast his enemies into oblivion. There are also characters that attack others by attacking their enemies in the past or the future within their opponent's personal timestream-like they just swat something in mid-air but are actually punching the future self of someone else.
There are also mysterious items known as "jujus" that have no beginning or end, they sort of created their own existence in a way but have legendary properties.
There is also something known as "The Scratch" which creates a new timeline from the beginning of the universe, and to better understand it requires using game save metaphors and the main characters have to cheat getting "rewound" be exiting "the game".
Toward the end of the story, there is one juju in particular that has the ability to break determinism by creating a new alpha timeline when one interacts with it. Paradoxically the events in the old alpha timeline that secured the main characters' doom led to the discovery of it. Yet it was able to be reached and used well due to a character whose power is to think about theoretical casual events, such as how certain changes in the timeline can lead to the better outcome.
So in Chrono Trigger, certain paradoxes could possibly occur due to taking people out of the timestream and negating certain events. In Homestuck these are sorta patched up with the idea of temporal determinism and explaining certain properties of the universe, which is most likely not the case in the Chrono series. Yet somehow I think temporal determinism is something that might be interesting to introduce into the series (coughcoughthebreakinchronobreakcoughlikebreakingdeterminsimcough).
I see a lot of people here confused about the many plot holes regarding the logic of time travel in the Chrono series. Then I remember Homestuck, and then I think that we should actually be thankful of these plot inconsistencies!
Homestuck is a webcomic/web media series that takes almost every concept of time travel and just turns it up to 11. Yet the time travel in it follows a consistent logical pattern, and one that is also fatalistic until the end. It takes time to realize the consistent logic in it and while one is watching it unfold it is confusing as hell. It takes a lot of deep plot analysis and thinking, and the characters explaining things to figure it out, but in the end it does make a twisted sort of sense and yet baffling at the same time.
If Chrono Trigger/Cross tried to iron out things regarding time travel it might have interfered with the story.
For those of you unfamiliar with Homestuck (spoilers abound if you are reading it-good luck to you!) or need a refresher, here is how time travel is there:
Time loops are a natural part of time. When a time loop is diverted, it branches out into a "beta timeline" that will then eventually decay and everyone in that timeline dies. There is one "alpha timeline" in which all time loops are stabilized or closed-and yet interference from beta timelines is also important! Because of this there is a fatalistic, blind determinism that is a series of casualities-and one that can be tampered with if an omniscient being is involved.
The remains of those "broken" timelines and the ghosts of those in them are found in the area "Beyond the Furthest Ring"-a similar concept to the Darkness Beyond Time(I think that's where the author took it from maybe) but is inhabited by "The Dark Gods" who are unfathomable Cthulhu-esque beings that rule the place.
The rules of time can, and are used in interesting ways. There are devices that take advantage of paradoxes to create life-some characters are even born this way when a device tries to teleport their future self into the present, only to create a paradox clone, which then grows up to becomes their future self.
Two of the characters begin a "side-quest" in which they have to clone-breed frogs using such a device. They have to teleport frogs but have to plan in advance to get the frogs so that it would create a paradox clone instead of teleporting the frog.
There are also characters who use time loops in combat by creating multiple time clones to assist in battle, but often creates piles of time clone corpses. Such characters are already protected by consistent time loops, so if they die in battle the timeline where they died in battle becomes a beta timeline-or the time traveler fast-fowards past their other self's death in which both the clone and alpha exist side-by side but one is dead. The "Big Bad" became vastly powerful by becoming one who has dominion over time, and even uses time to blast his enemies into oblivion. There are also characters that attack others by attacking their enemies in the past or the future within their opponent's personal timestream-like they just swat something in mid-air but are actually punching the future self of someone else.
There are also mysterious items known as "jujus" that have no beginning or end, they sort of created their own existence in a way but have legendary properties.
There is also something known as "The Scratch" which creates a new timeline from the beginning of the universe, and to better understand it requires using game save metaphors and the main characters have to cheat getting "rewound" be exiting "the game".
Toward the end of the story, there is one juju in particular that has the ability to break determinism by creating a new alpha timeline when one interacts with it. Paradoxically the events in the old alpha timeline that secured the main characters' doom led to the discovery of it. Yet it was able to be reached and used well due to a character whose power is to think about theoretical casual events, such as how certain changes in the timeline can lead to the better outcome.
So in Chrono Trigger, certain paradoxes could possibly occur due to taking people out of the timestream and negating certain events. In Homestuck these are sorta patched up with the idea of temporal determinism and explaining certain properties of the universe, which is most likely not the case in the Chrono series. Yet somehow I think temporal determinism is something that might be interesting to introduce into the series (coughcoughthebreakinchronobreakcoughlikebreakingdeterminsimcough).
27
Other Topics and the Prerelease / Re: Leveraging Nostalgia
« on: February 17, 2017, 05:14:28 pm »
I am hoping that I am Setsuna and the 20th anniversary album would encourage them to revive the Chrono series, even just a tiny bit. How were the sales on those two?
28
Fan Fiction / Re: CT2:TE short story: Rise of the Fiendlady (Chapter 7 FINALLY RELEASED!)
« on: February 17, 2017, 09:41:25 am »
The idea of this is really intriguing. I know it's been forever since you've updated but I still like the idea.
The flow of the writing feels a little stiff, I think something contributing to that is spacing, where dialogue is crammed with small bits of narration.
I like that you give reason for Schala to ah, "turn dark" with the abuse she had faced, remembering bad memories, Janus getting killed, the temptation of power.
The flow of the writing feels a little stiff, I think something contributing to that is spacing, where dialogue is crammed with small bits of narration.
I like that you give reason for Schala to ah, "turn dark" with the abuse she had faced, remembering bad memories, Janus getting killed, the temptation of power.
29
Time, Space, and Dimensions / Re: Chrono trigger ending question (Is bugging me a lot; related to time travel)
« on: February 17, 2017, 09:26:47 am »
It has been theorized that Robo was actually made around 1999 A.D and thus would not be affected.
Then again Mother Brain was operational even in the bleak future and thus could have made Robo afterward. Then again we also see Atropos in the ending credits.
Speaking of such, the Epoch also comes from a future that no longer exists.
Then again Mother Brain was operational even in the bleak future and thus could have made Robo afterward. Then again we also see Atropos in the ending credits.
Speaking of such, the Epoch also comes from a future that no longer exists.
30
Magic, Elements, and Technology / Re: The four elements in Chrono Trigger and being the stuff of the universe.
« on: February 17, 2017, 03:55:04 am »First, you can combine Fire/Water/Heavens to create Dark (e.g. delta force), or you can combine just Fire/Water to create Dark (e.g. antipode does shadow damage). At no point do you combine Heavens with just one or the other.
Well actually, I'm pretty sure you can.
Final Kick and Gatling Kick cause Shadow/Dark damage. But Final Kick is Lightning II, Ice II, and Tripple Kick. While Gatling Kick is Lightning II, Fire II, and Tripple Kick. So Heaven can combine with just Ice or Fire to create Dark.
you're right, I had overlooked those exceptions. so Heavens/lightning isn't really a 'standalone' element after all. I still think the elements are two pairs of opposites, but it seems that Dark really is the most powerful and advanced of all.
so it should be:
...Heavens
....|...|...|
....|...|...|
Fire—|—Water
.....\..|../
.......\|/
......Dark
Thanks for the input. The element combo thing is something I didn't remember well from the game, but gives a lot to chew on.
I'm looking at that chart and to me it seems almost like Heaven is well...light and Dark is...heavy. As if it's not just opposites but a process. Things are created in the energy of light, then go through the process of cohesion/combustion/transmutation and then end in the dark. Perhaps dark is some kind of force resulted from a sort of decay/transmutation of other elements?
Reminds me of the heat death of the universe sort of thing.