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CRMcNeill
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 Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2015 1:38 am Post subject: Groot |
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I'm not all that well read on Guardians of the Galaxy, but plant-based sentient life forms are an interesting character possibility. Do any of you have suggestions for what a Groot alien template would look like?
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cheshire
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2015 7:27 am Post subject: |
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I think that's a path worth investigating. Plant based sentient beings aren't entirely a new thing. IIRC the Abyssin are plant-based. GG4:Alien Races has one.
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Last edited by cheshire on Tue Nov 03, 2015 11:38 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Bobmalooga
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Location: The south...
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2015 8:59 am Post subject: |
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I always threaten to make 'Toorg' the Revwien to fit with the 'Rocket' like character in my current game.
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Kytross
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2015 2:30 am Post subject: Re: I am not Groot |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | I'm not all that well read on Guardians of the Galaxy, but plant-based sentient life forms are an interesting character possibility. |
Inspired more by Treebeard from Lord of the Rings, I dreamed up a mobile tree-based species, but they are not humanoid (because this isn't a fantasy and why would a tree evolve that way?). They are only a little taller than humans. Their lower trunk divides into three "legs" and they have three primary "arm" branches. They have three eyes, each one 120 degrees apart around the upper trunk (thus looking in three different directions), and no mouth. They have no ears per se but their whole body can still perceive sound. They communicate through mental telepathy, and receiving their mental transmissions triggers aural and tactile sensory responses in the recipients, so they hear deep voices accompanied by the sound of creaking wood and a breeze blowing through trees and the general direction the transmission is coming from, with feeling the sensation of the breeze as well. The tree people have their species telepathic-only language, but they can also learn other languages and transmit in them too, so naturally the sender and recipient must still know the language being transmitted or language rolls must be made. The tree people must sleep for about 8 hours a day by sinking their root-feet into soil from their home planet or a very close nutritional approximation. They need water and have leaves with the power of photosynthesis like real plants, so they also must have access to sunlight or its equivalent about 8 hours a day to remain active. If they close their eyes and stand still, they naturally have a very good ability to appear to be a normal non-mobile tree.
They are naturally "tree-hugging" (self-hugging?) nature-lovers. The share a homeworld with two other home-brew species (my cat and bird peoples) and live in the sacred forbidden forest region in the center of the main continent. The tree people are guardians of the world tree at the center of the forrest. This giant tree is many thousands of years old and tall as a mountain. The tree people, believing they are descended from the world tree, worship the world tree as a deity, while the other other native sentient species (and immigrant Ithorians and Grans) worship a part-cat, part-bird goddess with with two mouths and three eyes who is believed to inhabit the sacred world tree.
That's all I can remember off the top of my head at this late hour. I'm transitioning to a new computer and haven't yet been able to access my external hard drive with all my Star Wars stuff saved on it.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16282
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2015 3:54 am Post subject: |
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I must say, it's always fascinating to see the detail you put into your background write-ups, Whill. I was looking at plant-based life for a similar reason (space-fantasy creatures populating the Unknown Regions), but I think Kytross' post of the Neti is more in-line with a Groot crossover. They just need better stats, like some sort of actual dice bonus to actions for the species' shape changing effect.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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Zarn
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| Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2015 7:13 am Post subject: |
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Whill's writeup reminded me of the Trilopters from SpaceMaster.
Trilopter: These calm, practical herbivores still exist in the remnants of the empire. Their physiology seems based on threes. Three legs sprout from the bottom of their peanut-shaped bodies. Three mouths ring the upper half. Above each is a tentacle, above that an eye-stalk. Each tentacle splits into three fingers. Their thick, grey skin grants AT 4, and they tend to dress in tunics. No one has ever seen a Trilopter get angry.
It's probably the three-way symmetry that does it.
The Neti had a writeup that gave some other mechanics for the shapeshifting thingy here. I'm not sure I like the implications of changing scale(s). Also, I want to make a Bonsai Neti joke for the shrinking. |
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Whill
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| Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2015 10:29 am Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | I must say, it's always fascinating to see the detail you put into your background write-ups, Whill. |
| Zarn wrote: | Whill's writeup reminded me of the Trilopters from SpaceMaster.
Trilopter: These calm, practical herbivores still exist in the remnants of the empire. Their physiology seems based on threes. Three legs sprout from the bottom of their peanut-shaped bodies. Three mouths ring the upper half. Above each is a tentacle, above that an eye-stalk. Each tentacle splits into three fingers. Their thick, grey skin grants AT 4, and they tend to dress in tunics. No one has ever seen a Trilopter get angry.
It's probably the three-way symmetry that does it. |
I've never played that game or heard of that species. Thanks!
| crmcneill wrote: | | I was looking at plant-based life for a similar reason (space-fantasy creatures populating the Unknown Regions), but I think Kytross' post of the Neti is more in-line with a Groot crossover. They just need better stats, like some sort of actual dice bonus to actions for the species' shape changing effect. |
| Zarn wrote: | | The Neti had a writeup that gave some other mechanics for the shapeshifting thingy here. I'm not sure I like the implications of changing scale(s). |
I'm sure I read about the Neti and all existing SW tree aliens I could find when devising my tree people. The ability to shape-shift alone is very powerful, then add the ability to instantly grow in size and scale. Even if a sci-fi light setting I just can't rationalize the power to suddenly gain and loose mass. In my mind the power to convert mass to energy and back is just too much for a single living being. So Neti may exist in my SWU and maybe they can shape-change, but they can't grow in mass and I still wouldn't allow them to be a player character.
Even a being with Groot's abilities could be game-breaking if allowed to be a PC. That suddenly grow to make the protective barrier thing he did at the end of the movie is a bit much. I don't know Groot's backstory either but he would make more sense to me as a unique being created through genetic engineering like the raccoon guy, rather than an entire species.
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Bobmalooga
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| Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2015 12:46 pm Post subject: On a slightly different topic... |
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I do have a shapeshifter in the current game I am running and at least in my game it comes down to 'apparent weight'
as the character can alter her appearance including changing skin, hair and eye color as well as height +/-50% and apparent weight and muscular distribution. +3D on all Disguise Rolls. Actual mass and strength remains the same.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2015 1:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Zarn wrote: | | The Neti had a writeup that gave some other mechanics for the shapeshifting thingy here. I'm not sure I like the implications of changing scale(s). Also, I want to make a Bonsai Neti joke for the shrinking. |
Changing scales is really the only in-game method of reflecting an increase or decrease in size. It's what I was thinking the Holocron's write-up needed.
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Kytross
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| Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2015 7:08 pm Post subject: |
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Neti don't mass shift much, though with all the discontinuity in Legends, it wouldn't surprise me if you find an example or two.
They aren't Groot, but Groot is a game breaker as a PC in most genres. He works in a superhero world. He also started as a villainous monster, not a hero. As any GM will tell you, major bad guys can be more powerful than good guys so the players have a good time taking them on. He didn't get nerfed when he became a good guy.
For a dice mechanic, I would shift around attribute and movement dice. Humanoid form would be the baseline the player builds. In quadruped form I'd boost movement speed while reducing mechanical, or technical. In treeform I'd increase dex and strength while bringing movement down to zero.
Or something like that.
Whill, I would just take out the shape shifting to quadruped part, and make the shifting to treeform more akin to hibernation, like a long term regen thing. Maybe it takes an hour to go into and an hour to come out of, but while in treeform the neti can regen like an Abyssin.
I'm just spitballing here, use anything you like |
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2015 7:45 pm Post subject: |
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A good solution would be to make shape changing an Advanced Skill, with only the "elite" members of the species having the level of control that someone like Groot exhibits. This gives starting characters the potential to reach super-hero proportions but, like a Jedi character, they have to work to achieve it.
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Kytross
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| Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2015 9:20 pm Post subject: |
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| That's good. Since they're so rare, an orphan wouldn't even know they could shapeshuft unless they were taught |
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2015 11:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Kytross wrote: | | That's good. Since they're so rare, an orphan wouldn't even know they could shapeshift unless they were taught |
I got the idea from D&D 3.0/3.5. Lycanthropes had no innate control over their transformation, but there was a lycanthrope-specific skill that allowed them to control their lycanthropy. The more ranks they had in that skill, the greater their control.
The D6 Powers book has a lot of potential metamorphosis abilities that might apply. Just flipping through it looking for D6 rules on metamorphosis, I found quite a few interesting possibilities. Enough so that a creature like this might even have Metamorphosis as a separate Attribute, with individual abilities under it. Want to stretch one of your limbs out to double its normal length? Put some dice into the Stretching skill, or just roll your base attribute.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2015 1:36 am Post subject: |
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What about Groot's regeneration powers, or his 'make a baby groot, if his big form dies off'?
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