D&D Aangvanced (Avatar: The Last Airbender Screencap Comic)

[aurilee]

Shelby: Don't cry, Damien!
Me: Oh god, I'm actually crying
Lex: Damien, stop crying!
Me: OK, I'm at work right now, I need to stop crying about a webcomic coming back...wait now I'm just like Damien! Woo!

I think I like this comic a little too much...or not. ^_^

And slightly disappointed that Mac isn't Korra, but I'm glad Allie's adding in some fresh blood. Oh this is going to be so good. I'm so excited. Can't this comic update like, 10 times per day? Please?

I'm wondering if Mack is going to play at all. Right now, she looks like she's just some kind of math assistant for Rick

First time I read your post I thought you said "math assassin" and I was all OH YES MATH ASSASSIN.

Now all I can think about is Mac playing a math assassin.

[Comissar]

Something that hadn't occurred to me until just now, how do you guys think the flashbacks to the adult Gaang in the first season of Korra will be handled?

Also, will Allie have the maturity to realise that Amon taking away Korra's powers (hopefully) isn't Rick being spiteful toward her?

Also also, will Manny be Amon?

[JohanOfKitten]

Shelby: Don't cry, Damien!
Me: Oh god, I'm actually crying
Lex: Damien, stop crying!
Me: OK, I'm at work right now, I need to stop crying about a webcomic coming back...wait now I'm just like Damien! Woo!

I think I like this comic a little too much...or not. ^_^

I can't agree more !

Now all I can think about is Mac playing a math assassin.

Okay, now I want to see the math assassin !


That makes me think... If Mack isn't in the protagonist cast, she may be playing behind the curtain some antagonists!!
It could fit well to some arcs :
book 1 : Hamon is the NPC's rights defender. He won't stop fighting PCs because they create so much trouble.
If Mack is Hamon, it means that a PC is hiding behind the mask of Hamon, the NPC.
That would be a good parallel.
And what was Hamon speciality and Mack favorite power ?

book 4 : Kuvira is trying to rule the kingdom, to bring everything and everyone in the "right" path. She's cold, power-hungry, only see her goal and see things like an equation (Boyfriend is a useful tool that grant me engineering. Boyfriend is use against me? I won't let it slow me...). All she she is rules and order. Korra want to bring her back in the right mind and some quotes are significant "I'm a lot like you".
If Mack is Kuvira, it fits well with her way to rollplay instead of roleplay.

Well, there's a lot to go before we arrive to book 4 and big things might happen, so that's a really long shot, but it could be nice thematicaly and the Hamon thing would be a good finale for book1

[JohanOfKitten]

Something that hadn't occurred to me until just now, how do you guys think the flashbacks to the adult Gaang in the first season of Korra will be handled?

Also, will Allie have the maturity to realise that Amon taking away Korra's powers (hopefully) isn't Rick being spiteful toward her?

Also also, will Manny be Amon?

I've no idea about the flashbacks. It could be narrative things (and all the emotional wave it could bring when a DM show you the future of a long term campaign character), or some crazy co-narrative story, more in a delight/fun style.


I don't know how she could react. Allie seems to me a bit youngish and immature by the way the talk on a lot of things, but she've shown some good insight (for Lexby clues for example) so she may be wise enough at this point of the game.
But the thing that scares me a bit for her is the start of book 4. If I get things right through the readings of some comments, Allie has some sort of handicap IRL. Having her character falling down to the same difficulties could be hard. Even if it may be a way to overcome issues, it could be a really dark moment for her


Manny as Amon?
I don't know. Maybe that's just my will to see him on a more positive side, but I can't see him taking back again the antagonist seat. It won't bring things back in a positive way and Rick wouldn't push the game that way.
I see him more joining the group with a bright character, positive. So I think he'll play Jenora.
She's not really present at the begining, so Rick could play her as an NPC at the start. But she after that, Jenora takes more action in the show, as a supportive character, an help. She has her own arc with some reward at some point with her tatoos as a symbol.

Well, for Amon, I have Mack already on the spot in my mind

[aurilee]

Something that hadn't occurred to me until just now, how do you guys think the flashbacks to the adult Gaang in the first season of Korra will be handled?

Probably just DM recaps, but maybe Rick will open things up a little and let the players take on the roles of their own characters.

I've no idea about the flashbacks. It could be narrative things (and all the emotional wave it could bring when a DM show you the future of a long term campaign character), or some crazy co-narrative story, more in a delight/fun style.

So emotional. I know I'll get emotional. It'll probably also be a thing to help Allie get fully up to speed.

I don't know how she could react. Allie seems to me a bit youngish and immature by the way the talk on a lot of things, but she've shown some good insight (for Lexby clues for example) so she may be wise enough at this point of the game.
But the thing that scares me a bit for her is the start of book 4. If I get things right through the readings of some comments, Allie has some sort of handicap IRL. Having her character falling down to the same difficulties could be hard. Even if it may be a way to overcome issues, it could be a really dark moment for her

Yeah, Allie seems pretty up on things, so I think she'll be able to handle adversity within the game pretty well. She also may serve a Rick-type purpose in that she has insights into the PC's personalities and may be able to keep them in check.

Also Rube likes her. So I like her.

I see him more joining the group with a bright character, positive. So I think he'll play Jenora.
She's not really present at the begining, so Rick could play her as an NPC at the start. But she after that, Jenora takes more action in the show, as a supportive character, an help. She has her own arc with some reward at some point with her tatoos as a symbol.

I can definitely see Manny joining as Jenora. Maybe we'll finally see a truely kinder, gentler Manny.

The opener of this arc has me a little bit concerned about Rick though. It's kind of implied that the very act of running an Avatar campaign can drive you insane. I hope he can keep it together!

EDIT: Anyone have any speculation on why Shelby doesn't do Shadowrun? Do you think we'll find out more about that? Is it just a dislike or is she actually incapable of working her magic outside D20? I've never played the Shadowrun system, so I don't know about all its differences. This could also be a good explanation for her taking on Asami, a non-bender.

[Comissar]

I still think we'll see Lex as Asami. Knowledge:Batman was a thing last time, and he's got a history with non-benders already. Asami's a perfect fit!

[aurilee]

I still think we'll see Lex as Asami. Knowledge:Batman was a thing last time, and he's got a history with non-benders already. Asami's a perfect fit!

But I kind of feel like this time he'll want to play a bender. Plus Mako or Bolin would both be a pretty good fit for him. Maybe Mako so he can be all serious and stuff. That also lets Damien be Bolin (fun Damien!).

Unless they go for Mako and Bolin being Rube and Damien. But...I don't think anyone wasn'ts Rube playing a firebender again, not even Rube. And as much as I like sulky Damien, I don't think Mako fits him really anymore, and I don't know if he'd want to be a fire bender again either.

Oh the anticipation!

EDIT: Update! Light up dice! Foreshadowing!

[DeadpanSal]

I don't know about everyone else, but seeing the players genuinely happy for a change is so nice. Rick makes a pretty good DM, and I'm pretty sure he'll be in better control than Manny when whatever corruption comes up. If that is a real thing!

[Seerow]

EDIT: Anyone have any speculation on why Shelby doesn't do Shadowrun? Do you think we'll find out more about that? Is it just a dislike or is she actually incapable of working her magic outside D20? I've never played the Shadowrun system, so I don't know about all its differences. This could also be a good explanation for her taking on Asami, a non-bender.

Quick rundown for you and anyone else not familiar. The edition I'm most familiar with is 4th, so what I say will be from that point of view. Things in other editions may be slightly different, but the core of it should be universal, and good enough to get a feel for the more generalized rulesets used in the comic.

Shadowrun isn't a class based system. Rather than having classes and levels, you have a pool of points that you assign for character creation. Not everybody is a caster, but choosing to be a caster at character creation as as simple as choosing a trait, which then gives you a new stat you can improve like any other stat, and the ability to learn new spells. Your build points can be spent on basically anything. You can invest points into stats, skills, money, special traits, spells, etc.

The core mechanic is a dice pool rather than a single die roll. So in d20 you roll d20+x against DCY. In Shadowrun you roll a bunch of D6s and your DC is the number of successes you need. A 5-6 counts as a success. A typical roll is Stat + Skill, with most stats ranging 1-6 (3 is considered average) and skills going 0-6. So an expert might be rolling 12 dice with a moderate DC being 3 successes and a hard DC being closer to 5. Of course you have equipment and situational modifiers that can add/subtract dice.

You also have a pool of Karma/Edge (depending on edition) that lets you do a number of things but the most common one is either add a handful of extra dice to your roll or reroll all failures for a single check. In 4th (and I think 5th) edition Edge was a stat you could increase like any other, so getting more of it comes at the cost of getting other stuff. The more Edge you have the more dice you add when using it, and/or the more often you can use it. Most likely in comic terms you can expect to see "Action Point!" replaced with "Karma Reroll!" or similar. I'll also expect Asami as our token badass normal to have a bunch of Edge, since she has to spend those points everyone else is investing in Bending somewhere.


Since there are ow levels, rather than gaining experience you gain Karma, which comes in much smaller doses overall. Rather than getting one big level up where everything improves at once, you get small incremental improvements as you add +1 skill or +1 stat, or grab a new trait, learn a new spell, or whatever else. So you don't get the same huge sudden bursts of power, and overall difference between a high end runner and street level runner is relatively low, to the point where a mid-high level character can still be threatened by typical thugs if caught off guard.

Typically the things you would do to optimize in a d20 system don't carry through to Shadowrun. 3.5 optimization comes from picking out synergistic classes and feats, combining them in weird ways to make really powerful things happen. That just doesn't really work in Shadowrun because basically everything is designed in such a way that it's expected to work with everything else. You can still optimize, but the degree to which optimization makes you win in Shadowrun is a lot lower than the degree to which it makes you win at D&D. Shelby has enough gamer know-how to make a functional character in Shadowrun, but breaking the game to the degree that you're a nearly invulnerable death machine is much harder, which runs pretty counter to Shelby's play style. So I'm not surprised at all she generally avoids it.


Edit: Having just checked the most recent couple of comic pages, just filling in an example. The first attack that gets mentioned has the enemy Fire Bender rolling 4 successes on his attack roll. Since it was against a person instead of a set challenge, rather than having a set target number, Allie gets a defense roll. Allie then rolls her defense and gets 4 successes, effectively negating the attack.

All of the bending subsystems are totally homebrew, but Water Bending sounds probably closest to traditional Shadowrun casting, which is just "roll your magic+spellcasting against the target's defending stat"

[Comissar]

Korra Says: "I wonder how long it'll be before someone calls me up on speaking like this?"

[moossabi]

Korra Says: "I wonder how long it'll be before someone calls me up on speaking like this?"

I'm eagerly awaiting "Korra Says: My character is already walking away"

[aurilee]

(awesome explanation of Shadowrun)

Thanks! It sounds like a pretty interesting system, and I can see why Rick may like it more (the Karma system, the lack of D20 math)

And now I know why Mac kept saying "Karma!"

Korra Says: "I wonder how long it'll be before someone calls me up on speaking like this?"

That may or may not be exactly how I spoke when I starting playing RPGs.

I'm eagerly awaiting "Korra Says: My character is already walking away"

It'll happen.

Now I'm just waiting on the explanation of Tenzin...

Rick: This is Tenzin, an airbending master!
Lex: So he was Aang's student or...?
Rick: Nope, he's the son of Aang and Katara!
Everyone: ...
Mac: In the future, please inform me if my character decides to procreate by DM fiat.

Either that or we can start shipping Rick and Mac because...we can?

No, no we can't.

[Comissar]

That may or may not be exactly how I spoke when I starting playing RPGs.

There's nothing inherently wrong with it, but it's not what the group dynamic's been so far, so I'm expecting it to get brought up. Who knows, maybe it'll help Lex, Mac, Rick, and Manny learn IC/OoC separation! (Deliberately excluding Shelby, Damien, and Rube from that list. All three have shown they can understand the difference)

It'll happen.

Now I'm just waiting on the explanation of Tenzin...

Rick: This is Tenzin, an airbending master!
Lex: So he was Aang's student or...?
Rick: Nope, he's the son of Aang and Katara!
Everyone: ...
Mac: In the future, please inform me if my character decides to procreate by DM fiat.

Either that or we can start shipping Rick and Mac because...we can?

No, no we can't.

Wasn't Mac the one that suggested Aang and Katara pair up? Something about wanting half of Rick's loot?

[aurilee]

There's nothing inherently wrong with it, but it's not what the group dynamic's been so far, so I'm expecting it to get brought up. Who knows, maybe it'll help Lex, Mac, Rick, and Manny learn IC/OoC separation! (Deliberately excluding Shelby, Damien, and Rube from that list. All three have shown they can understand the difference)

Nothing wrong with it, except it gets tiresome after a while. :P

But you're right in that she's one of the few players who seems to have good character separation going on, so it looks like this is yet another positive thing Allie adds to the table!

Wasn't Mac the one that suggested Aang and Katara pair up? Something about wanting half of Rick's loot?

That *does* sound familiar, but I don't specifically recall that. It also 100% sounds like Mac, so I'll defer to you here.

Thoughts on who's going to play Tenzin? Rube maybe?

[Sapphire Guard]

Dammit, I was certain Mac was going to be Korra!

Yay, Shadowrun. Never played it, but I want to.

[aurilee]

Lex is Tenzin.

Lex...is Tenzin?

Lex is Tenzin!

(totally did not see that coming)

On the other hand, this totally paves the way for Damien and Rube to be siblings again!

And Shelby is Jinora! *starts squeeing*

Oh I'm so happy.

Just, so so happy.

(also exactly zero of my predictions for casting have come true so far)

[Seerow]

Shelby not even understanding the core dice mechanic of Shadowrun is far worse than I expected. Like I guess she's not just dodged Shadowrun but literally any non-d20 based RPG?


Anyway, did not expect either Shelby as Jinora or Lex as Tenzin. Honestly I didn't expect Tenzin to be a PC at all, I expected him to be the 'good' DM mouthpiece like Iroh was for Manny. As an aside Lex calling his dad for parenting tips is hilarious.

[aurilee]

Shelby not even understanding the core dice mechanic of Shadowrun is far worse than I expected. Like I guess she's not just dodged Shadowrun but literally any non-d20 based RPG?


Anyway, did not expect either Shelby as Jinora or Lex as Tenzin. Honestly I didn't expect Tenzin to be a PC at all, I expected him to be the 'good' DM mouthpiece like Iroh was for Manny. As an aside Lex calling his dad for parenting tips is hilarious.

I like how his dad was concerned that Lex had somehow managed to have three kids with Shelby ^_^

Also I forgot how much fun Meelo was. Poor Tenzin.

EDIT: And yeah, it seems that Shelby's pretty much locked into D20 systems.

OH and Batman is a module by Bob Kane? lol...

EDIT: Oh my god Mac you made Katara a psycho old woman (and it's kinda awesome ^_^)

[DeadpanSal]

I am so excited for more Lexby! Seriously, Lex as Tenzin is such a weird idea but I love the idea of watching him figure out Knowledge: Familyman and - as he took Sokka from slacker to tactician - watch him now fill the role of a guardian. And we still haven't seen Rube and Damien yet!!!

[aurilee]

Aww Rube drew a statue for Rick!

:')

Has Damien been giving him drawing lessons?

Rube and Damien need to do a buddy road trip movie stat.

[Urzamax]

Seconded on the Buddy Road Trip Movie.

I also really like seeing Rick DM. He's already better than Manny and Mac in terms of player killing tendencies, and in permitting player choice. We'll have to see how strong the corrupting influence of the Avatar Notes is, but at least for the time being, he's doing darn well for a first timer.

[DeadpanSal]

GAH.

Alright. Just for you two.

http://imgur.com/a/GOATn

[moossabi]

GAH.

Alright. Just for you two.

http://imgur.com/a/GOATn

This could actually be great as a miniseries in between seasons. Mack plays the trailer park lady, Lex is the secret agent, Allie is... um... hmmmmm...

Anyone know who Allie could be?

[aurilee]

GAH.

Alright. Just for you two.

http://imgur.com/a/GOATn

You're the best!

This could actually be great as a miniseries in between seasons. Mack plays the trailer park lady, Lex is the secret agent, Allie is... um... hmmmmm...

Anyone know who Allie could be?

I support this! Bawoo the bard from Betelgeuse. ^_^

Allie could be that other lady that joins up part way through...there are a couple other characters in the main gang by the end so it should work.

As for the comic at hand...I'm guessing being compared to Pop-Pop isn't a good thing?

And Rick as Lin is interesting...Manny chose a fun, lighthearted character (Iroh) as his DMPC (which contrasted with Damien's sullenness at the time), but here Rick, ostensibly the more light-hearted of the two, has chosen a stern and serious DMPC. In both cases the DMPC was a guiding figure, and in both cases they contrasting quite a lot with the DM.

[Seerow]

So that is interesting. Did we know Allie was disabled before this point? I feel like it's something that would have come up, but I don't remember it at all.

[Urzamax]

So that is interesting. Did we know Allie was disabled before this point? I feel like it's something that would have come up, but I don't remember it at all.

Yes, we did. Back at http://dandaangvanced.tumblr.com/pos...allie-one-leg; and http://dandaangvanced.tumblr.com/pos...t-represent-me.
I think there's probably more from earlier, but I could be misremembering.

[aurilee]

YES DAMIEN IS BOLIN

Which probably means Rube is Mako.

Which means Damien and Rube are siblings again! Um...let's hope it turns out better this time, now that they're best buddies and whatnot.

EDIT: Oh my god Damien makes me smile so much. Just contrast this with the intro of Zuko. He really has come a long way. And Bolin hasn't walked away yet!

[aurilee]

Rube's character creation:

*phone rings*
Damien: Hello?
Rube: Hey! Damien! It's me!
Damien: Rube, it's 2am
Rube: But, I'm working on my character for Rick's campaign and I need your help! Come on bro!
Damien: Okay...
Rube: So, if you were to assign stats to yourself from like, 6-8 months ago, what would they be?
Damien: ...
Rube: I'm thinking average strength, slightly above average agility and intelligence...
Damien: Rube, what are you doing?
Rube: My character is going to be you when I first met you! Except a firebender!!
Damien: So...he's Zuko?
Rube: No! He's YOU, but in character form! And his name is Mako!
Damien: The freaky fish guy?
Rube: HE IS NOT A FREAKY FISH GUY!

[for the record I love Rube deliberately playing a jerk, I'm very much looking forward to the future Mako/Bolin, Rube/Damien interactions]

[Cedar]

Why doesn't Rube's speech use Capitalisation btw?

[DeadpanSal]

Rube's character creation...

CANON.

Why doesn't Rube's speech use Capitalisation btw?

Rube using capitalization and punctuation is his Azula voice. I think he'll get out of being all lowercase eventually.