Editing Last Emperor: Main Page

[[Category: D20 System]][[Category: Sci-Fi]][[Category: Space]][[Category: Storytelling System]][[Category: Last Emperor]]
The '''Last Emperor''' originally started as a full Dragonstar game. [[Dragonstar]] is a D20 based space fantasy game published by [[Fantasy Flight Games]], combining the orignal fantasy aspects of the D&D game with a space opera future where Dragons rule a vast stellar empire, and the multitude of D&D races live in relative harmony, under the watchful eye and protection of the Dragons and the Imperial army. 

The game appealed to me, the GM, for several reasons. It uses all the D&D tropes, meaning that recruiting players was easy. It is space opera, and I'm a huge [[Traveller]] fan (and published author). After running the game for a year, I came to dislike the D20 system itself. When we came to a stopping point in the game, I figured I could drop the game (and the disliked mechanics) and not have to worry about it further. The players, however, liked the story and the game background enough they asked me to continue running the campaign. 

Needing a new ruleset, I chose [[White Wolf Game Studio|White Wolfs]]'s [[New world of Darkness]] Storytelling system, along with the [[Mage: The Awakening]] rules. This was chosen because the existing players knew the old WOD system, were comfortable with it and liked the mechanics better than D20. So it meant little or no game-time was taken by learning and explaining a new rule set, and on first reading, looked like many of the game mechanics could be translated without much effort. (I was wrong about this, but more later). 

The Last Emperor pages on the RPGNet wiki has two parts: A conversion guide for D20 system to Storytelling system, including new Mage spells, merits, skills, equipment, monsters, a few new rules, and so on. The second part will be a set of GM notes about the campaign; the big secrets, some NPCs and other such things. There will be no campaign log or session notes as I don't keep notes during the game well enought to transcribe them here. 

== Conversion Notes ==
* [[Last Emperor: General conversion|General Character conversion]]
* [[Last Emperor: Skills|Skills]]
* [[Last Emperor: Merits list|Merits]]
* [[Last Emperor: Magic|Magic system conversion]]
* [[Last Emperor: Spellware|Spellware]]
* [[Last Emperor: Other mechanics|Other mechanics]]
* [[Last Emperor: Creatures|Creature/Race conversions]]
* [[Last Emperor: Equipment|Equipment]]
* [[Last Emperor: Starships|Starships]]

== Campaign notes ==
It seems kind of silly to post s note '''My players keep out''' as there is no way to enforce this, but players keep out, you'll ruin all your fun. 
* Background
*[[Last Emperor: Locations|Locations]]

== Rationales ==
To explain why the massive work up of the new system and numerous changes required I offer these rationals of why I don't like D20, do like nWoD rules and what the conversion should look like. 

=== D20 dislikes ===
Levels is the core reason for disliking D20 enough to prompt this change. After playing a number of different game systems, the leveling system within D20 I find very frustrating as a GM. 
* The alternating no change/huge power jump makes planning adventures difficult. If I'm running a scenario (over several sessions) and some or all of the players suddenly level in the middle of it, I'm forced to rebuild the opposition or accept the newly empowered characters will be able to easily defeat them. 
* The long periods of little change to the characters mechanics makes my players jumpy. They are also used to other games where Experience can be traded for upgrades in a much more gradual fashion. 
* I never really got how to make the CR based XP system integrate with my preferred method of designing villains, who tended to be way overpowered for the characters.