03/18/05
The Agency
A very large, very elite, and very mysterious organization not known to be based in any one country and with no registered headquarters (any that might be registered are most likely for legal purposes only, or to keep up appearances). They masquerade as different sorts of companies and small businesses; everything from travel agencies and insurance firms to machine shops and weapons manufacturers. Like the infamous Illuminati, many people might know that they exist, but have no idea where, though The Agencies plans seem far less mystical than any government conspiracy. In game terms, The Agency normally functioned as a sort of temp service for assassins and mercenaries in our old campaigns. In the new one there will be a much larger scheme in which few branches of The Agency are aware of many of the other branches affiliation (or even existence) making it possible for The Agency to war against itself. One thing is for certain though, as far as the upper echelons of The Agency are concerned…it’s all going according to plan.
The Agency gets it’s name from the fact that it has never officially been given a name. If there is a name, few people know it…and those that do don’t share. Those that need to contact the Agency know how to contact them.
Vigil
A small group that normally functions as a splinter of a religious organization (denomination currently unknown). They seem to have some involvement in the occult. Beyond that little is known.
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. 03/17/05
This site was built by me, Brandon Stevens, for the purpose of posting any and all information related to the game I created with my friends approximately five years ago (give or take), Concrete Jungle. This game has undergone many revisions and has spawned a plethora of other material (including other games)…that will most likely also get posted here. I will be using this website to collect the information from the most recent revision and updates as they are made. It will most likely take a long time for the game in it’s entirety to be posted here, so please be patient. The site will also serve as my portfolio, a place for me to post my artwork and fiction for the sake of pointing possible fans or employees to a single address to see the sort of thing I’m capable of. Some of the content will have been created by my friends, and their involvement will be noted. Unless otherwise noted, all information on this website was created, edited, and posted by me. Enjoy.
Concrete Jungle itself was created after a foray into a rather popular fantasy RPG when we were in middle school. We had fun playing with the dwarves and elves, but I was into anime at the time and really wanted to play a near-future Ghost in the Shell sort of game. My friends agreed. So I came up with some stats, a character creation system, and an almost there battle system (there were numbers involved, but we usually just ended up eyeballing the dicerolls without actually doing any math). In to this we tossed political intrigue, some assassins, and the ever-mysterious Agency. Many of our ideas weren’t original in their own right, but I believe that we chose to use them in original ways.
The game has undergone many revisions since it’s first incarnation, though none have been played as much as the first. The main thing I’ve been trying to do is lock down a battle system (for marketing purposes…I don’t want the words "just eyeball it" to appear in the manual)…but I’ve been working on other aspects of the rules and world as well. I’ve changed a few names of stats here, modified their purpose there, and generally rebuilt the character creation system from the ground up. There are now 27 classes (spawned from the original 3), mutants are no longer a racial choice at character creation, though I may come up with rules for them later, some spells and abilities are actually defined now…oh, and there’s a new battle system.
The New System: Character Creation
Character creation begins with the player choosing what path of classes to walk down: Brawler, Stealth, or Psionic. Each offers 9 classes within…and each of those classes has many different interpretations. There’s a lot of freedom to how one creates their character. After choosing a base class, they prioritize their attributes (aka "stats"). There are seven stats: Strength, Stamina, Speed, Skill, Intelligence, Mental Constitution, and Appearance. Most of which can be classified into three types: Physical, Dexterous, and Mental…with Appearance ironically enough being the black sheep. The six classified stats are put into a list based on order of importance to the character. For Brawlers, Physical stats come first, then Dexterous, then Mental. For Stealth, it’s Dex-Phys-Ment. And for Psionic classes, it’s Ment-Phys-Dex. Stats may be arranged within their respective tiers as they see fit, and one stat may be switched between the second tier and the third. Once the stats are arranged in this way, the list is set beside a set of numbers [+3, +2, +2, -1, -2, -4] that determines the modifications that will be made to what the player rolls for each attribute. Appearance remains unaffected by the player’s choice of base class. There are 40 different possible stat combinations for each of the three base-classes…and 9 sub-classes within each base. Making a possibility of 1080 different stat arrangements and class choices…before choosing any specialization’s or skills.
At this point in time, what sub-class you choose does not directly affect your stats at character creation. However some arrangements will work better than others based on what is more important to the character. The Brawler sub-class of Monk will want to have a high mental constitution because one of his skills allows him to add the MC stat to either of his physical stats; whereas the Brawler Weapon-Master will want to have a high intelligence to maintain his immense knowledge of weaponry or artillery. Bother are quite possible, but the Brawler base-class is only allowed to bring one Mental stat into the second tier, so there will be a large difference between the two characters stats…even though they exist within the same base-class.
The primary effect a sub-class has at character creation (other than influencing how the player arranges the stats) will be skill lists and the characters personality. While any given character can have any sort of personality, some sets of moral values don’t sit well with certain classes. So it is of course likely that most Magi will act one way while most Templar will act another. A characters personality decides how they gain or loose Momentum, a factor that decides if the character is demoralized, empowered, or somewhere in between…which affects how much their abilities cost to play. The personality also decides what sort of conditions have to be met in order for the character to gain Second Winds, which give them additional skill points to spend during battle and periods of heavy activity. A player may write up their own terms for these states and effects (effectively designing their characters mind on paper), but defaults or general conceptions will be given for each class…possibly multiple per class to give the players additional options without having to dedicate TOO much time to character creation.
Alignment and Demeanor are also factors that play into and are influenced by a characters class. Alignment being their view on the balance between good and evil (and the characters roll within it), like Good, Selfish/Neutral, Evil, Aberrant, et cetera. And Demeanor being the characters social attitude, like Shy, Fool-hearty, Heroic, and so on. These aren’t always compatible, and some character my have more than one Demeanor (sort of like facets of their personality). The player will decide most of these traits, and different types of personality traits are easily implemented into the game mechanics. Guidelines will be given for creating your own personality traits as well as many pre-designed features ready for use.
More choices will lie within the character specialization. There are currently more than 8 variety of Mage and Magus alike (Mage being the fast, yet basic, caster…while Magus is the slow, yet explosive, powerhouse). Meanwhile a Stealth based Weapon-Master can focus on handguns, knives and daggers, or medium sized blades or combinations of the whole lot (A Brawler based Weapon-Master would focus on heavy weapons, artillery, and whatnot, by the way). Characters will of course gain their skill set from their chosen specialization.
The most important aspect of character creation (and this game as a whole) is freedom.
Things to be posted as they're prepared.
My Favorite Web Sites
Zebragirl - tied for greatest web-comic ever!
Wapsi Square - tied for greatest web-comic ever! Guess with who...
GU Comics - It is a web comic...but not the same way the above two are web comics. It's hilarious! Just no consistant story.
Greatest MMO ever (DAoC comes in second) I left due to lack of time and money...you should start so the game is still there when I get back...you know you want to :)
My weblog. It's not realy one of my favorite websites, but I don't have time to do the main page the right way at the moment...so I'm sticking the link to my blog here...see...there it is. Click it and enjoy.
