Avatar Thread

Oh man, the feels...
Huh? No, not about two lives well-lived; about the fact she lived long enough to be in the shitty sequel.

The other issue I realized D&D has is it's got a heavy focus on acquiring and using magic items. Which are not really a thing in the Avatar shows. The closest you ever really get to something like that is Sokka's space sword, and that was a +3 weapon at best. And he got it near the very end.

I think I've heard of Legend of the Elements. Weren't there a couple threads on it a long time ago?

Wait, when did that happen?

In Season 2, Korra somehow managed to get herself in a situation where the bad guy was able to physically destroy her inner Avatar spirit. She gets it back, but it became impossible for her to ever communicate with her past lives.

Ah, that's what I thought you were talking about, but I wasn't sure.

I found this literally like 2 hours ago today. Hope its good.

When the retarded "Spirit of good" asspull parasite that was apparently living inside her and every other avatar but no one bothered to mention it till now gets bitch slapped.

But man, the fact that that fight erased the past avatars is a pretty fucking apt metaphor for the ruination that Korra's shitty plot inflicted on the series.

Jesus christ this is a show for kids that finished years ago and I am STILL mad.

Honestly the it wasn't totally her fault. But at the same time the revelation the Avatar was just a human soul merged with a Lawful Good Vorlon was really lame.

I've been seeing a few mentions of Valor ( and in a few other threads) and googling brought up someone building Batman in it. Seems pretty solid with a very uncomplicated core dice mechanic ([d10 + mod] vs. [d10 + mod]). A bit crunch heavy, ESPECIALLY in character creation, but once you start playing it's straightforward stuff--basic addition and subtraction. Very strong emphasis on character building. An AtLA campaign would be a fun use of it, I think. I might convince my usual group to give it a shot.

If not that, then Fate or Fate Accelerated

Strike! could possibly do it. It even has an AtlA-like mini setting-seed thing in the core book.

Only if you like your combats tactical though.

I can see the value in Fate but IMO the lack of a strong combat system kinda undermines it. In something like Avatar, the fights were central to the storytelling, so while the narrative focus makes sense the fights themselves lacking mechanical weight would seem a downside.

It's why I prefer Legends of the Wulin as a suggestion. It's the best high action combat system of any RPG, as well as being a unique blend of crunchy mechanics and narrative sensibilities.

The downside is that the books is an awfully edited clusterfuck, but if you can get past that the game is really damn good.

I agree Fate needs a but more substance to really capture the Avatar feel. But abstracting bending combat into crunchier rules is a tricky undertaking though. The bending techniques aren't abilities out of a spell book. Even specific moves were something a bender incorporated into his form rather than just doing it itself.

Basically, for good bending mechanics the system needs to treat bending like a martial art instead of magic.

This is why I recommend Legends of the Wulin. It's the best martial arts RPG out there (IMO, anyway), and it has the right amount of looseness in its approach to things. Techniques can be fluffed in many different ways and the core system gives you a lot of default options you can use to represent various minor Bending tricks.

There are a lot of "specific" bending techniques (the squid thing for water benders, Aang's air-orb riding thing) and a lot of benders use signature styles, like Ba Sing Se secret service using the earth-gloves, or Combustionman.

Like I said, most of those are special moves the benders incorporate into their forms.

It's not like a Katara ever pulled out her spellbook and cast her 4th Level Water Whip, with only two left for the day. That's what I'm getting at.

Oh right. I just thought you meant there are no set techniques; which on some level is true I guess, but yeah, no vancian casting (if anything, the vancian casters would be the non-benders who use equipment that has ammo and other consumables).

>Vancian mechanics for objects and tools
That'd be a fun way to represent a tinkerer/engineer sort of character.

Legends Of The Wulin ftw.

Unfortunately PF already sort of has that with the Kineticist Class.
d20pfsrd.com/occult-adventures/occult-classes/kineticist
I say unfortunately because while the class was obviously inspired by those shows they don't really function at all like Avatar benders and the class generally sucks.

Yeah, one of the reasons I like effects based systems is that you can just grab a wizard and refluff it as an eccentric tinkerer dude.

Magician for example could be the inventor who's prepared, but with limited resources (star), the inventive improvisational type (chaos), or the crazy self destructive type (blood).

How would you guys deal with enemy variety? Just use different nations and mix the bending styles or would you include spirits aswell? Also how would you do it in say Legend of the Wulin?

One of my buddies ran a game (set pre-ATLA) using Reign and it worked pretty well. It has been a while since I thought about it but I believe the mundane martial arts components of various elemental styles were Martial Paths with fluffed effects (the reason the attack has +1 width is because your fist is on fire) while the blatantly magical effects (I can fuckin' fly) were Schools of Magic.

One thing I really liked was that since Martial Paths were roughly balanced against each other he could easily do antagonists who had a Martial Path that wasn't bending and still be dangerous.

So would Sokka be a Warrior or a Scholar?

I'm running a campaign in this system, it does work very well

he'd start off as a warrior and either take a bunch of scholar abilities as advancements, or switch playbooks entirely

But his martial prowess never really declines. In fact he only gets better, especially when he learns swordfighting.

I know Sokka as a person is a total outlier in his own universe but it's still fun to try try assigning character classes to him.

Let's see what we have to work with. There's your garden variety bender(fire/earth/water/air), those that have learned a few more tricks like lightning, blood, healing and lava. We've still got swordsmen and archers. Chi-blockers are always fun and the shock-gloves are pretty useful. There's even not!space-marines, not!titans and a watered down version of jedi if you wanna go there. Last, we have spirits that can come in any shape and have some pretty trippy powers.

>Playing in Korra times

Who're the Jedis? I get the rest is from LoK and i'm not really keen on the mecha stuff. I also feel like humans in different flavours may get a little samey.

You wouldn't happen to have some good ideas for spirits would you? I can say i really liked Hundun from the video game, so i guess something like that would be pretty great, but i think i would have to refluff the spirits from LoK a lot to use them.

Don't forget the Avatar world has a large plethora of weird and aggressive animals the players could run into. Including dragons, depending on when you set the game.

I don't know what the "Jedi" he's talking about are.

>But his martial prowess never really declines
mechanically why would it, when you switch classes you keep anything still relevant from your old one, and as a scholar he could still take warrior or hunter moves with his advancements

One of the old Avatar homebrews, as far as I can tell, has decided to up and make an unlicensed Avatar MMO instead. So it's basically guaranteed dead in the water.

>Avatar MMO

Yeah nothing quite says "Avatar" like a bunch of teenagers calling me a no-skill faggot in a global chat

Playing in Korra times, BUT, the Equalists assassinate Korra before she arrives.

Egh, I'm still not a big fan of the Korra era. It looks cool yeah, but I found the quasi-medieval Asian aesthetic of the original series much more appealing.

Also the mech suits and the fucking giant robot were dumb.

Those never need to happen. You could also put it immediately after Liberty city's founding

>You could also put it immediately after Liberty city's founding

Then you've got adult Aang running around.

Honestly, I still maintain the Hundred Years' War is the best setting for an Avatar game, partly for that reason. Any large-scale issue facing the players would undoubtedly catch the Avatar's attention. And unless he is a kid like Aang or a fuck-up like Korra, there's not going to really be anything the players can bring to bear either for him or against him.

>Hey, it's fun. I don't judge your choice of *insert obscue 7d3 drop the lowest -4 system here*, don't judge mine
I'm sorry you appear to be lost, this is a place crated for the sloe purpose of discussion and critique of each other's choice and preferences in tabletop fun so if you don't mind PF is shit and 5e is shit for this I will now dump the supplementary material for because my patience and charity knows no limit.

...

...

...

...

...

>Humans and higher animals have the potential to become deeply connected to one another, thus enabling Pathik, Huu, Aang, and potentially others to locate living beings out of sight and detect their thoughts and emotions by tapping into their chi.
From the wiki.

Basically, by studying chi and chakras, which is an energy that surrounds us and binds us, one can learn to connect with others and the universe. Chi-blockers are taking the first few steps in truly studying it and you can always expand from there.

As to playing in korra times, just have it be a few avatars later. If you're worried abut tech being too advanced, remember that 4 portals into the spirit realm were opened and who knows what the fuck kind of consequences this will have on the physical rules of nature after a few decades.

Look at that there's even a rulebook in singles format if you prefer to read it that way.

That's not exclusive to chi-blockers though. Chi-blocking is just another martial arts technique.

Part of what Pathik and Huu tried to teach Aang is everything being connected is a fact, not a belief. And anyone can theoretically tap into that. It's more Daoism/Buddhism and less "study".

Didn't mean to imply only chi-blockers can do it, only that to be able to chi-block, they'd have to start learning about chi and chakras and such. Same for water benders that are learning to heal with their bending. They just need to start focusing that training inwards, on their own minds and bodies.

For my game I went back, like really far back and just ripped off the Romance of the Three Earth Kingdoms and a bunch of classic-is era stuff.

As for the Avatar I just killed him, really if you're angling to take over the world the 1st thing you want to do is put that fuck in a cell or a coffin so that's what Water Caesar did.

>really if you're angling to take over the world the 1st thing you want to do is put that fuck in a cell or a coffin

Even then one of those options is much more viable than the other. I see Water Ceasar wasn't very forward-thinking.

I go for a future avatar losing their minds and creating a massive, oppressive empire and reshaping large swaths of land because, why not? At some point, plucky rebels rise up, raise an army and siege the stronghold. Cue huge explosion that rocks both the physical and spiritual worlds, and rewrites even more geography. Fast-forward a few centuries and you've got myriad kingdoms and city-states doting the land, warring with each other. Both worlds are closer than ever, physics isn't exactly what it used to be, spirits roam the land and the avatar hasn't been seen since. Also knights wearing power armor, because why the fuck not.

> Romance of the Three Earth Kingdoms

I love it.

I like the idea of using China as a setting instead of the Earth of the Avatar series, which is minuscule. China is made up of three Earth Kingdoms, Japan and the Chinese-controlled islands (such as Taiwan) are Water Tribe, Fire Nation could either be to the north (where Mongolia is supposed to be) or the south (Burma/Laos/Vietnam) or both. Air Nomads are true nomads, and China/Tibet have enough verticality for some scenic Air Temple locations.

It also opens up the possibility of different kinds of threats, strange magicks from the west, iron men on iron horses, that kind of thing, to really shake up the dynamic.

You say that but his blew him up in Avatar State and didn't really plan on having a world for him to come back to if he just regular killed him.

All of book one was the party getting framed for the hit and fleeing everyone until they got his spirit back together with one eventually becoming the new Avatar thus fucking with the cycle to fix it.

Can you offer any details or advice about running the system? I'm looking through the rulebook now, and it seems like a simple enough system to run, but I'm getting the sense that I'm missing something.

Rolling should not be as common as you're used to, more thing twist and change round the outcome of a single roll in this system.

I like to pretend that anything past the end of the original show is non-canon. That includes the comics.

>tfw Zuko apparently cucks Sokka

> That includes the comics.

Especially the comics. Basically just fanfiction given a green light from producers.

Does anyone wanna try and get a session going? There seems to be enough interest.

I'll be putting together a game on Roll20 some time in the near future, I need an in-between game while I flesh out my 5e setting. I just need a few days to do a quick write-up and I'll put it up in the Gamefinder thread.

Got a discord? Would love to talk about it and what it'll be about.

I saw one for like 4e ages ago

dunno if its shit or not

So, if there is a session can we all assume Korra is non-canon in-universe fanfiction?

The first solution to that is to stop throwing your players into large-scale problems. The second is to remember that the Avatar always needs people working with them, since being in multiple places (or solving problems that can't be solved with overwhelming force) is not one of their gifts.

That said the absolute best era to run a game, especially if you're trying to avoid Avatar interference, is immediately following an Avatar's death. Which gives you about 16 years before the next one begins dominating current events.

We could play it during the 100 year war and have Aang have been killed?

Our best option is honestly an alternate universe.

Maybe play it far in the future and disregard Korra? So no liberity city or dumb shit like that.

> Which gives you about 16 years before the next one begins dominating current events.

Yes and no. Even before the Avatar is revealed, the world is impacted by him. Most of the world's major players have a vested interest in the Avatar and his agenda, and shrewd leaders and groups will work as early as possible so they're not caught off guard. Probably the most dramatic example is Sozin wiping out the Airbenders in anticipation of the next Avatar's arrival.

Granted, this is a pretty interesting environment for a game. Everyone's waiting and looking for the Avatar, and that alters the social and political environments for the players.

Why does Aang have to be killed? It's not like the world as it exists in AtLA only came into that form the moment he came back into the world. You have a hundred years of time where the world more or less looked like it did in the show.

We can assume that Aang is still frozen, sure. Not sure how that'd impact things in this new reality.

The time of Avatar Kyoshi is a good option, because she lived to be like... 200.

i use a modified qin: the warring states+ shaolin and wudang to play an avatar the last airbender rpg

>Avatar Kyoshi
The most no-nonsense avatar we know of, who will shut you down hard and permanently if you threaten the peace.

Fortunately, the world is a big place and the Avatar is only one person.

I too don't much like the idea of playing in a timeframe where the Avatar could feasibly show up, but at the same time they only ever seem to focus on the world's big threats. If player character actions are kept on a small scale, then most likely they'll go their whole lives without ever encountering the Avatar.

Really it seems the only way to attract the Avatar's attention is waging destructive wars. Or messing with the spirits.

Man yeah Korra was a bit dumb but I liked her, and this is only 40% because her design makes my dick so fucking rock hard I can't think straight

Couldn't we play in a setting where the avatar is grievously injured and has to go into hiding? Maybe have the plot be about the different factions trying to find him?

I felt the same about Asami. But we must not let our dicks make us forget what a god awful sequel Korra was and how badly it defiled the lore and setting.

Korra's design was top notch, which is pretty standard for both shows. though I really didn't like the design of the spirits in LoK

Honestly Korra wasn't a bad character at first. It wasn't until around the end of Season 2 I started getting annoyed with her, because by that point it was obvious she was never going to change or learn any kind of real lesson. Aang went through a lot of growth throughout his show. Korra didn't. Aang also had a strong moral foundation, which Korra also lacked. She was basically just a weapon the writers pointed at each season's villain. There was no substance to her. She would've worked great as a supporting character. But as the Hero? She fell flat on her ass.

There was great potential to be mined in the tale of the warlike avatar stuck in the middle of peace, if she had fucking learned a single goddamn thing. Fucking Finn from Adventure Time gets better and deeper characterization than she did.

I hated her all the way through, especially with how she took her airbending training.

Tenzin was the one good thing about the show and Korra was never truly humble about her training.

And yeah, spirits look fucking stupid in LoK. And giant mechs? Fucking really? BENDING LIQUID METAL?

The use and then overuse of plotinum was pretty bad too.

It was so stupid, the entire thing. You can tell they lost the good writers.

I especially hate the fucking retcon as to why the avatar exists and what it is. Not even Lucas fucked up that bad.

Which is weird because Beginnings was still the best part of the show. It just would've worked better as a short film with no connection to the franchise.

Before Korra, I'd always figured the Avatar had its genesis in an ancient, shapeless spirit of the world as a whole. Basically a spiritual personification of the show's meta-them about how separation is an illusion.

The revelation it all boils down to a spirit of Lawful Good felt really out of place.

So first season ok and don't bother with the rest of them?

Not just that, but also the way that metalbending turned into some kind of magic magnet power really irked me. Earthbenders have to worry about momentum, waterbenders need to consider it at the very least, but metalbenders? They can throw a person around by a tiny piece of metal attached to their wrist like it's nothing. This gets especially bad in the last season.

At least there's the rape porn.

The art style of the Beginnings was good, yes, and it'd make for an alright wuxia tale. But it was shallow and didn't grasp concepts that the show previously established.

Like how all bending was originally one thing, and that the nations learned their individual styles via careful observation. The revelation that lion turtles just gave it to them? Stupid.

Not to mention it doesn't even get it's own "yin/yang" symbology in regards to Raava and Vaatu, since it boiled it down to WHITE GOOD BLACK BAD.

Even simple stuff like getting yin being female aligned and yang being male aligned was ignored for it.

If they wanted to explore another layer of that they could've dealt with wuji, the infinity that yin and yang comes from. That'd be a great way to establish the origin of the avatar spirit.

First season is okay.

Season 2 starts strong then takes a hard nose dive.

Watch Season 3 for a menacing bad guy and a really good look into the spiritual philosophies behind airbending.

Season 4 is just as bad as Season 2.

It's stupid, because metal bending worked via bending the earth fragments within metal. You don't ACTUALLY bend the metal.

You have shit like them bending liquid metal near the end, lava bending, etc. It's all so goddamn stupid.

Another pet peeve of mine? The harmonic convergence. Korra's idea to try and merge the spirit and physical world was bad enough, but the harmonic convergence would've made a lot more sense of it were the air acolytes that got airbending. Hell, remember those guys that were using mechanical gliders at the northern air temple? Aang even says they're like airbenders. Why wouldn't THEY get the bending, instead of a bunch of random earth nation guys?

season 3 is honestly the best.

still not as good as any season of TLA though

The problem for me is that when the show bothers to figure out what it wants to talk about, what it wants to evoke from the audience, it chickens out not even halfway through and butchers the message into an unrecognizable, self-defeating mess. You just can't help but to smell the cowardice coming from the creators.

First season is wasted potential. It had cool ideas like the equalists, bender crime syndicates, gang warfare, etc but it completely mishandled them for a stupid plot twist and a forced love triangle.

Not only that, but another problem with LoK as a whole is that most of the fights suck ass. They seriously boil down to element punching, almost literally in Korra's case.

Take away any depth and subtlety there could have been to the bender/nonbender issue as well as all the beauty there was to bending, add in a useless sport and horrible love triangle(that diminished everyone involved), top it off with some Deus Cry Machina and you've got the first season.

I thought it was made by the same people who made the Last Airbender.

The ones who weren't involved either had a very important hand in giving us The Last Airbender or the creators of Korra bought into their own hype and faceplanted when confronted with the complicated questions they raised in Legend of Korra and the subtlety necessary to even come close to answering them (if even possible). They took the cowards way out every fucking time.

The villains of season 3 are a great concept that are absolutely wasted. They're not even properly explored or explained beyond "Hurr durr true white lotus"