When the Developer Plays: Miscellaneous Insights!

Over several articles in this series, I’ve talked about a few insights I’ve acquired playing a Threefold setting Modern AGE campaign in a bit of depth. Over the past while, however, things have become a bit more scattershot. So, think of this time around as a grab-bag of insights about Modern AGE and Threefold, and RPGs as a whole, that I hope you’ll find interesting.

Insights into the universe of Threefold in Five and Infinity!

Sometimes there are just too many damn universes. From Five and Infinity, Chapter 5.

I Got My Character Wrong

Last article I told you about my character…but I took a disallowed focus! Andrzej took Longarms for 8th level, but he’d taken Pistols at Level 7, breaking the rule that says you can’t take a focus for the same ability twice in a row. (You also can’t improve the same ability twice in a row.) Yes, I, the Modern AGE developer, forgot that. As a wise being once said, Pobody’s Nerfect. The reason for this rule is to encourage characters to develop in a balanced fashion. I took Fighting (Grappling) instead—still combative, but it doesn’t make me look like I only learned gun things for two levels.

Stunts Can Be Minigames

Now that we’re a bit more experienced and are digging more deeply into the stunts, it becomes apparent that some stunt sets are, in effect, minigames within the larger Modern AGE rules. Grappling, Investigation, and some social stunts from Modern AGE especially tend to work this way, where there are various options and counter-options in the stunt list. For instance, Takedown has advantages (extra damage) and disadvantages (opposed test, you fall prone as well) over the simpler Knock Prone, and contextually, Human Shield may be a better choice than either, in some situations. In play, Knock Prone is generally a better idea with single, tough opponents a team can gang up on, Takedown is superior for one-on-one combat, and Human Shield works best for a larger number of ranged attackers. These are insights into an emergent property of the rules that I think will influence my future work in AGE games.

Five and infinity Chapter 5Strategically Omit Answers

Right now, the campaign revolves around plans by a rogue alternate-universe version of the Aethon’s plans to make their own timeline the “true” one, or primeline, instead of our Earth (well, minus the existence of everything in Threefold). What does that even mean? According to the GM, it would destroy the primeline and wreak havoc with every other plane of existence, and the secret to shifting which Earth is the primeline is an algorithm processed by a sufficiently large group of god-computers called Machinors. The great thing about these answers is even as the setting’s creator, I didn’t know that. I have opinions regarding various things, and the Five and Infinity adventure On the Threshold of Apocalypse presents one possible scenario, but I’m not really sure how that works. Inspiring ideas by not providing all the facts is nothing new, but this has given me an idea of the most effective ways to do this. In this case, we left a hook in Threefold indicating the primeline had changed before, and of course we talked about deleting alternate Earths, so these big structural ideas were just waiting for a bold GM to mix them together.

Clarifications Needed?

Long term play has also raised a few questions and options about Modern AGE and Threefold rules, but these are a bit out of step with the general tone of this article. Next time I’ll give them a go.

When the Developer Plays: Let Me Tell You About My Character!

(No wait! Come back!)

As many people know, telling random folks about your character is simultaneously the greatest temptation in RPG talk, yet the lowest form of discourse. However, since I develop Modern AGE I guess I can get away with it! Beyond that, there is honestly some broad relevance, since I ended up accidentally playing an iconic Threefold character based on…me. This was not entirely voluntary.

An Iconic character in Threefold

Andrzej Paterseki (Sword Dad)

The Story of Sword Dad

People who know me know I’m a parent, and a practitioner/sometimes-coach of historical fencing (late medieval Italian longsword, a bit of rapier, a smattering of other stuff), which is why that kind of stuff ended up in the adventure I wrote, Warflower, whose name alludes to a real-life fencing treatise. At some point, this produced the internal nickname “Sword Dad,” about which I have…mixed feelings.

Then in 2018, we were working on Threefold, and wanted some new iconic characters: folks who appear in examples of play and illustrations. H.D. Ingham created several of them, including, as a bit of fun, one Andrzej Paterski, a swordsman working for the Sodality faction, based on the Sword Dad joke. Andrzej is younger and handsomer than I am, of course, but this was less wish fulfillment than wanting a marketable iconic character. Thus, a guy with a sword and glasses became one of the faces of Threefold.

Accidentally Andrzej

Then in 2020, our group’s regular GM decided he wanted to run a Modern AGE game with Threefold, which I’ve talked about in a few past posts. I went for random character generation and ended up with a character with the Warsmith sword-maker profession in Threefold, along high Fighting and Strength. Dammit, I ended up with Sword Dad. I just admitted this was him, wrote down Andrzej’s name, and got playing. So, this is how I was used as the basis for an iconic character as a joke, and then ended up playing him.

In fact, I’ve been playing Andrzej for a year now, in our Pulpy-Mode game, and he recently hit Level 8. (Playing without GMing has taught me a lot.) The focus of the campaign so far has been tracking down demonic para-technology connected to intervention from an alternate Earth. This became entangled in an organized crime family that traded in souls, but ultimately circled back into a plot to destroy the primeline—the “true Earth” by some measures—and replace it with an alternate world. In the process we discovered that the original primeline itself replaced a previous “true Earth,” Eld. We explored its ruins in sealed powered armor, as one does, and briefly examined the wreckage of a giant robot built by some classical Greece-derived civilization before learning the reality-modeling algorithm required to shift primelines via a trapped transcendental quasi-AI. Then we leveled up.

(Yeah, this is the kind of stuff you can play in Threefold, and there’s even a series of five adventures to get you started.)

Now that I’ve set the context, here’s Andrzej at Level 8. I thought that, even leaving the above backstory aside, folks might be interested in seeing an organically developed Modern AGE character of this level.

Andrzej Modern AGE Threefold 8 PDF character sheet

So You Want to Play a Dimension Hopping Trickster God for Some Reason, Part 2: We Got Your Timelines Right Here

Last time on SYWtPaDHTGfSR, I chose an article series title that did not lend itself to a catchy acronym. I also explained how you could, if you were somehow moved by some unlikely situation that made the idea of a dimension hopping trickster god exploring timelines —such as Loki, say, if we were to look at Norse mythology and I assure you, nothing else—part of the zeitgeist, how to make such a character for the Modern AGE roleplaying game, using the Modern AGE Basic Rulebook, the Modern AGE Companion, and the Threefold campaign setting.

Aethon has many agents who travel the Timelines

I didn’t just pick Threefold because of the character options, however. I chose it because if you want a dimension-hopping setting with an overarching theme to bind the infinite smorgasbord of varied realities, this is the setting to do it with. Threefold binds alternate worlds, fantasy realms, and hellish dimensions together in a common storyline. It’s so big, one of the main questions people have is, “How do I get started with so many options to choose from?”

Now we created the Five and Infinity adventure series to help answer this, but we also set it up in the setting book itself, by presenting two organizations that regularly travel the Metacosm—that’s Threefold’s term for the set of all universes. And I think one of them would be especially appropriate for those of you interested in the SYWtPaDHTGfSR play style: Aethon, the guardians of Earths various timelines and branches.

Aethon works out of a secret, super-scientific installation in Invindara, an obscure island nation between southern India and Madagascar, in the “primeline,” which is its term for the universe it prefers to cultivate. Parallel standard universes are typically defined by the presence of Earth. In the generally accepted tracking code use for other dimensions, it’s listed as EU-00004. E is “Earth.” U is “Uninitiated,” meaning most of its inhabitants don’t know about the existence of other universes. The number is the order in which it was logged compared to other dimensions. Yes, it’s a 4. Yes, you should get the book to find out why.

Things You Might Recognize from Somewhere

  • Aethon explores parallel worlds with the help of highly trained agents called operants in its missions in various timelines. Aethon maintains a higher technological base than the current present; operants have access to improved body armor and weapons. Of course, they also have access to powered armor, cybernetic augmentations, and canisters of cloned human neurons psychically attuned to stabilize natural laws on site, but if you want to stick with a SWAT outfit and a pointy stick that sends people to an undisclosed location, that’s fine too!
  • Aethon teams, called sections, possess devices allowing them to travel from world to world, these aren’t just portals hanging in the air—though in some cases those can exist. They use quantum arks: metal boxes that travel from one timeline to another. If you’re into retro interfaces, I’m afraid there’s no brass or wood paneling (though I guess you could decorate one that way), but you do throw a lever!
  • Aethon does “prune” timelines it deems undesirable. This is called deletion. Sometimes the reasons for this are obvious, such as when another timeline—an “Alt” in Aethon parlance, bases its technology on summoning demons and/or eating souls, something that has come up in the Modern AGE/Threefold game I play in, in fact. But other reasons are mysterious.
  • Many people have parallel universe counterparts called alters. Sometimes they can become problems. The culminating adventures in the Five and Infinity series deal with a series of alters who can be friends, enemies, and in one case, might destroy a universe after having become a kind of god.
  • Aethon is led by the Machinors, beings who have been described as both gods and transcendental artificial intelligences, but nobody ever meets them—well, not directly, anyway.
  • Yes, there is a “dumping ground at the end of the universe, it’s not a parallel Earth, but a hell-plane named Blattarum (NI-00099 in the standard index), described in the Threefold setting book and the final Five and Infinity adventure, On the Threshold of Apocalypse.

All that, from a setting released in 2019! Curious….

Things That Might Be New

  • Deleting an undesirable universe is…messy. The standard protocol involved eradicating all intelligent life and making the remaining world uninhabitable: a “Z class plane” in standard parlance. This isn’t that big a deal when a world has become totally corrupted—zombie apocalypses and insane supercomputers with nukes don’t inspire much second thought—but when Aethon decides an Earth needs to go for less explicable reasons, you might be tempted to rebel.
  • Aethon does not exist outside conventional time and space. This means, among other things, there absolutely are parallel Aethons. Many of these work in harmony with the primeline Aethon but others can be neutral or even belligerent. In the case of the last outcome, this often happens when an Aethon on an alternate Earth asks itself why it gets to be the “alternate” one, at risk of manipulation and deletion.
  • The Machinors—those mysterious machine gods that run Aethon—don’t always agree. Some of them work for those renegade parallel Aethons. Some of them manipulate timelines for their own ineffable amusements.
  • Remember what I said about fantasy worlds and hells? Threefold has planes of existence where the world is the scaly back of a dragon swimming through space, where people are exiled via catapult. It has a hell consisting of an infinite coiled ribbon of rock whose edges grind against each other, that was liberated from a demon prince.
  • The vast scope of the Metacosm means Aethon doesn’t work alone. These stranger planes beyond Earth are studied by the Sodality, who work with Aethon for stability across countless universes. The Sodality is a little nicer, too.

This gives your rebellious, adventure-prone trickster god a huge set of possibilities indeed, and that’s before you, say, make them a rhy-alligator by hacking in the rules for Blue Rose. When the GM goes that route, it’s better if you don’t question it.

So You Want to Play a Dimension Hopping Trickster God for Some Reason, Part 1: Making a God in Modern AGE and Threefold

Let’s imagine that somehow, the cultural zeitgeist has moved to the unlikely place of trickster deities jumping through alternate universes. How did this happen? Could it be that an exceptionally large media franchise owned by one of the largest entertainment companies in the world produced a show with this concept? But more importantly, do you want to play such a character in a coherent RPG setting, tailored for the needs of games? Modern AGE and the multi-planar Threefold setting have got you covered.

Not the sort of place you'd expect to meet a Trickster God

Making a Trickster God

The Threefold Metacosm has many beings who might be called gods, but the ones most amenable to play are the Optimates: children of a prior generation of semi-retired deities. Some of them rule the Divine Empire, but others are free agents or exiles. To make our trickster, you’re going to need the Modern AGE Basic Rulebook, the Modern AGE Companion, and the Threefold setting book. The unusual part here is you want to figure out the trickster god’s powers first, to figure out what level character they need to be.

Naturally, we need the Master degree in Illusion Arcana (Modern AGE Basic Rulebook), which requires three talent advancements. Our deity needs to be a bit stronger and tougher than mortals too. Going by the guidelines in the Modern AGE Companion, a x2 multiplier to Strength (Jumping) and Strength (Might), along with 2 points in Vicious Blow as a favored stunt, requires four talent advancements and represents sufficient strength as portrayed in…let’s say some popular streaming program in which such a character might appear. We’ll add +2 to the character’s Toughness using a magical version of the Dermal Armor enhancements. This costs two more talent advancement “slots.” That brings us to 9 degrees’ worth of advancements. A 7th level Modern AGE character has this many talent advancements available, but it’s not just about the powers, so let’s make our trickster god 10th level.

With that settled, we need to devise the basic Level 1 character, then work our way up through these advancements.

For background, we’ll look at the Threefold rules for ancestries. Let’s say our trickster god is actually an Arvu, one of the magical varieties of humanity (these are elflike) found in the setting. Maybe this god was adopted, eh? In any event, we can swap one background benefit for the Arcane Education ancestral trait, providing a rank in the Illusion Arcana, and the Trickster trait, which provides social stunt advantages which fit the character. Grace provides a similar benefit for other stunts, so we’ll take that. That’s three out of four background benefits. For the fourth, we’ll go outside the available rules and wing it a bit. Optimates like our trickster typically have the primal being quality on p. 139 of Threefold, which gives them social bonuses with beings who know them and allow them to understand Shabda, the universal language. We’ll treat this as a fourth ancestry trait.

For profession, we’ll pick Planar Envoy from Threefold as something the god’s parents probably wanted them to do, and which they sort of still do, in a twisted fashion. That’s 15 + Con Health, Resources 8, a degree in the Inspire or Linguistics (we’ll choose Inspire—Shabda knowledge means they effectively know every language already) talent, and either the Communication (Persuasion) or Intelligence (Current Affairs) focus—we’ll take Persuasion.

What about drive, our tricker’s “glorious purpose?” Let’s go with Achiever—the trickster has grand dreams, but may not be sure of exactly what they mean. That lets us pick Expertise or Inspire talent degrees. We already have a degree in Inspire, so we’ll take Expertise in Communication (Deception) in the sub-field “supernatural trickery.” We also get a Membership, Reputation, or Resources improvement. We’ll take Reputation: “Trickster God.”

From this point onward, we’ll use the Buying Abilities option on p. 12 of the Modern AGE Basic Rulebook to give the trickster Accuracy 0, Communication 3, Constitution 0, Dexterity 4, Fighting 0, Intelligence 2, Strength 0, Willpower 3—but be aware this is for a young trickster at level 1, and not the full-powered deity we want to emulate. With 9 other levels providing another 9 points in abilities, we can make them fully glorious—and get the talent advancements, additional focuses, and specializations to perfect our trickster according to plan.


The Trickster—10th Level

Accuracy 0, Communication 5 (Disguise +3, Deception, Investigation, Persuasion), Constitution 2, Dexterity 5 (Sleight of Hand, Sabotage, Stealth +3) Fighting 3 (Brawling, Light Blades), Intelligence 3 (Cryptography, Illusion, Occultism, Security), Strength 1 (Might), Willpower 1

Speed: 15

(Stats separated by slash are for Gritty/Pulpy/Cinematic Modes, respectively)

Health: 17/35/50

Defense: 15/16/17

Toughness: 4/5/6

Power Points: 60

Talents: Dual Weapon Style (Novice), Illusion Arcana (Master; Force 13), Expertise (supernatural trickery using Communication (Deception), Master), Inspire (Novice)

Ancestry Traits: Grace (With a Flourish or Oozing Confidence stunts for -1 SP), Trickster (Taunt and Class Clown stunts for -1 SP), Primal Being (spoken and written Shabda; +2 SP in social stunts against beings who have heard of them, who also gain +2 to tests to find out about them)

Extraordinary Powers: Dermal Armor (+2 Toughness), Favored Stunt (Vicious Blow costs 0 SP and can be used at will), Force Multiplier x2 for Strength (Jumping) and Strength (Might) tests (double the usual effect)

Specializations: Agent (Master)

Resources: 8

Social Ties: Reputation: Trickster God, and 7 Relationship slots to be determined


We’re missing equipment, Relationships, and a few other options, but this character is reasonably trickster-god-ish, and about twice as strong as a human of the same build. They can summon illusions easily and have several advantages when it comes to lies, betrayal, and the rest of a trickster god’s habits. Perhaps, in an alternate universe, they might have focused on direct mind control, but in the end, you’re left with the treacherous hand history deals you—or at least, this history. Next time, we’ll be looking at what our trickster might do in the Threefold Metacosm. Perhaps they work with an agency that prunes undesirable timelines. Isn’t that a thought?