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Kai Tave posted:The point of puts-out-the-sun guy was to say "hey, point-buy supers games are prone to abuse if you don't look over the characters your players put together, make sure you communicate with everyone." You can probably do something equally dumb in just about any game where players are free to buy superpowers with an unregulated pool of resources with which to do so. Yup. Wild Talents powers are less fiddly and mathy to put together than doing the same in HERO... but not by that much, especially if you start putting merits and flaws on those powers. I have high hopes for someday actually giving WT a try, but my one go at GMing it fell apart in character creation when my players all went super minmax and I just did not have the heart to get into an arms race. I really can't find a supers game with power creation that isn't either too heavy (HERO definitely, WT maybe) or light (Cortex+ Heroic) for me. I haven't played any edition of M&M, but on a read it doesn't do much for me. I need to mess around with Strange FATE more, I think. The one custom-powers game that actually works perfectly for me is Nobilis, but it feels really kind of counterproductive to dial the setting back from Sandman levels. Anyway, all that said, there is an amazing Ken Hite chapter on superhero worldbuilding in the full WT book (the hardcover, either edition, not the digest Essential, which is otherwise rad) which is easily worth purchase price all by itself. But on the downside again, WT Second Ed is full of nasty-looking Poser art I literally did not want to spend money on so I bought 1st ed for that chapter and Essential Ed for the rules. On the positive side, I do really like the ORE dice gimmicks, and for a superhero game in particular it just feels really right to define super-stats as basically "your dice always roll maximum", and the ten-rolled-die limit keeps pools from going to the hilarious excesses of HERO or Exalted. Whether it actually works in play... maybe I'll find out one of these days. Parkreiner fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Jun 12, 2014 |
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Jun 12, 2014 05:41
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Yawgmoth posted:It's actually in Imperial Mysteries. It's really funny because it's like "werewolves have rank 8 spirits, changelings have the True Fae, geists have the kerberoi, vampires have... umm... well there's something out there that likes vampires and it's probably really creepy and horrible too!" And prometheans have the qashmallim, even though what the hell they are or where they come from or why they give a poo poo isn't really explained anywhere as far as I can tell. I guess vampires might have a demonic patron given the nature of the Beast even though as far as I'm aware there's not really any indication of such in the lore there either.
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Jun 12, 2014 06:08
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The super scary monster to Requiem vampires are the Strix, ghostly owl-like spirits detailed in Requiem for Rome, Night Horrors: Wicked Dead, and Blood & Smoke: the Strix Chronicle. Basically they are sadistic creatures who enjoy ruining vampire's lives by possessing them and doing awful poo poo, and they've been watching the Kindred from the shadows since time unknown.
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Jun 12, 2014 06:30
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Are those Strix in turn being manipulated by an even deeper, even more powerful set of monsters, or is it Strix all the way down?
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Jun 12, 2014 06:43
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Archmage-tier vampire patrons are just high-level members of the Ordo Dracul.
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Jun 12, 2014 06:44
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Gau posted:All of this. In addition, Traveller makes for better Firefly-style (roving traders on the dubious side of the law) games than Firefly or Star Wars, unless you're in love with westerns and/or civil war apologism and then Firefly is probably better. If you mean the Serenity system I agree. Firefly on the other hand is an excellent system for utter carnage with things not going smooth - it's just about the perfect system for playing something like Police Academy. But Traveller is much more about the logistics. (And yes, Serenity and Firefly have different game systems).
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Jun 12, 2014 11:00
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Davin Valkri posted:Are those Strix in turn being manipulated by an even deeper, even more powerful set of monsters, or is it Strix all the way down? Yeah, but eventually it loops all the way back around so the real monster is man.
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Jun 12, 2014 11:16
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A lot of why I was thinking about looking into Traveller is because it seemed like it would be a good system to run Most Definitely Not Cowboy Bebop with a party of 4 people screwing around in the galaxy taking bounties and dealing with personal intrigue. I couldn't give two shits about the metaplot (this is a general rule for me with most elfgames) and frankly I'd be ditching very very large chunks of the setting. 
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Jun 12, 2014 11:29
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Fuego Fish posted:Yeah, but eventually it loops all the way back around so the real monster is man. Well of course the real monster is man. Unless it's the old World of Darkness, where the real monster is The Man becaue it was the 90's and counterculture was culture. Also, the game I was thinking of was not Wild Talents, it was the ORE supers game Godlike (which is about WWII). I've never read Wild Talents, is that based on the fiction anthologies edited by GRRM?
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Jun 12, 2014 11:30
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SALT CURES HAM posted:A lot of why I was thinking about looking into Traveller is because it seemed like it would be a good system to run Most Definitely Not Cowboy Bebop with a party of 4 people screwing around in the galaxy taking bounties and dealing with personal intrigue. I couldn't give two shits about the metaplot (this is a general rule for me with most elfgames) and frankly I'd be ditching very very large chunks of the setting. Definitely definitely check out Drinax then. It's a fantastic pirate sandbox adventure, with excellent set pieces to put in wherever they fit. The heist mission, where you steal an Imperial Treasure Ship is phenomenal - my dudes spent six months on it.
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Jun 12, 2014 11:32
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Kwyndig posted:Well of course the real monster is man. Unless it's the old World of Darkness, where the real monster is The Man becaue it was the 90's and counterculture was culture. Also, the game I was thinking of was not Wild Talents, it was the ORE supers game Godlike (which is about WWII). I've never read Wild Talents, is that based on the fiction anthologies edited by GRRM? The base setting of Wild Talents is basically an extrapolation of Godlike into the future with Talents getting stronger and weirder as time goes on. Still an ORE supers game, but with a lot of optional dials and levers to change things up. The GRRM-edited thing is Wild Cards, which has had a GURPS and a M&M licensed conversion, but never Wild Talents, as far as I know. (On the other hand, Progenitor, a variant setting sourcebook for Wild Talents, covers the same sort of ground of "Real history with super-powers" stuff as Wild Cards, and as a bonus is not full of tons of awful rape poo poo.)
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Jun 12, 2014 11:54
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neonchameleon posted:If you mean the Serenity system I agree. Firefly on the other hand is an excellent system for utter carnage with things not going smooth - it's just about the perfect system for playing something like Police Academy. But Traveller is much more about the logistics. (And yes, Serenity and Firefly have different game systems). I dunno, if I wanted that I could just play Fiasco with spaceships? It is there already!
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Jun 12, 2014 14:30
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unseenlibrarian posted:GRRM-edited... awful rape poo poo Seems a tad redundant to me.
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Jun 12, 2014 17:05
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Progenitor is my favorite Greg Stolze setting, which is saying a lot considering that basically every one he's written is great.
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Jun 12, 2014 17:32
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A lot of Wild Cards was apparently based on a tabletop game sessions run by some of the authors (BRP's Superworld, from what I remember), which mostly just makes me think that if the internet and blogging about games had been a thing back in the day we'd never have run out of material for grogs.txt from people talking about their characters. Their awful, awful characters. And yeah, Progenitor is legitimately pretty great.
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Jun 12, 2014 17:33
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The thing about Wild Talents is that it's not a superhero game in the sense of emulating comics, it's about people who are insanely powerful and what they can do. Progenitor is worth getting even if you don't like or use Wild Talents because it's the best "supers in the real world" setting out there. The reason being that a) the supers are allowed to change history so it's not another case of "oh, Superman exists but this really bad thing that really happened still happened" and b) real-world people got powers sometimes (like J. Edgar Hoover and Abby Hoffman). Plus it has a lot of Greg just playing around with the WT system, like seeing how nasty a Blast power he could make.
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Jun 12, 2014 18:23
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Libertad! posted:The super scary monster to Requiem vampires are the Strix, ghostly owl-like spirits detailed in Requiem for Rome, Night Horrors: Wicked Dead, and Blood & Smoke: the Strix Chronicle.
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Jun 12, 2014 23:28
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unseenlibrarian posted:The base setting of Wild Talents is basically an extrapolation of Godlike into the future with Talents getting stronger and weirder as time goes on. Still an ORE supers game, but with a lot of optional dials and levers to change things up. That sounds interesting as hell actually, looks like I'll be picking up Wild Talents and Progenitor on PDF next payday.
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Jun 12, 2014 23:40
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The future of gaming, or at least D&D. I feel old. 
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Jun 13, 2014 00:10
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Looks like what we needed last edition.
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Jun 13, 2014 00:41
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SALT CURES HAM posted:A lot of why I was thinking about looking into Traveller is because it seemed like it would be a good system to run Most Definitely Not Cowboy Bebop with a party of 4 people screwing around in the galaxy taking bounties and dealing with personal intrigue. I couldn't give two shits about the metaplot (this is a general rule for me with most elfgames) and frankly I'd be ditching very very large chunks of the setting. Ashen Stars is literally what you want here.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:25
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Chaotic Neutral posted:Looks like what we needed last edition. It's outsourced, so it'll actually be done this time.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:27
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S.J. posted:It's outsourced, so it'll actually be done this time. Wasn't 4E's virtual tabletop also being programmed by a contractor?
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Jun 13, 2014 01:34
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Plague of Hats posted:Wasn't 4E's virtual tabletop also being programmed by a contractor? Was it? I didn't think so, but I could be mis-remembering.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:34
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I think it was supposed to be but it wound up getting done in-house.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:46
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Evil Mastermind posted:I think it was supposed to be but it wound up getting done in-house. Pretty much this. They had outsourced it but the people they hired never delivered so they had to scramble and do it in house, with too few people with the wrong skills on a shoestring budget. Frankly, its amazing they managed to get any of it working.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:50
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None of the games I play right now are particularly crunchy enough that I've ever really felt the need for an app, but if I was playing something a little more math heavy I could definitely appreciate having something for the game. As it is most of us still have our tablets along for PDFs and such during the game anyway.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:51
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Personally I'd love a really good generic character sheet application. Even for Dungeon World having something easier to work with than a PDF would be really nice.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:52
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Plague of Hats posted:Wasn't 4E's virtual tabletop also being programmed by a contractor? And got derailed by a murder/suicide, yes.
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Jun 13, 2014 02:18
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palecur posted:Ashen Stars is literally what you want here. That's a Gumshoe game though.
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Jun 13, 2014 02:25
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:That's a Gumshoe game though. .. so? Gumshoe could definitely do an episodic bounty hunter type game.
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Jun 13, 2014 05:27
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I'm just not a fan of the system.
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Jun 13, 2014 05:54
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I'm just not a fan of the system. You're not the person that made the request, though.
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Jun 13, 2014 11:04
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Nope, but I was offering an opinion.
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Jun 13, 2014 18:29
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Sionak posted:.. so? Gumshoe could definitely do an episodic bounty hunter type game. Ashen Stars would be really good fit for an episodic bounty hunter game. The setting assumes the characters are freelancers who do a variety of tasks including tracking down criminals.
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Jun 13, 2014 20:21
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For folks with experience in Superhero RPGs, what can you tell about them, in terms of common tropes, game mechanics, and design pitfalls? I was thinking of designing a superhero homebrew thing, but I'd like to have good source material oh hand of what other people did. I've really only played Mutants & Masterminds, and read Marvel Heroic Role-Playing, but that's only a minor sampling of all the games out there. Champions, Wild Talents, Necessary Evil, Villains & Vigilantes, et cetera. Are there any you'd recommend checking out, any to avoid?
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Jun 14, 2014 00:06
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Libertad! posted:For folks with experience in Superhero RPGs, what can you tell about them, in terms of common tropes, game mechanics, and design pitfalls? I was thinking of designing a superhero homebrew thing, but I'd like to have good source material oh hand of what other people did. IMO, any game about superheroes is really easy to bog down in specifics. Hulk can lift X tons, but Thor can only lift Y, while Superman lifts X+Y. pretty soon you have a mess of mechanics that doesn't even accomplish what you set out to do, which is make super punch-mans who wear underwear on the outside. I think out of all the offerings so far, MHRPG does it best, it is more concerned with emulating the way comics actually read, rather than model specific powers or power levels. Contrast with Mutants&Masterminds and other crunch heavy systems, which are often the definition of a d20 peg trying to fit in a square hole. Honorable mention does go to the old Marvel FASERIP system, it was pretty fun even if we had no idea what in the actual gently caress was going on half the time. And one of our own in the ApocWorld thread is working on a PbtA supers game (Worlds in Peril) that looks to be really fuckin cool.
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Jun 14, 2014 00:26
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The Supercrew
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Jun 14, 2014 00:33
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I may be the biggest MHR fan on the forums but seriously Supercrew is the best capes game.
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Jun 14, 2014 00:35
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Mr. Maltose posted:I may be the biggest MHR fan on the forums but seriously Supercrew is the best capes game. Well, I hadn't heard of this before.
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Jun 14, 2014 00:36
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