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oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!




Windriders Of The Jagged Cliffs Part 8:
Yet More Living Stuff


Rhulhisti Artifacts

The Rhulhisti is the term for the "original" lifeshapers back in the Blue Age (the Rhul-Thaun being their descendants). These artifacts are life-shaped creations that are still around but no one knows how to make any more of them. You'd think they'd be placed in their own section, but instead they're crammed in here between Guardian creatures and industrial-grade life shaping. So this section is kind of a grab bag of weapons and other items.

All of these items are of exceptional ability compared to standard life-shaped items, because when you're descendants of an ancient civilization you only forget how to make the best stuff.

Darkcloak: More cloaks! Unlike the rest of the 'cloak series, this one is not self-explanatory. Neither is it actually a rhulhisti artifact. Darkcloaks are actually an accident where a living cloak has gained psionic abilities which it uses to defend its wearer, giving them a mental AC of 5. It apparently also grants a physical AC of 5...but whether this functions like armor, more like Bracers of Protection or what exactly is unclear. It's not entirely clear on whether or not the improved protection is a psionic effect or simply a result of the cloak being very tough.

Eyehand: Eyeballs that can be grafted onto your hands. You can only see through one set of your eyes at a time, making it mainly useful for things like peeking around corners. It features its own thick eyelid that'll protect it while you hold or carry things (because even the halflings are smarter than the 10-Eyed Man).

Eyestalk This performs more or less the same function as the Eyehand, just more disturbingly and you can do it while holding things. Downside, it needs to replace one of your eyes. Fitting in the eyeball the eyestalk passes inspection as a normal eye 75% of the time but comes with an extendable, prehensile 1' long stalk.


Yep, I'm sure no one will notice

Life Leech Sword: This is a functional short sword, on top of the normal short sword damage it also functions the same as the life-leech mentioned in the weapons section: +1d12 damage on the first hit as it rapidly absorbs water and nutrients, then +1d6 on each hit afterwards because of a sedative. Why would your weapon inject your opponent with a sedative whose only function appears to be making your attacks less effective? I could kind of buy it with the life leech because that never seemed like it was intended as a weapon in the first place but this one clearly is. Oh well, either way its pretty impressive for a life-shaped weapon since that bonus damage is added on top of the regular short sword damage.



Lightning Generator This large pod builds up a store of static electricity within specialized organs and can release it as a 6d6 Lightning Bolt equivalent. The bolt is shot from a wand connected by an organic cord to the main body of the creature. The generator produces a new "charge" every 15 minutes but can only charge up if left still: transporting it ruins the recharge. Hung from a soar whale it can be moved, but even then has a 25% chance to ruin a given recharging period.

Mimicskin Like sheath armor this is a paste that must be spread upon the wearer. Once applied it responds to mental commands, reshaping the wearer's outward appearance just like the alter self spell. It can make you appear larger by inflating itself but can't (obviously) make you any smaller.

Overmind: No, its not a supervillian. This is a giant artificial brain. A life shaped computer. It's an 8 foot diameter tissue wad with a single ear and a halfling sized mouth (apparently no one thought it would ever be useful to show it anything). The Overmind is not sentient in the standard sense: it has no free will or desires and exists only to be provided information then asked for a solution or make a decision. Because of its extensive store of knowledge and massive braininess it can come to a "correct" decision 75% of the time. Only one Overmind is known to still exist (presumably it is in thamasku although this is never stated).

Recorder: Another life-shaped artifact with only one remaining copy (known as the Dal-erat, the word of the people). The recorder is a cube capable of recording and replaying sound, with each face of the cube capable of storing 10 minutes of audio. The current recording contains a message from an ancient and unknown High Lord regarding the value of life, and has never been recorded over.

Senselink: An organic cord about 3 feet long that can connect two living beings by their brains. While connected the senselink allows the sharing of sense memories (so you can't "talk" back and forth, just share things like sights and sounds). Its not clear if this only works on willing creatures.

The Womb: This is the most ancient, mysterious and important of the rhulhisti artifacts. The Womb is a creature whose body fills a 100 foot chamber in the Thamasku sanctuary. It is used as part of the initiation for new Life Shapers who are dropped into the womb and moved throughout its inner organs. Those who are accepted by the womb come out conscious (but with all memory missing of the experience) those who are not are spit out unconscious or dead. The unconscious ones are nursed back to health and rejected from the life shapers. The shapers see the womb as a way of testing whether the "forces of life" accept a new shaper...of course they have no actual idea what the function of the Womb is at all, it could be a faulty industrial plumbing device for all they know.



Engines

These are large life-shaped creatures intended to perform "industrial" scale work. They don't appear to be rhulhisti artifacts so presumably they can still be constructed.

Air Pump: Basically some lungs and some tubes. Air Pumps are normally used in underwater structures like the Thamasku Sanctuary or clearing the air in large structures that would otherwise get filled without foul odors or smoke.

Furnace: A round globe-shaped creature about 3 feet across which has an unusually high body heat (equivalent to several large roaring campfires) to provide warmth.

Motive Engine: A big lump of muscle with 1-4 arms that are pre-programed to engage in certain movements: used to run mills, pull pulleys or elevators or open big doors.

Water Pump : Like the air pump, but for water. Has several "trunks" that can be used to direct the flow of water (and which can also be attached to tubing to move it farther).



Grafts

A few grafts have already showed up among the rhulhisti artifacts, but these are the regular ones that can still be made. Grafts are life-shaped symbiotes designed to physically meld with other creatures supplementing or replacing their body parts. Since they can feed off nutrients from the host directly they don't need the same level of care as other life-shaped items (but do increase food and water intake by 10% per graft). Grafts can be removed, leaving only a slight rash that fades after 24 hours.

Cosmetic: These skin grafts are the rhul-thaun equivalent of piercings or tattoos. They don't impose any kind of burden on the host's system (no increase in food and water) and are mainly used for things like showing clan affiliation or membership in a guild or organization.

Glider Grafts: Snap-on wings that let you glide (not fly), traveling 100 feet for every 10 feet of height (requiring a minimum height of 30 feet to work at all).



Glow Grafts: Bioluminescent patches which shed light like a torch. The raver cousins to cosmetic skin grafts.

Lens Graft: Little scraps of tissues that attach directly to your eyes (remember that removing a graft leaves a rash? my eyes are watering just thinking about it). A pair of lenses grants you the ability to see twice as far while still being able to see close up equally well.

Lightvisor: Basically an organic graft that resembles Jordi's visor from star trek. This is basically a set of low-light goggles, allowing you to see in very dim lighting (but not complete darkness).

Swim Fins: Exactly what you're thinking of. A pair of webbed extensions that graft themselves to your feet and hands, increasing your water speed and endurance by 50%.

Touch Bad Grafts: set of pads that go on the fingertips and palm, increasing your sensitivity to touch, allowing you to do things like search for traps or pick locks with a +10% bonus.


Producers

For those who don't recall Producers is a term for life-shaped creatures who are engineered to produce organic, but non-living, products that are used by the halflings. They are the most important life-shaped creations as they produce the essentials for day-to-day life among the halflings. Two broad sets are presented:

Food Producers: There's plenty more but some examples are turtle-like egg-layers called baredum, Don-egoth which are small trees that produce sweet red fruits, Chuhn-egil which produce milk and vash-erat which sprout "grains" from their body which can be sheared and ground into flour.

Textile Producers: Another staple category. The drun-sahn are snakes which shed leather, fis-evar are herdbeasts grow long wool that can be spun into fabric. The ghov-erad secret a thin film that hardens and is used to make drycloaks (it seems like a type of plastic sheet essentially).


Medicine:

Although life-shaping, in general, isn't that amazing compared to what's possible with normal materials one area they excel at is medicine. They're still not as great as a templar, cleric or druid but the medical knowledge of the rhul-thaun is much broader and more easily applied to day-to-day life (for instance, they understand germ theory and sterilization). They also have a few medically specific life-shaped creations.

Bloodclot: A sort of living bandage. Its a 3 inch patch of flesh that when placed on a wound will meld with surrounding skin and flesh, sealing the wound and restoring 1 hp. Now, here's where it gets unclear "after 1d10 minutes the wound heals completely, leaving the bloodclot enmeshed in the patient's own flesh". Does that mean that a bloodclot can heal all the damage from a wound, or is that just flavor text. I guess we'll never know.

Detoxifiers: Miscroscopic life-shaped organisms suspended in a liquid medium. When drunk they'll search out toxins and neutralize them within 2d4 rounds. After finishing their task they're flushed from the system and die.

Healing Patch: Bloodclots of extra healing. These resemble bloodclots and function much the same, but they heal 1d8 damage rather than 1 (implying that the ambiguous text in bloodclots is just poorly worded fluff).

Joiner: A graft that'll actually reattach severed limbs. The joiner is a thin layer of tissue that should be placed over the open stump of the missing limb and then the limb stuck on over it. The joiner holds them in place and facilitates the passage of nutrients back and forth and the rejoining of nerves and tissue. This isn't simple though, for 2d6 days the patient absolutely cannot move or their arm will fall back off. The joiner has a 75% success rate (dropping to 50% if the attached limb did not belong to the original patient).

Preservation Fluid:: An organic soup that prevents tissues from decaying. Mainly used to hold severed limbs for the joiner but could also be used to store damaged life-shaped creations or corpses for funerals.


Care and Maintenance of Life Shaped Creations:

Here we get a bit of info on the care of life-shaped creatures. First, we're told that they don't eat or drink normally. All living life-shaped objects subsist on cam-rahn, a nutrient solution which provides them food and water in one, and all require one "dose" of cam-rahn per HD per day (no guidelines are given on how much a "dose" actually is). Grafts are an exception, unless they are unattached. They are capable of breathing on their own. A life-shaped creature will die in 2-5 days if not fed its daily broth, and a tissue will die in 2-3 days.

We're also told that life-shaped creatures need rest as well, resting at least as much time as they spend working and no single creature can work for more than 24 hours straight. So an engine that spends 8 hours grinding, pumping or pushing needs at least 8 hours of rest. If this is violated then they lose 1d4 hit points every 4 hours of additional work.

Life-shaped tissues also must be submerged in a organic solution called lor-rahn (at least 30 minutes every 24 hours) and if they are not then there is a 20% cumulative chance that it will wither and die.

Life shaped (except the rhulhisti artifacts) have a limited lifespan, dying in 3d4 years for creatures, 1d2 years for tissues.


So, let's just summarize what a pain a life-shaped item can be. Let's take a fun item like the Warstaff. The warstaff is a 4 HD tissue. Here's a rundown on what you need to keep in mind with it:
  • The staff loses 1 HP every time it is used to attack or every time you are attacked. It heals 1 hp per day.
  • The staff has a 1% chance per week of becoming infected (-2 to hit while sick). If it gets infected there is a 10% chance that this will kill it.
  • You must supply it with 4 "doses" of cam-rahn per day (a cost of 1 ge per dose...meaning this weapon costs 120 ge per month, almost the same as its purchase price of 150 ge). If not fed it'll die in 2-3 days.
  • You must immerse it in a bath of lor-rahn for 30 minutes every 24 hours. Keep in mind that the warstaff is a 5 foot long pole, so imagine what kind of container you'll need in order to submerge it. Now imagine lugging that container around with you if you're traveling. If you skip a day it has a 1-in-5 chance of dying and will die for certain within 5 days.

Boy, life-shaping really seems worth it. Now, imagine doing that for half of your inventory.


Magic and the Life Shaped

Next we've got guidelines for how magic interacts with life-shaped creatures. The obvious is of course that, as living creatures, life-shaped creatures or tissues can take damage from harmful spells, be healed by healing spells, etc. The main purpose of the list is to provide guidelines on weirder spells. Any spell that affects plants or animals has a 50/50 chance of affecting a life-shaped being, as they are composites of both.

  • Animate Dead: You can reanimate life-shaped creatures, as a rule they're half as strong, effective or fast as a living one.
  • Animate Objects: This works on the life-shaped, even living ones (except presumably already animated ones life guardians or mounts).
  • Clone: You can clone life-shaped creations and they don't suffer the normal problems of multiple active clones.
  • Enchant an item: Apparently you can enchant life-shaped weapons and armor.
  • Forget: Simply causes a life-shaped creature to shut down for 1d8 rounds.
  • Grease: can be used to cause grafts to slide off the subject if they fail a save.
  • Haste: works on the lifeshaped. It claims it helps with things like Flashlances as well...but its not clear how.
  • Major/Minor Creation: Can create life-shaped organic products but not living ones and only if the caster is very familiar with the particular product.
  • Ottos Irresistable Dance: Can affect creatures, causing them to be useless for the duration.
  • Plant/Animal growth: 50% chance to work but otherwise functionally doubles the object's size. Although it notes that this generally doesn't improve it (although I guess you could make weapons bigger).
  • Polymorph Other: Can polymorph living life-shaped beings, a caster very familiar with a life-shaped being can polymorph something else into one as well.
  • Raise Dead: can restore life shaped beings.
  • Ray of Enfeeblement: can weaken life-shaped weapons and armor. weapons suffer -2 to hit and -1/die to damage, armor suffers a 2 point AC penalty.
  • Regenerate: repairs life-shaped beings as well. The reverse kills them.
  • Reincarnation: no effect
  • Restoration: the normal restoration spell has no effect, but the reverse kills the creature.
  • Sleep: makes a life-shaped creation limp and useless for 1d6 rounds.
  • Speak with animals/plants/monsters: no effect, even on mounts or guardians. Life-shaped artifacts with sentience may be affected at the GM's option.
  • Flesh To Stone: works normally as does the reverse.
  • Stoneskin: works on life-shaped creations.
  • Strength: improves life-shaped objects. Weapons get +1 to hit and damage, armor gets 1 point better in AC.
  • Transmute water to dust: instantly kills life-shaped creatures.


Other Races

A bit of general info that got skipped along the way. Although the halflings have minimal contact with anyone else there are a few other sentient species they've interacted with, including some that live only in the Jagged Cliffs region.

Pterrans: Dino-men who also dwell in some parts of the jagged cliffs who ride domesticated pterraxs (pterodactyls). They're not evil, but they are territorial and don't have much in common with the halflings culturally. There's been blood shed between them and the halflings and it doesn't look like they're going to sit down and chill together any time soon. One big bone of contention is that the Pterrans like stealing life-shaped creations and using them...but since they don't have the knowledge or supplies to feed and maintain them the creatures or objects will die quickly. This pisses the rhul-thaun off to no end and there have been suggestions as to the possibility of going to all out war with the pterrans.

Pyreen: The Pyreen of the Jagged Cliffs region are almost as blindly traditionlistic as the halflings. You see the Pyreen know the history of the rhul-thaun and see them as the last remnants of Athas' history, and thus they seek to preserve them. On the one hand they're the reasons the halflings haven't faced raiders, nomads or outsiders from the East and they've often served as invisible protectors of the halfling way of life. On the other hand they're also just letting the halflings squat above the poison swamp as the skills and abilities essential to their survival fade from memory and more and more ancient techniques are lost every generation. Given that the pyreen are, effectively, immortal and much, much smarter than the halflings they could certainly make themselves useful by helping to preserve their life-shaping skills, teaching the halflings to master psionics and even helping to spread the knowledge and techniques of life-shaping to other parts of Athas where such skills would be vital for restoring the world's shattered ecosystem.

But no, they'll just stay on top of the cliffs, keeping anyone from reaching the halflings from that side while the rhul-thaun are slowly killed by mutations from below and thri-kreen from the west.

Thri-Kreen: Thri-kreen are the halfling's greatest enemies. Not the nomadic, hunting obsessed thri-kreen of the Tyr region...the thri-kreen to the west of the Jagged Cliffs are an expansionist empire whose desire for conquest is stymied only by the barrier of the Jagged Cliffs. As far as the halflings are concerned the Thri-kreen are not a part of nature and should be exterminated for the sake of all other living things...of course they don't have anything like the resources needed to challenge the thri-kreen empire and can only hold their own, aided by the natural barrier of the cliffs. Better hope no PCs from the east come with a Kreen in the party.

To make matters worse the Thri-kreen have their own version of life shaping, its just instead of breeding other creatures and objects, they alter their own biology: adapting their soldiers to the conditions of the swamp, to make them tougher, stronger, better climbers, etc. Each new generation of thri-kreen is harder to fight off than the old one. And unlike halflings, the thri-kreen are making new techniques while the life-shapers lose them.

Reggelids: This is a species that lives only in the swamps at the base of the Jagged Cliffs. They resemble ugly, elongated elves with an extra finger on each hand. No one knows their origin, even they don't know because they simply seem to have no desire to pass down or preserve their own history. The only thing that they care about is arcane magic, which they are very good at. All reggelids are wizards or fighter/wizards, born with magical abilities from the effects of the swamp and increasing in power as they get older. They have an innate talent with magic items, having a 75% chance to increase the effect of any magic item they use by 25% (rounded up).

They live in simple huts, not because they lack the ability to make better conditions, but because they simply don't care to bother. Magical lore is inscribed on stone tablets and is the only thing that reggelids care about. They have little in the way of culture but never come into conflict with each other: they instantly defer to whoever is more magically adept or skilled (even marginally) and never fight and always seek to share knowledge among themselves.

They also have an odd hatred of halflings in general and life-shaped objects in particular. They've even developed a spell (Organic Disruption) specifically to kill the life-shaped. It's a 10 ft radius AoE which is a save-or-die to all life-shaped as well as any non-living organic matter. Non-life-shaped creatures take 2d6 damage (save for half).



Bvanen: Despite their appearance, Bvanen are good aligned swamp-monsters. They're amphibious and live in the swamps at the base of the cliffs. Despite being good aligned they are a bit distrustful and this often leads to otherwise avoidable conflicts, especially since they look like monsters. They secrete an ooze from their skin which hardens into a protective shell and can be splashed with a claw attack to cover an opponent's limbs in hardened resin, rendering them useless. It also seals the bvanen's wounds immediately, making them immune to bleeding and just plain reduces all damage by 1.

About 1-in-6 Bvanen are decent psionicists.



Next update should be the last, with the intro adventure " Into The Swamp "

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Crasical
Apr 22, 2014

GG!*
*GET GOOD

Alien Rope Burn posted:


Of course, the real reason was "Steve Jackson got frustrated in traffic and thought he'd really like to shoot other drivers"

Austin traffic is pretty much The Worst, so.

Crasical fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Apr 1, 2016

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

Alien Rope Burn posted:


Of course, the real reason was "Steve Jackson got frustrated in traffic and thought he'd really like to shoot other drivers",

Also a short story by Alan Dean Foster called 'Why Johnny Can't Speed' and the original Roger Corman/Paul Bartel movie Deathrace 2000

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



This life shaping thing sounds like a poo poo show, unless the idea is "for all of its bullshit and hassle, this stuff is as good as that metal weaponry that essentially no longer exists, and is more valuable as scrap metal if you find it. Also, they're still making more life-shaped poo poo."

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!


Nessus posted:

This life shaping thing sounds like a poo poo show, unless the idea is "for all of its bullshit and hassle, this stuff is as good as that metal weaponry that essentially no longer exists, and is more valuable as scrap metal if you find it. Also, they're still making more life-shaped poo poo."

Life-shaping is one of those things that is immensely powerful and valuable...for poo poo the PCs will absolutely not care about. Even if they were rhul-thaun.

The things life-shaping does great at is providing a good average standard of living, top class medical treatment (at a healer, not in the field) and providing amenities and luxuries no one else on the planet has. The average rhul-thaun lives like a king as far as the rest of the world is concerned, even better than hidden paradises like Saragar. Their homes are sturdy and clean, water and food are plentiful. They likely have access to the equivalent of indoor plumbing. If they get sick they can go to see a healer who actually knows how to treat them. Goods can be moved between settlements with speed and safety (relatively speaking). But who cares if halflings don't have to poo poo in a corner, because who delves into that in their games anyway?

But the actual stuff that adventurers care about (weapons, armor, utility grafts, etc) are largely not worth the trouble. Life-shaped weapons like Warstaffs and Hurling Titan are deadlier than average halfling sized weapons but the average increase of 1 point of damage isn't worth the extra trouble. Your armor reduces your damage a lot but it'll probably die after your first fight or two. There's a few neat items (the air burster, spore pods, etc) which are useful tools but even then you've got to go through a lot of trouble keeping them alive and its practically impossible to travel with them.

As far as metal-equivalent weaponry that's actually not addressed very well. The implication is that the halfling's organic weapons are the equivalent of metal...but its never actually stated. It's quite possible that their standard equipment is only as good as bone or wood (after all it is organic). The actual living weapons like the armblade and such are presumably at no penalty...but again this is never stated and even if they were then the hassle of dealing with them isn't worth it.

And of course, the whole thing only works because of just how isolated the rhul-thaun are. They don't have any magical items or much in the way of magic to speak of. Even in Athas magical equipment is relatively common (not as much as forgotten realms, but your average mid-level adventurer will be toting around magic gear for sure) and the feats of a good priest, wizard or psionicist put the powers of life-shaped items to shame.

And of course the rhul-thaun could do so much more with their life-shaping abilities if they just moved on with the times and didn't insist on living in horrible cliff villages. One of the main reasons that the thri-kreen empire is actually beating the life-shaping masters at the art of life-shaping is because they didn't dismiss psychic powers as somehow "beneath them". Just imagine what the rhul-thaun could do if they were willing to harness psionics.

oriongates fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Apr 1, 2016

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?


Spring: The Henge

The PCs in GSS are all henge - animals with the power to take human form. Henge still live chiefly as animals, totally lacking in things like housing, money, cell phones or family registries. They get their food as animals, and appear fully clothed when transforming, so they don't rely on human society for any of their actual needs.

Henge human forms aren't perfect. They retain their animal instincts in some ways, and sometimes their ears and tails are still visible. It's not like it's a huge secret, though - most of the older residents of town know about the henge, and will pretend they didn't see your bigger slip-ups. Henge can speak like humans, even in animal form.

Why do henge have these powers? It's just something that happens. Maybe all animals can do it, most just don't bother. Don't worry about it.

Humans, Animals & Local Gods
There are about ten thousand humans living in this part of the countryside, enough that nobody knows everybody else. This means a henge can walk around in human form, and nobody will necessarily recognize them as an outsider to the community. There are lots of other animals, too - henge can talk to animals, but only if they're the same species. Regular animals are usually busy just trying to get by, but you might as well say hi regardless.

In addition to humans and animals, there are gods in the country. They're not unlike henge, but each has their own territory, and never leaves it. Pond gods, forest gods, river gods, and mountain gods usually take animal forms like the henge do, but seldom the furry kind - fish, spiders, snakes, trees, and so forth. They can be a bit powerful, but they're also stubborn and eccentric, which can make them hard to talk to. They have no interest whatsoever in what goes on beyond their own territory.

The Narrator
The GM. Like in most Japanese RPGs, the Narrator's role is described as strict and decisive - what they say goes, period. The English version has a sidebar encouraging you to, if you want to, split up the responsibility a bit, asking players for suggestions and taking votes on things and so forth. The book suggests rotating narrators occasionally, just to keep things fresh. It's a very episodic game, after all.

That's enough stage-setting for now, time to meet our playable henge types! Over the next few pages, six sample characters give their introductions - all the sample characters are girls, but the book does specify that boy henge are fine, too.

Fox Henge



Suzune Hachiman is a fox, over 300 years old (10 as a human). Younger henge say she dresses weird and is conceited, but don't listen to them.

Fox henge live far longer than any other type, and are closer to the local gods. Some of them have shrines dedicated to them, but are bad at mundane tasks better suited to more 'common' henge. They take pride in their beauty both as animals and as humans, but often live in sad isolation. They are often seen wearing strange, outdated clothing, and speaking in old-fashioned ways. There are many stories about humans being seduced by crafty, alluring foxes.

Foxes as animals seldom show themselves to humans, seeking prey in their territory and protecting their families. Many have learned to eat from the offerings at their shrines, but none forget the heart of a hunter. Their dens are complex mazes of escape routes and dead ends.

Raccoon Dog Henge



Riko is a raccoon dog, age 3 (13 as a human). She's been transforming for over a year, so she's practically a veteran.

Raccoon dog henge are masters of transformation. They can change into things other than humans, or even imitate someone they know. They can turn leaves into money, but would obviously never do anything bad with these powers. Most of them wear glasses, since raccoon dogs have dark circles around their eyes. They're often seen with thick clothing and tend to be a bit more heavyset in human form than most henge. There are tales of older raccoon dogs, over a hundred years old, who drink booze and emit wisdom.

Raccoon dogs as animals, also called tanuki, look kind of like raccoons, but aren't. They have shorter tails, and are fluffier and more plump. They live in thickets and dens or under old houses, but don't really care about territory. They're good at climbing trees, and like to eat persimmons. Of all the animals that typically become henge, they're probably the slowest.

Cat Henge



Kuromu is a cat, age 15 (15 as a human). She considers herself an adult, but people say she's selfish and can't swim. Of course, yeah, she's a cat.

Cat henge are a lot like cats - they just do whatever they want. They might help people they like, and they might not help people they don't like. They have a lot of fussy likes and dislikes, and their tail betrays their emotions. There are myths about monstrous two-tailed cat monsters, black cats bringing bad luck, and cats as evil familiars, but they're all not true. Ask any cat.

Cats as animals come in a huge variety of sizes and shapes. People keep them as pets, but they don't think of themselves as pets - they just do whatever they feel like doing. They have fur in a wide variety of colors (Kuromu's is black), and are just about the only animals that can purr.

Next: The other three henge types, and a story.

EverettLO
Jul 2, 2007
I'm a lurker no more


B-1 Code of Bushido Part 3

And here we move into the endgame, the last adventures in the Code of Bushido book and the John Wick-est early L5R adventure I can think of. Let’s read from the intro text:



Having read Play Dirty, that throws up some red flags. The adventure is about as bare bones as you can possibly get. Shortly after the conclusion of the murder mystery Yoroshiku is kidnapped. A note is left behind, ostensibly by Niban, saying that he will marry her and claim his place among honorable samurai. The book suggests that your players should notice that this goes against what they know of Niban. Maybe? The odds are pretty good that your players have had no contact with Niban since the first adventure and only know him as the ronin who negotiated with them for the scrolls. Expecting them to know more about his character is a long shot.

For no clear reason the Phoenix who are hosting Winter Court are reluctant to get involved in resolving the kidnapping, so the issue falls into the lap of Shinjo Gidayu. He was the daimyo from the first adventure who got the PCs to guard the scrolls and also left Shinjo Iruko as the PCs’ bodyguard. It’s assumed that Iruko has made herself friendly toward the PCs and has shown romantic feelings toward one of them. Gidayu uses this as leverage in implies that he will let her marry if they resolve the kidnapping reasonably.

Well, the PCs know who kidnapped the princess and where he is since they’ve been to his village before, so off they go. They get there and find Niban in an agitated state. Why? Well, it turns out that he’s been set up. His own lieutenant, a ronin woman named Tobuko, feels that he’s gotten too complacent. For the last two years Niban has been acting as a petty lord over the Village of the Nightingale. Growing crops, dealing with peasants, and collecting taxes. She thinks it’s boring and wants to get back to the exciting parts of ronin life one way or the other. She also knows something about Niban’s backstory.

It turns out Niban was once Shinjo Niban, and was second in command to Shinjo Gidayu. It turns out that Shinjo Gidayu is a lovely person and got into an affair with an Imperial woman named Otomo Jiko and accidentally got her pregnant. She claimed the baby was her husbands and that baby grew up to be Otomo Yoroshiku. Shinjo Niban found out about the baby and the affair and was so horrified that his master has polluted the Imperial line that he threatened to report it. Gidayu ordered him to commit seppuku. Instead Niban ran away and became a bitter ronin. Remember in the first adventure when Gidayu said “I have no karo.”? No? Your PCs probably don’t, either, and that’s assuming they even asked.

Niban’s lieutenant set him up by kidnapping Yoroshiku, hiding her in the village and leaving the note, and then telling him that an armed band was coming from Phoenix lands and letting his natural paranoia take over. He doesn’t know that Yoroshiku is tied up in a hut in his village and if she is found he will just double down on thinking the PCs set him up to kill him.



If the PCs do just ride up ready to kill then they’re met with dozens of ronin in hiding and will die quickly. If they come to the village ready to talk, Niban will talk. He’s a tough man to convince, though. It seems that much of this adventure was a set up for this moment – a chance for John Wick to tear into the idea of honor and how foolish it is. The second that Yoroshiku’s name is dropped, Tobuko feigns ignorance and sends some ronin to look for the princess. According to the adventure, you have exactly 15 seconds to debate Niban about why he should give himself up. If they bring up honor, loyalty, or bushido, Niban has some pre-scripted responses showing how stupid and hypocritical the PCs are for following any of it. When 15 seconds has passed, the ronin find Yoroshiku in the hut. It pretty well breaks Niban’s mind and he grabs her, puts a knife to her throat, and lets the PCs attempt to talk him out of it. He also spills the beans on Yoroshiku’s parentage since that's his main goal.

Now we get our thrilling climax:






That’s pretty much how it goes. It has a lot of Wickisms built into it. It conflates player action with character action, it minimizes the character’s agency, and totally ignores the system the game is built on in favor of whatever John Wick wants to happen. All of it is there to force your characters into a situation where trying to be honorable is a bad choice and following bushido is a mistake that leads to bad outcomes. If I had to describe Play Dirty era John Wick’s GMing style in a nutshell, it would be that scene. It specifically annoys me because who cares if he’s a 38 year old samurai with experience killing? You have samurai, too, and they probably have their weapons already drawn. The man isn’t magic.

Anyway, if Yoroshiku survives she demands that the PCs kill Tobuko for kidnapping her. They’re still grossly outnumbered and will probably want to find a more diplomatic solution. If they get out alive with Yoroshiku, she demands they shut their mouths about her parentage. It’s probably a good idea that they do, too, since they’ll be implicating a scandal against Yoroshiku and Gidayu, both of whom are likely to be far higher in social status. Unless they are Emerald Magistrates (the Rokugani FBI) they probably don’t have the standing to make such an accusation stick. If they try it, Gidayu demands a duel for his honor and sends Shinjo Iruko to fight in his place. Presumably at this point she is well liked by the party and to win would mean her death. To lose would mean the death of the dueling PC and utter dishonor of all the rest. Wick has effectively tied up the scenario in a way to show how honor and the way of the warrior is a sham abused by the powerful to control their underlings. Basically your PCs probably sit on the knowledge and let the real criminals get away with it. It’s a really strange point to make in a game where honor is a stat and high honor has obvious benefits. I can see this being a decent point if this was the real world, but in the world of Rokugan honor is ridiculously important and Wick’s point goes totally against the spirit of the game.

And that’s the end. If your players tried to do the right thing, at best they now have a mixed reputation. At worst they’re dead or disgraced and have made powerful enemies. Why did you try to do the honorable thing, Lion Clan samurai who has been raised on honor your whole life?

That’s the end of the adventure. There is also a short bit of history and mechanics on the Mantis Clan shoehorned in awkwardly at the end of the book. It was their first real appearance in the RPG. It includes their 3 rank bushi school and is basically reprinted in The Way of the Minor Clans. Not too interesting to talk about, though.


If you ever wondered why people love the Mantis, this is the first ever image of them from the RPG.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Alright, folks, it's been a couple weeks but it's time for more Ironclaw: Squaring the Circle

Last time, we covered how to beat the hell out of people. Next comes Experience. Why Experience is covered before magic, I couldn't tell you. Experience in Ironclaw is fairly simple. You get 1 EXP per 'chapter' (a chapter is a scene, really. If you move from a fight to a negotiation that's a chapter switch), plus one for living up to your character's motto (honestly I just always give this point to my players because I hate, hate, hate 'roleplaying awards'.) and if you accomplished a Goal during this session, you get the Gift it promised for free. Goals are a big part of advancement, as well as a big way to tell the GM what you want to do. Goals are a great way to pick up social gifts like status, wealth, etc to represent the PCs becoming more important and successful, but they can also grab you other things like increased Career or Species, etc. You can also turn down the Goal gift for a free 5 EXP to spend.

Similarly, you can cash in Gifts you don't feel are working or that you feel your character has grown out of for 5 EXP towards a new skill or gift. So, say you're a warrior who gives up his old profession to settle down and become a diplomat and politician in his old age. You could cash in some of your fighting Gifts to pick up skillpoints in other talents more suited to what you're doing now. Similarly, a scholar who finds herself drafted and forced into the army may choose to lose some of her old academic concerns to pick up the skills to survive. In theory, retraining allows for a lot of flexibility, but I dislike that it's always done at a loss of half of the EXP you put into the skills/gifts as it is. I understand the desire not to let PCs radically shift their concept at the drop of a hat, but that seems like it could be more easily dealt with by limiting how many Gifts/Skills per session you can retrain rather than taking half the resources you already invested.

As for EXP costs, raising a skill costs 4, gaining a Gift 10, and picking a new Favorite Use for a skill (the situation where you get to reroll one 1) costs 1. In general, you'll be getting 5 EXP a session. This means a PC can always buy 1 skill after one session or save up two for a Gift, which has let players advance at a decent clip. I appreciate experience being relatively simple, and the flat costs also mean the designers didn't have to worry about assigning exact points costs to everything like they did in the original system, which let them standardize their idea of what was worth a Gift. Experience and character development are significantly improved from the much messier 1st edition.

A little short, I know, but I'm actually glad they made PC advancement relatively simple and streamlined. Next time, do you believe in magic? Or how because it acts like any other skill (there's no special, inborn gift for magic beyond having some mental discipline and being able to read) the printing press and new printed textbooks and 'modern' universities are leading to a major proliferation of the ability to throw fire at people?

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

7th Sea! on today's System Mastery! With that heady mix of excellent game design and weird rear end in a top hat game designer. This was a really fun one.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I have to ask, honestly: What is good in 7th Sea's design? The entire Roll and Keep system and the 'get more actions for more Panache' ended up heavily overpowering Panache and Finesse when I played.

unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.
Also bennie points for die rolls that you have to spend as XP which is terrible.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Don't forget the enormous mess of the initiative dice and how they interact with active defenses.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

ProfessorProf posted:

Raccoon Dog Henge



Riko is a raccoon dog, age 3 (13 as a human). She's been transforming for over a year, so she's practically a veteran.

Raccoon dog henge are masters of transformation. They can change into things other than humans, or even imitate someone they know. They can turn leaves into money, but would obviously never do anything bad with these powers. Most of them wear glasses, since raccoon dogs have dark circles around their eyes. They're often seen with thick clothing and tend to be a bit more heavyset in human form than most henge. There are tales of older raccoon dogs, over a hundred years old, who drink booze and emit wisdom.

Raccoon dogs as animals, also called tanuki, look kind of like raccoons, but aren't. They have shorter tails, and are fluffier and more plump. They live in thickets and dens or under old houses, but don't really care about territory. They're good at climbing trees, and like to eat persimmons. Of all the animals that typically become henge, they're probably the slowest.

I'm a little disappointed that they leave out the tanuki's more memorable attribute, but, given that the example characters are fairly young, I guess they didn't want to bring up the enormous size of their genitals in something like this.

Ixjuvin
Aug 8, 2009

if smug was a motorcycle, it just jumped over a fucking canyon
Nap Ghost

theironjef posted:

7th Sea! on today's System Mastery! With that heady mix of excellent game design and weird rear end in a top hat game designer. This was a really fun one.

What... just happened? I got about fifteen minutes into this episode and then woke up naked in a tub of ice. I'm posting this from a phone I found in a plastic bag next to me. Does this room even have any doors?

(holy poo poo the Campaign reference)

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

oriongates posted:

And of course the rhul-thaun could do so much more with their life-shaping abilities if they just moved on with the times and didn't insist on living in horrible cliff villages. One of the main reasons that the thri-kreen empire is actually beating the life-shaping masters at the art of life-shaping is because they didn't dismiss psychic powers as somehow "beneath them". Just imagine what the rhul-thaun could do if they were willing to harness psionics.

True. I am severely disappointed by the lack of halfings in Guyver suits.

Young Freud posted:

I'm a little disappointed that they leave out the tanuki's more memorable attribute, but, given that the example characters are fairly young, I guess they didn't want to bring up the enormous size of their genitals in something like this.

A bit weird, but you can just reflavor their monstrous form and size increase powers for that.

Kaza42
Oct 3, 2013

Blood and Souls and all that
Or you could not introduce giant magic genitals in a game aimed at children about whimsical adventures in the countryside

EverettLO
Jul 2, 2007
I'm a lurker no more


theironjef posted:

7th Sea! on today's System Mastery! With that heady mix of excellent game design and weird rear end in a top hat game designer. This was a really fun one.

drat, without the note at the end I never would have thought this was an April Fools thing. I figured you just hit your groove and kept moving.

Siivola
Dec 23, 2012

Kaza42 posted:

Or you could not introduce giant magic genitals in a game aimed at children about whimsical adventures in the countryside


Genitals are inherently whimsical. :colbert:

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

Also a short story by Alan Dean Foster called 'Why Johnny Can't Speed' and the original Roger Corman/Paul Bartel movie Deathrace 2000

drat your facts!



Part 2: Ancient History

So, let's talk about the past.



The 1990s :eng101:

Car Wars was designed in the '80s, so of course, it detailed a future at the time which is now a past we'll never know. It turns out oil dried up in the 1990s, somehow. Well, it seemed inevitable at the time. The US economy went to the pits, though that's nothing compared to (undetailed) collapse of many Middle Eastern countries. Meanwhile, Britain falls into a civil war sparked by Ireland, starting the "Irish War". Beirut is nuked by unnamed, faceless terrorists, which creates increased anti-terrorism policies from countries, largely of dubious efficacy. We also get the electric car early, as well as the discovery of crude virtual reality technology. The collapse of gas results in a rise in nuclear and solar power, as well as the refinement of the electric car. Australia develops a form of ethanol based on sugar cane, while the US military turns to grain alcohol for fuel. Aircraft and air travel become a massive luxury.

Death Sports

With the sensation springing up from the (seemingly accidental) death of a pro wrestler on live TV, a craze of "death sports" emerged in America where people risked or lost their lives. Due to public pressure, these sports were eventually legalized much later, but TV stations broadcast their exploits illegally for quite some time.

GURPS Autoduel posted:

Psychologists concluded that death sports helped their audiences cope with their own deepening frustrations - with the worsening economy, with tightening government control, with the overall stress of modern living - by viewing these murderous sports and an vicariously "murdering" every obstacle in their way.

For those now considering your own new exciting death sport, this is not psychologically accurate. I'm pretty sure it's not how catharsis works (if, indeed, it works at all.)



The 2000s :eng99:

This is a no-man's land of history that doesn't get much focus, but I'll cover what's important in the (shockingly detailed) timeline.

The year 2000 sees the biggest event in this time period, which is the American government attempting nationalize oil reserves. Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma secede, and the following Second Civil War quickly turns too costly for America to pursue. California threatens succession, but federal military occupation puts the skids on that. Utah secedes under conservative religious leadership to form the Republic of Deseret, and America lets them go, having no ability to effectively fight a third Civil War. The total collapse of Mexico attracts American cycle gangs, who migrate south to loot and pillage, at least until Mexican civilian militias start to beat them back. Shootout, a capture-the-flag event using guns, is aired on sports networks until the FBI shuts it down. "Combat football", using weapons, and full-contact basketball emerge as well. Deseret, after negotiations, agrees to rejoin the US as an "autonomous region". Mexican warlords then kick the cycle gangs back to America for the most part, and a few turn to raiding each other or Texas.

Science seems to march on despite national collapse. :crossarms: Virtual reality technology develops the ability to store (if not interpret) information from the brain, while mammal cloning is perfected at Harvard. A "tragic lab accident" discovers that information from brains can be gleaned after death, though only for short periods. The first human cloning in America quickly turns to a legal battle in which it is declared human clones have full rights, with the cloners having parental responsibilities over the created clones. Meanwhile, scientists learn to fast-grow cattle clones in half the time, a big leap for industrialized farming.

The Grain Blight

With the world already in or teetering on collapse, we have the final apocalyptic spark, which is the grain blight known more often as just "the Blight". A highly virulent virus of unknown infection methods, it quickly destroys grain crops in US and Russia, and then spreads to the rest of the world rapidly. Only Australia, which effectively closes its borders to prevent infection, remains untouched. US and Russia blame each other for the Blight, and thirty minutes of nuclear exchange are sparked. However, most of the ballistic nuclear weapons are nullified by satellite defense systems, and only a comparative handful of nukes land. After a small number of impacts and about thirty minutes, both countries go to talks to prevent further disaster. While processed foods that contain preservatives are immune to the Blight, things rapidly get worse worldwide as food reserves start to run down. As "Secession Fever" continues, Quebec secedes from Canada with a brief civil war there, and Ireland obtains its independence at the end of its long war with Britain.

We're up to around 2015-2016, our present day at this point.

Next: What the future holds.

Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Apr 1, 2016

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

Kaza42 posted:

Or you could not introduce giant magic genitals in a game aimed at children about whimsical adventures in the countryside

If Studio Ghibli can get away with it in Pom Poko, then giant magic genitals are officially whimsical for all ages.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Riko is a girl, you know. Gosh.

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Riko is a girl, you know. Gosh.

As are all pregens, but you can make dudes.

Spiderfist Island
Feb 19, 2011

No Runes were harmed in the making of this character.


In an unanimous landslide of one vote (thanks Josef Bugman), we’re going to take a little detour to roll up a new player character and look at how they’re created in RuneQuest 2E.


Intermission: Creating Goonalda of the Lowtaxanoli Clan

So, let’s see what the process is to make a character based on the steps outlined in Chapter II. As discussed previously, the only real point of decision that affects us mechanically is to choose our character’s fantasy race, and it’s implied that we should really, really just make a human character. So let’s do that, and roll 3d6 in order:
pre:
Name: Goonalda
Race: Human
Gender: Female

Characteristics:
	STR	9
	CON	13
	SIZ	17
	INT	13
	POW	16
	DEX	10
	CHA	11
Someone who is good at the economy help me with this. My healthy-at-any-size magical girl is dying.

Weird Twitter references aside, we have two other things we have to roll before we’re done with Goonalda’s random pre-game rolls: background and starting wealth in Lunars (silver coins).
pre:
Background: d100 - 13 - Peasant

Starting L: d100 - 86 L
So, Goonelda is a Peasant, but she does have a pretty big stash of metallic currency (which again, makes no sense for a Bronze Age-based fantasy universe unless it’s in the form of jewelry or something like that rather than actual coinage). So, Goonalda is a peasant with a lot of money, is not exactly strong or agile but is pretty healthy, has an… imposing physique, is above-average intelligence, has an incredibly high power level, and isn’t a remarkably good or bad people person. For a goon expy, this is probably as appropriate a stat array as we’d get without a 3 in CHA.



RuneQuest is the ultimate in realistic magical giant women simulation games.


But jokes aside, this is actually a very good long-term character to roll up. While our starting STR is just above the bracket where we start to get penalties to tasks, our CON is high enough to be at least an above-average survivor in combat. Where Goonalda really starts to shine is that we rolled a 17 for her Size– which, if we go to the Monsters section of RQ2E’s core book puts her at the average size of a Dark Troll. Mechanically, this sticks Goonalda right into the largest possible bracket of SIZ modifiers for a starting human character, and more importantly means that her STR and CON can be increased through training up to this bracket.

While her INT can’t be increased naturally, Goonelda is smart enough to get into the characteristic bracket where ability bonuses start to show up. For how much advancement seems to be predicated on a high intelligence score, it is a bit dumb for it to be one of the “you can never ever change this normally” stats (let alone that each stat is so randomly rolled and that a single stat determines how fast a character learns stuff). Another gameplay issue left behind by the Chaos God of Realism, I suppose.

Goonalda’s POW is just below the cutoff point to get a bunch of minor bonuses for a lot of abilities, but we can’t increase it any further through training. Goonalda’s DEX and CHA can be increased to 21 (the human maximum) through training in the case of DEX, and through Referee fiat and events in the case of CHA. Her average DEX and CHA don’t give her any special modifiers to any abilities.

So, what about her abilities? Goonalda’s high SIZ is unfortunately a detriment in most cases, but her INT helps to cushion these effects for most abilities. Goonalda does get a bonus to her attack damage, but otherwise her stat adjustments are mostly minor.
pre:
Abilities:
	Ability	Modifier	Breakdown
	Attack:		+5%	+0% STR, +5% INT, +0% POW, +0% DEX
	Parry:		-5%		+0% STR, -5% SIZ, +0% POW, +0% DEX
	Defense:	+0%		-5% SIZ, +5% INT, +0% POW, +0% DEX

	HP:		15		13 (CON score) + 2 (SIZ modifier)
	Dmg Bonus:	+1d4		Avg. of STR + SIZ is 13 (+1d4 dmg)

	Perception: 	+5%		+5% INT, +0% POW
	Stealth:	-5%		-10% SIZ, +5% INT, -0% POW, +0% DEX
	Manipulation:	+5%		+0% STR, +5% INT, +0% POW, +0% DEX
	Knowledge:	+5%		+5% INT, +0% POW
Combat-wise, Goonalda probably is going to not be too good at any fancy tricks but can probably smash someone’s face in pretty well with a club. Which she’ll have to buy during the game, because that’s not part of the starting gear for peasants. Along with the super-basic gear for all characters, Goonalda gets a few extra camping and trapping supplies for being a peasant.

Overall, Goonalda has an above-average set of stats with no major weaknesses, but needs some physical stat increases to really start to excel. Since we’ve only covered up to Chapter II, that’s all we can do with Goonalda for now. Once we get done with the other chapters dedicated to combat, magic, and noncombat skills we’ll probably revisit her and see exactly what a 16 POW will look like. For now, here’s her character sheet.
pre:
Name: Goonalda
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Culture: Theyalan / Orlanthi (Sartarite)
Clan: Lowtaxaroli

Characteristics:
	STR	9
	CON	13
	SIZ	17
	INT	13
	POW	16
	DEX	10
	CHA	11

Background: Peasant

Starting Money: 86 L

Abilities:
	Attack:		+5%
	Parry:		+0%
	Defense:	+0%

	HP:		15
	Dmg Bonus:	+1d4

	Perception: 	+5%
	Stealth:	-5%
	Manipulation:	+5%
	Knowledge:	+5%

Possible Characteristic Advancements:
	STR:	up to 17 (SIZ score)
	CON:	up to 17 (SIZ score)
	POW:	Magical advancement up to 21 (Racial Maximum)
	DEX:	up to 21 (Racial Maximum)
	CHA:	Referee Fiat up to 21 (Racial Maximum)

Equipment:
	Clothing
	Fire-making gear
	Snares
	Drinking skin
	Basic camp gear
	Torches


Next Time: Mechanics and Melee

Selachian
Oct 9, 2012

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

Also a short story by Alan Dean Foster called 'Why Johnny Can't Speed' and the original Roger Corman/Paul Bartel movie Deathrace 2000

"Not to mention Harlan Ellison's 'Along the Scenic Route,'" he pedanted. (If I recall correctly, some of the older Car Wars material also includes Combat Football from Norman Spinrad's "The National Pastime.")

Selachian fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Apr 1, 2016

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Selachian posted:

"Not to mention Harlan Ellison's 'Along the Scenic Route,'" he pedanted. (If I recall correctly, some of the older Car Wars material also includes Combat Football from Norman Spinrad's "The National Pastime.")

Well, that would explain why Combat Football is oft-referenced but never actually described.

Cthulhu Dreams
Dec 11, 2010

If I pretend to be Cthulhu no one will know I'm a baseball robot.

quote:

That’s pretty much how it goes. It has a lot of Wickisms built into it. It conflates player action with character action, it minimizes the character’s agency, and totally ignores the system the game is built on in favor of whatever John Wick wants to happen. All of it is there to force your characters into a situation where trying to be honorable is a bad choice and following bushido is a mistake that leads to bad outcomes. If I had to describe Play Dirty era John Wick’s GMing style in a nutshell, it would be that scene. It specifically annoys me because who cares if he’s a 38 year old samurai with experience killing? You have samurai, too, and they probably have their weapons already drawn. The man isn’t magic.

That is amazingly terrible. If that happened at the table I'd just leave never to return. What the hell?

Vox Valentine
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

Goonalda seems well suited for running a business like a tavern or a general store from a slouched posture in a chair and then rearing up to full Troll height whenever customers get snotty or rowdy.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

"He doesn't need to roll dice to do a thing, it just happens logically because he's X" is bullshit when the basic agreed upon framework of 'can I do X thing I'm trained to do' is 'Sure but there's this percentage of something going wrong.' as is. A PC would be in rights to say 'I iaijutsu the gently caress out of him because you don't come at a Crane Clan Duelist unarmed and not expect her to react' in response if that's the framework we're going with.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Haven't you hearing? GM fiat is the only legitimate fiat.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

Selachian posted:

"Not to mention Harlan Ellison's 'Along the Scenic Route,'" he pedanted. (If I recall correctly, some of the older Car Wars material also includes Combat Football from Norman Spinrad's "The National Pastime.")

And Gary K. Wolfe's 'Killerbowl' Wolfe also wrote 'Who Censored Roger Rabbit?'

RocknRollaAyatollah
Nov 26, 2008

Lipstick Apathy

How deadly is RQ 2E combat compared to modern CoC combat? I'm sure it's very similar but I feel like Goonalda has enough chin to take most non-impale attacks from normal human enemies.

EDIT:

It's really weird now looking at stuff from the 70's and 80's about death sports when people are talking about how American Football might not even exist in its current form in 20 years. It's very quickly being seen as being too dangerous with arguably safer conditions than in those periods.

RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Apr 2, 2016

goldjas
Feb 22, 2009

I HATE ALL FORMS OF FUN AND ENTERTAINMENT. I HATE BEAUTY. I AM GOLDJAS.

theironjef posted:

7th Sea! on today's System Mastery! With that heady mix of excellent game design and weird rear end in a top hat game designer. This was a really fun one.

I figured it was an aprils fool thing about 1/3 the way through or so, although I wouldn't mind hearing an actual review of this system since I have a few friends that play it and know basically nothing about it (except for, as you mention, the infamy of the person who made it).

Also, I'm running a 4E campaign right now with a player playing an Ardent and having a lot of fun with it, so that bit at the end brought a smile to my face.

NutritiousSnack
Jul 12, 2011
God I hate Wick, I want to do a review of City of Lies to get the taste of that out of my mouth.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



Does anybody ahve plans to review some of Wick's other adventures so we can see some of his biggest wick moves?

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib
Alien Rope Burn already reviewed Play Dirty which is like peak Wick, it's hard to top some of the stuff there.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



Yeah but I want to see specific things he did, that aren't stories of dubious provenance he's telling.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

goldjas posted:

I figured it was an aprils fool thing about 1/3 the way through or so, although I wouldn't mind hearing an actual review of this system since I have a few friends that play it and know basically nothing about it (except for, as you mention, the infamy of the person who made it).

Also, I'm running a 4E campaign right now with a player playing an Ardent and having a lot of fun with it, so that bit at the end brought a smile to my face.

For reals 7th Sea will be the next episode.

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?


Summer: Riko's Big Mistake

Dog Henge



Koro Tanaka is a dog, age 5 (12 as a human). She's clumsy, but honest, and her master just gave her a collar.

Dog henge are people people. Some have masters, some don't, but they all tend to like humans. Even the scary ones usually want to be your friend. A lot of other henge are afraid of dogs. Their ancestors were wolves, and some of the local gods up in the mountains are still that big and scary.

Dogs as animals come in as much variety as cats. They like going on walks, chase their tails, and have a tendency to pee on things. Some live in houses, some don't. I mean, you know what dogs are about.

Rabbit Henge



Amami is a rabbit, age less than a year (7 as a human). She's impatient, spoiled, and hates being alone.

Rabbit henge can make dreams come true. They can transform their friends and keep them healthy, and all get lonely easily. Their human clothing tends to have lots of unnecessary frills, and they don't eat meat. There are stories of a rabbit in the moon, making rice cakes all the time.

Rabbits as animals are small, cute, and come in various colors. Some rabbits have red eyes, generally white ones, but most wild rabbits have black eyes. They have powerful legs, which they use to relentlessly run around all day. They're not as big on carrots as people would have you believe.

Bird Henge



Sarah is a bird, not sure how old she is. She can cause a lot of trouble by accident, but she can also fly, so it balances out.

Bird henge understand the sky, the wind, and not much else. They tend to say weird things as humans, and forget things easily. They love to sing, and can't see worth beans in the dark. Bird henge with white wings can sometimes be confused with angels. Of course, they can fly.

Birds as animals come in lots of shapes and sizes, some domesticated but many wild. Flightless birds can become henge, too, but they aren't exactly common in this region. There are migratory birds, and migratory bird henge, who only show up in town for a little while before moving on. Of course, they can fly.



A sample story
There's a break here for a 5-page short story conveying what kind of stories will happen in this game. I won't cover the whole thing, but here's the gist:

Riko (the tanuki from the previous update) is chatting with Kuromu (the cat) on a path, when a human comes running down the path and trips over Riko. In her surprise, Kuromu accidentally talks out loud, and the boy panics. Riko transforms, the boy (Naoto) learns about the existence of henge. They talk for a while, before a second human, an older-looking girl, comes looking for him, and Naoto hides, leaving Riko alone to deal with her.

The new girl (Yuka) interrogates Riko about Naoto's whereabouts, and she does a terrible job of covering for him. It turns out, Naoto ran away for some reason, and Yuka's looking for him. Kuromu uses her powers as a cat to peek into Naoto's heart and get the details - they're friends, actually the same age. Someone in town said they looked like a big sister and little brother, because Yuka's so much taller than Naoto, which embarrassed him so much that he ran away.

Riko tries to get Yuka to not leave, and Yuka ends up accidentally knocks Riko over, and is immediately mortified. Riko calls her out for being a nice person after all, and insists that she try to talk things out with Naoto. The two friends face to face but unsure where to start, Kuromu turns back into a cat and nuzzles against Naoto's legs, sufficiently disarming his stubbornness enough for the two friends to go home together.

The next day, Naoto and Yuka return to the same spot with some rice balls and tuna for Riko and Kuromu. Everyone is friends. Good end.



Riko's Big Mistake, Part 1
A story told in four parts over the course of the book, highlighting various ideas. Part 1 goes as such:

quote:

Riko seems troubled.

Riko: Aaaah! Oh no! Oh no! This is terrible! (flustered)
Elder Turtle: Well, well. If it isn’t Miss Riko! What might have you so flustered?
Riko: Ohhh! Elder Turtle! Thank goodness you’re here, you know? I have a big problem!
Elder Turtle: Oh? Well, if you think an old man like me can help, ask away. Riko made a big mistake, you know?
Riko: Well, the thing is, this girl named Kikuna has to move away, you know?
Elder Turtle: Oh?
Riko: But, Kikuna, she said she doesn’t want to move away!
Elder Turtle: I see...
Riko: So, I went to see Kikuna’s dad to tell him they shouldn’t move...
Elder Turtle: I see...
Riko: So, I turned into a big monster, and said, “If you move away, I’ll eat you!”
Elder Turtle: Hohoho. Quite the stubborn one, you are.
Riko: But then, her dad fainted and she started crying... Ohhh, what should I do? (cries)

Riko learns about stories.

Elder Turtle: Well, let’s see. Even if one person sees something as unfortunate, someone else might not, or they might see it as truly horrible. Do you understand?
Riko: Yes. Like, Suzune is almost always okay no matter what happens, but if I eat her fried tofu she gets really, really mad, and then really calm, you know?
Elder Turtle: Hohoho, that’s true. Even when they’re talking about the same thing, different people make different stories.

Riko only saw what she had done.

Riko: Stories?
Elder Turtle: Yes. Even for the same events, people won’t always tell the same stories. How someone lives, their dreams, their connections, all of those things come together when they create stories.
Riko: It... It sounds really hard, you know?
Elder Turtle: Well, why did that child not want to move? Did you ask her that, Miss Raccoon Dog?
Riko: Oh my gosh! I didn’t ask her at all!
Elder Turtle: Miss Raccoon Dog. Getting rid of something painful might look easy, but... Turning a painful story into a happy one? That’s the most important thing. You mustn’t rush it.

Riko hurries, for the sake of a happy story.

Riko: Yes! I’m going to go ask Kikuna why right now! Elder Turtle, thank you so much, you know?
Elder Turtle: Hohoho, good luck making that girl’s story a happy one!



Next: Character Creation.

Tasoth
Dec 13, 2011
Now I almost wish the Australian flightless bird species could be found somewhere in Japan. An ostrich or rhea henge sounds fantastically odd.

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Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Tasoth posted:

Now I almost wish the Australian flightless bird species could be found somewhere in Japan. An ostrich or rhea henge sounds fantastically odd.

Nah, cassowary henge.

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