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Goggle Fox posted:
Ha ha! "Edits," he says. White Wolf has a very loose definition of "edit." They went for a good stretch a little back where you'd open a book to the credits and see "Editor: scribendi.com."
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 01:37 |
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| # ? Jun 19, 2013 14:25 |
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White Wolf Books got edited?
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 01:38 |
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Well it sure didn't look like they got edited. A lot of old world supplements had a "Page XX" outbreak in references and indexes for a while. I just thought it would have been worked out of their system by the mid-'00s. Since two of you mentioned this "scribendi" thing, I can only guess this company's method is to charge people so they can look at a thing, go "Yup, looks good," and toss it back without paying any attention to the material at all. I'm surprised this service even exists. Writers and publishers, get dedicated editors, please. Also, proofread your works among the other writers, in group projects. The alternative is looking like White Wolf.
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 01:42 |
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Daeren posted:Just so you guys know, The Dowager Of Someone Should Really Slap My poo poo For Having A Name So Long Good loving Lord (another reason I don't like Exalted) is a Deathlord who turns ten year old girls into Abyssals. That's right, I'd put her over these fucks. At least she didn't surprise sex her ki- Wait a moment, that means women could be challenged to the Lillun ordeal anAAARGH MY MIND HOW WOULD YOU EVEN I DON'T EVEN DAEREN WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME CAPSLOCKGIRL fucked around with this message at Jul 23, 2011 around 01:55 |
| # ? Jul 23, 2011 01:47 |
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Goggle Fox posted:Well it sure didn't look like they got edited. A lot of old world supplements had a "Page XX" outbreak in references and indexes for a while. I just thought it would have been worked out of their system by the mid-'00s. There's something secretly hilarious about how bad White Wolf indices are (and the way in which they have them made) but it's really only funny to people who've worked with desktop publishing software. Spoilered for boring: In any event: Eddy Webb, director of alternative publishing (or was for awhile, I think he got promoted recently?)---which is basically 'making PDFs of stuff instead of books' publishing---said they use InDesign to lay out their books. InDesign makes indexing a book as simple as Ctrl-F to find the first instance of a word in a chapter (assuming your freelancers don't indicate 'this is an important term' when sending in manuscript chapters) and then using a keyboard shortcut to add it to the book file's index, which makes it so that you can press 'Generate Index' and make the thing spit out the page number of every indexed term in the book in a neat alphabetized list. And all this can be done while laying out the book the very first time. However, White Wolf either uses outside indicers (who are expensive and charge by the page because they read your book then write an index by hand) or just ask one of their extant freelancers/product developers to just write it up for them, then slap it on the back end of the book and call it a day. Which means it's only accurate to the last time the book was slapped together, and assuming everything's perfect on draft one. Cross-references (the 'see Page XX' in text) are similarly handled, and InDesign can also handle them with similar ease. Long story short they hire outside people to do stuff that their in-house staff could and should do in the course of their typical layout. And then those outside people do an okay-at-best job.
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 02:50 |
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I think...that thing...might've just killed any faith I had left in White Wolf. That is the worst thing I have read on paper since the Ringo thread. Someone has to save that company from itself, or at least it's intellectual property, because it's clear they can't be trusted anymore.
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 03:09 |
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Changing Breeds Part IX: The Laughing Strangers The Laughing Strangers opens up with this masterpiece of bad "folksy" writing. quote:Dancing at the Crossroads As for the fluff...they're Kender. They're loving good-ol-boy rodent Kender. Tricksters, folksy down-home wisdom, spinning tales, going on retarded adventures, being douchebags that dance just out of reach, all of that. Also they're psychopathic sadists when in Warform. There's a lot of words to the writeup but I just saved you the effort of reading it. Here's their stereotype block: quote:Stereotypes Anyway, now for the breeds themselves. Apparently, the person they got to make art for this section watched a whole bunch of Rock and Rule while huffing a whole lot more glue. Let's play a game, shall we? I'll post all the images, and you guess what breed they are, which will be in a spoiler below each. See how many you can guess!  ---Rat---  Hare. Seriously.  Either raccoon or --fox--, it's between the two entries and it's really loving hard to tell!  Coyote If you got any of those I call you a liar and a cheat of the foulest kind. See, if this artist was going for the Uncanny Valley, then he hit a loving home run. However, I think he missed the memo that this was for shape-shifting animal people. These all look like Near-Human forms to be extremely generous, and only one of the breeds in the chapter starts with that by default. So, either he's drawing very lame depictions of PCs that may not even exist, or these are the most pathetically ineffectual Warforms I've ever seen. Anyway, the writeups proper. The Minjur are the rat-people, who are apparently all Indians used to being treated like royalty who look down on all the rest of the Laughing Strangers for being common rodents, due to Indians believing rats and rat-people to be the reincarnations of dead children. Right, let's just roll with that. Continuing in the fluff-without-mechanics, Minjur can never get lost and carry diseases in their warform without actually having backup for either of those. Minjur also set the stage for four of the six breeds in the chapter by having the breed bonus be "Nine Aspect dots, can pick from the Bag of Tricks aspects, and gets +2 to Stealth rolls to hide from creatures of Size 5 or above." The other two are only minor modifications of this. As the justification for the increased Aspect dots says, the Warforms for most of the Laughing Strangers are utterly pathetic wastes of mechanics that nobody's gonna use. The animal forms are all tiny, fragile, and ridiculously fast. The Baitu are hare-people, who apparently have zero characterization or relation to hares beyond "insatiable lover" and "ridiculously lucky" for some reason. They can make the impossible happen for other people, so long as they get their end of the bargain fulfilled, and wreak hell if not satisfied. Apparently, many legends of Satan and Loki have to do with loving rabbit people being douchebags. Just making this its own paragraph so it's noticed. They're all either albino or blacker than Norwegian death metal, and their Warform is more charitably described as "I'm cosplaying an elf" form," which actually means my theory about all the warforms being hilariously ineffectual looking was right and that picture really is what they look like. Welp. And then there's THIS bullshit. quote:Background: Baitu often manifest their Gift as early as five years old. Most So, let's break this down: - Baitu require payment in sex more often than not. - A married woman gets saddled with the kid. Apparently, no Baitu woman ever gets knocked up, or if they do, they stick them with the father and his wife because gently caress you that's why. - A normal woman could possibly give birth to a motherfucking rabbit (which is actually addressed earlier in the book, generally stating 'It's rare, it's horrifying, the mother usually doesn't live, and if she does, she's probably left insane'). - There's a disturbing implication that these people may broker luck deals to, and gently caress, normal rabbits. - Despite being transient drifters with no real attachment to people, they're perfect parents who loving KNOW when their kids are born and if they are so much as disciplined once they'll kill you. -I hate this book and I want everybody involved in making it to be slow roasted over a grease fire. Baitu have the same breed bonus as their ratty relatives, and the same speed bonus as Rat forms (despite their fluff boasting that their hare forms could run at 45 MPH, and no, I'm not doing that math again). However, they get Nine Lives, a five dot Favor, for free as a breed favor. Y'know, the one that brings you back from the dead as long as you have a spare dot of Feral Heart and your body is relatively intact. Yknow, the one that's based off cats in its fluff, and yet no Bastet breed starts with it, and only one has it as a discounted Favor at all. I'd like to reiterate that grease fire thing. Just saying. The Archunem are the raccoon-people and are curious, snarky, romantic bad boys that apparently look enough like bears in war-form that "most reports of bears near cities" are actually Archunem schooling people. They also have Nine Lives for free, with pretty much no justification. Their animal form is also better than their bear-esque warform in every way except health. There's so much wrong here that I want to strangle this book. I want to find this book's neck, wrap my hands around it, and choke it until it stops being alive. Then I'm going to peel off its skin and make a funny hat. The Reynardi are the (oh God this is going to hurt already) fox-people. They reference the kitsune by saying that the Reynardi have a sense of honor compared to them: tricks must be done with style, attacking the weak is poor sport, etc. They're the classic Robin Hood and trickster with a lesson in the laughter kind of people, only made insufferable by this book's writing. Warform is apparently rare and Near-Human is favored more, which (loving duh) is not mechanically represented. They always have vertically slit eyes in all forms, and also have Nine Lives for free because why not. If you notice that as each of these posts reaches the end, I stop trying, it's because fatigue and horror sink in over the course of the whole thing and I'm unable to keep up the meticulous levels of nitpicking. The Mistai are the coyote-folk, and the writeup is basically "Coyote is a douchebag, coyotes are adapting well to mankind's dominance." They literally hunt and eat children for no real reason except "because I can" or "because my soul is that of a coyote AND one of the Native Americans killed by Whitey." They're generally loners (what) and have, by mechanics this time holy poo poo, a Near-Human form instead of an animal one. However, compare this description to the picture posted above: quote:Just as other trickster breeds, Coyote's brood have no War-Beast form beneath their skins. Instead, Mistai favor their human aspect, but with lean and beastly features. Softly furred with silvergray and dry-grass brown fuzz, Mistai wear their coyote heads proudly. Seen so often in shadow, these faces look like masks from a Western fever dream. Tall — seven feet from soil to hat — Coyote's children remain slim. They are never idle chatterers; their silences let other tell too much. Doesn't really match, does it? Also, the Mistai are heavily implied to seduce and/or surprise sex their way across the country to keep their numbers up. DRAKENGA-wait, wrong universe. Last in the chapter, in the Other Breeds, are the Wapathemwa, the possum-folk. They're essentially hillbilly Nosferatu without the sun allergy or the mandate to look like they fought with a grain thresher and lost. They keep large info networks between themselves and stick together (despite the book saying that very rarely happens), and prefer living in the mountains. They, yet again, have Nine Lives free, only in this case I buy it because of possums playing dead. Next time: The Pack. I sure hope you like lovely knockoff werewolves and half-erased cocks-and-balls, because I sure don't.
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 03:27 |
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Kavak posted:I think...that thing...might've just killed any faith I had left in White Wolf. That is the worst thing I have read on paper since the Ringo thread. Someone has to save that company from itself, or at least it's intellectual property, because it's clear they can't be trusted anymore. To be fair, White Wolf has largely stopped giving a poo poo about their RPG products, and has turned creative control over to "Whoever wants to do the job". Fortunately, the people who did the (Excellent) second half of the book did, in fact, manage to take control of the line, and they've been churning out drat good material ever since. Supposedly, they're working on a major revision to make the game more playable (And have an estimate of "Sometime this Fall") for the core revisions to be released. But yes, nobody you'll ever find will Ever defend Chapters One and Two. You just all saw why, and it's pretty much a guaranteed thing that the two guys credited for that half will never be forgiven for it. Those Four Words have Tainted the loving line, and nobody with any sense would ever approve of poo poo done by those two guys again. The fact that the guys who are in charge now actually regularly engage the fanbase (And in many case, were hired from out of it), is a blessing--as they care enough to do poo poo on their own time to make sure it's as good as they can.
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 03:35 |
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Nice to know that no matter what edition we're in, were-coyotes are insufferable douchebags who all deserve death.
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 03:38 |
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Alectai posted:To be fair, White Wolf has largely stopped giving a poo poo about their RPG products, and has turned creative control over to "Whoever wants to do the job". Good for them, but part of me can't help but feel that it's too late for a lot of the game lines. I probably just some time to recover from CAPSLOCKGRL's post- or a drink or two...
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 03:39 |
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I kind of want to contribute to this thread! Is this a bad idea?
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 03:46 |
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Ettin posted:I kind of want to contribute to this thread! Is this a bad idea? Oh god. I'm sure that you'll have plenty of material to show off!
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 03:50 |
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Daeren posted:The Minjur are the rat-people, who are apparently all Indians used to being treated like royalty who look down on all the rest of the Laughing Strangers for being common rodents, due to Indians believing rats and rat-people to be the reincarnations of dead children. What? No, not quite, and the rest of these aren't rodents so... does the book actually say this? Daeren posted:The Baitu are hare-people, who apparently have zero characterization or relation to hares beyond "insatiable lover" and "ridiculously lucky" for some reason. I... what. Daeren posted:Everyone gets Nine Lives for free. Because. As if that weren't already overpowered. Daeren posted:The Reynardi Kill them for that pun alone, please. Daeren posted:are the (oh God this is going to hurt already) fox-people. They reference the kitsune by saying that the Reynardi have a sense of honor compared to them: tricks must be done with style, attacking the weak is poor sport, etc. Look do these people even read the loving myths before ragging on about them? That's not how kitsune even work -- Daeren posted:The Mistai are the coyote-folk. . . They're generally loners (what)  No, they really don't do any research before writing this poo poo. That much is obvious now.
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 03:54 |
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At some point, we should take a look at some of the terrible books of oWoD. Kindred of the East comes to mind, as do a good number of oWerewolf books. Oh, right, and loving Gypsies.
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 03:57 |
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Of all the trickster creatures of legends, I would probably prefer to deal with the Coyote the most. At worst I'll get a lame job like being the moon. I would stay the hell away from the Kitsune tho. I like my loved ones uncooked and not in a stew that I'm tricked into eating, thank you very much.
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 04:09 |
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Jonked posted:I would stay the hell away from the Kitsune tho. I like my loved ones uncooked and not in a stew that I'm tricked into eating, thank you very much. Can you point me to that story? I keep hearing about it, but I can never find it. E: Maybe it was because I wasn't looking at Korean fox myths? Re-read that old one about the sister who was a fox, and it looks like a match. Goggle Fox fucked around with this message at Jul 23, 2011 around 04:30 |
| # ? Jul 23, 2011 04:17 |
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Goggle Fox posted:Can you point me to that story? I keep hearing about it, but I can never find it. Anyway, my point still stands. Stay the gently caress away from foxes, but coyotes are cool. Jonked fucked around with this message at Jul 23, 2011 around 04:56 |
| # ? Jul 23, 2011 04:52 |
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Daeren posted:- A normal woman could possibly give birth to a motherfucking rabbit This is the most amazing thing. Please don't stop.
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 04:57 |
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No one do Gypsies please, I can't afford to buy a new computer every time I read those posts and punch this screen.
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 05:00 |
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Chapter 2: Fast Fast Play Play Rules Rules ALTERNITY: Using the Game Mechanic. Truly a modern achievement, TSR has a unified, universal core conflict resolution mechanic. It is really quite simple! quote:All heroic actions in the game can be resolved by rolling just two dice: a contol die and a situation die. A control die is always a d20; a situation die can be a d4, d6, d8, d12, or d20. Oh, right, that is the easy way to explain it from the Game Master's Guide. The real explanation is much, much more annoying. quote:The ALTERNITY game uses two kinds of dice: a control die and a situation die. Whenever the Gamemaster calls for a roll, you roll one control die and one situation die. The numbers that come up combine to indicate a success or failure. Oh, right, the formatting of this book is atrocious, the entire system isn't on the same page. On page 12, you get an awesome scale where things like +2d20 and +3d20 actually happen. One thing you will notice, however, is that there is no d10. d10s do not exist in ALTERNITY. Why? Because that is the TRAITOR dice, the dice of the stupid World of Darkness Dice Pool system that we are so not obviously trying to replicate here. Seriously, in play with "+1 step situation penalties" and everything it reads like a more GM-dependant dice pool system that instead of rolling multiples of the same dice and counting successes, you roll one big die and a different range of smaller die and do math. And without a consistent subtraction-or-addition.  There are two knobs to turn, however- the target number and the bonus steps. Why doing a +d4 rather than pretty much a +2, I don't know. Also make sure you don't wear off the edges of the d4, you'll be rolling it a lot. Now, one of the big things is the Degrees of Success. Yes, really. Critical Failure. A 20 on the control d20 results in an automatic failure! Better be sure to indicate before rolling which d20 you're using as the control at the high ends of the scale (  ) Every roll has a 5% chance of being SUPER TERRIBLE. Game of heroes in space, guys!Failure. Any result greater than the "score" is a failure. Ordinary: any result less than the first score is an ordinary Good: any result less than the second score is a good Amazing: any result less than the third score is an Amazing success! All of that is to this point meaningless, by the way. Action Check score is DEX + INT / 2, plus "profession" bonus (class) divide by 2 again to get your Good scale, and then divide by 2 again to get your Amazing scale. pg 38, second and third columns. Oh, this is the same page that they explain actions per round. Yes, the right to actually do something is determined by Abiltiy Scores as well! Actions per round table: Con + Will, / 8, round down 8-15 : 1 action 16-23: 2 24-31: 3 32+: 4 Yeah, this game is really Ability Score dependant. As in "why even be a class" dependant. Thats the conflict resolution in a glance. Here are the four base classes: Combat Specs fight, Diplomats want to avoid fighting, Tech Ops sort of repair things after a fight and do a bunch of out-of-fight crap, and Free Agents don't give a flying gently caress what everyone else in the party is doing, anyway, because he does everything. I'm going to put off damage scales for "later", when I'm possessed to explain Wound boxes and Stun boxes and Mortal Secondary damge and blah blah blah blah blah. Instead, here is a fun game: There are 8 stupid pre-made characters blank half-sheets with nothing different except some skills and a stat bonus or three, some equipment, and a lovely spate of background that means nothing See if you can tell which ones are what class! This Navy veteran signed on as a member of the crew of the Nebula Bounty after mustering out, serving as the muscle for the small-time trading operation. As pilot and navigator of the Nebula Bounty, this hero flies the ship into and out of hot spots throughout the galaxy. Part owner of the Nebula Bounty, this spacehand loves the vessel and works overtime to keep it in good condition. This hero has taken a break from 3D stardom to research and write a script about the adventures of a trading vessel and has paid a hefty sum to sign on as a tempo- (yes it gets eaten halfway through) Co-owner and captain of the Nebula Bounty, this trader always looks to make the best deal. Copilot of the Nebula Bounty, this explorer enjoys trips that take the crew to the less populated regions of known space. The gambler joined the crew of the Nebula Bounty to escape a misunderstanding at the Vegas Prime space station. Now the gambler helps negotiate deals and make contacts wherever the crew goes. As doctor and resident hacker of the Nebula Bounty, this hero keeps the crew in good repair and helps when the team needs an expert in computer aid. gently caress this gay earth. Gerund fucked around with this message at Jul 23, 2011 around 05:15 |
| # ? Jul 23, 2011 05:11 |
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I got the mouse-pic and the maybe-fox pic correct. 
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 05:42 |
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Daeren posted:
I see a wannabe Nathan Explosion myself. That loving ear folded up against his shoulder is goofy as poo poo. Daeren posted:
This is neither of those. That looks more like a were-bobcat or something. I'd imagine a fox person to have a heart-shaped face, squinting or slanted eyes, and a long, retrousse nose. A raccoon person would have a round face with darkened eye-lids and large eyes.
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 05:57 |
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I got the fox-ish pic right!  It was a pretty blind guess, but I still got it right.
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 05:57 |
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Young Freud posted:I see a wannabe Nathan Explosion myself. That loving ear folded up against his shoulder is goofy as poo poo. That wh- ... You're loving kidding me. That's a loving rabbit ear on his shoulder. How did I not see that before? 
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 05:59 |
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Daeren posted:That wh- Like I said, it's goofy as poo poo. It's like they added the ear after the fact, because that picture really looks like a metal fan out of high school. If he's supposed to be a hare, you'd really expect to see some ears standing up, at least to imply a hare or rabbit like silhouette.
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 06:04 |
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Well well I just had three buds of mine do Heroes Now! from Central Casting. It took about 2.5 hours but we ended up with amazing characters. I did do a fair number of rerolls under personality traits and such since we ended up with tons of even more nonsensical stuff or the GM specials charts which suck. I'll do a longer write up later but with no further ado they were: -A Brazilian firefighter, who was born live on television, who ended up with a sexual perversion which meant they were a f to m tranny. Otherwise kind of mundane minus a crazy family where his mother was a crimelord. -A Chinese super science experiment to create psychic god children. She was abducted at an early age by a Canadian superhero explorer weasel who raised her for ten years. She would later become famous on a cruise as an inventor of useless fire creating devices, fall in love with an android who cheated on her, join a cult, and then be given a mission from God to go back in time and stop 9/11 from happening. He was also haunted by ghosts of a skull and had nightmares about a giant attractive fish woman alien. So yeah...the third character blows these out of the water. A Polish Jew dinosaur born on a supersonic plane when a science experiment to stop a plague went out of control. Raised in an orphanage he would grow to ridiculous size and develop insane psychic powers. He later became insanely rich, owned a castle, had a self aware time traveling fighter jet, and was also a pirate. No joke that my buddy got stuck in the exotic feature chart under the pirate option and rolled "roll twice" twice. Which got him two eyepatches and two peglegs. All in all he had what was either the best or worst luck, he got roll again on the psychic power chart twice, got a million pirate parts, and found a suit of magical armor in the trash as a teenager. We fudged maybe 20 total results that weren't completely incompatible too over the course of the night. I just cannot believe the disconnect between how normal the first character was by the time we rolled and found out that the third character had a miracle birth and had a complete resemblance to a dinosaur (roll had to be 99 on a d100 to just get the dino part). We will be doing the Sci Fi one another night when we can recruit somebody else to join so I can make a character. If anybody doesn't believe that all of these are possible outcomes then you owe it to yourself to at least track down a pdf of any Central Casting stuff. Canopus250 fucked around with this message at Jul 23, 2011 around 08:18 |
| # ? Jul 23, 2011 08:15 |
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Enough about terrible furry or hell-related stuff, it's time for more World of Synnibarr, Part Fighting All The Time: Ninjas! This one opens a little differently, with "The Ninja saying". Pretend the following is center-aligned, becuase I don't know how to do that: Ours is the tradition of service to those in need, Strength to those in distress, and protection for the meek. We use the art of Ninjutsu and the "Gift of Chi," To aid us in our fight. We are the silent blade of the wheel, In march with the forces of universe. "Life and Death," We are the Ninja. Invisible Warriors of the night. Yyyyep. So. They train for 22 years in a temple in Terra, leaving only at night for supervised stealth practice. They also learn the They also learn to telepathically communicate with other Ninja. Thats, you know, a traditional ninja ability, right? They also learn Shadow Vision(darkvision) and how to climb poo poo with climbing claws. Also how to find and remove traps, and they get a rebranded Amazon toolkit. They are also hard to surprise, can sense life, and can jump 15 feet up and 30 feet across on top of their normal jump scores. And they get the Moving Silently skills. They are trained in the use of "the samurai sword, sai, shuriken, staff, bow, and other weapons", and get a grab-bag of mundane weapons of those specified types for free at graduation. Also, they can brew and use poisons, based on their level! It costs 3x as much to buy outright as make and only Ninjas, Alchemists, Amazons, Psielves, chemists, and "assassins" can purchase it. Seriously, that's their entire fluff writeup. Just wait until the Adventurer's Guide, you'll be praying to go back to this complete lack of flavor information. Their Natural Abilities are that their Their Skills on top of the SFAGTA are: Acrobatics; Biology in normal, Marine, and Xeno-; Climbing Walls and Ceilings; Combat, Grappling; Combat, Martial Art Disarming; Combat, Martial Art Empty-Hand; Combat, Martial Art Throwing; Combat, Martial Art Weapons; Disarming Traps; Lockpicking, Advanced; Lockpicking, Basic; Meditation; Moving Silently; and Nerve Pinch. Their Basic Abilities are getting a Rebranded Amazon Toolkit, or possibly just straight up an Amazon toolkit as the text says "Ninjas receive the Amazon's Toolkit", Heightened Awareness which gives them a surprise bonus and lets them sense life forms within 30 feet, Shadow Vision which gives them 100' Darkvision, and Telepathy with other Ninjas in a range of 1 mile. And also with total concentration prevent their own thoughts from being read. There is also the poison chart. a 1st level poison will take 45 minutes to affect 300 pounds, and do 10-60 damage per segment once it begins, over 3 sets. As there are 15 segments in a round and 5 rounds in a set, this will do 10-60*75, or a maximum of 4500 life points, with a minimum of 750. OR you could hit them a few times and kill them now instead of doing some damage in 45 minutes. At 5th level you can instead put people to sleep for 20 times the normal duration (5 sets at this point), and at 15th level they can make paralysis poisons for the same duration as sleep, which also has a debuff for an hour after that. (15th level onset duration is 3 minutes.) The highest level is 40th level poisons, which take effect in 5 segments, do 1000-8000 damage per segment, and last for 10 minutes. By which time your buddies are probably capable of flat-out annihilating targets and such, but you CAN buy this earlier, for a mere $1200 a dose. They also learn Special Disciplines, staring with one first-level ability and gaining one more every 3 levels, learning Oil of Protection and one other at 3rd and one more every 15 levels, one fifth level at level 5 and one more every 5 levels, and one 10th at 10 and every 10 after that. Their First Level Ninja Disciplines are: Chi Dim Mock which we have already covered in the Amazon entry Chi Invulnerability useable 1/day/level up to 20, which gives them two 10ths vs physical, energy, and chi attacks, and 10 points of Strength per level Chi Force for 1 con point (2 for wide beam) which lets them shoot a beam which makes people fall asleep Darkblade useable 1/day/level up to 20, which lets them make a sword which will drain 1/4th of the victim's constitution and strength per strike, and also do some damage, which starts going up by trivial amounts and also adds strength adjustment at level 5, or they can just use the non-lethal draining effect, and you can us it one turn at a time out of its duration to make it last longer. Also it is unbreakable so it makes a handy thing to block with. Dark Shaft useable 1/day/level and comes with 5 arrows per use, and lets you make a chi bow. Doesn't add strength bonus. Flying Foot lets you kick people really fast, for beam attack status and the same damage as a large waraxe, and for 2 con it can do chi damage to ignore most armor. Adjusted by strength. Invisibility useable 1/day/level up to 20, and you CAN attack while invisible and stay that way a long as you don't use any powers or magic items, just mundane weapons "and their feet". So don't punch people or you'll become visible again, but kicking them is OK. Uncommon Proficiency like the Dwarf ability, gives proficiency with literally every weapon ever including ones built for nonhuman physiology, and +50% to hit with weapons. Their Third Level Disciplines are: Oil of Protection is "the best-kept secret of the ninja guild", and will give the user 28% plus 1% per level resistance of magic, psi, earthpower, mutations, and alchemy when rubbed on the skin. Takes 15 minutes to make, and goes bad almost immediately. Ninjas can do it blindfolded, but know it by rote so they don't know how it works or anything. Costs $15 to make one does, and only works on living creatures. Blowgun gives +50% to hit when using a blowgun, and lets you shoot chi darts out of a normal blowgun (which you need to provide yourself). Which are poisoned. They work as a poison of your level, with all choices and effects of that. Divination is always on, and lets you find anybody you have a photo or good sketch of, even across dimensions or through Security spells, but it isn't Phazed. Dragon Breath lets you, uh. Blind a dude, and also cut off sound, sonar, radar, and Shadow Vision. That's what dragons do, right? Nanchaku is spelled funny and lets you make a "Nanchaku" you're already holding do more damage for a small con cost and hit twice with it in one attack, but only if they're in melee range. Sai lets a ninja do more damage with sai for a small cost or the same damage as chi for a larger cost, and gives a passive bonus to hit, throw, and block with them. Requires a real one, and also mentions that they may have up to a 30 foot chain attached. Which doesn't seem right. Staff lets staffs do more damage as per Sai and also gives a bonus to disarm Stars of Night lets you throw shuriken for more damage and stun people, up to 3 per attack The Hand lets you punch people at 20 foot range for extra damage, or also lift poo poo like you were over there. You can in fact use it to climb, or hold molten metals. Their Fifth Level Disciplines are: Astral Form which lets them become astral and blah blah speed of thought (tarwarp 10) blah blah blah. Cloak of Mist Works like the third-level Mage Warrior spell, except the ninja can more and attack without it dropping Create Chi Objects lets you make poo poo out of chi, like a shield, a rope, or shuriken, or simple weapons which huh have I gone over this before? It doesn't seem to be on anybody else's chi ability list... Oh well it's boring. Ninja Tesseract lets them teleport in a puff of smoke. NINJA VANISH! You're also invisible for one turn after teleporting, or until you attack, which can help you surprise dudes. Once. It doesn't specify if it's per opponent, per group, per combat, or just ever. Their Tenth Level Disciplines are: Drain Life Force lets a ninja drain constitution points from somebody else (don't go over double or you EXPLODE), and then either use it to pool power or restore somebody else's. But they can't keep and use it. Shadow lets a ninja turn into a shadow, making them immune to physical and energy and having a max load of 20 pounds. They can't fly or attack or use powers/abilities, but they can walk through walls, spell traps, werewares, and security spells. Tuch Is named after the God of Ninja and either kills a dude straight up, or makes them fall unconscious for 48 hours if their fail their save. Willforce we covered in Infiltators, only Ninjas actually get the Telepathy ability to do poo poo with it except wait that only works on other ninja. So it's an ability to brainwash other Ninja, and ONLY other Ninja, into doing poo poo for you. And that's Ninjas! Next time: Psievlves!
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 08:35 |
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Goggle Fox posted:Kill them for that pun alone, please. What pun?  Young Freud posted:This is neither of those. The "vertical slit eyes" part of the fox stuff means this is the fox one. Are you really surprised the artists don't know what a fox is? Also, CAPSLOCKGIRL  e; VVV K Prime posted:So they're named after a series of medieval fables about a trickster fox: Yes, I know. It wasn't a pun, is all. It was a literary reference. Lemon Curdistan fucked around with this message at Jul 23, 2011 around 12:51 |
| # ? Jul 23, 2011 11:05 |
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Lemon Curdistan posted:Also, CAPSLOCKGIRL
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 11:14 |
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Lemon Curdistan posted:What pun? So they're named after a series of medieval fables about a trickster fox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynard However the most famous related ballad is... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynardine
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 12:17 |
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Lemon Curdistan posted:e; VVV Both of those stories get their names from the French word for fox, "renard"  Thus why I said "pun." E: Classical literature and folk tales get a pass for coming first by hundreds of years. These guys have no excuse for that kind of laziness. Goggle Fox fucked around with this message at Jul 23, 2011 around 14:40 |
| # ? Jul 23, 2011 14:36 |
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Goggle Fox posted:Both of those stories get their names from the French word for fox, "renard" Wrong way round. The French word comes from the fable figure, whose name is of Germanic origin. (The modern form of it, "Reinhard" and its variants, is still reasonably common as both a personal and a family name in Germany today, for instance.)
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 14:51 |
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Hamiltonian Bicycle posted:Wrong way round. The French word comes from the fable figure, whose name is of Germanic origin. (The modern form of it, "Reinhard" and its variants, is still reasonably common as both a personal and a family name in Germany today, for instance.) Ah. Well drat. I'd always assumed it was derived from Gaulish. Can't find any references, and before the story the word was "goupil". I guess that's what I get for assuming etymologies. Scratch the "pun" and just consider it me being angry at them for being lazy and unimaginative. I learned something today, so that's a plus.
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 15:29 |
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Daeren posted:
Looks like someone loves Hare Metal 
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 16:07 |
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Highlights reel:Canopus250 posted:superhero explorer weasel who raised her That last one actually sounds like a great children's show/cartoon character. Nebbish dinosaur pirate with talking jet, teaches kids history and sharing via pirate shanties.
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 16:30 |
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Continuum: Deja vu is the scar left behind from a narcissist attack. So...Aquarian skills. Translation: psychic powers. We are told that psi is often taught by the Fraternities - the Midwives have witches, the Dreamers have telepaths and clairvoyants, and the Physicians, Foxhorn and Quicker also have plenty of psi-users. Even some levellers can use psi powers, and Aquarians and Inheritors also often have psychic powers. Spanners are just better at using powers than levellers; they automatically succeed on any unchallenged action using Aquarian skills, but levellers have to roll. Which means, yes, that it is actually easier for a spanner to be a psychic than it is for him to shoot a gun. Information-related psychic powers are considered to be rather important; the rest are often seen as party tricks. Playing around too much in front of levellers is a bad idea and often a violation of the Fourth Maxim. Concentration is needed to maintain any powers, and pain breaks that below Master. Shock makes using any of these impossible. The following Aquarian skills are based on Mind: Clairvoyance. Clairvoyants can always tell if they're being watched by other clairvoyants, but can't block that - they can just try to watch back. Anything they witness is either vague or distinct. Vague readings are rapid impressions thatl ast a few seconds, similar to half-remembered recollections. You get the gist, but no real details. Distinct readings last up to several minutes, require you to be in the right location, though you can be Up or Down from the event you're witnessing, and is perfectly clear. More Mind means it's easier to see the future this way. You may use Clairvoyance a number of times between Span-regaining rests equal to your Mind. You can only see events within your range of Span, both distance and time. Continuum posted:Novice - min. Mind 5 - can see events within 5 minuts Down from you, or Level, but not Up. Hypnosis. Not a psychic power, actually, since any Leveller can learn it, but it's considered to be part of these. It works, we are told, by trance or suggestion. While in a trance, the target always trusts the user, and suggestions may be planted. Hypnotists may decide how much or little a target remembers, and suggestions may be hypnotic or post-hypnotic. Hypnotic suggestions are acted on during hypnosis and have no effect after the trance ends. Post-hypnotic suggestions require the hypnotist to have Quick 5+ and Mind 5+, and they are acted on after the trance ends. If your Quick is at least 1 higher than the target and your Mind is at least 2 higher, you can entrance someone against their will.They can reisst if they have Hypnosis skill. Targets that are entranced get one attempt to resist post-hypnotic suggestion, which they get a +1 bonus on. Hypnotic suggestions can be: A. Party tricks - making someone do something while hypnotised, which can actually be useful, the books ays, "when someone has created accidental frag or a recalcitrant narcissist refuses to help reverse a deliberate paradox. One quick suggestion, and the target sets things to rights." B. Hypnotherapy - we're told that this can integrate forgotten periods of Age and help cope with terrors in the Yet. C. Seduction and crime - "Would-be Svengalis and Circes can put hypnosis to all kinds of unethical use." D. Altering memory - you can suppress memories in a target, which will then be buried in their mind. Suggestions cannot make someone do anything against their nature, which for most people means they won't hurt or kill...but some people will. A hypnotist can also remove suggestions from the hypnotised, either allowing them to forget or remember anything you want. Hypnotising spanners, we are told, is discouraged and needing it frequently to cure frag is a sign of sloppiness. Levellers are totally okay, though. Photographic Memory - as the Benefit. Telepathy. Telepathy can read or shield minds...and also wipe out anything they read, either by suppressing memories or erasing them permanently. You can only use Telepathy while Level with your target, and you must be within a distance you can span across. If someone is across a city or nuclear test site, you probably want to get closer than that. Telepathy is the only defense against telepathy. Continuum posted:Novice - min. Mind 7 - Read/shield surface emotions, min. Mind 9 to wipe Pyrokinesis. You can alter molecular agitation. This does not protect you from your own uses of Pyrokinesis, but can resist other uses of it. Limited to sight range, with an area of 1 cubic foot per point of Mind. Continuum posted:Novice - min. Mind 6 - Temperature change 1 degree C per minute The following Aquarian skills are based on Quick: Levitation. Only spanners may learn this, and it lets them fly. You may carry a maximum load of your weight times your Span. Continuum posted:Novice - min. Mind 7, min. Quick 7 - Max. speed 1/10 mph Telekinesis. Telekinesis can be learned by levellers and can work as Levitation...but it can never go above 2 mph, and can only lift the user at Master level unless they are really tiny. It can also stop others' Levitation and Telekinesis. Range is sight, but you can Span with any object you lift if it's in your Spanning ability's max weight. Continuum posted:Novice - min. Mind 7, min. Quick 7 - Weight 1 pound And now, the madness: Time Combat To a leveller, the only real sign of Time Combat is deja vu. Continuum posted:The authors' own experiences with deja vu involve the distinct element of being able to recall when one had seen or known the event befpre, all the while aware that one couldn't have had the actual experience then. There is no memory of having remembered the experience before the deja vu, either. We are told that deja vu is caused by having witnessed a narcissist attack that was unhappened as a brainwave exists in two places at once. Also, some mental illnesses are caused by frag, and precognitive flashes can be the result of witnessing time combat. As can tintinnabus - that's ringing in the ears. They claim that's a sign of spanning going on nearby. (Full disclosure: my mother is an audiologist, and gently caress no.) Narcissists, we are told, refer to the Continuum as 'the Swarm', because of the way they team up to fight Time Combat. Spanners vanish and reappear quickly, people watch from a distance, you meet the same stranger many times over the course of a day - and all without the friendly 'what time is it' question. For a Narcissist, this is terrifying. For a Continuum spanner, it's a reason to alert a corner, but narcissists are usually not nearly this organized in time combat - the Continuum, on the other hand, is. For them, it's like breathing slowly an ddeeply, we're told. Most Time Combats involve a cycle of Oracle/Attack, Rendezvous, Oracle/Attack, Rendezvous. They familiarize themselves with their quarry and then neutralize or frag them. Some get mercy...especially if they don't seem to know what they're doing. But not always. Continuum posted:Time Combat is always a test of character for a spanner. The Continuum wishes you all the Grace available for you to succeed. We are given some rules for Time Combat preparation. First: Prepare for combat in advance. Plan out your new strategems between sessions, because... Continuum posted:Essentially, you must describe your invented Strategem in writing, the GM should take the time to consider its consequences before approving it. The GM may edit Strategem before it comes into use, and interpret its description during the game. What's a strategem? We'll get there. Second: Know your Corner and when to Rendezvous. Always be sure you know where and when you'll be meeting up during Time Combat to coordinate. This is essential. Rendezvous every other sweep of Time Combat - while inessential, it's highly useful. Third: It's Time Combat whenever sentient force is applied to create deliberate paradox and Frag another sentient being. You're lucky, though - before Time Combat starts, you almost always meet the narcissist. That's because he has to be sure of your whenabouts before he can smash you up, and that means you know where he was when it began. However, it's not always that lucky...and sometimes, there's more than one narcissist. If they get away, you've lost, even if you fix the Frag, because they're still out there. And if you can't fix the Frag...well, the Continuum will help you out if you can barter some services for the help. Your mentor should definitely be able to help, at least by calling in an Exalted...or an Inheritor if really needed. You win if you beat the guy and take him down. You're generally going to want to keep the guy unconscious and dreamless if possible, and make sure the Foxhorn and Quicker know what happened. Fragging them into nonexistence is also a good plan. Now, some notes. Events of previous Time Combats shouldn't be targetted by subsequent ones. Only the most insane try this, as it brings in an army of enemies. As in 1d10*1d10 enemies per Sweep. You don't regain span during Time Combat, ever. Each turn is a Sweep, and each part of the Sweep is an Element. These measure actions, not time, because you're gonna be bouncing around time. In each Sweep, you choose a Direction and Stratagem, which you have sixty seconds real time to declare in private to the GM. Direction is just 'are you going past, future or staying here?' Going Down often has the advantage when trying to Frag someone, staying Level has the advantage of clarity and planning, and going Up has the advantage of being able to learn more about where people were. Strategems are what you do. They come in three types: Attacks/Defenses, Information Control and Narcissist Tricks. You must scrupulously record everything you do in time combat on your Span Card. Today, we'll look at Attacks/Defenses. (Incidentally, before we do...) Continuum posted:Players are encouraged to send in their own successful Strategems to timekeeper@aetherco.com - any that meet with our approval will appear on our website (http://www.aetherco.com) I can't find any listed on their site. Anyway: Attacks/Defenses 1. Gemini Flush: Minimum duration 10 minutes, no bonus to skill. This is dangerous, since it gives the user a point of Frag. However, it's a great way to cause physical combat - an elder arrives, played by the GM, and both you and the Elder may attack any opponents nearby. You can call in more than one Elder, but each one costs a point of Frag, which must be resolved after combat via the standard GEmini rules. They leave at the end of the sweep unless the PC tries to direct them, and you have to roll against their Quick at the end of each Sweep or they leave anyway. You must write any of their movements into your Yet; you may even want to do a sperate Span Card for this. If a junior dies in the Time Combat, all remaining elders take another 2 Frag, and if it's a second death, the character is instantly unplayable at 8 Frag, as normal. 2. Harbinger: minimum duration 1 second, no bonus to skill. This lets you attack psychologically - you leave a bloody knife, a photograph of your foe's inevitable defeat or some other thing where the junior of your opponent can find it. The elder, who you're fighting, knows the threat was made good, and is penalized -1 on all skills during the rest of the Combat from nervousness and self-doubt. Harbingers are cumulative if evidence of seperate succesful attacks are presented to the target. 3. Hit and Run: minimum duration 1 minute, no bonus to skill. You target a specified event, person or object in your foe's timeline to Frag and then move on immediately. You declare your Fragging Action ('I move the lamp so he trips and breaks it instead of switching it on') and then roll on the Frag Table. Which we won't see for a bit. You have only sixty seconds to arrange this, and your description must be convincing. The GM then decides if it works, and who gets fragged. Ifyou succeed, the target must declare his next sweep privately to the gM. This is usually how Time Combat starts - a Narcissist does this to you. 4. Patch: Minimum duration 1 second, no bonus to skill. This is a quick-fix for Frag. Once you know where the Frag was caused, you go recover it with a nonconfrontational action Up from it that resolves the problem. This must be between 15 seconds and 30 minutes after the As/As Not. You must describe how you fix the problem in such a way that the original assailant is not confronted or encountered. You then put them in your Yet to better resolve them after or later in Time Combat unless you roll a Grace or Victory vs. your Span at the time of the Patch. This is because Patch is an imperfect solution. The GM can always rule it unsuccsful or even frag-causing. 5. Hide: Minimum duration 7 days, no bonus to skill, max duration 128 days. You go to your Corner and do nothing. Oracles can find you only on a victory. Frunes are halved, round down. Attempts to Frag you get a +1 penalty to the roll. Attempts to attack you while in your Corner invite all Spanners in the Corner to join the Time Combat. If your Corner is out of span range, a local chapter of your Fraternity may accept to hide you at GM discretion or if you roll a 10 or higher on 1d10+(2*Span-2*Frag). 6. Isolate: Minimum duration 1 second, no bonus to skill. Once you find the narcissist, you can use this put his fragging actions in a temporal vacuum. This frags them severely, and should only be used with the worst offendors. What this does is coordinate information such that no one Continuum spanner knows enough to become deeply involved in the Fragging ACtion, but can pass along sufficient means to a chrony. It requires at least three spanners who Rendezvous'd the Sweep before. Each must roll Quick against the target's Quick, from highest to lowest. Each success against the target adds a penalty of -1 to Quick, so going last is easier. Losing against the target means you take one Frag. Winning gives the target a point of Frag, which they are considered to take all at once. If they aren't set past Frag 7, they are disoriented for at least 7 days and lose their next chance to perform a strategem, though they can Span normally. Beyond Frag 7, they're gone. Spanners must then return to Rendezvous next sweep after performing ISolate. Isolate heals all Frag from a specific As/As Not if targeting a spanner that caused it while within 15 seconds of the event. This includes Frag gained while performing Isolate. Next time: MORE TIME COMBAT! Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at Jul 23, 2011 around 17:48 |
| # ? Jul 23, 2011 16:33 |
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As convoluted and unplayable the game's main rules seem to be, the idea of time combat seems to have had a lot of thought and care put into it. Then again, isn't the creator literally crazy about this sort of thing?
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 17:04 |
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Co-sine posted:As convoluted and unplayable the game's main rules seem to be, the idea of time combat seems to have had a lot of thought and care put into it. Then again, isn't the creator literally crazy about this sort of thing? Time combat loving owns. If you don't love the idea of, mid fight, running back in time to taunt your pre-fight opponent how you're going to beat his rear end, which causes the present fighting opponent to realize 'oh god it came true' and freak out, then I don't even know what's wrong with you. During my group's campaign (oh yes, campaign) one of us left a finger he cut off a dude on the past dude's pillow just as he was waking up.
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 17:32 |
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shotgunbadger posted:Time combat loving owns. It does, it's just hard to deal with on its own. Also the mechanics for it are quite haphazard. The names for some of the later ones make no sense, either, but I'm not spoiling those. The thought put into it makes for wonderful storytelling, but the setting is both bizarre and stifling. I just don't like how closed time is in this world, and how it claims to be "unchangeable" while at the same time showing, right here, that changing the timeline back is the whole point of the game. Still, time combat is full of things to borrow for time travel in other games. The game, whether playable or not, is worth getting a copy of just for inspiration.
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 17:46 |
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| # ? Jun 19, 2013 14:25 |
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Goggle Fox posted:The thought put into it makes for wonderful storytelling, but the setting is both bizarre and stifling. I just don't like how closed time is in this world, and how it claims to be "unchangeable" while at the same time showing, right here, that changing the timeline back is the whole point of the game. Well the timeline is unchangeable because history is an artificial closed loop imposed from both down and up that seems to function largely as a playground for learning how to span while being largely irrelevant to what actually matters, by which I mean things that actually change and have any effect on other things outside of itself (the entire rest of the universe apart from earth and time outside the loop)
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| # ? Jul 23, 2011 19:44 |
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