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Yawgmoth posted:Book burning of any kind makes me kinda sad. I only burned the first two Chapters. The good bits are still intact.
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 06:35 |
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| # ? May 21, 2013 10:19 |
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CAPSLOCKGIRL posted:I only burned the first two Chapters. The good bits are still intact.
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 06:37 |
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Okay, it's time for World of Synnibarr, Part MIND POWERS: Shadow Masters! Shadow Masters are ALSO trained at Tesarak's Psionic Academy, starting between 5 and 6, and they require an Intelligence rating of at least 18 for admittance. I guess they hook kids up to the Stat-O-Matic and see what it prints out or something? Once he gets in, time to drink that Psisha Adreemus stuff! Then, all the Shadow Masters in the school gather around to help the kid be not crazy. Without this, they would be lost in the "corridors of insanity that are within their own awakening minds" and would have their minds completely and irrevocably destroyed! (Actual rules for drinking Psisha Adreemus as a not-already-psi-using class: you go insane and this can be cured by the usual spell easily.) Once this happens, it's time for TRAINING! Over 10 to 15 years. As they level up, they learn new minor psi abilities. At 10th level, they can learn psi spells from their Shadow Master buddies telepathically! Or they can knock them unconscious and ransack their minds for them, but this takes an hour per spell and they have to stay down the whole time. (time for willing transfer:  ) Doing this means the victim has to roll psychic shock for each spell or go insane, and if they do you can't get any more spells becuase they're insane and you have to save vs unconsciousness. You also need to be high enough level to learn it! And can look at their list and pick. The max amount of psi points for a moral is 1000! You get them back after sleeping for 6 hours, from eating a psisheen mushroom (100 points), drinking Psisha (100 points per teaspoon) or Psisha Adreemus (1000 points per teaspoon). All of these are either psisheen mushrooms or made out of them. You can do this once per day without loving yourself up! At 50th level, they learn Psionic Wish, "the most powerful spell available to any character class". And that's it for the fluff! Their Natural Abilities are +20% to hit. Their Skills on top of the SFAGTA are Astral Projection and Detect Spell Traps! Their Basic Abilities are: Telepathy in 50 feet Psychic Awareness which lets them detect any sort of mental probe or detection spell directed at them, at 20%+1% per level success rate. For remote viewing, they can stare the dude in the eye, and for mental poo poo they can tell where it's coming from if it's within 100 feet or the direction if farther. They get Psionic Points to fuel their poo poo with! 2d100, or 3d100 if their Ego is 40+, and +1d100 every 3 levels. Minimum on any d100 is their Ego score, reroll if less. And of course, they get Psi Spells! They learn Minor abilities at the start, and one or two Major (5th level) abilities if their Int is 23+, otherwise they have to wait until 5th level to get 5th level spells. And now it is time for the Spell List! Once again I will be going over the standout stuff and a general outline of what they get. Get that PDF if you want the complete crazy experience, including the odd distribution of probabilities for learning/finding spells. First Level/Minor Psi Spells include a spell for cancelling magic AND earthpower at once, some detection spells, Ego Shield for all your mind shield needs, another one of those "not the expensive poo poo until 40th level" transmuations, a healing spell which costs 1 psi point per HP restored making it lovely as hell since the magic and earthpower ones give full heals for 1 con, which at standard exchange rates is 15 psi points, Hypnosis, an illusion spell with a maximum 85% chance of not looking like rear end, Intellect Annihilation which does 3d6 Int damage making it probably the best 1st level psi attack spell against anything with a mind, a spell which gives you either photographic memory for 24 hours OR 200 bonus psi points for the same, and costs 50 but don't use it twice on a dude in a day otherwise a 70% chance of insanity instead of it just. not. WORKING., Invisiblity, Paralysis Bolt, a Postcognition spell which lets you see decades back into the past from miles away from the event at a fairly steep cost, Psi Bolt for generic rear end damage, Psi Cage, Psi Shield (vs physical, energy, mutations, alchemy, chi, and psi), Psionic Spray which shoots out a Psi Bolt, Paralysis Bolt, and Intellect Annihilation all at once at up to 3 different dudes, more sensory poo poo, Telekinesis available in Move poo poo and Protect poo poo modes except Protect poo poo costs way too much compared to Psi Shield and Tactile Elekinesis mode which also gives you 360 degree vision becuase why not, Telespeak which lets you telepathically speak to anything wiht 10 or more Ego (which means average Int and Wis of 5) and keep the language forever if you use it for an hour (up to 100), and a Tesseract. Fifth Level/Major abilities include Alter Density as per the Master Mutation (15 psi=1 con), some spells from other lists, Create Solid Illusion, Death Stare which lets you kill dudes if they fail a handful of saves by staring into their eyes, Disintegration Beam which costs exactly as much as Death Stare only without the "plus per level higher" thing(and if you're smart enough and roll it you can get this at level 1, remember), Empathic Control, non-minor Levitation, Location From Objects for doing your best "here's his clothes boy! Do you have the scent? Go find him!" act, Magnetic Control which lets you move ferrous poo poo, knock people out or gently caress up electronics, fly, shoot a bolt which does damage or knockback, and put up a shield, Psionic Amplification, an anti-mutations psi and energy field, Pyrokinesis which lets you make a vaporization shield which destroys poo poo that touches it, melt and/or burn things, and "Spontaneous Combustion" which destroys things with a wave of blue energy  , Scan Mind and Willforce which lets you scan people's minds and then also dominate people for as long as they keep failing saves, Telepathic Control which lets you make a dude do two physical actions against their wills (like draw their gun and shoot themself in the head as the book points out) as long as they're both within the 3 segment duration, Telepathic Ventriloquism which lets you make people say things, Telepathy (a lot of different things are named telepathy in this) which lets you alter memories, communicate, make illusions, set up a psi-telephone-system for you and your buddies for an hour, a psi scream to make people go unconscious, "teach simple concepts within seconds", but not Engineering or spells, but it's not clear how it works with other skills, "Psychic Lockpick" for bypassing mental defenses, a psi shield, mind scan, "Telepathic Hypnosis" which is complete different from the mutation version I guess, translate languages, and finally a Teleport spell, like the 10th level mage warrior spell.Tenth Level abilities include Ego Beast which creates a tin yblue dragon which eats a victim's ego points (how this affects their Int or Wis is unclear), Interdimensional Space which lets you make a room 10 feet by 10 feet by 20 high, which will hold five people, and the door appears 10 feet above the ground so you have to fly or teleport in. It lasts up to 8 hours, so here's that "go rest in another dimension where nobody can get at me" spell! The Kintetics spell lets you use all the powers of the Major Mutations Energy, Mass Molecule, Sonic, Major Photon, and Thermal Kinetic at 25 psi points per con point exchange rate. Mass Solid Illusion and Mass Teleport are obvious, Planeport lets you travel across up to 5 dimensions, Psi Transformation lets you drain people's con and ego points to restore your psi points, and if you jump through some hoops you can make the link permanent. Or you can just use it to filter con points and turn them into psi points when pooling power without screwing up your buddies. Psi Slayer makes a summon which can go hit people for you and poo poo. Worm "creates a small wormlike field within the brain of a subject" which lets you "completely control a subject's thoughts and actions". You can even cast psi spells through them (out of your own points). And put pressure on their pain and pleasure centers with it. And see through their eyes. You can only actively control one dude per 10 levels at a time, but you can worm up as many dudes as you want, and give them orders and then go check on another Wormed dude.  Fifteenth Level spells include Mass Heal which is slightly less lovely than the psi heal as it does 1 psi point per 1% of a person's life points (per person), but it's still not a flat cost 100% heal so suck it, Porthole which lets you make a teleport gate, Psionic Invulnerability which gives you or a buddy 3 10ths, the ability to breathe without air, and +20 str per levle of the caster, Psionic Restoration which is like Mystic Restoration and means it's fairly trivial to fix up dudes who go insane (such as by drinking Psisha Adreemus and having a bad trip), and Psionic Web which makes a... psionic web. Which lets you grab people with it and poo poo, like webs do. Only psioniclly. Twentieth Level spells include Mass Mind Control which lets you control a bunch of dudes at once, Possession like the mutation, Psi Trap which is like a Spell Trap, only with psi instead, Psionic Acceleration which works like Spell Haste, Psionic Nullification like the major mutation Null Void, and Starport which lets you travel tarsec-level distances with normal misport chances. Thirtieth Level spells include Caprenium Silence which lets you turn off any three of magic, psi, earthpower, chi, mutations, alchemy, and energy in a 100-foot radius for a year, Impart Psionics makes a dude psionic so you can give them spells (but not as good as an actual psi-casting class), Power Transfer like the 40th level Mage Warrior spell, Psi Bank for storing an extra 5000 psi points (which they need to get somewhere, but fortunately it includes the ability to shoot beams at dudes to drain their psi points), Timeport which lets you teleport back in time a minimum of 500 years, for 48 hours, but not into the future. But not in space, so if you want to go to Old Earth you need to go find it and THEN timeport. Fortieth Level spells include Alter Probabilites which lets you, for 450 psi points, affect all die rolls in the area "unless a victim is immune to time", by up to 20%, or +-2 for init. Precognition lets you make a quicksave for 500 psi points. Seriously, you look into the future by the GM running the game. For up to 5 minutes in-world time. he example informs us that you can view only up to 1 year in the future and you appanrelty have to be specific about where you're using it, becuase the example says if you want to know what happens when you go to the Dark Tower and fight Routh, if he's not gonna be there within the next year you wasted your psi points. Resurrection lets you bring dudes back from the dead, or also let you turn into a spirit for a bit and then go fly away and rebuild your body over there if you cast it in advance, or you can... turn a dude into a spirit if the spell "is used more than three times when a user dies". Sphere of Power Transformation lets you absorb attacks, and then shoot them back out as raw damage. attack type, range, and so on is not stated. The sole Fiftieth Level Psi Spell is Wish. It costs 22500 psi points to cast, and takes 45 days to cast "at the minimum constitution drain".  You must spend at least 500 points a day on it, and the book suggest you spend 750 and 12 hours of concentration a day to cast it in only 30. You can get buddies to help, but you have to spend the exact same total amount each day and do the same poo poo. In order to actually do it, you have to do the following:
The limitations are that it has to be for one, coherent "thing". A magic item which does multiple things or all your ability scores going up is considered "one thing", but not a magic item and a ton of diamonds. "Creative phrasing may help this, depending on whether Fate is inclined to be liberal or not". Example given is a spaceship and a ton of diamonds vs a spaceship CONTAINING a ton of diamonds. You also have to get the basic wish down in one short sentence, with the other 4 for poo poo like the component loadout of your ship, what KIND of diamonds, where it shows up, etc. Oh, and also there's an 11 point list of other poo poo you can't do:
The GM is also encouraged to gently caress over players for poorly worded wishes. Also you can use a wish as a curse. The psi spell section then abruptly ends without explaining anything about that. And that's Shadow Masters! Next time: Shadow Warriors!
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 09:34 |
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Nymphology Part Who The gently caress Cares Any More: Flurry Of Dongs Finally, I get near the end of this poo poo. As I go to the contents page and make sure this is Chapter 6: Skills & Feats, I notice that Oscilloscope Astropoff (hereafter referred to as Chewing Gum) did, in fact, have an editor. What the gently caress was he smoking? This section is pretty short, thank gently caress. There's one last lovely piece of topless girl art. Don't care though. First up, new Alchemy items, listed here instead of the next chapter for some reason! There's "sensitivity crème" (+1 bonus to non-combat dexterity-based checks (what kind of bonus? Chewing Gum doesn't say!  ), lubricant jelly (+1 bonus to Escape Artist checks), extra-strong delouser (kills crotch parasites and vermin), orcish fly (an aphrodisiac), and hot flush (makes someone uncomfortably warm and they might have to roll Fort vs stripping, also it is often given to women apparently!)Why is it called orcish fly? quote:It was noted that orcs rarely suffered from erectile dysfunction and were always willing and able to mate with species not their own, as has been evidenced by the large number of half-orcs scattered about the world. Because orcs are sex machines, that's why. Concentration check table which lets you know the DC for having sex (20+spell level), getting oral (15+), giving oral (15+), lap dances (10+"skill check"+), fighting "an attractive and naked opponent" (10+opponent's Cha+), and needing to adjust your tackle (10). Why does getting sucked off make spellcasting just as hard as giving  New suggestions for Perform specialities (fellatio, soliciting and strip-o-gram are my favourites), and... feats!
Chapter 7: Objects of Desire is the second last chapter, and the one that makes me wonder exactly how old Chewing Gum (hereafter referred to as Pichu) was when he wrote this in 2002. Armour is first, and we get the "Flattering" enhancement which gives you a "+2 bonus on any Charisma based check" and doesn't have to cover as much. Chainmail thongs go! It doesn't specify what kind of checks, but I don't think there are non-skill ones anyway. +2 bonus, so it kinda sucks. The only weapon we get is a pop up porksword  , which is basically a giant vibrating novelty dildo and a +1 club that casts power word orgasm on anyone you hit. Costs 184,300gp.Potions! Dutch Courage gives you confidence and a bonus to Will saves, Potion of Lust is here - not Love, mind, it just makes them have sex with the first thing they see. Great, surprise sex potion! Finally there's Potion of Performance, which gives you the effects of onestrum's personal fluidic enhancer and Bedroom Proficiency + Endurance for two hours, all for 300gp. No protection potion, which seems like an oversight. And then... cock rings!  Apparently they were designed by Lak Wang ( ) after he heard adventurers complaining that they didn't have enough fingers for all their magical "trinkets". This contradicts magic item rules. Ring of Quantity gives you onestrum's personal fluidic enhancer forever for 500gp. Why the gently caress is Potion of Performance 300gp then? Ring of Girth "doubles and length and thickness of the member it is placed upon". A pop up porksword is twelve inches long, so I can't see why you can't, say... be a monk, get a ring of girth and morning wood or some other boner spell, and beat people to death with your engorged member. Ring of Penetration gives you a constant baykdoyr ( )'s ultimate lubrication spell down there. So, basically, 500gp to grease your dick.Wondrous items, finally! The Bag of Fondling gives you a +1 bonus to Will saves against fear while you're holding it in one hand, will massage any body part you put in it, and lets you regain 1 extra hit point for a full night's rest. Actually quite cheap at 150gp, so if dipping your balls in a magical belt pouch sounds fun... Balls of Voyeurism look like testicles, act as a crystal ball and let you cast bernadette's illusory nakedness, change orientation and speedy undress through them once a day. Scry on that necromancer, then take his pants off! Carved Monkey of Spanking... quote:A tiny statuette carved in the shape of a monkey who looks guilty, as if he has done something very naughty. The statuette is about an inch high and carved of bright red stone. When the command word is spoken, the statue grows to a foot in height and intones ‘I have been a very bad monkey, spank me.’ Oblige for immunity to sex-related spells and effects for 24 hours, plus any sexual tension or desire you feel. For example, any urges that might explain why you would write an RPG book about sex magic, voyeurism and surprise sex. There's almost a whole page of chastity belts. They can look like anything - belly chains, piercings, crotchless panties, invisible, etc. - but all magically protect your genitals and come in the following flavours:
After that is Dayn's Instant Whorehouse, which is like Instant Tower only full of whores. It includes an ogre bouncer and 2d4 random "hosts/hostesses" from a table. Rolling on it, I get an elf, a succubus, a halfling, a gnome and a dryad. Hooray! Hosiery of Laciness require you to wear nothing over them but give you endure elements, alter breasts, fascinating cleavage/package, hypnotic rump and pheromone enhancer, all for 8,500gp. Question: If a man wears this, can he opt to not have his breasts altered? Inflatable Friend... oh god. quote:The inflatable friend appears as a lovely companion of any humanoid race, ready and willing to do anything and capable of holding intelligent conversations. To anyone except the user of the item, it appears a simple pink balloon with a roughly humanoid shape. Intelligent conversation: "Am I truly alive? What happens to me when I'm not in use? Do I "die" when this item runs out of its 50 charges?"  Jockstrap of Impressive Lunchbox gives makes a +2 bonus to skill checks made to seduce or impress females and... that's about it. It describes the device as a small machine powered by a magical gem which "expands or contracts" to simulate the right package size to impress, then jokes that this thing will crush your dick if you run into a pixie. That's... nice? Sexy Sheets are self cleaning and cast instant lovenest and major image when placed on a bed, immediately cleaning the area and disguising your bedroom date. Because I'm sure every woman would appreciate you busting out some sheets that give you the magical equivalent of a paper bag on your head.  Finally there are the "Vestments of Transexuality (Dress of Crossing)" (sic), which give you the effects of change sex permanently. Finally finally, we have two artifacts! The Eye of Undressing is like the Eye of Vecna, only it makes you see everyone as though they were naked. That is it. You can also cast speedy undress 5/day and irresistible dance (striptease) 1/day. Since you can already see through clothing, there is no reason to do this except to be a creepy douche, unless the other players want to see some titties too. Why are you using this? Finally there's the Manual of Lurve, the entry for which is mostly boring fluff about some guy called the Caliph of Pichii-Kyyn ( ). Read the book for 48 hours (over a period of 6 days!) and you get, for one time only, Bedroom Proficiency and Endurance for free (Christ, this book is practically giving these lovely feats away!) plus a +2 inherent bonus to Dexterity and Constitution.Next time: I finally get to the end, and Pichu attempts to cram as much surprise sex and homophobia in as he can.
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 10:34 |
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Comment posted:A second roll of 3 means that we speak Pidgin English. So uh, basically you rolled up loli Niko Bellic?
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 11:05 |
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Lemon Curdistan posted:So uh, basically you rolled up loli Niko Bellic?
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 11:22 |
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Clearly, the thing to do during an argument is teleport to the garage and then drive your racing car down the corridors of the mansion, chasing the maids you were arguing with while wildly firing your gun in the air. Bonus points if its a tricked-out one of these.
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 11:27 |
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Kwyndig posted:Now, we get to figuring out how to buy our stats. There are three methods, only one of which is sane, and it's not the recommended option. The first method is to just roll 1d10 for each stat, rerolling any 1s and rerolling entirely if you end up with a total below forty, you have to do this ten times because I didn't mention Education, which is a 'substat' in that it's not actually a stat but you buy it during stat generation. The game recommends 70 points, but you'll only get 70 points out of random rolling about 5 percent of the time. 80 points? 1/4 of 1 percent. I understand that your options for automatically doing the math are somewhat limited back in the day, but even so. Glazius fucked around with this message at Jul 27, 2011 around 11:50 |
| # ? Jul 27, 2011 11:45 |
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All of these modern games being mocked... let's do something old school. What can I really say about this? This is OD&D, the original RPG. Only it's not called an RPG, it's always referred to as a "Fantastic Medieval Wargame" because roleplaying hadn't been invented yet. There are many things that can be excused from this being the first game of its type published, and the fact that this was put out by a small group working with limited resources and professionalism. I'm going to be pointing them out and laughing at them, but they're forgivable nonetheless. The game starts out with an introduction by E. Gary Gygax, Tactical Studies Rules Editor. It says how DUNGEONS and DRAGONS (spelled like that in the text) rose up as a derivative of CHAINMAIL, and to have fun, prepare before a game, change things if you don't like them... actually pretty good DM, sorry, Referee advice. It even tells you to pencil notes into the books if you like! The equipment section tells us we will need in addition to Dungeons and Dragons: Outdoor Survival, Chaimail, some dice, a 3 ring binder for each player, graph paper, sheet protectors, 3 ring lined paper, drafting equipment and coloured pencils, scratch paper and pencils, imagination, 1 patient referee, and players. On the player to referee ratio: quote:At least one referee and from four to fifty players can be handled in any single campaign, but the referee to player ratio should be about 1:20 or thereabouts. It then tells the ref that he should map out his underworld for the players to explore and delve into, and after that character creation. You have three class options: Fighting-Man, Magic-User, and Cleric, and you can be a Human, Dwarf, Elf or Hobbit. Fighting-Men can use all magical weaponry and armour, and get bigger hit dice, but can't use many other magical objects or cast spells. They can also gain income from their holdings at higher levels. Magic-Users start out weak, but "Top-level magic users are perhaps the most powerful characters in the game". They can use almost any magic item apart from armour and weapons, and they can make magic items given sufficient time and money. Clerics can use magic armour and blunt magic weapons, and can cast cleric spells and use more magic items than the fighting-man. When they get to building a castle level, everything they build is half cost, they get a free army of fanatics, and more in tithes than the fighter does in taxes. And they claim Cleric supremacy started with 3.0. Humans can pick any class and advance to any level with them. That's their advantage, and it's actually a pretty big one. Dwarves can advance to being 6th level fighters, but get +4 to their effective level on all saving throws, the +3 magic warhammer works fully only for them, stonecunning (not called as such, but it does the same thing) and they can speak goblin, kobold and gnome. Elves start out as fighting-men or magic-users and can swap what they level up as between adventures. They can advance to 4th level fighter and 8th level magic user, and gain all the benefits of each. So they can use magic weapons and armour while still casting spells at full capacity. They can see secret doors, and "also gain the advantages noted in the CHAINMAIL rules when fighting certain other fantastic creatures". They can also speak Orc, Hobgoblin and Gnoll. Finally, Hobbits. They can advance to be 4th level fighters, but get dwarven resistance and deadly accuracy with missiles (as detailed in chainmail). I don't have chainmail, so I can't say exactly what the benefits you get are (Hobbits still look like they really suck though, and to be honest Dwarves seem kind of crappy as well. Elves are kind of cool though I guess, with the whole dual classing thing.) There's also a note at the end quote:Other Character Types: There is no reason that players cannot be allowed to play as virtually anything, provided they begin relatively weak and work up to the top, i.e. a player wishing to be a Balrog would have to begin as let us say, a "young" one and progress upwards in the usual manner, steps being predetermined by the campaign referee. Isn't one of the complaints that comes up a lot in grognards.txt that dragonborn and tieflings being core detracts from the feel of the game? When back in 1973 they were saying that players should feel free to make up their own rules for playing as Balrogs? Huh. Next time: 3d6 down the line, bitch!
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 13:43 |
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My god, it's like finding those blueprints of the steam-powered toys that one dude in Alexandria designed.
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 14:25 |
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Oh man if we're going old loving school I have to find my copy of the Arduin Grimore.
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 14:56 |
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Continuum: To exceed one's ability to ride this spiralling dragon is to find one's soft tossies thrust into a particle accelerator filled with lightspeed electrons. I'm getting a bit bored, so it's time to just skim for the most interesting bits. We've seen a lot of what's completely insane already; now we're just into the  parts. Some secrets! The Antiquarians? They're thieves. They steal art objects, boats, entire lakes and so on from around the world to hang in their homes. It's totally okay, they think, because they put the stuff back exactly after they took it, so no one ever knows. This is why they think that money isn't really a valuable thing.The Dreamers believe that the Dreamtime is another universe entirely, which you access when dreaming. They want it to be apart from the Continuum, a place to rest. They refuse to ever discuss this with anyone outside the Dreamtime and will hypnotize people and scare them to keep it secret. Once the Continuum's work is finished, they may or may not plan to retreat into the Dreamtime forever. The Engineers know how to make time machines - they just aren't allowed to do it. They sometimes make machines that can temporarily increase your Span, and they will do that ssometimes as long as they're temporary. Also they bitch about how the Physicians say the human body was always a tool and think that the human body only becomes a tool when we start actively modifying and discovering new ways to change it. The Foxhorn can rip information out of your brain. That's...really it, they're basically what they seem to be. The Midwives know why you aren't allowed to have kids with other spanners: a spanner's child is born a spanner, because spanners are genetically altered. While a child with a leveller will be a level, a spanner's child won't. When this happens, as it sometimes does, they take the child in and sometimes hand it off to the Inheritors to raise. Most of the time they try to stop it from happening; one of their attempts to stop a Narcissist breeding program involves introducing horrible genetic dysfunctions that nearly wipe out mankind. The Moneychangers are running a private war on Antedesertium in the middle of the real war as one of their leading members has decided he won't allow the concept of money to be abused by the Narcissists. Other than that, well, not all that much. The Physicians know how to cure natural frag. Radioactive frag is easiest - they have multiple treatments, all of which take five days per point of frag during which you can't span at all. Electromagnetic frag is harder - once you get diagnosed, you have d100 Spans left before you risk death with each span. Curing it takes a year per point of frag during which you can't span - and if you do, you reset back to the full frag. Most won't treat Frag 5+, and none will treat Frag 7+. The Physicians feel the human body has always been a tool, performing functions for humans from the first. They know how to cure most aging by means of genetic manipulation and nanomachines. The Quicker are experts at memory alteration and suppression. They sometimes come for even loyal spanners who have Frag at 6 or higher, and so others fear them. They are able to track ghosts using holograms and nanomachines. They store the fragged in deep space near the beginning of time, very close to the Big Bang. Supposedly they cure people there but no one's ever admitted to witnessing a return. They are also biased against non-Aquarians, whom they think of as dead. The Scribes record stuff. They keep track of span books and track where everyone is. They refuse to admit that any Scribe would ever lie, ever - and they harshly investigate and punish anyone caught doing so. Sometimes lethally. The Thespians are...actually pretty darn boring, they are what they seem to be. Now, the way spanning works: your biomagnetism gets altered such that your heartbeats are synced with the earth's magnetic cycle. The power of your heartbeats is used to make you into a burst of tachyons which travel through time. The power comes from the magnetosphere and the Van Allen Belts. When you try to go past your Span, you pull on power you aren't able to use properly and your molecules will fall apart randomly. This is also why Span 6+ involves the Inheritors directly - they have to learn to ride solar wind instead of trapped radiation. As long as you still have a brain, a spinal cord and a beating heart that are all attached to each other, you can span. However, damage to those organs may cause spontaneous combustion as your electrons arrive without proper instructions, and senility can lead to you never being able to come down from the Belts. Taking levellers on Spans - animal or human - requires special magnetic shielding for them. You do get a Yet from the time you lost while learning to span - you just don't know what it is until you hit Span 3, so no one tells you. And, uh. Let me...let me show you the chart. This chart, uh. This chart has...some entries. Continuum posted:What I Forgot To Remember Yeah. Continuum posted:98-99 - surprise sex - You suffer a brutal humiliating assault from your worst enemy, with little chance of ever getting him back. You might die, too. Yeah. Think I'll just leave that here for now. Next time: The Comte de Saint Germain and Jeanne D'Arc.
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 15:37 |
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Captain Hats posted:All of these modern games being mocked... let's do something old school. What's this? Non-advanced D&D that requires Chainmail books? Races that aren't also classes? Welcome to Original D&D! I don't know why I kept getting this one confused with Basic. Does this one still have the ridiculously large attack matrices? Then again, if all you have is the one book, they probably don't even have that. Gygax loved to make his games unplayable unless you bought three books. Mors Rattus posted:That chart I really don't like charts like this, just on principle. I know what they're going for, but some of those entries are basically forcing mind control on your character. Others really shouldn't be listed at all.
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 16:47 |
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Goggle Fox posted:What's this? Non-advanced D&D that requires Chainmail books? Races that aren't also classes? Welcome to Original D&D! I don't know why I kept getting this one confused with Basic. Oh don't worry, I have all three core books and Greyhawk. And yes, there is the attack matrix, and the modifiers on how different weapons attack different armour classes. I got these from my father, so I'm looking at them from a modern perspective. I have run it a couple of times, and it's pretty good fun if you're light on the rules and willing to embrace the whole thing.
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 17:20 |
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Maid Part 3: Mechanics for getting your knickers in a twist So we've got a sheet for Little Diesel, now it's on to the system rules to see what all these numbers actually mean. The fundamental mechanic of this game is rolling a d6 and multiplying it by the attribute you're using for the test. This means things can get pretty swingy and chaotic: If Little Diesel made a Luck test, she could get a result ranging from 4 (the suggested absolute minimum difficulty) to a whopping 24 (where a 10 is supposed to be really hard)! It's noted that, though there are attributes that are obviously matched to certain tasks, the GM can let you use any of them as long as you can defend your choice. Frail Little Diesel would probably use Affection to talk the Master out of bed in the morning, while a more musclebound maid could just roll Athletics to suplex him into the bathtub. In combat or any other conflict between two characters, each character rolls using a GM-determined attribute (everyone can use different ones, so you want to lobby for the use of one of your high stats) and compares the results. The character with the highest result sets the Attack Power for that round, and everyone else divides the Attack Power by the attribute they used for the round, rounding down, and takes that much Stress. If they used an attribute of 0, they just take the full Attack Power. Once you take more Stress than your Spirit, your Stress Explosion takes effect. Little Diesel, with her reasonable Spirit of 20 (I miscalculated last post), is certainly going to feel the need for speed sometimes, but it could be worse. It's possible to have a Spirit of 0, so you flip out every single time you lose a contest. If this happens to you, you should note that you can concede to the winner's terms to keep from taking Stress. Meanwhile, in example land, Hizumi and Yugami demonstrate the usual circumstances surrounding maid-on-maid violence: Combat posted:Yugami: What’s wrong, sempai?! Why are you pushing me away? Do you hate me? For maids, image and identity are of utmost importance. Such is the significance of her distinctive outfit that it is an actual source of her power and competence. What all of this high poetry actually means is that we've hit the disrobing rules. If a part of a maid's uniform is damaged, dirtied, or removed by an attack or other tragedy, she takes a cumulative penalty to her d6 rolls before multiplying by an attribute. The frilly headdress is the most iconic part of the maid uniform, and inflicts a -2 penalty if damaged or lost. The other uniform pieces, worth -1 each, are the apron, blouse, skirt, underwear, and stockings. It's noted that you don't take a penalty for missing skivvies if you weren't wearing them in the first place, which opens up strategic opportunities for optimizing your defense by okay I can't type this with a straight face We revisit Hizumi and Yugami for a demonstration: The Maid Uniform posted:(Yugami’s scissors flash, ribbons of Hizumi’s skirt fall around the floor. Her knee-length skirt has turned into a cut-up, shorter version looking to be a cross between a Cheerleader and a Jungle Queen) We get some quick notes on Stress, noting that for each minute in real time you spend in a Stress Explosion you lose a point of Stress until your maid drops back down to zero, which ends the Explosion. We also get an explanation of Favour. A maid can spend Favour one-to-one to reduce Stress, can spend 10*(new ranking) to increase an attribute, or can spend 1d6 Favour to either add 1 to the die roll or attribute for one roll, or force a random event. Maids who drop to zero Favour are fired and immediately booted from the mansion, though they can opt to sacrifice a point of an attribute for refunded favour to avoid this. During the example-land follies, we get a bit of self-awareness from the authour: Favor posted:Hizumi: Pee-yew! Kamiya-sama, are you drunk? Favor posted:Yugami: (bright eyed) Oooh... Sempai, you’re wearing a garter belt... I wonder what color your panties are, big sis? (she unleashes her restraining rope)  There are some notes for the GM to close the chapter, like a chart for suggested NPC power levels ranging from weak like the Master straight up to godheads. There's not much here that's terribly interesting. There are some guidelines on how much Favour should be awarded for certain tasks: Assigning Favor posted:A. 1D6 Successfully attending to the master. (ie: housework.) This chapter has become a touch unsafe for Little Diesel, but we should give her something to do before ending the post. Let's generate a day's work for her on the random event tables! The tables are divided by setting into Modern, Fantasy, and Space, and I'm going to roll on all three because our junior militia ricer should be ready for anything. We get a 44 for our Modern event, which means that Little Diesel starts her day by waking up to find a freak tornado has left the mansion stranded on a desert island. Hopefully, some of the china is still intact. As she's sweeping up, we get a 31 on the Fantasy table, so a princess from a ruined country shows up at the front door. I have no idea how she found the place on a desert island in the middle of nowhere. Maybe said "ruined country" is Atlantis? While the mansion's new guest is getting settled, we roll 35 on the Space table to find that a swarm of meteors has appeared in the sky and is headed straight for the island! At this point, the most likely result is that Little Diesel cracks under pressure and takes off in a jet-ski while emptying her clip into the sky. Next time: Example scenarios, or, MAIDS OF THE DEMON KING 
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 20:25 |
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quote:quote:At this point, the most likely result is that Little Diesel cracks under pressure and takes off in a jet-ski while emptying her clip into the sky.
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 20:34 |
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Comment posted:takes off in a jet-ski while emptying her clip into the sky. 
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 20:35 |
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quote:† Items E and F are for mature groups only. Or alternately, for perhaps very, very immature groups, depending on your bend. This could immediately change your game’s feel from a lighthearted “Harem Anime” to a creepy “Bible Black††” in no time! Is this actually in the book?
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 21:26 |
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Drox posted:Is this actually in the book?
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 21:45 |
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Comment posted:while a more musclebound maid could just roll Athletics to suplex him into the bathtub. This. This is the most beautiful thing. If ever I played a maidgame, this would be my preferred resolution mechanic. Suplex the master. Suplex the other maids. Suplex the tea set.
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 22:15 |
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Dareon posted:This. This is the most beautiful thing. If ever I played a maidgame, this would be my preferred resolution mechanic. Suplex the master. Suplex the other maids. Suplex the tea set. Stress Explosion: Suplexing.
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 22:27 |
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Young Freud posted:I was going to bring this up in relation to R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk. The Lifepath of the first edition Cyberpunk has, under Disaster Strikes! table, you have a 25% chance to receive a stat drop from an Illness/Addiction, Mental/Physical Incapacitation, or an Accident. Most are a single point from REF and/or COOL, but with the Accident one, your character's ATTractiveness stat can be reduced to 1. Not by 1, reduced to 1. So, if you had hopes of playing a good-looking Rockerboy, too bad. Funny you should mention that... I should be getting into expanded Lifepath (life past age 16) tables in either this upcoming update or after that.
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 23:00 |
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Men and magic part the second So, we know what we can potentially play, let's figure out what we can actually play. Before the stats section is a page on aligment, which is literally a big table of law, neutrality and chaos, with monsters and races sorted into different columns. That's it. The paladins falling, what alignment is batman, I want to be chaotic neutral alignment system that has caused so much woe and gnashing of teeth over the years, started out as three loving columns that let you tell who the bad guys are. It's great looking back at this, it's actually kind of exciting to read how everything was back then. Also, tomorrow I will endeavor to fire up my scanner, the art in these books is simply golden. Anyway, determination of abilities. The abilities in order are, Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity and Charisma. We roll 3d6 for each of these, and 3d6x10 for starting gold. Strength is Prime Requisite for Fighters, Intelligence for Magic Users and Wisdom for Clerics. Your Prime Requisite gives you bonus XP if it's high enough. You can also trade in other classes prime requisites to raise your Prime Requisite at certain ratios. Charisma has a section on how it increases your loyalty base, which I guess is something in chainmail, as well as the max number of hirelings you can have. quote:In addition the charisma score is usable to decide such things as whether or not a witch capturing a player will turn him into a swine or keep him enchanted as a lover There's then a brief section on languages (Everyone can speak common and their alignment language, and one extra one for each int point above 10), and a large section on hiring NPCs... most of which is utterly meaningless to me as it heavily references morale dice and a loyalty score, which I assume must be mechanics from chainmail as they aren't explained in the rules anywhere. It also says that if your character dies, you can designate a relative (with Referee permission) who takes up your equipment and estate (paying %10 tax on everything) and carries on adventuring in your place. If the original character later comes back, they can get everything back from the relative by paying an additional %10 tax. It notes that this relative may intrigue to regain control. If you don't designate a relative, there is no way to regain control of your estate and holdings after a month of "death". After that comes the equipment and encumbrance rules, followed by XP tables (yes, separate ones for every class) and advancement tables detailing titles for each level, hit dice, fighting ability using chainmail rules, and spells gained for magic users and clerics. Experience is awarded for defeating monsters and finding money, with a note that if you're fighting a monster of a lower level than you, experience is divided accordingly (So if you're a 9th level character fighting an 8th level monster, you get 8/9ths experience for everything in that encounter). After that, guidelines for advancing beyond listed level (10 for fighters and clerics, 16 for magic users). Now comes a big moment. Once we're done with experience is the alternative combat system, using matrix of decreasing armour class verses a number required on a dice to hit by level, with a separate table for monsters attacking targets. That's right, THAC0 was originally a hack designed for people who didn't have chainmail. Also the saving throw matrix, with categories of "Death ray or poison", "All wands- including Polymorph or Paralization", "Stone", "Dragon breath" and "Spells and staves", with notes that failing to make the save results in full effect, while passing the save gives half or full effect or half, based on the effect. Amazing how little some things have changed until fourth edition. After that comes spells... and that's going to need its own update. See you then!
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| # ? Jul 27, 2011 23:32 |
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Captain Hats posted:... the alternative combat system, using matrix of decreasing armour class verses a number required on a dice to hit by level, with a separate table for monsters attacking targets. That's right, THAC0 was originally a hack designed for people who didn't have chainmail. Well, sorta. The matrices were used for that, replicated into AD&D at the least, and it's making me curious what Chainmail had for rules instead. Also, it sounds like they actually put these charts in the first book, where they belong, instead of burying them halfway in the Dungeon Master's Guide. THAC0 was made in 2nd edition as a way to simplify things, reducing the "what do I roll to hit" problem to simple addition. Yeah, THAC0 made things easier. If you can scan those matrices, it'll probably give a good idea of why.
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| # ? Jul 28, 2011 01:31 |
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Magical Burst, having come later than Maid, took the d66 mechanic from Maid, by all accounts (Read: One guy said it here, I accepted it as the most likely option). I think the guy doing Magical Burst was one of the translators for Maid. So while the mechanic itself may not be entirely Japanese in origin, it is at least co-opted for being in proximity to other Japanese things, and thus awesome by the Law of Contagion. d66 also shows up like, once in Fate, too. Which makes for a nice segue, actually. So, the last bit on Fate was a bit truncated because the cognitive dissonance of being told what to roll without having first been told how to roll it got to me. The book apparently assumes a reader is familiar with Unisystem, which I'm not. Fate Part 5: More Servant Shenanigans Than A Game of Maid In the interest of protecting anyone who may not have, and desires to later, play Tsukihime and/or Fate/Stay Night (They are legitimately entertaining visual novels, even if the sex scenes have induced a Pavlovian reaction of laughing uncontrollably in me), I'll skip the plot synopses and only touch lightly on the character stats. Rest assured, the plot synopses are great untapped veins of purestrain with inclusions of  . So, let's move to Servants.Before we go much further, it should be noted that "Servant", "Master", and the names of each Servant's class are gratuitous English in the games, much like how an English-speaking translator will use nakama, baka, keikaku, various honorifics, or Naminé-sempai is so gaijin she komo dachi tomo teriyaki sukimura sakura the Rearu Fork Brues... Iie, iie, no way Jose. Seibaa, Laidaa, Baasaakaa, et cetera. Servants, as mentioned before, are the spirits of legendary heroes summoned into a class-based RPG structure and intended to battle like Pokemon. They also operate a bit like Final Fantasy summons, consuming their Master's magical energy in order to battle, use their strongest attacks, and even exist. Servants may be drawn from any mythology and any time. All that matters is that their exploits elevated them to the status of hero in the people's minds. Villainous spirits are also summonable, but this is due to shenanigans. There have been two separate stories involving the Holy Grail War: Fate/Stay Night, and a prequel, Fate/Zero. There is also Fate/hollow ataraxia; a sequel involving a time loop and Avenger, Fate/Tiger Colosseum and Fate/unlimited codes; a pair of fighting games, Fate/EXTRA; a Persona-like RPG, and Fate/Apocrypha, which was a cancelled multiplayer game with a lot of interesting servants. I'll be covering only Stay Night and Zero here. The sections on Servants are scattered around the book, with the actual points available at the very end of the last section on page 169. Previously I would just go straight through and handle things as they came, but this section will be improved by my skipping around. So How Many Points Do I Get To Make My Servant? (p. 169) Short answer: It depends on how good a magus the Master is. The process of creating a Servant involves a summoning ritual, which must be completed before you know how many points you can spend on a Servant. This may apply only to NPC Servants and Masters, because the other option is making half the players wait until the other half has mostly made their magi before they can start building. Actually summoning a Servant requires some artifact relating to their life or heroism, or a similar mindset to the hero itself. For instance, the Einzberns summoned Hercules using a piece from the foundations of one of his temples. Player servants will probably be built at the Epic Hero power level, as defined in Chapter Two. Now the thing is, I haven't done any math on the example characters (And in fact the book makes this hard by not providing point totals), but I'm pretty sure the mortal Masters are built at a lower power scale. This is mostly because in-canon, Masters spend most of their time watching their Servants fight. If a Master enters the fray and begins doing poo poo, they are either killed horribly (Emiya, Rin), in danger of being killed horribly (Rin), injured horribly (Emiya if you choose better), or complete and total hax (Emiya on rare occasions, Caster's Master). This power imbalance does not strike me as a fun time around a basement table. In fact, having multiple Servants, or Servants and Masters in the same party strikes me as a bad idea, simply because I'm not a fan of PVP, which would be an unavoidable part of a Holy Grail War campaign. Most Servants come with Noble Phantasms, the weapon, weapons, or notable accoutrements they used in life. These are ranked from D to EX (and pluses beyond that), with corresponding levels of power. Breakdown Of The Classes (p. 144, with bits from the Servant perk on p. 60-63) Remember all this stuff is . I'll try and keep things as close to normal as possible, but that's going to be difficult in places.Saber is the melee-oriented class. They always gain Magic Resistance from the Saber class, and were a hero famed for their prowess with a melee weapon. They often come with some skill at riding animals or piloting vehicles. The only Saber we know of from the games is Arturia, King Arthur who was actually a girl. There are shenanigans involved, but her Noble Phantasm is, of course, Excalibur. It's a huge beam attack. She actually wields Caliburn, the sword in the stone, hidden behind a veil of wind. Berserker is the supreme attacking and defending class. The only issue is his Mad Enhancement class ability, which increases all his ability scores at the cost of his sanity. Supposedly it can be turned off and on, but the F/SN Berserker had been ordered to always use it. To qualify as Berserker, a hero must have gone mad at some point during his life. The Berserkers we have seen are Hercules and Lancelot. Hercules' Noble Phantasm was originally a universally-usable monster-slaying technique, Nine Lives, but upon being summoned as Berserker, he lacked the intellect and coordination to use it, and instead had Twelve Labors, an inherent quality which caused him to need to be killed twelve times before he would die. Lancelot came with the cursed holy sword Arondight, but was, as with Hercules, unable to make full use of it thanks to the Mad Enhancement. Instead, he could use any weapon as a Noble Phantasm. Including a telephone pole, submachine guns, other servants' Noble Phantasms, and an F-15. An interesting note: Hercules actually fits the qualifications for all the Servant classes except for Caster (And Assassin, maybe. Due to shenanigans). In theory you could have five Herculeses (Herculi?) running about. Saber, Archer, Rider, and Berserker are obvious, but he must've been nimbler than expected to qualify for Lancer. Lancer, while we're on the topic, is a polearm user. Not exactly common, the ones shown are Cú Chulainn (Pronounced Kuh-Cullen) and Diarmuid Ua Duibhne (Die-ar-mid O Dyna). They're the most agile of the Servants, and thus have the highest Dex. Lancer has Magic Resistance and Protection From Arrows as their class abilities. Cuchulainn's Noble Phantasm was the Gae Bolg, a lance that would always pierce the heart of its user by reversing cause and effect. Rather than Dex, this attack is dodged using Luck. Diarmuid was able to dual-wield spears, and used the Noble Phantasms Gae Buidhe and Gae Dearg, which would cause wounds that wouldn't heal and nullify magical weapons and defenses, respectively. Caster is, of course, a spellcaster. Medea is the Caster encountered in Stay Night, while Zero's is Gille de Rais, a compatriot of Joan of Arc and the inspiration for the tale of Bluebeard. He also looks a bit  . Caster boasts the second-highest mana consumption rate, topped only by Berserker, and thus almost requires a strong magus as a Master. Casters are also physically weak, such that a decent mortal fighter could seriously gently caress them up, although killing them would be difficult. Given this and the Saber class' Magic Resistance, the best bet for a Caster trying to win the war is to hope someone else takes out Saber. The Caster class ability is Territory Creation, the ability to set up a workshop or consecrated area in which to perform magic. Basically grants a home-field advantage.Medea's Noble Phantasm is the cursed dagger Rule Breaker, a piss-poor weapon that is more used for its other effect: It will break any magical contracts on the target. Bluebeard, on the other hand, possessed Prelati's Spellbook, also known as the R'lyeh Text.  As you might guess, it let him summon Lovecraftian horrors.Archer is the ranged attack class. They are pragmatic, most likely to win by tactics rather than raw skill. Note that only one of the Archers covered uses a bow, and he uses it only sparingly. The Archer class has the Independent Action ability, which lets them move farther from their Master and even survive for a time without a Master. Archer's identity gets a little complicated, since two Archers appeared in Fate/Stay Night, and both are due to shenanigans. The first one, clad in red, is Emiya Shirou. He fights using a pair of shortswords, and his Noble Phantasm is the Reality Marble Unlimited Blade Works. The second one is Gilgamesh, who was the Archer in Fate/Zero and survived through to the present day. Gilgamesh's most-used Noble Phantasm is Gate of Babylon, essentially a gate to a pocket dimension holding all the riches he accumulated in life. He uses this to fire hundreds of Noble Phantasms at his opponents. Again, shenanigans. He has a second Noble Phantasm, the sword Ea. This is mostly used for the massive drill attack Enuma Elish. Rider is, as should be apparent, intended as mounted cavalry. However, they are only slightly less effective on foot. Similar in dexterity to Lancer, the difference is top speed versus acceleration. Rider is faster overall, but Lancer has greater delta-V. The class ability granted is, of course, Riding, the ability to ride beasts and vehicles extremely well, from +2 to a single type of animal all the way up to four free successes to ride dragons and everything else. FSN's Rider was Medusa, and Zero's was Iskander, also known as Alexander the Great. Both Riders shown have had the ability to summon their own mounts, Iskander summoning a chariot and Medusa summoning the Pegasus. The chariot is one of Iskander's Noble Phantasms, but Pegasus is not Medusa's. Instead, Medusa has Bellerophon, a golden bridle that increases the statistics and allows control of any mount it's used on. Assassin is an odd duck. As you'd expect, they're not often one for a standup fight. They have the Presence Concealment ability, which lets them hide from magi and servants who can sense the magical energy produced by a Servant. Supposedly, all Assassins are the same 'person', Hassan-i-Sabah, the leader of the Hashshashin. Each leader takes the name Hassan-i-Sabah, and thus the Servant summoned is more of a concept than a complete person. As such, it's hard to tell which Assassin is which until it's killed you. There are twenty of them. One Assassin possesses Zabaniya - Delusional Illusion, the Divisibility ability. It can split into several different bodies, up to a hundred, by the RPG rules. One possesses Zabaniya - Delusional Heartbeat, which creates an illusory duplicate of the target's heart, links the illusion and the real heart, then crushes the illusion. And one possesses Zabaniya - Cyber Fantasy, which transmutes the target's brain to gunpowder. And then lights it. The other seventeen have not been seen, but we are assured that their Noble Phantasms are also named Zabaniya. However, there have been other Assassins summoned. In the Fate and Unlimited Blade Works paths of Fate/Stay Night, shenanigans occur, and the Servant encountered as Assassin is the 'spirit' of Sasaki Kojirou. Sasaki is weak as an Assassin, although he is enough of a swordsman that he can hold his own against Saber, and was apparently able to hold the Ryudou Temple gate against every Servant that challenged it. He has no Noble Phantasm, instead possessing the sword technique Tsubame Gaeshi, three slashes performed at exactly the same time. Other games also have other Assassins listed. These include Jack The Ripper (as a loli ), Semiramis of Assyrian history/legend, and Li Shu Wen. How this squares with Hassan is unknown.This is quite long enough already, so I'll cover constructing one's own Servant in a later post. Dareon fucked around with this message at Jul 28, 2011 around 02:24 |
| # ? Jul 28, 2011 02:01 |
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Ettin posted:Balls of Voyeurism look like testicles, act as a crystal ball and let you cast bernadette's illusory nakedness, change orientation and speedy undress through them once a day. Scry on that necromancer, then take his pants off! This actually sounds like something you might use to disarm an enemy before attacking them. "Okay, we're about to bust in the door... strip him of his spell components now!"
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| # ? Jul 28, 2011 03:25 |
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Syrg Sapphire posted:This actually sounds like something you might use to disarm an enemy before attacking them. "Okay, we're about to bust in the door... strip him of his spell components now!" Spell components, all magical equipment, all scrolls and wands and such... Yeah. Goodbye, half of what makes high level characters dangerous. Creepy and mechanically broken!
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| # ? Jul 28, 2011 03:36 |
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Also change his orientation so that he lands on his head, wondering what the gently caress happened.
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| # ? Jul 28, 2011 04:04 |
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So in the 'shockingly not horrible' slot, I may do a writeup of the Conan D20 game and some supplements I have. It has the usual D20 problems (wizards rule, fighters drool, feat-traps, stupid poo poo like crafting skills and all) but shockingly is fun to play even if you have very little understanding of the setting and all.
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| # ? Jul 28, 2011 04:12 |
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Mekton Zeta part 3: Stats, Skills and Professions, Character Generation Continued, or, How Did You Lose Your Arm Working as a Game Designer? Okay, picking up where we left off I rolled 10d10 for character points, and got 56. So, being the crazy little munchkin that I am, I arranged them as follows. I could split them up and get an average of 5.6 but that's just terrible, as my character actually would be below average in everything (average is 6 except in EDUcation, where it's determined by how long you went to school, which for a 16 year old character is realistically a 2, but who cares about realism?) Instead, I'm going to max out the most broken stats and put a pittance in others, then describe what the result would actually be for a real person.
What we have here is an ugly, weak, hot headed, unable to relate to normal people genius with multiple Doctorates, peak human reflexes, and who can run 4 meters in a turn (ten seconds), which puts them clearly in the 'easily winded' category combined with their overall physical fitness. But Hypothetical here does get maximum skill points and starts with the all-important 10 in Reflexes. Sure, Hypothetical can't take a hit, but that doesn't matter because if we put some points into the Dodge skill pretty much nobody can hit them on foot. Also we're rich so we might be able to afford some decent armor. Anyway, now that stats are determined we need to look up some derived stuff. So, to start with, I want to talk about Mekton Zeta's health/damage system. While personal weapons use random damage, everything else in the system is fixed values, expressed in either Hits (human scale damage) or Kills (mecha scale damage). Now, this may trigger some reader's Palladium sense, and they'd be absolutely correct. Kills are the MDC of the setting, but at a slightly less insane conversion ratio. It is 25 Hits to a Kill, which means that while most mecha weapons will splat a human, you can theoretically survive a single Kill hit with some body armor. So, that said, let's find out what Hypothetical can do here. Mekton Zeta uses hit locations for everything. So we need to record the Hits that our Head, Torso, and Limbs separately, consulting the chart we get 5 Hits for our head, 10 for our torso, and 7 for each limb. Most weapons will make short work of that, have I mentioned yet that Mekton Zeta is really loving lethal if you aren't geared properly? Because it totally is, most personal weapons do multiple D6 Hits in damage, and, as mentioned before, mech weapons do Kills instead. Anyway, now that we've discovered that stiff breeze can cripple our Hypothetical, we discover that his Stun is 5 (which for some reason is a roll-under), he lifts 60 kilos, can throw things up to 12 meters, and has a -1 to all damage rolls with melee weapons. Also he divides carried mass by 2 and then subtracts that from his MA for encumbrance, which means that if carries more than 3 kilograms at a time he can't move at all! I guess that precludes any serious armor or heavy weapons. Hypothetical also has a Stability score of 10, which is a kind of static difficulty roll for social skills if you don't actively resist them. Which means he's kind of a pushover. Now on to skills! As I mentioned, he gets the maximum skill points because he has maxed EDU and INT scores, which is 30 Skill points for a 16 year old character.  And these are all the skills in the game. They're fairly straightforward, the name of the skill is usually description enough. Human Perception is basically the Insight skill from 4e, Programming covers hacking, and at +10 Medical 'you can even cure a rainy day'.Some skills are marked (H)ard. This just means you can't buy them above +5 with your starting skill points. That's literally all it means at this point, because hard skills don't cost more at character generation. So, of course we go all in and buy all five mecha combat skills at +5, spending most of our points. We split our remaining five points between Zero-G and Mecha Tech (3 for one, 2 for the other). Normally if you were to powergame you would just buy the attack skills for the kinds of weapons your Mekton uses, but since I haven't decided yet, we're doing this. Oh, but we're not done yet! You see, at this point we have two options. We can either cash in now and pick a terrible starting dude template consisting of an anime cliche (like Anime Stud, Big Guy, or The Kid), some small skill bonuses, some gear, and a pitiful boost to our starting cash. Or we can go all in and pick up some Professions. Now, there is a drawback to being Professional, you advance slower, but in return you get more skills and money, possibly friends and contacts as well. You also get older. Every time you pick a Profession you spend 2 years at it, and have to roll on the Expanded Lifepath table, depending on which ones you pick. Certain Professions are marked (D)angerous, which means you roll on the chart with a greater chance of mishap. Game Designer is listed as one of them (it's a joke selection, most of the skills on it don't actually exist except maybe as Expert specialties). Every time you pick a profession, you get +1 to five of the seven listed skills (your choice) and a pitiful 2D10 extra money. We can keep taking professions until we're either barred from everything we want to take, reach age 30, or develop a bout of sanity after rolling on the accident table a few times, whichever comes first. To start, Hypothetical is going to spend a tour as am EMT (D), first off we note which five skills we want, we're going to take Medical, Jury Rig, Driving, Demolitions, and Photography. We didn't have any of those, so we learn them all at +1, the beginner level. We make an extra 10 (consulting the equipment chapter it turns out these are generic 'credits' so I'm going to refer to them as Spacefun Bucks) and have to roll on the Dangerous Profession chart. We get an enemy, hurray! Apparently he is Hypothetical's boss! Who Hypothetical hates because the boss killed a loved one (it doesn't specify which one, so for plot's sake I'm going to kill off Hypothetical's girlfriend), but that's okay, because now our hero just kind of avoids him. And that's how it went when we were an ambulance driver. Ambulance driving is kind of boring though, so upon turning 18 Hypothetical decided to become a Racer! We earn another 14 Spacefun Bucks, and pick up another +1 to Driving, Jury Rig and add Awareness, Streetwise, and Basic Repair to our skill list. This is another dangerous job, so let's see what happens this time. Oh no! I got a 9, which is an accident. Hypothetical has been blacklisted from racing ever again, maybe he turbocharged his horse or something, I don't know. That marks Racer off the list of allowed careers and makes other racers react to him at -2. So, unable to pursue his need for speed legally, Hypothetical turns to the world of criminal activity and joins a biker gang! Gang stuff is not quite as lucrative, and he only earns 10 Spacefun Bucks. We add another +1 to Driving and Streetwise, pick up Dodge & Escape, Handgun, and Knife for our new skills. As you've probably guessed, Gang Member is another dangerous profession. Apparently Hypothetical picked up a Biker Babe... and now she hates his guts. Apparently Hypothetical humiliated her and she now tries to kill him, but that's okay, because apparently Hypothetical hates the crazy bitch too! Isn't random dice rolls fun? Escaping the clutches of the biker gang at 22, Hypothetical joins the space navy as a mecha pilot, might as well actually use those skills that have been gathering dust for six years, eh? Apparently government work pays for crap, because we earn 2 Spacefun Bucks. But that's all right because it is the experience that counts, we add +1 to all five Mecha combat skills (Fighting, Gunnery, Melee, Missiles, Pilot), breaking the Hard skill limit at chargen. Hypothetical picks up another enemy, this one an outside competitor, so I guess an enemy ace. Hypothetical apparently killed his girlfriend and even though his enemy just slings verbal barbs at him, they hate each others' guts. Now 24, Hypothetical decides to reup as a Mechajock, again taking +1 to all five of his fancy combat skills and earning 17 Spacefun Bucks this time. This time he has a disfiguring accident! Which reduces his Attractiveness by 5... but since it can't go below 2 the scars make him no more ugly than he was before. So far so good for our now veteran Hypothetical at 26. He's going to chance it and be a Mechakjock one more time, again taking +1 to his combat skills (putting him at +8 to each, meaning in the best situation he slings a d10+18 on his rolls, meaning all but the most difficult tasks are almost effortless for him in a Mekton). He gets 4 more Spacefun Bucks (must have blown his raise at the space casino) and has another accident (I rolled another 10, which guarantees an accident no matter which table you're rolling on for profession). This time he has a 'bad accident' and becomes a little twitchy, losing 1 from his previously godly REF stat. Having ruined his face and damaged his reflexes, Hypothetical gets bumped into the Officer Pool (not really, there's no rules for requirements or progression in professions besides 'pick one every two years you're not blacklisted from'). Hypothetical adds +1 to Driving and Handgun, and picks up Oratory, Social, and Leadership as new skills. This is STILL a dangerous profession, so let's see what happens this time... Hypothetical makes another enemy (seriously we keep rolling 4 or 5, which means enemy on this chart). This enemy is a personal rival, so another officer, who Hypothetical apparently court-martialed and sent to prison because he hates the dude, who is prone to working through proxies to injure Hypothetical. He also earned a final 12 Spacefun Bucks to see him on the road. So, that's Hypothetical at age 30.
Now Hypothetical is a more well rounded character. He also earned a total of 69 Spacefun Bucks. Now, here's the problem with this, as you've no doubt noticed, Hypothetical here has picked up injuries, bad reputation, and enemies along the way, and gotten a bunch of skills... but the rookie templates are actually better for both starting money and some skills. Rookie templates start with a minimum of +100, get extra gear (some of it worth more than you can afford), earn 7 extra skill points (either all as +1 or two +2s and three +1s) get bonuses to advancement in play, and don't possibly result in your character being crippled or disfigured or flat out penniless.  After looking at that chart, tell me, which is the smarter option? Next time: I actually go over resolution mechanics in more detail, buy equipment, and more art!
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| # ? Jul 28, 2011 04:51 |
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shotgunbadger posted:So in the 'shockingly not horrible' slot, I may do a writeup of the Conan D20 game and some supplements I have. It has the usual D20 problems (wizards rule, fighters drool, feat-traps, stupid poo poo like crafting skills and all) but shockingly is fun to play even if you have very little understanding of the setting and all. CONAN??? Conan of all settings has an OP wizard problem? Dang.
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| # ? Jul 28, 2011 04:58 |
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Drox posted:CONAN??? Eh kinda. From what I remember they don't have too much in the way of straight up save or dies/blasting spells and a lot of the spells available tend to be of the cursing/summoning/divination type. Most priests/mages will turn to alchemy or physical combat to kill dudes, you can make some pretty sick poisons and bombs if you have the cash.
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| # ? Jul 28, 2011 05:57 |
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Strange Matter posted:Well, so much for my "minimizing the creepiness factor" idea. That was distinctly unpleasant, especially for Little Diesel I don't remember much of the rest of the book, I sort of closed the PDF and put it next to my copy of FATAL and left it there and now I seem to have lost both of them at some point during my various computer transfers.
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| # ? Jul 28, 2011 06:21 |
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Drox posted:CONAN??? Well I overstated it, magic is very dangerous to both people involved, so yea it's not 'I cast finger of death and...welp' but it's more situational where 'ok cool you guys got this guy knocked down well enough, I'm gonna cast this spell to rip his heart out, hope I don't backfire and turn myself inside out, also this is the spell I've been basically working my entire campaign to cast'. So actually no, I was super wrong, rereading this most dangerous spells are a full round to cast aside from the magic missile types and the super insane 'literally curse an area with plague' are in days not turns. Alright I'm gonna start off on this, now that I got the book out to say how wrong I am. Conan the Roleplaying Game I'm not going to super dissect the core book, I'm assuming most everyone knows the basics of D20 type games, this was an Open Game License creation so basically if you know D&D 3/3.5 you know this. Still, to their credit they DID add a fair share, and of course changed a lot, so this isn't straight 'oh I just bought D&D with a new cover' and that's admirable. I have supplement books that I can dissect if this is interesting, but for the core book I'm going to hit main points. So, without any more faffing. Part 1: The gently caress is this poo poo? Conan the RPG can actually be just a touch confusing to talk about. There are 3 versions by the publisher (Mongoose Games, any D&D player knows these dudes). There's the first edition, Conan the Role Playing Game, then they realized they did horrible quality control and left in a ton of typos and mistakes, so they released Conan the Role Playing Game: Atlantean Edition. Of course, they charged normal price for this, this did not make people happy. Then came the second edition in 2007, unless I missed something big this is the 'current' version. It's actually well done, no horrible errors, no typos, pretty good art, and well formatted. So yea, if this inspires you, this is what you want. Ok, first things first, this is a Conan game. That means it's...Conan, for better or worse. For the book margin art for example, every odd page has a shirtless Conan standing triumphant, and a cannibalistic looking savage (I believe a Pict?) looking ready to eat someone. The evens, however, have a fully exposed topless woman in the margin standing over a generic mage type with an arcane third eye going on. So yea, you either get homoerotic sexy barbarian man, or normal erotic topless lady, every page. Not exactly great to read in public. Yea, there's a lot of topless ladies here, ranging from 'normal' sultry temptress styles, to just straight up random boobs hangin out because why not. Alright, that aside, let's actually start out. Character Creation: Races Obviously everyone is human, that's how Conan is, but this is a setting where your race and culture shape you as much as the normal racial differences in RPGs do. A Stygian and a Cimmerian have about as much differences as an Elf and a Dwarf do in D&D. Every race is basically a 'not-x' version of a real world culture (often vastly over-distilled to the point of borderline racism). What I really enjoy about this game in general is that it doesn't punish multiclassing like many D20s do, every race has a favored class, but all that means is if you use that class you get a bonus feat at levels 1, 5, and 10 of that class. Now, some races, due to cultural rules and all, don't allow certain classes, but the book very clearly says that this 'ban' only applies to level 1, you can, with GM approval, take levels in that class as you grow. Basically it just means that, say, as a child a Cimmerian would simply not be taught the ways of a Scholar, it's just not part of the culture, but he, in his adventures, can pick up a spell book and go 'huh, this is actually cool' and level that. Along with the class rules, races have Background Skills, basically this is 2 free ranks in listed skills, regardless of them being Class Skills or not. You also Knowledge (whatever region you're from) because hey, you grew up there it'd be stupid for you to not know basics at the least. Some races also get bonus feats in some cases. You can ignore any '+1' requirements to the feats, but you need the rest if you want it. The example they use is a race that gets Dodge as a bonus feat would, normally, need DEX 13 and +1 to their Dodge Bonus. As a racial feat, though, they ignore the Dodge Bonus, but still need the DEX score. Also there are Variants to some races, basically just tack on some penalties/bonuses to the base race. Usually this is poo poo like 'oh these guys are from the fields, these are from the desert' type things. Nice fluff for the character. So, here be the races: Cimmerians: Conan's crew, the Not-Celts of the world. They are 'Noble Barbarians', primal and savage but with a code of honor to it. They worship Crom and only Crom, and their bonuses relate to being strong, strong willed, but very uncouth and blunt people, also they get sneaky bonuses in cold environments. They also literally can't not worship Crom, if they 'lose the faith' they lose their Strength and Will bonuses. Rather nicely for fluff, the book makes it clear that it's not obvious if this is because Crom is a real god, or if Cimmerian faith is so harshly ingrained in them that they simply lose faith in their own abilities without his 'blessing'. They favor the Barbarian class, and ban the Scholar, Nomad, Noble, and Pirate. Himelian Tribesmen: Not-Afghans and North India of the world. They get a very small writeup due to not being a 'major' race, so all we get really is they're tribal, tall and hairy, live in a harsh mountain range, and disdain the 'civil world'. Basically they're Cimmerians but hairy, still honorable, maybe they're a bit more jerks about 'modern' things? Their stats give them bonuses to sneaky poo poo and a vulnerability to hypnosis due to cultural legends of it. They also get +2 HP for living in a brutal rear end area, so that's cool. They favor Barbarians and ban Nobles, Pirates, and Temptresses. They also have a sub-race called Wazuli. Same as the normal Himelians, but nocturnal, they get a bonus feat that lets them see in the dark, an extra bonus to sneaky poo poo in the dark, and a small attack penalty in daylight. Pretty much not worth it unless you're super going for roleplay. Hyborian: Not-Europe. A mishmash of kingdoms with a splash of Roman influence. If any of you play Age of Conan the MMO, Aquilonians are in this mishmash as well as a boat load of other cultures that I'm far too lazy to describe. Basically it's Medieval Europe with Aquilonia as Rome. They worship Mitra mainly and their bonuses are basically typical 'human' bonuses, 2 free skills to get a bonus on, greatsword proficiency, and get +1 Fate Point (explained later). No banned classes, and for favored class bonuses they basically add up all their levels and get the feat at level 1, 5, and 10 from there. They're pretty much super boring. Luckily this boringness means they get a poo poo ton of variant races, the most in fact, so buckle in. ----Argosseans are pirates, basically not-Italians/Greeks, they intermarried with a lot of neighboring races to make a gestalt culture focused around sail and trade and such. They get bonuses to an assortment of sailing skills and favor Pirate while banning Nomad. ----Bossonians are marsh dwelling people who are master archers. They're basically Aquilonians, which is not-Rome. They lose the bonus Fate point, get a bonus for taking defensive actions and fighting with a Bossonian Longbow, and are of course proficient in it. They favor Borderer and Soldier, and ban Barbarian, Noble, Nomad, and Pirate. Basically it's a way to play an Aquilonian character with stats to support it as special. ----Gundermen are another part of the Aquilonian kingdom given their own race, not-Germans. Same loss of Fate, a Will bonus, and the bonus/proficiency in a pike instead of a bow. Favor Soldier, ban Nomad and Pirate, just as boring as before. ----Hyperborians are the not-Norse, again under Aquilonian banner (these guys might as well be the main race, really). These guys are actually pretty cool though, very superstitious, grey eyed people who piss out a serf's life compared to the 'civil' Aquilonians. For once a sub-race under this banner is actually unique! Like the other barbarian races they favor strength over tact, but they focus more on Constitution then Strength, more hearty then buff basically. No Fate bonus again (it's an Aquilonian thing) but an Intimidate bonus because the entire world knows these dudes are hard as gently caress. Favor Soldier, ban Pirate because the sea is for bitches. ----Taurans are the last sub-race, and shock of shocks, another race under Aquilonia's empire! Those counting now see literally every sub-race but one is this, seriously just make Aquilionia the main race here. The worst part? Even the book doesn't care at this point, it goes 'gently caress it, they're just more rural/savage Aquilonians'. They don't get ANY weapon bonuses, including the base one, get a measly +1 in Survival and sneaky poo poo and favor Borderers and ban Barbarians (haha what?), Nomads, and Pirates. They're literally just hillbilly Aquilonians and anyone who plays them is a punk. Oh thank you god a new proper race. Hyrkanians: Not-Huns. I like Huns, so I like these dudes. They're basically a straight up Hun ripoff though, horsemen, under a Khan, nomads, a strange blend of intelligent and brutal, you know the drill. They get bonuses to bow attacks in general, and additional bonuses to long-distance bow fighting, which is actually pretty cool, they also get the Far Shot feat for totally free, which is basically just the feat they need to be able to use their range bonuses without loving everything up. They also get a diplomacy bonus, but only in a specific region (any other Conan dorks can look up the exact location, basically while in their lands), with a weapon visible. Basically it's not 'they're more cultured' it's 'the people in this area know these guys are loving insane and will gently caress their poo poo, so they're gonna be nice'. I really like that as a bonus. Like a previous race they get a penalty to hypnosis due to racial beliefs in its power. Basically they believe it's super powerful so it is. They favor Nomad and have no bans. If you wanna be cool and not a Conan ripoff, be a Hyrkanian. Khitans: Ooooh boy, here it is. Not-china, where the Conan writers (of the real books) went full hog racist on us. Literally they're all yellow skinned, black haired who look alien to the other races and are seen as inscrutable mages. So, yea, it's that. They're literal China, with a great wall and everything. Honestly they CAN be pretty cool, and if the dude playing it isn't racist there's no problem, but gently caress the text is awkward to read. They are, fluffwise, a very distinct and strange culture compared to the others, they have a very strange faith, they're down with magic (only one other major empire sees magic as anything but something horrific) and they have a VERY powerful trade empire going, as opposed to the more primitive systems of economics around them. In a lot of ways they're better, but it's done in this really uncomfortable 'IN GLORIOUS ASIA THEY ARE TRULY ENLIGHTENED' way. They get bonus to sneaky poo poo, all Knowledge checks and get a bonus feat to pick from a selection that either gives them kung-fu, staff fighting, or helps their magic. Also they are weak to hypnosis too. They favor Scholar and ban Barbarian and Nomad, basically speaking they're every asian stereotype, enjoy. Kushite or 'Northern Black Kingdom Tribesmen': Hey, remember not-China? Here's not-North/West Africa. Yea, it's just as rough. Again if the dude actually PLAYING it isn't racist you're fine but...ugh you can really see the issues Conan's writer's racial issues here. Let's get this over with. The Kushites are a mishmash of assorted tribes/cultures of the Black Kingdom's northern part. Yes, not-Africa is the Black Kingdom. Let's get one thing clear, despite what is coming up, Conan's RPG is the only one doing this I've ever seen differentiate the parts of Africa, and the assorted parts of the Kushite empire are actually detailed in a decent way to make it more then 'the blacks all got together' so it COULD be worse. Alright let's do this. Religion, actually decently done. Makes it clear that the assorted major groups have their own faiths, gives a little sentence about them, basically gives you enough to know who to randomly call out to as you get stabbed or whatever. For stats they get a bonus to sneaky poo poo in...'hot environments' the book specifies jungles, deserts, and plains, so I guess that's it? Or like, do they get bonuses on a super hot day? We'll never know. They also get a +1 to spears...well ok, spears are valid weapons...there's some racial connotations to that but..."Long years of practice with spear combine with a certain innate savagery to make Kushites some of the most dangerous spearmen around". Huh...innate savagery...for real? Also get a bonus to all Simple Weapons, ok that's fair, represent them growing up in a harsh environment and all...oh and they all are illiterate, and need to spend 2 skill points to learn to read/write. I believe they are the only race with this penalty. The huns can read and write just fine, but literally every African can't. Also D20 dudes know skill points can be pretty precious, meaning you're gonna take a hit if you're doing this. They favor Barbarian and ban Nobles. Yea sure, whatever, I'm still recovering from every African being illiterate but the white barbarians can do it just fine. They have 2 subraces. ----Chaga are the ruling caste of the empire, partially of Stygian origin. They are so far removed from the Kushite people they don't use ANY of Kushite base bonuses, only their variant poo poo (meaning they can read at least!). They are also in a state of perpetual war/conflict with the other subrace. They worship Set, like the Stygians. They have small bonuses to magic, Sense Motives (they don't trust the Kushites) and get the same 'hot areas' bonus as Kushites. Also they get a feat list to pick one from, assorted diplomat type feats. They favor Noble and ban none. ----Ghanata are southern-desert living kin to the Kushites, these are the not-west Afircans, mainly Nigerians it seems. This time it's more clear, their sneaky poo poo bonus is in hot deserts only, thank you book, I can work with that. Also get bonuses and proficiency in scimitars and a 'Ghanata knife', their version of the knife basically. They also get a ride bonus, pretty neat people, still illiterate as gently caress. They favor Nomads and ban Nobles and Pirates. Let's keep this ball going, Pict. Yea, I guess the writer of whatever book these came from slipped and used a real culture's name, woops. They're savages too, straight up said to be stone-age. They use drums to talk long ways and oh yea, I was wrong, they're the only other illiterate people. "Picts are among the most unrelenting savages in the world", awesome, yea, let's do these just one after another, purge it out, book, purge it out. You remember the 'if the player isn't racist' thing? No, if they pick Pict they're racists, there's no reason to play these in a campaign, they're straight up said to be horrible monstrous savages that only spare the civil world their wrath because they're busy fighting eachother. If you play these guys you just want to play an ooga booga tribal monster. Bonus to jumpy poo poo and Dex, very fast, bonus to attacking animals, bonus to sneaky poo poo in temperate jungles and such. Favor Barbarian, ban Nomads, Noble, and Pirate. Shemite: The Shemites are the not-Arabs here not as horrible as the past two races, but back on not-China's level of 'trying to not be racist but actually kinda racist'. They're merchant lord nomads who are a kinda satellite empire of Stygia. They get a bonus to appraise and such and are super sneaky in the desert, bonus to any bow use, which is very nice, and unlike the not-huns, they get a bonus for CLOSE range bow fighting. Also they get a bonus to coup de grace attacks for being 'stone cold killers', alright sure, harsh land and harsh people and all, after the last two dudes I'm numb to this poo poo, it's cool. Interesting penalty, -1 to ALL saving throws, a very fatalistic race who are basically always at peace with death. Favor Nomads, ban Borderers and Pirates. They have two boring subraces. ----Meadow Shemites are that, they come from meadows. They're not nomads because of this and that's about it really. They get a bonus to Diplomacy for being more urbane then their kin. Favor Soldier, ban Pirate. ----Pelishtim are basically Persians, more mystic versions of Shemites, pretty cool but no real info other then this. Bonus to magic poo poo, favor Scholar and Soldier ban Pirates (no one likes the pirates  ).Southern Islander, or Southern Black Kingdom gently caress NO NOT AGAIN: Yea they snuck this bitch in didn't they? Same as the northerners, fuckin illiterate savages. These guys are the not-Zulu. They get spear bonuses, but also club bonuses, so points for at least knowing Zulu used clubs as well, and get bonuses to dancing. Oh, also they get -2 Will checks when based around Terror. Yep, just some spear tossin, dancin, illiterate savages who scare easy. I see no problem here. Favor Barbarian or Pirate, and ban Nobles and Nomads. They get just one subrace (I like to think their second subrace got cut for having a bonus feat called 'the shuck and jive' or something). ----Darfari are...no. Nope, gently caress it. Here's what they are, they are cannibals who file their teeth, get a bite attack, and get bonuses to drum use. You wanna play these? Go gently caress yourself. Stygian: Not-Egypt! Ok now we're back to 'not overtly racist, kinda dances the line' section (hey, notice any common threads between the tasteful representations and the ones who, at best are only KINDA racist? Spoiler warning, it's skin color). These guys are, for the first few stories, the big bads, Set worshipping theocracy which encourages magic and such. Alright, to be fair as the stories went on we saw more and more of Stygia and it got fleshed out more and you know what, they're pretty ok. Except they're ruled by white people. Yea, their ruling cast is pale skinned, compared to the tan skinned normals. Woops. Bonuses to magic poo poo, Stygian bow use, and -2 to resist corruption. Basically they love magic and have no problem being corrupted by it. They favor Noble, Scholar, and Temptress, and ban no one. To be honest they're not bad, I even kinda like these dudes. Age of Conan did some good work expanding them, and their 'temptresses' are often shown as less sluts and more cunning minds who are legit intelligent 'shadow rulers' who prey on stupid men who think with their dicks. It's a dog eat dog society, and it produced some pretty interestingly hosed up people. Vendhyan: Not-India. Very advanced society called the 'golden kingdom', pretty neat, not expanded well. They're India, caste system and all, the book straight up just says to look in the Vedas for their culture so yea, gently caress you too book. If you know Indian history/culture I guess this is cool, if not they're pretty lovely! They get bonuses to Diplomacy and Knowledge (Nobility) skills to show their focus on education and all, bonus to Will due to a disciplined society, and bonuses to Light Lance weapons. Favor Soldier and Noble, ban Barbarian and Nomad. Yep, sure is a race. Zamorians: Not-Spain and not-Ukraine combined in one and...'regarded as an ancient and evil race', well ok, at least it was a not-european country that got this this time? Interestingly vague history, apparently an ancient race with not a lot of info. They're natural swashbuckly/thief types, basically everyone is Zorro and that's pretty cool. Bonuses to sneaky poo poo, breaking into places, and gathering info, the cool thing is their sneaky bonus is for urban areas, I like that compared to all the barbarian cultures and all. No real penalties really, aside from a -2 Strength, I guess their main penalty is if you're not a thief type you're wasting the race? They favor Thief and Temptress, and ban Barbarian and...Pirate? No idea why! Finally, the end. Our last race...Zingaran: Not...Spain again. Ok yea, this is kinda a lovely end. These guys are gypsies and basically Zamorians but with swordplay and sailing. So yea, they're pirate versions of the Zamorians, guess that's why they banned the class? They get bonus to sailing, using arming swords, start with a basic Sneak Attack, bonus to Sense Motive but a penalty to Diplomacy due to basically being paranoid dicks. Favor Temptress, Soldier, and Pirate, and ban Barbarian and Nomad. So yea, there's the races! God drat that was a lot of words about racial stereotypes, the chapter. Honestly I've had dudes play Kushites and poo poo well, it's just...god drat how did some of these things pass an editor? Still, one can't claim that the writers left out any of the canon races. Coming up tomorrow Classes: I get a +10 to Striptease!
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| # ? Jul 28, 2011 07:31 |
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Kwyndig posted:and at +10 Medical 'you can even cure a rainy day'. I can't help feeling this is a euphemism.
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| # ? Jul 28, 2011 10:49 |
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Zereth posted:I don't remember much of the rest of the book, I sort of closed the PDF and put it next to my copy of FATAL and left it there and now I seem to have lost both of them at some point during my various computer transfers. ...why would you put Maid next to FATAL? I mean jesus christ, even if you're personally creeped out by it, it has being a playable system over FATAL. To be honest I'd find Maid way more creepy if any of it was remotely serious.
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| # ? Jul 28, 2011 11:03 |
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Comment posted:This much I can promise you: I'll never need to make poo poo up about Maid. While I was buying the book at the translator guy's first GenCon booth, some other dude walked up, gave it a curious eye, and asked if it was really any good. "Let me put it this way," he said, "whatever your first impression was, it was absolutely correct." WickedIcon posted:To be honest I'd find Maid way more creepy if any of it was remotely serious. A game that doesn't take itself seriously?! 
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| # ? Jul 28, 2011 11:28 |
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WickedIcon posted:...why would you put Maid next to FATAL? I mean jesus christ, even if you're personally creeped out by it, it has being a playable system over FATAL. 
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| # ? Jul 28, 2011 12:00 |
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I've been thinking. Should I do a review of Cat? Cat is just obscure, instead of being horribad. Well, the rules are sorta poorly thought out, but they're not horribad.
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| # ? Jul 28, 2011 12:31 |
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| # ? May 21, 2013 10:19 |
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CAPSLOCKGIRL posted:I've been thinking. Should I do a review of Cat? I'm imagining a bunch of roleplayers sitting around a table making cat noises at each other.
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| # ? Jul 28, 2011 12:33 |
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